Latest / Devil Town / In the Woods | Chapter 3
Transcript
- 0:00Speaker 1: This podcast is intended for mature audiences. Listener discretion is advised.
- 0:30Speaker 2: And all the rest of them walked back in there.
- 0:33Speaker 2: They never didn't say no more about her. That was
- 0:35Speaker 2: just mad. You could see the anger on her face.
- 0:40Speaker 2: Did you ever see her again? Not after that? I
- 0:43Speaker 2: don't know what they do.
- 0:45Speaker 3: Do you see her the next day?
- 0:47Speaker 4: No?
- 0:48Speaker 2: I don't know what they don't for a body. They
- 0:52Speaker 2: just told me I wanted if we opened up saying
- 0:54Speaker 2: thing about what we say that they would kill us.
- 0:58Speaker 2: I do the same thing those and we we're scared.
- 1:02Speaker 2: And I still I'm scared.
- 1:04Speaker 5: Where you don't need to you're saying.
- 1:09Speaker 1: Around the time Kelly Wilson disappeared from the piney woods
- 1:13Speaker 1: of East Texas, some country folks in Gilmer got in
- 1:16Speaker 1: trouble with the law. The Curs, often referred to as
- 1:20Speaker 1: the Kerr Clan. There were a bunch of them, a
- 1:23Speaker 1: big incestuous family living in shacks and trailers and a
- 1:27Speaker 1: kind of run down compound on Cherokee Trace, the same
- 1:30Speaker 1: winding road where search parties would eventually comb the woods
- 1:34Speaker 1: for any sign of Kelly Wilson. The problems for the
- 1:38Speaker 1: Curs started in the fall of nineteen ninety when one
- 1:41Speaker 1: of the brothers, this guy Wendell, left his wife Loretta
- 1:44Speaker 1: for a younger woman. Loretta reported Wendell to the authorities,
- 1:48Speaker 1: said he'd been abusing their four kids. The new woman
- 1:51Speaker 1: in Wendell's life, her name was Wanda. She brought her
- 1:55Speaker 1: own baggage. Wanda's brother, Lucas, was a molester too. He'd
- 2:00Speaker 1: abused Wanda's kid from her previous relationship with a guy
- 2:03Speaker 1: named Bad Jimmy. It was a tangled web. A caseworker
- 2:07Speaker 1: from Child Protective Services stepped in.
- 2:18Speaker 6: Yes, sir, Hey, my.
- 2:19Speaker 1: Name is Wes Ferguson. I'm a journalist. I'm working on
- 2:23Speaker 1: a project about the Kelly Wilson case and looking.
- 2:26Speaker 4: For Ann Gore.
- 2:27Speaker 7: Is that you?
- 2:28Speaker 1: That was Anne when I knocked. You'll hear about her
- 2:31Speaker 1: throughout the series. Anne Gore, the caseworker, was a deeply
- 2:34Speaker 1: religious woman from Gilmer. The abuse she uncovered was more
- 2:38Speaker 1: than alarming. Thanks in part to Anne's efforts, Wendell and
- 2:42Speaker 1: Lucas were arrested and they both got ten years probation.
- 2:47Speaker 1: Less than a year after that slap on the wrist,
- 2:49Speaker 1: Wendell and his new flame, Wanda got married. Their wedding
- 2:53Speaker 1: took place on the Kerr family compound on Cherokee Trace.
- 2:57Speaker 1: Just days later, CPS filed to remove the kids from
- 3:00Speaker 1: the home of the convicted sex offender. In court, Wanda
- 3:04Speaker 1: also admitted that she had abused her own sons from infancy.
- 3:09Speaker 1: It was all horrifying. By now, the investigation into the
- 3:12Speaker 1: Curs had sprawled throughout the family. Allegations went up to
- 3:16Speaker 1: the grandparents, Eugene and Geneva Kerr, a multi generational legacy
- 3:21Speaker 1: of incest and abuse. Some things about the case weren't
- 3:26Speaker 1: just appalling, they were bizarre. One night, Anne took some
- 3:30Speaker 1: of the Kirk kids to dinner. They had been singing
- 3:33Speaker 1: and playing games. On the drive back to Gilmer, one
- 3:35Speaker 1: of the young girls became very quiet.
- 3:38Speaker 8: All of a sudden, she got real serious. I want
- 3:42Speaker 8: to know how Anne fields about Jesus. Then she said,
- 3:47Speaker 8: do you like Jesus?
- 3:50Speaker 1: This is recreated from an interview and gave in nineteen
- 3:53Speaker 1: ninety five with contact an alternative newspaper and declined to
- 3:59Speaker 1: speak with me on them. So you're hearing from my
- 4:01Speaker 1: friend Beverly reading the voice of Ann.
- 4:04Speaker 8: I said, yes, I like Jesus. And she told me
- 4:08Speaker 8: she didn't like him, and I asked her why and
- 4:12Speaker 8: she said because he sexually abuses the angels.
- 4:17Speaker 1: Anne was shocked. She asked, who in the world told
- 4:21Speaker 1: you something like that?
- 4:23Speaker 8: And she said, nobody told me that. I saw him
- 4:27Speaker 8: do it. I was an angel.
- 4:30Speaker 1: By now there were more than a dozen Kirk kids
- 4:33Speaker 1: and stepkids and foster care. One day, they all went
- 4:37Speaker 1: to a birthday party. The children strangely began to chant
- 4:42Speaker 1: around the candles on the cake.
- 4:44Speaker 8: The youngest one said, the Devil's coming and he got
- 4:48Speaker 8: his fingers all perched up in a claw like form
- 4:51Speaker 8: and said he scratched me and he get blood.
- 4:56Speaker 1: Hearing this, now, sure, it's kind of dark, but mostly
- 5:00Speaker 1: it just sounds like silly kids who might have watched
- 5:02Speaker 1: a scary movie or two. This child was only three
- 5:05Speaker 1: years old, though by now Anne was highly attuned to
- 5:08Speaker 1: other disturbing things the kids were talking about. As the
- 5:11Speaker 1: children kept opening up to Anne and their foster parents,
- 5:15Speaker 1: the stories became more gruesome, more explicit.
