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Episode 3_ Fly High(M4A_128K) · NO FILTER

• 0:15
  Speaker 1: Two weeks before Brian Bowling was shot and killed, his friends,
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: Lee Clark and Kaine's Story stole a safe from Kane's father.
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: Neither Lee nor Cain were ever convicted in connection with
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: the theft.
• 0:28
  Speaker 2: The charges weren't.
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: Pursued, and anyway, as juveniles without a prior record, it's
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: unlikely that they'd have faced any serious criminal punishment. But
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: the consequences of Lee's decision to steal that safe turned
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: out to be far greater than he could have known
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: at the time. In fact, he's still living with those
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: consequences today.
• 0:49
  Speaker 3: I'm told and I own that was Mama's day, and
• 0:54
  Speaker 3: I got lived with. I can't never make it as
• 0:57
  Speaker 3: change doory. I I'm living with all the years in prison.
• 1:01
  Speaker 3: He died, and here I am that stole all this
• 1:03
  Speaker 3: man's money that he was saving up his whole life.
• 1:06
  Speaker 3: He played a dead man back came based up right
• 1:08
  Speaker 3: with a dead man. And I lived with those regrets
• 1:11
  Speaker 3: and a lot of regrets. I lived with those. In
• 1:13
  Speaker 3: fact that I think it myself sometimes and I never
• 1:16
  Speaker 3: know that. Say, I don't think Kane would ever had
• 1:18
  Speaker 3: that gun on him. I don't think Ryan Bulam would
• 1:20
  Speaker 3: be dead, right, now.
• 1:27
  Speaker 2: Hi. My name is Susan Simpson.
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: I'm an attorney and podcaster and previously I hosted the
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: Undisclosed podcast.
• 1:34
  Speaker 4: Hi, I'm just Into Davis and I'm a true crime
• 1:37
  Speaker 4: TV producer. Last year, Susan and I decided to team
• 1:41
  Speaker 4: up and reinvestigate the murder of Brian Bowling. Along with
• 1:45
  Speaker 4: Kevin Fitzpatrick, president of Red Marble Media, we decided to
• 1:49
  Speaker 4: launch Proof. You can listen to Proof like you would
• 1:52
  Speaker 4: any podcast, and you can follow us everywhere with the
• 1:56
  Speaker 4: handle at Proof Crime pod and on our website, proof
• 1:59
  Speaker 4: crime dot com. It was late on a cold evening
• 2:12
  Speaker 4: in October when Floyd County Police Officer Mark Corbyn got
• 2:15
  Speaker 4: the call from dispatch. A fifteen year old boy had
• 2:19
  Speaker 4: been shot at a trailer in Silver Creek.
• 2:25
  Speaker 5: I remember being close by. Uh, it didn't take me
• 2:28
  Speaker 5: too off long to get there. I mean it was
• 2:31
  Speaker 5: a fatal one, but he wasn't dead at the time.
• 2:34
  Speaker 1: Do you recall his bedroom or seeing him like where
• 2:37
  Speaker 1: he was in the bedroom and I remember being a
• 2:41
  Speaker 1: small bedroom in a trailer.
• 2:42
  Speaker 6: Are you interested in seeing the foot I'll.
• 2:44
  Speaker 5: Look at him. I remember it, though, What do you do? Okay, Well,
• 2:48
  Speaker 5: it's just it's been controversial. What do you mean, Well,
• 2:52
  Speaker 5: they still want says the Rush of the lab. I
• 2:54
  Speaker 5: guess it's whatever size you want to believe.
• 2:58
  Speaker 4: Officer Corbyn told us he's worked a lot of suicides
• 3:01
  Speaker 4: over the years, but that night at the Bowlings trailer
• 3:05
  Speaker 4: something felt off to him.
• 3:08
  Speaker 1: When's the first time you recall wondering like, wait, was
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: this really a suicide?
• 3:13
  Speaker 5: It's just a feeling you get, uh, just it just
• 3:17
  Speaker 5: didn't sing like a suicide.
• 3:19
  Speaker 7: So you get there and it's just something's not just.
• 3:21
  Speaker 4: Don't add a As a patrol officer, Corbin's only job
• 3:26
  Speaker 4: was to secure the scene. His name appears on a
• 3:29
  Speaker 4: chain of custody form showing that he collected a thirty
• 3:32
  Speaker 4: eight Revolver from Brian's bedroom and gave it to the
• 3:35
  Speaker 4: case officer, Sergeant Dallas Battle when he arrived at.
• 3:38
  Speaker 5: The trailer, the same block I were calling at the
• 3:41
  Speaker 5: shell and the cylinder in front of the fire pane
• 3:43
  Speaker 5: at the time, a same lot because if you go, Mike,
• 3:46
  Speaker 5: a little lot of resveme rom lated. It can't have
• 3:48
  Speaker 5: they can't have ammunition in all cylinders.
• 3:51
  Speaker 8: Yeah, God came to play, So you do remember the
• 3:55
  Speaker 8: empty shell.
• 3:59
  Speaker 5: But I remember getting there. I remember Dallas was there
• 4:02
  Speaker 5: before I left.
• 4:03
  Speaker 7: The casing was like missing, so in trying to figure
• 4:05
  Speaker 7: out where that might have gone to.
• 4:10
  Speaker 1: If there had only been an empty casing in the
• 4:12
  Speaker 1: revolver when Officer Corbin recovered it, that would have been
• 4:16
  Speaker 1: consistent with the game of Russian Roulette gone wrong. If
• 4:19
  Speaker 1: there had been live rounds still loaded in the revolver,
• 4:22
  Speaker 1: then well, either Brian and Kin had gotten the rules
• 4:25
  Speaker 1: to Russian Roulette very very wrong, or it hadn't been
• 4:29
  Speaker 1: Russian Roulette at all. Unfortunately, there are no records of
• 4:33
  Speaker 1: any ammunition being recovered at the scene. As Brian's family
• 4:37
  Speaker 1: told us, they never even found the bullet that Brian
• 4:40
  Speaker 1: had been killed with.
• 4:41
  Speaker 7: Why wasn't the bullet found?
• 4:43
  Speaker 6: We never understood that.
• 4:45
  Speaker 9: No, never, Why didn't you tear that mattress apart?
• 4:49
  Speaker 7: Why didn't you pull that floor up?
• 4:52
  Speaker 9: Why didn't you tear the rest of them walls down
• 4:55
  Speaker 9: looking for it?
• 4:56
  Speaker 1: You know, wow, it should have It feels like it
• 4:59
  Speaker 1: should have been able to be found. It was messy,
• 5:01
  Speaker 1: but like, yeah, it's a small room. Eventually you're gonna
• 5:05
  Speaker 1: mind it exactly.
• 5:07
  Speaker 4: The thirty eight Smith and Wesson revolver was the only
• 5:10
  Speaker 4: piece of evidence collected from the Bowling's trailer that night.
• 5:14
  Speaker 4: There was one other piece of physical evidence that the
• 5:16
  Speaker 4: police collected later that evening, though Cain's story had been
• 5:20
  Speaker 4: taken into the police station in Rome for questioning, and
• 5:23
  Speaker 4: while there Sergeant Battle had swabbed Kine's hands to test
• 5:27
  Speaker 4: for the presence of gun shot residue. Those swabs were
• 5:30
  Speaker 4: sent off to the crime lab in Atlanta for testing.
• 5:34
  Speaker 4: A gun shot residue test or GSR test, looks for
• 5:38
  Speaker 4: the presence of microscopic particles left behind after a gun
• 5:42
  Speaker 4: has been fired. It can be used to tell if
• 5:45
  Speaker 4: someone has recently fired a weapon. They didn't swab Brian
• 5:48
  Speaker 4: Bowling's hands, though Sergeant Battle said they never got the chance.
• 5:53
  Speaker 4: Brian had been taken to the hospital before investigators ever arrived,
• 5:57
  Speaker 4: and by the time they saw him in the hospital
• 5:59
  Speaker 4: that night, he'd been cleaned up and taken to the ICU,
• 6:03
  Speaker 4: and that's why Battle said no swabs were taken of
• 6:07
  Speaker 4: Brian's hands. There was no testing ever done to determine
• 6:11
  Speaker 4: if Brian had fired a gun that night.
• 6:22
  Speaker 1: When Jacinda and I started working on this case, we
• 6:25
  Speaker 1: began by requesting records from every agency in Floyd County
• 6:28
  Speaker 1: that had been involved in some way in the investigation.
• 6:32
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and we're still working on getting files.
• 6:35
  Speaker 1: It's a slow going.
