MURDERED: Bryan "Nick" Moore

Hi, Crime Junkies. It's Ashley.
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And it's what allows us to find and tell the stories that you won't hear anywhere else, stories about victims who often get overlooked. And as the show has gotten bigger, with your support in the fan club and the support of our advertisers on our show, we've actually been able to slowly start building a team of just like freaking batty reporters.
They are literally the coolest people I know. And we want you guys to get to know some of the other amazing women behind the show.
And since Ashley and one of our reporters worked on this case, I'm actually going to tap out on this one. It's just for this week.
I'm going to miss you. Honestly, you guys are going to love this.

Ashley, can I introduce her?

I would love if you did the honors.

Okay, guys, I want you to meet one of our amazing reporters, Madison.

Hi, crime junkies.

Yes, yes.

Do you want to do the line?

Do I want to do the line?

I've been wanting to do the line since I first started listening to you guys back in 2017.

Okay, I'm passing the mic over. Take it from the top, Ashley.
Go for it. This is a good baton pass.
I love it. Okay.
Hi, Crime Junkies. I'm your host, Ashley Flowers.
And I'm Mads. Okay, really, Madison, but we're all friends here.
And all my friends back in North Carolina do actually call me Mads. Plus, that just sounds more like Brit's classic intro line.
Yeah, I love it.

All right. Well, thank you, Brit.
And for our listeners, the story me and Mads have for you

is a doozy. One that took her to Anderson County, South Carolina to try and unfold a mystery two

decades in the making. This is the story of Brian Nick Moore.
People always ask me how we pick our cases, and my answer is always a little complicated because honestly, the process is complicated. But

if I had to boil it down to a very simple answer, it's this. We don't find most of our cases.

They find us, which is exactly what happened here. Yeah.
And if you listen to our other weekly show,

The Deck, you may have heard my voice popping in from time to time, maybe asking a detective a

tough question or knocking on a suspect's door. They send me off the property.
I tend to do that. But I mostly work on that show where we cover specific cases featured on specific cards.
Yeah. And most of you know the deck.
Back when I was on the board of directors for Crime Stoppers, I came across these cards and every single card has a missing person or an unsolved homicide. And originally they were made to be put out into prisons.
And we kind of took that concept and on the deck every single episode we cover a case on one of those cards. So we go out into the communities.
We meet with these detectives for very specific reasons. But often once we're there, they're like, oh, hey, this isn't on a card.
But like I have this other case that would really benefit from some attention. That is exactly what happened here.
So I go down to start working with Anderson County Sheriff's office. And I went down there to cover the cases of Joe Laughlin and Tina Milford, which you need to check out if you haven't already.
They both on the deck. So while I was down there, there was this other case, Nick's case, and it was kind of unfolding in real time.
So I couldn't like not hear about it when Sergeant Cash mentioned it. So when I was there in Anderson County, it was around the 20th anniversary of Nick's murder.
So investigators had actually like just released some new information about the case to the local media trying to revamp it. And it was about a new theory they had just now had kind of surrounding a possible motive in this case.
So they put out this information for the first time and they mentioned they were currently looking into two possible persons of interest, but they weren't willing to name them. Until now.
Until now. And that's not where the breaking news stops because as we started looking into this case, asking around, talking to those in town who know all of the players involved, the more things continued to evolve.
As I said, these cases tend to find us. So, let's just start at the beginning.
Sunday, March 7th, 2004. This is the first day that a man named Daniel starts feeling a little on edge because he hadn't been able to get in touch with his buddy Nick in three days.
And going one day without talking to him was understandable. He has a business to run.
He spends every other weekend or so with his two young sons. But three days was too long.
So at some point that morning, Daniel decides to head over to Nick's house in Easley, South Carolina to check up on him, just to make sure everything's okay. And he brings one of Nick's friends slash business associates along with him, this guy named Wayne Miles.
Now when they get there, I can imagine Daniel breathing almost a little sigh of relief because they can see that all three of Nick's vehicles are right there. He has a Mustang, a 92 Jeep, and a truck, which is his primary vehicle.
So surely he's got to be inside. But that sense of relief quickly turns back to unease because for some reason, they actually try the door of the truck first, which I thought was odd, but that's what happened.
That's unlocked, super unlike him. He's like meticulous about keeping things locked and secure.
Now, the house door is locked, and it seems like Daniel and Wayne were told or knew where Nick keeps a spare key because they are able to let themselves inside to look around when no one answers after I can only assume they were persistently knocking. But when they go inside, they aren't any less confused.
Nick isn't around. Nothing seems out of place.
It's just eerily quiet. Now, Nick's truck keys are on the kitchen counter, but where is Nick? So the two men eventually leave, but with that uneasy feeling in their guts.
Nothing necessarily looks wrong, but it just feels wrong. By one in the afternoon the next day, when Daniel still hasn't been able to get a hold of Nick, he files a missing persons report with the Easley Police Department.
And he explains to the officer taking the report that the last time he saw Nick was on March 4th at Nick's house. It seems like they'd been hanging out with Wayne at some point, just kind of chilling, having a good time, nothing special.
Now, it's a little unclear, but it appears that Wayne left first, followed by Daniel, who left around 9 p.m. And Daniel kind of just expected to hear from Nick at some point the next day, like always, but we know that never happened.
Now, Sergeant Kendall Cash from the Anderson County Sheriff's Office said that while police and Easley do take the report and probably begin a search for Nick, it's really Daniel and another one of Nick's friends, Barry Crawford, who really spearhead the search for him in those first few days. They're driving all over.
I mean, they're going to any and every place they can think of that Nick might be, talking to anyone who might have seen him. but it was just crickets.
And after four days of this, detectives finally get a search warrant for Nick's house to see if maybe there was something there that could tell them what happened, because it seems like they're on board at this point. Like they think something's up, right? Yeah.
I mean, by this point, they talked to some of his friends, some of his family members, and they couldn't find anyone who'd been in contact with him since the 4th. So considering it's been over a week by this point, I think even police know something is definitely wrong.
But it was the same thing as when Daniel and Wayne went back there the first time. Like, there's no obvious signs of foul play.
His vehicles are all there. It was like he just vanished into thin air.

