Latest / Devil Town / Witch Hunt | Chapter 4

Transcript

Witch Hunt | Chapter 4 · Devil Town

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: This podcast is intended for mature audiences. Listener discretion is advised.
• 0:16
  Speaker 2: The bizarre case of Kelly Wilson's disappearance shocked all of
• 0:20
  Speaker 2: East Texas when new indictments were handed down Friday. Prosecutor
• 0:23
  Speaker 2: Scott Leifert says today he's confident about the evidence he
• 0:25
  Speaker 2: has to go to trial with. And he says the
• 0:28
  Speaker 2: evidence is more than circumstantial.
• 0:32
  Speaker 3: Evidence in regard to Kelly Wilson came up in the
• 0:34
  Speaker 3: course of the investigation that we were doing on the
• 0:38
  Speaker 3: sexual abuse of the children that had been taken away
• 0:40
  Speaker 3: from the different members of the Kerr family. We think
• 0:44
  Speaker 3: that there may be more victims, but we don't have
• 0:46
  Speaker 3: any concrete evidence. We don't have any particular missing people
• 0:50
  Speaker 3: that we're looking for. That's part of the investigation that
• 0:53
  Speaker 3: we've got to go into.
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: Over a two-day period in late January 1994, A grand
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: jury in Gilmer, Texas, indicted eight people for the kidnapping, rape,
• 1:05
  Speaker 1: and murder of Kelly Day Wilson, a local teenager who'd
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: been missing for more than two years. Among the indicted
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: were five members of a local family, the Kers. Needless
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: to say, the news shocked all of us in East Texas.
• 1:21
  Speaker 1: Most bizarre of all were details found not in the
• 1:24
  Speaker 1: indictments themselves, but in the affidavit for a search warrant
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: executed on the Kerr family property in the woods outside
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: of Gilmer. In the affidavit, investigators claimed that members of
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: the Kerr family were leaders of a cult that forced
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: their own children to participate in satanic rituals, including the
• 1:43
  Speaker 1: sacrifice of babies. If the children ever told anyone the
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: same thing or worse would happen to them. In cahoots
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: with the Kerrs, allegedly, was none other than James York Brown,
• 1:56
  Speaker 1: the Gilmer cop who'd been leading the search for Kelly
• 1:59
  Speaker 1: since day one.
• 2:01
  Speaker 4: Leifert charges that as the chief investigator in the Kelly
• 2:04
  Speaker 4: Wilson case, Sergeant Brown had a unique position to suppress
• 2:07
  Speaker 4: and destroy evidence.
• 2:09
  Speaker 5: Well, just what is the connection between Kelly Wilson's disappearance,
• 2:13
  Speaker 5: Sergeant James Brown, and the Kerr family?
• 2:16
  Speaker 2: Until the arrest of Sergeant James Brown, no one could
• 2:18
  Speaker 2: have believed what the indictment.
• 2:21
  Speaker 1: Now, Sergeant Brown stood accused of three of the most
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: heinous crimes imaginable. If convicted, he could face the death penalty.
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: Folks in Gilmer didn't know what to believe.
• 2:34
  Speaker 7: The town was divided between people who thought that Sergeant
• 2:36
  Speaker 7: Brown was as innocent as Noah White and those who
• 2:38
  Speaker 7: thought he was as guilty as Charles Manson.
• 2:40
  Speaker 1: That's Philip Williams, the journalist from Gilmer. You heard from
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: him earlier in the series. Less than a month after
• 2:47
  Speaker 1: the felony indictments dropped against James Brown and the others,
• 2:50
  Speaker 1: Texas Assistant Attorney General Shane Phelps was on a government
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: plane flying straight to Gilmer. The first stop for Shane
• 2:58
  Speaker 1: and his team from the AG's office? The Kerr family
• 3:01
  Speaker 1: compound on Cherokee Trace, the narrow road that meanders through
• 3:05
  Speaker 1: the forest outside of town.
• 3:07
  Speaker 8: When I went up there, went out and visited the
• 3:12
  Speaker 8: Kerr's property, I didn't know much about life or didn't
• 3:16
  Speaker 8: know these other guys, Brooks Flagg and Steve Baggs. or
• 3:19
  Speaker 8: these CPS workers, to the best of my ability, I
• 3:22
  Speaker 8: kept an open mind. I mean, because stuff happens. I mean,
• 3:25
  Speaker 8: there is some crazy stuff that goes on out there.
• 3:27
  Speaker 8: As you look at the property, it's a long three-acre
• 3:31
  Speaker 8: piece of property with a house on the left and
• 3:34
  Speaker 8: a little shed on the right, closer to the road.
• 3:37
  Speaker 8: And then as you go back, there's a little trail
• 3:39
  Speaker 8: that goes back, and there's a wooded area, and there's
• 3:42
  Speaker 8: a trail that goes around, and it just comes back.
• 3:44
  Speaker 8: So it creates a circle, which they believed was... somehow
• 3:50
  Speaker 8: satanic in nature. Was there a clearing in the middle
• 3:52
  Speaker 8: of the circle, or was it all just forested? No,
• 3:55
  Speaker 8: it was mostly forested, as I recall. I remember there
• 3:58
  Speaker 8: was a tree cut down that they said had been desanctified.
• 4:03
  Speaker 8: That was the tree that they would string people up
• 4:06
  Speaker 8: on and eviscerate them and pass their organs around and
• 4:09
  Speaker 8: sexually assault them. I mean, it was a wild story.
• 4:12
  Speaker 1: And, according to the Lyford team, Sergeant Brown was right
• 4:16
  Speaker 1: there in the middle of the action, They believed he
• 4:19
  Speaker 1: helped the Kerrs kidnap and sacrifice Kelly Wilson.
• 4:23
  Speaker 8: Their theory of the case was that somehow the way
• 4:28
  Speaker 8: it ultimately developed was that James Brown knew her, may
• 4:32
  Speaker 8: have been having an affair with her, that James Brown
• 4:36
  Speaker 8: was seen by witnesses out at the Kerrs having coffee
• 4:40
  Speaker 8: with Geneva all the time.
• 4:41
  Speaker 1: Geneva Kerr was the family grandma.
• 4:43
  Speaker 8: So their theory was that in a van with Wendell Kerr,
• 4:47
  Speaker 8: I guess James Brown and other people involved kidnapped her
• 4:53
  Speaker 8: in this van, brought her back to Cherokee Trace, the
• 4:56
  Speaker 8: property that the Kerrs owned, and over the next 14
• 5:00
  Speaker 8: days would keep her shackled in this little shed. And
• 5:06
  Speaker 8: on a daily basis, they would take Kelly out of
• 5:12
  Speaker 8: the shed and take her down to this circle and
• 5:19
  Speaker 8: string her up on the tree, and they would, one
• 5:23
  Speaker 8: after the other, violate her in every way possible. Ultimately,
• 5:28
  Speaker 8: they would take her out there, everybody would rape her,
• 5:32
  Speaker 8: they'd do these horrible things to her, bring her back,
• 5:34
  Speaker 8: shackle her up, and rinse and repeat for 14 days.
