Transcript

Gone | Chapter 1 · Devil Town

0:09
Speaker 1: So it was January fifth, nineteen ninety two, right, I
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Speaker 1: believe that's great.
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Speaker 2: And on Sunday, Sunday evening, Yes.
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Speaker 3: Ed, were you at the video story of that year?
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Speaker 2: Yes, I was, certainly it was.
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Speaker 3: It was after dark, the dead of winter. Kelly day Wilson,
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Speaker 3: a small town girl from Gilmer, Texas, was finishing up
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Speaker 3: work for the night with her boss, Joe Henry. They
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Speaker 3: were alone at Northeast Texas Video, a movie rental store
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Speaker 3: on the town square in Gilmour.
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Speaker 2: We closed the store about eight pm. That was an
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Speaker 2: normal time to close. I went in the back. Kelly
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Speaker 2: stayed up front and do all the reconciling, the cash
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Speaker 2: door and all.
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Speaker 4: That stuff, you know, for today. I go on back
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Speaker 4: in a VCR stuff ready. And when she gets done,
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Speaker 4: and she comes back there and we go out the
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Speaker 4: back door.
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Speaker 2: Set the alarm.
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Speaker 4: She goes around, throws the trash away, and when she
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Speaker 4: comes back around, I say you open tomorrow and she
0:56
Speaker 4: says yes, And I said, okay, I'll see you.
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Speaker 3: Joe had a pickup truck, Kelly an eighty five Dodge
1:02
Speaker 3: Charger complete with gold paint. Both vehicles were parked on
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Speaker 3: a side street next to the video store just across
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Speaker 3: from the Upshur County Courthouse in the middle of town.
1:12
Speaker 3: It was around eight thirty pm when Joe says they
1:15
Speaker 3: left the store. He and Kelly went their separate ways,
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Speaker 3: and I got.
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Speaker 2: A muchat She got in her car and rased as
1:22
Speaker 2: I says.
1:23
Speaker 3: What happened next, That depends on who you ask. It's
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Speaker 3: a haunting, unsolved mystery that would destroy lives, terrorize a town,
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Speaker 3: and go on to confound me and many others for
1:35
Speaker 3: thirty years. What we do know is around ten o'clock
1:39
Speaker 3: that night, Kelly's mom, Kathy, was already getting worried. She
1:44
Speaker 3: was angry too. Kelly was a popular girl, had a
1:47
Speaker 3: busy social life, but it wasn't like her not to call,
1:50
Speaker 3: at the very least to let her family know she
1:53
Speaker 3: wasn't coming home. The next morning, Kelly still hadn't shown up.
1:57
Speaker 3: Her stepdad, Robert, went out to search the street before dawn.
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Speaker 3: The family lived just two minutes from the courthouse square.
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Speaker 3: That's where Robert found Kelly's car park beside the video store.
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Speaker 3: The doors of her Dodge Charger were unlocked. One of
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Speaker 3: the tires was slashed. Most troubling of all, Kelly's purse
2:15
Speaker 3: was still there inside the vehicle. There was no sign
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Speaker 3: of a struggle. As for Kelly herself, this girl of seventeen,
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Speaker 3: a senior at Gilmour High School, she was just gone.
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Speaker 5: I mean, a little town like this, you can just
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Speaker 5: imagine one of them impact it had.
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Speaker 3: They were just.
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Speaker 6: Bump fuzzes.
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Speaker 5: I mean, you know, this girl just vanished into the na.
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Speaker 3: I remember when Kelly Wilson disappeared, because I grew up
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Speaker 3: about twenty miles down the road from Gilmour. If you
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Speaker 3: look at a map, the town is a straight shot
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Speaker 3: east of Dallas, a two hour drive. To get here,
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Speaker 3: you have to leave behind the big skies and open
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Speaker 3: prairies of Texas myth and venture into the piney woods
3:00
Speaker 3: on the eastern edge of the state, where tall pine
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Speaker 3: trees blanket the hills and secrets hide in the shadows.
3:07
Speaker 3: Even though I was a kid back then, twelve years old,
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Speaker 3: I'll never forget the search for Kelly. There were stories
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Speaker 3: on the front page of the local paper, reward money
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Speaker 3: and billboards begging for clues. Kelly's school portrait was posted everywhere.
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Speaker 3: She was pretty, blonde, had big hair. At first, the
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Speaker 3: investigation seemed to go nowhere. Then it took a shocking turn.
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Speaker 3: It's an unsolved mystery out of Upshur County involving law enforcement,
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Speaker 3: a Satanic cult, and a missing girl.
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Speaker 7: Following the story that would give the small East Texas
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Speaker 7: town of Gilmour national exposure, but not.
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Speaker 6: The good kind.
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Speaker 3: Although we were all obsessed with Kelly's story, I guess
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Speaker 3: I was too young to fully understand what was going
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Speaker 3: on in Gilmer at the time. I just knew it
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Speaker 3: was bad. There were reports of cannibalism, devil worship, a
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Speaker 3: family of murderers hiding in the forests outside of town.