• 6:36
  Speaker 10: Yeah.
• 6:36
  Speaker 3: I don't nice Lowa County's being so imagine they're being
• 6:39
  Speaker 3: to cooperative on their end.
• 6:40
  Speaker 2: Are they managed to lose just about everything?
• 6:42
  Speaker 3: It sounds like, yeah, Loa County. They wanted sleep, bought
• 6:45
  Speaker 3: the dirt under a carpet, and they laid there.
• 6:48
  Speaker 2: The GBI has lost all files too.
• 6:52
  Speaker 3: Oh brought me. I'm imagine that now? Word did that
• 6:56
  Speaker 3: leave us in it?
• 6:58
  Speaker 1: We keep pushing for him. When I told Lee that
• 7:04
  Speaker 1: Floyd County had lost just about everything, I wasn't kidding.
• 7:08
  Speaker 1: We couldn't even get the trial transcripts. We were told
• 7:10
  Speaker 1: by the court that those had been lost too, though
• 7:13
  Speaker 1: eventually someone in the Clerk's office did manage to find them,
• 7:16
  Speaker 1: well most of them anyway, pretty much. The only agency
• 7:20
  Speaker 1: that didn't respond to our records requests by telling us
• 7:22
  Speaker 1: they'd lost everything was the Floyd County Police Department. They
• 7:26
  Speaker 1: were able to find their case file and they gave
• 7:28
  Speaker 1: us access to it. But that file is thin, very thin.
• 7:34
  Speaker 1: We showed it to Brian's sister Amanda.
• 7:37
  Speaker 6: Yeah, the whole files maybe, and that's generous.
• 7:39
  Speaker 7: It was like, it's like an inch, this is actually
• 7:43
  Speaker 7: actually this.
• 7:43
  Speaker 11: Is all of it.
• 7:45
  Speaker 1: Yes, actually, wow, so this is nothing you'd have seen
• 7:50
  Speaker 1: the whole file. But yeah, but you think the documents
• 7:53
  Speaker 1: would have more than this, Yeah, definitely.
• 7:56
  Speaker 4: In the Floyd County police file, there are only a
• 7:59
  Speaker 4: hand full of documents that date back to the first
• 8:02
  Speaker 4: few weeks after Brian was shot in October of nineteen
• 8:05
  Speaker 4: ninety six. Most of the documents in the police file
• 8:09
  Speaker 4: have to do with what investigators were looking into seven
• 8:12
  Speaker 4: months after the shooting in May of nineteen ninety seven,
• 8:16
  Speaker 4: around the time when Cain and Lee were arrested, so
• 8:18
  Speaker 4: we know very little about what investigators were doing in
• 8:22
  Speaker 4: the time before that. But the records we do have
• 8:25
  Speaker 4: show that shortly after Brian's death, investigators had come to
• 8:28
  Speaker 4: believe that he had been killed as a result of
• 8:31
  Speaker 4: gang violence, and, as Brian's aunt Melody remembers, this was
• 8:35
  Speaker 4: the theory the jury heard at Lee's and Kane's trial
• 8:38
  Speaker 4: from prosecutor Steve Cox.
• 8:42
  Speaker 12: On the snow stave you know, painted the picture, you know,
• 8:48
  Speaker 12: with them being in a little gang brought up the
• 8:53
  Speaker 12: safe theft and how Brian was supposed to testify and
• 8:57
  Speaker 12: you know that they were just trying to shut him up.
• 9:01
  Speaker 12: Felt like that Lee was the ringleader.
• 9:04
  Speaker 4: Lee Clark's father, Glenn, believes that invoking the specter of
• 9:08
  Speaker 4: gang violence is how the prosecutor was able to persuade
• 9:12
  Speaker 4: the jury to convict his son. What were you saying
• 9:15
  Speaker 4: about Steve Cox?
• 9:18
  Speaker 11: Well, he put that out there, He put that out
• 9:21
  Speaker 11: there about that gang. You know, we want to send
• 9:24
  Speaker 11: a message to the Floyd County that we're not going
• 9:28
  Speaker 11: to tolerate this kind of stuff, you know. And I
• 9:31
  Speaker 11: think he was putting that on the jury like that
• 9:34
  Speaker 11: and let the jury say, yeah, no, we're not just
• 9:36
  Speaker 11: as our town. We don't want to get gang started.
• 9:42
  Speaker 4: Glenn Clark is right. This was the prosecutor's trial strategy.
• 9:46
  Speaker 4: The state's case was that Brian, Kane, and Lee had
• 9:50
  Speaker 4: all been part of a gang called the Freebirds, and
• 9:53
  Speaker 4: the prosecutor was explicit in asking the jury to make
• 9:56
  Speaker 4: their decision in this case a referendum on gang.
• 10:01
  Speaker 13: He told them, I hope your verdict will send a
• 10:05
  Speaker 13: message to this community that if you feel like the
• 10:08
  Speaker 13: Freebird philosophy is behind this homicide, that this community will
• 10:12
  Speaker 13: not tolerate this blatant disregard for life.
• 10:16
  Speaker 4: Investigators in this case believed that Brian had been part
• 10:20
  Speaker 4: of a gang with a strict code of conduct. That's
• 10:23
  Speaker 4: the free Bird philosophy the prosecutor was talking about.
• 10:27
  Speaker 6: As he explained to the jury.
• 10:30
  Speaker 13: The Freebird gang had some very clear rules. You don't
• 10:34
  Speaker 13: knock out a buddy. In other words, you don't rat
• 10:37
  Speaker 13: to police on what a buddy has done. These were
• 10:40
  Speaker 13: very clear rules. Teenage boys, mind you in Floyd County,
• 10:44
  Speaker 13: but it was going on and if you did this,
• 10:46
  Speaker 13: you died, pure and simple. Hard to believe, but that
• 10:50
  Speaker 13: was the rule.
• 10:52
  Speaker 4: If the investigators are right, then this is why Lee
• 10:55
  Speaker 4: Clark and Caine's story killed. Someone who they had called
• 10:58
  Speaker 4: a friend, had broken the gang rules, and so according
• 11:03
  Speaker 4: to the free Bird philosophy, he had to die.
• 11:13
  Speaker 1: Sergeant Dallas Battle and investigator David Stewart actually began investigating
• 11:17
  Speaker 1: Lean Kine two weeks before Brian was shot. It all
• 11:21
  Speaker 1: started when James story Kane's father reported that there had
• 11:25
  Speaker 1: been a burglary at his home. Someone had stolen a
• 11:28
  Speaker 1: safe containing his life savings.
• 11:30
  Speaker 3: Mee Kane, Joseph Wilkins and my buddy Pete Jordan will
• 11:34
  Speaker 3: Alloway safe.
• 11:36
  Speaker 1: Lee Clark does not deny that he and a few
• 11:38
  Speaker 1: of his friends were responsible for the safe theft. One morning,
• 11:42
  Speaker 1: when Kane's parents had been away at work. They'd gone
• 11:45
  Speaker 1: to his trailer, grabbed a safe from his parents' bedroom,
• 11:47
  Speaker 1: and driven off with it.
• 11:49
  Speaker 3: We all jumped off in the car and went down
• 11:53
  Speaker 3: wrote more and I would not gain anymore what road
• 11:55
  Speaker 3: it was. We ride down? Not there you looking for
• 11:57
  Speaker 3: some more to get it out? Pushed up and there's
• 11:58
  Speaker 3: like a creek running down there. We took it down there,
• 12:02
  Speaker 3: vowed it out there and found a big old metal
• 12:05
  Speaker 3: pop out there, and we took turns with that metal
• 12:08
  Speaker 3: pop nages althoting unil we get it open. And that's
• 12:11
  Speaker 3: how we bushed it open. That's how we got the
• 12:13
  Speaker 3: fun out.
• 12:14
  Speaker 1: There had been thirty two hundred dollars in cash and
• 12:17
  Speaker 1: side James Story's safe, and the four boys divvied their
• 12:20
  Speaker 1: little up between them, each taking eight hundred dollars. Cain
• 12:25
  Speaker 1: and Lee and the other two teenagers involved in the
• 12:28
  Speaker 1: safe theft did not get away with the crime for long, though,
• 12:31
  Speaker 1: within a week all four had been arrested and charged
• 12:34
  Speaker 1: with theft by taking.
• 12:37
  Speaker 4: And according to investigators, this is what led to Lee
• 12:41
  Speaker 4: and Kane conspiring to kill Brian. In opening statements at
• 12:48
  Speaker 4: Lee and Kaine's trial, prosecutor Steve Cox explained.