• 5:40
  Speaker 8: Keep in mind that they had also developed a theory
• 5:43
  Speaker 8: that there were numerous other victims Hitchhiking teenage girls just
• 5:49
  Speaker 8: kept disappearing, and they would do all the same things
• 5:52
  Speaker 8: to them. And babies. There was all this stuff in
• 5:56
  Speaker 8: these interviews about trying to question these people who were
• 6:02
  Speaker 8: related to Geneva, talking about how they were basically raised
• 6:09
  Speaker 8: to breed babies so that they could do this. She
• 6:13
  Speaker 8: was supposed to be kind of the head witch slash Satanist,
• 6:17
  Speaker 8: I guess. Everybody was doing things for her, you know,
• 6:21
  Speaker 8: sacrificing bodies and giving her gifts. I mean, it was
• 6:24
  Speaker 8: an outlandish story. It was a really, really bad, you know,
• 6:28
  Speaker 8: slasher flick. It was just outlandish. Anybody listening to their
• 6:35
  Speaker 8: story would have said, that's just crazy. And of course,
• 6:37
  Speaker 8: if you said that, you became part of the problem.
• 6:41
  Speaker 8: But I remember walking out there and went out to
• 6:44
  Speaker 8: the back and saw the the circle where all of
• 6:49
  Speaker 8: this stuff is supposed to have gone on. And I
• 6:52
  Speaker 8: was asking questions. I was asking questions of Brooks Flagg.
• 6:56
  Speaker 1: Brooks Flagg, you might remember, was a police chaplain from Louisiana.
• 7:00
  Speaker 1: According to his 2011 obituary, Flagg served in U.S. military
• 7:05
  Speaker 1: intelligence as a cryptograph operator at the height of the
• 7:08
  Speaker 1: Cold War, gathering intelligence on visits to communist East Germany. Later,
• 7:13
  Speaker 1: he became a businessman, and founded a Christian retreat called
• 7:17
  Speaker 1: The Shepherd's Rest. Somehow, along the way, Flagg came to
• 7:21
  Speaker 1: view himself as an expert on satanic cults and ritual abuse,
• 7:26
  Speaker 1: which I guess is how he crossed paths with Steve Baggs,
• 7:29
  Speaker 1: a former Texas Department of Public Safety narcotics officer. Steve Baggs,
• 7:35
  Speaker 1: also a self-styled expert on Satanists, hasn't responded to any
• 7:39
  Speaker 1: of my requests for an interview. Neither has Scott Lyford,
• 7:42
  Speaker 1: for that matter. Anyway, Back to the Kerr place.
• 7:46
  Speaker 8: Apparently they had got DPS to do a flyover with
• 7:50
  Speaker 8: infrared technology and they saw some hot spots and then
• 7:53
  Speaker 8: they brought cadaver dogs out and they hit on two
• 7:57
  Speaker 8: or three spots. And I remember one was at the
• 7:59
  Speaker 8: base of a tree and I was standing there with
• 8:01
  Speaker 8: Brick's flag and I said, well, did you dig it up? Well,
• 8:04
  Speaker 8: they didn't go down very far, but they said yes
• 8:06
  Speaker 8: and they found nothing. In fact, in any of the
• 8:08
  Speaker 8: spots that were identified, they found nothing. I mean, nothing.
• 8:13
  Speaker 8: And I'm thinking what you've described is, you know, ritual sacrifices,
• 8:21
  Speaker 8: people being eviscerated, organs being passed around. There should be
• 8:25
  Speaker 8: blood and semen and saliva and, you know, bits of
• 8:30
  Speaker 8: flesh everywhere based on what you guys are relating here.
• 8:34
  Speaker 8: And there's none of that. I'd asked a number of
• 8:38
  Speaker 8: questions about were you able to recover anything that could
• 8:41
  Speaker 8: be tested to corroborate this story. And And I will
• 8:45
  Speaker 8: never forget this. I asked Brooks Flagg about that. Does
• 8:48
  Speaker 8: it bother you that there's virtually no trace evidence of
• 8:54
  Speaker 8: any of this occurring? And he was very smart, very confident.
• 9:01
  Speaker 8: The fact, he said, that these are master Satanists and
• 9:05
  Speaker 8: the fact that there is no evidence proves that they're
• 9:09
  Speaker 8: master Satanists, proves that it happened. I was frankly pretty
• 9:13
  Speaker 8: shocked by You just told me that you have no
• 9:16
  Speaker 8: evidence and that proves that it happened. And at that point,
• 9:21
  Speaker 8: I knew that this was all bullshit. There was nothing
• 9:25
  Speaker 8: to it. We were just kind of trying to process
• 9:29
  Speaker 8: all of this information. And we quickly realized after meeting
• 9:34
  Speaker 8: with some of these officials and actually meeting these folks
• 9:38
  Speaker 8: and seeing some of the things they were saying were
• 9:40
  Speaker 8: happening out there and seeing that there really was no
• 9:42
  Speaker 8: evidence of it, we thought, this is This is scary
• 9:45
  Speaker 8: and dangerous. They had already indicted all of these people,
• 9:48
  Speaker 8: six or seven, Kerr and their extended family. And the
• 9:53
  Speaker 8: most shocking thing to me was that one of the
• 9:56
  Speaker 8: people they indicted was James Brown, who was the sergeant.
• 10:00
  Speaker 8: at the Gilmore Police Department who had been investigating Kelly
• 10:03
  Speaker 8: Wilson's disappearance for two years at this time. And I
• 10:07
  Speaker 8: was just stunned. I mean, come on, that's just not.
• 10:12
  Speaker 8: It just makes no sense. Why not? There was nothing
• 10:18
  Speaker 8: that pointed....
• 10:24
  Speaker 1: In the last episode, we got into the claims against
• 10:27
  Speaker 1: Sergeant Brown. When Shane Phelps heard the same allegations, well,
• 10:32
  Speaker 1: he was having none of it. Shane had flown to
• 10:35
  Speaker 1: Gilmer to assist the special prosecutor, Scott Lyford. Now he
• 10:39
  Speaker 1: had a new mission. Stop the Lyford team to end
• 10:43
  Speaker 1: what he considered a witch hunt and clear Sergeant Brown's name.
• 10:48
  Speaker 1: The truth needed to come out. From Imperative Entertainment, I'm
• 10:56
  Speaker 1: Wes Ferguson. This is Deviltown. This is Chapter 4, Witch Hunt.
• 11:12
  Speaker 5: I remember vividly the first time I met James. I
• 11:16
  Speaker 5: remember walking into the jail and And the first words
• 11:20
  Speaker 5: out of his mouth, I mean, he was about to cry.
• 11:22
  Speaker 5: He said, I didn't do this.
• 11:23
  Speaker 1: David Moore is a longtime attorney in Longview, an East
• 11:27
  Speaker 1: Texas city about 20 miles south of Gilmer.
• 11:30
  Speaker 5: He looked stunned. He looked stunned. He looked scared. I
• 11:37
  Speaker 5: don't think he was angry at that point. I think
• 11:40
  Speaker 5: that that was sort of overridden by the fear that
• 11:44
  Speaker 5: he had, that somebody could do this to him. You know,
• 11:50
  Speaker 5: I think later through time that has obviously morphed into
• 11:54
  Speaker 5: more anger than anything else. But in that moment, I
• 11:57
  Speaker 5: saw fear.
• 11:59
  Speaker 1: Sergeant Brown and his wife, Penny, had been married less
• 12:01
  Speaker 1: than two months when he was arrested. She tried to
• 12:05
  Speaker 1: visit him in jail.
• 12:06
  Speaker 9: But that was not allowed.
• 12:08
  Speaker 1: Penny's first glimpse of her new husband came a little
• 12:10
  Speaker 1: later during a hearing at the Justice Center.
• 12:13
  Speaker 9: They had a hearing with all the defendants. I was
• 12:16
  Speaker 9: not able to talk to him, but I did see him.
