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Hell and Gone Murder Line: William Vick Part 1 · Hell and Gone: Murder Line

0:08
Speaker 1: School of Humans.
0:11
Speaker 2: On January seventeenth, twenty twenty three, fifty three year old
0:14
Speaker 2: William Vick was recovering at home in Clarksville, Arkansas. William
0:21
Speaker 2: was in good health. He loved making videos for his
0:25
Speaker 2: YouTube channel. I've been watching them, and obviously William got
0:28
Speaker 2: a lot of joy from making short films with his
0:31
Speaker 2: granddaughter and also riffing on everything from insomnia to pillar reviews,
0:37
Speaker 2: and even interviewing members of law enforcement about infamous Arkansas
0:41
Speaker 2: murder cases. It seems like William may have been a
0:44
Speaker 2: true crime fan. In these videos, William looks fit, healthy,
0:48
Speaker 2: and younger than his fifty three years. I feel like
0:51
Speaker 2: if I had known him in life, we would have
0:53
Speaker 2: been friends. William had gone in for a ton selectomy
0:56
Speaker 2: operation the week before. Apparently he had been experiencing some complications.
1:02
Speaker 2: He had texted his daughter Ashley to say that he
1:05
Speaker 2: believed that something inside him was broken and that he
1:09
Speaker 2: was throwing up a large amount of blood in the sink.
1:12
Speaker 2: Ashley was worried. She told her dad this did not
1:15
Speaker 2: seem normal to her. She encouraged him to go see
1:17
Speaker 2: the doctor, but William's wife, Lareinda, had worked as an
1:21
Speaker 2: ear nurse, and Ashley believed that her stepmother was taking
1:25
Speaker 2: care of her father. Lrenda's mother, Martha MacLean, was also around.
1:29
Speaker 2: She lived in a separate structure on William and Lorenda's property,
1:33
Speaker 2: right behind their house. A lot of what we know
1:36
Speaker 2: is pieced together after the fact from coroner's reports and
1:40
Speaker 2: case notes. We do know that at eleven twenty two,
1:43
Speaker 2: the Johnson County Deputy Coroner, Dave Cogan, arrived at nineteen
1:48
Speaker 2: fifty four County Road responding to an unexpected death. He
1:52
Speaker 2: spoke to Lorenda. According to the coroner's report, she told
1:56
Speaker 2: the deputy corner that she had been staying in a
1:58
Speaker 2: separate room from her husband because she had been sick
2:01
Speaker 2: recently and was worried about COVID. The deputy coroner noted
2:05
Speaker 2: that William was already in full rigor mortis, meaning that
2:09
Speaker 2: he had been dead and lying on that floor for
2:12
Speaker 2: a long time. William Vick was fifty three years old.
2:16
Speaker 2: He went in for what was supposed to be a
2:18
Speaker 2: routine operation, and a few days later he was dead.
2:22
Speaker 2: And this was just the beginning of an investigation that
2:25
Speaker 2: involves charges of insurance fraud. Two mysterious deaths and a
2:30
Speaker 2: family torn apart. I'm Catherine Townsend. Over the past five
2:34
Speaker 2: years of making my true crime podcast, Helen Gone, I've
2:38
Speaker 2: learned that there's no such thing as a small town
2:40
Speaker 2: where murder never happens. I have received hundreds of messages
2:44
Speaker 2: from people all around the country asking for help with
2:47
Speaker 2: an unsolved murder that's affected them, their families, and their communities.