But as we know, people don't just vanish.

They're always somewhere.

And little did his friends and Easley Police know Nick had already been found.

You see, that same day they were searching his place,

someone out bird hunting stumbled upon the fully clothed body of a man

in a rural wooded part of Anderson County.

And even though Nick was reported missing a county over,

It's stumbled upon the fully clothed body of a man in a rural wooded part of Anderson County. And even though Nick was reported missing a county over, it didn't take long to make the connection.
They had found Brian Nick Moore. T-Mobile Home Internet is all about speed, value.
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Nick is found lying face up and it's clear that he'd been shot twice.

Thank you. dot edu slash crime junkie.
Nick is found lying face up and it's clear that he'd been shot twice, once to the chest area and once to his face. And here's the interesting part.
So Sergeant Cash said that his shirt is pulled up over his face. I like spiraled on this.
Like I'm really unclear if that was before or after he was shot in the face. And were you ever able to get clarity on that? Yeah, Ashley, we were going back and forth on that one.
And it's because the answer was really hidden in the autopsy report, eventually found it. So we had the answer.
Yes, there was a hole in this guy's shirt. So that means the shirt was pulled up over before he was shot.
Before he was shot. Interesting.
Which makes me think I tend to agree with what Sergeant Cash told me. And that's that he believes this was done execution style.
Yeah. Shirt was pulled up.
His face is covered. He's unable to defend himself and really just shot point blank from there.
It does mean something different to me. Because I remember when we were first going back and forth, I was like, okay, if this is afterwards, like we know so much about or at least, you know, like I've learned so much about people's motives.
And like if it's personal, they like don't want to look at their face afterwards. And if it was covering it up after the fact, to me, that was so much more personal.
This is almost the opposite. This is cold and calculated.
And what you're saying, what Cash is saying, this is execution style. Yeah, like this person didn't care, pulled it up and then shoots him.
Now, there's also a lot of speculation around where exactly the shooting happened. So they lean towards him being killed there where they find him because they find three shell casings, which obviously they collect and send off for testing, along with cigarette butts found at the scene.
But those butts, along with two beer cans that don't appear to have been tested as far as we can tell, seem to just be kind of random debris as opposed to things discarded by the killer. But, I mean, collect what you can, obviously.
Now, something else interesting about the scene is that there isn't a lot of blood where he's found. And that's where I'm like, I think that there is some speculation, even though they think he was killed there.
There's not a ton of blood, which sometimes I think that crime junkies will hear that and be like, nope, no, I think Robert won't. And we're like, you're not being shot twice and not having a pool of blood.
But that's actually not always the case, at least according to what Cash told us. This isn't TV.
Yeah. And one thing he kept trying to tell me, you know, apparently certain blood types don't like clot us quickly.
Who knew? And also the type of gun and the caliber of gun that was used, that can also impact the amount of blood that's expelled. But here's the thing.
I mean, we even came down to this too. Like how big of a difference does it make? Like, yes, it's a thing, but are they really contributing factors that would make a huge deal either way? That I don't know.
And looking it up online, there really just hasn't been that much research on it. But either way, I think what we can tell Ashley what is clear is we don't really know for sure where this crime scene is.
We don't know for sure where it all started. It's totally possible someone went to Nick's house convinced or maybe forced him to get into the car and go with them to this spot in the woods.
Or something could have gone down in the car on the way over there. We just don't know.
Cash isn't 100% sold on any one thing because he really can't prove any one specific thing yet. If you can't prove that he was killed there and it's possible, like it's one of those things you can't rule it out, but you can't rule it in.
Yeah. And I mean, they didn't find any other place in the woods that seemed to be a crime scene, if that makes sense.
And they searched the woods. So who knows? Well, I know when they take his body to the office of the coroner, the county pathologist confirms that there are only two gunshot wounds.
So one on the left side of his chest that hit the right side of his heart and lung. And that's what likely caused his death.
And then he had that gunshot wound to the right side of his face. And that actually fractured his jaw.
It is also important to note there's some stippling, which occurs when a gun is fired at really close range. Like what happens is basically that the gunshot residue literally burns the skin of the person being shot because it's so close.

So that shot to his face was, I mean, right up on him. And again, they're pulling the shirt over.
We know that they're right up there. Like you said, execution.
That adds to the shirt thing for me, too. Now, a talk screen doesn't find any alcohol, no drugs in his system.
So at that point, their running theory, at least for the moment, is that Nick had been driven out to the woods by someone or possibly more than one person. He's shot twice and then dragged deeper into the woods where he is left.
And it's important to note that, like, again, they're dragging him into the woods, but there was no attempt at all to cover up what they'd done. He wasn't buried.
There wasn't stuff put over him. Like, they just, they made sure he wasn't found instantly, but he's not hidden.
Cold-blooded. Right.
So the question now is, who? Now, deputies begin to formally interview everyone they can think of who knew Nick. And one of the first people they talked to is his friend, Barry Crawford.
He's one of the people, if you remember, he went looking for him in the early days. And Barry and Nick had actually gone to high school together, but they didn't really know each other until after they both graduated.
And I know you're here to tell the story. I know you talk to him, but some stories you just got to let the best friend tell.
So here's Barry. It's an awesome story.
So I was working at an auto parts store over in Easley. That would have been around 1991.
A guy used to come in there in the store that ran a detail shop across the street, and that was Nick, Nick Moore. So he'd come in the store and we'd get to talking and he's like, man, you need to come and work for me over there and we can make some good money at detailing these cars for the Honda dealership.
So he kept coming in and me and him established a friendship. There's one thing, his personality, I mean right off the get, the guy, I can still hear his laugh today.
I mean he was always smiling and upbeat. So upbeat so finally I said Nick I believe I'll take you up on that but I'm going to work a few evenings with you instead of just quitting my job and see what this is well sure enough I went over there working with Nick and within a few days I seen I was making more in two days than I was the whole week over at the auto parts store.
But we know all the same people. So that's how we got that instant.
We just connected. To Barry, Nick was a natural-born businessman with big aspirations.
And a lot of people echoed similar sentiments about him. I mean, he would literally give you the shirt off his back, but there was nobody he loved more than his two young boys.

