Latest / Crime and Horror / He said their faces were MELTING...

Transcript

He said their faces were MELTING... · Crime and Horror

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: In the early morning hours of March twenty seventh, two
• 0:02
  Speaker 1: thousand and three, a four year old boy was lying
• 0:05
  Speaker 1: in bed in rural Ohio when he suddenly heard his
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: door open. Now, he assumed it was just his great
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: grandparents coming in to check on him, and so, you know,
• 0:14
  Speaker 1: he's a kid.
• 0:14
  Speaker 2: He just pretended to be asleep.
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: But he heard whoever this was, make their way across
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: the bedroom because he heard the floorboards creaking, and at
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: some point they were standing right next to his bed,
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: and so curious, the little boy opened his eyes and
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: what he saw standing next to his bed was not
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: his great grandparents. It was a huge green monster. But
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: before we get into today's story, if you're a fan
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: of the strange, dark, and mysterious delivered in story format,
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: then you've come to the right place, because that's all
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: we do and we upload two, three, even four times
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: a week. So if that's interest to you, the next
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: time the light button goes on vacation, do them a
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: favor and paint.
• 0:53
  Speaker 2: The entire exterior of.
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: Their house a blinding neon yellow. Also, please subscribe to
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: channel and turned on all notifications so you don't miss
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: any of our uploads. Okay, let's get into today's story.
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: On the evening of Wednesday, March twenty sixth, two thousand
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: and three, a fifty five year old woman named Linda
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: Myers drove down a secluded two lane road in Dark County, Ohio.
• 1:38
  Speaker 1: Dark County was very rural. It was basically just very
• 1:40
  Speaker 1: small towns in farmland. And so as Linda drove down
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: the road, you know, kind of in the middle of nowhere,
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: she looked at her window and she saw the sun
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: setting over a field. She was coming home from the
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: pizza shop that she and her husband Jack owned in
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: a town nearby. Linda eventually turned down a gravel road
• 1:56
  Speaker 1: and onto the sprawling forty acre farm where she and
• 1:59
  Speaker 1: her husban lived. She parked outside their old farmhouse, and
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: then she grabbed a deposit bag with money from the
• 2:05
  Speaker 1: pizza shop out of the back seat, and then she
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: got out of her car. Their farm was so isolated
• 2:10
  Speaker 1: that she couldn't hear any cars on the road or
• 2:13
  Speaker 1: anything from the neighbor's houses, so it was completely quiet
• 2:16
  Speaker 1: except for the sheep that were bleeding in the field
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: and the occasional sound of power tools coming from the barn.
• 2:22
  Speaker 1: She walked around to the back of the barn and
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: she found Jack hunched over the engine of a beat
• 2:26
  Speaker 1: up old car. The two of them had been married
• 2:29
  Speaker 1: for about seven years, and even though this was actually
• 2:32
  Speaker 1: Linda's third marriage, she really felt like Jack was her soulmate.
• 2:37
  Speaker 1: In addition to owning the shop with Linda, the pizza shop,
• 2:40
  Speaker 1: Jack also had a full time job at a manufacturing plant.
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: Andy also had a side business for storing cars, and
• 2:47
  Speaker 1: so Linda often found him out here behind the barn
• 2:49
  Speaker 1: working on a car around the time the sun was
• 2:51
  Speaker 1: going down, and sitting in the grass beside the car
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: playing with the wrench was Linda's four year old great.
• 2:57
  Speaker 2: Grandson, Damien.
• 2:58
  Speaker 1: And the second Damien saw Linda, he smiled and he
• 3:01
  Speaker 1: got up and he rushed over to her to give
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: her a big hug, and Damien's smile made Linda feel
• 3:06
  Speaker 1: sort of bittersweet.
• 3:07
  Speaker 2: Damien was the.
• 3:08
  Speaker 1: Son of Linda's granddaughter Amber, but Amber had gotten pregnant
• 3:12
  Speaker 1: at just fourteen years old, and so as a result,
• 3:15
  Speaker 1: had not been in any position to take care of
• 3:17
  Speaker 1: a baby. So Linda and Jack had offered to take
• 3:20
  Speaker 1: Damien in and raise him for a few years while
• 3:22
  Speaker 1: Amber finished high school and got on her feet. However,
• 3:25
  Speaker 1: this was definitely not a perfect arrangement for many reasons,
• 3:28
  Speaker 1: but one of those reasons was because Damien's father was
• 3:32
  Speaker 1: furious about being cut out of the custody agreement. Even now,
• 3:36
  Speaker 1: four years after you know, Damien's situation had been decided,
• 3:40
  Speaker 1: the father still argued with Linda about how she wouldn't
• 3:43
  Speaker 1: let him see his son. But Linda felt like as
• 3:45
  Speaker 1: much as he was saying he wanted to be in
• 3:47
  Speaker 1: Damien's life, she felt like at some point he was
• 3:50
  Speaker 1: going to abandon this child, and so she really didn't
• 3:53
  Speaker 1: want him to be around Damien at all. She didn't
• 3:55
  Speaker 1: want her great grandson to be abandoned like that. And besides,
• 3:58
  Speaker 1: Damien would have another figure in his life soon enough,
• 4:02
  Speaker 1: because in the past few years Amber had finished school,
• 4:05
  Speaker 1: she had met a new man and gotten married, and
• 4:07
  Speaker 1: as soon as Damien finished up this year of preschool
• 4:10
  Speaker 1: in a couple of months, Amber and her new husband
• 4:13
  Speaker 1: were planning to take him in and raise him on
• 4:15
  Speaker 1: their own. Linda was proud of Amber how she had
• 4:17
  Speaker 1: turned to life around, but she also felt a little sad,
• 4:20
  Speaker 1: you know, bittersweet, because she and Jack were gonna miss
• 4:23
  Speaker 1: having Damien around.
• 4:24
  Speaker 2: They loved him. He was basically their son.
• 4:26
  Speaker 1: Linda knew that Jack clearly was busy with this car
• 4:29
  Speaker 1: and kind of didn't want to be interrupted, so she
• 4:31
  Speaker 1: just said a quick hello, and then scooped Damien up
• 4:33
  Speaker 1: and carried him over to the farmhouse. She opened up
• 4:36
  Speaker 1: the door and she set him down and told him
• 4:38
  Speaker 1: to go wash up before dinner. Then she went into
• 4:41
  Speaker 1: the kitchen and she dropped the deposit bag from the
• 4:43
  Speaker 1: pizza shop into a chair in the dining room.
• 4:45
  Speaker 2: The bag was full of cash and.
• 4:47
  Speaker 1: Her plan was to drop it off at the bank
• 4:49
  Speaker 1: in the morning. Linda got out of pan and began
• 4:52
  Speaker 1: cooking dinner, and pretty soon her husband Jack came inside
• 4:55
  Speaker 1: covered in car grease. While Jack washed his hands at
• 4:58
  Speaker 1: the kitchen sink, Linda asked him about his day. He
• 5:00
  Speaker 1: and Jack kind of grumbled about this customer that he
• 5:02
  Speaker 1: had sold a car to on a payment plan the
• 5:04
  Speaker 1: previous year, who had now.
• 5:06
  Speaker 2: Missed three payments in a row.
• 5:08
  Speaker 1: Jack said he was going to have to drive out
• 5:10
  Speaker 1: there to the person's house tomorrow and repossess the car.