- 5:19Speaker 8: Eating body parts, drinking blood.
- 5:22Speaker 1: Child trafficking, demonic rituals, killing babies in the woods. The
- 5:28Speaker 1: worst crimes were rumored to be happening at the Kerr
- 5:30Speaker 1: place off the dark trail of Cherokee. Trace Anne and
- 5:34Speaker 1: her caseworker colleague, Debbie Minshew, knew how to handle child
- 5:38Speaker 1: abuse claims. Sadly, those were all too common. The Satan stuff, though,
- 5:44Speaker 1: that was beyond their scope. That's when CPS brought in
- 5:47Speaker 1: a state cop, Steve Baggs, to take over the kr case.
- 5:52Speaker 1: Bags had been involved in some recent investigations of murderous
- 5:55Speaker 1: cults and he was about to retire from the Texas
- 5:58Speaker 1: Department of Public Safety. Needing backup, Bags turned to a
- 6:02Speaker 1: police chaplain from Louisiana named Brooks Flag, who fashioned himself
- 6:06Speaker 1: an expert on Satanic rituals. Bags and Flag the dynamic duo.
- 6:13Speaker 1: They interrogate Wanda's brother, Lucas, who admits to being part
- 6:17Speaker 1: of a group that sacrificed children and babies. To prove
- 6:20Speaker 1: he's telling the truth, Lucas even takes a light detector test.
- 6:24Speaker 9: He told several girls that they had kidnapped, tortured, and
- 6:31Speaker 9: raped and eventually killed, and he passed the polygraph examined
- 6:36Speaker 9: with flying covers.
- 6:37Speaker 1: That's Melvin Dodd, a Gilmer school teacher at the time.
- 6:41Speaker 1: Melvin would become a key player in the Kelly Wilson saga.
- 6:45Speaker 1: You'll hear plenty from Melvin in this episode. During a
- 6:49Speaker 1: search of the Kerk Place, cadaver dogs alerted on a
- 6:52Speaker 1: particular shed in the backyard.
- 6:54Speaker 9: And it had shackles in there where you could, you know,
- 7:00Speaker 9: like handcuff somebody to the wall, and there were cat
- 7:04Speaker 9: and nine tail whips in there and all kinds of
- 7:08Speaker 9: satanic stuff.
- 7:10Speaker 1: The shed made the local news at.
- 7:13Speaker 10: A storage shed belonging to the Kerr families in the
- 7:16Speaker 10: hands of investigators to night. Police are keeping mom about
- 7:19Speaker 10: where the shed is and what they'll do with it,
- 7:22Speaker 10: but forensic experts believe the shed will undergo a battery
- 7:25Speaker 10: of extensive tests for evidence.
- 7:27Speaker 11: Partial listing of what they found inside and are labeling
- 7:30Speaker 11: as evidence. Inside the shed a pickup truck toolbox also
- 7:34Speaker 11: found on the floor and walls of the shed were hair.
- 7:37Speaker 11: Hair was also found in a wood rail and rope,
- 7:39Speaker 11: and there was a cat of nine tails made of metal.
- 7:43Speaker 1: The investigators were closing in building their case. From Imperative Entertainment,
- 7:51Speaker 1: I'm west Ferguson. This is Deviltown. This is chapter three
- 8:14Speaker 1: in the woods. Talking to folks in Gilmer, I keep
- 8:18Speaker 1: hearing whispers about the Kerr family, about Sergeant Brown. Other
- 8:23Speaker 1: prominent names that come up repeatedly, and I'm trying to
- 8:26Speaker 1: check out all of them. Hardly anybody wants to talk
- 8:30Speaker 1: on the record, and I can't say I blame them.
- 8:33Speaker 1: But there's an exception, John Melvin Dodd, the retired school teacher.
- 8:38Speaker 1: Several Gilmer residents who wouldn't put their own names out
- 8:40Speaker 1: there said I should try him instead, seeing as Melvin
- 8:45Speaker 1: is a charter member of the Justice for Kelly Wilson Committee,
- 8:48Speaker 1: which we'll get to soon enough. So I called Melvin.
- 8:53Speaker 1: Here's a man who speaks his mind.
- 8:55Speaker 9: I'll tell you what you're taking on project. I hope
- 8:57Speaker 9: he makes some money. We were taking on a monstrous project.
- 9:02Speaker 9: I thought about writing a book about myself, but gosh,
- 9:06Speaker 9: I'm never dead, and I'm eighty years old. I'm not
- 9:08Speaker 9: going too now, but I guarantee I'll be very happy
- 9:11Speaker 9: to help you, really and truly. We're just kind of
- 9:15Speaker 9: scratching the surface.
- 9:16Speaker 1: Back to that shed in the curves backyard. Shackles and whips.
- 9:21Speaker 1: From what I've read, it was more like straps and ropes,
- 9:23Speaker 1: some rubber tie downs and insulated electrical wire and that
- 9:28Speaker 1: cat of nine tails, which is a little weird at
- 9:31Speaker 1: any rate. The investigators also discovered a long trail looping
- 9:36Speaker 1: through the woods behind the house, which they saw as
- 9:38Speaker 1: some kind of ritualistic footpath, and they thought it might
- 9:41Speaker 1: be home to shallow graves. By now the case had
- 9:44Speaker 1: expanded beyond the Kerr family. Wanda's sons claimed that one
- 9:49Speaker 1: of the neighbor kids had also been involved in the abuse.
- 9:52Speaker 1: This seven year old kid named Raymond. Normally I wouldn't
- 9:56Speaker 1: name a minor victim like this, but Raymond gave the okay.
- 10:01Speaker 1: CPS took Raymond and his little brother, who was just
- 10:03Speaker 1: a toddler at the time, and placed them in foster care.
- 10:07Speaker 1: Their foster mom was named Barbara Bass. She had a
- 10:10Speaker 1: ton of kids in her care.