Please put this in stone. I swear, Nick was the best dad times a thousand that I ever knew to them kids.

He was like the most protective mother. He kept them close.

And he stayed busy with his business, first running the detail shop, then getting into antiquing. I mean, he was kind of like a perfectionist, like going back to the detail shop.
You know, most guys would just put some wax on it, let it go. Nick wanted everything buffed and polished perfect.
Every car, whether it needed it or not. He wanted to do his own thing.
And he came from kind of a rough upcoming. So he broke the mold.
I mean, he was determined to do it, to do the best for his kids and for himself. That hardworking nature led to a lot of success for him.
And he made a name for himself in the antiquing world. I mean, he was actually one of the first, if not the first picker, as they call them, in the area of South Carolina, which I have to admit, I didn't know what a picker was.
I literally had to ask you, even though I myself lived in Gaffney, South Carolina for three years. Fun fact.
Every time you say that, I forget that you're also a Southern girl. Oh, for a little bit.
I was there with that peach. Well, I'm a North Carolina girl myself, and we have some pickers down here in these parts too.
So I'll kind of try to explain what a picker is. If you haven't watched any of the TV shows.
I hadn't. A picker is basically someone who like purchases antiques and then they either refurbish them and try to sell them, make them better, or sometimes they just keep what they buy and they're like collectors.
So Nick specialized in gas pumps. So he'd drive around looking for these.
I know, like in people's yards. So I'm picturing like rural South Carolina, an old farmhouse.
He'd see something. And then just like a random gas pump.
Exactly. So he'd kind of walk up, knock on the door, and he'd offer the owner cash for it.
So he'd make a deal and he was actually really successful at this. Like he had some pretty wealthy backers who would send them out on these trips, like looking for specific things.
There was also a small group of people who he worked with. So he was well known in this space.
He really found his niche. Like that is, again, it's not even just antiques.
It's like these gas homes. It's so ultra specific.
And one of the cool things, I think,

for him, you know, he had other jobs, but like this allowed him to be really flexible. He didn't

have a set schedule. I mean, that's the benefit of the job.
Make your own hours. So that's why,

actually, when the warmest day of the year so far rolled around that year, Nick took his prized

Mustang out to cruise around town. And that was also

the last time Barry would ever see Nick. That particular day, March 4th, I'll never forget it.

The sun was out, our warmest day, the first of the year. Nick showed up at Barry's auto dealing

shop around noon in a Mustang that he had bought off Barry. Again, like I said, it was his pride

and joy, and he loved showing that thing off. He might have wanted to go to lunch or something.
And I was like, man, I can't go nowhere. I was like, but let that top down, man.
Let it down. He said, you think I should? And I said, let it down.
He let the top down for the first time on the car, and we talked a little bit, and he pulled out of my detail shop. I remember that big grin on his face and he just romped down on that gas and took off up the road and I was a hot dog.
And that's the last time I seen him. Once Nick takes off, it's not clear where he goes directly after.
But we know that at some point he went home because from talking to Daniel when he'd originally reported Nick missing,

they know that he had gone over to Nick's that afternoon sometime between 4 and 5 p.m.

Now, the timing of all of this is a little unclear.

I mean, you and I went back and forth a zillion times on this,

but it seems like Wayne Miles and another friend may have stopped by, too, at some point.

From what investigators can piece together, Nick and Daniel were going to go picking in the local area,

But Nick needs to go pick up some cash that he was owed from someone who bought some signs off of him or something. And then sometime after that, we know that Wayne must have met up with him because Barry says that his father actually saw Nick and Wayne at an intersection in Easley at around 530.

And he knows it was the two of them because he actually like stopped and talked to Nick. And it's likely they were on their way to Seneca, which is where Nick was going to get his money.
But here is where the timeline gets murkier. When detectives bring Wayne in to help fill in the rest of the day, he tells them that they met up with the man who had Nick's cash at a KFC in Seneca at around 7 p.m.
So he admits he's with him all as well. Wayne goes on to say that they were on their way back to Nick's house at around 7 30 when Nick spoke on the phone to this woman that he'd been kind of casually seeing who everyone knows as Sunshine.
Now, who called who is a little fuzzy here. Wayne says Nick called her.
Other reports indicate she called Nick. I don't know if it matters.
Either way, Wayne said that through this call, Nick learned that Sunshine had been in a car accident, but there wasn't anything Nick could do to help her. So she got off the phone.
It's more just like letting him know. And then Nick called her back to make sure she'd gotten help.
And then it sounds like everything was fine. Everything's being taken care of.
Now, we know they go back to Nick's at some point. And it seems like Daniel comes back over at around 8.30 p.m.
But when Wayne left, or if they were both there at the same time, like him and Daniel, like it's not super clear. Like the most consistent information we have is that both Daniel and Wayne say they were gone by about nine o'clock, right, that night? Yeah.
And it's because we have these conflicting reports from old detectives reports within the files I got a hold of. Yeah.
And then we have what Sergeant Cash is remembering. So that's why it's murky.
Yeah. It's nothing like weird.
Again, and even people's own memories, right? Like you go off by like 15 minutes, 30 minutes, like nobody's staring at their watch all day, every day. Exactly.
But here's what I will say. Here's the thing about Wayne's story.
Barry thinks it could all be bullshit. Like he's not the biggest fan of Wayne.
He said that Wayne had only known Nick for about two and a half months. Apparently, Wayne kind of just popped up out of nowhere while Nick and Barry were taking some downtime from their friendship.
So admittedly, he didn't really know Wayne too well. But he'd heard some things and he felt like Wayne was just using Nick to get his own business like in picking started.
Like he was always riding around with him, borrowing money from Nick, which just didn't sit right with Barry. Yeah, Barry, Nick's best friend, he gave me this line that I swear I will never forget it.
It was the way he said it. It just lives inside my head rent-free.
But in his perfect southern twang, which I'm not going to try to imitate, even though I'm from North Carolina, I don't have that accent like he does. But they said they call him Preacher Man because apparently that really was his nickname.
Like no one really called him Wayne around town. Why did they call him Preacher Man? Because he was actually a chaplain for the Pickens County Sheriff's Office back then.
So where Nick Moore was from, easily, is in Pickens County. He was found in Anderson, but he's from Pickens.
So this guy was

