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Hell and Gone Murder Line: Paul Loyd · Hell and Gone: Murder Line

0:46
Speaker 1: School of Humans. Helen Got Murder Line actively investigates cold
0:52
Speaker 1: case murders in an effort to raise public awareness invite
0:55
Speaker 1: witnesses to come forward and present evidence that could potentially
0:58
Speaker 1: be further investigated by law enforcement. While we value insights
1:03
Speaker 1: from family and community members, their statements should not be
1:06
Speaker 1: considered evidence and point to the challenges of verifying facts
1:10
Speaker 1: inherent in cold cases. We remind listeners that everyone has
1:14
Speaker 1: presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law.
1:17
Speaker 1: Nothing in the podcast is intended to state or imply
1:21
Speaker 1: that anyone who has not been convicted of a crime
1:24
Speaker 1: is guilty of any wrongdoing. Thanks for listening.
1:31
Speaker 2: Sometime between seven and eight am on Saturday, January fifteenth,
1:35
Speaker 2: nineteen ninety four, in Hot Springs, Arkansas, thirty one year
1:39
Speaker 2: old David Ferrell knocked on his roommate Paul's door.
1:43
Speaker 3: Six year old Paul Lloyd was in bed.
1:46
Speaker 2: With a woman named Glenna Jones, who he had been
1:48
Speaker 2: hanging out with and dating. Paul and Glenna had partied
1:52
Speaker 2: pretty hard the night before and had not gotten home
1:55
Speaker 2: until late then they crashed. David's knocking woke them up.
2:00
Speaker 2: David told Paul that his mom was on the phone
2:03
Speaker 2: and that she wanted to know why Paul wasn't at work.
2:06
Speaker 2: Paul tried to get David to talk to his mom
2:09
Speaker 2: for him, but David told him he needed to talk
2:11
Speaker 2: to her directly, so Paul got up and spoke to
2:15
Speaker 2: his mom on the phone.
2:16
Speaker 3: Paul told his mother that he would call her back later.
2:20
Speaker 2: Shortly after that phone call from Paul's mother, at least
2:23
Speaker 2: according to one version of this story, David left for work.
2:27
Speaker 3: David worked at Stroop Tires.
2:29
Speaker 2: His shift started at seven thirty am, and he later
2:32
Speaker 2: told police he spent that day working on an Arkansas
2:36
Speaker 2: State Police vehicle. David claims that after he left work
2:40
Speaker 2: that day, he went to babysit his two sons, who
2:43
Speaker 2: lived with his ex Mona Harris. Mona worked nights, so
2:48
Speaker 2: David claimed he slept in the living room at her place,
2:51
Speaker 2: and when he eventually got back to his house, Paul
2:54
Speaker 2: and Glenna were gone. A few months later, on June first,
2:59
Speaker 2: nineteen ninety four, a couple was walking through the woods
3:02
Speaker 2: in Hot Springs County. They were kind of lost near
3:05
Speaker 2: an area called Jack Mountain, and they saw a piece
3:08
Speaker 2: of tape attached to a tree written on that tape
3:11
Speaker 2: where the words pack all rats together, they walked a
3:15
Speaker 2: little bit further into the woods and saw a human skeleton.
3:21
Speaker 2: I'm Catherine Townsend. Over the past eight years of making
3:24
Speaker 2: my true crime podcast, Helen Gone, I've learned that there
3:27
Speaker 2: is no such thing as a small town where murder
3:30
Speaker 2: never happens. I have received hundreds of messages from people
3:34
Speaker 2: all around the country asking for help with an unsolved
3:37
Speaker 2: murder that's affected them, their families, and their communities. If
3:41
Speaker 2: you have a case, she'd like me and my team
3:43
Speaker 2: to look in two. You can reach out to us
3:45
Speaker 2: at our Helen Gone Murder line at six seven eight
3:48
Speaker 2: seven four four six one four five. That's six seven
3:51
Speaker 2: eight seven four four six one four five, or you
3:55
Speaker 2: can send us a message on Instagram at Helen gonepod.
3:59
Speaker 2: This is Helen Gone Murder Line. After the couple found
4:48
Speaker 2: the body in the woods on June first, police recovered
4:51
Speaker 2: the remains, but they didn't have a lot of other
4:54
Speaker 2: forensic evidence. The body was dressed in cowboy boots, but
4:58
Speaker 2: the remains were scattered over a range of about thirty yards,
5:01
Speaker 2: so far that they could not even determine how the
5:04
Speaker 2: victim had died. Police found four empty shell casings near
5:09
Speaker 2: the body and bullets in the soil. Based on that
5:12
Speaker 2: and on the fact that the shirt and jacket near
5:15
Speaker 2: the skeleton each had three holes in them, police believed
5:18
Speaker 2: that the victim had been shot. Eventually, they were able
5:22
Speaker 2: to use dental records to identify the remains.