• 12:20
  Speaker 9: because I was in the back there with the other people.
• 12:25
  Speaker 9: His face was just sunken in. He looked terrible. As
• 12:30
  Speaker 9: you can imagine, I mean, he just, he looked like
• 12:33
  Speaker 9: a different person.
• 12:34
  Speaker 1: Unlike members of the Kerr family who'd been sitting in
• 12:37
  Speaker 1: jail for months, Sergeant Brown spent six days in lockup
• 12:41
  Speaker 1: before he was released on bond.
• 12:43
  Speaker 9: The first time I saw him after release, The hearing
• 12:48
  Speaker 9: was when he was released and I went and picked
• 12:51
  Speaker 9: him up. He said, if you want to leave me,
• 12:56
  Speaker 9: I understand. And I just remember telling him, no, I'm
• 13:01
  Speaker 9: going to stand by your side and fight with you
• 13:06
  Speaker 9: because you didn't do anything wrong.
• 13:08
  Speaker 5: You're an innocent man.
• 13:10
  Speaker 9: I felt like I was in a different world. It
• 13:14
  Speaker 9: was shocking, you know, I was really elated that he
• 13:17
  Speaker 9: had been released. But looking at him, I could tell
• 13:21
  Speaker 9: he was a nervous wreck, you know, shaky and sad, concerned.
• 13:28
  Speaker 9: But we drove to his parents' house.
• 13:31
  Speaker 1: The drive would have taken about 45 minutes. When they
• 13:34
  Speaker 1: got there, Sergeant Brown's son, Josh, from a previous marriage,
• 13:38
  Speaker 1: was waiting.
• 13:40
  Speaker 6: I was at my grandparents' house the day he got released.
• 13:44
  Speaker 6: And my grandmother kept saying, I got a surprise for you.
• 13:48
  Speaker 6: I got a surprise for you. I got a surprise
• 13:50
  Speaker 6: for you. And I said, Dad's coming. I mean, I
• 13:53
  Speaker 6: just felt it. I said, Dad's coming. He pulled in
• 13:58
  Speaker 6: the driveway just like two, three minutes later. Pulled in
• 14:02
  Speaker 6: the driveway and, yeah, man, I just, that's my dad.
• 14:10
  Speaker 6: His blue Chevrolet three-quarter ton truck came driving in front
• 14:15
  Speaker 6: of my grandparents house they had two big windows in
• 14:18
  Speaker 6: front of their house and uh I saw it coming
• 14:22
  Speaker 6: I heard I just knew dad was coming and uh
• 14:28
  Speaker 6: he showed up and you know dad was there I
• 14:33
  Speaker 6: absolutely ran out the door big hug you know I
• 14:37
  Speaker 6: mean it really hadn't been long but you know I
• 14:40
  Speaker 6: was worried you know kids worry people say they don't
• 14:44
  Speaker 6: but You know, they do. You know, I mean, the
• 14:48
  Speaker 6: reunion was, it came in, you know, just everybody just,
• 14:52
  Speaker 6: my granddad was still alive and everybody just hugged. And
• 14:57
  Speaker 6: then it was back to business as usual. We went fishing.
• 15:03
  Speaker 6: Still remember that. You know, my grandparents had a couple
• 15:09
  Speaker 6: of ponds and, you know, we kind of went and
• 15:12
  Speaker 6: gave them hell.
• 15:13
  Speaker 8: You know.
• 15:13
  Speaker 1: Although Josh was visiting his grandparents when his dad was
• 15:16
  Speaker 1: released from jail, his mom had actually moved Josh and
• 15:20
  Speaker 1: his little brother to another area of the state. But
• 15:23
  Speaker 1: even there, they couldn't escape news of his dad's legal jeopardy.
• 15:27
  Speaker 6: You know, he shielded us from... I say shielded us,
• 15:31
  Speaker 6: tried to shield us from what was going on. I mean,
• 15:36
  Speaker 6: you know, and we would hear stuff on the radio.
• 15:39
  Speaker 6: I can remember... Sitting in the car when I lived
• 15:43
  Speaker 6: in West Texas, my mom had forgotten something in the
• 15:47
  Speaker 6: house and got out of the car and went back in.
• 15:49
  Speaker 6: She was taking us to school. And hearing an article
• 15:53
  Speaker 6: about dad, she got back in the car and I said, Mom,
• 15:58
  Speaker 6: they're talking about dad.
• 15:59
  Speaker 1: It was a lot for a 10-year-old kid to process.
• 16:02
  Speaker 6: You know, trying to figure out, you know, why he
• 16:05
  Speaker 6: was arrested. And then thinking that there's no way this
• 16:10
  Speaker 6: side of hell, that what he was arrested for is
• 16:14
  Speaker 6: what he did, because he is such a good father.
• 16:22
  Speaker 1: Sergeant Brown's wife thought he was innocent. His son thought
• 16:25
  Speaker 1: he was innocent. But his lawyer, David Moore, thought he
• 16:29
  Speaker 1: could prove it. Sergeant Brown had kept a meticulous journal
• 16:33
  Speaker 1: of his whereabouts during the early weeks of the search
• 16:36
  Speaker 1: for Kelly. If David could find out what specific day
• 16:39
  Speaker 1: Kelly was supposed to have been sacrificed in the woods
• 16:41
  Speaker 1: behind the Kerr house, there was a good chance Sergeant
• 16:44
  Speaker 1: Brown's journal would offer up an alibi. There was just
• 16:49
  Speaker 1: one problem with that plan. Scott Lyford couldn't even say
• 16:53
  Speaker 1: when the murder happened.
• 16:56
  Speaker 5: So I'm trying to get a timeline from Lyford about,
• 17:02
  Speaker 5: you know, when supposedly she was killed because they allegedly
• 17:05
  Speaker 5: killed kidnapped her, kept her for X number of days,
• 17:11
  Speaker 5: raped her over that period of time, multiple times, did
• 17:15
  Speaker 5: all these other satanic ritual deals, and then killed her
• 17:17
  Speaker 5: in a ritualistic manner. And I was wanting to know when,
• 17:25
  Speaker 5: you know, because I felt pretty confident that we, because
• 17:30
  Speaker 5: James was supposedly there, raped her, on an occasion, and
• 17:35
  Speaker 5: then also was there when she was killed. And I
• 17:38
  Speaker 5: was feeling fairly confident that if I could get that date,
• 17:41
  Speaker 5: that we already had probably 80% of his whereabouts covered.
• 17:48
  Speaker 5: And I asked Lyford, I said, well, when was the killing?
• 17:53
  Speaker 8: Well, I don't know. I said, what do you mean
• 17:55
  Speaker 8: you don't know?
• 17:55
  Speaker 5: I mean, you've indicted this guy for, her murder, and
• 18:02
  Speaker 5: you can't tell me even when it was. I don't know.
• 18:05
  Speaker 5: We're working on that.
• 18:06
  Speaker 8: We'll get that to you.
• 18:08
  Speaker 1: Not long after his troubling conversation with Lyford, David got
• 18:11
  Speaker 1: another phone call. This one from Al McAllister, the Gilmer
• 18:15
  Speaker 1: police chief. Al McAllister was a strong supporter of Brown.
• 18:21
  Speaker 7: I can't go into any details right now other than
• 18:23
  Speaker 7: to say that I'm happy he's out of jail. And
• 18:25
  Speaker 7: I look forward to the time when our story can
• 18:27
  Speaker 7: be completely told. And I think it's time for the
• 18:31
  Speaker 7: man to show us what evidence he has.