a chaplain for the sheriff's office in Pickens. So that was his nickname.
But then Barry continued on and loudly in that, you know, distinctive voice, he goes, but Madison, he's no preacher man. And when preacher man, AKA Wayne starts handing out new business cards, they look a lot like Nick's and Nick's family and friends are not happy.
And this is all after Nick passed away. And Barry told you this.
Yes. And let's be clear.
It's not like they're just similar. I actually got to take a look.
They had copies of the cards there. So I've seen them.
Not a coincidence, at least in my opinion. It's like the same business card, same design, just different name and phone number.
So everything's the same. So it's like he changed that info and just started using them as his business cards.
To Sergeant Cash, and honestly me, it felt like Wayne was trying to like take over the business after his death, like riding on his successful coattails. Yeah, Barry thought the same thing.
It was just didn't sit right. But to be fair, Wayne isn't the only person that Barry is skeptical of.
The other person that Barry points to is this guy named Rodney Thomas, who was a longtime friend of Nick's. Again, small town.
Everyone's like intertwined. So Rodney is actually you just kind of explained the Pickens County tie.
So Rodney's actually a Pickens County sheriff's deputy back then. And he's married to Nick's ex-wife during this time, which means that Nick's kids live primarily with their mom and Rodney.
And then Nick would get them every other weekend or so. And you think that this would make things tense, complicated, whatever, but like between Nick and Rodney, but that's actually not the case.
So from everything everyone said, like they were still buddies and Nick didn't seem to mind at all that he was with his ex-wife. So that's not what makes Barry suspicious.
And honestly, it's not what makes Nick's family suspicious. What makes them uneasy, I don't know if suspicious is even the right word, is how Rodney handled Nick going missing and then the things he did after, right? Yeah.
And so to be clear, this is all coming from Barry, but I was able to get Nick's sister on the phone and they both had the exact same story to tell. So it seems like they agree.
Apparently right after Nick went missing, Rodney went into his house to like look around, I guess, and he either had a key, knew where the key was. And again, to be fair, we know Daniel and Wayne, his two friends did the same thing.
So people know about this key. Sunshine had actually been the one to tell them about the key apparently.
So he lets himself on in. And then allegedly, almost as soon as Nick's body is found, Rodney's down there on

Nick's property, grabbing all the antiques, valuable stuff like that, and just picking them.

I'm not sure who, if anyone, gave Rodney permission to do this. Like, you know, there's no way for me

to know for sure that some other family member said, oh, it's okay, take them for the boys or

something. For the boys, that's what I was just thinking.
That's like the only way I could justify it. but Barry and Nick's sister told me he had no right to do this.
Like, it was off-putting. But here's the worst part for them.
It's not even that. They told me that within months of Nick's death, Rodney officially adopts Nick's boys.
Oh. And they take Rodney's last name.
According to the case files I have, Rodney also has never taken a polygraph. Again, not a big deal.
And he's law enforcement. He would know not to take a polygraph.
I get that. Choose what you want.
The only thing that makes the family upset is that it seems like almost every other one of Nick's friends, his buddies, that's like the first thing they do to just kind of try to clear their name. Like I have Daniel.
I have polygraph Daniel.

They all go straight down there and do polygraph Barry right off the top.

Did Wayne take one?

Yes.

Oh, okay.

Yep.

So we don't really know what all of this means, but at least we know now they have people they want to talk to.

So Rodney, Wayne, they kind of make like perfect sense to talk to next.

Well, yes.

But before they can talk to any of them,

the one thing I think we should bring up is they all gather for Nick's funeral.

And I know afterwards they head to his home for some type of reception.

And as if this story wasn't already confusing enough,

his celebration of life turns almost into a mystery of its own.

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That's GoodRx.com slash crimejunkie. So Nick's business was mostly a cash business.
Like, it's not unusual for him to have had, I mean, tens of thousands of dollars around. And apparently, while people were mourning Nick, someone came in and cleared out all of the cash that he had hidden around his house.
I mean, somewhere between everyone is estimating like 10 to 40 K, at least according to cash. A little unclear, but somewhere in that range.
So a lot of money, a lot of money. And this is the thing.
Investigators never actually find out who stole that money. So with those leads going absolutely nowhere, detectives need to start interviewing some of the main players in Nick's story.
Some of them for the second time, since a few were interviewed when Nick was only classified as a missing person. And one of the people they really want to talk to is Sunshine, Nick's supposed kind of on-again, off-again girlfriend, since she really did seem like the last person to have talked to Nick.
But before they even get to her, they learn about someone that she was seriously involved with that they want to talk to even more. This guy named James Barker, or James Lewis, as he seems to be going by today.
So to give you the story on this James guy, so he had been in prison for about a decade

for a string of burglaries along with several other crimes that he had committed. So he was behind bars when he allegedly made a call threatening Nick for hanging out with his woman, Sunshine, while he was locked up.
And what's so interesting about this is that James had only been out of prison for like a month,

and then poof, Nick goes missing. And detectives learn that Nick was worried about it.
Like so much so, like this call, this threat that he had gotten, so much so that he had bought a handgun to protect himself. So investigators bring James in for an interview because, again, he's out of prison.
And they learn that he and Sunshine are in a relationship, like, currently. They have a six-year-old daughter together.
And that whole casual thing with Nick, apparently she had made it sound, at least to him, a lot more platonic than it actually might have been. Because James says that the two were never intimate.
Though, I mean, that's quickly disproven by Sunshine herself, who admits in her own interview that she did have sex with Nick. So motive? Maybe.
But the interview is a little unexpected. Like, he is surprisingly forthcoming, especially with his alibi for the day that Nick was last seen.
He says that he was at work until five or so, drove over to his

mom Debbie's antique shop, which is called Lost in the Past, says he gets there around 6 p.m.

And then sometime after that, he left the shop to grab dinner with Debbie, Sunshine, their daughter,

and then like some family friends. And then he says he went to a friend's house sometime between

7.45 and 8.15. And then not long after that, it seems like Sunshine called him at his friend's

house to tell him that she'd been in that car accident. Now, James's statement is that he was

Thank you. between 7.45 and 8.15, and then not long after that, it seems like Sunshine called him at his friend's house to tell him that she'd been in that car accident.