- 10:13Speaker 9: She had been the East Texas Foster Parent of the
- 10:18Speaker 9: Year I think the year before, and she had been
- 10:23Speaker 9: given custody of Raymond Smith during this and so she
- 10:28Speaker 9: and Anne Gore and Debbie Minsh took Raymond to the
- 10:32Speaker 9: Dairy Queen And while Raymond is there eating, he casually says,
- 10:37Speaker 9: I don't know what happened to Kelly Wilson.
- 10:39Speaker 1: Seven year old Raymond claimed the curs had abducted Kelly Wilson,
- 10:43Speaker 1: the local girl that hadn't been seen at this point
- 10:45Speaker 1: in a year and a half. And not only that,
- 10:48Speaker 1: he said the curs they'd killed her.
- 10:52Speaker 9: That's how all of this started. Raymond Smith told about
- 10:56Speaker 9: how they would go out there and the beat Kelly
- 11:01Speaker 9: and a raped her and all this kind of stuff.
- 11:06Speaker 9: And there were other kids, mostly girls, who were brought
- 11:12Speaker 9: in by the truck drivers in the family, and they
- 11:15Speaker 9: would do this to them and kill them.
- 11:19Speaker 1: And Gore and her fellow caseworker, Debbie Minshew shared Raymond's
- 11:22Speaker 1: claims with Gilmer police Sergeant James York Brown, who'd been
- 11:25Speaker 1: leading the unrelated so far search for Kelly.
- 11:30Speaker 9: James Brown is the policeman who was assigned to investigate.
- 11:35Speaker 9: So they took it to James Brown. Well, two or
- 11:38Speaker 9: three days later, they hadn't even heard from James Brown,
- 11:41Speaker 9: so they go see James Brown and he told them
- 11:45Speaker 9: you stay out in my case, if you don't, I
- 11:49Speaker 9: will destroy you and I'll destroy the kid.
- 11:53Speaker 1: To be honest, it's hard for me to comprehend that
- 11:55Speaker 1: James Brown ever said this, but it's pretty much exactly
- 11:59Speaker 1: how En Gore has described their exchange in that interview
- 12:02Speaker 1: she gave for contact newspaper Brown it seems wanted no
- 12:06Speaker 1: one coming close to his investigation. By now, the investigation
- 12:12Speaker 1: into the Curs was really heating up. It was August
- 12:15Speaker 1: ninety three going into September. The Curves were heading toward
- 12:20Speaker 1: a criminal trial on dozens of sex abuse charges.
- 12:24Speaker 3: Now I got a phone call from I believe it
- 12:27Speaker 3: was Anne Gore, who was with the Job Protective Services.
- 12:31Speaker 3: She told me that they had a bunch of molestation
- 12:36Speaker 3: cases involving an extended family in Gilmer, the Curves, as
- 12:44Speaker 3: well as some other folks who were associated with them.
- 12:47Speaker 1: This is Shane Phelps. At the time, he was an
- 12:50Speaker 1: Assistant Attorney General for the state of Texas. Shane had
- 12:54Speaker 1: just been named the chief of a brand new division
- 12:56Speaker 1: in the AG's office, set up to assist local prosecutors,
- 13:00Speaker 1: and they need extra help.
- 13:02Speaker 3: So I asked her, you know, what kind of cases
- 13:05Speaker 3: are we talking about? What are they going to trial?
- 13:08Speaker 3: Because this is the kind of thing we did. I mean,
- 13:10Speaker 3: the attorney, the district attorney of that jurisdiction, Upshire County,
- 13:13Speaker 3: apparently discovered that he had a conflict and so he
- 13:17Speaker 3: almost at the last minute said I can't handle these cases.
- 13:21Speaker 3: As it turned out, there were some forty five indictments
- 13:24Speaker 3: involving about six or seven people, which is a ton
- 13:28Speaker 3: of cases. I mean, that's an extraordinarily complex and difficult
- 13:33Speaker 3: case to prepare and get the trial or trials. So
- 13:38Speaker 3: when I asked her, well, when is this thing except
- 13:40Speaker 3: for trial? As I recall, it is very quickly. It
- 13:43Speaker 3: wasn't the next week, but it was very It was
- 13:46Speaker 3: on the trial dock and already it may have been
- 13:48Speaker 3: a month out, and I just said, look, I've got
- 13:50Speaker 3: a capital murder case I'm handling right now, I'm staffing
- 13:54Speaker 3: this office. I'm just taking over. We just can't take
- 13:59Speaker 3: that case of that magnitude on at this time. Was
- 14:03Speaker 3: there anything about the Satanics at that point, No, No,
- 14:06Speaker 3: it was just a molestation, sexual assault, indecency with a
- 14:11Speaker 3: child involving these children. She didn't give me any details
- 14:15Speaker 3: since she certainly didn't mention anything at all about the
- 14:17Speaker 3: Satanic stuff. She did mention that they had made contact
- 14:22Speaker 3: with a lawyer named Scott Leiford. I think he was
- 14:27Speaker 3: out of Galveston. It was a civil lawyer.
- 14:31Speaker 1: Scott Lefford was indeed a civil lawyer, but he'd worked
- 14:35Speaker 1: on child abuse cases earlier in his career. With Shane
- 14:38Speaker 1: Phelps unable to help, Lyford was appointed special prosecutor. The
- 14:43Speaker 1: first thing he did was appoint Bags and Flag as
- 14:46Speaker 1: special prosecutors. Next, Bags and Flag got named special investigators
- 14:51Speaker 1: for the Sheriff's office too, and just like that the
- 14:55Speaker 1: team had real power power to unravel the story.
- 15:00Speaker 5: It is about five minutes until six on Thursday, December
- 15:05Speaker 5: the ninth, nineteen ninety three.
- 15:08Speaker 6: We're with Connie Martin.
- 15:10Speaker 5: Also here is Debbie Minshew, Steve Baggs, Brookes Flagg, and myself,
- 15:17Speaker 5: Scott Leifert. We've been talking to Connie Martin on and
- 15:20Speaker 5: off most of the afternoon. Her lawyers here in the
- 15:24Speaker 5: jail and insisted with her on several occasions. And we're
- 15:28Speaker 5: going to go over again some things now that she
- 15:30Speaker 5: just told us and gotten off her chest.