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Speaker 7: It was believed they were part of a Satana cold
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Speaker 7: and had kidnapped, raped, and murdered Kelly. Claims made they
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Speaker 7: had kept her alive for at least nine days, keeping
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Speaker 7: her in a shed and even a toolbox before killing her.
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Speaker 8: On a daily basis, they would take Kelly out of
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Speaker 8: the shed and take her down to this circle and
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Speaker 8: string her up on the tree, and they do these
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Speaker 8: horrible things to her, bring her back shackling run.
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Speaker 3: East Texas. It's a pretty place, but with all those
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Speaker 3: pine trees, you never really know who's out there deep
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Speaker 3: in the woods. Or what they're up to. In the
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Speaker 3: little town of Gilmer, the story of a lost girl
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Speaker 3: became so much more so out of control. No one
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Speaker 3: really knew what was real and what was madness.
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Speaker 8: I mean, it's just so many twists and turns, and.
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Speaker 3: It is so sensational them In this series, you'll hear
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Speaker 3: about when Kelly went missing and how a town got
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Speaker 3: turned upside down, allegations of unspeakable evil, mass hysteria, stolen evidence,
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Speaker 3: and maybe even some good old fashioned local corruption. I
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Speaker 3: don't know if Kelly will ever come home, if she's
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Speaker 3: living or dead, if any of the crazy stories about cannibalism,
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Speaker 3: Satan worship and more actually happened. But I'm here to
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Speaker 3: find out everything I can about Kelly and get the
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Speaker 3: truth or as close to it as the locals dare.
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Speaker 3: From Imperative Entertainment, I'm Wes Ferguson. This is Deviltown. This
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Speaker 3: is Chapter one Gone.
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Speaker 9: Hello, Hey Anna, Hey, how's it going.
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Speaker 2: It's going great.
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Speaker 10: Most of the time.
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Speaker 6: I don't even know what day it is.
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Speaker 9: Well that sounds pretty good, isn't that fun?
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Speaker 3: This is Anna Pasino Walker. She's retired now, but Anna
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Speaker 3: was the editor of My Hometown newspaper for a long time.
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Speaker 3: She hired me as a reporter when I was just
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Speaker 3: nineteen years old, my first break. I don't think it
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Speaker 3: would embarrass her too much to say that she was
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Speaker 3: basically my second mom back then.
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Speaker 9: You were my first editor.
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Speaker 3: You're the one who turned me into an actual writer,
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Speaker 3: and I don't You probably don't remember this, but you said, hey,
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Speaker 3: you're the crime reporter.
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Speaker 9: Maybe you'll find Kelly Wilson.
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Speaker 8: Uh.
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Speaker 10: I don't remember, but it sounds like something I would say,
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Speaker 10: you know, Wes. Every time that I hear or see
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Speaker 10: in the paper, you know, remains where found anywhere in
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Speaker 10: the East Texas area, I'm like, is that Kelly? It's
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Speaker 10: gonna be Kelly. I wonder if it's Kelly on.
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Speaker 3: A move to East Texas with her husband Paul and
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Speaker 3: their kids, just a year or two before Kelly disappeared.
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Speaker 10: At that time, Leona, our oldest was sixteen years old,
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Speaker 10: so it was really close to home, and those the
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Speaker 10: details of those things were just you know, you can
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Speaker 10: be a hard age newspaper person, but you also you're
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Speaker 10: also human. That's just something that you don't even want
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Speaker 10: to think about.
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Speaker 6: As a parent.
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Speaker 3: It sticks with you despite my boss's encouragement. I didn't
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Speaker 3: find Kelly as the local crime reporter. I was too
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Speaker 3: busy chasing ambulances and car crashes, drug busts and burning buildings,
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Speaker 3: the stuff that's got to get done when every morning
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Speaker 3: there's another newspaper to fill up with stories. But I
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Speaker 3: never stopped thinking about Kelly. It's been three decades since
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Speaker 3: she disappeared. If she's dead, her body has never been found.
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Speaker 3: No one has ever been convicted of killing her. It's
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Speaker 3: left this void that people still feel. As I get older,
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Speaker 3: I also realized that I never really knew anything about
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Speaker 3: Kelly as a person, beyond the platitudes offered up in
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Speaker 3: news clips. It's like her bright, smiling portrait on the
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Speaker 3: news was turned into a symbol of victimhood, and that
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Speaker 3: doesn't feel right at all. Who was Kelly as a daughter,
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Speaker 3: a friend? And while we're at it, who knows what
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Speaker 3: clues her loved ones might share if someone would just ask.
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Speaker 9: I was twelve years old when Kelly Wilson disappeared, and
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Speaker 9: I remember it, you know, just not all the details,
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Speaker 9: but I remember like, oh my god, this is happening
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Speaker 9: just a couple towns up from my house.
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Speaker 3: And then when I.