• 18:34
  Speaker 8: You mean the special prosecutor?
• 18:35
  Speaker 7: I mean the special prosecutor. There have been many people
• 18:40
  Speaker 7: who will tell you the most fantastic stories about Sergeant
• 18:42
  Speaker 7: Brown that you've ever heard. And especially they've risen to
• 18:46
  Speaker 7: the surface and come out of various places to make
• 18:49
  Speaker 7: all manner of allegations against Sergeant Brown. So it certainly
• 18:51
  Speaker 7: doesn't surprise me that somebody might say that.
• 18:54
  Speaker 1: Remember, Sergeant Brown had not even been a suspect before.
• 18:57
  Speaker 1: until he stuck his nose in the Lyford investigation. At
• 19:00
  Speaker 1: that time, Lyford had threatened to ruin him if he
• 19:03
  Speaker 1: didn't back down. And, next thing you know, Sergeant Brown
• 19:07
  Speaker 1: is in jail. Now the Lyford team wanted Brown's investigative reports,
• 19:12
  Speaker 1: and Chief Al McAllister didn't want to hand them over.
• 19:16
  Speaker 5: They were threatening Al that if he didn't turn over
• 19:19
  Speaker 5: James's investigative file to them, that they were going to
• 19:24
  Speaker 5: haul Al in front of the grand jury and charge
• 19:26
  Speaker 5: him with with something. And I was worried, Al was worried,
• 19:32
  Speaker 5: James was worried, that if they were to get his
• 19:35
  Speaker 5: file of all the things he was meticulous about, what
• 19:39
  Speaker 5: he did when and where he was, that if they
• 19:41
  Speaker 5: had that, then they would be able to tailor their story,
• 19:46
  Speaker 5: their version, and work around whatever kind of alibis that
• 19:49
  Speaker 5: James would have had.
• 19:51
  Speaker 1: David filed a motion to block the Leifert team from
• 19:53
  Speaker 1: getting access to Brown's file until they could actually figure
• 19:57
  Speaker 1: out when the murder happened.
• 19:59
  Speaker 5: To Judge Garrison's credit, he shut them down on that
• 20:04
  Speaker 5: and told them not to turn that over. I think
• 20:07
  Speaker 5: that was probably the first time they got any pushback
• 20:09
  Speaker 5: from anybody. It was obvious something was rotten. You know,
• 20:13
  Speaker 5: something didn't smell right.
• 20:15
  Speaker 1: As for Shane Phelps, he'd flown back to the Attorney
• 20:18
  Speaker 1: General's office in Austin, and he had a bunch of
• 20:20
  Speaker 1: cassette tapes. Recordings of the Leifert team's interrogations with Wanda Kerr,
• 20:25
  Speaker 1: Connie Martin, the common-law wife of Danny Kerr, and Raymond Smith,
• 20:30
  Speaker 1: the little boy who'd connected the Kerr abuse to Kelly
• 20:33
  Speaker 1: Wilson's disappearance. Shane was sitting at his desk when he
• 20:37
  Speaker 1: hit play.
• 20:38
  Speaker 8: And I got angrier and angrier. I mean, I think
• 20:41
  Speaker 8: I started listening to it at one or two o'clock
• 20:42
  Speaker 8: in the afternoon. I was there until almost midnight, listening
• 20:45
  Speaker 8: to this. And I got to the point where I
• 20:47
  Speaker 8: was throwing things around in my office. I was so angry. Really? Oh, yes.
• 20:51
  Speaker 8: What'd you throw? Oh, God, what was it? Something on
• 20:54
  Speaker 8: my desk. It was a paperweight. You threw a paperweight?
• 20:57
  Speaker 8: I did. I was pissed off. I mean, it is
• 21:02
  Speaker 8: so far afield of anything that any responsible person law
• 21:06
  Speaker 8: enforcement officer, prosecutor would ever, ever do. It wasn't marginal.
• 21:12
  Speaker 8: It wasn't a difference of opinion about how these things
• 21:14
  Speaker 8: should be done. It was, in my mind, criminal. And
• 21:18
  Speaker 8: there was no other evidence. I mean, when we, I
• 21:21
  Speaker 8: listened to these audio interviews and their investigative methods were horrendous.
• 21:28
  Speaker 8: They were practically non-existent. You know, they're supposed to have
• 21:31
  Speaker 8: two investigators with investigative experience. No law enforcement officer worth
• 21:39
  Speaker 8: a damn with any dedication to doing the job properly
• 21:44
  Speaker 8: would ever have participated in these interviews.
• 21:47
  Speaker 1: I've also been listening to the tapes. It's hard. The
• 21:51
  Speaker 1: material is just really graphic and gross, and it goes
• 21:54
  Speaker 1: on for hours on end. And yet, sometimes the interrogators
• 21:59
  Speaker 1: actually seem to be enjoying themselves.
• 22:01
  Speaker 6: All right, so.
• 22:04
  Speaker 8: James is over there. He ought to be through taking
• 22:06
  Speaker 8: his clothes off now. So we've got James without any clothes.
• 22:10
  Speaker 8: We've got the stick in Kelly.
• 22:13
  Speaker 10: What's the next thing that happens? Somebody else undress, or
• 22:16
  Speaker 10: does James get on at this point, or what's the deal?
• 22:18
  Speaker 5: I don't know why my.
• 22:20
  Speaker 8: Mind works the way it does. That's beginning to worry me.
• 22:25
  Speaker 1: If you couldn't hear that, either Bags or Flag, I
• 22:28
  Speaker 1: think Flag said, I don't know why my mind works
• 22:32
  Speaker 1: the way it does. That's beginning to worry me.
• 22:35
  Speaker 8: Okay. He's completely nude, right?
• 22:39
  Speaker 11: Naked.
• 22:40
  Speaker 10: Skinny ass son of a bitch.
• 22:42
  Speaker 4: Okay.
• 22:43
  Speaker 10: Anyway.
• 22:43
  Speaker 8: Is that on tape? Connie's still laughing the way your
• 22:50
  Speaker 8: mind works.
• 22:56
  Speaker 1: Skinny ass son of a bitch. Is that on tape?
• 23:00
  Speaker 1: Connie is still laughing at the way your mind works.
• 23:03
  Speaker 1: the interrogators definitely seem to have overactive imaginations.
• 23:07
  Speaker 8: I'll never forget listening to Raymond's, the audio tape of
• 23:10
  Speaker 8: Raymond's interview, when he's talking about all this bizarre stuff.
• 23:14
  Speaker 8: And it's all, it was clearly being suggested. And what
• 23:18
  Speaker 8: this was not coming out of the mind of these children,
• 23:20
  Speaker 8: it was coming out of the Leifert team. And what
• 23:22
  Speaker 8: they knew had to have happened if Satanists were involved.
• 23:25
  Speaker 8: So we know this is the practice. If you're not
• 23:29
  Speaker 8: giving us, you know, validating our theory, then... you're not
• 23:33
  Speaker 8: being truthful. So I was listening to the Raymond audio
• 23:38
  Speaker 8: tape and there was nothing about James Brown. And I'm
• 23:41
  Speaker 8: about to turn it off. I was in my office
• 23:43
  Speaker 8: in Austin and I was about to turn it off,
• 23:47
  Speaker 8: reaching for the off switch when, because they had ended
• 23:51
  Speaker 8: the interview, when they came back on and said, Raymond,
• 23:56
  Speaker 8: do you have something else to tell us? And he said, yes,
• 23:59
  Speaker 8: Sergeant Brown was there. And then they just turned it off.