• 5:13
  Speaker 1: Linda could see, you know, Jack is obviously pretty tense here,
• 5:16
  Speaker 1: but Linda knew it wasn't really that misscar payment that
• 5:19
  Speaker 1: was bothering him. The truth was, Jack had been sort
• 5:22
  Speaker 1: of tense really for the past week, ever since he
• 5:25
  Speaker 1: had had this big argument with his twenty five year
• 5:27
  Speaker 1: old son, Greg. Greg had always been very shy and
• 5:30
  Speaker 1: mild mannered and really close with his dad. In fact,
• 5:33
  Speaker 1: he was the best man at Jack and Linda's wedding.
• 5:36
  Speaker 1: But recently Greg's life had been falling off the rails.
• 5:39
  Speaker 1: He was in the middle of a divorce, he was
• 5:41
  Speaker 1: struggling with drinking and drug abuse, and he'd been missing.
• 5:45
  Speaker 2: Ships at work.
• 5:45
  Speaker 1: And so earlier that month he had come by to
• 5:48
  Speaker 1: ask Jack for money because his house was about to
• 5:51
  Speaker 1: be foreclosed on, and Jack had drawn a line and
• 5:54
  Speaker 1: said no. He told Greg that if he wanted to
• 5:56
  Speaker 1: keep his house, he'd have to clean up his act
• 5:58
  Speaker 1: and get back to work, and so that had led
• 6:01
  Speaker 1: to a very big fight. And so now Linda had
• 6:03
  Speaker 1: a feeling that Jack was genuinely worried that he'd done
• 6:07
  Speaker 1: real damage to his relationship with Greg, perhaps irreparably, because
• 6:11
  Speaker 1: something pretty similar had also happened with Jack's other son, Travis,
• 6:15
  Speaker 1: about seven years earlier, when Travis was twenty one, he
• 6:19
  Speaker 1: and Jack had gotten into this big argument that was
• 6:21
  Speaker 1: so bad Travis moved out and then the two of
• 6:24
  Speaker 1: them had not spoken since for seven years.
• 6:27
  Speaker 2: So Linda thought Jack.
• 6:28
  Speaker 1: Must be worried that that would be the same thing
• 6:30
  Speaker 1: that would happen with him and Greg. So while Jack
• 6:33
  Speaker 1: washed his hands, Linda rubbed his shoulders and told him
• 6:36
  Speaker 1: not to worry about Greg.
• 6:37
  Speaker 2: He had a good head.
• 6:38
  Speaker 1: On his shoulders and he just needed a little nudge
• 6:41
  Speaker 1: to get back on track, and that's all Jack had done.
• 6:43
  Speaker 1: She reassured him that he'd made the right call and
• 6:45
  Speaker 1: Greg would get through this rough patch sooner or later.
• 6:48
  Speaker 1: Then Linda set the table and called the family to dinner.
• 6:55
  Speaker 1: A little while later, after they'd eaten and cleaned up,
• 6:58
  Speaker 1: Linda looked up at the clock and realized it was
• 7:00
  Speaker 1: getting kind of late. Damien had preschool in the morning,
• 7:03
  Speaker 1: and she didn't want him to be tired and grumpy,
• 7:05
  Speaker 1: so she scooped him up and took him to his
• 7:07
  Speaker 1: room upstairs to get ready for bed. She helped him
• 7:10
  Speaker 1: change into his pjs, She brushed his teeth, then tucked
• 7:12
  Speaker 1: him in, gave him a kiss good night, and closed
• 7:15
  Speaker 1: the door. Linda went back downstairs, and before long she
• 7:18
  Speaker 1: and Jack were getting ready for bed too. Before long,
• 7:21
  Speaker 1: Linda was in her bedroom. She had turned on a lamp,
• 7:23
  Speaker 1: she had changed into her pjs and crawled under the covers,
• 7:27
  Speaker 1: and then once Jack was settled in next to her,
• 7:29
  Speaker 1: she turned off the light and they fell asleep. But
• 7:32
  Speaker 1: several hours later, Linda was suddenly woken up by this
• 7:35
  Speaker 1: horribly loud noise, and she sat up and looked around,
• 7:39
  Speaker 1: and when her eyes finally adjusted to the darkness, she gasped.
• 7:46
  Speaker 1: The next morning, at a church a mile away from
• 7:48
  Speaker 1: Linda and Jack's house, a preschool teacher was getting ready
• 7:51
  Speaker 1: to start class, but she noticed there was an empty.
• 7:54
  Speaker 2: Chair in her classroom.
• 7:55
  Speaker 1: One of her students, four year old Damien Huffman, was late.
• 7:59
  Speaker 1: She knew dan Amian's great grandparents led busy lives and
• 8:02
  Speaker 1: had several different jobs and businesses, so she figured they
• 8:05
  Speaker 1: must just be running late. So she began class and
• 8:08
  Speaker 1: hoped they would just drop Damien off before he missed
• 8:10
  Speaker 1: too much. And about an hour later, at nine thirty am,
• 8:14
  Speaker 1: she was leading the class in morning singalongs when Damien
• 8:17
  Speaker 1: suddenly came sprinting into the classroom. Now, at first, the
• 8:20
  Speaker 1: teacher was relieved that Damien had shown up. But then
• 8:23
  Speaker 1: she realized Damien looked frazzled and out of breath, and
• 8:27
  Speaker 1: he didn't have his backpack, and he was wearing pegs,
• 8:29
  Speaker 1: and there was the smear of something brown on his shirt.
• 8:33
  Speaker 1: She ran over to him and knelt down next to
• 8:35
  Speaker 1: him and realized the brown spot was dried blood. The
• 8:38
  Speaker 1: teacher asked to Amian what was going on, and he
• 8:41
  Speaker 1: looked at her with the scared, confused expression, and he
• 8:44
  Speaker 1: told her his great grandparents' faces were melting.
• 8:52
  Speaker 2: Over this past winter break.
• 8:53
  Speaker 1: When myself, my wife, and my three kids were home,
• 8:56
  Speaker 1: I was sent this package of my Moji, which is
• 8:59
  Speaker 1: like ice these little bites of premium ice cream wrapped
• 9:02
  Speaker 1: in this sweet, chewy dough. And I was told like, hey,
• 9:06
  Speaker 1: try this out, see if you like it, and see
• 9:07
  Speaker 1: if you want to advertise this product. And I'm like,
• 9:09
  Speaker 1: all right, you know, I obviously tried the product, and
• 9:11
  Speaker 1: I am hooked on my Mochi, Like seriously, I was
• 9:16
  Speaker 1: blown away by how good these things are. I was
• 9:18
  Speaker 1: sent strawberry mango and cookies and cream, and let me
• 9:22
  Speaker 1: tell you, cookies and cream is out of this world.
• 9:25
  Speaker 2: It's so refreshing.
• 9:26
  Speaker 1: That's the way my wife and I refer to my
• 9:28
  Speaker 1: mochi as being like very refreshing, and so we plow
• 9:32
  Speaker 1: through all this mochi. We got sent and literally we
• 9:35
  Speaker 1: went out before this big snowstorm. We went out to
• 9:38
  Speaker 1: the grocery store before it shut down because of the storm,
• 9:41
  Speaker 1: just to buy all the mochi we could.
• 9:44
  Speaker 2: Crushed it. It's so good.
• 9:45
  Speaker 1: It's only seventy calories, it's gluten free.
• 9:48
  Speaker 2: It's so good. You gotta try it. My Mochi, it's
• 9:51
  Speaker 2: the best.
