Jeepers Creepers Murder - Coldwater, Michigan

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Hello, everybody, and welcome back to Small Town Murder Express.

Yay and choo-choo!

Oh, yay indeed, Jimmy.

Yay, indeed.

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Absolutely.

It's all we could possibly give you.

That's it.

Other than coming to your house cleaning your gutters this is all we have so yeah i got you it's everything so do that that said i think it's time to get into this everybody what do you say let's all sit back let's all clear the lungs arms to the sky let's all shout

shut up

and

give me

murder Let's do this, everybody.

Hey, let's go on a trip, shall we?

All right, let's go.

We are going to Michigan this week.

Yeah.

When we go heading up there, we'll be in Grand Rapids in September, too.

So we'll be in Michigan.

This is in Coldwater, Michigan.

Cold water, one word.

And this is very, very southern Michigan, kind of

central, south.

The county borders, the Michigan border.

So all the way south.

It's about two hours to Detroit, about two and a half hours to Chicago, and about four hours to Arcadia, Michigan, our last Michigan episode, episode 575, The Lady in the Water, which was, that was the guy at the lake.

Yeah, he said, oh, she must have fell off.

She must have fell off the porch and then bounced eight times and then went in the lake.

That was a crazy episode.

This is in Branch County.

Population of this town, 13,764.

So not a huge place.

There's some smaller towns around it.

Median household income here, much lower than the national average.

National average is about $69,000.

Here it is $45,021.

So pretty low.

And median home cost, also pretty low, $178,700, which is about half

the rest of the country.

So not too shabby.

The motto here, again, this is when a town just doesn't try very hard for a motto, you get...

Live, work, play.

That's their motto.

Yeah, that's everything.

The live, laugh, love of mottos of town.

That's exactly what it is.

On

basic people's fucking refrigerator magnets until the end of time.

History here.

In 1829, Branch County was laid out.

And in 1830, that's when towns started springing up, Coldwater and Bronson and a town called Quincy.

Then they decided, well, we need a county seat.

Yeah.

And we've heard on Small Town Murder, if you're a longtime listener, you know.

It's a big deal.

There's been bloodshed over who's getting the county seat.

So this was a big deal.

The first county seat was Masonville.

And, you know, Coldwater didn't didn't like that, and it was transferred to Coldwater

from 1831 to 1840.

Oh, that was Masonville.

And then in 1842, Coldwater did it.

I guess they had like a big competition, like they were they had to like pitch themselves to see who's going to be the county seat, and Coldwater won.

So there they go.

Reviews of this town.

Let's see.

We've never been there.

We don't know anything about it.

Let's find out.

Here's five stars.

It is such a great town.

I'm proud that I've been able to grow up here.

It's really family friendly.

Also, you can be able to just walk down the road to your friend's house.

You just be able to.

Just be able to.

That is just a couple blocks away.

Apparently, this person's friend lives a couple blocks away, so that means everybody's friend lives a couple blocks away.

Cold water makes you feel like you're at home, even when your home is so far, is so far away.

They say far instead of a home.

So far away.

So far away.

So even if you're not from here, you'll be here and feel like you're from here.

That's what it is.

That's what it sounds like.

All right.

Five stars again.

Small town, great for raising a family.

Country living with a lot of nature.

Low crime rates and a sense of security.

There it is.

That sounds pretty good.

And here's one star.

A couple of one stars quick.

This is a complete opposite of these five stars,

which it would be.

Cold water is trash.

Yeah.

Okay, that's coming in hot.

City officials are incompetent, and the town is going to be the weed hub of the state.

Well, that sounds positive.

Great.

Maybe I'll visit there.

There.

Maybe that's how you'll get me there.

Otherwise, I have no interest in coming here.

So there you go.

Even with the extra revenue, the money is quickly squandered away.

In addition, Clemens has taken control and ruined this town.

Old Clemens.

Old man Clemens took control and drove the whole

toll joint into the crowd.