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Speaker 1: Was in college, I met a girl from outside gilmert
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Speaker 1: out in the woods, and I remember like riding around
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Speaker 1: in her white pickup truck while she's telling me, like,
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Speaker 1: out in these trees there the devil worshippers.
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Speaker 9: You know in Cannibals.
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Speaker 3: Just now that I'm an adult and I just want
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Speaker 3: to know what really happened.
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Speaker 10: Have you talked to Philip Williams?
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Speaker 3: Hmm, good idea. Last spring I went home back to
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Speaker 3: East Texas. I drove up to Gilmer one morning from
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Speaker 3: my mom's house to see what I could find out.
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Speaker 3: Sure enough, my first stop was to see Philip Williams.
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Speaker 3: You have a way of introducing the town and explaining
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Speaker 3: it to people that I haven't been to.
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Speaker 2: Well, I would just be delighted to do that.
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Speaker 5: Since I can walk out the back door of this
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Speaker 5: farge store I owned to the place where I was
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Speaker 5: born in about two minutes, so I'm given born in Bred.
9:43
Speaker 5: I have lived here all but six months of my life.
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Speaker 3: Philip is kind of like Gilmer's unofficial ambassador. He's been
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Speaker 3: a local news reporter for decades, which is how I
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Speaker 3: know him. On Deadline, he files stories from a little
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Speaker 3: family owned furniture store right off the town.
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Speaker 5: Square is a small town in northeast Texas of about
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Speaker 5: five thousand, and they started to festival coll Theambry, which
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Speaker 5: continues to this day. It's held every October and draws
10:09
Speaker 5: thousands of people. And that's probably the most notable thing
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Speaker 5: about it.
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Speaker 3: There's a yam queen and a barn dance. I've been.
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Speaker 3: It's fun. Philip wrote a lot of stories about Kelly Wilson.
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Speaker 5: If you told me all that was gonna happen, We're
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Speaker 5: going to have a seventeen year old girl advanced to
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Speaker 5: then air and one of my best friends in high
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Speaker 5: school is going to be the last guy seen with it.
10:30
Speaker 5: I would have thought you were a good candidate for
10:32
Speaker 5: a statemental hospital. But it all happened and I was
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Speaker 5: right in the middle, cover and all of it.
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Speaker 3: Philip's friend is Joe Henry, the video store manager.
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Speaker 5: Well, I've known him for over fifty years. Like I said,
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Speaker 5: I saw him today. I want to bring out some
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Speaker 5: diet drink Cities place and I are still good friends.
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Speaker 5: Joe has always been a very hard working person. He
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Speaker 5: was fascinated by movies and back when we had video cassettes,
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Speaker 5: there was a video store here in Gilbert where he
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Speaker 5: was the manager and Kelly Wilson worked. Joe would have
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Speaker 5: been willing to do his twenties then, and she was
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Speaker 5: sixteen or seventy.
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Speaker 3: Joe was actually thirty six at the time Kelly was seventeen.
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Speaker 5: He just hadn't to be in wrong place at the
11:18
Speaker 5: wrong time.
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Speaker 3: The movie store closed a long time ago, but Joe
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Speaker 3: still grills Hamburgers around the block right across the street
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Speaker 3: from the County Courthouse.
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Speaker 5: Joe Hetty's Hamburger place back then too. It's been in
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Speaker 5: Vena since nineteen seventy four, but he also was managing
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Speaker 5: that video store. He workoholic basically, and a good guy.
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Speaker 3: After I left Phillip's Furniture Store, I walked over to
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Speaker 3: the Hamburger joint, but not before stopping on a street
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Speaker 3: corner outside the video store where Kelly was last seen.
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Speaker 3: These days, the building is not much to look at,
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Speaker 3: just an old brick storefront. Then I rounded the corner
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Speaker 3: and there was Joe's placed Brittain Street from the court house,
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Speaker 3: gone up the steps, big juicy hamburgers. It was kind
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Speaker 3: of dark inside, just a long, narrow room plus a
12:13
Speaker 3: big window that opened up to the kitchen. In the back,
12:16
Speaker 3: all the wall space was covered with movie posters from
12:19
Speaker 3: Hollywood's Golden Age. To my left, all these blue collar
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Speaker 3: guys were sitting in a row of old theater seats.
12:26
Speaker 3: They were all chowing burgers and watching an old timey
12:29
Speaker 3: black and white movie playing on the TV above the
12:32
Speaker 3: soft drinks on the right side wall. Way in the back,
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Speaker 3: a little guy with thin gray hair was manning the grill.
12:38
Speaker 3: The grill was sizzling. I was worried that Joe wouldn't
12:45
Speaker 3: want to talk. He's often been named as a suspect
12:48
Speaker 3: in Kelly's disappearance, at least on message boards where Internet
12:52
Speaker 3: sleuths hang out and parse the clues of the case.
12:56
Speaker 3: Instead of introducing myself, I placed an order.
13:00
Speaker 2: Or can I keep you?
13:01
Speaker 3: I'd like a cheeseburger and fries.
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Speaker 2: All playing yes, okay, you do am now, thank.