• 9:52
  Speaker 1: Each purple box comes with six perfectly portioned Mochi snacks available,
• 9:56
  Speaker 1: and mouth watering flavors like strawberry, mango, and cookies and cream.
• 10:01
  Speaker 2: Cookies and cream. Really quite good.
• 10:03
  Speaker 1: Feel joyfully chill with every bite of my Mochi ice cream.
• 10:06
  Speaker 1: Look for the purple box of my Mochi ice Cream
• 10:08
  Speaker 1: in the freezer isle of your local grocery store.
• 10:10
  Speaker 2: It's really really good.
• 10:19
  Speaker 1: About fifteen minutes later, a police sergeant named Mark Whittaker,
• 10:23
  Speaker 1: along with his partner, drove down a secluded road toward
• 10:26
  Speaker 1: a farmhouse in rural Ohio. Sergeant Whittaker had been a
• 10:29
  Speaker 1: detective for the Dark County Sheriff's department for five years,
• 10:33
  Speaker 1: and he was in charge.
• 10:34
  Speaker 2: Of the investigative unit.
• 10:36
  Speaker 1: So when the department had gotten a very strange nine
• 10:38
  Speaker 1: to one one call that morning from a local preschool,
• 10:41
  Speaker 1: he was sent out to investigate. According to the preschool teacher,
• 10:44
  Speaker 1: a four year old student named Damian Huffman had come
• 10:47
  Speaker 1: into school covered in blood out of breath, saying something
• 10:50
  Speaker 1: about his great grandparents' faces being melting. The teacher identified
• 10:54
  Speaker 1: the great grandparents as Linda and Jack Myers. Now Whittaker
• 10:58
  Speaker 1: had no idea what Damian meant when he had said
• 11:00
  Speaker 1: that their faces were melting, or what kind of situation
• 11:03
  Speaker 1: Whittaker and his partner would be walking into when they
• 11:06
  Speaker 1: got to the farm, but he had a feeling it
• 11:08
  Speaker 1: would not be good.
• 11:09
  Speaker 2: They pulled up to the.
• 11:10
  Speaker 1: Farm and parked at the end of the long gravel road,
• 11:13
  Speaker 1: and when Whittaker got out of his car, he immediately
• 11:16
  Speaker 1: noticed how early quiet it was. There was another farmhouse
• 11:20
  Speaker 1: just across the road, and a few more on the horizon,
• 11:22
  Speaker 1: but otherwise they were surrounded by empty fields in every direction.
• 11:26
  Speaker 1: Whittaker began walking towards the front door when he saw
• 11:29
  Speaker 1: the front door was already wide open, but there was
• 11:32
  Speaker 1: no clear sign of forced entry, but nonetheless Whittaker and
• 11:35
  Speaker 1: his partner reflexively drew their weapons and they stepped inside
• 11:39
  Speaker 1: the house. Whittaker began calling out to see if anybody
• 11:42
  Speaker 1: was home, but there was no response. From where he
• 11:45
  Speaker 1: was standing, he saw there was another open door in
• 11:47
  Speaker 1: the house that led to a set of stairs that
• 11:50
  Speaker 1: went down, presumably to the basement. Whitaker ignored the basement
• 11:53
  Speaker 1: for now and instead continued clearing the first floor. So
• 11:56
  Speaker 1: we went into the kitchen, and once he was sure
• 11:58
  Speaker 1: it was clear, he continued down the hall until he
• 12:01
  Speaker 1: found a doorway that led into a bedroom, and when
• 12:04
  Speaker 1: he went inside that bedroom, he found Damien's great grandparents,
• 12:07
  Speaker 1: Jack and Linda Myers, and they were lying in their
• 12:10
  Speaker 1: bed side by side, and he could tell immediately they
• 12:13
  Speaker 1: were both dead. Now, Jack was actually lying on his stomach,
• 12:17
  Speaker 1: and he could tell right away there was a big
• 12:19
  Speaker 1: bullet wound on the back of Jack's neck. As for Linda,
• 12:22
  Speaker 1: she was on her back and she had gunshot wounds
• 12:25
  Speaker 1: to her face and her hand, as if she had
• 12:27
  Speaker 1: raised her hand to defend herself before she was shot.
• 12:30
  Speaker 1: And so at this point Whittaker and his partner did
• 12:32
  Speaker 1: a full search of the house just to make sure
• 12:34
  Speaker 1: nobody else was there, and it was empty, and so
• 12:37
  Speaker 1: the two went back to the bedroom to begin.
• 12:39
  Speaker 2: Investigating the bodies.
• 12:40
  Speaker 1: Whittaker put on a pair of latex gloves and touched
• 12:43
  Speaker 1: the wound on Linda's face, and the blood was still
• 12:46
  Speaker 1: warm and wet, so he figured likely they'd only been
• 12:49
  Speaker 1: dead for maybe a few hours at most. He looked
• 12:51
  Speaker 1: around the floor and he didn't see any bullet casings,
• 12:54
  Speaker 1: which meant the killer had gone through the trouble of
• 12:56
  Speaker 1: picking them up afterwards to cover their tracks. Then Whittaker's
• 13:00
  Speaker 1: partner called his attention to this weird, plasticky bundle that
• 13:04
  Speaker 1: was lying on a.
• 13:04
  Speaker 2: Pillow near Jack's head.
• 13:06
  Speaker 1: Whittaker picked it up and he saw it was a
• 13:08
  Speaker 1: piece of quilting fabric that was balled up and covered
• 13:11
  Speaker 1: in masking tape. His best guess was that it was
• 13:13
  Speaker 1: a homemade gun silencer. The killer likely taped it to
• 13:17
  Speaker 1: the end of their gun to muffle the sound of
• 13:19
  Speaker 1: the blast, and it must have blown off at some
• 13:21
  Speaker 1: point when they actually began shooting. Immediately, Whittaker wondered, if
• 13:25
  Speaker 1: this was a silencer, why the killer would need one
• 13:29
  Speaker 1: so far out in the middle of nowhere. But when
• 13:31
  Speaker 1: Whittaker left the bedroom and went up a flight of
• 13:34
  Speaker 1: stairs to the room right above where the murders had
• 13:37
  Speaker 1: taken place, he found another bedroom that was full of
• 13:39
  Speaker 1: stuffed animals and toy trucks. It was obviously Damien's room.
• 13:44
  Speaker 1: And it was at this point that Whittaker realized, you know,
• 13:46
  Speaker 1: very likely the killer must have known there was going
• 13:49
  Speaker 1: to be a toddler sleeping right upstairs when they did this,
• 13:52
  Speaker 1: and so they needed the silencer in order to not
• 13:55
  Speaker 1: wake the child when they committed this murder.
• 13:58
  Speaker 2: And so this meant that the.
• 13:59
  Speaker 1: Killer almost certainly knew Jack and Linda personally. Within minutes,
• 14:05
  Speaker 1: more officers from the Dark County Sheriff's office swarmed the property.