- 15:33Speaker 12: And Steve, I'll that you y'all pick up where you are, Okay, Connie,
- 15:37Speaker 12: where are you gonna start? You wanna start at the
- 15:39Speaker 12: trace or at NTV where she was picked up.
- 15:44Speaker 1: Connie Martin, she was the common law wife of Danny Kerr.
- 15:48Speaker 1: When a bunch of the curs were getting rounded up
- 15:51Speaker 1: Connie was arrested too. You heard Connie at the top
- 15:54Speaker 1: of this episode. Here she is again talking with Steve
- 15:57Speaker 1: Baggs about the abduction of Kelly.
- 16:00Speaker 2: Kelly got in a van, a white van with the MTV.
- 16:05Speaker 2: It was right beside the video clubs.
- 16:09Speaker 13: We went from there out to Geneva's house on Cherokee Trace.
- 16:16Speaker 13: Danny and all of them was We was all sitting
- 16:18Speaker 13: in the kitchen. I was sitting beside Kelly. They asked
- 16:22Speaker 13: Kelly if Danny and Wanda had asked Kelly if she
- 16:25Speaker 13: wanted to go outside, and she said yes, so they
- 16:28Speaker 13: followed her out the door.
- 16:30Speaker 1: According to Connie, Kelly had been friends with Danny Kerr,
- 16:33Speaker 1: so it wasn't strange for her to get into Danny's
- 16:35Speaker 1: van or for her to visit the Kerrs house in
- 16:39Speaker 1: the woods. Connie said they were coerced into group sex
- 16:43Speaker 1: after they.
- 16:44Speaker 13: Made up that they made a man wanted to put
- 16:46Speaker 13: her clothes back on, made us take the children back.
- 16:48Speaker 2: To the finals.
- 16:50Speaker 12: Did you ever see her again?
- 16:52Speaker 3: Not after that?
- 16:53Speaker 2: I don't know what. They didn't move. Do you see
- 16:56Speaker 2: her the next day?
- 16:57Speaker 4: No, I don't know what.
- 16:59Speaker 2: The don't tell m They just told men Wanda. If
- 17:03Speaker 2: we opened up say anything about what we say that
- 17:06Speaker 2: say kill os. They are very violent.
- 17:13Speaker 13: No, if they had threatened to kill money, if I
- 17:17Speaker 13: open my mouth, they have threatened to kill Wanda. I
- 17:19Speaker 13: had to sing marks on Wanda's throw, and I asked
- 17:23Speaker 13: Wanda what happened to her throw, and she would tell me,
- 17:26Speaker 13: I don't know.
- 17:26Speaker 1: She was scared to tell me or what we heard
- 17:29Speaker 1: about Wanda earlier. She's the wife of Wendell Kerr, and
- 17:32Speaker 1: she'd already confessed to abusing her own sons. The Lifer
- 17:36Speaker 1: team grilled Wanda for hours. Eventually she cracked. The team
- 17:43Speaker 1: even escorted her out of jail so she could show
- 17:45Speaker 1: them around the Kerr place where their heinous crimes supposedly
- 17:49Speaker 1: went down. Wanda said Kelly was a birthday present for Geneva,
- 17:53Speaker 1: the matriarch of the Kerr clan. She said, Danny and
- 17:57Speaker 1: a few of the other Kerr family members pulled up
- 17:59Speaker 1: beside the movie store, and Kelly came over to their van.
- 18:03Speaker 1: Here's Wanda with investigator Steve Baggs. The story she tells
- 18:07Speaker 1: is kind of similar to her sister in law Connie's.
- 18:10Speaker 6: Did she lean in the window now, she just stood there. Okay,
- 18:17Speaker 6: what did Danny say?
- 18:18Speaker 4: Danny ask her, which do you would you like to
- 18:23Speaker 4: go out and meet my mother, Geneva Man?
- 18:26Speaker 6: Then what did Kelly say?
- 18:28Speaker 2: Kelly did okay?
- 18:30Speaker 1: Sure, Wanda said. The van took Kelly to the Kerr
- 18:33Speaker 1: compound on Cherokee Trace. Everybody gathered around Geneva's kitchen.
- 18:38Speaker 6: How long were you there for? The conversation got the
- 18:42Speaker 6: van a few minutes.
- 18:46Speaker 4: Danny told Kelly that his mom wants to talk to her.
- 18:50Speaker 4: Kelly went over there as mom asked if she would
- 18:56Speaker 4: take her clothes off, she said no, and that's where
- 18:59Speaker 4: the arguments though.
- 19:00Speaker 2: She was stunned.
- 19:02Speaker 4: She was stunned. Yeah, I didn't know what was going on.
- 19:07Speaker 4: Somebody spoke up said it was just a joke. It
- 19:11Speaker 4: was just picking on you, and asked would you like
- 19:13Speaker 4: to go outside and walk around to her? Cut off
- 19:15Speaker 4: a little bit?
- 19:17Speaker 6: Went out the door first I did, and you went
- 19:23Speaker 6: out the door and then came out behind.
- 19:26Speaker 4: You, Kelly, she was right there behind the story.
- 19:30Speaker 2: Did you go out the back door?
- 19:32Speaker 6: Back door?
- 19:33Speaker 4: Always the back door stood outside right there at the
- 19:37Speaker 4: back backsteps till everybody got out there. Then it was
- 19:43Speaker 4: just like walking around it started out towards stuff.
- 19:50Speaker 2: The peach trees.
- 19:51Speaker 4: It's out there, uh, past the clothesline a little bit.
- 19:57Speaker 4: Jenny would wanting to show her her peach trees, the
- 20:00Speaker 4: one you playing, right, Wanda, to show our page. Jason
- 20:09Speaker 4: to me at Saint Laco's Sun. Your mind occupied, That's
- 20:12Speaker 4: what it seemed like to me.