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Speaker 3: You, thank you. I joined the guys eating burgers from
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Speaker 3: the theater seats. We watched an old movie about tourists
13:14
Speaker 3: in Hawaii. I waited for the lunch rush to pass.
13:18
Speaker 3: I didn't want to bug you earlier because I could
13:20
Speaker 3: tell how busy you were, probably sick of talking about it.
13:22
Speaker 3: But I just wanted to.
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Speaker 1: Introduce myself in and see if there would be a
13:26
Speaker 1: time maybe you would be willing to chat with me.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, I guess so. Do you think it might be
13:33
Speaker 2: okay today?
13:34
Speaker 11: Three?
13:34
Speaker 2: If you won't to you? Yeah, okay, you want to
13:36
Speaker 2: come in? Yeah, sir, come on in, all right, all right,
13:38
Speaker 2: all right, thank you, I'll be back.
13:40
Speaker 1: You're well delicious burger well a hammer.
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Speaker 3: When I came back later that afternoon, Joe handed me
13:48
Speaker 3: a bottle of water and sat down in one of
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Speaker 3: the theater seats. He was an older guy in his sixties,
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Speaker 3: a little stooped and a great T shirt spattered in
13:57
Speaker 3: burger grease. He sighed deeply.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, man, I just can't begin to tell you. This
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Speaker 2: has just been an unbelievable thing.
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Speaker 4: It is just it's almost saw something of crazy fictional story.
14:10
Speaker 3: Joe explained that back in the early nineties, he was
14:13
Speaker 3: basically the manager of the movie store Northeast Texas Video.
14:18
Speaker 3: He was more of a business partner than an employee,
14:21
Speaker 3: getting paid fifty percent of every rental. He also made
14:24
Speaker 3: side money repairing VCRs. Kelly worked the cash register, reshelved movies,
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Speaker 3: kept the place clean, Over time, Joe says he and
14:34
Speaker 3: Kelly got kind of close.
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Speaker 4: Well, very bubbly personality, you know. Friendly at Bobby's the
14:40
Speaker 4: best word I.
14:41
Speaker 2: Can come up with. And friends to a lot.
14:44
Speaker 4: Of people, tue sins and guys that were not I
14:47
Speaker 4: wouldn't say the best in the world.
14:49
Speaker 3: Eventually, Kelly also began to confide in Joe.
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Speaker 2: Yes, she did about the divorce a lot.
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Speaker 4: She was just very upset about her mom and dad's divorce,
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Speaker 4: very very sword just a sticky divorce, just not a good,
15:05
Speaker 4: not a good, pleasant divorce.
15:07
Speaker 3: Yes, Kelly's parents had split up six or seven years earlier.
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Speaker 3: The custody battle had been very ugly, with both parents
15:15
Speaker 3: fighting to keep Kelly and her little brother Kyle. For
15:19
Speaker 3: a while, the siblings lived with their dad, Robbie, in Nakodish, Louisiana,
15:23
Speaker 3: but they ended up with their mom, Kathy in East Texas. Eventually,
15:27
Speaker 3: both parents remarried, but during her senior year, Kelly couldn't
15:32
Speaker 3: decide which set of parents to live with. That winter,
15:36
Speaker 3: she told her friends she was moving back to Louisiana
15:39
Speaker 3: to be with her dad and stepmom Waverin.
15:42
Speaker 12: She wanted to.
15:43
Speaker 4: Leave after Christmas break and go to live with her dad.
15:46
Speaker 4: One night of there, she was really to say. She
15:48
Speaker 4: was crying and she said, I just don't want to leave. Well,
15:51
Speaker 4: you don't have to leave. I mean, you know, it's
15:53
Speaker 4: no big deal. And so that was sometime in December,
15:56
Speaker 4: and I think she basically wanted to stay and graduate
15:59
Speaker 4: with her friends. But her mom and dad had a
16:02
Speaker 4: pretty bad divorce and it was pretty uh you call
16:06
Speaker 4: it uh tomon if she was that, that's a good word.
16:09
Speaker 2: It just wasn't good, and cand it was very had
16:11
Speaker 2: been very upset about that.
16:13
Speaker 11: We ended up spending the Christmas holidays together in New Orleans.
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Speaker 3: That's Kelly's dad, Robbie.
16:19
Speaker 11: We stayed in the French Quarter. We had a chance
16:23
Speaker 11: to have a couple of long talks, and she wasn't
16:25
Speaker 11: happy there, so she wanted to come back, and I
16:30
Speaker 11: was reluctant to let her come back because I didn't
16:32
Speaker 11: think it was healthy for her to just just yo
16:35
Speaker 11: yoing back and forth. And I listened to her argument
16:38
Speaker 11: she wanted to finish school with her legacy friends here
16:41
Speaker 11: but that she growed up with, and I kind of
16:43
Speaker 11: understood that.
16:45
Speaker 3: Even though Robbie was sympathetic to his daughter's wishes. He
16:48
Speaker 3: also took some convincing the last time she lived under
16:51
Speaker 3: his roof, things hadn't ended well.