• 12:53
  Speaker 13: Brian Bowling helped and participated in this large theft of
• 12:56
  Speaker 13: money from Cain's story's father, and the police recalled. Then
• 13:00
  Speaker 13: the motive in this case is clear. These two defendants
• 13:03
  Speaker 13: knew they were charged in a crime and knew that
• 13:05
  Speaker 13: their partner in that crime was cooperating with police.
• 13:10
  Speaker 4: But there's one small problem with the prosecutor's theory about
• 13:14
  Speaker 4: why Brian was killed.
• 13:16
  Speaker 9: Because you know, Brian wasn't involved in that safe.
• 13:18
  Speaker 2: That's the other thing.
• 13:20
  Speaker 7: He didn't actually really know anything.
• 13:22
  Speaker 9: He didn't know about it until it was done, until afterwards,
• 13:25
  Speaker 9: you know, So, I mean he really didn't know nothing.
• 13:28
  Speaker 12: You know.
• 13:29
  Speaker 4: Everyone involved in this case agrees that Brian was not
• 13:33
  Speaker 4: involved in stealing the safe. Everyone that is, except for
• 13:37
  Speaker 4: the prosecutor.
• 13:39
  Speaker 1: The prosecutor also said in his opening that Brian was
• 13:43
  Speaker 1: involved in safe, though he tells the jury like now,
• 13:45
  Speaker 1: Brian made a mistake. He stole that safe from Josh's parents,
• 13:50
  Speaker 1: but he didn't deserve to die for that, but.
• 13:53
  Speaker 6: Wow, I did not know.
• 13:54
  Speaker 14: I did not know that.
• 13:57
  Speaker 4: At trial, prosecutor Steve Cock told the jury that Brian
• 14:01
  Speaker 4: Bowling had been prosecuted in connection with the safe theft,
• 14:05
  Speaker 4: but he'd ended up cutting a deal by giving evidence
• 14:08
  Speaker 4: against Lee and Kin.
• 14:12
  Speaker 13: Brian's case was disposed of in juvenile court, and I
• 14:14
  Speaker 13: think the evidence will indicate he was placed on probation.
• 14:18
  Speaker 13: He was sentenced because Brian Bowling, as I said a
• 14:21
  Speaker 13: moment ago, was not guiltless in this. He had participated
• 14:24
  Speaker 13: and did wrong along with these two defendants and others
• 14:27
  Speaker 13: in stealing a large sum of money from Kan's father. Now,
• 14:31
  Speaker 13: Brian Bowling and his family fortunately wanted to do right
• 14:35
  Speaker 13: and were cooperating with investigator David Stewart and the police.
• 14:39
  Speaker 13: And I anticipate the evidence will indicate these two defendants knew.
• 14:43
  Speaker 1: That this did not happen. Brian Bowling was not charged, arrested,
• 14:51
  Speaker 1: or sentenced in connection with the safe theft, and it's
• 14:54
  Speaker 1: not clear why the prosecutor got this so wrong. He
• 14:57
  Speaker 1: declined to speak with us on the record, but Lee
• 14:59
  Speaker 1: Clark's says that this means he and Kin had no
• 15:02
  Speaker 1: motive to kill Brian.
• 15:04
  Speaker 3: They sit there and tried to say that we all
• 15:08
  Speaker 3: killed Brian because he was going to testify by this
• 15:10
  Speaker 3: save that don't neit. Theary don't even make no sense
• 15:13
  Speaker 3: at all.
• 15:13
  Speaker 15: Did Brian even know about it?
• 15:16
  Speaker 3: No, he didn't know what think about it?
• 15:19
  Speaker 1: Lee is wrong about that, though Brian did know some
• 15:22
  Speaker 1: things about the safe theft because Caine's last Josh, had
• 15:26
  Speaker 1: told him. Brian's brother in law, Kenneth, had been with
• 15:29
  Speaker 1: Brian when they found out what happened.
• 15:32
  Speaker 7: How did you find out about the safe theft?
• 15:34
  Speaker 2: How did that?
• 15:35
  Speaker 16: Josh told us? So did he come over or yeah,
• 15:37
  Speaker 16: he is staying here because his daddy come over here.
• 15:40
  Speaker 16: And I'm the one who saved Josh from his own day.
• 15:43
  Speaker 16: His daddy had a gun on at that time.
• 15:46
  Speaker 1: I mean, so Josh comes over here, you talk to
• 15:50
  Speaker 1: his dad telling him to calm down.
• 15:51
  Speaker 6: Yeah, and then.
• 15:52
  Speaker 1: Josh did he start talking about what happened?
• 15:54
  Speaker 16: He told us that, you know, I was needed money,
• 15:58
  Speaker 16: needed some stuff of whatever, you know, and they had
• 16:02
  Speaker 16: safe from his mom and dad had I guess I
• 16:07
  Speaker 16: had a couple of thousand dollars in it had to
• 16:10
  Speaker 16: go and in it.
• 16:11
  Speaker 1: You know, James story had ended up kicking his son
• 16:15
  Speaker 1: out after finding out about the theft. So Josh had moved
• 16:18
  Speaker 1: in with the Bowlings just for a few days until
• 16:21
  Speaker 1: everything had blown over.
• 16:22
  Speaker 9: You know, we didn't think nothing about it waked out.
• 16:25
  Speaker 9: Everything was okay because James and then got the safe back.
• 16:29
  Speaker 9: I think the money was gone, but you know, the
• 16:33
  Speaker 9: gun was still there.
• 16:35
  Speaker 1: So even though Brian Bowling had not been involved in
• 16:38
  Speaker 1: stealing the safe from Josh's dad, he'd known a lot
• 16:40
  Speaker 1: about it. He'd been getting regular updates from Josh about
• 16:44
  Speaker 1: what was going on, and potentially he could have given
• 16:47
  Speaker 1: that information to the officers investigating it.
• 16:52
  Speaker 10: Yeah, the whole idea that he it was paid back
• 16:55
  Speaker 10: for narking was Brian, But we don't know because we
• 16:58
  Speaker 10: don't have the files yet, but it was I ain't
• 17:00
  Speaker 10: even questioned about the safe.
• 17:02
  Speaker 1: One of the officer testifies that Brian did talk to
• 17:05
  Speaker 1: the cops, but it's not clear.
• 17:08
  Speaker 2: There's no written record. We don't know.
• 17:10
  Speaker 1: Well, the cops claim that Brian says something that incriminates
• 17:15
  Speaker 1: I guess the other four guys. There are no records
• 17:19
  Speaker 1: that show that Brian talk to the police about the
• 17:21
  Speaker 1: safe theft, but that doesn't mean it didn't happen, and
• 17:25
  Speaker 1: Brian's uncle, Michael, recalls that Brian had in fact talked
• 17:28
  Speaker 1: to at least one police officer who questioned him about
• 17:31
  Speaker 1: the safe theft.
• 17:32
  Speaker 17: And then I know the police come down to talk
• 17:34
  Speaker 17: to Brian about being a witness if he knew anything
• 17:37
  Speaker 17: on it, you know, So do you know speculations that
• 17:42
  Speaker 17: they thought that he was going to testify against them
• 17:46
  Speaker 17: is what caused the whole shooting.
• 17:48
  Speaker 1: Do you know if Brian said police, what he told
• 17:51
  Speaker 1: the police about.
• 17:52
  Speaker 17: Any of this From what Debra had said, like I said,
• 17:55
  Speaker 17: he didn't tell me it was too late now, but
• 17:58
  Speaker 17: that he was not going to testify. He didn't know
• 18:00
  Speaker 17: anything about it. He wasn't with him, He didn't know
• 18:02
  Speaker 17: anything about it.
• 18:04
  Speaker 1: Kenneth, Brian's brother in law, agrees with Brian's uncle that
• 18:07
  Speaker 1: Brian was not planning to testify against his friends, and
• 18:12
  Speaker 1: Kenneth thinks that what he believes was a plan to
• 18:14
  Speaker 1: murder Brian might all have been due to a misunderstanding.
• 18:19
  Speaker 16: I think the reason why they come up with the
• 18:21
  Speaker 16: plan of killing Brian was because of at that time
• 18:27
  Speaker 16: when Brian had got in trouble, they was a detective
• 18:30
  Speaker 16: or probation off for something coming over here all the time,
• 18:34
  Speaker 16: and it wasn't because of that, Shay, but that's what
• 18:38
  Speaker 16: Lay and Josh kept thinking that Brian was snitching.
• 18:43
  Speaker 1: So he has the guy coming to check on him
• 18:45
  Speaker 1: doing whatever the cremation.