- 20:15Speaker 1: Kelly and the Currs ended up deeper in the woods.
- 20:18Speaker 1: At this point in the interview, Steve Baggs asks Wanda
- 20:21Speaker 1: about the names of other people who are over there
- 20:24Speaker 1: that night. Then the recording ends. So while Bags and
- 20:28Speaker 1: Flag are doing their thing, you got to remember that
- 20:31Speaker 1: Sergeant James York Brown is still heading up the original
- 20:34Speaker 1: search for Kelly Wilson. Although Sergeant Brown was initially dismissive
- 20:39Speaker 1: of the curR connection, he went ahead and interviewed Wanda's
- 20:42Speaker 1: brother Lucas. Remember, Lucas had told Bags and Flag that
- 20:47Speaker 1: he'd been part of the cult that sacrificed babies and children.
- 20:50Speaker 1: He'd even passed a polygraph. Now, though Lucas had a
- 20:54Speaker 1: different story, He told Sergeant Brown that he made all
- 20:57Speaker 1: that up. Brown also talked to Wendell Kerr. According to
- 21:01Speaker 1: the Special Prosecutors, Star witnesses. Wendell had been on the
- 21:05Speaker 1: scene when the Curs kidnapped Kelly. The way they told it,
- 21:09Speaker 1: he was practically the ringleader of the Devil cult. But
- 21:13Speaker 1: Wendell was a truck driver. He'd been hauling freight on
- 21:16Speaker 1: the East Coast on the night Kelly Wilson disappeared from
- 21:19Speaker 1: the video store in Gilmert, Texas, and Wendell had the
- 21:22Speaker 1: receipts to prove it. Brown took his findings to Scott Lefford.
- 21:27Speaker 1: Now it was Lifford's turn to be dismissive. If the
- 21:30Speaker 1: Currs were capable of demonic sacrifices, they were capable of anything,
- 21:35Speaker 1: and that includes the relatively simple task of forging a
- 21:38Speaker 1: bunch of receipts. Sergeant James Brown wasn't buying it. He
- 21:43Speaker 1: wouldn't back down.
- 21:46Speaker 14: I mean, I knew they hit false fied information and
- 21:49Speaker 14: falseified evidences stiff in those channel cases.
- 21:55Speaker 2: That they were in on that at the time.
- 21:58Speaker 1: That's Sergeant Brown just to be He's accusing the life
- 22:01Speaker 1: or team of falsifying evidence here. I'm not aware of
- 22:04Speaker 1: them doing that. Lots of different interpretations though, and I
- 22:07Speaker 1: told him that when.
- 22:09Speaker 14: They went to court, I don't justify an instant And
- 22:14Speaker 14: as it built up, he turned around and fretted me
- 22:16Speaker 14: that he would ruin me and destroying the whole livelihood
- 22:24Speaker 14: everything else politically and all.
- 22:30Speaker 3: Of course I.
- 22:30Speaker 6: Didn't think he could do it.
- 22:34Speaker 14: And when they lied about those things, and then they
- 22:38Speaker 14: lied about the evidence, you know, so we're gonna said
- 22:43Speaker 14: when you falsify evidence, you make up evidence, and you
- 22:46Speaker 14: present it to somebody like a grand jury.
- 22:51Speaker 2: They don't know what they did do and didn't do.
- 22:53Speaker 6: And that's the sad part of that. They lied completely.
- 22:57Speaker 14: And then that's how they and some guy says Menian
- 23:00Speaker 14: to him because they said, well, if we didn't get
- 23:03Speaker 14: him killed, is why I looked at them.
- 23:05Speaker 6: They walk away as white knights.
- 23:07Speaker 1: Wait, was the Lifer team trying to kill Sergeant Brown?
- 23:12Speaker 1: I think he means they were trying to kill his case.
- 23:31Speaker 1: Rival investigations were heading straight toward a collision. On the
- 23:35Speaker 1: one hand, there was Scott Lefford with investigators Bags and Flag,
- 23:39Speaker 1: joined by caseworkers An Gore and Debbie Minshew, and on
- 23:43Speaker 1: the other Sergeant James Brown keeping his version of the
- 23:47Speaker 1: case to himself. Meanwhile, CPS had to do something with
- 23:51Speaker 1: all those Kerr kids. Some of the kids went with
- 23:54Speaker 1: Barbara Bass, the foster parent of the year who I
- 23:57Speaker 1: mentioned earlier in the episode. Others ended up with an
- 24:00Speaker 1: older couple named James and Marie Lappie. James and Marie
- 24:03Speaker 1: were actually so afraid of the Kerr family they fled
- 24:06Speaker 1: with their ten foster kids to the West Texas town
- 24:09Speaker 1: of Colorado City, trying to put a ton of distance
- 24:12Speaker 1: between themselves and the supposed devil cult In Gilmer. James
- 24:16Speaker 1: and Marie built a tall fence to keep the kids in.
- 24:18Speaker 1: They homeschooled the kids and even brought in this guy,
- 24:21Speaker 1: Dan Sullivan, to teach Sunday school.
- 24:25Speaker 7: And it became clear to Dan Sullivan that the children
- 24:28Speaker 7: had been deprived.
- 24:30Speaker 3: She said that.
- 24:32Speaker 15: They had been through so much and she wanted to
- 24:34Speaker 15: give them a treat with moving and all the stress
- 24:36Speaker 15: and everything, and she was going to take them all
- 24:38Speaker 15: to the grocery store and let them get whatever they
- 24:40Speaker 15: wanted as a treat to eat.
- 24:43Speaker 3: And they went to the dog food section.
- 24:46Speaker 15: That was there a treat to them. Was she afraid
- 24:51Speaker 15: of having the children interact with other children when they
- 24:55Speaker 15: first came to Colorado City, Yes, absolutely, because the children
- 25:00Speaker 15: were taught to abuse other children and hurt and name
- 25:06Speaker 15: of their children. She told us that they knew the
- 25:10Speaker 15: older boys knew how to kill and field as a
- 25:14Speaker 15: baby a baby, a baby Yesterdir.