Now, James's statement is that he was at his friend's house

for close to two and a half hours or so,

so we're talking until like 10.15, 10.30,

and Sunshine later tells detectives

that she didn't realize that he'd come home

until like 11 p.m., which checks out

considering when James says that he left his buddies.

So if you believe everyone's timeline of events,

What James is saying is what James is saying does add up. Unless, of course, he snuck out of his house later that night and did something to Nick then, which is a possibility.
We don't know when Nick went missing, right? We just know he's not there the next day. So like a lot of other people in this case, you know, minus Rodney, James actually takes a polygraph.
And although he fails, he insists that the story he gave is accurate and that he had nothing to do with Nick's murder. So what people maybe don't know behind the scenes is that I'll try all the numbers I can find.
Then I send a text, leave a voicemail. But I also go to Facebook, social media.
They're all on Facebook. And they're all on Facebook because of the age of the cases.
So I did speak with James over Facebook Messenger, which I'll get into that in more detail later. But basically, he told me he'd gotten out of prison way earlier than expected.
And he was really just focused on trying to survive, you know, in the real world. He claimed he would have never risked getting into any more trouble.
Wouldn't have risked his newly found freedom over this Nick Moore, who we didn't even really know, just heard about, according to him. And is that something he's just saying now? Or that was kind of even his story back then.
He's like, what the heck? Like, no, I have nothing to lose over this guy. His story has stayed the same.
What he was saying back then, and he maintained that with me totally over Facebook. Now, if we go to Sunshine, she says that she'd actually known Nick for quite a few years, like since she was pregnant with her and James's daughter, because they had met through the antique business.
They stayed in contact since then. And she actually worked at Lost in the Past, the store that was owned by James's mother, Debbie.
She also lived with Debbie while James was in prison, which is like the same time she's getting closer to Nick, which you can imagine like Debbie probably didn't love. Like, you know, your son's daughter's mother is like seeing another guy while she's living with you.
It's messy. Yeah.
And we actually got our hands or you got your hands on a police report that Nick filed with the Easley Police Department about an incident that he had had with Debbie herself in August of 2002. So allegedly, Debbie had called Nick, verbally threatening him to stay away from Sunshine, her son's girlfriend.
And in the report, Nick stated that Debbie had used the phrase, I'm going to kill you. This is coming from Debbie, not her son.
Right. We're adding this into the mix.
An apparent alleged other threat, right? So I spoke to Debbie too, and we'll get to that in a minute. But basically, there was definitely animosity between the two of them.
Yes. So whether it was for love, I mean, that seems to be like the motive if James or Debbie had something to do with it.
Whether it was for money, which seems to be the motive, if Wayne had something to do with it, it appeared that investigators did have two persons of interest that they are now naming for the first time. So again, when you went out there, they had said for the first time, we have this theory, we have two persons of interest.
This episode is the first time they're letting us say their names. Yes.
So James Barker, who again now goes by James Lewis and Wayne Miles. But it's significant to note, not Rodney.
Though investigators do talk to both Rodney and Nick's ex-wife back in 2005, it doesn't seem like they were ever super skeptical of either of them. So I don't know if that's because Rodney was a sheriff's deputy at the time.
Again, a different county. I don't know if they just felt like James and Wayne looked better for the crime.
I can't really say. Or if they, you know, if they talked about any, they got everything they needed from him, whatever.
But, you know, between James and Wayne, they don't know. I mean, they both could have had motive to murder Nick.
But all we have are things that make them look bad. There is nothing that actually ties either of them to the crime scene.
Oh, and I'm sure, speaking of the crime scene, everyone's wondering what happened to the evidence that got collected from the scene and then sent off for testing, specifically the shell casings, since those seemed the most promising. Well, results come back, and unfortunately, nothing significant comes from anything that was found there.
And that is where Nick's case sits for a while. In 2009 or 2010, Nick's case is reexamined with fresh eyes, but nothing new seems to be discovered.
And it would take another decade for any movement to be made. And that is when none other than Barry Crawford basically puts the case right in the lap of someone new, our very own Sergeant Kendall Cash.
So two years ago, on the anniversary of Nick's murder, Barry Crawford walks on into the sheriff's office unplanned and asked to talk to somebody like he's not letting this go. We love him.
Which is always what we say. Like, Britt and I talk about this all the time.
Like, the squeaky wheel gets the grease. Like, I can't tell you how many departments I've been in.
There's so much changeover, so much, like, passing of the baton that many people don't actually even know all of the cold cases they have. So, unfortunately, I think families think that, oh, like, of course they must know.
Like, my loved one's unsolved homicide. Like, they're just nothing new.
But so many times, you have to be the one speaking up. You have to remind them it sucks, but you have to be the advocate.
And Barry was Nick's advocate. And the Anderson County Sheriff's Office doesn't have a cold case unit, at least not yet.
So Sergeant Cash really is just taking this upon himself, looking through it. And they end up talking when he walks in that day for four hours.
Sergeant Cash told me so. I mean, he really dives in.
And as we've seen, Barry's such a passionate guy, taking the lead, strongest advocate, kind of representing Nick's family too. Even Cash says he knows the details of this case like better than he does.
He admits like Barry is Barry's on it. And since we met, Barry will call me.
He'll text me screenshots of things, things he wants me to look into basically. So we talk regularly.
And one of the last times I spoke with him, he actually was calling me from Nick's grave site. And he tells me he goes there a lot just to kind of like talk to his friend and talk to him.
I think he was talking to him about this podcast and how, you know, he was working with us to do this new thing to hopefully revamp it. And, you know, you and I talk to a lot of victims, loved ones.
We say it all the time. Everyone reacts to trauma or grief differently.
But based on what I could tell, Barry is like just as shaken up by this as he was 20 years ago. Like physically shaking, couldn't stop crying as we were talking.
Yeah, it's just as real for him as the day it happened. And I can like, I can feel that listening to his interview too.
And I mean, again, thank God for him because he is definitely the person who inspires Sergeant Cash to take over the investigation. and when he does, right, they have this four-hour sit down.
After that, he dives headfirst into Nick's story. And when he does, he learns some pretty interesting information that pulls a few names we've already mentioned back into the spotlight.
So remember, on the night that Nick went missing, so this is the fourth, Sunshine, James, and their daughter, with James's mom, Debbie, and like another couple, friends of the family, they went out to eat, if you remember. According to James's statement, the group drove to dinner separately.
It seems like he and Sunshine were maybe riding together. The rest of them were in a red truck owned by the family friends, which is interesting because this is the new part.
According to witnesses, there was a red pickup truck outside of Nick's place on the night of the 4th. This would have been at around 9 or 9.30.
And the witnesses said they saw Nick talking to people, plural people, inside of the truck. but they couldn't see who those people were.
Now, this is extra noteworthy because if you remember, Sunshine said she last talked to Nick that night at about 9 p.m. So even though it seems like James was trying to say that he and Sunshine were never in that truck, which is like, what, right? Like, that's, yeah, okay.
At least, or he's saying that they weren't while they were driving to dinner. Sergeant Cash is like, you know what? Like, I'm still going to try and find this truck.
Like, I mean, I've got nothing to prove that they weren't. I've just got these statements.
It's one of the strongest witness statements that they have. So they're going off of that.
They're running with it. But the problem is he can't get it.
So, like, I mean, again, it's not that he's just like, oh, I don't know what happened to it. Like he tracked it down all the way to finding out that it got sent to a salvage yard like five years after Nick died because the person who owned it at the time had passed away.
But still, even without the truck, this idea about a red truck or this red truck doesn't go away. And there's another tip that comes in soon after, which there's a former neighbor of James who says that she sees a red pickup truck in front of James's house the day after Nick was murdered.
So we've got a red pickup truck at Nick's house at 930 the night he goes missing. And, you know, we know now he's murdered.
And then the next day we've got a red pickup truck at Nick's house at 9.30 the night he goes missing. And, you know, we know now he's murdered.
And then the next day, we've got a red pickup truck at James's place. And this witness, this neighbor, says that James is loading something into the back of the truck and then covering it up with a tarp.
Could this be something? It's interesting. Maybe.
Maybe not. But it's just another layer to consider.
Now, due to Cash's renewed investigation, media attention for the case was kind of revamped, which brings us all the way back to how this episode got started in the first place. So in March of 2024, around the 20th anniversary of Nick's murder, Fox Carolina News shared a story that alluded to the idea that one of Nick's business partners may have been jealous of his success.
And that, like I said, police had two persons of interest who you now know are James Barker, James Lewis and Wayne Miles. And that media attention, so when all that was happening, that actually brought an interesting tip in.
One that was fresh right when you were there. Yep.
All around the 20th anniversary, this wild tip comes in. And it's a woman.
She calls up the sheriff's office right after that segment airs. And she says she remembered something about that night.
And somehow she could pinpoint it to right around the time we think Nick went missing, March 4th. And it stuck with her after all this time.
Apparently, she was taking her daughter home from a cheerleading practice and got lost. So I don't know if, like, the practice was at, like, a new gym or location or what.
But she just vividly remembered stopping to reconvene, figure out what was going on. And she looks up and remembers noticing, like, okay, I'm at the intersection of Fire Tower and Massey Road.
So that stuck with her. And she said she saw at least two, maybe three guys who were, like, looked like they were carrying something.
Something that, in hindsight, she thought could have looked like a body into the woods. And the woods where Nick was found was right off of those two roads.
St. Mary's.
Oh. Yeah.
And before anyone even asks, because we know our crime junkies are going to chime in here, no, it's not a red trap that you saw out there. That was literally my next question.
It's actually a white van. Okay.
Which I know that Wayne had access to a white van. So we've got, this is where you've got, you've got James that keeps coming up, you've got Wayne that keeps coming up.
And Wayne had access to a white van, but like 20 years ago. This tip is almost 20 years too late.
And I don't know if Sergeant Cash like can put a ton of stock into it because of that. So that was one of the last big things that happened kind of prior to your reporting.