• 14:08
  Speaker 1: Whittaker went outside to supervise them, and pretty quickly a
• 14:12
  Speaker 1: forensics officer called him over to look at a set
• 14:14
  Speaker 1: of footprints that they had found in the mud. Whittaker
• 14:17
  Speaker 1: followed the trail of footprints around the side of the
• 14:19
  Speaker 1: house to a basement window. The window pane had been
• 14:22
  Speaker 1: pried off, leaving an open hole that was just big
• 14:25
  Speaker 1: enough for a person to squeeze through. Whittaker crouched down
• 14:28
  Speaker 1: and looked through the open space, and he could see
• 14:30
  Speaker 1: inside there was a set of stairs leading up to
• 14:33
  Speaker 1: the main part of the house, and so he realized
• 14:35
  Speaker 1: this must have been how the killer got inside, and
• 14:38
  Speaker 1: it was also why when they had first gone inside
• 14:41
  Speaker 1: that they had seen the door to the basement standing
• 14:43
  Speaker 1: wide open, and so this only made Whittaker more sure
• 14:46
  Speaker 1: that this crime had to have been committed by somebody
• 14:48
  Speaker 1: close to this couple, because the killer obviously knew the
• 14:51
  Speaker 1: layout of Linda and Jack's house. Whittaker told the forensics
• 14:54
  Speaker 1: officer to make a cast of the footprints so they
• 14:57
  Speaker 1: could figure out what type and size of shoe the
• 14:59
  Speaker 1: killer was wearing. And then as Whitaker stood back up,
• 15:02
  Speaker 1: he noticed something else. The phone lines that were running
• 15:05
  Speaker 1: along the side of the house had clearly been severed.
• 15:08
  Speaker 1: The killer clearly had planned ahead and made sure that
• 15:11
  Speaker 1: nobody in this house could call for help. Just then,
• 15:14
  Speaker 1: a truck pulled up at the end of the road
• 15:16
  Speaker 1: and a woman got out and started walking toward the house.
• 15:19
  Speaker 1: Whittaker quickly went over to stop her from getting too
• 15:21
  Speaker 1: close to the crime scene, and he asked her what
• 15:24
  Speaker 1: she needed, and she said she was a neighbor who
• 15:26
  Speaker 1: lived at the next property over.
• 15:28
  Speaker 2: She said that she had seen the police.
• 15:29
  Speaker 1: Cars coming down the road, and she didn't really know
• 15:31
  Speaker 1: what was going on, but she felt like she had
• 15:34
  Speaker 1: information that they might want. The neighbor said that around
• 15:37
  Speaker 1: four point thirty that morning, she'd seen a mini van
• 15:40
  Speaker 1: leaving the Meyers farm. It had been so dark that
• 15:43
  Speaker 1: she hadn't been able to see what color it was,
• 15:45
  Speaker 1: but it had stuck out to her because as far
• 15:47
  Speaker 1: as she knew, the Myers did not own a minivan.
• 15:50
  Speaker 1: And so hearing this, Whittaker realized, you know, this woman
• 15:53
  Speaker 1: may have seen the killer leaving the property, and if
• 15:56
  Speaker 1: that was true, it meant the murders most likely happened
• 15:59
  Speaker 1: before fourth already in the morning, and so this was
• 16:02
  Speaker 1: potentially quite useful. And so he thanked the neighbor, and
• 16:05
  Speaker 1: after she left, he went back inside the house to
• 16:07
  Speaker 1: look for more clothes. He really wanted to piece together
• 16:09
  Speaker 1: a motive. You know, he felt strongly that whoever had
• 16:12
  Speaker 1: done this knew Linda and Jack, but that doesn't mean
• 16:16
  Speaker 1: that the motive is clear. You know, there could be
• 16:17
  Speaker 1: any number of reasons they would attack them. Maybe it
• 16:20
  Speaker 1: was a robbery, maybe they were just you know, getting
• 16:22
  Speaker 1: revenge or something. He didn't know, But as he began
• 16:25
  Speaker 1: walking around the house, he found a literal deposit bag
• 16:29
  Speaker 1: full of cash in the living room, which certainly suggested
• 16:32
  Speaker 1: that this was not a robbery because that would certainly
• 16:35
  Speaker 1: have been taken. And also there was some pretty expensive
• 16:37
  Speaker 1: electronics in the living room that also had not been touched,
• 16:40
  Speaker 1: so robbery seemed to be out the door. But when
• 16:43
  Speaker 1: Whittaker went back upstairs to take a closer look at
• 16:46
  Speaker 1: the toddler's bedroom, he noticed something odd. There was a
• 16:49
  Speaker 1: little red stain on the bedding that looked like dried blood.
• 16:57
  Speaker 1: While forensics teams were still combing over the farmhouse, another
• 17:00
  Speaker 1: investigator assigned to the case, a guy named Detective Mike Burns,
• 17:04
  Speaker 1: went to the local preschool to speak to four year
• 17:06
  Speaker 1: old Damien. Burns was a father himself, and he felt
• 17:09
  Speaker 1: an immediate connection to this little boy, who at this
• 17:12
  Speaker 1: point looked scared and very confused. Now he knew it
• 17:15
  Speaker 1: was going to be very difficult for Damien to rehash
• 17:18
  Speaker 1: something that was so traumatic, But Damien was the only
• 17:21
  Speaker 1: potential witness in the house when his great grandparents were killed,
• 17:25
  Speaker 1: so speaking to him was the police's best bet at
• 17:28
  Speaker 1: figuring out what happened, and so Burne sat down on
• 17:31
  Speaker 1: the floor with Damien inside of a private room, and
• 17:34
  Speaker 1: he asked him to explain what had happened that morning. Damien,
• 17:37
  Speaker 1: in a four year old way, said he'd woken up
• 17:40
  Speaker 1: around eight forty five and the house had been very quiet,
• 17:43
  Speaker 1: so he'd gotten out of bed and went into his
• 17:46
  Speaker 1: great grandparents' bedroom, and then he said that both of
• 17:49
  Speaker 1: them had been in bed and he thought they were sleeping,
• 17:52
  Speaker 1: but when he tried to.
• 17:53
  Speaker 2: Wake them up, they wouldn't move, and.
• 17:55
  Speaker 1: Then he realized there was blood on their face, and
• 17:59
  Speaker 1: he said he had tried to white the blood off
• 18:00
  Speaker 1: with Kleenex wipes, but there was so much of it
• 18:03
  Speaker 1: that he realized something was very wrong. He thought for
• 18:06
  Speaker 1: a second that their faces were melting, and so to
• 18:10
  Speaker 1: save his great grandparents, he had run the full mile
• 18:13
  Speaker 1: down the road to his preschool to get help. Burns
• 18:16
  Speaker 1: was surprised that this four year old could remember and
• 18:19
  Speaker 1: articulate so much about such an awful experience, but he
• 18:23
  Speaker 1: was very grateful because the child's story explained why there
• 18:27
  Speaker 1: was blood on damien shirt. However, it did not explain
• 18:30
  Speaker 1: why they'd also found blood on Damien's bed, so he
• 18:33
  Speaker 1: asked Damien if he had gone back into his own
• 18:36
  Speaker 1: room after finding his great grandparents, but Damien said no,
• 18:40
  Speaker 1: he'd gone straight out the front door and gone to
• 18:42
  Speaker 1: his school. Burns thought there had to be more to
• 18:44
  Speaker 1: the story, though, because otherwise he just couldn't explain how
• 18:47
  Speaker 1: blood wound up in Damien's room, So he brought over
• 18:50
  Speaker 1: a dollhouse and he asked Damien to go ahead and
• 18:53
  Speaker 1: act out everything that had happened the night before, using
• 18:56
  Speaker 1: toys to represent himself and his great grandparents. Damien put
• 19:00
  Speaker 1: the toy that represented himself into bed in one room,
• 19:04
  Speaker 1: and then he put Jack and Linda into the bed
• 19:06
  Speaker 1: in the other room, and he said everybody went to
• 19:09
  Speaker 1: sleep at their normal bedtimes. But later in the middle
• 19:12
  Speaker 1: of the night, he heard his bedroom door open and
• 19:15
  Speaker 1: he said somebody came inside. Burns asked Damien who it was,
• 19:19
  Speaker 1: and Damien paused, and then he said the Green Monster.