- 25:18Speaker 1: Of the dozen or more Kirk kids placed in foster care,
- 25:22Speaker 1: one was a seven year old boy named Danny Kerr Junior.
- 25:25Speaker 1: In November nineteen ninety three, his foster dad, James Lappie,
- 25:31Speaker 1: slapped Danny in the face and repeatedly slammed his head
- 25:34Speaker 1: against the wooden floor of their home. Other foster kids
- 25:37Speaker 1: who witnessed the assault described the back of Danny's head
- 25:40Speaker 1: in gruesome detail. Here's Shane Phelps again describing the injury.
- 25:46Speaker 3: I understanding was that there was a blow to his
- 25:48Speaker 3: head or series of blows to his head. It basically
- 25:50Speaker 3: reduced his head to mush and it was a horrible injury.
- 25:55Speaker 1: The same day he injured Danny Junior, James Lappie wrote
- 25:58Speaker 1: a note claiming that he had merely fallen on the child,
- 26:02Speaker 1: while admitting quote if that boy dies, it will be
- 26:05Speaker 1: my fault. James Lappie then shot himself to death in
- 26:10Speaker 1: his own backyard. James's wife, Marie was next to die.
- 26:16Speaker 13: Two days later.
- 26:17Speaker 7: In his office at the Colorado City Record, reporter Wade
- 26:20Speaker 7: Warren was listening to his police scanner.
- 26:23Speaker 16: There's a nine to one one call at Saint Mandris.
- 26:26Speaker 1: So I went up there and.
- 26:29Speaker 16: Found the I got there right after the police department did,
- 26:32Speaker 16: and in the JPE and found, you know, found that
- 26:36Speaker 16: he had committees apparently committed suicide with the woes of
- 26:39Speaker 16: Peel prescription drugs awful.
- 26:43Speaker 1: As for poor Danny Junior, he was left severely impaired.
- 26:47Speaker 1: From what I understand, he never recovered, spending the rest
- 26:50Speaker 1: of his days and assisted living. Danny Junior died in
- 26:53Speaker 1: twenty eleven at the age of twenty four. Okay, I
- 26:59Speaker 1: know I've thrown a lot of names at you. Here's
- 27:02Speaker 1: another Tammy manis Tammy was a bus driver for the
- 27:06Speaker 1: Kirk kids when they were in foster care.
- 27:09Speaker 17: I was driving a school bus in nineteen ninety two
- 27:13Speaker 17: for Gilmour Independent School District and I had some children
- 27:16Speaker 17: on my bus, small children, and mentioned something to the
- 27:19Speaker 17: effect of knowing what had happened to Kelly Wilson. And
- 27:24Speaker 17: I called and reported that to Sergeant Brown that evening.
- 27:28Speaker 17: I never heard anything back. Sergeant Brown didn't seem that
- 27:32Speaker 17: concerned as to where the children lived at that time,
- 27:35Speaker 17: and as the case progressed, you know, there was really
- 27:38Speaker 17: nothing until January of this year, whenever he was indicted.
- 27:43Speaker 1: So Tammy was already suspicious of Sergeant Brown. When she
- 27:47Speaker 1: got her hands on some secret documents provided to the
- 27:49Speaker 1: grand jury, she saw a cover up. So Tammy got
- 27:53Speaker 1: together with our friend Melvin, the Gilmer school teacher, and
- 27:57Speaker 1: yet another investigative team was born.
- 28:01Speaker 9: I barely knew Tammy. She had driven the school bus
- 28:05Speaker 9: that my kids wrote on. We called it the Justice
- 28:08Speaker 9: for Kelly Wilson Committee, and the oldest and the youngest
- 28:13Speaker 9: Curs were members of our committee.
- 28:17Speaker 1: Daughters, two of the Kerr sisters, were both adults when
- 28:20Speaker 1: all this was going down. They declined to speak with me,
- 28:23Speaker 1: but I did read a couple of interviews they gave
- 28:25Speaker 1: back in the nineties where they claimed to have been
- 28:28Speaker 1: abused by their family members. Marie Kerr even talked at
- 28:32Speaker 1: a couple of news conferences.
- 28:35Speaker 8: My parents and my brothers put me through the same
- 28:37Speaker 8: thing as these kids are saying, and I don't I
- 28:41Speaker 8: want to check my nieces and nephews. This is why
- 28:45Speaker 8: I'm fighting so hard.
- 28:48Speaker 16: I get quote my parents, my.
- 28:49Speaker 9: Brothers, and you know, the both said, well, well, all
- 28:55Speaker 9: this child molestation was going on, we underwent it, their
- 29:00Speaker 9: satanic worship, every bit of this. So and yes, they
- 29:05Speaker 9: did kidnap and murder Kelly Wilson. So we wound up
- 29:13Speaker 9: meeting interviewing the people. And you know, when you're doing this,
- 29:21Speaker 9: most of the people were involved in drugs themselves. That's
- 29:26Speaker 9: why they knew about all of this. Nobody was ever
- 29:30Speaker 9: interested in what we were told. They were totally uninterested
- 29:35Speaker 9: in what we were looking for because they were trying
- 29:39Speaker 9: to cover up what was going on and trying to
- 29:41Speaker 9: blame Chris din for her murder.
- 29:43Speaker 1: Chris Denton, you may remember, was a boyfriend of Kelly's.
- 29:47Speaker 1: We'll take a closer look at him later. James Brown
- 29:50Speaker 1: saw Chris as a prime suspect and that was going
- 29:53Speaker 1: to be the focus of the investigation he was running.
- 29:56Speaker 1: At first, it seems like Kelly's mom, Kathy, was inclined
- 30:00Speaker 1: go along.
- 30:00Speaker 9: With that hunch James Brown. Kathy totally trusted because James
- 30:05Speaker 9: Brown was coming by her house every day two three
- 30:09Speaker 9: telling her leads that he had how he was investigating
- 30:13Speaker 9: these and she just had total confidence in James Brown.
- 30:17Speaker 1: Kathy changed her mind though, when details from the interrogation
- 30:21Speaker 1: of Connie Martin began to come out.