And today, investigators are still searching for Nick's killer. And so were we.
Madison went

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And I know you started, you called Rodney Thomas. And again, to make it clear, the sheriff's office is not saying that he is a person of interest at all.
Like you just want to talk to him about some of the allegations, like him taking stuff. Yeah, I'm saying that he was taking antiques out like that's that's something serious.
So I wanted to try to talk to him about it. And I called, left him a voicemail, texted him, but got no response.
And something I want people to understand is we're looking up these numbers online. It's not always clear if we're reaching the right person, right? There's so many numbers.
It's like, it's overwhelming. So like, unless I get someone on the phone or the voicemail says their name, I cannot be sure that it's then.
So I'm just leaving these messages anyways and hoping that they receive the message. And so we haven't, as of this recording, we haven't heard back from him.
We know though, obviously you had a lot more luck with James. Do you want to tell everyone kind of what you talked about? You had a kind of a long conversation over Facebook Messenger, right? A long conversation.
And it took me a minute to find him because remember he mostly was going by James Barker back in the day, but he's going by James Lewis now. But I was able to show people who know him, his Facebook, and they confirmed this is his Facebook account.
So we can be pretty positive. It's him I've been speaking to.
He didn't want to talk on the phone or like do anything like formal or recorded. But honestly, everything I asked him, he was willing to answer.
So he was surprisingly really open with me. There was nothing he wouldn't respond to.
And he just kept reiterating, he never threatened it. He claimed he was actually in the dark about the whole thing he had going on with Sunshine.
Which it kind of seems like he was. I mean, again, we have even in his original statement, we can see that he's like, oh, it was very platonic.
He doesn't think it's serious, at least. Yeah.
And like why he's he has bigger things to worry about. He's supposed to be in prison for decades.
Yeah. So and he's he's claiming that like he says he could have cared less about who Sunshine was with.
Like he was just in prison trying to figure out what was going to happen. Yeah.
And he ended up getting out way earlier than expected, as we know.

So he explained that, again, no one could have gotten him to risk jeopardizing his life, his newfound freedom.