• 19:24
  Speaker 1: At first, Burns wasn't really sure what to make of this.
• 19:26
  Speaker 1: He wondered if Damien was just imagining things or describing
• 19:30
  Speaker 1: a nightmare or something, But then Damien set the toys
• 19:33
  Speaker 1: down and then to represent this green monster. He used
• 19:37
  Speaker 1: his fingers to crawl across the floor of the dollhouse
• 19:40
  Speaker 1: toward Damien's bed. Damien said he had heard the door
• 19:43
  Speaker 1: open in his room, and he had opened his eyes
• 19:46
  Speaker 1: just a little bit, but he didn't want to give
• 19:47
  Speaker 1: away that he was fully awake, so he was just
• 19:49
  Speaker 1: squinting his eyes. And he said when he did that,
• 19:52
  Speaker 1: he saw the Green Monster right next to his bed,
• 19:55
  Speaker 1: and the Green Monster was pointing a gun at him,
• 19:58
  Speaker 1: and Damien was so ten verified. He said he shut
• 20:01
  Speaker 1: his eyes and just pretended to be asleep, and then
• 20:03
  Speaker 1: he said when he opened his eyes again, the green
• 20:06
  Speaker 1: Monster was gone. After hearing this, Burns realized that Damien's
• 20:09
  Speaker 1: recollection was almost certainly not a dream. More likely than not,
• 20:14
  Speaker 1: Damien had come face to face with his grandparents' killer.
• 20:17
  Speaker 1: They were the Green Monster. After leaving the preschool, the
• 20:25
  Speaker 1: next priority for Detective Burns was to speak to Damien's mother,
• 20:29
  Speaker 1: nineteen year old Amber Holscher, And so the detective drove
• 20:32
  Speaker 1: out to Amber's house, which was in a nearby town,
• 20:35
  Speaker 1: and when he rang the doorbell, she answered right away. Now,
• 20:38
  Speaker 1: at this point, nobody in the family had been notified
• 20:41
  Speaker 1: yet about the murders. So Amber seemed to have no
• 20:44
  Speaker 1: idea why a detective was now standing on her doorstep.
• 20:47
  Speaker 1: Now Burns knew this, and so he said to her,
• 20:49
  Speaker 1: can I please come inside? We need to speak, And so,
• 20:53
  Speaker 1: confused Amber said okay, and she let him inside and
• 20:56
  Speaker 1: they sat down in the living room, and then Burns
• 20:58
  Speaker 1: said to her, you know very gently that her grandparents,
• 21:01
  Speaker 1: Linda and Jack Myers, were no longer with them. But
• 21:04
  Speaker 1: when Amber heard this, she just looked confused and asked
• 21:08
  Speaker 1: what he meant, like, where are they? So Burns took
• 21:11
  Speaker 1: a deep breath and he clarified that they were deceased.
• 21:14
  Speaker 1: Amber looked completely shocked and immediately asked, is Damien dead too?
• 21:19
  Speaker 1: But Burne said no, no, he's alive, but he's going
• 21:22
  Speaker 1: to be kept in protective custody for a while in
• 21:25
  Speaker 1: case whoever killed Jack and Linda try to hurt him too,
• 21:28
  Speaker 1: and until they narrowed down the suspects, Damien would not
• 21:31
  Speaker 1: be allowed to see anybody in the family, including her
• 21:34
  Speaker 1: his own mother. At this point, Amber just began to cry.
• 21:37
  Speaker 1: Burns felt horrible for her, but really he was thinking
• 21:40
  Speaker 1: about Damien. He knew he had to solve this case
• 21:43
  Speaker 1: as quickly as possible, because every day that he didn't
• 21:46
  Speaker 1: would be another day that Damien would have to spend
• 21:49
  Speaker 1: alone without any family to comfort him. Based both on
• 21:52
  Speaker 1: Amber's reaction to the news and the fact that Damien
• 21:55
  Speaker 1: did not mention seeing his mother on the night of
• 21:57
  Speaker 1: the murder, Burns thought it was highly unlikely that Amber
• 22:01
  Speaker 1: was a suspect, but she could know something that might
• 22:03
  Speaker 1: help the investigation. So once she calmed down, Burns asked
• 22:07
  Speaker 1: her if she knew anyone who might have wanted to
• 22:09
  Speaker 1: hurt her grandparents, and right away she nodded, and she
• 22:13
  Speaker 1: mentioned Damien's father, Andrew Huffman. She said Andrew hated Linda
• 22:18
  Speaker 1: because she wouldn't let him see Damien. In fact, just recently,
• 22:22
  Speaker 1: Andrew had come to Linda's pizza shop and started a
• 22:25
  Speaker 1: fight with her about custody, and it had escalated to
• 22:27
  Speaker 1: the point where Andrew had publicly threatened to kill her.
• 22:31
  Speaker 1: This obviously caught Burns's attention because it made perfect sense
• 22:34
  Speaker 1: as a motive. If Linda and Jack were out of
• 22:37
  Speaker 1: the way, well, Andrew would have an easier time getting
• 22:40
  Speaker 1: custody of Damien, and so he thanked Amber and promised
• 22:43
  Speaker 1: he would be in touch soon, and then as soon
• 22:45
  Speaker 1: as he was back in his car, he called Sergeant
• 22:47
  Speaker 1: Whittaker and he told him what he'd learned. Later that day,
• 22:51
  Speaker 1: Whittaker and his partner made the two hour drive to
• 22:54
  Speaker 1: Andrew's address in Newport, Kentucky. When they got there, Andrew
• 22:58
  Speaker 1: quickly came to the door and let them inside and
• 23:00
  Speaker 1: they sat down, and Andrew looked at them, like, what's
• 23:03
  Speaker 1: going on? And they told him that Linda and Jack
• 23:06
  Speaker 1: had been murdered. And they watched Andrew for his reaction,
• 23:09
  Speaker 1: and he seemed very surprised, but he definitely did not
• 23:12
  Speaker 1: seem upset. Andrew would then admit that he did not
• 23:15
  Speaker 1: get along with Ander's family, and when Whittaker asked him
• 23:18
  Speaker 1: about that big argument at the pizza shop, Andrew did
• 23:21
  Speaker 1: not deny that he had literally threatened to kill Linda,
• 23:24
  Speaker 1: but he swore he would never actually do it. He
• 23:27
  Speaker 1: said it was just an empty thread he made in
• 23:29
  Speaker 1: the heat of the moment. Still, Whitaker thought Andrew looked
• 23:31
  Speaker 1: very suspicious, so he asked him for an alibi. And
• 23:35
  Speaker 1: Andrew said he'd stayed over at a girl's house on
• 23:37
  Speaker 1: the night of the murder and in the morning, he'd
• 23:39
  Speaker 1: stopped by his dad's house and then gone straight to work,
• 23:41
  Speaker 1: and you could ask all those people, and that's where
• 23:43
  Speaker 1: he was. Whittaker wrote all this down and then asked
• 23:46
  Speaker 1: Andrew a few more questions and then thanked him for
• 23:48
  Speaker 1: his time.
• 23:49
  Speaker 2: And then as soon.