5:25
Speaker 3: As Paul Lloyd.
5:27
Speaker 2: Let's back up to January fifteenth, nineteen ninety four. It
5:30
Speaker 2: was a Saturday. Paul Lloyd's mom called the house where
5:34
Speaker 2: he lived with David.
5:35
Speaker 3: They talked on the phone and Paul said he would call.
5:38
Speaker 2: Back, But after that call, Paul Lloyd didn't show up
5:42
Speaker 2: at work that day. Paul's brother Kenny, reported him missing
5:46
Speaker 2: a few days later, on January twenty first, nineteen ninety four,
5:49
Speaker 2: after he failed to show up and pick up his paychecks.
5:53
Speaker 2: Paul's brother Kenny talked to police. He told them that David,
5:57
Speaker 2: Paul's roommate, had introduced Paul to a man named Wayne Hortman,
6:01
Speaker 2: who dealt and took methamphetamines. David had been selling drugs
6:05
Speaker 2: for Wayne. Kenny also told police he had kind of
6:09
Speaker 2: started doing his own investigation, which included stopping by Paul's
6:13
Speaker 2: house to talk to David Ferrell. He told police that
6:16
Speaker 2: David was very unhelpful when he asked about Paul. According
6:20
Speaker 2: to police documents, Kenny said the last time he saw Paul,
6:24
Speaker 2: Paul was on his way to meet with David and
6:27
Speaker 2: Wayne Hortman because he was planning to trade his motorcycle
6:31
Speaker 2: to them in exchange for drugs.
6:33
Speaker 3: But David later claimed.
6:35
Speaker 2: He wasn't even there that day, that he merely introduced
6:38
Speaker 2: Paul and Wayne, and that they were planning on doing
6:40
Speaker 2: the motorcycle for drug trade themselves. So the Hot Springs
6:45
Speaker 2: Police Department started looking into Paul Lloyd's case, but they
6:48
Speaker 2: weren't making a ton of progress at first because since
6:52
Speaker 2: they hadn't found Paul's body, it was still being investigated
6:55
Speaker 2: as a missing person's case. But then in March of
6:58
Speaker 2: nineteen ninety four, they were questioning Wayne Hortman about something
7:02
Speaker 2: else when he said he had information about what had
7:05
Speaker 2: really happened to Paul Lloyd. Wayne said that about two
7:09
Speaker 2: weeks after Paul went missing, David told Wayne that he
7:13
Speaker 2: had a gun, an SKS rifle that he was nervous about.
7:18
Speaker 2: Wayne claimed David had handed him this SKS rifle and
7:22
Speaker 2: told him to do something with it, so Waine said
7:26
Speaker 2: he took David's gun back to his place he was
7:28
Speaker 2: living with his mother at the time. But then Wayne
7:31
Speaker 2: said David was at his house a few weeks later
7:34
Speaker 2: and saw the gun there. He noticed that Wayne had
7:37
Speaker 2: not gotten rid of the gun, so at that point
7:39
Speaker 2: Wayne claimed that David got very angry and first tried
7:43
Speaker 2: to destroy worry the weapon by slamming it against a tree,
7:46
Speaker 2: and then when that didn't work, David told Wayne to
7:49
Speaker 2: drive him to the Highway to seventy Bridge over Lake Hamilton.
7:53
Speaker 2: So Wayne said he did, and he claimed that when
7:56
Speaker 2: they got there, David got out of the vehicle and
7:58
Speaker 2: threw the gun into the lake. Wayne wasn't the only
8:03
Speaker 2: one under investigation. The Bureau of Tobacco, Alcohol and Firearms
8:07
Speaker 2: was investigating David Ferrell on a matter unconnected with Paul's disappearance,
8:11
Speaker 2: so an ATF agent named Glenn Cook did some checking
8:15
Speaker 2: and found out that the year before, in March of
8:17
Speaker 2: nineteen ninety three, David had purchased an SKS rifle. So
8:22
Speaker 2: divers from Garland County went into the area near where
8:25
Speaker 2: Wayne claimed that gun was, and on May twentieth, nineteen
8:29
Speaker 2: ninety four, an investigator went into the water on the
8:32
Speaker 2: side of two seventy West Bridge and found a piece
8:35
Speaker 2: of an SKS the barrel receiver assembly, basically the core
8:40
Speaker 2: component of the gun. Investigators from the ATF matched the
8:46
Speaker 2: serial number of the pieces of the rifle they pulled
8:49
Speaker 2: from the lake to an SKS rifle that David got
8:52
Speaker 2: from Monny's Pawnshop in Hot.
8:53
Speaker 3: Springs, Arkansas.
