Latest / River City Mystery - Investigating mysteries in southern Indiana, southern Illinois, and western Kentucky / Four Seasons

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Four Seasons · River City Mystery - Investigating mysteries in southern Indiana, southern Illinois, and western Kentucky

• 0:10
  Speaker: You're listening to. River City
• 0:11
  Speaker: Mystery podcast, the show that
• 0:13
  Speaker: delves into the Evansville and
• 0:15
  Speaker: surrounding Tri-State area's
• 0:16
  Speaker: many mysteries, including
• 0:17
  Speaker: unsolved crimes, murders, and
• 0:19
  Speaker: disappearances.
• 0:20
  Speaker: A show that isn't afraid to jump
• 0:21
  Speaker: down the rabbit hole to
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  Speaker: investigate reports of local
• 0:24
  Speaker: hauntings, sightings of UFOs and
• 0:26
  Speaker: cryptids, among other paranormal
• 0:28
  Speaker: phenomena.
• 0:29
  Speaker: With your host, co-founder of
• 0:30
  Speaker: the Humans of Evansville
• 0:31
  Speaker: Facebook page.
• 0:33
  Speaker: Law office worker by day.
• 0:34
  Speaker: Insomniac researcher of the bizarre by night.
• 0:37
  Speaker: Matt Deig.
• 0:43
  Speaker: Welcome to the first episode of River City Mystery podcast.
• 0:47
  Speaker: Thank you for joining me.
• 0:48
  Speaker: Hope you enjoy the show.
• 0:50
  Speaker: Our first episode takes us to the west side of Mount Vernon,
• 0:54
  Speaker: Indiana, just outside of town.
• 0:56
  Speaker: Right off the highway sits a
• 0:58
  Speaker: little motel called the Four
• 0:59
  Speaker: Seasons.
• 1:01
  Speaker: It's easy to miss if you're flying down the highway there,
• 1:03
  Speaker: but it's it's set off the highway there for a long time,
• 1:06
  Speaker: and it's run by Rodney Cox and his mother, Jean Rodney, and his
• 1:12
  Speaker: mother actually run the motel today, and they also ran it
• 1:16
  Speaker: together back in the fall of nineteen ninety four, which is
• 1:19
  Speaker: when our story begins.
• 1:21
  Speaker: The motel business certainly has its challenges, as Rodney and
• 1:25
  Speaker: Jean found out.
• 1:26
  Speaker: Now, they were no strangers to
• 1:27
  Speaker: dealing with issues that
• 1:29
  Speaker: standard motel owners would deal
• 1:31
  Speaker: with leaky toilets, guests
• 1:33
  Speaker: losing their room keys, noise
• 1:35
  Speaker: complaints, things of that
• 1:36
  Speaker: nature.
• 1:38
  Speaker: In the fall of nineteen ninety
• 1:39
  Speaker: four, Rodney and Jean began to
• 1:43
  Speaker: hear familiar complaints coming
• 1:45
  Speaker: from one particular room at the
• 1:47
  Speaker: motel.
• 1:48
  Speaker: At first, they kind of brushed it off as being odd, but guest
• 1:53
  Speaker: after guest night after night It came to them with similar
• 1:58
  Speaker: complaints, and Rodney and Jean could no longer brush it off as
• 2:03
  Speaker: being quirky or strange.
• 2:06
  Speaker: They knew they had to deal with it.
• 2:09
  Speaker: And this particular issue, they couldn't just call in a plumber
• 2:14
  Speaker: or a roofer, or somebody from maintenance or housekeeping to
• 2:19
  Speaker: deal with this, Rodney and Jean had to put their heads together
• 2:23
  Speaker: and come up with a game plan on how to deal with this issue.
• 2:27
  Speaker: So Rodney and Jean placed a
• 2:29
  Speaker: phone call to the only person
• 2:30
  Speaker: they knew who might be able to
• 2:31
  Speaker: help.
• 2:33
  Speaker: In the first episode of River City Mystery Podcast.
• 2:36
  Speaker: You're going to learn why Rodney
• 2:38
  Speaker: and Jean resorted to calling a
• 2:40
  Speaker: preacher.