2:52
Speaker 2: If you have a case you'd like me and my
2:54
Speaker 2: team to look into, you can reach out to us
2:56
Speaker 2: at our Helen Gone Murder Line at six seven eight
2:59
Speaker 2: seven four four six ' one four or five. That's
3:02
Speaker 2: six seven eight seven four four six one four or five,
3:07
Speaker 2: or you can send us a message on Instagram at
3:10
Speaker 2: Helen gonepod. This is Helen Gone Murder Line. The crime
4:02
Speaker 2: scene was not investigated by law enforcement, just the corner,
4:06
Speaker 2: and the report reads that the reason for reporting is
4:09
Speaker 2: natural or sudden death. The coroner's investigator noted that Lorenda
4:15
Speaker 2: had not called nine to one one or the police. Instead,
4:18
Speaker 2: she called the coroner's office directly. Pamela is the corner,
4:23
Speaker 2: Pamela wrote, and I'm quoting the report directly here she
4:27
Speaker 2: meaning Lrenda was an er nurse here in Clarksville at
4:30
Speaker 2: one time, and I believe her to be a nurse
4:33
Speaker 2: at a facility in Pope or Yale County. Now this
4:36
Speaker 2: fact might mean that she is familiar with us as coroners,
4:40
Speaker 2: but she would also know from working IRIR that our
4:43
Speaker 2: protocol is to call nine to one one or the
4:46
Speaker 2: Sheriff's office or a dispatch. The coroner number is not
4:50
Speaker 2: easily found for the normal citizen, but it is not
4:53
Speaker 2: impossible to get. It is not given out to the
4:56
Speaker 2: public by law enforcement or medical personnel. It would not
5:00
Speaker 2: be the obvious or easiest action to take when you
5:03
Speaker 2: find your spouse prone on the bedroom floor. It would, however,
5:06
Speaker 2: be something the average citizen might do to avoid having
5:10
Speaker 2: law enforcement in their home. The report indicates that the
5:14
Speaker 2: deputy coroner found Larinda reaching out to the coroner directly
5:19
Speaker 2: a bit odd because Lrenda was a nurse. The report
5:23
Speaker 2: said they felt that her normal reaction should be to
5:26
Speaker 2: call nine one one, even if it was obvious that
5:29
Speaker 2: her husband was dead. The sheriff's investigators in Johnson County
5:33
Speaker 2: began looking into William Vick's life and asking questions about
5:37
Speaker 2: his relationships, and they were asking about other things, including
5:42
Speaker 2: life insurance policies that William's brother Ted and his daughter
5:46
Speaker 2: Ashley say had been taken out in the year before
5:49
Speaker 2: his death, and the policies totaled eight hundred and fifty
5:53
Speaker 2: thousand dollars. William Earl Vick was born on August eighth,
6:04
Speaker 2: nineteen sixty nine, in Russellville, Arkansas. He had one son,
6:08
Speaker 2: also named William, who will refer to as will and
6:12
Speaker 2: a daughter, Ashley. He also had two step sons who
6:15
Speaker 2: were Larenda's sons from a previous relationship. According to his obituary,
6:20
Speaker 2: Lorenda's sons live in Mississippi, while William's daughter, Ashley lives
6:24
Speaker 2: in Russellville. Will also lives in Arkansas. William was married
6:28
Speaker 2: to Jacinda, Ashley and Will's mother, for eighteen years. They
6:32
Speaker 2: divorced around two thousand and nine. William met Lareinda in
6:35
Speaker 2: the early part of twenty eleven, and then a few
6:38
Speaker 2: months later they were married. As an adult, William worked
6:42
Speaker 2: several different jobs. According to his brother Ted, William was
6:46
Speaker 2: a personal trainer in Jim's for a while. He also
6:48
Speaker 2: did some work in law enforcement. We talked to Ted
6:51
Speaker 2: on the phone.
6:53
Speaker 3: So he was the personal trainer for a long time
6:56
Speaker 3: on gyms and stuff like that, and then he was
6:58
Speaker 3: a deputy or the Johnson County Sheriff's Department for a
7:02
Speaker 3: little while, and then he went over to the university
7:06
Speaker 3: in Clarksville. I think he was actually working for an attorney,
7:09
Speaker 3: and they never really said what he did. I think
7:11
Speaker 3: he did like private investigator stuff for him and kind
7:15
Speaker 3: of ran down leads for him and stuff like that.
7:18
Speaker 3: But he was going back to work for the Jonathan
7:22
Speaker 3: County Sheriff's Department just in about a week a week,
7:26
Speaker 3: you know, after he murdered. He had already put his
7:30
Speaker 3: application in, it was accepted, and he was going to
7:32
Speaker 3: go up and be a bailiff in the courthouse.
7:36
Speaker 2: Since William married Larinda, both Ted and William's daughter Ashley
7:41
Speaker 2: say that their relationship with William suffered. Four years before
7:46
Speaker 2: William's death, Ted said that he discovered that money was
7:50
Speaker 2: missing from their parents' bank account, an account that Ted
7:54
Speaker 2: claimed William had access to. Ted is very transparent about
7:58
Speaker 2: the fact that, due to this rift over their parents'
8:01
Speaker 2: money and William's alleged access to it, that they had
8:04
Speaker 2: not spoken in about four years. At the time of
8:07
Speaker 2: William's death, Ted said that he found bank records, records
8:12
Speaker 2: that showed that Lrenda was allegedly using a debit card
8:16
Speaker 2: that was linked to his parents' account. According to Ted,
8:20
Speaker 2: she appeared to be using it to buy gas and clothing.