8:55
Speaker 2: Investigator Cook also matched the document signatures of David to
8:59
Speaker 2: the pawnshop receipts. They confirmed this was David Ferrell's gun
9:04
Speaker 2: and they believed this could be their murder weapon, but
9:07
Speaker 2: they still were suspicious of Wayne Hortman. Police arrested Wayne Hortman,
9:12
Speaker 2: and on June second, they charged him with Paul Lloyd's murder.
9:17
Speaker 2: Then Wayne Hortman told him something else. He claimed he
9:21
Speaker 2: had not only seen the possible murder weapon thrown into
9:24
Speaker 2: the lake, but he had witnessed Paul Lloyd's murder himself.
9:41
Speaker 2: Wayne Hortman admitted to police that David killed Paul, not him.
9:46
Speaker 2: He said he had been at David's home on South
9:49
Speaker 2: Patterson Street on January fifteenth, and that David shot Paul there.
9:53
Speaker 2: Wayne said that David's girlfriend at the time, Regina, was
9:57
Speaker 2: also present, so police searched the house on South Patterson Street.
10:02
Speaker 2: They cut out three sections of carpet that were stained
10:05
Speaker 2: with blood and they sent them to the crime lab
10:07
Speaker 2: for testing. The results came back and found that the
10:12
Speaker 2: blood was not human blood, and yet they continued to
10:16
Speaker 2: build a case against David Ferrell. David claimed that on
10:21
Speaker 2: the day of Paul's murder, he wasn't at home at all.
10:24
Speaker 2: He said he was at work all day at Stroop
10:26
Speaker 2: Tire in Hot Springs, and after that he was babysitting.
10:29
Speaker 3: His two boys.
10:31
Speaker 2: But David was charged with capital murder. If convicted, he
10:35
Speaker 2: faced the death penalty. David told police that Wayne killed
10:40
Speaker 2: Paul Lloyd. He said Wayne was dealing drugs and also
10:43
Speaker 2: worked undercover with the police, and that meant Wayne could
10:46
Speaker 2: cut deals with the police and with the prosecutor to
10:49
Speaker 2: stay out of jail. Wayne did tell the police that
10:53
Speaker 2: he in an associate of his name, Freddie McCaslin, had
10:57
Speaker 2: been involved in major methamphetamine trafficking in Arkansas for eight years.
11:02
Speaker 2: Wayne explained every two weeks he would fly to Bell
11:05
Speaker 2: Gardens in California, which was near Los Angeles, to buy meth.
11:09
Speaker 3: Waine would then strap.
11:10
Speaker 2: Pounds of this methamphetamine to his belt line and fly
11:14
Speaker 2: back to Hot Springs to meet with Freddy, his contact. Meanwhile,
11:18
Speaker 2: Wayne was also talking to the police and he kept
11:21
Speaker 2: changing his story. First he said Paul Lloyd had been
11:24
Speaker 2: killed at David's house. Later he said Paul was killed
11:27
Speaker 2: at Crystal Springs Lake, then at a gravel pit, then
11:31
Speaker 2: along a highway between Hot Springs and Malvern. Finally, Wayne
11:35
Speaker 2: said Paul had been murdered on Jack Mountain, near where
11:39
Speaker 2: his remains were found on June third. After Wayne confessed
11:44
Speaker 2: about the shooting at Jack Mountain, Wayne Hortman cut a
11:47
Speaker 2: deal so the state dropped the capital murder charges against him,
11:51
Speaker 2: and in the end, he was only charged with hindering prosecution.
11:54
Speaker 2: In return, he promised to testify against David at trial.
11:59
Speaker 2: David was arrested in charge with capital murder and transferred
12:03
Speaker 2: to the Hot Springs.
12:03
Speaker 3: County Jail to await trial.
12:06
Speaker 2: As David's attorneys prepared for this trial, in July of
12:08
Speaker 2: nineteen ninety four, they filed motions for discovery. A lot
12:12
Speaker 2: of the discovery involved the physical evidence that had been
12:14
Speaker 2: taken to the state crime lab and they waited, but
12:18
Speaker 2: nothing ever came. The Arkansas State Crime Lab had long delays,
12:23
Speaker 2: and those delays actually almost derailed the trial entirely. In
12:28
Speaker 2: February of nineteen ninety five, Judge Sheeran threatened to dismiss
12:31
Speaker 2: the charges against David entirely due to the State Crime
12:35
Speaker 2: Laboratory's delays in evidence testing. He said the delays could
12:39
Speaker 2: potentially stop David's defense attorneys from having adequate time to
12:43
Speaker 2: prepare his case. The right to a speedy trial is
12:47
Speaker 2: required by Arkansas state law, which means most of these
12:50
Speaker 2: cases had to go to trial within a year. The
12:53
Speaker 2: judge set a timeline of February ninth for this evidence
12:56
Speaker 2: to be produced, and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and
13:00
Speaker 2: Firearms produced the tests in time to hit that deadline.