• 18:46
  Speaker 16: Guy does, right, And they thought Brian was talking, but
• 18:50
  Speaker 16: Brian wasn't talk and Brian didn't say a word about.
• 18:53
  Speaker 12: None of that.
• 18:57
  Speaker 4: Keene's story had been one of Brian's closest friends, and
• 19:01
  Speaker 4: he was close with Brian's family as well, so it's
• 19:04
  Speaker 4: not surprising that he was asked to serve as a
• 19:06
  Speaker 4: pallbearer at Brian's funeral. But two days before Brian was buried,
• 19:11
  Speaker 4: Kane was arrested and charged with involuntary manslaughter in connection
• 19:15
  Speaker 4: with Brian's death, and for obvious reasons, he was no
• 19:19
  Speaker 4: longer welcome to attend. And Kane wasn't the only one
• 19:23
  Speaker 4: who missed the funeral. Lee Clark wasn't there either.
• 19:28
  Speaker 18: I didn't go to Brian's gender because I or didn't
• 19:31
  Speaker 18: been hearing little rumors and people say shit that the
• 19:34
  Speaker 18: bowlers were passed off a hit and I ordered them,
• 19:37
  Speaker 18: hearing rumors about I wass get out in the cemetery
• 19:39
  Speaker 18: when all this junk happened, this and that, and I
• 19:42
  Speaker 18: didn't want to go up there because I didn't feel
• 19:44
  Speaker 18: like he was going to be a good idea.
• 19:46
  Speaker 3: I mean, I wanted to go play mark Space to
• 19:47
  Speaker 3: Brown at the same time, I didn't want to go
• 19:49
  Speaker 3: up to no funeral. I didn't want to call it
• 19:51
  Speaker 3: those saying and no funeral, especially not Brian's. So I
• 19:54
  Speaker 3: just stayed away from all of it.
• 19:57
  Speaker 1: There's nothing about it in the police file, but it's
• 20:00
  Speaker 1: clear that investigators must have heard some of the same
• 20:03
  Speaker 1: rumors that Lee was hearing. One week after Brian's death,
• 20:06
  Speaker 1: an article ran in Rome's local paper that quoted an
• 20:09
  Speaker 1: investigator talking about those rumors.
• 20:13
  Speaker 13: Floyd County Police Captain Tommy Shifflett said police are looking
• 20:16
  Speaker 13: into rumors that the shooting may be connected with a
• 20:19
  Speaker 13: recent theft involving Kane's story. The rumors are stirring up
• 20:23
  Speaker 13: the community. Quote most of them are outland as Shifflett said,
• 20:26
  Speaker 13: the investigation is not closed and will not be closed
• 20:29
  Speaker 13: until all these rumors are answered completely because of the
• 20:32
  Speaker 13: way it has affected the community. End quote.
• 20:36
  Speaker 1: Although Lee stayed away from Brian's funeral, his brother Jamie
• 20:39
  Speaker 1: and Jamie's friends Doug and Don Bray decided to go.
• 20:43
  Speaker 1: Don told us that that's what Brian would have wanted.
• 20:47
  Speaker 19: We know how y'all said around and you talk, oh
• 20:51
  Speaker 19: if I will I do this for me or whatever,
• 20:55
  Speaker 19: And Brian had made a comment at one time if
• 20:58
  Speaker 19: I'd smoke for me and played Freebird to my funeral,
• 21:02
  Speaker 19: And so that's what we did. But we couldn't play
• 21:07
  Speaker 19: free Birds that the funeral because they were they were
• 21:09
  Speaker 19: everybody was there. But we did smoke one and on
• 21:12
  Speaker 19: the way there and played it and then put one
• 21:15
  Speaker 19: in casket with him.
• 21:18
  Speaker 1: Don Bray says that before the funeral, he and his
• 21:21
  Speaker 1: brother would have had no reason to think that they
• 21:23
  Speaker 1: wouldn't be welcome.
• 21:24
  Speaker 19: Brian was our home when we were going, regardless if
• 21:27
  Speaker 19: they had a problem or not, I can't remember, but
• 21:30
  Speaker 19: if somebody would have said they didn't want us there,
• 21:31
  Speaker 19: we probably would have went anyway.
• 21:33
  Speaker 2: But you don't remember being told not to go.
• 21:36
  Speaker 19: No, we definitely were not told not to go, because
• 21:39
  Speaker 19: when we got there, we were thinking everything was okay,
• 21:42
  Speaker 19: there were no issues or nothing. But the moment Jamie
• 21:46
  Speaker 19: walked in with us, there was one or two people
• 21:49
  Speaker 19: started going to the first whisper.
• 21:51
  Speaker 1: Brian's aunt Melody told us what she remembers happening in
• 21:54
  Speaker 1: the churchyard that day.
• 21:56
  Speaker 12: There was a fight at the funeral. There's kids, young people,
• 22:02
  Speaker 12: and so there was a lot of you know, my
• 22:05
  Speaker 12: sister's friends and Brian's friends, and I mean the place
• 22:08
  Speaker 12: was packed. And matter of fact, there was a set
• 22:16
  Speaker 12: of twins, the Brave brothers. I don't know their first names,
• 22:19
  Speaker 12: Doug and Down, I believe, okay, And so my sister
• 22:24
  Speaker 12: in law at the time, Kim, after the service, walked
• 22:29
  Speaker 12: by and there the Brave brothers were in the parking lot,
• 22:33
  Speaker 12: and she said that one of them said the little
• 22:38
  Speaker 12: son of a bitch deserved what he got. And she
• 22:41
  Speaker 12: stopped and said, what'd you say? And supposedly he said
• 22:46
  Speaker 12: it again, and that led into her going into the window.
• 22:50
  Speaker 12: My brother going into the window. I kind of got
• 22:54
  Speaker 12: in the window. It didn't anybody but I you know,
• 22:56
  Speaker 12: because they started driving off.
• 22:59
  Speaker 7: Typical red.
• 23:03
  Speaker 4: It's still not clear to us what exactly happened at
• 23:05
  Speaker 4: Brian's funeral. Twenty five years later. The people involved all
• 23:10
  Speaker 4: remember things slightly different, and accounts very about who shout
• 23:13
  Speaker 4: it was and who heard it and how this all began,
• 23:17
  Speaker 4: But Don Bray and Jamie Clark both say that no
• 23:20
  Speaker 4: one in their group had done anything to provoke the fight.
• 23:23
  Speaker 1: So a lot of people have heard the store told
• 23:25
  Speaker 1: us that there is the fight started as one of
• 23:27
  Speaker 1: y'all said, the soob got what he deserved.
• 23:30
  Speaker 19: Yeah, that's a lot.
• 23:33
  Speaker 1: So we talked to a friend of Brian's.
• 23:36
  Speaker 10: Yeah, you said he goality deserved.
• 23:41
  Speaker 2: You said about Brian, he's got what he deserved.
• 23:44
  Speaker 20: I didn't ever hear say nothing about Brian.
• 23:48
  Speaker 4: The funeral fight did not come up at Lee and
• 23:51
  Speaker 4: Kane's trial. It wasn't evidence used against them, but this
• 23:55
  Speaker 4: story about one of Brian's supposed friends yelling the son
• 23:59
  Speaker 4: of a got what he deserved at the funeral fueled
• 24:03
  Speaker 4: speculation that Brian's death had been some kind of revenge killing,
• 24:07
  Speaker 4: and that the Freebirds had killed Brian because it's what
• 24:10
  Speaker 4: he had deserved for knarking.
• 24:18
  Speaker 1: To prove that Brian had been killed because he'd broken
• 24:21
  Speaker 1: gang rules, the state had needed to prove that Kane, Lee,
• 24:24
  Speaker 1: and Brian had all been in a gang together, and
• 24:28
  Speaker 1: in opening statements, Prosecutor Steve Cox promised the jury that
• 24:31
  Speaker 1: he'd be able to do just that.
• 24:34
  Speaker 13: Now you'll hear also some testimony about this gang. This
• 24:38
  Speaker 13: gang is not a figment of the prosecutor's imagination or
• 24:41
  Speaker 13: just coming up with some good idea for a motive.
• 24:43
  Speaker 13: This was a gang called the Free Birds. You're probably
• 24:46
  Speaker 13: thinking this is Rome, Georgia, not Los Angeles or some
• 24:49
  Speaker 13: other big city. Yes, the evidence will indicate there's at
• 24:53
  Speaker 13: least one gang in Rome, Georgia. It's a small, probably
• 24:56
  Speaker 13: loosely organized group of boys called the Free Birds. They
• 25:01
  Speaker 13: had some favorite type of music. Probably you and I
• 25:03
  Speaker 13: wouldn't recognize it, but they had some music, and they
• 25:06
  Speaker 13: had an emblem. Maybe they wore colors to school. That
• 25:10
  Speaker 13: I can't say, but they had some of the elements
• 25:13
  Speaker 13: that go along with gangs.