8:24
Speaker 2: This turned into a family confrontation, but despite this, Ted
8:28
Speaker 2: said that he loved William. We also talked to Ashley,
8:32
Speaker 2: William's daughter, and she said that she was always close
8:35
Speaker 2: to her dad growing up.
8:37
Speaker 1: He got me how to time my shoes. My parents
8:39
Speaker 1: worked all the time, so they worked opposite shifts a lot.
8:43
Speaker 3: Of the time.
8:44
Speaker 1: I think he worked nice when I was learning that stuff,
8:47
Speaker 1: so he taught me that during the day.
8:49
Speaker 2: William was with Ashley and William Junior's mother for eighteen years,
8:53
Speaker 2: and Ashley said that their divorce was tough and they
8:56
Speaker 2: went through a lot, but that they loved each other
8:58
Speaker 2: and always had love for each other even after they
9:01
Speaker 2: split up. But after Larenda came into the picture, ash
9:05
Speaker 2: said that there was tension between her and her stepmother.
9:09
Speaker 2: Ashley said that Lareinda did not like her. She said
9:12
Speaker 2: that because of that, she saw her father less and.
9:16
Speaker 1: Less unless she was at work, then he would call
9:19
Speaker 1: me or if he was going to the store for
9:22
Speaker 1: whatever reason. You know, he would talk to me then
9:26
Speaker 1: and we would text back and forth occasionally, of course,
9:28
Speaker 1: but she said I was a full brat, even though
9:30
Speaker 1: my parents did not have money. They are not rich people.
9:34
Speaker 1: But she would tell me that I was a bull brat,
9:37
Speaker 1: I was a bitch, and all kinds of things she
9:39
Speaker 1: would say to my face end behind my back. Most
9:42
Speaker 1: all of it was behind my back, but you know,
9:46
Speaker 1: family member's shock.
9:47
Speaker 2: During the last year of William's life, Ashley said that
9:51
Speaker 2: they started to get closer again. It seemed like listening
9:55
Speaker 2: to her talk that she finally felt like she had
9:58
Speaker 2: her father back.
9:59
Speaker 1: We would go to lunch together every week. I don't know,
10:03
Speaker 1: he just got a different job. I guess where he
10:06
Speaker 1: was able to do that. He was coming to rest
10:07
Speaker 1: of Ville once a week where I lived, and so
10:09
Speaker 1: he was able to go to lunch with me every week.
10:12
Speaker 1: But she would always call all we were at lunch
10:15
Speaker 1: together and it was good. I mean, I felt like
10:18
Speaker 1: the last two year of his life as an adult,
10:20
Speaker 1: we were closest and I would go over there. She
10:23
Speaker 1: worked a lot, she traveled. He's a traveling nurse, so
10:25
Speaker 1: when she was out of town, me and my three
10:27
Speaker 1: kids would go over there a lot and go hiking,
10:30
Speaker 1: and you know, he had some land and a pond
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Speaker 1: that we'd go over there and fish and just just
10:35
Speaker 1: hang out with him generally.
10:36
Speaker 2: Ashley said that her brother Will was living with Lrenda
10:40
Speaker 2: and their father, but just a few days before her
10:43
Speaker 2: father died, she said Lreinda pressured her father to get
10:48
Speaker 2: Will to move out.
10:49
Speaker 1: And then she was very adamant about getting him to
10:52
Speaker 1: move out. She wanted him to move out. She was
10:54
Speaker 1: pressuring him, pressuring my dad to kick my brother out,
10:58
Speaker 1: and my brother just finally hadn't said in us, and
11:01
Speaker 1: he just moved out. And my dad after that happened
11:04
Speaker 1: and called me. I never heard of fan cry, and
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Speaker 1: he cried and said how he should not have let
11:11
Speaker 1: Lareinda treat my brother that way.
11:14
Speaker 3: I'm sorry.
11:15
Speaker 1: My dad was like such a strong person.
11:18
Speaker 2: Now I should say that we have contacted Larinda for comment.