13:04
Speaker 2: The trial started and the state produced nine witnesses. Now,
13:07
Speaker 2: all of them said they heard David Bragg about shooting Paul.
13:11
Speaker 2: The prosecutor, Dan Harmon, said that his theory was that
13:15
Speaker 2: David killed Paul because David believed that Paul was a
13:18
Speaker 2: drug informant for the police. Again, these stakes were high
13:22
Speaker 2: for David. If convicted, he faced the death penalty. This
13:25
Speaker 2: was a capital murder charge when David's trial finally started
13:30
Speaker 2: in nineteen ninety five, and this is something I've never
13:33
Speaker 2: heard of happening. One of the other weird twists in
13:36
Speaker 2: this case was that the trial took place not in
13:39
Speaker 2: a courtroom, but in an industrial complex in Hot Springs.
13:44
Speaker 2: The reasons for the weird location were because there were
13:47
Speaker 2: supposedly renovations happening at the Hot Springs court It ended
13:51
Speaker 2: up being just another strange set of circumstances in an
13:55
Speaker 2: already very odd case. The state's case against David's seemed weak.
14:01
Speaker 2: They had no fingerprints or physical evidence tying David to
14:04
Speaker 2: the crime scene at all. They didn't even have a
14:07
Speaker 2: definite cause of death. But they had the bullets and
14:10
Speaker 2: the shell casings. A firearms expert, Joseph Mason, testified in
14:15
Speaker 2: court that he could conclusively match three of the four
14:18
Speaker 2: shell casings two David's SKS weapon, and although he said
14:22
Speaker 2: he was unable to make a definitive match between David's
14:24
Speaker 2: SKS and the bullet fragments found, he said that the
14:27
Speaker 2: bullets came from the same type of weapon as the SKS.
14:31
Speaker 2: Doctor Charles Kocus, the medical examiner, did not perform the autopsy,
14:35
Speaker 2: but he testified due to the decomposition of Paul's body,
14:39
Speaker 2: he could not conclusively determine.
14:41
Speaker 3: The cause of death.
14:42
Speaker 2: However, he did observe Paul's wounds were consistent with death
14:46
Speaker 2: by gunshot. The jacket and shirt that Paul Lloyd had
14:51
Speaker 2: been wearing each had three small holes in the back,
14:54
Speaker 2: which doctor Koca said were consistent with bullet entry, and
14:58
Speaker 2: an expert from the state crime Lab found traces of
15:01
Speaker 2: lead around the holes in the jacket and shirt, which
15:03
Speaker 2: he believed indicated bullet entry. Later in David's appeal, David
15:08
Speaker 2: made another incredible claim that the body found at Jack
15:12
Speaker 2: Mountain wasn't Paul Lloyd's at all, but that the prosecutor,
15:15
Speaker 2: Dan Harmon had substituted another John Doe body for Paul Lloyd's.
15:20
Speaker 2: Dan Harmon had a lot of issues of his own.
15:23
Speaker 2: He ended up resigning as a prosecutor a year after
15:26
Speaker 2: David Ferrell's trial after Dan Harmon was arrested on assault
15:30
Speaker 2: charges and Dan Harmon's illegal activities ultimately impacted David's overall case.
15:36
Speaker 3: But David couldn't.
15:38
Speaker 2: Prove Dan Harmon had planted a body and the skeleton
15:41
Speaker 2: in addition to having pieces of clothing nearby with whole
15:43
Speaker 2: in them that a firearms expert and testified could be
15:46
Speaker 2: bullet holes, was also wearing a belt with Paul written
15:49
Speaker 2: on the back. David also claimed that the people who
15:54
Speaker 2: said they had heard him confess to Paul's murder had
15:57
Speaker 2: been coerced or even threatened by Dan Harmon even after
16:01
Speaker 2: hearing those witnesses. Though the bulk of the state's case
16:04
Speaker 2: rested on one person, the alleged eye witness, Wayne Hortman,
16:08
Speaker 2: and as we said before, Wayne Hortman changed his story
16:12
Speaker 2: several times. In David's petition, he pointed out that quote,
16:16
Speaker 2: depending on which statement you read, Paul Lloyd was killed
16:20
Speaker 2: either at David's house, at Crystal Springs Lake, at a
16:22
Speaker 2: gravel pit along a highway between Hot Springs and Malvern,
16:26
Speaker 2: or actually on Jack Mountain, near where his remains were
16:29
Speaker 2: found end quote. The jury found David guilty of Paul's murder,
16:34
Speaker 2: but they did return with the recommendation of a lighter
16:37
Speaker 2: sentence than death, life without the possibility of parole, and
16:41
Speaker 2: Judge Sheeran agreed with the record commendation. In twenty ten,
16:47
Speaker 2: David's attorneys filed a writ of habeas corpus. David stated
16:51
Speaker 2: in his appeal that he believed that he was entitled
16:53
Speaker 2: to DNA and blood type testing. He claimed that he
16:56
Speaker 2: was convicted with false evidence. David stated both the State
17:01
Speaker 2: Crime Lab and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms
17:05
Speaker 2: failed to get a positive match on the bullets, shell casings,
17:08
Speaker 2: and fragments.