• 24:03
  Speaker 8: To thank you Raymond? Yeah. They didn't follow through. They
• 24:08
  Speaker 8: didn't say, well, how do you know he was there?
• 24:10
  Speaker 8: Were you there when he was there? How many times
• 24:12
  Speaker 8: was he there? How was he dressed? What did he do?
• 24:15
  Speaker 8: Had you ever seen him before? No questions like that.
• 24:18
  Speaker 8: And we have no idea how much time elapsed between
• 24:20
  Speaker 8: when they stopped recording and when they started up again.
• 24:23
  Speaker 5: No.
• 24:23
  Speaker 8: And I guarantee you that there was stuff going on
• 24:27
  Speaker 8: at that point. Between them. There would be no reason
• 24:30
  Speaker 8: to have any conversation with this kid that wasn't recorded.
• 24:34
  Speaker 8: And yeah, so that lapse in time, however long it was,
• 24:39
  Speaker 8: was very suspicious.
• 24:41
  Speaker 1: The Attorney General's office did not give me the recordings
• 24:44
  Speaker 1: of Raymond. I assumed to protect his privacy. As I
• 24:48
  Speaker 1: mentioned before, Raymond has given us permission to use his name.
• 24:52
  Speaker 8: And the same thing with Connie. I mean, it was no, no,
• 24:55
  Speaker 8: no until it was yes. Keep me in mind that
• 24:59
  Speaker 8: a couple of important things about Connie and Rhonda both
• 25:03
  Speaker 8: of them borderline intellectual functioning, low IQ, and they were
• 25:09
  Speaker 8: being threatened with life sentences. They'd been ultimately indicted for
• 25:15
  Speaker 8: death penalty cases. So if you listen to these, they
• 25:19
  Speaker 8: repeatedly say, no, I don't know what you're talking about,
• 25:22
  Speaker 8: it didn't happen. We're going to keep going until you
• 25:25
  Speaker 8: tell us what we want to hear, is basically their
• 25:28
  Speaker 8: investigative strategy. you will eventually tell us what we want
• 25:32
  Speaker 8: to hear, which is what happened.
• 25:34
  Speaker 10: Why don't we go back and let's go through this
• 25:36
  Speaker 10: whole thing and don't leave anything out this time.
• 25:43
  Speaker 8: You want to try that? Once you get it out,
• 25:46
  Speaker 8: it's over with.
• 25:48
  Speaker 10: The reason we have to keep going again and again
• 25:50
  Speaker 10: and again is because you keep leaving so much stuff out.
• 25:53
  Speaker 11: In the middle, you know?
• 25:55
  Speaker 8: And you've already told... Listening to the tapes, I can
• 26:00
  Speaker 8: see what Shane means. But what about all the physical
• 26:04
  Speaker 8: evidence we've heard about?
• 26:24
  Speaker 1: The human bone the Leifert team found in that same
• 26:26
  Speaker 1: field where Connie said they'd buried women and children. What
• 26:30
  Speaker 1: about the shed where Bags and Flag found the torture devices?
• 26:35
  Speaker 1: These two were among the most salacious details of the case.
• 26:39
  Speaker 1: But was it actually true?
• 27:05
  Speaker 10: And one of the things they make you do is
• 27:07
  Speaker 10: kill people and drink the blood and eat the body parts.
• 27:11
  Speaker 10: And most of the time they keep all their little
• 27:13
  Speaker 10: bodies in one location.
• 27:18
  Speaker 8: But they like to go back and get the.
• 27:19
  Speaker 10: Bones and the skulls and the teeth.
• 27:23
  Speaker 8: And do things with those.
• 27:26
  Speaker 10: It's real likely that those bodies are back there somewhere.
• 27:32
  Speaker 10: Did you ever see anyone, anyone, pick up one of
• 27:38
  Speaker 10: those bodies or body parts and walk off from that
• 27:41
  Speaker 10: circle back in the woods?
• 27:43
  Speaker 8: In an interview with Connie Martin, they had gotten her
• 27:46
  Speaker 8: to say that they would bury these hitchhiking teenage girls
• 27:53
  Speaker 8: that they murdered and raped and ate their organs. I mean,
• 27:57
  Speaker 8: just crazy stuff like that. But that they would save
• 28:00
  Speaker 8: the bones and they would bury them and Black plastic,
• 28:03
  Speaker 8: I think it was. Is it a bag or is
• 28:05
  Speaker 8: it just black plastic?
• 28:10
  Speaker 5: It was a black bag.
• 28:11
  Speaker 11: Okay.
• 28:11
  Speaker 8: He puts the black bag down in there. Then what
• 28:15
  Speaker 8: does he do? Does he put anything else in the hole?
• 28:18
  Speaker 11: The bones.
• 28:20
  Speaker 8: Okay. The bones are in the bag or he puts
• 28:22
  Speaker 8: the bag in and then puts the bones on top
• 28:24
  Speaker 8: of it?
• 28:24
  Speaker 3: No, the bones are in the bag.
• 28:25
  Speaker 8: They're in the bag. He puts the black bag with
• 28:28
  Speaker 8: the bones in it into the hole. And so they
• 28:32
  Speaker 8: identified where they said they buried it and they went
• 28:35
  Speaker 8: out there with a back of a... Where did they
• 28:37
  Speaker 8: say they had buried it? It was just in some
• 28:38
  Speaker 8: field somewhere there in Upshur County. Part of a... I
• 28:42
  Speaker 8: kind of got the impression it was a farm. Because
• 28:44
  Speaker 8: there was a house nearby. But it was just an
• 28:47
  Speaker 8: open field. And so when we went up there and
• 28:50
  Speaker 8: visited with them, we actually went out to that field.
• 28:53
  Speaker 8: And they were pointing out that they had found a
• 28:56
  Speaker 8: bone and some bits of black plastic. They said it
• 28:59
  Speaker 8: was wrapped in plastic. I don't think it was, but
• 29:02
  Speaker 8: They got to the point where they looked at it
• 29:04
  Speaker 8: and they discovered it because they dug up a good
• 29:06
  Speaker 8: part of the field, not maybe a quarter of it.
• 29:10
  Speaker 8: But they showed me where they found the bone. And
• 29:13
  Speaker 8: then that was right at the edge of where they
• 29:14
  Speaker 8: had been digging. And I said, well, why did you stop?
• 29:20
  Speaker 8: I mean, if you have this story that you now
• 29:23
  Speaker 8: believe is corroborated, that more than one person has been
• 29:27
  Speaker 8: murdered and their bones are buried in this field, and
• 29:30
  Speaker 8: you find a bone that you think corroborates your story,
• 29:34
  Speaker 8: why the hell did you stop digging? This whole field
• 29:38
  Speaker 8: should be dug up. They didn't really have a satisfactory answer.
• 29:42
  Speaker 1: Remember, this is the same bone I mentioned in the
• 29:44
  Speaker 1: last episode, the one that appeared to belong to a
• 29:47
  Speaker 1: human female of Kelly's age. It seemed like one of
• 29:51
  Speaker 1: the most crucial pieces of physical evidence the Leifert team
• 29:54
  Speaker 1: had discovered in months of investigating.