11:23
Speaker 2: She said she had no comment, and she referred us
11:25
Speaker 2: to her lawyer, who we have reached out to. My
11:29
Speaker 2: point is we are only hearing one side of the
11:32
Speaker 2: story here, and it's not abnormal for new wives to
11:35
Speaker 2: have conflicts with children, and even in some cases for
11:38
Speaker 2: adult children to blame their stepmother for conflicts with their father,
11:43
Speaker 2: but Ashley claims that Lorenda has tried to paint a
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Speaker 2: picture of her father William, as being abusive in some way,
11:50
Speaker 2: something that she says is absolutely not true.
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Speaker 1: My parents had up and downs. But Arenda, he's trying
11:57
Speaker 1: to put this narrative out there now, like my dad
12:00
Speaker 1: was this terrible person. But she hasn't been screaming at
12:04
Speaker 1: the past year and a half. If anything, I saw
12:07
Speaker 1: the emotional abuse from her end because of how she
12:11
Speaker 1: treated me and how he wasn't allowed to talk to
12:14
Speaker 1: me when she was around. What kind of woman doesn't
12:18
Speaker 1: want a man talking to his children. I thinks it's
12:21
Speaker 1: weird to talk to your daughter, that you were too close.
12:25
Speaker 4: It's true, child.
12:26
Speaker 1: I feel like I don't know she did. I feel
12:30
Speaker 1: like she was trying to control him and he finally
12:33
Speaker 1: had an as and she isn't that That is my
12:36
Speaker 1: personal opinion.
12:38
Speaker 2: Ashley said she was surprised when, just a few weeks
12:41
Speaker 2: before her father died, he talked to her about having
12:44
Speaker 2: a life insurance policy. It turned out that he had
12:47
Speaker 2: taken out a policy with Farmers for five hundred thousand
12:50
Speaker 2: dollars and that in the event of his death, Lareinda
12:53
Speaker 2: would receive fifty percent and each of his children would
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Speaker 2: receive twenty five percent. Now we're going to get a
12:59
Speaker 2: lot more into the intricacies of the insurance policies in
13:02
Speaker 2: next week's episode, but for now, I'll say this is
13:05
Speaker 2: all only one insurance policy. It turns out that there
13:08
Speaker 2: was more than one.
13:10
Speaker 1: So two weeks before he passed, he was talking to
13:13
Speaker 1: me about it, saying, jokingly saying, he's worth more dead
13:18
Speaker 1: than he is alive because his life insurance policy is
13:21
Speaker 1: so much, and he mentioned it. He was very adamant.
13:25
Speaker 1: You know when that gets half fifty percent, but you
13:30
Speaker 1: and your brother each get twenty five percent. I think
13:32
Speaker 1: the most of my dad ever said on me for
13:35
Speaker 1: a holiday was he bought me tennis shoes.
13:37
Speaker 2: But William was only fifty three years old and for
13:40
Speaker 2: the most part in great health. Ted brought this up
13:43
Speaker 2: when we talked to him as well. He said that
13:46
Speaker 2: even though he was not involved in his brother's life
13:49
Speaker 2: at the time, when William took out this latest insurance policy,
13:52
Speaker 2: he felt that the amount was excessive given William's job
13:55
Speaker 2: history and earning potential.
13:58
Speaker 3: My brother had a life insurance policy through the state
14:00
Speaker 3: farm and they couldn't even afford to pay that, And
14:04
Speaker 3: he had had it for five or six years, and
14:06
Speaker 3: they couldn't afford to pay that monthly payment, so they
14:10
Speaker 3: canceled it. And then all of a sudden, you know,
14:13
Speaker 3: a couple of years later, nothing really changes. They didn't
14:16
Speaker 3: come into any money. She still had the same job,
14:20
Speaker 3: he was still doing the same stuff, and then all
14:24
Speaker 3: of a sudden they can afford to post to a million.