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Speaker 11: She didn't leave my custody under really great circumstances. She
16:58
Speaker 11: was angry with her dad because her dad had some rules,
17:02
Speaker 11: and I, you know, I tried to teach her some discipline.
17:06
Speaker 11: You know, she couldn't just run the road. She had
17:09
Speaker 11: to be a you know, she had to meet curfew,
17:11
Speaker 11: she had to do her do her lessons. You know.
17:14
Speaker 11: That's uh. Plus her mother was just you know, steadily
17:19
Speaker 11: agitating the situation. Like I said, it was a very
17:22
Speaker 11: contentious wow cushion fact.
17:26
Speaker 3: For the record, Kelly's mom declined to speak with me,
17:29
Speaker 3: so we're only hearing Robbie's point of view for now.
17:33
Speaker 11: You know, I was not thrilled about them moving moving
17:36
Speaker 11: up there with her mom because I knew she wasn't
17:37
Speaker 11: gonna she just wasn't going to keep them disciplined like
17:41
Speaker 11: I would be. And I'm not I'm not a I
17:43
Speaker 11: wasn't that tough on, trust me, but I did. I
17:47
Speaker 11: did have some rules that I expected the fall.
17:50
Speaker 3: Robbie says he finally relented Kelly could move back in
17:54
Speaker 3: with him and Waverlin, her step mom, to finish her
17:57
Speaker 3: senior year and go to college in Louisiana within state tuition.
18:01
Speaker 11: She was a week away from moving back starting the
18:04
Speaker 11: spring semester here.
18:06
Speaker 2: Do you know how how her mom took that news?
18:09
Speaker 11: Not well, but I think she agreed to let her
18:12
Speaker 11: come back. I mean, I don't think she was going
18:16
Speaker 11: to stop it or could stop it. So, you know,
18:19
Speaker 11: once I said she was given that, I mean, Kelly could.
18:22
Speaker 11: Kelly could be a handful. She was giving them hell,
18:24
Speaker 11: they were ready for her to leave. She could stir
18:27
Speaker 11: things up, acting out, you know, the same way she
18:31
Speaker 11: did here here when she wanted to go there. You
18:34
Speaker 11: know what I mean, she was She was She's a tarist.
18:36
Speaker 11: She was legitimately, you know, headstrong like that.
18:41
Speaker 3: During that heart to heart in the French Quarter, Kelly
18:44
Speaker 3: also told her dad something that to this day has
18:47
Speaker 3: stuck with him.
18:48
Speaker 11: But she told me that night that there was there
18:51
Speaker 11: were some things going on there that she needed to
18:54
Speaker 11: she just needed to share with me. At some point
18:57
Speaker 11: in time, She said, I wouldn't like it, and I
18:59
Speaker 11: don't worked out of the way it was. I wouldn't
19:02
Speaker 11: need to know. At some point in time she really
19:04
Speaker 11: wanted to get out of there and come back here.
19:07
Speaker 2: You still don't know what that was.
19:08
Speaker 11: But no idea never did to get a chance to
19:10
Speaker 11: talk to her again.
19:25
Speaker 3: So Kelly told her manager Joe Henry that she wanted
19:28
Speaker 3: to stay in Gilmer. She told her dad she wanted
19:31
Speaker 3: to move back to Nakedish. She also told Robbie that
19:35
Speaker 3: she had a secret she needed to share, something he
19:38
Speaker 3: wouldn't be happy about. Whatever the secret, whatever the truth,
19:43
Speaker 3: Kelly returned to East Texas after her Christmas vacation in
19:46
Speaker 3: New Orleans, either to pack her bags or get ready
19:50
Speaker 3: for her last semester at Gilmour High School, home of
19:53
Speaker 3: the Buck Guys. But school wasn't starting back up just yet.
19:58
Speaker 13: I'm not gonna lie. You know. We were trying to
19:59
Speaker 13: the party, you know, we were going to parties together,
20:02
Speaker 13: or going to the lake together, or you know, doing
20:05
Speaker 13: all those fun things silly girls did back in the nineties.
20:08
Speaker 3: That's Kelly's friend Lee, She was a senior that year too.
20:11
Speaker 6: Everyone thought we were so bad. Like I remember being like,
20:15
Speaker 6: you know, we were, you know.
20:17
Speaker 13: The wild group, And I look back at it and
20:19
Speaker 13: I'm like, we were not wild.
20:20
Speaker 6: Like that was so innocent.
20:22
Speaker 3: Lee and Kelly had been friends since Kelly showed up
20:24
Speaker 3: in Gilmour a couple of years earlier. Gilmer's not a
20:27
Speaker 3: big place, so a new girl in town was noteworthy.
20:31
Speaker 13: I just remember her moving to school, you know, and
20:34
Speaker 13: you know, we only I mean, I can probably count
20:36
Speaker 13: on one hand how many girls, you know, our age,
20:40
Speaker 13: or kids our age moved in to our school and
20:43
Speaker 13: actually stayed. And she was just one of those girls.