• 25:16
  Speaker 1: It's hard not to notice that the prosecutor seems a
• 25:19
  Speaker 1: little defensive here. No, really, I promise this isn't just
• 25:23
  Speaker 1: all a figment of my imagination. Isn't something you usually
• 25:26
  Speaker 1: hear from the prosecution and opening statements, But from talking
• 25:29
  Speaker 1: to people around Rome, you can see why Steve Cox
• 25:32
  Speaker 1: might have had concerns that this whole gang murder theory
• 25:35
  Speaker 1: could be a tough sell.
• 25:38
  Speaker 5: I do remember them having a little gang thing, but
• 25:41
  Speaker 5: it wasn't a legitimate gang. I don't think.
• 25:45
  Speaker 1: Officer Mark Corbin told us that he'd heard there was
• 25:47
  Speaker 1: a gang element to this case, but he scoffed at
• 25:50
  Speaker 1: the idea that they were true.
• 25:51
  Speaker 5: Gang and that was part of this little supposedly a
• 25:56
  Speaker 5: gang tap thing. Back then, we didn't have much gang
• 25:59
  Speaker 5: issues here. We still don't have like they do in
• 26:02
  Speaker 5: most places, but we have some.
• 26:04
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 26:04
  Speaker 7: I don't think some of a creek is a gang.
• 26:07
  Speaker 5: It's wont to be stuff.
• 26:09
  Speaker 1: Brian's uncle Michael, had a similar impression of what the
• 26:12
  Speaker 1: free Birds were.
• 26:13
  Speaker 7: Do you think Brian's in a gang?
• 26:16
  Speaker 17: I'm sure he probably was.
• 26:17
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 26:18
  Speaker 7: I feel like the word gang carries a lot of implications.
• 26:21
  Speaker 17: Yeah.
• 26:22
  Speaker 11: Yeah.
• 26:22
  Speaker 17: Nobody in this area had heard of gangs. I mean
• 26:25
  Speaker 17: really had gangs in the area. It was all kind
• 26:27
  Speaker 17: of a land of thing when all this happens. I
• 26:29
  Speaker 17: think it was only four or five of the kids
• 26:31
  Speaker 17: in it.
• 26:31
  Speaker 16: You know.
• 26:32
  Speaker 1: The first time I spoke to Lee Clark, pretty much
• 26:35
  Speaker 1: the only thing I'd known about this case was that
• 26:37
  Speaker 1: it involved two teenage gang members who supposedly murdered another
• 26:40
  Speaker 1: gang member. So it was one of the first things
• 26:43
  Speaker 1: I asked him about. Is there a gang called the
• 26:46
  Speaker 1: free Birds? Were you in a gang at all? No gang,
• 26:53
  Speaker 1: so not not even like an unofficial like kids being
• 26:57
  Speaker 1: kids kind of thing.
• 27:00
  Speaker 2: Did they?
• 27:02
  Speaker 1: I hadn't realized before speaking to Lee that there had
• 27:05
  Speaker 1: been any dispute about whether the Freebirds even existed. Jamie Clark,
• 27:09
  Speaker 1: Lee's brother, also told us that there had never been
• 27:12
  Speaker 1: any kind of gang.
• 27:18
  Speaker 6: What were the Freebirds?
• 27:20
  Speaker 20: That was just a little song game, like the sing
• 27:25
  Speaker 20: It'd be more like a band or something in that nature.
• 27:29
  Speaker 20: Kane was trying to get together and that's all that was.
• 27:33
  Speaker 20: I mean, Kane had a little book he'd write songs
• 27:36
  Speaker 20: and stuff in.
• 27:37
  Speaker 6: Were the free Birds a gang?
• 27:38
  Speaker 20: No, there was no gang, I mean at all. I
• 27:42
  Speaker 20: mean it was a group of kids just hanging out
• 27:45
  Speaker 20: here and there.
• 27:47
  Speaker 4: Both Lee and Jamie say that they were not Freebirds,
• 27:52
  Speaker 4: But according to Brian's sister, Brian had claimed membership in
• 27:56
  Speaker 4: the Freebirds. Whatever the Freebirds were, he was one of them.
• 28:01
  Speaker 1: So Brian told you about the free Birds, I just.
• 28:04
  Speaker 9: You know, said that, you know, it's just all we're
• 28:07
  Speaker 9: just buddies, you know, just hanging out. So I I said,
• 28:11
  Speaker 9: are y'all a game.
• 28:13
  Speaker 7: No, we're just country boys.
• 28:15
  Speaker 11: You know.
• 28:15
  Speaker 7: It ain't no game.
• 28:16
  Speaker 1: We just fringed.
• 28:18
  Speaker 4: So where did the name Freebirds come from? Well, if
• 28:22
  Speaker 4: you guess it might have been inspired by the classic
• 28:24
  Speaker 4: southern rock song, you're probably right. Why did you settle
• 28:29
  Speaker 4: on the name freebirds?
• 28:30
  Speaker 19: I don't know what to do. I don't think I
• 28:32
  Speaker 19: think somebody just said it, yacho. We used to listen
• 28:36
  Speaker 19: to it all the time.
• 28:38
  Speaker 4: According to Don Brey, the Freebirds were a band, well
• 28:42
  Speaker 4: kind of anyway.
• 28:44
  Speaker 19: I mean just something like over the course of weeks
• 28:47
  Speaker 19: and months, that name for getting thrown around and what
• 28:51
  Speaker 19: what did Coyle what we're gonna call the band? All that,
• 28:54
  Speaker 19: and it's it really never a band. Never e would
• 28:59
  Speaker 19: come to for I think there was one or two
• 29:02
  Speaker 19: of them had guitars, but yeah, Brian was supposed to
• 29:06
  Speaker 19: be the drummer, had no drums, and just same thing.
• 29:14
  Speaker 19: Would a couple more of it than We all just
• 29:15
  Speaker 19: stayed around, as ideas dreams we would come up with
• 29:18
  Speaker 19: and just hanging out having fun. It never was no
• 29:22
  Speaker 19: harm or anything any of that.
• 29:24
  Speaker 4: The investigators in this case had a different take, though,
• 29:29
  Speaker 4: They concluded that the Freebirds were something much more sinister.
• 29:32
  Speaker 4: Than a wanna be garage band. In their handwritten notes
• 29:36
  Speaker 4: from the police file, you can see that sergeant in
• 29:38
  Speaker 4: Dallas Battle and David Stewart had been trying to determine
• 29:41
  Speaker 4: who all had been a member of the Freebirds and
• 29:44
  Speaker 4: what their gang names had been. We asked Lee about
• 29:47
  Speaker 4: what the investigators had written in their file.
• 29:50
  Speaker 15: So when you did you ever have a gang name?
• 29:55
  Speaker 12: Had?
• 29:55
  Speaker 3: No, there never was a gang.
• 29:56
  Speaker 15: Well did y'all ever pretend to have gang names?
• 30:01
  Speaker 3: No, ma'am.
• 30:02
  Speaker 15: So there's a couple of notes in the police file.
• 30:04
  Speaker 15: It's like a possible name for Freeberg gang members and
• 30:09
  Speaker 15: it's got Caine's story is devil man or devil Eye.
• 30:13
  Speaker 15: That's comical is that you ever get called that?
• 30:17
  Speaker 3: No, ma'am.
• 30:18
  Speaker 15: Brian Bowling Joker, No, Pete Hubbard Italian.
• 30:27
  Speaker 3: That's the little thing we had. We called Peyton and
• 30:29
  Speaker 3: Tage sometimes because he looked at tag you.
• 30:32
  Speaker 1: So that one's real.
• 30:32
  Speaker 15: You remember that one double deuce?
• 30:38
  Speaker 3: Nobody's ever called in the police file.
• 30:42
  Speaker 4: The Brave brothers Don and Doug are not listed anywhere
• 30:46
  Speaker 4: as suspected gang members. Actually, they're not mentioned in the
• 30:49
  Speaker 4: files at all, even though they'd also been friends with
• 30:53
  Speaker 4: Brian and Lee and Kane.
• 30:56
  Speaker 19: Somebody had said something. The rumors started flying, and next
• 31:00
  Speaker 19: thing you know, people were accusing Kine and Lee are
• 31:03
  Speaker 19: plotting against him, and the police when they pulled me
• 31:07
  Speaker 19: in questioned me.