14:27
Speaker 2: William's ton selectomy wasn't an emergency. It was something he
14:30
Speaker 2: had scheduled ahead of time. It was a routine operation,
14:34
Speaker 2: and he was sent home afterwards to recover with a
14:36
Speaker 2: prescription drug called tramadol. Now we don't know exactly when
14:41
Speaker 2: he was prescribed that tramadol. We're assuming he was sent
14:44
Speaker 2: home with it after his operation, but we don't have
14:47
Speaker 2: William's medical records, and we do not have a record
14:51
Speaker 2: of exactly when he got that prescription. So far, we
14:54
Speaker 2: have also been unable to confirm the name of the
14:57
Speaker 2: doctor who performed the ton selectomy. The coroner's report noted
15:01
Speaker 2: that they were still attempting to get in touch with
15:04
Speaker 2: the surgeon who performed the tonsol ectomy, but we don't
15:06
Speaker 2: know if they did. They were also trying to get
15:09
Speaker 2: William's medical records. The report noted that they were provided
15:13
Speaker 2: with some records by Laurinda, but that the records they
15:16
Speaker 2: got were several years old and they were trying to
15:19
Speaker 2: get more recent information. Ashley had lunch with William just
15:23
Speaker 2: a day before his operation on Friday, which again was
15:27
Speaker 2: meant to be totally routine. He called her right before
15:30
Speaker 2: he went into surgery on Friday. She never heard her
15:34
Speaker 2: father's voice again.
15:36
Speaker 1: I was Wednesday, and then Thursday, him and Laurenda went
15:39
Speaker 1: out to eat together for his last meal. He called
15:41
Speaker 1: it before surgery, and then he had surgery on Friday.
15:44
Speaker 1: So that Wednesday, yeah, I mean have passed.
15:47
Speaker 2: After having the operation on Friday, William was sent home.
15:51
Speaker 2: But then her father texted her and told her that
15:55
Speaker 2: he was throwing up blood. Then he sent Ashley a
15:58
Speaker 2: picture of a sink full of blood. Ashley was concerned
16:08
Speaker 2: about her dad. William had just had tom selectomy surgery,
16:12
Speaker 2: and he sent her a photo in it his sink
16:16
Speaker 2: was full of blood.
16:17
Speaker 1: I mean, he had sent me a picture of him
16:21
Speaker 1: throwing up blood. In the sink. It was a lot
16:23
Speaker 1: of blood and I was begging him to take you
16:25
Speaker 1: to the hospital. I even reached out to Lorenda and said,
16:29
Speaker 1: don't you know you're a nurse, don't She didn't you
16:31
Speaker 1: need to go to the hospital, And she said, oh, well,
16:33
Speaker 1: you know how stubborn your dad is. He doesn't want
16:35
Speaker 1: to go. And I said, you're a nurse, You're his wife.
16:39
Speaker 1: Forced him to go to the hospital. He should not
16:41
Speaker 1: be puking blood.
16:43
Speaker 2: Ashley said that she begged Laurinda to take her father
16:47
Speaker 2: to the hospital. The text messages that ashley next exchange
16:51
Speaker 2: with her father haunt her to this day.
16:54
Speaker 1: I said, don't die on me or I'll be traumatized,
16:57
Speaker 1: and he said, loll okay, I'm well. That was one
17:00
Speaker 1: of her last conversations.
17:02
Speaker 2: Ashley assumed that her dad was getting better that weekend.
17:05
Speaker 2: Next week, Ashley said she got a call the completely
17:09
Speaker 2: shocked her. Someone told her that her father was dead
17:13
Speaker 2: William and Dad on Tuesday. Ashley didn't find out until Thursday,
17:18
Speaker 2: and she said that that call did not come from Lorenda.
17:22
Speaker 1: She did not inform me at all. Actually, she did
17:25
Speaker 1: not tell me he passed. I had to find out
17:29
Speaker 1: from somebody else who called me and said, I'm so
17:33
Speaker 1: sorry to hear about your dad, and I said, I've
17:36
Speaker 1: know ide you were talking about. And they were obviously confused,
17:42
Speaker 1: and so I tried to call my dad and of
17:45
Speaker 1: course he didn't answer his phone, and then I called
17:47
Speaker 1: Lorenda and I was like, what's going on? She said,
17:50
Speaker 1: I'm sorry, I just didn't know how to tell you. Yeah,
17:54
Speaker 1: And I was like, what do you mean what You
17:56
Speaker 1: didn't know how to tell me what? And she was like,
17:59
Speaker 1: he didn't make it. And I was like, what what
18:00
Speaker 1: do you talk about? What do you mean he didn't
18:03
Speaker 1: make it? And then I just hung up on her
18:06
Speaker 1: because I was like, my first instinct was that she
18:08
Speaker 1: did something to him, But then you think, that's crazy.
18:11
Speaker 1: That doesn't happen to me, That doesn't happen to normal people.
18:15
Speaker 4: I thought, why would that happen? Things like this don't
18:18
Speaker 4: happen in real life.
18:19
Speaker 1: This is things you see on TV, And then of
18:22
Speaker 1: course I did.