20:45
Speaker 13: And she moved in and you know, I feel like
20:47
Speaker 13: I probably had a class with her or something, and
20:48
Speaker 13: we were just fast friends. She just, you know, she
20:51
Speaker 13: was just one of those girls. She was just a
20:54
Speaker 13: fun always happy, you know, she was cute, just you know,
20:58
Speaker 13: one of those girls that fit in, I think with everyone.
21:02
Speaker 13: And I can remember like being at school and like
21:04
Speaker 13: gathering up all of our coin change so we would
21:07
Speaker 13: have enough money to go, you know, cruise around after
21:10
Speaker 13: school and stuff, or cruise around.
21:12
Speaker 6: On a Friday nine.
21:14
Speaker 3: Back in town after Christmas and New Year's, Kelly had
21:17
Speaker 3: somehow heard about a party outside of town. It was
21:20
Speaker 3: on a Sunday night, but with no school the next day,
21:23
Speaker 3: she didn't want to miss it.
21:24
Speaker 13: So I was supposed to go to a party with
21:28
Speaker 13: her that night, and I don't remember where the party was.
21:31
Speaker 13: I feel like I didn't even know who it was.
21:33
Speaker 13: It was like a party in a different count.
21:35
Speaker 3: Kelly was always meeting new people. She just had that personality.
21:39
Speaker 3: It didn't hurt that she worked at one of the
21:41
Speaker 3: only video stores for miles around. Teens from other communities
21:45
Speaker 3: in the area were always driving into Gilmer to rent
21:48
Speaker 3: movies at Northeast Texas Video, where they were introduced to
21:51
Speaker 3: this friendly girl, Kelly, who'd never met a stranger.
21:55
Speaker 6: She had friends we didn't even know she had.
21:56
Speaker 13: And then I always just kind of thought, because she
21:58
Speaker 13: worked at the movie store, she met people, and so
22:01
Speaker 13: I think a lot of people came in she connected
22:04
Speaker 13: with that. You know, I never even came across because
22:09
Speaker 13: she was she was so friendly, so nice.
22:12
Speaker 6: I worked at the shop.
22:14
Speaker 3: At the time, that's the local pharmacy, and she worked.
22:18
Speaker 6: At the movie store at the time.
22:21
Speaker 13: We had talked about getting together and going to that party,
22:24
Speaker 13: and I was like, Okay.
22:25
Speaker 6: Well, I'll just meet to.
22:25
Speaker 13: You, you know, after work, And when I caught off work,
22:29
Speaker 13: I drove by and she was still in their vacuuming
22:32
Speaker 13: because I could see her through the front windows. I've
22:36
Speaker 13: gotten something all over me.
22:37
Speaker 12: She had to go home because she got something on
22:39
Speaker 12: her clothes.
22:40
Speaker 3: That's Kelly and Lee's other friend, Michelle.
22:42
Speaker 13: And so I was like, you know what, since she's
22:44
Speaker 13: still vacuuming, I'm going to run home and change. And
22:47
Speaker 13: when I got home, i'd say it was eight thirty.
22:52
Speaker 13: Between eight thirty and eight forty five. My mom said
22:55
Speaker 13: I couldn't go to the party, and then like shortly after,
22:59
Speaker 13: my mom was no, you're not going.
23:01
Speaker 6: It's too late to go out now. No no, no, no, no no.
23:04
Speaker 13: And I was like, damn, I should have just never
23:05
Speaker 13: come home, you know, I should have gone straight to Kelly's.
23:07
Speaker 3: Lee was stuck at home. Michelle was also home that night,
23:11
Speaker 3: but not because her parents were strict. Michelle was probably
23:14
Speaker 3: Kelly's first friend in Gilmer. They met when Kelly and
23:18
Speaker 3: her mom were still unloading boxes to move into their home.
23:21
Speaker 12: It was when she had first arrived in a town.
23:23
Speaker 12: She didn't quite know anybody yet.
23:26
Speaker 6: So I got to.
23:26
Speaker 12: Talking to she and her mom, and I ended up
23:28
Speaker 12: helping him move because they were moving, and we became
23:32
Speaker 12: fast friends. And Kelly was just outgoing. She laughed a
23:37
Speaker 12: lot she was always had a positive attitude. She was
23:41
Speaker 12: just fun, but she was also a good listener, like
23:44
Speaker 12: she had to issue or problem.
23:46
Speaker 3: During their junior year, Michelle had some big stuff to
23:49
Speaker 3: deal with.
23:50
Speaker 12: I ended up actually getting pregnant high school, which is
23:53
Speaker 12: never fun. And Kelly really rallied behind me and stood
23:58
Speaker 12: by my side and was a real great friend of
24:02
Speaker 12: mine through my pregnancy and me and my baby actually
24:05
Speaker 12: moved in with she and her mom for a short
24:08
Speaker 12: period of time when my daughter was about six months old.
24:11
Speaker 3: Kelly was selfless, her generosity went way beyond the average teenagers.