• 31:08
  Speaker 2: They questioned you yeah, when.
• 31:12
  Speaker 19: I guess, uh, not too long after all of it,
• 31:15
  Speaker 19: they questioned me and my brother.
• 31:18
  Speaker 2: There's no record of them ever talking to you.
• 31:20
  Speaker 4: Don Bray told us that Sergeant Dallas Battle had questioned
• 31:23
  Speaker 4: him in connection with Brian's steph, but records of that
• 31:27
  Speaker 4: interview either never existed, or if they did exist, have
• 31:30
  Speaker 4: now been lost.
• 31:37
  Speaker 19: I know he kept bombarding me with questions, trying to
• 31:40
  Speaker 19: trick me up, telling us Free Bird was our gang,
• 31:43
  Speaker 19: we were all gang, we all had something to do
• 31:45
  Speaker 19: with it, and we had killed Brian because Brian was
• 31:49
  Speaker 19: gonna snitch on all of us for stealing a safe.
• 31:53
  Speaker 19: And I was ting, you're so full of shit, and
• 31:57
  Speaker 19: I mean never once would I ever, and still don't
• 32:00
  Speaker 19: everything Brian would even if that were the case. Brian
• 32:04
  Speaker 19: would never snitch on anybody, especially not one of us,
• 32:10
  Speaker 19: And which that whole bogus story that'd give me was
• 32:13
  Speaker 19: such crap. I was like, you're just making this crap
• 32:16
  Speaker 19: up as you go.
• 32:18
  Speaker 1: Before Brian's death, did you ever hear anything about him
• 32:20
  Speaker 1: going to the police about it?
• 32:22
  Speaker 11: No?
• 32:23
  Speaker 2: Do you think it's possible he did go to the
• 32:24
  Speaker 2: police about it?
• 32:25
  Speaker 10: No?
• 32:26
  Speaker 19: I don't What would he gain from it?
• 32:29
  Speaker 2: He was on house arrest. What if he wanted to
• 32:31
  Speaker 2: get his charges taken.
• 32:32
  Speaker 7: Care of it?
• 32:32
  Speaker 19: I don't believe that for one second.
• 32:34
  Speaker 2: Do you think he would have taken a deal like
• 32:35
  Speaker 2: that had been offered.
• 32:36
  Speaker 19: No, I don't. You just had to know Brian and
• 32:41
  Speaker 19: all of us back then. I don't think any of
• 32:43
  Speaker 19: us would ever take a deal like that.
• 32:44
  Speaker 2: If Brian had taken a deal, would you all have
• 32:46
  Speaker 2: been mad?
• 32:48
  Speaker 3: Yeah?
• 32:48
  Speaker 16: Probably?
• 32:48
  Speaker 19: Who wouldn't have been mad?
• 32:59
  Speaker 1: Brian's brother in law Oh told us that he didn't
• 33:01
  Speaker 1: think he had heard anything about the Freebirds until after
• 33:04
  Speaker 1: Brian's death, But it was rumors of some kind of
• 33:07
  Speaker 1: gang activity that led to the first major investigative effort
• 33:10
  Speaker 1: in the case. So you don't really know when you
• 33:13
  Speaker 1: learned about the Freebirds or when they were.
• 33:16
  Speaker 16: Not may I don't remember. I want to say it
• 33:20
  Speaker 16: was probably after they had dug him back up about
• 33:22
  Speaker 16: the little stuff they had found in the cashket and
• 33:25
  Speaker 16: everything that might be whenever I'd learned about it, because
• 33:29
  Speaker 16: I don't remember Brian ever saying anything about it.
• 33:33
  Speaker 7: About the free birds.
• 33:34
  Speaker 2: Yeah, so how did this come up?
• 33:36
  Speaker 7: With the exhumation?
• 33:37
  Speaker 16: Do you remember somebody had said something was put in
• 33:40
  Speaker 16: a casket. I can't remember who was it. Somebody had
• 33:43
  Speaker 16: said something was put in there and it needed to
• 33:48
  Speaker 16: be got, you know, we need to see if we
• 33:51
  Speaker 16: could get it.
• 33:53
  Speaker 1: At some point after Brian's funeral, investigators came to believe
• 33:57
  Speaker 1: that proof that Brian had been murdered had been buried
• 34:00
  Speaker 1: alongside him. In November of nineteen ninety six, Brian's parents
• 34:05
  Speaker 1: signed a letter requesting that their son's casket be disinterred.
• 34:08
  Speaker 1: The letter reads, I, Deborah Bowling, the mother of Brian,
• 34:13
  Speaker 1: did see a document inside my son's casket which indicated
• 34:16
  Speaker 1: that my son was affiliated with a gang and that
• 34:19
  Speaker 1: one of the bylaws of the gang was that any
• 34:22
  Speaker 1: person who ratted on another gang member was subject to
• 34:25
  Speaker 1: penalty of death. According to the letter, Brian had in
• 34:29
  Speaker 1: fact cooperated with the police regarding the safe theft, and
• 34:33
  Speaker 1: it was because of Brian's assistance that four teenagers had
• 34:36
  Speaker 1: been arrested, including Brian's friend Kane's story, who was quote
• 34:40
  Speaker 1: believed to be a member of this gang known as
• 34:43
  Speaker 1: the Free Birds.
• 34:45
  Speaker 4: Brian's mother has since passed away, and although she testified
• 34:49
  Speaker 4: at Lee and Kane's trial, she was never asked about
• 34:52
  Speaker 4: the document she saw in Brian's casket. So we don't
• 34:55
  Speaker 4: know anything more about what this document looked like, or
• 34:58
  Speaker 4: what all was written on it, or why she decided
• 35:01
  Speaker 4: to put it back in the casket after she finished
• 35:03
  Speaker 4: reading it. And because so many of the records in
• 35:06
  Speaker 4: this case have now been lost, the only way to
• 35:09
  Speaker 4: learn more about why exactly investigators wanted to exhume Brian's
• 35:13
  Speaker 4: body is to hear from the investigators themselves. We had
• 35:17
  Speaker 4: really hoped to speak to the lead investigator on the case,
• 35:20
  Speaker 4: Sergeant Dallas Battle, but in March of twenty twenty one,
• 35:23
  Speaker 4: just a few days before our first trip to Rome,
• 35:26
  Speaker 4: he passed away from cancer. We never got a chance
• 35:29
  Speaker 4: to speak to him. There was another officer, though, who
• 35:33
  Speaker 4: had worked closely with Sergeant Battle on dozens of cases,
• 35:37
  Speaker 4: including this one, investigator David Stuart.
• 35:42
  Speaker 6: All right, so we just met David Stewart.
• 35:47
  Speaker 1: Nice, nice gentlemen.
• 35:49
  Speaker 6: Yeah, he was very friendly, very chatty.
• 35:51
  Speaker 7: Even though we welcome up by accident.
• 35:54
  Speaker 4: Investigator Stewart told us he remembered the bowling case and
• 35:57
  Speaker 4: that he'd be happy to talk to us about it,
• 36:00
  Speaker 4: but he'd need to get approval from Floyd County first,
• 36:03
  Speaker 4: so we made plans to meet up later that week.
• 36:06
  Speaker 4: During our brief discussion on his doorstep, though Stewart did
• 36:09
  Speaker 4: bring up the exhumation. He said this case was the
• 36:12
  Speaker 4: only time in his career he'd had to do that.
• 36:17
  Speaker 10: He said, we had to exhume the body because we
• 36:21
  Speaker 10: were looking for lyrics that could be incriminating.
• 36:25
  Speaker 1: And I asked him if it was bone thugs in
• 36:26
  Speaker 1: Harmony and Crossroads, and he thought that was it. When
• 36:31
  Speaker 1: we spoke to Officer Corbyn, he recalled pretty much the
• 36:34
  Speaker 1: same thing that investigator David Stewart had told us.
• 36:38
  Speaker 5: I remember they put a letter in the casket of
• 36:41
  Speaker 5: a song. Now David would know more about that, and
• 36:44
  Speaker 5: David had got some information about something been put in
• 36:47
  Speaker 5: his cashket and that's why the body was.
• 36:48
  Speaker 1: At zoom, he mentioned we So we met with him
• 36:51
  Speaker 1: talk for a bit and we made plans to do
• 36:52
  Speaker 1: a longer interview on Wednesday.
• 36:54
  Speaker 5: Okay, but I remember they found it was a song
• 36:57
  Speaker 5: title and it had something to do with it. It
• 37:02
  Speaker 5: was a piece of the pub somebody had dumped it
• 37:06
  Speaker 5: in the casket.