- 30:23Speaker 9: Connie Martin just sang like a bird and she started
- 30:28Speaker 9: giving details. Connie really noticed things and was mentioned things
- 30:34Speaker 9: that the average person probably wouldn't.
- 30:36Speaker 1: For example, Connie was said to have noticed a particular
- 30:39Speaker 1: detail about the Rugby shirt that Kelly was wearing on
- 30:42Speaker 1: the night she disappeared.
- 30:45Speaker 9: She described the shirt she was wearing, and she said
- 30:50Speaker 9: it had rubber buttons on. Kathy knew then Connie Martin's
- 30:54Speaker 9: down truth because she was wearing a Rugby shirt and
- 30:59Speaker 9: Rugby shirts have rubber buttons on. Kathy knew that there
- 31:03Speaker 9: was no way in the world Knnie Marten would come
- 31:05Speaker 9: up with that detail unless Knnie Marten was there, So
- 31:08Speaker 9: she knew right the end James Brown had been lying
- 31:12Speaker 9: all this time. So that's when Kathy Carlson joined with
- 31:17Speaker 9: Tammy and Glenn Leech.
- 31:20Speaker 3: Then Lee.
- 31:22Speaker 1: Kathy was now a member of the Justice for Kelly
- 31:24Speaker 1: Wilson group. Glenn was another member who was really good
- 31:27Speaker 1: at research. Melvin says the group kept hearing whispers about
- 31:31Speaker 1: James Brown. I wasn't able to confirm them but the
- 31:34Speaker 1: rumors were certainly flying around Gilmer. At one point, the
- 31:38Speaker 1: Justice for Kelly Wilson group got their hands on the
- 31:41Speaker 1: security camera footage from the bank where someone had made
- 31:44Speaker 1: the deposit after Kelly's shift at the video store.
- 31:47Speaker 9: Now, I've got a double first cousin whose son was
- 31:52Speaker 9: an Apple computer freak at this time. He was into
- 31:57Speaker 9: all kinds of graphics, crazy looking pictures and everything like that.
- 32:03Speaker 9: The boy, he was a guru when it came to
- 32:06Speaker 9: using an Apple computer.
- 32:07Speaker 1: A double cousin is when two siblings from one family
- 32:11Speaker 1: married two siblings from another family, and both couples have kids.
- 32:15Speaker 1: The son of Melvin's double cousin was able to enhance
- 32:18Speaker 1: the video quality, revealing more detail.
- 32:21Speaker 9: A van pulled in there, and a man got out
- 32:27Speaker 9: and made a deposit. And this man, I guarantee you
- 32:35Speaker 9: was James Brown in a Gilmer police uniform. Now, James
- 32:41Speaker 9: Brown always wore real dark sunglasses day and night. There's
- 32:48Speaker 9: no question it was James Brown. Well, now, this was
- 32:52Speaker 9: an old enough fan that the side windows were just
- 32:56Speaker 9: clear glass. You know, nowadays even the side winners are
- 33:00Speaker 9: so dark it's hard to see anybody in there. But
- 33:04Speaker 9: there was an old woman sitting right behind James Brown,
- 33:09Speaker 9: and she put her face up to the clear glass
- 33:14Speaker 9: of the window, and that was Janeva Kerr, the old lady.
- 33:19Speaker 1: I'm still trying to get my hands on the security
- 33:21Speaker 1: footage so I can make up my own mind on
- 33:23Speaker 1: this one. But Cathy also found it suspicious that James
- 33:27Speaker 1: Brown had refused to take part in a citizen search
- 33:30Speaker 1: she'd organized on the Cherokee Trace the month after her
- 33:33Speaker 1: daughter went missing. Was the proximity to the curR home
- 33:37Speaker 1: just too close for comfort?
- 33:40Speaker 7: My husband and I had conducted a citizen search in
- 33:42Speaker 7: February ninety two short left Kelly disappeared, with many, many,
- 33:47Speaker 7: many of the townspeople going with us and participating, which
- 33:51Speaker 7: was outside the city limits.
- 33:52Speaker 2: And we asked Sergeant Brown, why can't.
- 33:54Speaker 7: You help us on this, and he said, it's outside
- 33:57Speaker 7: my jurisdiction.
- 33:59Speaker 17: He wouldn't on that particular search, which was the closest
- 34:02Speaker 17: to the guitar residents where they found where Life Its
- 34:05Speaker 17: team found some evidence human hair.
- 34:07Speaker 2: Human blood.
- 34:08Speaker 1: Melvin also deduced the Kurz motives for their alleged crimes
- 34:12Speaker 1: based on something he believes Connie Martin said when being
- 34:15Speaker 1: grilled by Bags and Flag.
- 34:18Speaker 9: Connie Martin talked about watchers in the woods. Out in
- 34:23Speaker 9: the woods where they had this. It was greatly worn down,
- 34:29Speaker 9: and they had people who were allowed to come there,
- 34:33Speaker 9: but there were others who had just watched from the woods.
- 34:38Speaker 9: And we interviewed several people who were watchers in the
- 34:41Speaker 9: woods and seeing all these satanic rituals take place. And
- 34:46Speaker 9: of course it's just like, you know, I used to
- 34:50Speaker 9: just be amazed at the children of Israel in the
- 34:54Speaker 9: Old Testament. Now why did they so easily, so quickly
- 35:01Speaker 9: referred back to paganistic worship. Well, flip about the major draw,
- 35:09Speaker 9: It was all of the sex they had. And that's
- 35:13Speaker 9: the draw of the satanic rituals, is all the sex
- 35:17Speaker 9: they have.
- 35:19Speaker 1: Meanwhile, the Lifer team was also making headway in its
- 35:22Speaker 1: parallel investigation of the curs which now included Sergeant Brown.
- 35:27Speaker 1: Bags and Flag took several statements from Gilmer residents who
- 35:30Speaker 1: claimed to have seen James Brown or a police officer
- 35:34Speaker 1: who looked like him with various members of the Kerr family.