• 2:48
  Speaker: Now, before we get into why the
• 2:50
  Speaker: preacher was called to deal with
• 2:53
  Speaker: the issue at the motel, I need
• 2:55
  Speaker: to back up a little bit and kind
• 2:57
  Speaker: of set the stage and give some
• 2:58
  Speaker: context into what was going on
• 3:01
  Speaker: there.
• 3:02
  Speaker: On September two, nineteen
• 3:03
  Speaker: ninety four, about a month or so
• 3:06
  Speaker: before the preacher had been
• 3:07
  Speaker: called out to the motel, Jack
• 3:09
  Speaker: Barnett was with his girlfriend,
• 3:11
  Speaker: Terri Rideout, at American
• 3:13
  Speaker: Legion Post forty four in
• 3:16
  Speaker: Newburgh, Indiana.
• 3:17
  Speaker: They had stopped by the post to
• 3:19
  Speaker: grab a quick bite to eat before
• 3:20
  Speaker: Terry's shift started that
• 3:22
  Speaker: morning at eleven o'clock at
• 3:23
  Speaker: Burger King on Main Street in
• 3:25
  Speaker: Evansville.
• 3:26
  Speaker: Now, as far as anyone can tell, um, everyone who was close to
• 3:30
  Speaker: Jack and Terry said that they had a great relationship, and
• 3:33
  Speaker: there was even talk that they were going to get married.
• 3:36
  Speaker: They'd been living together for the last three months at a home
• 3:40
  Speaker: in Chandler, Indiana, and Jack and Terry enjoyed going to
• 3:43
  Speaker: Jack's River camp.
• 3:46
  Speaker: Uh, they both really enjoyed going down to the river and
• 3:48
  Speaker: having fun down there.
• 3:50
  Speaker: And that was kind of their thing that they did together.
• 3:53
  Speaker: Terry loved the river so much.
• 3:55
  Speaker: She named her dog River, and her dog often trailed her wherever
• 4:00
  Speaker: she went, including to the river or pretty much anywhere.
• 4:04
  Speaker: So it wasn't too unusual.
• 4:06
  Speaker: You'd find Jack, Terry and River hanging out at the river camp.
• 4:11
  Speaker: Now, I mentioned that Terry
• 4:12
  Speaker: worked at Burger King, and she
• 4:14
  Speaker: had that shift at eleven o'clock
• 4:16
  Speaker: that morning.
• 4:17
  Speaker: She'd only been working there for about a month at this point.
• 4:20
  Speaker: And according to her district manager, Connie Weinzapfel, she
• 4:24
  Speaker: was doing a really good job.
• 4:26
  Speaker: And she called her a very intelligent, responsible woman.
• 4:31
  Speaker: So she was, you know, doing a
• 4:33
  Speaker: good job there and nothing
• 4:34
  Speaker: unusual.
• 4:35
  Speaker: Jack Barnett was an employee at Sejko.
• 4:39
  Speaker: Southern Indiana Gas and Electric Company, and Jack was
• 4:42
  Speaker: an equipment operator for Sejko.
• 4:45
  Speaker: Now, Jack Jack had had a rough couple of years.
• 4:48
  Speaker: He was divorced about three
• 4:50
  Speaker: years prior, he was married to
• 4:52
  Speaker: Julie Waters.
• 4:53
  Speaker: And, um, they maintained at that
• 4:56
  Speaker: point a, a friendly
• 4:58
  Speaker: relationship.
• 4:59
  Speaker: And they also had a thirteen year old daughter together.
• 5:03
  Speaker: Now, another reason that, uh,
• 5:05
  Speaker: Jack had had a rough couple of
• 5:06
  Speaker: years was in September of
• 5:08
  Speaker: nineteen ninety.
• 5:09
  Speaker: He was charged with battery with a deadly weapon.
• 5:12
  Speaker: He pled guilty on the charge and
• 5:15
  Speaker: did avoid serving serious jail
• 5:17
  Speaker: time.
• 5:18
  Speaker: But he did have to serve several years on probation.
• 5:22
  Speaker: So that probationary period had
• 5:23
  Speaker: just come to an end, uh, by this
• 5:26
  Speaker: point.