• 29:58
  Speaker 8: The bone. that they said that they sent off to
• 30:00
  Speaker 8: a forensic anthropologist that they found in this field and
• 30:03
  Speaker 8: said that it was a female juvenile tibia. Pretty specific
• 30:08
  Speaker 8: for that. So they figured that that corroborated. I mean,
• 30:12
  Speaker 8: every step of the way, they saw things or perceived
• 30:16
  Speaker 8: things that would support their belief, and so they'd keep going.
• 30:21
  Speaker 8: And they would totally ignore, I mean, just enormous evidence
• 30:28
  Speaker 8: that none of this happened, which was very frustrating to hear.
• 30:34
  Speaker 8: I'll give you an example of the bone that they
• 30:35
  Speaker 8: found when I kind of took over the case. I
• 30:38
  Speaker 8: had that bone transferred to a laboratory, and it came
• 30:40
  Speaker 8: back as a pig bone.
• 30:42
  Speaker 1: For real, a pig bone. I was like 14 at
• 30:46
  Speaker 1: the time, and I still remember being stunned by that revelation.
• 30:51
  Speaker 8: Yeah, it was, it wasn't even close. I don't know
• 30:54
  Speaker 8: what forensic anthropologist they got to look at it, but
• 30:56
  Speaker 8: come on. And I'm pretty sure you can't just look
• 30:59
  Speaker 8: at it and say that it's a 14-year-old juvenile tibia
• 31:04
  Speaker 8: from a female. Maybe there is that technology, but I
• 31:08
  Speaker 8: don't think so. Certainly not at that time. Another example
• 31:12
  Speaker 8: is that they had talked to these kids, and they
• 31:14
  Speaker 8: got the wildest stories out of these kids. That there
• 31:18
  Speaker 8: was a dungeon where they were taken, and all these
• 31:21
  Speaker 8: children were repeatedly raped. I mean, just by one adult
• 31:25
  Speaker 8: after another. And the kids, at least some of them,
• 31:30
  Speaker 8: had said it was in this place they called the dungeon.
• 31:33
  Speaker 8: There was a storm shelter or something in the back.
• 31:36
  Speaker 8: They said, well, this looks like the dungeon. So they
• 31:38
  Speaker 8: start looking around, and they see some stains on the walls. Well,
• 31:41
  Speaker 8: they do one of these, I guess they get somebody
• 31:43
  Speaker 8: in to do one of these presumptive tests. They are
• 31:45
  Speaker 8: not confirmatory. And with tests like that, oftentimes there are
• 31:49
  Speaker 8: false positives. Well, these tested according to them. Now, I
• 31:54
  Speaker 8: never saw the results, but tested... presumptively for human blood.
• 32:01
  Speaker 8: They sent it off to the laboratory and it came
• 32:03
  Speaker 8: back as not human blood. But when they heard presumptively
• 32:07
  Speaker 8: for human blood, these kids are telling the truth. All
• 32:10
  Speaker 8: that stuff happened there. Of course, there was nothing ever
• 32:13
  Speaker 8: recovered from there that you would expect to be recovered
• 32:16
  Speaker 8: from a dungeon where there had been serial raping of children.
• 32:24
  Speaker 1: Is that the one that was supposed to be like
• 32:25
  Speaker 1: a penis-shaped elevator or something like that?
• 32:29
  Speaker 8: Yes. A kid tells me about a penis-shaped elevator. I'm
• 32:33
  Speaker 8: probably going to have some misgivings about whether this child
• 32:35
  Speaker 8: is telling me the truth. It didn't stop them at all.
• 32:38
  Speaker 8: They didn't slow down at all. Anything that they encountered
• 32:45
  Speaker 8: that in their brains corroborated their story, they just kept going.
• 32:52
  Speaker 8: If they talked to somebody who said, I don't know
• 32:55
  Speaker 8: what you're talking about, Then instead of, well, maybe there's
• 32:58
  Speaker 8: a problem here, it was, this person is too afraid
• 33:03
  Speaker 8: to talk to us. Because as they came to believe,
• 33:08
  Speaker 8: everybody was involved.
• 33:10
  Speaker 1: Remember that shed, the one behind the Kerr house where
• 33:12
  Speaker 1: Kelly was supposed to be kept for two weeks?
• 33:15
  Speaker 4: Investigators descended on the Kerr family home today to catalog
• 33:19
  Speaker 4: every item. The Kerr home is where they believe Gilmer
• 33:22
  Speaker 4: High School senior Kelly Wilson was allegedly raped, held against
• 33:26
  Speaker 4: her will for nine days, and then stabbed to death.
• 33:29
  Speaker 4: Investigators concentrated on several sheds behind the house. Region 56
• 33:34
  Speaker 4: News has learned prosecutors suspect Wilson was killed in one
• 33:37
  Speaker 4: of those sheds. Blood was allegedly found on the walls.
• 33:42
  Speaker 8: They found a search warrant at a couple of searches
• 33:44
  Speaker 8: in the shed. and you would expect to find her hair,
• 33:48
  Speaker 8: maybe even bits of flesh, blood, certainly, because she had
• 33:51
  Speaker 8: been tortured, semen, saliva, you know, trace evidence. I mean,
• 33:58
  Speaker 8: if I brought in a forensic CSI person to come
• 34:01
  Speaker 8: in here, they could find evidence that Wes Ferguson was
• 34:04
  Speaker 8: in this office just from this interview, and they found nothing.
• 34:09
  Speaker 1: With one exception.
• 34:11
  Speaker 8: They did find something that they just process in their
• 34:14
  Speaker 8: minds as being corroborative. They found a bag. I've got
• 34:18
  Speaker 8: one of these in my pickup truck. I've got it
• 34:20
  Speaker 8: in a weekend pickup truck. And I've got a bunch
• 34:22
  Speaker 8: of bungee cords in it because sometimes I'll put stuff
• 34:24
  Speaker 8: in the back to take to the dump and I
• 34:26
  Speaker 8: need to... So they found this bag that had things
• 34:28
  Speaker 8: like bungee cords and things like that in it. Yeah,
• 34:32
  Speaker 8: in their mind, those were the implements of torture.
• 34:35
  Speaker 11: Shackles in there where you could... you know, like handcuffed
• 34:40
  Speaker 11: somebody to the wall and there were cat-of-nine-tail whips in
• 34:45
  Speaker 11: there and all kinds of satanic stuff.
• 34:48
  Speaker 8: And that's all they perceived it as. And it supported
• 34:52
  Speaker 8: their theory. They found some Halloween masks in somebody's house.
• 34:59
  Speaker 8: And that, you know, like what was a mask of
• 35:01
  Speaker 8: a devil that you can buy at any of these
• 35:04
  Speaker 8: Halloween stores. And that played into.
• 35:07
  Speaker 1: Their By this point, the way Shane tells it, the
• 35:12
  Speaker 1: members of the Lifer team were so wrapped up in
• 35:15
  Speaker 1: a conspiracy of their own making, they were afraid of
• 35:18
  Speaker 1: their own shadows. And yet they pressed on, building their
• 35:22
  Speaker 1: case against James Brown and the Kers. The two CPS workers,
• 35:27
  Speaker 1: Ann Gore and Debbie Minshew, had been among the first
• 35:30
  Speaker 1: people to uncover evidence of incest and multi-generational abuse in
• 35:34
  Speaker 1: the Kerr family. And while it doesn't sound like Gore
• 35:37
  Speaker 1: and Minshew had a lick of law enforcement credentials or training,
• 35:41
  Speaker 1: Scott Lyford had welcomed them onto his team. They even
• 35:45
  Speaker 1: participated in the interrogations of Connie Martin.