17:09
Speaker 3: Introduced him to evidence.
17:10
Speaker 2: Among other things, David claimed the verdict should be overturned
17:14
Speaker 2: because if the jury had known about the prosecutors behind
17:18
Speaker 2: the scenes activities, he would never have been convicted. David
17:22
Speaker 2: claimed that Dan Harmon, who along with the Prosecuting Attorney's
17:26
Speaker 2: Office of the seventh Judicial District of Arkansas ran the
17:30
Speaker 2: Seventh Judicial District Drug Task Force, coerced witnesses into saying
17:35
Speaker 2: David confessed to Paul's murder and this wasn't the first
17:38
Speaker 2: time Dan Harmon was charged with this kind of thing.
17:41
Speaker 2: In nineteen ninety seven, Dan Harmon and went to trial
17:44
Speaker 2: in federal court. He was convicted of federal racketeering, extortion,
17:48
Speaker 2: and drug conspiracy. The government charged that Harmon and his
17:53
Speaker 2: colleagues actually distributed marijuana themselves and also extorted people. Dan
17:58
Speaker 2: Harmon would blackmail them by promising not to prosecute.
18:01
Speaker 3: Them in exchange for money.
18:04
Speaker 2: One of the men who Dan Harmon allegedly blackmailed was
18:08
Speaker 2: Freddie McCaslin Wayne Hortman's meth dealing partner, and the behavior
18:13
Speaker 2: described in this federal case is truly shocking.
18:18
Speaker 3: In my opinion.
18:19
Speaker 2: In one instance, Dan told the wife of a man
18:22
Speaker 2: charge with possession of marijuana that if she spent the
18:25
Speaker 2: night with him at a hotel, they could work things out.
18:28
Speaker 3: She declined to take that.
18:29
Speaker 2: Offer, and Dan Harmon said he would drop the charges
18:32
Speaker 2: against her husband for ten thousand dollars. So the couple
18:35
Speaker 2: paid Dan Harmon and the charges were dropped. And not
18:39
Speaker 2: only did Dan Harmon make deals to extort money, he
18:42
Speaker 2: dealt drugs himself. The court alleged that Dan Harmon conspired
18:46
Speaker 2: to possess marijuana with intent to distribute, so he was
18:50
Speaker 2: involved in bringing marijuana into the house, repackaging it into
18:54
Speaker 2: one pound bags, and helping sell the marijuana. He also
18:58
Speaker 2: oversaw the collection of funds. So you have a situation
19:02
Speaker 2: where the prosecutor, the person in charge of punishing drug dealers,
19:06
Speaker 2: was not only dealing drugs himself, but was taking payments
19:09
Speaker 2: from other drug dealers in exchange for dropping charges against them.
19:15
Speaker 2: Dan Harmon was convicted of those charges plus some additional
19:18
Speaker 2: drug charges. In the end, he was behind bars for
19:21
Speaker 2: eight years. Dan Harmon was disbarred in nineteen ninety nine.
19:26
Speaker 2: He was also accused of using his office to facilitate
19:29
Speaker 2: sexual misconduct. This is important because this is the person
19:33
Speaker 2: who prosecuted David Ferrell. In the end, hundreds of cases
19:37
Speaker 2: were dismissed due to Dan Harmon's corruption, but David Ferrell's
19:42
Speaker 2: would not be one of them. Dan Harmon was released
19:53
Speaker 2: from prison in two thousand and six. Then four years later,
19:56
Speaker 2: in twenty ten, Dan Harmon was arrested again after allegedly
20:01
Speaker 2: selling drugs to an undercover officer near a school in Sheridan, Arkansas.
20:06
Speaker 2: He was acquitted of those drug charges. Dan Harmon stayed
20:09
Speaker 2: in Seline County after that and for the rest of
20:12
Speaker 2: his life. He died on September twenty second, twenty twenty three.
20:17
Speaker 3: At the age of seventy eight.
20:20
Speaker 2: In twenty eleven, Judge Philip Shearan announced his retirement. When
20:24
Speaker 2: the Sheridan Highlight asked him about his most unusual case,
20:28
Speaker 2: he said it was the capital murder trial of David Ferrell,
20:31
Speaker 2: which he told the newspaper was of considerable interest to
20:34
Speaker 2: a motorcycle gang. He said the trial had been moved
20:37
Speaker 2: to a quote makeshift courtroom in the Hot Springs County Industrial.