• 5:27
  Speaker: So from an observer's point of
• 5:29
  Speaker: view, things seem to be headed
• 5:31
  Speaker: in the right direction for Terry
• 5:33
  Speaker: and Jack.
• 5:34
  Speaker: Now, Terry's car was having some mechanical problems, so she was
• 5:38
  Speaker: kind of relying on Jack to give her a ride.
• 5:41
  Speaker: So about ten thirty that
• 5:42
  Speaker: morning, they left the American
• 5:44
  Speaker: Legion and started to head
• 5:46
  Speaker: towards Burger King on Main
• 5:48
  Speaker: Street in Evansville so that
• 5:49
  Speaker: Terry could be at her eleven a m
• 5:51
  Speaker: shift.
• 5:52
  Speaker: They, um, she made it there on time and worked the entire
• 5:57
  Speaker: shift, eleven to seven.
• 5:59
  Speaker: Around seven o'clock, her manager asked her if she would,
• 6:03
  Speaker: uh, on the night deposit to Citizens National Bank.
• 6:07
  Speaker: And she did that.
• 6:09
  Speaker: So according to her coworkers,
• 6:10
  Speaker: Terry had told them, uh, see you
• 6:12
  Speaker: tomorrow.
• 6:13
  Speaker: And she was in a good mood.
• 6:15
  Speaker: And the last they saw was Terry
• 6:17
  Speaker: driving off in Jack's red pickup
• 6:20
  Speaker: truck.
• 6:21
  Speaker: A few days later, on September six, nineteen ninety four, Jack
• 6:25
  Speaker: was spotted at Don and Donna's Sports Bar in Newburgh, Indiana.
• 6:30
  Speaker: Gail Chapman, a, uh, an employee of Don and Donna's who also
• 6:35
  Speaker: happened to be a good friend of Terry's and also a former
• 6:39
  Speaker: roommate of hers, had talked to the bartender who was working on
• 6:42
  Speaker: September sixth and confirmed that Jack was there by himself.
• 6:48
  Speaker: But even though it was a little odd that Jack was there by
• 6:51
  Speaker: himself that day, according to the bartender, he wasn't acting
• 6:56
  Speaker: strange or odd.
• 6:57
  Speaker: He didn't.
• 6:57
  Speaker: He didn't mention anything about
• 6:59
  Speaker: Terry or why he was there by
• 7:01
  Speaker: himself.
• 7:02
  Speaker: So it didn't really raise any red flags with anyone.
• 7:15
  Speaker: Three days later, on September nine, nineteen ninety four, Jack
• 7:20
  Speaker: Barnett pulled into the parking lot of the Four Seasons Motel in
• 7:23
  Speaker: Mount Vernon, Indiana.
• 7:25
  Speaker: Jack had brought two items with him.
• 7:29
  Speaker: One was the movie Falling Down,
• 7:31
  Speaker: starring Michael Douglas and
• 7:34
  Speaker: two.
• 7:35
  Speaker: His gun.
• 7:40
  Speaker: Jack walked into the lobby of
• 7:42
  Speaker: the motel and asked if they had
• 7:43
  Speaker: any vacancies.
• 7:45
  Speaker: They did.
• 7:46
  Speaker: He purchased his room for the evening, signed off on the
• 7:49
  Speaker: paperwork, grabbed his key and headed down to his room.
• 7:54
  Speaker: Jack walked down to his motel room, unlocked the door, walked
• 8:00
  Speaker: in, making sure to have his two items with him.
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  Speaker: Shut the door behind him, locked
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  Speaker: it, and also locked the security
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  Speaker: chain.
• 8:12
  Speaker: At some point that evening, Jack walked up to the VCR in his
• 8:16
  Speaker: room, inserted the VHS tape of the movie, falling down, and
• 8:23
  Speaker: watched the movie.
• 8:26
  Speaker: If you're not familiar with the movie Falling Down, it came out
• 8:30
  Speaker: in nineteen ninety three, which is about a year before this
• 8:35
  Speaker: story takes place.
• 8:38
  Speaker: It stars Michael Douglas, who's a unemployed defense contractor
• 8:44
  Speaker: who's divorced and just having a really bad day.