- 35:38Speaker 1: While excavating another clearing where the ritual sacrifices supposedly took place,
- 35:43Speaker 1: they found a piece of bone in the dirt lab
- 35:46Speaker 1: testing suggested it was from the leg of a subadult human,
- 35:49Speaker 1: as in maybe Kelly. The deeper they dug into the case,
- 35:54Speaker 1: the more the Lifer team was getting spooked. One night,
- 35:57Speaker 1: they were having dinner when the phone rang. The only
- 36:00Speaker 1: sound on the other end of the line was of
- 36:02Speaker 1: a baby crying, which they found really disturbing. The Lifer
- 36:06Speaker 1: team ended up going into hiding, setting up headquarters at
- 36:10Speaker 1: an undisclosed location in the country way outside of town. Remember,
- 36:15Speaker 1: the Lifer team is just five people, a couple of
- 36:19Speaker 1: social workers, a retired state cop and police chaplain, and
- 36:23Speaker 1: a civil lawyer. They desperately needed back up.
- 36:27Speaker 3: At some point, Scott called me Scott Leifer, and I
- 36:31Speaker 3: had a long conversation with him and told him, here's
- 36:33Speaker 3: my home number in my office numbers.
- 36:36Speaker 1: This is Shane Phelps again with the Attorney General's office.
- 36:40Speaker 3: Call me if there's anything you need at all. I'd
- 36:42Speaker 3: be glad to help you, because it was pretty clear
- 36:43Speaker 3: to me that he had limited experience in prosecution at
- 36:46Speaker 3: the time. Just based on our conversation, it sounded to
- 36:50Speaker 3: be like he needed him, which is why I offered
- 36:53Speaker 3: it and assistance here offer. So he called me at
- 36:55Speaker 3: one point, and I've talked him through some of the
- 36:58Speaker 3: complexities had on those kind of cases, and particularly on
- 37:02Speaker 3: the criminal side. It offered our assistance. You need anything
- 37:05Speaker 3: at all, call any time, We'll make ourselves available to you.
- 37:08Speaker 1: That was in the fall of ninety three. One morning
- 37:11Speaker 1: in January, Shane was flipping through the day's news clippings
- 37:15Speaker 1: when a story caught in by surprise, k.
- 37:19Speaker 11: LTV, how do we seven, This is East Texas News
- 37:23Speaker 11: at six.
- 37:26Speaker 10: Arraignments today in the case of a missing gilmertine, good evening,
- 37:30Speaker 10: thanks for joining us.
- 37:31Speaker 3: My next recollection of becoming involved in the Gilmer case
- 37:37Speaker 3: was I think it was in January of that next year,
- 37:41Speaker 3: which would have been ninety four. I saw this article
- 37:43Speaker 3: about an indictment of all of these people the kurs.
- 37:49Speaker 3: I noticed Scott Leffer's name. I said, well, that's peculiar
- 37:53Speaker 3: because it was talking about indicting all these people for
- 37:57Speaker 3: death penalty offenses. I think it was murder, aggravated sexual assault,
- 38:01Speaker 3: aggravated kidnapping, and mentioned Kelly Wilson. I had no hint
- 38:09Speaker 3: of I didn't even know who Kelly Wilson was at
- 38:11Speaker 3: this time, so I kind of raised my eyebrows. Was
- 38:16Speaker 3: I wonder what's going on in Gilbert.
- 38:18Speaker 1: Within days, a state politician from Gilmer named Bob Glaze
- 38:22Speaker 1: was reaching out to the AG's office asking for help.
- 38:25Speaker 1: Team Lyford wasn't just coming after Sergeant Brown anymore. Lyford
- 38:30Speaker 1: and crew were setting their sights on anyone who stood
- 38:33Speaker 1: in their way, including the town's big wigs. Gilmer's civic
- 38:36Speaker 1: leaders were embarrassed and they wanted this case to go away. Shane,
- 38:41Speaker 1: Phelps's immediate supervisor, asked him to take another look.
- 38:44Speaker 3: The nature of the request was, you know, we need
- 38:47Speaker 3: somebody to come in here and stop what's going on,
- 38:50Speaker 3: because their perception was that Upshire County and Gilbert particularly
- 38:55Speaker 3: were being made a laughing stock across the country. That
- 38:58Speaker 3: was the first time I got the hint that there
- 39:00Speaker 3: was anything about, you know, satanic covens and things like that.
- 39:05Speaker 3: And obviously that was so far afield of the original
- 39:09Speaker 3: conversation I had with Anne Gore.
- 39:12Speaker 1: On the flight from Austin to Gilmer, Shane read a
- 39:14Speaker 1: report about the case. The report didn't say who it
- 39:17Speaker 1: was written by, but Shane has always assumed the author
- 39:20Speaker 1: was Scott Lefford, the special prosecutor, and it.
- 39:23Speaker 3: Was pretty wild. It told this tale of the Satanic
- 39:27Speaker 3: coven that was operating in Upshur County, and they were
- 39:31Speaker 3: kidnapping teenage hitchhiker girls, they were sacrificing babies, they were
- 39:38Speaker 3: they were in cannibalism. I mean, it was just wild,
- 39:42Speaker 3: and there was just enough in there that I thought,
- 39:48Speaker 3: oh God, if any of this is true, Oh this
- 39:51Speaker 3: is insane.
- 39:52Speaker 1: If reading about the case was insane, just wait till
- 39:55Speaker 1: he landed in Gilmer. That's next time on Deviltown. Deviltown
- 40:05Speaker 1: is a production of Imperative Entertainment. It was written and
- 40:08Speaker 1: created by me Wes Ferguson. Executive producer is Jason Hoak.
- 40:12Speaker 1: Audio engineering and editing by Shane Freeman and Jason Hoak.
- 40:15Speaker 1: Original score is by Robert Ellis. Recording by Austin Sisler
- 40:19Speaker 1: at east Side Studios. If you like the show, leave
- 40:22Speaker 1: a review and don't forget to tell your friends thanks
- 40:25Speaker 1: for listening.