• 37:07
  Speaker 7: Was it like song lyrics?
• 37:09
  Speaker 5: Lyrics and it had some meaning to do with what happened.
• 37:13
  Speaker 1: There is no police report about the exhumation and no
• 37:17
  Speaker 1: official record of what was found inside the casket, but
• 37:20
  Speaker 1: in the case file there is a stray sheet of
• 37:22
  Speaker 1: paper with a handwritten list of a dozen or so items.
• 37:27
  Speaker 1: This page is not labeled or dated, but based on
• 37:30
  Speaker 1: the contents, it seems to be a description of what
• 37:32
  Speaker 1: was found in Brian's casket. It has things like a
• 37:36
  Speaker 1: feather made of wood, a dream catcher, a stuff bear
• 37:38
  Speaker 1: or a stuffed dog, a photo of a car, a hat,
• 37:42
  Speaker 1: a red rose, and a note from Caprice, Brian's girlfriend
• 37:45
  Speaker 1: at the time. And if it was song lyrics that
• 37:48
  Speaker 1: investigators were hoping to find in Brian's casket, then their
• 37:51
  Speaker 1: search was successful. At the very end of that list,
• 37:54
  Speaker 1: there's an entry written song Crossroads and in the police
• 37:59
  Speaker 1: file to Cinda and I found four yellowed sheets of
• 38:02
  Speaker 1: line paper like the kind you'd find in a school notebook,
• 38:05
  Speaker 1: and written in pencil are the lyrics to the Crossroads.
• 38:08
  Speaker 1: By Bone Thugs and Harmony. Brian's ant Melody recalls that
• 38:12
  Speaker 1: these lyrics were very much an item of interest to investigators.
• 38:17
  Speaker 12: I gave consent to exumin because supposedly there was supposed
• 38:22
  Speaker 12: to be some kind of evidence, and they never really
• 38:24
  Speaker 12: told me what they were looking for. I do know
• 38:29
  Speaker 12: that there was a song, and it's meet Me at
• 38:33
  Speaker 12: the cross the Crossroads by Bones Thug in Harmony. I
• 38:37
  Speaker 12: even had to dig up the words to the song
• 38:39
  Speaker 12: for the investigators, you know, print them out and all
• 38:42
  Speaker 12: this few. Yeah, the song just talks about, you know,
• 38:47
  Speaker 12: being shot in the back of the head or I'm
• 38:49
  Speaker 12: gonna meet you at the Crossroads. Was enough that the
• 38:52
  Speaker 12: investigators did want to know more about the song, you know,
• 38:56
  Speaker 12: if it meant something, you know, because it was talking
• 38:58
  Speaker 12: about being shot ex Keuchen style or something.
• 39:03
  Speaker 1: The lyrics to the Crossroads were not the only thing
• 39:06
  Speaker 1: found in Brian's casket that was of interest to investigators, though.
• 39:09
  Speaker 1: According to Amanda, Brian's family was told that something else
• 39:13
  Speaker 1: was found as well, but they weren't told what it was.
• 39:16
  Speaker 1: All they knew is that something had been found. What
• 39:19
  Speaker 1: did they tell you after the excumation happened?
• 39:21
  Speaker 9: All I remember is they said that it may or
• 39:26
  Speaker 9: may not help at all. I know what they found, Yeah,
• 39:31
  Speaker 9: it may or may not have the case.
• 39:34
  Speaker 4: Lee's father, Glenn Clark, remembers that it wasn't until his
• 39:37
  Speaker 4: son's trial that they'd learned what was found when they
• 39:40
  Speaker 4: dug up Brian's grave.
• 39:42
  Speaker 6: So they end up exhuming Brian's body. Yeah, what did
• 39:48
  Speaker 6: they find.
• 39:49
  Speaker 11: Well, that picture of that eagle was inside that casket,
• 39:55
  Speaker 11: and they said that's where that was that drawing.
• 40:00
  Speaker 4: Inside of Brian's casket, investigators found a piece of paper
• 40:04
  Speaker 4: with an eagle drawn on it in pencil. Below the
• 40:07
  Speaker 4: eagle is a brief note. It says, Brian, We're gonna
• 40:11
  Speaker 4: miss you. Fly high with sweet love the free birds,
• 40:15
  Speaker 4: PS see you at the crossroads.
• 40:19
  Speaker 6: We showed the note to Brian's sister Amanda.
• 40:22
  Speaker 7: This was the other thing they found in the casket.
• 40:26
  Speaker 2: You seen that before?
• 40:28
  Speaker 6: I have now, Yeah, I remember.
• 40:31
  Speaker 8: And apparently this is the eagle carrying a bag of weed. Hah, yeah, okay,
• 40:39
  Speaker 8: parentles's supposed to be anyway, Yeah, and smoking, Yeah, and smoking.
• 40:46
  Speaker 4: The eagle that's drawn on the note from Brian's casket
• 40:49
  Speaker 4: is flying high in more ways than one. It's clutching
• 40:53
  Speaker 4: a little baggy of marijuana in its talons and has
• 40:55
  Speaker 4: a joint in its beak. And behind the eagle is
• 40:58
  Speaker 4: a flag with the words free birds written in bold
• 41:01
  Speaker 4: blockie letters. This note became the key piece of evidence
• 41:05
  Speaker 4: in the prosecution's case against Lee and Kane. It was
• 41:09
  Speaker 4: the proof the prosecutor said that Brian had been murdered
• 41:12
  Speaker 4: for violating the rules of the Free Bird's gang because
• 41:16
  Speaker 4: freebirds wasn't the only thing displayed on the weed Eagle's flag.
• 41:20
  Speaker 4: There's another word there too, written in tiny all capscript.
• 41:25
  Speaker 4: We showed the drawing to Brian's uncle, Michael.
• 41:30
  Speaker 7: Yeah, that was care. Do you remember saying his flag once?
• 41:33
  Speaker 2: In the corner?
• 41:34
  Speaker 5: Yeah?
• 41:34
  Speaker 7: What's that say there?
• 41:35
  Speaker 10: Nor?
• 41:36
  Speaker 7: Yeah.
• 41:38
  Speaker 4: Tucked in the bottom right hand corner of the weed
• 41:40
  Speaker 4: Eagle's flag is the word narcs has been circled and
• 41:45
  Speaker 4: crossed through like you might see on a no smoking sign.
• 41:49
  Speaker 4: The meaning of it seems fairly clear.
• 41:52
  Speaker 6: No narks.
• 41:53
  Speaker 4: At Lee and Kane's trial, the prosecution argued that the
• 41:56
  Speaker 4: note had been placed in Brian's casket by his killers.
• 42:00
  Speaker 4: The message that Brian had been murdered for narking on
• 42:02
  Speaker 4: the other members of the Freebirds. Glenn Clark has his
• 42:06
  Speaker 4: own theories though, about the true significance of the no
• 42:09
  Speaker 4: Nark symbol.
• 42:11
  Speaker 10: And there's in the corner of the flag it says
• 42:14
  Speaker 10: narks and it's.
• 42:15
  Speaker 11: And look at that nark. Look at that nark. You
• 42:18
  Speaker 11: can tell that nark what wrote the same time that
• 42:21
  Speaker 11: eagle and had that it put over here? Look at it?
• 42:27
  Speaker 11: I look here, it don't take it no rocket sciences
• 42:30
  Speaker 11: look at it and tail that wrote two different pencil
• 42:31
  Speaker 11: of opinion. Somebody else put that nark on there. I
• 42:36
  Speaker 11: don't know.
• 42:37
  Speaker 4: When we showed the note to Amanda, she too thought
• 42:40
  Speaker 4: that the no Nark symbol didn't match the handwriting and
• 42:44
  Speaker 4: the farewell message below the weed eagle, which was written
• 42:48
  Speaker 4: in an almost flowery cursive handwriting.
• 42:51
  Speaker 1: I mean the handwriting to me, doesn't quite look like
• 42:53
  Speaker 1: the handwriting down here.
• 42:56
  Speaker 9: No, it's different handwrittens to maybe that looks like a
• 43:01
  Speaker 9: girl's handwritten.
• 43:02
  Speaker 2: It kind of does.
• 43:03
  Speaker 1: Actually they used this a trial, but neither neither Josh
• 43:08
  Speaker 1: nor Lee were at the funeral, so obviously they didn't
• 43:11
  Speaker 1: put it.
• 43:12
  Speaker 7: In the casket.