Just yells shit from his porch and goes back inside.

He took over the whole place.

Whole town.

He's like boss hog, but in Michigan.

And finally, one star.

Branch County, Michigan had to be almost by far the worst county in the state of Michigan.

Almost by far.

Almost by far the worst county in the state of Michigan.

Almost as bad as Hillsdale County.

Michigan cops are corrupt, and so are the courts.

Yeah, they are.

Okay, sure.

This is very different things.

Things to do here.

not much.

There's a couple of things to do here.

First, we have the Strawberry Fest.

Sure.

And then there's an Apple Fest, and I'll read you the descriptions of them.

Strawberry Fest, 9 a.m.

to 3 p.m.

Okay.

Every year, the annual Strawberry Fest brings together over 200 vendors to sell their food, drinks, crafts, strawberries, and raise money for their nonprofits in historic downtown Coldwater.

Okay.

Then there's the Apple Fest, which is from 9 a.m.

to 3 p.m., same hours.

Over 220-plus vendors gather in downtown historic Coldwater, Michigan for this annual event.

It features apples, crafts, food vendors.

It's the same thing.

It's the same day.

No, no, no.

They're like three months apart, but it's the exact same description.

They just go replace strawberry with apple.

There you go.

And they also have entertainment under the stars,

which I suppose this is like a free

summer concert series in Heritage Park here.

It says, be sure to bring your own lawn chair

unless you want to sit on the grass.

Get the wet ass from the dew.

So who will be performing here, you may ask?

Well, I'm begging.

Joe Bregg will be there.

B-R-E-G-G.

He's going to have to mark a little better.

Never heard of him.

The Delbert Walling Group.

Jesus, Delbert.

It sounds like a financial advisor group.

Contact the Delbert Walling Group and we'll get you into the best fucking IRA possible.

For all Roth and 401k concerns.

Oh, man.

Van Dyke review.

Cool.

There you go.

Dick Van Dyke.

They're just going to sing all the Merry Poppin' songs over and over again.

Scotty Butters.

Yeah, I'll bet you're good.

That sounds like a drug dealer's nickname.

I need some Coke, dude.

You got Scotty Butters' number?

Yeah, I got it, dude.

It's all right.

I got a voice like a biscuit.

Scotty Butters.

Latitude.

I don't know what the hell they do.

Longitude is not playing this night.

Yeah, they're not playing this night, unfortunately.

And then finally, Island Vibe will be there.

Oh, okay.

That's what I want in Michigan.

Island music.

Island music.

That's the vibe I'm getting from a small town in Michigan.

So that says, let's talk about some murder here.

Let's get into this.

All right, let's talk about some people establishing a nice suburban life here.

Okay, nice small town life.

First of all, we'll talk about Marilyn Lee McClennahen.

McClennahen, not McClenahan, McClennahen.

She's born January 24th, 1941,

and she's born in Detroit.

She grew up in Detroit, not in this area, so a couple hours away.

Her dad's name is a cool name, Dallas Arnold McClenahan.

Old Dallas.

And think about that.

He was born in like 1910, and his name's Dallas.

That's pretty cool.

I got an uncle named Dallas, and he's a fucking badass.

Yeah, that's I never met him, but

I'll bet he's a hillbilly.

What did the coach say?

What did the coach say in Teen Wolf?

Never play cards with a guy who has the first name of a city.

A city?

I believe that's what he's told by.

That's very good.

It's a really good advice, I think, to give.

Guy named Vegas, guy named Dallas.

You don't want that.

Even Reno?

You don't play cards with a guy named Reno.

Forget about it.

Out of your mind.

Cards with a guy named Tallahassee.

Absolutely not.

Pensacola is a badass

fucking poker player.

Her mom's name was Betty.

So Dallas and Betty.

And she was born in Detroit.

And this is in the 40s and 50s.

Detroit was a booming city.