20:41
Speaker 3: Complex end quote.
20:43
Speaker 2: David Ferrell argued in his position for appeal that the
20:46
Speaker 2: jury never heard the complete story. He claimed there were
20:50
Speaker 2: major inconsistencies that were never fully disclosed. This included Wayne's
20:54
Speaker 2: connections to local drug dealers, who, in turn, David claimed
20:59
Speaker 2: were connected to Dan Harmon. This is called a Brady
21:03
Speaker 2: violation when the prosecution doesn't turn over exculpatory evidence that
21:07
Speaker 2: could have helped David's case. David claimed law enforcement knew
21:10
Speaker 2: of evidence that was not disclosed to the defense. If
21:14
Speaker 2: you're interested in the legal precedent, the actual case is
21:18
Speaker 2: Brady versus Maryland. It means that suppressing evidence, even if
21:21
Speaker 2: it's unintentional, can overturn a conviction if that evidence is material.
21:27
Speaker 2: David and his attorney's claimed the state's case depended on
21:30
Speaker 2: witnesses whose testimony had been compromised, either by promised undisclosed
21:35
Speaker 2: benefits or pressure by Dan Harmon. David claimed this case
21:40
Speaker 2: was tied to a bigger network, a network involving drug
21:43
Speaker 2: actimvity informants and a prosecutor who was also connected to
21:46
Speaker 2: the Drug Task Force, and David even claimed that federal agencies,
21:50
Speaker 2: the FBI, the ATF, and the DEA were aware of
21:54
Speaker 2: what was going on. In twenty fourteen, the case went
21:58
Speaker 2: to the Arkansas Supreme Court. David was asking to have
22:01
Speaker 2: some of the evidence presented at his trial retested. In
22:05
Speaker 2: May of twenty fourteen, David lost. The court ruled David
22:10
Speaker 2: had failed to show that the trial judge in Hot
22:12
Speaker 2: Springs County was wrong to have denied his request for
22:15
Speaker 2: a new review of the evidence. So David stayed in prison,
22:18
Speaker 2: where he remains to this day. David Ferrell has always
22:22
Speaker 2: maintained his innocence, and over the years he's filed several petitions.
22:27
Speaker 2: Multiple conflicting accounts have emerged. Some were given at trial,
22:32
Speaker 2: others years later in sworn affidavits. Some of these affidavits
22:36
Speaker 2: back up David's claims that he was not there when
22:39
Speaker 2: Paul was killed. One of them was from David's ex
22:42
Speaker 2: Mona Harris, swore in an affidavit that Dan Harmon had
22:46
Speaker 2: told her if she didn't give him the answers that
22:49
Speaker 2: he wanted, she would not be allowed to go home
22:52
Speaker 2: to see her two kids. David also as an affidavit
22:55
Speaker 2: from someone else, Paul Lloyd's girlfriend, Glenna. Now Glenna told
23:00
Speaker 2: a completely different story than Wayne Hortman did. In an Aphidavid,
23:06
Speaker 2: Glenna stated that the conviction of David had been a
23:08
Speaker 2: grave injustice, and she explained some background about what had
23:12
Speaker 2: brought her and Paul to David's house. Glenna said she
23:16
Speaker 2: originally contacted David around September of nineteen ninety three because
23:19
Speaker 2: David was an old friend of hers At the time.
23:22
Speaker 2: She said she was dating someone else, a boyfriend who
23:25
Speaker 2: was not Paul Lloyd. David said Glenna and her boyfriend
23:28
Speaker 2: could come to Arkansas to get back on their feet.
23:30
Speaker 3: She agreed.
23:31
Speaker 2: David picked Glenna and her boyfriend up at the bus
23:34
Speaker 2: station in Hot Springs. She and her boyfriend went to
23:37
Speaker 2: stay with David, David's girlfriend, Regina, who was living there
23:41
Speaker 2: at the time, and Paul Lloyd. At the time, David
23:44
Speaker 2: was making and selling meth for Wayne Hortman. After a
23:48
Speaker 2: few weeks had gone by, Paul and Glenna made a plan.
23:50
Speaker 2: Paul would drive her and her boyfriend back to Houston, Texas.
23:54
Speaker 2: But then there was some drama because Glenna said, on
23:58
Speaker 2: the night they were planning to leave, David found out
24:00
Speaker 2: that Regina was cheating on him and they got into
24:02
Speaker 2: a huge fight.
24:03
Speaker 3: Now this is where the gun comes.
24:04
Speaker 2: In because Glenna claim during that fight, Wayne Hortman asked
24:09
Speaker 2: her to take David's SKS rifle out of the house
24:13
Speaker 2: and give it to him. So she said that's what
24:15
Speaker 2: she did. She took David's gun and gave it to Wayne. Afterwards,
24:19
Speaker 2: she said, she Paul, and her boyfriend took off and
24:22
Speaker 2: left for Houston. When they got to Houston, Glenna said
24:25
Speaker 2: she and Paul dropped her boyfriend off and went to
24:28
Speaker 2: get some meth in a motel room and partied all night.