• 8:50
  Speaker: He's stuck in traffic.
• 8:53
  Speaker: I think it's in Los Angeles and just everything goes wrong.
• 8:58
  Speaker: And he just he literally snaps.
• 9:02
  Speaker: So he basically arms himself, just parks his car on the
• 9:08
  Speaker: freeway, and then just kind of goes on a bit of a rampage
• 9:11
  Speaker: against society in general.
• 9:14
  Speaker: Um, but basically it's a guy that just kind of snaps up who
• 9:20
  Speaker: is kind of living a normal life.
• 9:22
  Speaker: No one suspected that he would have done this.
• 9:26
  Speaker: And, um, so that's, that's the movie that Jack took with him.
• 9:32
  Speaker: That's the movie.
• 9:33
  Speaker: That's the last movie he watched that night falling down.
• 9:38
  Speaker: When the movie ended, Jack
• 9:40
  Speaker: walked over to the desk, sat
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  Speaker: down, grabbed a piece of paper
• 9:45
  Speaker: and a pen, and wrote out a
• 9:48
  Speaker: little note to his thirteen year
• 9:49
  Speaker: old daughter.
• 9:51
  Speaker: He said something along the lines of grow up to be a good
• 9:55
  Speaker: girl and I love you.
• 9:58
  Speaker: Then Jack got up and walked across the room to grab the
• 10:01
  Speaker: second item that he had brought with him the gun.
• 10:06
  Speaker: He grabbed it, opened his mouth,
• 10:09
  Speaker: inserted the gun, and pulled the
• 10:13
  Speaker: trigger.
• 10:16
  Speaker: According to the death certificate, he died from a
• 10:19
  Speaker: self-inflicted gunshot wound through the roof of the mouth.
• 10:23
  Speaker: The next day, September tenth, nineteen ninety four, hotel
• 10:27
  Speaker: workers noticed that he still hadn't checked out of the motel.
• 10:32
  Speaker: As of four thirty, and there was
• 10:34
  Speaker: a Do Not Disturb sign hanging on
• 10:36
  Speaker: his doorknob.
• 10:38
  Speaker: So after trying to, uh, knock on
• 10:41
  Speaker: the door and wake him up, the
• 10:43
  Speaker: hotel staff went to go get a key
• 10:46
  Speaker: and they were able to partially
• 10:49
  Speaker: open the door, but when they
• 10:50
  Speaker: did, they saw that there was
• 10:52
  Speaker: blood all over the floor, and
• 10:54
  Speaker: they immediately called the
• 10:55
  Speaker: sheriff.
• 10:57
  Speaker: So the Posey County Sheriff at the time, Bill Cox, came out,
• 11:01
  Speaker: and he says that he's convinced that it was a suicide, that, um,
• 11:06
  Speaker: Jack did end his own life, uh, based on the fact that the motel
• 11:11
  Speaker: door was locked from the inside with the chain.
• 11:15
  Speaker: So no one else could have could have done that.
• 11:17
  Speaker: But, Jack, several days later,
• 11:21
  Speaker: family and friends gathered to
• 11:22
  Speaker: remember the life of Jack
• 11:24
  Speaker: Barnett.
• 11:25
  Speaker: But they weren't the only ones at Jack's funeral.
• 11:29
  Speaker: Hidden in the back were investigators.
• 11:32
  Speaker: They weren't investigating Jack's death.
• 11:35
  Speaker: They were investigating the disappearance of Terry Rideout.
• 11:39
  Speaker: Jack's girlfriend, Terry, hadn't
• 11:42
  Speaker: been seen since she left her
• 11:43
  Speaker: shift at Burger King that night,
• 11:45
  Speaker: September two, nineteen ninety
• 11:47
  Speaker: four.
• 11:48
  Speaker: The hope was that if she was
• 11:50
  Speaker: okay, she would have attended
• 11:51
  Speaker: Jack's funeral.
• 11:52
  Speaker: That's what everybody said she would have done.
• 11:55
  Speaker: But she didn't.
• 11:56
  Speaker: She never showed up.
• 11:58
  Speaker: As a matter of fact, she was never seen or heard from again.