Industry just pumping after World War II, during World War II, and after, and then the auto industry.

And I mean, you could, you could get it, you'd have a decent job and a nice house and a couple of cars and all this stuff working in a factory back then.

It was a totally different time here.

So

her father did all of that.

Her father did, I don't think he was in World War II.

I think he was in the factories doing something

that had to do with munitions or some shit like that.

But she's a very kind, Marilyn's a very kind and

really understanding person.

She has an ability to make people feel comfortable.

Everybody likes her.

She's that kind of person.

She doesn't put people on edge or anything like that.

She graduated from Edsel Ford High School.

Oh, my God.

They were so proud that these cars were being built there.

Everything's named after them.

It was probably 1959, like before they discontinued the Edsel.

So that was considered.

I think the Edsel stopped in the 40s, right?

No, it was the late - I think it was like 61 or something.

They stopped there, 60 or some shit.

Or might have been 59, honestly.

It was

the late 50s, because wasn't that part of the whole

big, bulky cars, too, that they were just

a famous piece of shit.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Is that the one you could buy from Sears Roebuck?

Yeah, they stopped in 59.

53.

Look at that.

The 60 model was the last one.

I just got two 59s today, correct?

Is that crazy or what?

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Just a distance.

That's crazy.

They launched in 57.

Yeah, it was a famous lemon.

That's the thing.

It was only made for two years, that piece of shit.

Wow.

A world-famous piece of shit.

Wow.

So she got a bachelor's degree from Michigan State University,

got a master's degree from Wayne State University.

Wow.

So Marilyn is doing some education.

Yeah.

And she wants to

work with kids in some way.

That's how she wants to do this.

So with all this education, she chooses to become a high school guidance counselor.

I don't know if in the 60s the guidance counselor was a different kind of job.

It's a lot of money for $12,000 a year.

I was going to say,

back then.

A lot of time in the year.

You're probably making $7,000 a year in the 60s back then.

I mean, now you probably make 42 grand a year being a goddamn guidance counselor or some shit.

I'll bet that's generous.

You know, so depending on the state.

So, you know, she must really want to do this.

And I don't know if guidance counselor was a more important position back in the day, too.

Because when we were in high school, a guidance counselor is a goddamn joke.

You're not going to ask them anything.

You only went there if you needed to change a class or something.

That was it.

There was no like, what should I do with my life?

Person who has more student loans than what they make in 10 years.

Tell me.

First please.

Person who doesn't know shit about me.

Yeah.

And who also I've talked to for a total of three minutes in the four years that I've gone to the school.

What should I do?

So she went, she got a position at Coldwater High School.

And then she becomes the guidance counselor, and everybody knows and loves her.

She's like, stop by her office and, you know, come see her.

And apparently, she makes you feel better.

So she's very active in local stuff, community events, and has a lot of friends and all that kind of thing.

she's real social in 1971 when she's 30 and have completed having completed her education already started her career and everything she meets a man yeah here yes she does uh she meets a guy who's the complete opposite of her really but you know sometimes opposites attract and people bounce each other out who knows so his name is dennis henry depew d-e-p-u-e

Depew.

Billy.

Like actual Pew.

Peppy Depew, he could be, which i'm sure they called him in school like sit your ass down in depew into pew that's right and then get down on your knees and back up in the seat and back down and back up

and back into pew and back into pew so they he was quiet and didn't like social situations and she was the complete opposite so that's their wow dynamic he's born june 13th 43 so two years younger than her actually

and uh he's from sturgis michigan uh that's where he was born uh parents claude and Elma.

Jesus.

Jesus.

Elma.

Her name was Elma Merle.

M-U-R-L.

Merle.

Wow.

That is a rough name.

M-U-R?

M-U-R-L.

Elma Merle.

That wasn't her last name.

Merle was our middle name.

Elma Merle.

You got to be hot to pull that name off.

That's a terrible spell.

It's a gross spelling.

It sounds like you got something in your throat.