• 23:50
  Speaker 1: As the detectives left, they immediately went to go check
• 23:53
  Speaker 1: on Andrew's alibi. They went to that girl's house, then
• 23:55
  Speaker 1: they went to Andrew's dad's house, and then they also
• 23:58
  Speaker 1: went to his place of work, and everybody at those
• 24:01
  Speaker 1: three locations all confirmed Andrew's alibi. So unless someone was lying,
• 24:05
  Speaker 1: it left no window of time where Andrew could have
• 24:08
  Speaker 1: driven two hours away to Ohio to murder Jack and Linda.
• 24:12
  Speaker 1: Whittaker was disappointed that they basically wasted most of the
• 24:14
  Speaker 1: day on this lead that now looked like it wouldn't
• 24:17
  Speaker 1: go anywhere, especially knowing that again every moment in this
• 24:21
  Speaker 1: case that it went unsolved was another moment that Damien
• 24:24
  Speaker 1: would have to spend away from his family all alone.
• 24:34
  Speaker 1: The following morning, Detective Burns, the same officer who had
• 24:38
  Speaker 1: spoken to Damian and also his mother, Amber, sat inside
• 24:41
  Speaker 1: of his office feeling very frustrated. He had one goal
• 24:44
  Speaker 1: for the day. He wanted to interview Jack's a strange son,
• 24:47
  Speaker 1: twenty eight year old Travis Myers, but it was looking
• 24:50
  Speaker 1: like that was going to be harder than he had anticipated.
• 24:53
  Speaker 1: So the day before, a bunch of Sheriff's deputies had
• 24:56
  Speaker 1: interviewed Linda and Jack's family and friends, and family members
• 25:00
  Speaker 1: in particular had mentioned that Travis and Jack had some
• 25:03
  Speaker 1: bad blood, and when Burns had dug through the files
• 25:06
  Speaker 1: on Travis, he found out that Travis also had a
• 25:09
  Speaker 1: criminal record. But there was a problem. It appeared that
• 25:12
  Speaker 1: Travis hadn't even been in Ohio in seven years, the
• 25:16
  Speaker 1: last anybody in the family had heard. He'd moved to
• 25:18
  Speaker 1: Arizona to live with his mother. But when Burns had
• 25:21
  Speaker 1: called the mother that morning, she said that she actually
• 25:23
  Speaker 1: didn't know where Travis was at all, and there was
• 25:25
  Speaker 1: no other address on record for Travis. So Burns basically
• 25:29
  Speaker 1: had no idea where he was, and so he began
• 25:32
  Speaker 1: to wonder, like, how was he going to track Travis down?
• 25:34
  Speaker 1: And he decided he should start by visiting Travis's younger
• 25:37
  Speaker 1: brother and Jack's other son, whose name was Greg. Burns
• 25:41
  Speaker 1: knew Greg lived only a few towns over and even
• 25:44
  Speaker 1: though he really wasn't sure how close the brothers might be,
• 25:46
  Speaker 1: it was.
• 25:47
  Speaker 2: The only lad he really had.
• 25:50
  Speaker 1: A little while later, Burns showed up at Greg's house
• 25:52
  Speaker 1: and he knocked on the front door, and a moment later,
• 25:55
  Speaker 1: a young man in a baseball cap answered, and he
• 25:57
  Speaker 1: looked very much like he'd been crying. Burns as asked
• 26:00
  Speaker 1: if he was Greg Myers, and the young man nodded
• 26:02
  Speaker 1: and stepped aside to let him in. Greg did not
• 26:04
  Speaker 1: seem remotely surprised by this visit. He said the police
• 26:07
  Speaker 1: had already contacted him the night before to tell him
• 26:10
  Speaker 1: about his father and stepmother's murder, and since then, he said,
• 26:13
  Speaker 1: he'd just been waiting for somebody to come by and
• 26:15
  Speaker 1: talk to him, because he'd seen enough TV to know
• 26:18
  Speaker 1: that family members were always the first suspects. But when
• 26:22
  Speaker 1: they got into the living room, Burns stopped in his
• 26:24
  Speaker 1: tracks because there was another young man standing in the doorway,
• 26:28
  Speaker 1: and he looked a lot like Greg. Burns asked who
• 26:31
  Speaker 1: it was, and Greg said, Oh, that's my brother, Travis.
• 26:34
  Speaker 1: Burns couldn't believe his luck. He'd come here hoping to
• 26:36
  Speaker 1: figure out where Travis might be, but he never imagined
• 26:40
  Speaker 1: he would just find Travis standing in Greg's house, and
• 26:43
  Speaker 1: this was a big development because really, until now, Burns
• 26:46
  Speaker 1: had no idea if Travis was even in the state
• 26:49
  Speaker 1: at the time of the murders. But Greg would actually
• 26:51
  Speaker 1: tell him that Travis had been in Ohio for the
• 26:54
  Speaker 1: past several weeks, staying in an apartment that he had
• 26:56
  Speaker 1: rented right nearby. Burns did think the timing seemed very suspicious.
• 27:01
  Speaker 1: It just seemed way too convenient that Travis had come
• 27:03
  Speaker 1: back into town for the first time in almost a
• 27:06
  Speaker 1: decade right before Jack and Linda were killed. It just
• 27:09
  Speaker 1: seemed too perfect. And also, at this point, it just
• 27:12
  Speaker 1: seemed really suspicious that these two brothers are just standing
• 27:16
  Speaker 1: here waiting for police to come question them.
• 27:18
  Speaker 2: It just something felt off.
• 27:20
  Speaker 1: So Burns, operating on a gut instinct, told them both
• 27:23
  Speaker 1: that in order to question them, they actually had to
• 27:26
  Speaker 1: come with him to the station and do it formally.
• 27:28
  Speaker 1: Down there. Less than an hour later, Detective Burns opened
• 27:36
  Speaker 1: the door of the Dark County Sheriff's office and he
• 27:39
  Speaker 1: showed Greg and Travis Myers inside. Now, neither of the
• 27:42
  Speaker 1: brothers were under arrest yet, but Burns had a feeling
• 27:45
  Speaker 1: that by the end of their interviews, one or both
• 27:48
  Speaker 1: of them could be. Burns took Greg into his office
• 27:51
  Speaker 1: for questioning, while Burns's partner took Travis into a room
• 27:54
  Speaker 1: down the hall. As soon as Greg sat down in
• 27:56
  Speaker 1: front of the desk, Burns noticed that he wasn't making
• 27:59
  Speaker 1: eye contact with him. He was sort of acting shifty.
• 28:02
  Speaker 1: But pretty quickly, Greg said he was perfectly willing to
• 28:04
  Speaker 1: tell the detectives anything they wanted if it could help
• 28:07
  Speaker 1: solve his dad and stepmother's murders, and so Burns immediately
• 28:10
  Speaker 1: began asking questions. He asked Greg what he was doing
• 28:14
  Speaker 1: in the early hours of Thursday morning when Jack and
• 28:17
  Speaker 1: Linda were killed, and Greg told him that mostly he
• 28:19
  Speaker 1: was just asleep, that is until about four thirty when
• 28:22
  Speaker 1: he got up to go to his job at a
• 28:24
  Speaker 1: factory that.
• 28:24
  Speaker 2: Was a few towns over.
• 28:25
  Speaker 1: He also said his girlfriend was at home with him
• 28:28
  Speaker 1: the whole night and she could confirm that. He then
• 28:30
  Speaker 1: said he drove to work in his minivan and he
• 28:33
  Speaker 1: clocked in at five twenty three am, and he even
• 28:35
  Speaker 1: had a signed time card back home that would prove it.