24:32
Speaker 2: Glenna said during that time, Paul was talking to her
24:34
Speaker 2: about a meth deal that he was planning to make
24:36
Speaker 2: with someone. Paul let those people take his truck. Then
24:40
Speaker 2: the people Paul made the deal with never came back
24:42
Speaker 2: with his vehicle. So then Paul called David back in
24:45
Speaker 2: Arkansas and asked for help. Then David somehow arranged for
24:49
Speaker 2: Paul to come home. Paul went back to Arkansas. Glenna
24:53
Speaker 2: stayed in touch with him. They were dating at that point.
24:56
Speaker 2: Glenna called Paul on New Year's Eve in nineteen ninety
24:58
Speaker 2: four and they made plans for her to come stay
25:00
Speaker 2: with him for a few days in Arkansas. So then Thursday,
25:04
Speaker 2: January thirteenth rolled around, Glenna borrowed a car from a
25:07
Speaker 2: friend of hers. She drove to Hot Springs and met
25:10
Speaker 2: up with Paul on January fourteenth, Friday morning, David was
25:13
Speaker 2: at work when Glenna got to their house, so she
25:16
Speaker 2: said she didn't see him, but she and Paul party
25:19
Speaker 2: that night and got back late. She said she never
25:22
Speaker 2: saw David on Friday, so this brings us back to
25:27
Speaker 2: that fateful next morning, January fifteenth, Glenna said David opened
25:31
Speaker 2: the door between seven and eight am and told Paul
25:34
Speaker 2: his mom was on the phone wondering why Paul wasn't
25:36
Speaker 2: at work. We've heard that story before, but this is
25:41
Speaker 2: where the story diverges because as Glenna said that, a
25:45
Speaker 2: short while later, after David left for work, Wayne Hortman
25:48
Speaker 2: came over to the house. Glenna said she knew who
25:51
Speaker 2: Wayne was. She said Wayne and Paul had been in
25:54
Speaker 2: business together dealing methamphetamines and on that morning, they had
25:57
Speaker 2: unfinished business involving drugs, money, and a motorcycle. According to
26:03
Speaker 2: what Glenna told police, Paul was planning to trade his
26:06
Speaker 2: Suzuki Intruder motorcycle to Wayne in exchange for an unspecified
26:10
Speaker 2: quantity of meth. Wayne wanted the bike, but Paul hadn't
26:14
Speaker 2: received full payment yet, so on that morning, Wayne told
26:17
Speaker 2: Paul he had the rest of what he owed him
26:19
Speaker 2: meeting the drugs and that the meth was out near
26:22
Speaker 2: a mountain somewhere. Wayne told Paul they should take a
26:25
Speaker 2: ride out there. Paul agreed, and at first Wayne told
26:29
Speaker 2: Glenna she should stay home, but Paul said no, that
26:32
Speaker 2: he and Glenna would ride together in her car and
26:34
Speaker 2: follow Wayne in his red truck. After that, Glenna and
26:38
Speaker 2: Paul planned to ride to Malvern to pick up Paul's paycheck,
26:41
Speaker 2: so Glenna said that's what they did. They left Hot
26:44
Speaker 2: Springs together. Wayne drove in his red truck, Paul and
26:48
Speaker 2: Glenna followed. When they got a few miles out of town,
26:51
Speaker 2: the road started getting smaller, and then they turned onto
26:54
Speaker 2: a dirt road, and, according to what Glenna told police,
26:57
Speaker 2: across a low wooden bridge, approximately three miles down a
27:01
Speaker 2: dirt path. She said the bridge was quote just long
27:05
Speaker 2: boards crossing a creek. It was quite scary end quote.
27:09
Speaker 2: Wayne stopped, she pulled up behind him. Paul got out
27:13
Speaker 2: of her car and walked up to Wayne's truck. The
27:16
Speaker 2: two of them sat in Wayne's truck for a few minutes,
27:18
Speaker 2: and then they got out and Paul and Wayne started
27:21
Speaker 2: walking up the side of a steep hill about fifty
27:23
Speaker 2: yards away on the right side of the road. Glenna
27:26
Speaker 2: saw that Wayne had a rifle that looked like the
27:29
Speaker 2: one he asked her to take from David's house several
27:31
Speaker 2: months earlier. She said they were gone for a few
27:34
Speaker 2: minutes and then she saw Wayne hold the rifle up
27:38
Speaker 2: and fire the first shot, but she said.
27:40
Speaker 3: She didn't see what he hit.