24:16
Speaker 12: With Kelly and not being closed, I think I was
24:18
Speaker 12: venting to her about issues I was having at home,
24:21
Speaker 12: and she was very concerned about that, especially since I
24:24
Speaker 12: had Taylor. And she actually came home with me a
24:28
Speaker 12: couple of days, like two or three days, because she
24:30
Speaker 12: said she wanted to kind of observe and see for herself.
24:34
Speaker 12: Kelly and her mother approached me and said, it really
24:37
Speaker 12: isn't a good environment and if you'd like to move
24:40
Speaker 12: in with us, we'd be happy to have you move
24:43
Speaker 12: in with us and help you with Taylor and provide
24:45
Speaker 12: a good environment for the both of you.
24:48
Speaker 3: The house became a refuge for Michelle and her baby daughter, Taylor.
24:52
Speaker 12: I it was a wonderful home life. It was so
24:54
Speaker 12: refreshing for me compared to the home life that I had.
24:57
Speaker 12: It was a very normal home life. Actually I didn't
25:00
Speaker 12: have a car. Kelly did, so she would take me
25:02
Speaker 12: to pick up Taylor that's my daughter's name. If I
25:05
Speaker 12: needed to go to the grocery store to get baby
25:07
Speaker 12: food or whatever, I mean, Kelly took me. It was
25:10
Speaker 12: It was always just fun because Kelly and her mother
25:14
Speaker 12: instead of dwelling on any negativity, there's just a lot
25:17
Speaker 12: of laughter. And they would help me feed Taylor. Kelly's
25:20
Speaker 12: mom actually taught me a lot about taking care of
25:24
Speaker 12: Taylor Too's helped me choose different foods, and it was
25:28
Speaker 12: just it was a very wonderful experience being able to
25:32
Speaker 12: come home and have that mother figure. And Kelly was
25:35
Speaker 12: very motherly too. She was like I kind of always
25:39
Speaker 12: described her as an old soul because you know, she
25:42
Speaker 12: recognized right away that I had in need and wanted
25:44
Speaker 12: to fulfill it. And a lot of teenagers aren't like that.
25:47
Speaker 12: If you're not fulfilling their needs, they're going to move on.
25:51
Speaker 12: And she wasn't that way. She wanted to be the
25:54
Speaker 12: one to be helpful and fulfill somebody else's needs. And
25:58
Speaker 12: I felt like she was always very pure, defective of
26:00
Speaker 12: me and shielded me, I think, from a lot of
26:04
Speaker 12: negativity because she wanted Taylor and I to have a
26:07
Speaker 12: good start. That's what kind of friend Kelly was.
26:10
Speaker 3: The way Michelle talks about Kelly and her home life
26:13
Speaker 3: in Gilmer, it's basically the opposite of what I was
26:16
Speaker 3: told by Kelly's dad, Robbie. I'm not really sure what
26:19
Speaker 3: to make of that. Michelle does not remember Kelly and
26:22
Speaker 3: her mom, Kathy, having a troubled relationship, especially not the
26:26
Speaker 3: way Kelly's dad, Robbie describes it.
26:28
Speaker 6: Well.
26:28
Speaker 12: Kelly and her mom, I always saw it as positive
26:31
Speaker 12: because they were both so positive with me and maybe,
26:34
Speaker 12: and let me tell you, teenage girls oftentimes don't get
26:37
Speaker 12: along with their moms, right, But I'm sure there were
26:39
Speaker 12: times that they didn't, but it never happened when I
26:42
Speaker 12: was there. Both of them their focus was on me,
26:46
Speaker 12: helping me, teaching me, and they really gave me a
26:49
Speaker 12: big boost in life. Kelly's mom is the one who
26:52
Speaker 12: gave me the confidence to be a mother, all I
26:55
Speaker 12: remember about all of that is positivity. And I don't
26:58
Speaker 12: remember one argument between Kelly and her mother. That doesn't
27:01
Speaker 12: mean there wasn't one. It just probably means that I
27:04
Speaker 12: didn't think twice about it if they got aggravated with
27:07
Speaker 12: each other, because my home life was a lot worse.
27:11
Speaker 6: But there was not a good relationship with her dad.
27:15
Speaker 12: We spent many hours in her bedroom with her crying
27:19
Speaker 12: sometimes about her dad, and I honestly can't remember all
27:23
Speaker 12: the specifics, but she was very torn because she wanted
27:27
Speaker 12: to go to LSU really really bad.
27:30
Speaker 3: To qualify for in state tuition at Louisiana State University,
27:34
Speaker 3: Kelly couldn't stay in Gilmer, Texas she needed to move
27:38
Speaker 3: back in with Robbie across the state line in Louisiana.
27:47
Speaker 12: Money was a big factor for her dad, and he
27:52
Speaker 12: kind of held a lot of things over her head
27:54
Speaker 12: and said, well, I'll do this for you if you
27:55
Speaker 12: moved back with me. It was always a bargain, and
27:58
Speaker 12: he wanted her to not be with Kathy and be
28:01
Speaker 12: with him, but she wanted to live in Gilmer with
28:04
Speaker 12: her friends and her mom. But she also had that
28:07
Speaker 12: goal of wanting to go to LSU. So she was
28:09
Speaker 12: so torn.