• 12:04
  Speaker: Friends and acquaintances searched the house of Terry and
• 12:07
  Speaker: Jack to look for clues as to what may have happened to Terry.
• 12:12
  Speaker: The only unusual thing they
• 12:13
  Speaker: found at the house was the fact
• 12:14
  Speaker: that River Terry's dog was
• 12:17
  Speaker: missing.
• 12:18
  Speaker: It's believed that most likely
• 12:20
  Speaker: Terry and River met similar
• 12:22
  Speaker: fates.
• 12:23
  Speaker: But we don't know, and we may never know.
• 12:28
  Speaker: As of today, Teresa Rideout still remains a missing persons
• 12:32
  Speaker: case in the state of Indiana.
• 12:35
  Speaker: By now, you're probably wondering how this ties in with
• 12:38
  Speaker: the fact that a preacher was called in to deal with some
• 12:42
  Speaker: issues at the motel about a month after Jack's death.
• 12:46
  Speaker: Well, as it turns out, after
• 12:48
  Speaker: Jack died, the room he was in
• 12:51
  Speaker: became a bit of a hotspot for
• 12:53
  Speaker: paranormal activity.
• 12:55
  Speaker: At first, Rodney Cox and his mother, Jean, kind of laughed it
• 13:00
  Speaker: off as being, you know, strange and probably coincidental.
• 13:10
  Speaker: Guests were consistently saying
• 13:12
  Speaker: that the TV was turning on by
• 13:15
  Speaker: itself exactly at ten p m every
• 13:18
  Speaker: night, and Rodney got a little
• 13:24
  Speaker: irritated.
• 13:25
  Speaker: So he would.
• 13:26
  Speaker: He would go to the room and, uh, fix the TV and, you know, jiggle
• 13:31
  Speaker: the wires or whatever he was doing To appease the, the guests
• 13:35
  Speaker: and um, they'd check out the next day and a new guest would
• 13:39
  Speaker: come in and they would have a similar complaint the next day.
• 13:43
  Speaker: Hey, the TV keeps coming on at ten p m and I can't sleep.
• 13:48
  Speaker: What's going on here?
• 13:49
  Speaker: There's some electrical
• 13:49
  Speaker: electrical problem or something
• 13:51
  Speaker: like that.
• 13:52
  Speaker: So, Rodney, it started being
• 13:55
  Speaker: less funny and a little more
• 13:57
  Speaker: concerning.
• 13:58
  Speaker: So Rodney started bringing in new TVs.
• 14:01
  Speaker: He took out the old TV in that room and would bring in a new
• 14:04
  Speaker: one, plug it in, get it all set up, and another guest would come
• 14:09
  Speaker: in and same, same concerns.
• 14:12
  Speaker: Ten o'clock TV would turn on and it was freaking some guests out
• 14:18
  Speaker: so much that they.
• 14:19
  Speaker: They actually told Rodney and
• 14:21
  Speaker: Jean, hey, this, this room is
• 14:23
  Speaker: haunted.
• 14:24
  Speaker: There's something not right about this room.
• 14:26
  Speaker: You need to do something about it.
• 14:29
  Speaker: And of course, Rodney and Jean
• 14:31
  Speaker: hadn't advertised that that room
• 14:33
  Speaker: was where someone had killed
• 14:35
  Speaker: themselves within the past
• 14:36
  Speaker: month.
• 14:37
  Speaker: So there's really no way that anyone would know that, or that
• 14:41
  Speaker: they would have known that other guests had had similar issues.
• 14:45
  Speaker: So from Rodney and Jean's
• 14:46
  Speaker: perspective, these concerns were
• 14:50
  Speaker: pretty valid because the guests
• 14:52
  Speaker: had no contact with each other
• 14:53
  Speaker: and they were all saying very
• 14:55
  Speaker: similar things.
• 14:57
  Speaker: So Rodney and Jean ended up having to call help from the
• 15:03
  Speaker: church to deal with this issue.
• 15:07
  Speaker: So they called in the preacher who actually did arrive and did
• 15:13
  Speaker: a cleansing of the room and asked for the spirit of Jack
• 15:18
  Speaker: Barnett to leave, to remove himself from the room.