18:24
Speaker 2: Ashley said that a few days later, she mentioned the
18:27
Speaker 2: life insurance policy, the one that she said her father
18:30
Speaker 2: had been talking to her about. She said that Lorenda
18:33
Speaker 2: told her she hadn't even started thinking about life insurance policies,
18:37
Speaker 2: but Ashley insists that she later found out that that
18:40
Speaker 2: wasn't the case.
18:41
Speaker 1: She said, well, let's just thought something I'm even thinking
18:43
Speaker 1: about or worrying about, and then come to find out
18:47
Speaker 1: she asked about it the next I mean the next
18:50
Speaker 1: day after him passing, before she even I knew he passed,
18:54
Speaker 1: she was already asking about the life insurance. So that
18:57
Speaker 1: was just something she whied about.
18:59
Speaker 2: William Vick was cremated, which Ashley said she knew her
19:03
Speaker 2: father wanted. But Ashley said that she was hurt when
19:07
Speaker 2: Lorenda and her children spread her father's ashes without her.
19:12
Speaker 1: He was only cremated, He never had services. He said
19:15
Speaker 1: that was not something he wanted. I'm sure he would
19:18
Speaker 1: have had a visitation, but she said, you know, it
19:20
Speaker 1: was not something he wanted. He wanted to be cremated,
19:23
Speaker 1: which I didn't know that he didn't want to be cremated.
19:25
Speaker 1: We got his ashes A while later. I said, I'm
19:29
Speaker 1: not ready for that yet, can we can? We just
19:31
Speaker 1: pulled off and she just did.
19:32
Speaker 4: It with her kids. She and her kids spread his
19:35
Speaker 4: ashes without me or my brothers. So all I have
19:38
Speaker 4: is the little jar, the heart shaped jar. She'd given me,
19:42
Speaker 4: and so I ended up giving my brothers some of
19:45
Speaker 4: those ashes.
19:47
Speaker 1: I'm sorry she didn't want to wait, he didn't.
19:52
Speaker 4: She just wanted to get rid of dashes. Yeah, she could,
19:57
Speaker 4: but it was not very long after we got his ashes.
20:01
Speaker 4: But I just wasn't ready to spreads with yours, but
20:04
Speaker 4: she was. They're legally hers.
20:07
Speaker 2: So Ashley talked about her father's sense of humor. William
20:14
Speaker 2: Vick had a YouTube channel, and in one of those videos,
20:18
Speaker 2: the one I mentioned earlier and actually the last one
20:20
Speaker 2: he posted, he was talking about true crime the Ronald
20:24
Speaker 2: Gene Simmons case. For the thirty fifth anniversary of the murders,
20:28
Speaker 2: William interviewed the lead investigator on the case, named Ray Caldwell.
20:32
Speaker 2: William also made short films about a dystopian future, and
20:37
Speaker 2: in some of his videos he talked about his insomnia
20:40
Speaker 2: and crack jokes. A lot of his riffs are straight
20:43
Speaker 2: to camera, wearing an Arkansas baseball cap and smiling.
20:47
Speaker 1: Everybody that's seen his videos and have heard my tackling
20:51
Speaker 1: laugh think we laughed just alike, which is not I'm
20:54
Speaker 1: getting used to laugh that way. I don't know what,
20:57
Speaker 1: I don't know my laugh, but it's just when my
20:59
Speaker 1: laugh really hard at some chef like his funny hyena
21:01
Speaker 1: laugh that he has, but a man who would crack
21:04
Speaker 1: each other up.
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Speaker 2: At first, Ashley said she was somewhat numb after her
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Speaker 2: father passed away, but it wasn't long before she began
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Speaker 2: to notice things that she believed did not add up.
21:17
Speaker 2: One of the things that bothered her the most was
21:19
Speaker 2: realizing that Lorenda had not called nine one one, but
21:23
Speaker 2: instead called the coroner directly.
21:26
Speaker 1: She was like, well, I'm a nurse. I knew he
21:27
Speaker 1: was dead, okay, but you were a nurse and you
21:29
Speaker 1: didn't take up to the hospital when he was kicking blood.
21:31
Speaker 1: But you're a nurse enough to know that he was dead.
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Speaker 1: I mean, in my panic, if even if I was
21:37
Speaker 1: a nurse and my bouse was dead on the ground,
21:40
Speaker 1: my first thought would be nine to one one, not
21:42
Speaker 1: let me google the coroner and call them directly.