• 43:13
  Speaker 9: Yeah, yeah, no no, So.
• 43:16
  Speaker 1: I'm just be curious to know what he had of
• 43:18
  Speaker 1: that for and what that is?
• 43:20
  Speaker 4: There anyone who would have thought of Brian as a nark.
• 43:26
  Speaker 9: I don't know who would have thought that, not unless
• 43:28
  Speaker 9: that come from Lee.
• 43:30
  Speaker 1: You know, neither Lee nor Josh slash Kane attended any
• 43:38
  Speaker 1: of the services for Brian. Neither of them could have
• 43:41
  Speaker 1: placed the weed Eagle note in Brian's casket. And the
• 43:44
  Speaker 1: note isn't signed. There's nothing on the weed Eagle that
• 43:47
  Speaker 1: identifies who drew it but at Lee's. In Kane's trial,
• 43:51
  Speaker 1: Brian's mother, Deborah Bowling, testified that a boy named Joseph
• 43:54
  Speaker 1: Wilkins had come up to her at the funeral and
• 43:56
  Speaker 1: shown her the weed Eagle drawing. He'd asked her if
• 43:59
  Speaker 1: it was okay for him to give it to Brian.
• 44:01
  Speaker 1: Brian's mother said she told Joseph that's pretty and given
• 44:04
  Speaker 1: him permission to place it in the casket. Brian's sister
• 44:08
  Speaker 1: didn't see this exchange between Joseph and her mother, but
• 44:11
  Speaker 1: she told us it would have been possible for Joseph
• 44:14
  Speaker 1: Wilkins to have been the one to place the note
• 44:16
  Speaker 1: that investigators found.
• 44:18
  Speaker 9: Yeah, I remember seeing Joseph at the funeral, so seeing
• 44:22
  Speaker 9: him there, yeah, and hey, come out to my Papaul's house.
• 44:26
  Speaker 9: Whenever they brought Brian's body out there, he also come
• 44:29
  Speaker 9: out there too.
• 44:33
  Speaker 1: Joseph Wilkins was one of the four boys involved in
• 44:36
  Speaker 1: the theft of the safe from Kine's father. Based on
• 44:39
  Speaker 1: the state's theory about what happened in this case, Joseph
• 44:42
  Speaker 1: Wilkins would also have had a reason to be upset
• 44:44
  Speaker 1: with Brian if, in fact, Brian had given information to
• 44:47
  Speaker 1: the police about the theft. So if Cain and Lee
• 44:50
  Speaker 1: had a motive to kill Brian, Joseph did too.
• 44:54
  Speaker 4: Joseph Wilkins is the guy who drew the free bird
• 44:57
  Speaker 4: drawing with the eagle and the Well, we don't think
• 45:01
  Speaker 4: he did the narks thing, but no one ever questioned him.
• 45:08
  Speaker 21: No one ever questioned the kid who did the drawings.
• 45:11
  Speaker 1: Yeah, the drawing, that's like the proof that this was
• 45:12
  Speaker 1: a conspiracy to kill a kill a Narker.
• 45:16
  Speaker 21: Well, the Dallas Battles theory, I assume would have been
• 45:20
  Speaker 21: that he either Lee or Kane had the nark part
• 45:23
  Speaker 21: onto him.
• 45:24
  Speaker 1: No, they weren't at the funeral, so they couldn't have
• 45:26
  Speaker 1: done it. Everyone knows that Lia and Kane didn't put
• 45:28
  Speaker 1: that note in the casket because they weren't there.
• 45:32
  Speaker 21: So then would they have assumed that Joseph, that Joseph
• 45:35
  Speaker 21: Wilkins knew about the murder and why it was done.
• 45:40
  Speaker 21: But they never they never questioned him that case.
• 45:43
  Speaker 1: Nope, that's sort.
• 45:46
  Speaker 21: Of extraordinary that they're they're assuming that this this is
• 45:48
  Speaker 21: a gang and.
• 45:51
  Speaker 4: They don't it's a it's a gang, but they don't
• 45:54
  Speaker 4: interview the gang members. In fact, following the exhumation of
• 46:00
  Speaker 4: body and the discovery of the weed Eagle note, the
• 46:03
  Speaker 4: investigators did not attempt to interview anyone for half a year. Then,
• 46:08
  Speaker 4: in February of nineteen ninety seven, Sergeant Battle and investigator
• 46:13
  Speaker 4: Stewart got the results of the gunshot residue tests back
• 46:16
  Speaker 4: from the crime lab down in Atlanta.
• 46:19
  Speaker 1: So they tested Josh's hands that night and the test
• 46:23
  Speaker 1: was negative. The I wondered if that negative test result
• 46:26
  Speaker 1: was part of what they I mean, the cops would
• 46:29
  Speaker 1: have had that and been like, well, it must not.
• 46:31
  Speaker 9: Have been must not a band?
• 46:32
  Speaker 16: Josh?
• 46:33
  Speaker 1: I mean?
• 46:33
  Speaker 13: Yeah?
• 46:34
  Speaker 7: Would we have needed to be there to.
• 46:36
  Speaker 6: He had to physical would be there?
• 46:38
  Speaker 9: Yeah, That's the way I see it, That's the way
• 46:41
  Speaker 9: I feel about it, you know, I mean, and if
• 46:44
  Speaker 9: Josh didn't, you know, pulled that trigger but hated no
• 46:47
  Speaker 9: gunshot residue, then it had to beanly.
• 46:51
  Speaker 1: You know, the negative gunshot residue test indicated that Kane
• 46:56
  Speaker 1: did not fire a gun on the night Brian was
• 46:58
  Speaker 1: shot and killed into investigators. If Kin didn't fire the
• 47:02
  Speaker 1: shot that killed Brian, then that could only mean one thing.
• 47:06
  Speaker 1: Cain must have had an accomplice.
• 47:09
  Speaker 6: Everybody keeps insisting he.
• 47:10
  Speaker 13: Was there test.
• 47:14
  Speaker 10: Which which showed that.
• 47:18
  Speaker 6: Josh, I don't hope trigger. I think I can't put
• 47:20
  Speaker 6: any stock someone else in case that became.
• 47:23
  Speaker 10: Because the test is admissible Rai's not like a yeah,
• 47:27
  Speaker 10: like a light detector test that you don't use.
• 47:29
  Speaker 2: It would have been probably That's why they had to
• 47:31
  Speaker 2: say that he shot in through the window.
• 47:34
  Speaker 1: Next week on proof.
• 47:41
  Speaker 14: He asked me about it, asked me what I saw.
• 47:43
  Speaker 14: I said, Kane. I said, that's the devilish something I
• 47:46
  Speaker 14: ever stayed in my life, that I said. I'm a
• 47:49
  Speaker 14: Christian on the front of that road, bocause crossbonds and
• 47:53
  Speaker 14: skull that ain't nothing better than them.
• 47:56
  Speaker 4: We're gonna go look for me and Charlie and we'll
• 47:57
  Speaker 4: check in with you.
• 47:58
  Speaker 22: Later like, how back and Kenn is the one that
• 48:03
  Speaker 22: answered the phone and he's hysterical and I was like,
• 48:06
  Speaker 22: hey with the phone, I cut off. I just didn't
• 48:08
  Speaker 22: know what happened. And he said, Brin shot hisself. Brin
• 48:12
  Speaker 22: shot hisself.
• 48:14
  Speaker 6: He put a pillow over his head shot.
• 48:15
  Speaker 7: You've heard about the pillow.
• 48:18
  Speaker 12: I think that they've even said to me, Sit back
• 48:21
  Speaker 12: and listen. Kids are gonna talk. Somebody's gonna talk.
• 48:33
  Speaker 4: You've been listening to Proof, a podcast by Red and
• 48:36
  Speaker 4: Marble Media. We'll be back next Monday for episode four.
• 48:40
  Speaker 4: Don't forget to send us your questions and comments at
• 48:43
  Speaker 4: Proofcrimepod at gmail dot com. We'll respond during our bonus
• 48:47
  Speaker 4: episodes proof Sidebar, starting soon on Thursdays. Kevin Fitzpatrick is
• 48:53
  Speaker 4: our executive producer. Our logo was designed by True Husski
• 48:57
  Speaker 4: and our theme music is by Ramiro Marquez. Audio production
• 49:00
  Speaker 4: for this episode is by Michael Yulatowski. Our social media
• 49:04
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• 49:08
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• 49:09
  Speaker 1: Week after week.
• 49:11
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• 49:14
  Speaker 4: our website, proofcrimepod dot com.
• 49:18
  Speaker 6: That's all for this week. Thanks for listening,