28:11
Speaker 3: By then, Michelle was living with her parents again with
28:14
Speaker 3: all of her responsibilities as a mom. Michelle hadn't seen
28:17
Speaker 3: Kelly that much during their senior year.
28:20
Speaker 12: I was not living with her, and we were not
28:22
Speaker 12: talking on a daily basis, and she had gotten really
28:25
Speaker 12: close to other friends. In December, it was the very
28:30
Speaker 12: last time. I think it was the very last time
28:32
Speaker 12: I saw her. Me and another girlfriend went over to
28:36
Speaker 12: her house. A guy she was very close with, Josh,
28:40
Speaker 12: was back in town, and so we all got together
28:43
Speaker 12: over there, and she was very upset that day because
28:46
Speaker 12: she was torn and didn't know what to do because
28:49
Speaker 12: it was down to the wire and she had to
28:50
Speaker 12: move back to our dad's if she wanted to go
28:52
Speaker 12: to LSU. We were all out of loss and didn't
28:54
Speaker 12: know what to tell her to do. So it was
28:58
Speaker 12: just kind of that time we all had together was
29:01
Speaker 12: not a great mating because she was upset.
29:05
Speaker 3: That last hangout with Michelle and Josh. An ex boyfriend
29:08
Speaker 3: of Kelly's, happened sometime in December, just five days into
29:12
Speaker 3: the new year. Kelly was supposed to go to that
29:14
Speaker 3: other party, the one outside of town, with her friend Lee.
29:18
Speaker 13: I didn't even I don't even remember who was having
29:20
Speaker 13: a party, but I didn't really know anyone out there.
29:22
Speaker 13: I had just seen this cute boy was asking if
29:25
Speaker 13: he was going to go, So that's why I wanted
29:26
Speaker 13: to go. I was like, Hey, when I get off work,
29:28
Speaker 13: I'll just come up to the video store and we
29:31
Speaker 13: can either go to your house if you need.
29:32
Speaker 6: To, or just leave from there.
29:34
Speaker 13: And so, you know, that's really about all I can remember,
29:37
Speaker 13: to tell you the truth, I just saw her vacuuming.
29:41
Speaker 13: I saw her car on the side of the video store.
29:45
Speaker 13: I remember seeing her car on the side of the
29:47
Speaker 13: video store. I did not, you know, it was dark.
29:51
Speaker 13: I did not look, you know, I didn't see if
29:53
Speaker 13: tires were slashed or anything like that. I didn't look
29:56
Speaker 13: hard enough for that. But I remember seeing her car
29:58
Speaker 13: parts on the side of the video store. And then
30:00
Speaker 13: I pulled around to the front and she was, you know,
30:07
Speaker 13: just in the front of the store of vacuuming.
30:10
Speaker 3: From what I understand, Kelly never showed at that party
30:14
Speaker 3: with her dad Robbie expecting her in Louisiana, It's possible
30:17
Speaker 3: that Kelly still hadn't made up her mind about whether
30:19
Speaker 3: to leave Gilmour We didn't know where she was, whose
30:24
Speaker 3: lives might be destroyed, or what kind of evil lurked
30:27
Speaker 3: in the shadows of all those pines.
30:31
Speaker 5: None of us foresaw this thing mus rooming into the
30:35
Speaker 5: big controversy that Edma Cain.
30:39
Speaker 3: Coming up this season on Deviltown.
30:42
Speaker 12: It's much bigger than anybody could anticipate. If one girl
30:47
Speaker 12: could expose what's going on and bring that many powerful
30:51
Speaker 12: people down, She's not going to survive. Kelly was snatched
30:56
Speaker 12: off the Gilmer Square. She was a sweet young girl.
31:00
Speaker 12: It wasn't a random act. We all know it wasn't random,
31:04
Speaker 12: so that means there had to be a reason behind it.
31:07
Speaker 1: From seven years old, my head's been full of devil worshiping, killers, cannibalism,
31:15
Speaker 1: sexual misconduct.
31:18
Speaker 14: I was a good guy and then all of a sudden,
31:21
Speaker 14: I'm in jail going I'm killing eight to seventeen year
31:25
Speaker 14: old girl and sacrifice ten babies to the devil.
31:30
Speaker 3: Deviltown is a production of Imperative Entertainment. It was written
31:33
Speaker 3: and created by me Wes Ferguson. Executive producer is Jason Hoak,
31:37
Speaker 3: Audio engineering and editing by Shane Freeman and Jason Hoak.
31:41
Speaker 3: Original score is by Robert Ellis, recording by Austin Sisler
31:45
Speaker 3: at east Side Studios. If you like the show, leave
31:47
Speaker 3: a review, and don't forget to tell your friends thanks
31:50
Speaker 3: for