• 35:49
  Speaker 8: Why is it upsetting you? Why are you shaking?
• 35:53
  Speaker 5: Because I'm scared.
• 35:54
  Speaker 8: Why?
• 35:56
  Speaker 6: Why?
• 36:00
  Speaker 5: Where do the tears come and fall?
• 36:04
  Speaker 8: What else have you not told? I want the truth.
• 36:11
  Speaker 8: What else? What else?
• 36:15
  Speaker 10: Look at me, Connie. What else?
• 36:18
  Speaker 8: That they burn her up.
• 36:20
  Speaker 9: What else?
• 36:23
  Speaker 8: Who burned her?
• 36:24
  Speaker 5: Danny and Wendell and James and Ava. Well, you weren't there.
• 36:27
  Speaker 7: You were in the house, weren't you?
• 36:29
  Speaker 5: I want the truth, Connie.
• 36:31
  Speaker 6: They burn her up.
• 36:32
  Speaker 8: And what did they make you do?
• 36:34
  Speaker 1: As the scope of their investigation widened, everyone became a suspect.
• 36:39
  Speaker 1: The team could trust no one. If you remember, they
• 36:42
  Speaker 1: were operating out of a secret headquarters in the forests
• 36:45
  Speaker 1: outside of town.
• 36:47
  Speaker 8: They had basically created a bunker out in the middle
• 36:52
  Speaker 8: of the woods, somewhere, that they didn't want anybody to
• 36:56
  Speaker 8: know about because by this time, in their brains, everybody
• 37:01
  Speaker 8: was involved. Everybody was suspect. They couldn't trust anybody. The sheriff,
• 37:06
  Speaker 8: the chief of police, anybody who had any skepticism about
• 37:11
  Speaker 8: what they were saying happened. It's like the whole town
• 37:15
  Speaker 8: was a conspiracy den of devil worshipers. It was weird. Yes,
• 37:18
  Speaker 8: that's truly what they believed. But it became painfully obvious
• 37:23
  Speaker 8: after coming back to Austin, after that first visit, that
• 37:27
  Speaker 8: we now had... inexperienced team that was so far into
• 37:35
  Speaker 8: this and so far over their head that really bad
• 37:39
  Speaker 8: things were going to happen if something didn't stop it.
• 37:43
  Speaker 8: And so the decision was made to basically fire Scott Leifert,
• 37:47
  Speaker 8: take over the case. So I flew up to Gilmer
• 37:52
  Speaker 8: and met with Scott in the Golden Corral up there.
• 37:56
  Speaker 8: It was a very bizarre experience, very Twilight Zone-ish. I
• 38:00
  Speaker 8: don't know why I had that sense, but I sat
• 38:03
  Speaker 8: down with Scott, and I told him, Scott, we're taking
• 38:05
  Speaker 8: over the case. Kind of an interesting thing about that
• 38:09
  Speaker 8: is that I really had no authority to do that.
• 38:13
  Speaker 8: There is a great deal of ignorance out there about
• 38:15
  Speaker 8: what the Attorney General's Office can and cannot do in
• 38:18
  Speaker 8: criminal law. And the fact is that the Attorney General's Office, again,
• 38:22
  Speaker 8: has very limited jurisdiction. We only ever gain, at least
• 38:26
  Speaker 8: when I was doing it, only ever came into a
• 38:28
  Speaker 8: jurisdiction with the permission of a local prosecutor. We only
• 38:31
  Speaker 8: ever prosecuted as either deputized assistants or pro tem attorneys
• 38:36
  Speaker 8: when the district attorney or county attorney had accused themselves.
• 38:40
  Speaker 8: But with respect to the ability to go in and
• 38:43
  Speaker 8: fire somebody, keep in mind that Scott Leifert was appointed
• 38:45
  Speaker 8: by the district judge, so he was the district attorney
• 38:49
  Speaker 8: for that case. And fortunately, he was ignorant enough about
• 38:52
  Speaker 8: the process that he didn't know I couldn't do it.
• 38:54
  Speaker 8: Scott Leifert could have said, I don't care what you think.
• 38:58
  Speaker 8: I am the appointed prosecutor pro tem. And one of
• 39:02
  Speaker 8: the shortcomings of our system is that there is no
• 39:07
  Speaker 8: oversight for prosecutors. So I really didn't have any authority
• 39:12
  Speaker 8: to do it, but I knew that most people don't
• 39:14
  Speaker 8: know that. So I just told them he was fired.
• 39:17
  Speaker 8: I mean, I didn't put it in exactly that way.
• 39:20
  Speaker 8: I said, we're taking over the case. I left it
• 39:23
  Speaker 8: open that, look, if you want to remain involved, we're
• 39:26
  Speaker 8: happy to. have your help. And I think at that point,
• 39:31
  Speaker 8: there was some sincerity in that offer because I didn't
• 39:35
  Speaker 8: have a full understanding at this point of just how
• 39:38
  Speaker 8: wrong this whole thing had gone.
• 39:44
  Speaker 5: I remember, you know, my first meeting with Shane.
• 39:46
  Speaker 1: This is James Brown's attorney, David Moore, again.
• 39:49
  Speaker 5: And I remember him telling me that there's some things
• 39:55
  Speaker 5: that we're aware of that you don't even know. And
• 39:58
  Speaker 5: he said, I promise you, your client's going to get
• 40:00
  Speaker 5: a fair shake on this deal. He said, if you'll,
• 40:06
  Speaker 5: you know, he didn't say exactly like this, but essentially
• 40:09
  Speaker 5: if I would be cooperative with them. And I was,
• 40:13
  Speaker 5: you know, feeling anything but. cooperative with the prosecution at
• 40:18
  Speaker 5: that point in time because I knew that there were
• 40:22
  Speaker 5: shady things that were happening. And ultimately he did what
• 40:26
  Speaker 5: he said he was going to do.
• 40:29
  Speaker 8: And that was look at it objectively.
• 40:31
  Speaker 1: Shane also provided Sgt. Brown's attorney with the recordings of
• 40:34
  Speaker 1: the interrogations.
• 40:36
  Speaker 5: I remember when I got the tapes, I got them
• 40:39
  Speaker 5: from when the AG got involved. And Shane Phelps turned
• 40:45
  Speaker 5: them over to me and I just remember listening to
• 40:47
  Speaker 5: them and just being so angry at what they were
• 40:52
  Speaker 5: doing so angry I could not believe when I actually
• 40:57
  Speaker 5: got the recordings how unprofessional how insidious the investigation really
• 41:09
  Speaker 5: was the it's just it was crazy It was crazy.
• 41:16
  Speaker 5: You need to listen to them because there's times when
• 41:19
  Speaker 5: they're trying to get from Connie the.
• 41:24
  Speaker 5: And it's just almost comical in hindsight, but they're trying
• 41:30
  Speaker 5: to get her to say that there's a police officer
• 41:33
  Speaker 5: out there. And it's very suspicious the way that happens
• 41:38
  Speaker 5: because they'll have the tape recorder running and then she'll
• 41:43
  Speaker 5: get lost and... and can't provide them detail. And there's
• 41:46
  Speaker 5: times where, I believe it's Lyford says, well, we'll come
• 41:51
  Speaker 5: back to that. There's times when I think Lyford testified
• 41:56
  Speaker 5: that they wanted to make sure everything was recorded so
• 41:59
  Speaker 5: nobody could accuse them of, you know, planting things in
• 42:04
  Speaker 5: the witnesses' heads or suggesting answers to them. And then,
• 42:08
  Speaker 5: you know, I'll be darned if they don't say, well,
• 42:12
  Speaker 5: let's go off of... you know, sort of go off camera,
• 42:15
  Speaker 5: so to speak. And then you come back, and then
• 42:18
  Speaker 5: Connie spits out James Brown's name. I mean, she couldn't
• 42:23
  Speaker 5: before they took the break.