And he specifically thinks that someone actually used that, like knew about the situation between Sunshine and Nick,

knew that there was something going on, and took advantage of him getting out of prison early

and used it as an

opportunity to kill Nick, like knowing that James would be the one to look good for it. He had this

violent history. He had just gotten out.
He thinks that was all planned by this person, right? So

overall, he just really thinks police focused in on him so hard because he's an easy scapegoat.

He just got out of jail. Also interesting, he says he volunteered to take that polygraph.
He wasn't even aware that he technically failed it. Like, he acted like I was the one to break that news to him.
Like, he's like, oh, really? Wait, what? Like, I failed it? That's at least what he said to me. He said all he was told at the time was that it was inconclusive.
And to him, it was like the investigators weren't even really, like, worried about it. Like, they made a comment to him, like, oh, one in every 10 come out like this anyways.
Like, no big deal. This is all coming from him.
So who knows? And, like, who knows what you remember? 20 years is a long freaking time. So the one thing I will say is, like, I, we have his statement back then.
It's to your point. His story has been consistent that he didn't think whatever was happening was serious.
Certainly not worth killing some over and going back to prison. But we know that Debbie knew, his mom.
Yeah. So.
And you found her too. First timer.
She picks up on the first call because no one really. That's another issue.
We have no no one, like do you answer a number who called? If you don't know the area code, like I don't, people assume. Absolutely not.
They let it go to voicemail. So this was shocking.
She picked up on my first call, first time ever for me working for AudioChuck. And she was totally seemingly honest and really willing to say her piece.
You know, she was heated, understandably, but she claimed she never called Nick on the phone, never said, I'm going to kill you. Now, she did admit that there had been this time where she was out looking for Sunshine, who was over at Nick's house, because remember, Sunshine lived with her.
So James and Sunshine's daughter. So she was looking around and Sunshine was over at Nick's.
So she had kind of talked to Nick like through the phone, through Sunshine's phone. Like calling up Sunshine who was at Nick's house and apparently they had a little bickering back and forth.
So admittedly, they didn't get along very well. They were kind of giving each other a hard time.
But at no point she says that I'm going to kill you came up. Debbie said she didn't really consider it anything worth making a police report about either.
Like they had always kind of been enemies and not gotten along. Because there was, right? Like Nick made a police report about Debbie threatening him.
It was a while after. I will say I don't want to put a timeline on it because, again, it's a little murky.
But he didn't file the report until a pretty good amount of time later, which is what Debbie found weird. Like, you thought this was a big deal, but you didn't file the report right away.
That was kind of how our conversation went. Is it possible he would have filed the report because he knew James was getting it? Like, do we know how close he filed the report to when James got out of prison? No, we don't know that.
But she just kept on harping. Like, she almost saw it.
I get the vibe that she saw it as purely a vindictive thing. Like, oh, he's just, he's doing it way later.
He's not actually worried, or he doesn't actually think I reckon he can. He's just trying to give me a hard time.
That's the vibe she gave me. And according to her, you know, even before all this, they had kind of had this weird relationship.
They're both in the antiquing picking world in this area. She claims that in this community, Nick was known to be a womanizer, a liar, a thief.
But of course, this is coming from someone who clearly had a boat to pick with him. They don't get along.
So she brought up the fact that James, her son, is currently fighting for his life with cancer. And that's something James and I talked about over Facebook as well.
So understandably, this was upsetting to her, hearing that he's still being considered a person of interest in this case. But when I asked her if her James is innocent, who do you think is responsible? You're from this small area.
I'm sure you hear people talking. And one of the names she brought up was someone we will all be familiar with at this point.
Wayne Miles. And I did try reaching out to Sunshine, too, by the way, before anyone asked.
And no luck there. So she points to Wayne.
And this is where things got really real.

And really real is not even the right sentiment.

I mean, we take so much care with each case.

I have such a deep respect for Nick's family and his friends, like Barry, who are like this isn't a story for them.

They are living with this as their reality day in and day out.

I think what it is about this situation, I've just never seen something in a cold case like this happen at the same time as our reporting. So obviously you're down there.
You're trying to talk to everyone, right? Like you're calling people, you're emailing people, you're finding people on Facebook, including all of our persons of interest. But Wayne was impossible to get a response from, right? Like he was one of the people who, again, were we getting the right numbers? We don't know.
Was he just screening all the calls, not calling back? We don't know. I called every number I could find online, couldn't find a Facebook, left messages, you know, your name's coming up in this case.
I'm doing this podcast about this supposed friend and even coworker of of yours because we know they work together. You know, can you talk? And still nothing.
Then a few weeks after I get back from the reporting trip, I'm sitting at my desk. It's May 10th, and I get a text from Sergeant Cash that he was notified by Pickens County, the other agency, that Wayne Miles had died by suicide the day prior.
Now, I called Sergeant Cash right away, and obviously he wanted to know, had you spoken to him yet? Because he hadn't. And that's the thing, right? So like he also was trying to track him down.
Yes, but here's what's interesting. He was purposely kind of holding back a little bit.
He knew I had been trying to reach out. We had discussed that.
Of course, I let him know what I was doing. He had just been asking around about him.
He hadn't tried to set up a formal interview just yet. He was holding his cards close to the vest.
So asking people who knew him, seeing what was up, but he hadn't tried to sit down with him just yet. So his question for me was, had you talked to him? Like, did you guys talk yet? And obviously that answer was no.
Although I did get one person on the phone that said it was a wrong number. And it's unclear.
Sergeant Cash is currently trying to figure out, like, you know, ensuring that that person, it actually was a wrong number. We don't know for sure yet.
So he's kind of looking into that right now. It's something we still can't prove one way or another.
This person said that they weren't Wayne, but they asked me questions about what I was doing, seemed a little interested. So he's checking on that.
But again, no way to prove he can't. The number on his end in his system doesn't belong to Wayne.
So we just can't be sure. I can't prove that any of my messages made it to him.
But I will say, Ashley, I think we can assume it's hard. It would be hard for him to avoid the fact that I was trying to speak with him.
And it'd be hard for him to avoid the fact that Sergeant Cash was asking around town about him. And listen, I mean, we obviously have no idea why Wayne made the decision that he made.
It's not something that's ever clear cut. But to your point, because you and Sergeant Cash had been asking around, we know that that media release had recently gone out mentioning two persons of interest and that jealousy over Nick's success as an antique picker could have been a possible motive.
I mean, it is possible that Wayne had recently become aware that he was being considered a person of interest in Nick's case, which I think this is what might be surprising to people is that that was not obvious during like all of the early years of the investigation. It's not like he he knew that the heat was on him early on.
Someone thought they got away with something. The suspicions weren't really raised until Sergeant Cash took over and began his investigation.