27:42
Speaker 2: Then she said she heard more guns, maybe three or four,
27:45
Speaker 2: and then another final single shot. Glenna said in the
27:50
Speaker 2: affidavit quote, I don't like guns, and I was already
27:52
Speaker 2: scared of being out in the woods, and I was
27:54
Speaker 2: afraid someone would call the police to report the gunshots
27:57
Speaker 2: that someone was out in the woods acting stupid. So
28:00
Speaker 2: I started my car and drove off really fast. I said,
28:03
Speaker 2: to hell with this, I'm not gonna end up in
28:05
Speaker 2: jail because they want to play with guns. While in
28:07
Speaker 2: the middle of the woods doing a dope deal end quote,
28:11
Speaker 2: she said she got back into her car and drove away.
28:15
Speaker 2: If Glenna's account is accurate, it directly contradicts the version
28:19
Speaker 2: of events presented at trial. So why didn't Glenna come
28:24
Speaker 2: forward sooner? She said in her affidavit that she was
28:28
Speaker 2: unaware that David had been convicted of Paul's murder. She
28:32
Speaker 2: said if she knew what was going on at the time,
28:34
Speaker 2: that she would have gone to the police. In addition
28:37
Speaker 2: to Glenna's accounts of what happened that morning, David produced
28:41
Speaker 2: other affidavits from his two young sons. David's son Carl,
28:45
Speaker 2: stated in the affidavit that David could not have killed
28:48
Speaker 2: Paul because on the night that Paul disappeared, David was
28:51
Speaker 2: with Carl and his brother Cody all night. He remembers
28:55
Speaker 2: David falling asleep in the recliner holding Cody and not
28:58
Speaker 2: waking up and leaving until his.
29:00
Speaker 3: Mom came in from her late night shift.
29:03
Speaker 2: Carl said he remembered that day well because it was
29:06
Speaker 2: the last night they spent with their father in ten years.
29:10
Speaker 2: Carl said that the prosecutor did not allow him to testify,
29:13
Speaker 2: but he said if he had, Carl would have sworn
29:16
Speaker 2: in court that his father was with him and his brother.
29:20
Speaker 2: Carl's brother Cody made a similar sworn affidavit. So if
29:24
Speaker 2: those statements are true, why was David charged with Paul's murder.
29:30
Speaker 2: David testified during his trial that Wayne had told him
29:34
Speaker 2: he had the police in his pocket and that if he,
29:37
Speaker 2: meaning David, knew what was good for him, he would
29:39
Speaker 2: keep quiet about Paul Lloyd. David said Wayne told him
29:44
Speaker 2: he had at least fifty instances where he had cut
29:46
Speaker 2: deals with the police to get off of pending charges.
29:50
Speaker 2: Wayne has completely denied that version of events and stated
29:54
Speaker 2: he was not involved in Paul Lloyd's death.
29:56
Speaker 3: It's important to remember all charges against.
29:59
Speaker 2: Wayne Hortman were dropped, and neither he nor anyone else
30:02
Speaker 2: connected to him has ever been arrested or charged in
30:06
Speaker 2: connection with Paul Lloyd's murder. David was convicted of Paul's murder. However,
30:12
Speaker 2: the inconsistencies in this case and the irregularities in the
30:16
Speaker 2: prosecutor's behavior afterwards, have led a lot of people to
30:19
Speaker 2: wonder what really happened on January fifteenth, nineteen ninety four
30:24
Speaker 2: out in those woods? Was David Ferrell there at all?
30:27
Speaker 2: And as we continue to look into this case, we
30:29
Speaker 2: have been communicating with David Ferrell. We would also like
30:33
Speaker 2: to talk to anyone who was involved in Dan Harmon's prosecutions.
30:38
Speaker 2: Did David Ferrell really kill Paul Lloyd? And if it
30:43
Speaker 2: wasn't David Ferrell, could Paul's killer still be out there?
30:48
Speaker 2: I'm Katherine Townsend. This is Helen Gone Murder Line. Helen
30:53
Speaker 2: Gone Murder Line is a production of School of Humans
30:55
Speaker 2: and iHeart Podcasts. It's written and narrated by me Catherine
30:58
Speaker 2: Townsend and produced by Etily's Perez Special thanks to Amy
31:02
Speaker 2: Tubbs for her research assistance and James Wheaton for legal review.
31:05
Speaker 2: Noah Camera mixed and scored this episode. Our theme song
31:08
Speaker 2: is by Ben Sale, Executive producers of Virginia Prescott, Brandon Barr,
31:12
Speaker 2: and LC Crowley. Listen to Helen Gone adfree by subscribing
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Speaker 2: to the iHeart True Crime Plus channel on Apple Podcasts.
31:19
Speaker 2: If you were interested in seeing documents and materials from
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Speaker 2: the case, you can follow the show on Instagram at
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Speaker 2: and my team to look into. You can reach out
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