• 42:25
  Speaker 8: Tell me everybody that was at the house when you
• 42:27
  Speaker 8: got home.
• 42:28
  Speaker 5: James Brown.
• 42:29
  Speaker 6: Yes. Okay.
• 42:43
  Speaker 5: Like they would, if Connie couldn't get her story right
• 42:48
  Speaker 5: for that evening, and they went back and forth with
• 42:50
  Speaker 5: her multiple times, Lyford would make comments like, come on, Connie,
• 42:56
  Speaker 5: you know the answer. Tonight's cigarette hangs in the balance.
• 43:01
  Speaker 8: We're not dumb, girl. We're not dumb. And you make
• 43:05
  Speaker 8: it hard on us and hard on yourself. And you
• 43:08
  Speaker 8: know what else you do?
• 43:08
  Speaker 3: You could have had a cigarette 15 minutes ago if
• 43:11
  Speaker 3: you had just said, oh, yeah, they use a metal detector.
• 43:13
  Speaker 2: I didn't think about that at the time.
• 43:16
  Speaker 8: Well, you cost yourself 15 minutes worth of cigarettes. Connie,
• 43:19
  Speaker 8: look at it.
• 43:19
  Speaker 5: You know, they'd take her out and let her smoke
• 43:22
  Speaker 5: cigarettes and, you know, get her food and stuff like that.
• 43:29
  Speaker 8: And Connie's IQ.
• 43:33
  Speaker 5: I can't remember exactly what it was, but it was
• 43:37
  Speaker 5: sub-average IQ.
• 43:41
  Speaker 2: Their local reporter, Phillip Williams, described it as having the.
• 43:45
  Speaker 5: IQ of a fern. Well, she had a little more
• 43:48
  Speaker 5: going on than a fern, but not a whole lot.
• 43:53
  Speaker 5: She was subsequently, I think, tested, and I don't remember
• 43:56
  Speaker 5: what the exact score was, but it was well below 100.
• 43:59
  Speaker 8: And so.
• 44:03
  Speaker 5: I feel like Connie and Wanda were taken advantage of
• 44:07
  Speaker 5: by Lieford as much. There's one point on the tapes
• 44:12
  Speaker 5: where Lieford, they send Connie back to her cell and
• 44:21
  Speaker 5: Lieford makes a comment. Connie's having a hard time figuring
• 44:26
  Speaker 5: out this carrot.
• 44:26
  Speaker 8: And stick thing.
• 44:29
  Speaker 5: I'm not kidding you. I mean, you're rolling your eyes
• 44:32
  Speaker 5: at me and looking in disbelief, but you're going to
• 44:34
  Speaker 5: hear those types of things. And when I was hearing
• 44:37
  Speaker 5: those things, I remember one point slamming my coffee cup
• 44:41
  Speaker 5: and getting coffee everywhere because I was so pissed off
• 44:45
  Speaker 5: that they could do something like that to somebody. And
• 44:49
  Speaker 5: it's a damn good thing for the courage, honestly, that
• 44:52
  Speaker 5: James Brown got indicted.
• 44:54
  Speaker 8: Yeah.
• 44:57
  Speaker 5: Seriously.
• 44:57
  Speaker 6: Did you expound on that?
• 45:01
  Speaker 5: Because the Kers were poor.
• 45:06
  Speaker 8: People.
• 45:09
  Speaker 5: The Kers, some of them, may or may not have
• 45:16
  Speaker 5: been guilty of the sexual allegations that were against them.
• 45:20
  Speaker 5: They were not very sympathetic defendants. James, on the other hand,
• 45:31
  Speaker 5: And I think that them indicting him drew attention to
• 45:36
  Speaker 5: the case, which ultimately served the Kers well.
• 45:41
  Speaker 1: If not for the indictment of James Brown, the case
• 45:44
  Speaker 1: might have carried on with no scrutiny from the outside world,
• 45:48
  Speaker 1: no national media or intervention by the Attorney General's office.
• 45:52
  Speaker 1: The Kers would have been screwed.
• 45:54
  Speaker 5: The woods behind the Curse House, and I went out
• 45:56
  Speaker 5: there and looked at it, I mean, there's neighbors all
• 45:58
  Speaker 5: around it, you know, and you would think there's people
• 46:00
  Speaker 5: back there in robes and carrying torches, and neighbors would
• 46:04
  Speaker 5: see stuff like that because they're all right there close by.
• 46:10
  Speaker 5: The kids talk about a penis-shaped elevator, taking a penis-shaped
• 46:15
  Speaker 5: elevator down into dungeons, and that they didn't just kill Kelly,
• 46:19
  Speaker 5: that they were sacrificing other babies, and it was just
• 46:23
  Speaker 5: crazy shit. I don't know how else to say it,
• 46:25
  Speaker 5: just crazy shit. And they were a whole hog into it. And,
• 46:33
  Speaker 5: you know, unfortunately, there wasn't anybody there to tap the brakes.
• 46:37
  Speaker 5: You know, the first time that happened, you know, I
• 46:39
  Speaker 5: think James tried to do that. I think James tried
• 46:42
  Speaker 5: to do that. I think he paid price for it.
• 46:44
  Speaker 1: Shane Phelps knew what he had to do.
• 46:46
  Speaker 8: It wasn't until getting their files and going through everything
• 46:50
  Speaker 8: with my team at the EAG's office, investigators and prosecutors,
• 46:56
  Speaker 8: that we realized, I mean, there was no evidence to
• 46:58
  Speaker 8: support these indictments. I mean, I can't emphasize it enough.
• 47:02
  Speaker 8: These were indictments that could lead to the death penalty,
• 47:07
  Speaker 8: which is scary. So we had this summit at the
• 47:13
  Speaker 8: Attorney General's office where we invited them all up. We
• 47:16
  Speaker 8: had their files, at least most of them. And I.
• 47:22
  Speaker 8: I remember I was at the front of the table
• 47:23
  Speaker 8: talking about it, went through some of the evidence and said, look,
• 47:27
  Speaker 8: we have to dismiss these cases.
• 47:29
  Speaker 1: Would James Brown and the Kerrs walk free? And what
• 47:32
  Speaker 1: about Raymond, the little boy who told CPS workers that
• 47:36
  Speaker 1: Kelly Wilson had been murdered by the Kerr family?
• 47:39
  Speaker 9: From seven years old, my head's been full of devil worshipping, killers, cannibalism,
• 47:47
  Speaker 9: sexual misconduct.
• 47:50
  Speaker 1: Raymond tells all. In the next chapter of Deviltown. Deviltown
• 47:55
  Speaker 1: is a production of Imperative Entertainment. It was written and
• 47:58
  Speaker 1: created by me, Wes Ferguson. Executive producer is Jason Hoke.
• 48:02
  Speaker 1: Audio engineering and editing by Shane Freeman and Jason Hoke.
• 48:06
  Speaker 1: Original score is by Robert Ellis. Recording by Austin Sissler
• 48:10
  Speaker 1: at Eastside Studios. If you like the show, leave a
• 48:13
  Speaker 1: review and don't forget to tell your friends. Thanks for listening.