• 15:24
  Speaker: And after that cleansing, Rodney and Jean report that there were
• 15:30
  Speaker: no more issues and complaints about the TV turning on, or
• 15:34
  Speaker: anything else paranormal going on in that room.
• 15:37
  Speaker: So I guess we can say that the Four Seasons Motel was a haunted
• 15:42
  Speaker: motel, but is no longer.
• 15:45
  Speaker: Whether or not we believe that these events are actual
• 15:50
  Speaker: paranormal events where there's some sort of spirit activity
• 15:56
  Speaker: going on due to the due to a traumatic death in the room.
• 16:00
  Speaker: Um, that's up to you to decide what you believe about that.
• 16:05
  Speaker: Um, I find it interesting no
• 16:08
  Speaker: matter what, whether or not it's
• 16:10
  Speaker: a haunting or if it's merely a
• 16:12
  Speaker: coincidence.
• 16:13
  Speaker: It's pretty amazing either way.
• 16:15
  Speaker: Um, I think it's important to have an open mind about these
• 16:19
  Speaker: sorts of things.
• 16:21
  Speaker: And, um, that's what I intend to
• 16:24
  Speaker: do with the podcast is to
• 16:27
  Speaker: present mysteries of, uh, of all
• 16:32
  Speaker: types.
• 16:32
  Speaker: And I'll do that with an open mind.
• 16:35
  Speaker: Um, and I'm going to let you decide what you think.
• 16:38
  Speaker: And, um, you can share your
• 16:41
  Speaker: thoughts at my, um, website,
• 16:44
  Speaker: which is RiverCityMystery.
• 16:46
  Speaker: com.
• 16:46
  Speaker: I've actually set up a forum I call the study.
• 16:51
  Speaker: So each episode is going to have its own forum heading there.
• 16:55
  Speaker: So we'll see how that goes.
• 16:57
  Speaker: Uh, I've also got Facebook and Instagram set up, but I kind of
• 17:00
  Speaker: just want to base everything off of my website if possible.
• 17:03
  Speaker: So we'll see how it goes.
• 17:05
  Speaker: I'm also not sure yet how often
• 17:08
  Speaker: I'm going to be releasing
• 17:09
  Speaker: episodes.
• 17:10
  Speaker: I do work full time, so this is a hobby.
• 17:14
  Speaker: I will never do this to make money or anything like that.
• 17:17
  Speaker: So it's not going to be a, um, a
• 17:20
  Speaker: money making venture or anything
• 17:21
  Speaker: like that.
• 17:22
  Speaker: This is just totally one hundred
• 17:23
  Speaker: percent a, a hobby of mine I
• 17:26
  Speaker: love.
• 17:26
  Speaker: I've always loved mysteries and
• 17:29
  Speaker: paranormal things and stuff like
• 17:31
  Speaker: that.
• 17:31
  Speaker: So the idea of being able to kind of dig in to local
• 17:35
  Speaker: mysteries and paranormal stuff is just really fun to me.
• 17:40
  Speaker: Uh, it's just I'm not quite sure
• 17:42
  Speaker: yet how the scheduling is going
• 17:44
  Speaker: to work.
• 17:44
  Speaker: So I hopefully we'll be able to
• 17:46
  Speaker: have some sort of regular
• 17:47
  Speaker: schedule.
• 17:48
  Speaker: But since this is early on, I just don't know.
• 17:52
  Speaker: I thank you for joining me in
• 17:53
  Speaker: the first episode of River City
• 17:55
  Speaker: Mystery Podcast.
• 17:56
  Speaker: Again, if you'd like to join us at RiverCityMystery.com,
• 18:00
  Speaker: check out the forum there and tell us what you think.
• 18:04
  Speaker: If you have a show topic, ideas,
• 18:07
  Speaker: or information on this
• 18:10
  Speaker: particular episode or any other
• 18:12
  Speaker: that I may do, feel free to
• 18:14
  Speaker: contact me.
• 18:14
  Speaker: I've got a contact page on my website so you can just reach
• 18:19
  Speaker: out to me there.
• 18:20
  Speaker: Thanks again for listening.
• 18:22
  Speaker: Until next time, take care.