• 28:38
  Speaker 1: And Burns was immediately very interested to learn that Greg
• 28:41
  Speaker 1: drove a minivan, because remember that neighbor had said she
• 28:45
  Speaker 1: saw a minivan leaving the Meyers farm around four thirty
• 28:48
  Speaker 1: on the morning of the murders, suggesting the killer drove
• 28:51
  Speaker 1: a minivan. However, Burns was starting to realize that even
• 28:55
  Speaker 1: if Greg's alibi were shaky or didn't check.
• 28:57
  Speaker 2: Out, the timing alone likely ruled him out.
• 29:01
  Speaker 1: It basically was impossible to drive from Greg's house at
• 29:04
  Speaker 1: four thirty am when he left, go all the way
• 29:07
  Speaker 1: to the farm, commit the murders, then drive to the factory,
• 29:11
  Speaker 1: and be able to clock in at five twenty three
• 29:13
  Speaker 1: am when he had his time card stamped. That just
• 29:16
  Speaker 1: wasn't enough time to do all that. And also, pretty
• 29:19
  Speaker 1: much everybody in the family had told Burns that Greg
• 29:23
  Speaker 1: was quite close with Jack and Linda. Now he was
• 29:26
  Speaker 1: having some problems with drugs and alcohol, but he had
• 29:29
  Speaker 1: no history of crime or violence, and none of his
• 29:32
  Speaker 1: family members thought he seemed capable of being a killer.
• 29:34
  Speaker 1: So even though Greg remained a suspect, Burns decided he
• 29:37
  Speaker 1: would shift his.
• 29:38
  Speaker 2: Focus to Travis.
• 29:39
  Speaker 1: So Burns asked Greg how had Travis reacted when he
• 29:43
  Speaker 1: heard about Jack and Linda's murders, and he said Travis
• 29:46
  Speaker 1: had been upset, but he'd mostly been concerned about how
• 29:49
  Speaker 1: Greg was coping. Because Greg was the one who was
• 29:52
  Speaker 1: much closer to Jack and Linda.
• 29:53
  Speaker 2: You know, Travis was estranged.
• 29:55
  Speaker 1: Greg went on to say that it had been at
• 29:57
  Speaker 1: least seven years since Travis, in a his father had spoken,
• 30:01
  Speaker 1: and that those two did not get along at all.
• 30:03
  Speaker 1: Burns asked Greg about that falling out between Jack and Travis,
• 30:07
  Speaker 1: and Greg said it just came down to business disagreements
• 30:09
  Speaker 1: on the farm. He said Travis had felt like his
• 30:12
  Speaker 1: father was cheating him out of money, and they had
• 30:13
  Speaker 1: this big argument that got really ugly, so Travis had
• 30:17
  Speaker 1: just quit the business and moved away. Burns thought about this,
• 30:20
  Speaker 1: and he wondered if maybe Travis stood to inherit any
• 30:23
  Speaker 1: money if his father died, because if so, that would
• 30:26
  Speaker 1: definitely be a solid motive for murder. And so Burns
• 30:29
  Speaker 1: made two mental notes. One was to look into Greg's
• 30:32
  Speaker 1: alibi and the other was to look into Jack's will
• 30:36
  Speaker 1: to see how his assets were going to be divided up.
• 30:38
  Speaker 1: After that, he thanked Greg for his cooperation, told him
• 30:41
  Speaker 1: to wait in his office, and then Burns left and
• 30:44
  Speaker 1: he went right down the hall and he waited outside
• 30:46
  Speaker 1: the door while his partner finished questioning Travis. Burns's partner
• 30:51
  Speaker 1: would say that Travis had seemed really nervous from the
• 30:54
  Speaker 1: very moment he stepped inside the room. The detective had
• 30:57
  Speaker 1: asked him what he was doing in Ohio, and Travis
• 30:59
  Speaker 1: said he'd just reevaluating his life recently, and he'd realized
• 31:03
  Speaker 1: that he'd never actually met his brother, Greg's children, so
• 31:06
  Speaker 1: he'd come back to Ohio to do just that and
• 31:08
  Speaker 1: spend some time with them. Then the detective asked him
• 31:11
  Speaker 1: what he was doing when Jack and Linda were killed,
• 31:14
  Speaker 1: and Travis stuttered out that he was sleeping in his apartment.
• 31:17
  Speaker 1: The detective asked him if he had anybody who could
• 31:20
  Speaker 1: confirm that, and Travis kind of hesitated and then shook
• 31:23
  Speaker 1: his head and said no. Then the detective asked Travis
• 31:26
  Speaker 1: if he had a car, and Travis said that at
• 31:29
  Speaker 1: the moment, he was driving his mother's car.
• 31:32
  Speaker 2: A white minivan.
• 31:34
  Speaker 1: After getting debriefed by his partner about this interview with Travis,
• 31:37
  Speaker 1: Burns went back into his office. By this point, Greg
• 31:40
  Speaker 1: had been moved out and put in a different room,
• 31:42
  Speaker 1: and Burns sat down at his desk and he began
• 31:45
  Speaker 1: going over the evidence they had collected so far. Now,
• 31:48
  Speaker 1: the investigation to this point had been moving really quickly,
• 31:51
  Speaker 1: and so there actually wasn't a whole lot of evidence yet.
• 31:54
  Speaker 1: In fact, it had only been twenty four hours since
• 31:57
  Speaker 1: the forensics were sent to the crime lab, so they
• 31:59
  Speaker 1: were still waiting for results on pretty much everything. Burns
• 32:02
  Speaker 1: knew that at this point the best thing he could
• 32:04
  Speaker 1: do while he waited for more evidence was go follow
• 32:07
  Speaker 1: up on Travis and Gregg's alibis. After all, they are
• 32:10
  Speaker 1: the victim's children, and he already thought that the killer
• 32:12
  Speaker 1: had to be connected personally to the victims, and they
• 32:16
  Speaker 1: both drove minivans, so really either of them could be
• 32:19
  Speaker 1: the killer.
• 32:20
  Speaker 2: But just then Burns's phone rang.
• 32:22
  Speaker 1: He picked it up, and it was a local man
• 32:24
  Speaker 1: who said he had seen a news report about Jack
• 32:26
  Speaker 1: and Linda's murders and he had some information that just
• 32:29
  Speaker 1: might help. The man said that a few days earlier,
• 32:33
  Speaker 1: his friend had called him to see if he knew
• 32:35
  Speaker 1: where they could buy a gun, and when this man
• 32:37
  Speaker 1: who's talking to Burns, you know, asked this friend why
• 32:40
  Speaker 1: they needed the gun, the friend said it was because
• 32:43
  Speaker 1: they quote wanted to shoot Jack Myers. The man told
• 32:47
  Speaker 1: Burns the name of his friend who said this, and
• 32:50
  Speaker 1: as soon as Burns heard that name, he knew exactly
• 32:53
  Speaker 1: who his murderer was. Based on this phone call as
• 33:00
  Speaker 1: well as forensic evidence from the crime scene, this is
• 33:03
  Speaker 1: what police believe happened to Jack and Linda Myers on
• 33:06
  Speaker 1: the morning of March twenty seventh, two thousand and three.
• 33:17
  Speaker 1: Early on the morning of the murders, the killer woke
• 33:19
  Speaker 1: up and got out of bed and right away put
• 33:21
  Speaker 1: on a green hunting jumpsuit, and they also packed a
• 33:25
  Speaker 1: bag with duct tape, trash bags, and.
• 33:27
  Speaker 2: A roll of masking tape.