21:46
Speaker 2: Then there was the fact that her father's body was
21:49
Speaker 2: already in full rigor mortis. Lorenda said she had not
21:52
Speaker 2: come in to check on William in over ten hours.
21:55
Speaker 2: Ashley wondered why, if he was sick, if he had
21:58
Speaker 2: been coughing up blood, why Lorenda would not take him
22:02
Speaker 2: to the hospital. Lorenda told the coroners investigator that William
22:06
Speaker 2: had high cholesterol and may have heart disease, but according
22:09
Speaker 2: to the medical examiner's report, there was no sign of
22:12
Speaker 2: heart disease. The coroner also noted there was no blood
22:16
Speaker 2: on William's bedroom floor, which they looked for because he
22:19
Speaker 2: had been vomiting blood days earlier. When they began a
22:23
Speaker 2: toxicology screen, they did find traces of drugs in William's system.
22:27
Speaker 2: Post mortan blood testing showed positive for tramadol, the prescription medicine,
22:31
Speaker 2: but also for lethal levels of lurazapam and massive quantities
22:37
Speaker 2: of morphine and codeine. The cause of death was listed
22:40
Speaker 2: as combined mixed prescription and illicit drug toxicity. William Vick
22:46
Speaker 2: was not suicidal. He was in good spirits. He was
22:48
Speaker 2: happy about life, and other than a routine operation, he
22:52
Speaker 2: really had absolutely nothing physically wrong with him. William's family
22:57
Speaker 2: did not believe that he had died of some sort
22:59
Speaker 2: of accident. They believed that someone killed him, and it
23:03
Speaker 2: seems like they were right because on jam Anyuary twenty third,
23:06
Speaker 2: twenty twenty three, six days after William was found dead
23:10
Speaker 2: on the bedroom floor police found a murder confession. Someone
23:15
Speaker 2: claimed that they tampered with William's medication and injected him
23:18
Speaker 2: with another drug. But the confession didn't come from Mirenda.
23:23
Speaker 2: It was written by her mother, Martha MacLean, who everyone
23:27
Speaker 2: believed was incredibly frail, and he was living in a
23:30
Speaker 2: separate structure on their property. Officers had been doing a
23:35
Speaker 2: welfare check on Martha when they found her struggling to
23:38
Speaker 2: breathe with morphine and la razepan bottles scattered around her.
23:43
Speaker 2: She had a handwritten note next to the bed.
23:46
Speaker 1: I want to bust this for my dad. Obviously who
23:49
Speaker 1: would have But it takes a lot out of me.
23:52
Speaker 3: I have.
23:53
Speaker 1: I get panic attacks. I just know I I just
23:56
Speaker 1: get panic attacks. Sometimes I random and then sometimes you
24:01
Speaker 1: know it's fard. Some days I'm okay. Like some days
24:03
Speaker 1: I can talk about it and just find like it's
24:07
Speaker 1: not me, like it's not my life. I can detach
24:09
Speaker 1: from it, associate from it. Yet another time, Sorry can't
24:14
Speaker 1: because it is my last.
24:16
Speaker 2: I'm Catherine Townsend. This is Helen Gone Murder Line. Helen
24:21
Speaker 2: Gone Murder Line is a production of School of Humans
24:23
Speaker 2: and iHeart Podcasts. It's written and narrated by me Catherine
24:26
Speaker 2: Townsend and produced by Gabby Watts and Miranda Hawkins. Special
24:30
Speaker 2: thanks to Amy Tubbs for her research assistance. Noah Camera
24:34
Speaker 2: mixed and scored this episode. Our theme song is by
24:37
Speaker 2: Ben Sale, Executive producers of Virginia Prescott, Brandon Barr, and
24:41
Speaker 2: Else Crowley. Listen to Helen Gone ad free by subscribing
24:45
Speaker 2: to the iHeart True Crime Plus channel on Apple Podcasts.
24:48
Speaker 2: If you are interested in seeing documents and materials from
24:51
Speaker 2: the case, you can follow the show on Instagram at
24:54
Speaker 2: Helen Gone Pott. If you have a case you'd like
24:57
Speaker 2: me and my team to look into, you can reach
24:59
Speaker 2: out to us at our Helen Gone Murder line at
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Speaker 2: six seven eight seven four four six one four five
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Speaker 2: That six seven eight seven four four six one four
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Speaker 2: five
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Speaker 3: School of Humans