Yeah, I think Wayne just thought he was being talked to because he was a friend, a co-worker.

And he passed a polygraph.

Yeah, early on.

I will say he passed a polygraph.

Not that that means anything one way or the other, but he was cooperating.

And supposedly, you know, I think he just thought he was being talked to like everyone else. It wasn't obvious they were looking at him.
I reached out to the Pickens County Sheriff's Office and the coroner's office to request both the incident report for Wayne's suicide, as well as the autopsy. And, you know, just to see if there were any related investigative reports being put out on the case.
Sometimes there are, sometimes there aren't. It depends.
In a case like this, I was hoping that if there were, maybe that meant something, right? So I asked for anything, FOIA. The coroner's office wouldn't release anything.
I got the incident report, but the coroner's office wouldn't release the autopsy. If they do exist, no investigative reports.
Is that because like something's going on? Is it because you're not next of kin? Do you like, do you have any idea why? So they, they know I'm a journalist and they wouldn't really say why they wouldn't, but they, you know, they do have the right to do that. I looked it up.
Um, they would confirm though that his death was in fact ruled a suicide and they would tell me the exact date. So they were able to confirm that for me so but like you were saying that kind of makes me think that the fact they're not willing to release all of those things especially like just the autopsy like they're willing to say and i assume like surely sergeant cash can get that as part of his investigation i assume he is yes yes and so honestly the only thing i was able to get is this incident report, which honestly wasn't super telling.
But it did mention that the 69 year old didn't leave a note behind. So no suicide note that that they found.
And I think it's also important to mention that the report did say Wayne was in bad health during all of this time. So the whole nother component that don't really know much about.
Exactly. Wasn't doing well.
Well, as for the investigation today, detectives do still have those shell casings. And I know that they plan to send those off for more DNA testing to see if maybe they can pull something, even pull fingerprints.
And during a recent visit to speak with Nick's sister, Sergeant Cash said he also obtained another piece of potential forensic evidence, which I guess was this special necklace that Nick always wore that was still around his neck when his body was identified. So I guess that obviously it collected initially, but it got released back to Nick's family at some point.
But now it's back in the hands of investigators. And, you know, they're thinking, did someone touch it, hold it, whatever.
And they did some preliminary tests that ultimately determined there may be human blood present still on that piece of jewelry. Obviously, I mean, that blood could very well be Nix himself.
But I mean, they want anything. I mean, we need something concrete.
So they're sending it off just to be safe. And Sergeant Cash is currently waiting for those results from SLED to see if there's more to it or something he can do with it.
Exactly. And I did call him right before this recording and he did say it's confirmed to be blood, just waiting on any further testing.
So they're also, you know, working on revisiting Rodney, not necessarily as a person of interest because investigators just kind of like seem to drop them off their list a little early, at least in my opinion.

I would also think that like wouldn't Rodney be able to talk a little bit about Wayne, too?

I mean, if Wayne was preacher man for the sheriff's office that Rodney worked at, I mean.

They were friends, too.

Yeah, I think he could just have important information. They're actively trying to speak to him as of this recording.
But the last time I spoke to Sergeant Cash, he had yet to get in touch with him. He's working on it.
And again, he never responded to any of my attempts to reach out. And Sergeant Cash isn't giving up.
He's already spoken to members of Wayne Miles' family to try to gain more insight. Like, did they know anything about...
Did he say anything? Did he say anything? Did he even ever just bring up Nick's case, like, in passing, right? Like, so I talk to Sergeant Cash on a regular basis. And I start, every time I call him, he's actually, like, on his way to talk to somebody in this case.
Like, the reception will go in and out because he's in rural South Carolina, like on his way. And he wants to try to talk with people.
Somebody new. Somebody who may know something more about what happened back in March of 2004.
But for now, it's a bit of a waiting game. We'll just have to see what we're able to find out.
And until then, I mean, Barry will always remember Nick the way he last saw him, which was smiling, laughing, zooming off into the sun in his beloved black Mustang. He was waving to his buddy for what he didn't know then would actually be a goodbye forever.
Because my best friend don't have a voice anymore because of some evil person. He don't have a voice.
I have to speak for him. I got to find this guy was a great guy, man.
I would want him to do the same for me. I just, I can't give up on Nick.
He's my best friend to the day I take my last breath. I'm never even going to try to replace him.
If somebody's out there that knows what happened to nick they need to come forward you need to come forward because if not you're just as guilty as the one that done it if you're withholding information then you're just as involved and i don't think you want to see the other side of this world with that on you somebody's going to answer to that one day if you know something and you're not coming forward. Number one, Nick deserves justice.
If you know anything about the murder of Brian Nick Moore, you can anonymously contact Crime Stoppers for Anderson County at 1-888-CRIMESC or or you can email information directly to Sergeant Cash at klcash at andersonsheriff.com. We're going to have all the ways you can get in touch in the blog post for this episode and in the show notes.
Madison, thank you for being a crime junkie today and every day. I love that our listeners got to meet you.
And you guys, I want to hear from you. Reach out on social media.
Let us know if you like getting to meet the team. If you like hearing more about our like boots on the ground, kind of behind the scenes stuff.
Like I'll put all of our social channels and our emails in the show notes as well. And actually, we just released an AMA with some of our reporters this past month for our top tier in the fan club.
So don't forget, you guys can join the fan club right now too.

Listen for free through August by using promo code FREESUMMER. I know you all probably can't wait to hear from Nina, who has been our longest crime junkie reporter.
But I want to end on this note. Please remember that it is important for you or anyone you know who is thinking about suicide to be aware that emotional support can be reached by calling or texting the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline at 988.
For all of our source material and pictures for this episode, you can find that on our website, CrimeJunkiePodcast.com.

Don't forget to follow us on social media.

And next week, we're taking off for the holiday,

but we will be back the week after that. Thank you.
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