• 33:29
  Speaker 1: Then they put on a pair of latex gloves and
• 33:31
  Speaker 1: loaded the twelve gage shotgun that they had purchased from
• 33:33
  Speaker 1: a classified ad two days earlier, and they carried all
• 33:36
  Speaker 1: their supplies out to their minivan. After they were ready,
• 33:40
  Speaker 1: they hopped in the driver's seat, turned on the car,
• 33:42
  Speaker 1: and then drove a familiar route through the dark, open fields.
• 33:46
  Speaker 1: They were calm at first until they turned onto the
• 33:48
  Speaker 1: gravel road that led to Jack and Linda's farm. At
• 33:51
  Speaker 1: that point, their heart began to race. Now the killer
• 33:54
  Speaker 1: felt like they had planned all of this out and
• 33:56
  Speaker 1: prepared for anything that could go wrong. So now really
• 33:59
  Speaker 1: all they had to do was just control themselves and
• 34:02
  Speaker 1: just stick to the plan. And so the killer parked
• 34:04
  Speaker 1: right outside the farmhouse and then while staying in the car,
• 34:08
  Speaker 1: they climbed into the back seat of the minivan and
• 34:10
  Speaker 1: they grabbed their shotgun. Then they grabbed this thick quilting
• 34:14
  Speaker 1: fabric and they wrapped it around the barrel of the
• 34:16
  Speaker 1: shotgun and they used masking tape to secure it. That
• 34:19
  Speaker 1: was their DIY silencer. But as they went through this plan,
• 34:24
  Speaker 1: the Killer's hands were shaking. They were nervous because as
• 34:27
  Speaker 1: much as they had planned for this, it really was
• 34:30
  Speaker 1: not something they actually.
• 34:31
  Speaker 2: Wanted to do, but they felt like they had to.
• 34:34
  Speaker 1: So after their gun had its silencer on it, they
• 34:37
  Speaker 1: slung it over their shoulder. Then they got out of
• 34:39
  Speaker 1: the van and crept around to the side of the house,
• 34:42
  Speaker 1: and once they were there, they cut the phone lines
• 34:45
  Speaker 1: so nobody inside would be able to call for help.
• 34:47
  Speaker 1: Then they knelt down in the dirt and they pried
• 34:50
  Speaker 1: open the basement window and they climbed inside. Once inside,
• 34:54
  Speaker 1: the killer walked to the stairs. They went up to
• 34:56
  Speaker 1: the first floor, and they walked straight to the bedroom
• 34:59
  Speaker 1: where they knew Jack and Linda would be asleep. They
• 35:01
  Speaker 1: went inside and there they were sleeping in their beds,
• 35:05
  Speaker 1: and the killer took a deep breath and then raised their shotgun.
• 35:09
  Speaker 1: They fired a single round into the back of Jack's neck,
• 35:12
  Speaker 1: but the force of the gunshot had blasted off the
• 35:14
  Speaker 1: homemade silencer, and so basically it wasn't silent at all.
• 35:17
  Speaker 2: It was extremely loud.
• 35:19
  Speaker 1: And that homemade silencer landed on the pillow right next
• 35:22
  Speaker 1: to Jack's head, and almost immediately from the chaos, Linda
• 35:25
  Speaker 1: sat up and she looked straight at the killer, and
• 35:29
  Speaker 1: she saw what was happening, and she just raised a
• 35:31
  Speaker 1: hand to try to defend herself, and in a moment
• 35:34
  Speaker 1: of panic, the killer just turned the shotgun on her
• 35:37
  Speaker 1: and they fired twice, and one blast went through her
• 35:40
  Speaker 1: hand and the other struck her right in the face.
• 35:43
  Speaker 1: At this point, the killer just paused and waited. The
• 35:46
  Speaker 1: silencer had sort of muffled the first shot, but the
• 35:49
  Speaker 1: second two were so loud they knew that noise easily
• 35:53
  Speaker 1: could have woken up the third person who they knew
• 35:56
  Speaker 1: was in this house, someone they really didn't want to hurt.
• 36:00
  Speaker 2: They had to.
• 36:01
  Speaker 1: They would so just to make sure they didn't have
• 36:03
  Speaker 1: any loose ends, they left Linda and Jack's bedroom confident
• 36:07
  Speaker 1: they were dead, and they crept upstairs to little Damien's room,
• 36:10
  Speaker 1: and they went inside, and.
• 36:12
  Speaker 2: They carefully walked over.
• 36:14
  Speaker 1: Right next to the boy's bed, and they raised their
• 36:16
  Speaker 1: shotgun and aimed it at this child, waiting to see if.
• 36:19
  Speaker 2: They were awake.
• 36:20
  Speaker 1: But the little boy appeared to be asleep, and so
• 36:23
  Speaker 1: the killer spared him. They lowered their shotgun and they
• 36:25
  Speaker 1: walked out of the room. Once they were out in
• 36:27
  Speaker 1: the hallway, they shut Damien's door and then hurried right
• 36:31
  Speaker 1: out of the house. And from there they got back
• 36:33
  Speaker 1: in their minivan and they sped off a few miles away.
• 36:37
  Speaker 2: They stopped on a bridge.
• 36:38
  Speaker 1: And tossed their gun, their supplies, and their clothes into
• 36:41
  Speaker 1: a river, and then they changed into their work clothes
• 36:43
  Speaker 1: and they drove to the factory, where they would clock
• 36:46
  Speaker 1: in at precisely five twenty three am. The killer was
• 36:50
  Speaker 1: Jack's younger son, Greg Myers. Greg had been having problems
• 36:56
  Speaker 1: with money and drug abuse, and his father, Jack had
• 36:59
  Speaker 1: refused to help him, and they were fighting about it,
• 37:02
  Speaker 1: but Greig knew he would inherit the farm if his
• 37:04
  Speaker 1: father died, and he was so desperate, he decided murder
• 37:08
  Speaker 1: was his best option. When police timed the drive from
• 37:11
  Speaker 1: Jack and Linda's farm to Greg's workplace, they found that
• 37:14
  Speaker 1: he would have actually had just enough time to commit
• 37:17
  Speaker 1: the horrible double murder and then drive straight to work
• 37:20
  Speaker 1: and clock in by five twenty three. Greg was ultimately
• 37:24
  Speaker 1: arrested about forty eight hours after the crime, so quickly
• 37:27
  Speaker 1: that police were actually still gathering evidence to use against him.
• 37:30
  Speaker 2: They later found the gun.
• 37:32
  Speaker 1: Other supplies and shoes that matched the prints found outside
• 37:35
  Speaker 1: the house in a river right near the farm, and
• 37:37
  Speaker 1: fingerprints and receipts tied all the items back to Greg.
• 37:40
  Speaker 1: He was convicted of murder and sentenced to life in
• 37:43
  Speaker 1: prison without parole. As for Damien, following the murders, he
• 37:47
  Speaker 1: would go to live with his mother Amber, despite everything
• 37:50
  Speaker 1: he witnessed at just four years old. Amber said in
• 37:53
  Speaker 1: a twenty twenty one documentary that he is now.
• 37:55
  Speaker 2: Doing very well. Thank you so much for watching.
• 38:05
  Speaker 1: Let me know what you thought of today's episode in
• 38:06
  Speaker 1: the comments, and remember, we have a whole playlist of
• 38:09
  Speaker 1: true crime episodes ready for you to binge right now,
• 38:12
  Speaker 1: so click here and give them a watch, all right,
• 38:15
  Speaker 1: Until next time, see ya.