A little bit, right?

I got a little Merle going on here.

So

they were here for a long time in this area.

He's from Burr Oak, is where he grows up, which is not far from Coldwater.

So he's kind of Southern Michigan.

His family's been there for a long time and everything like that.

He grew up in a modest middle-class home, dirt roads in the small town, kids riding their bikes, all that kind of shit.

It's sort of thing.

Now, he is a decent

in school, nothing crazy, but nothing, he doesn't stand out in any way, shape, or form.

He's quiet.

He's a good student, but not the top academic guy or the lowest or doesn't get in trouble.

So he's a guy that would kind of, you might not notice him.

He could go by unnoticed, Dennis here.

So he ended up going to Michigan State University as well.

He got a bachelor's in business education.

He's a big fan of Michigan State sports as well.

So, you know, that's something they had in common.

They went to the same school.

That helps.

And, you know, that sort of thing.

So Dennis tries teaching.

This is before he meets Marilyn.

He tried teaching.

He's got a business education, but he tries teaching business.

That's what he does here.

So he goes to Portland, Oregon, and Los Angeles and teaches both places and doesn't really like it.

He likes a small town.

He's a small town Midwestern guy.

Yeah.

LA is

neither of those things.

I mean, if that's what you're real into, you're going to not like, you're not going to like LA at all.

So he wants to do that.

He goes back to Michigan and finds work in the Michigan's Department of Treasury as a property tax specialist.

Great.

That sounds boring.

Yeah.

That sounds soul-crushingly boring.

So it's decent work,

benefits, and kids can go to the doctor when they need to and shit like that.

So that's some adult shit if he wants to have a family someday.

So he's very detail-oriented and very suited to this sort of work, basically.

Real kind of tedious, boring shit.

He's good at that.

So, yeah, he's in Cold Water, and that's where he's living and working.

So this is not too far from where he grew up, and he still goes to church in his small town that he grew up in and stuff like that.

But people look at him as, you know, around here as he's doing real well.

Graduated from college.

He got a nice, steady government job.

Yeah.

He's doing fine.

He's got

a lot of problems with really, he never really, before Marilyn, he never really has a good relationship.

No.

He's kind of controlling

and not really good, you know, with the back and forth either.

So it's tough.

But Marilyn fell for him.

She likes it.

Yeah.

I mean, they get married within a couple years of, within, I think, a year and a half of starting to go out.

As a tension.

Yeah, she liked him, and she just, whatever it was, she liked him.

I think she liked the fact that I i think she is a very stable established person and was looking for someone with similar yeah you know what i mean he's never been married before doesn't have any kids or anything like that so hey why not they seem to match up so they had a big wedding and everything like that all of their you know friends and business associates and people from the school and everything were there they bought a nice house as well little little nice quiet neighborhood with trees and sure real nice they're both you know doing their jobs everything is wonderful they have three kids.

It is just, you know, John Cougar Mellen Camp song

all laid out before us here.

They have Jennifer Dawn, Jennifer, in 1974.

They have Julie in 1976.

And then they have Scott in about 1982.

Okay.

So three kids.

Yep, two girls and a boy.

Everything looks terrific here, except for the fact that Dennis is always a little weird.

He's just a little off.

Yeah.

And I don't know if it's because Marilyn is so kind of not weird and she's very outgoing that next to her he looks weirder.

I'm not sure if that's how it works, but he's a little strange.

Friends said that Dennis could kind of be a little bit possessive of Marilyn when it comes to her doing a lot of shit.

Which if you're an introvert and you're going out with an extrovert and you're married to an extrovert, you have to kind of accommodate for that, that they're going to want to do their their thing.

Same way the extrovert can't be mad at you if you'd like rather sit home tonight or whatever.

So got to kind of make some sort of

accommodations for that.

Find the middle.

Yeah, he would make, you know, he'd say sometimes that you're spending too much time at work or too much time.

Why do you have to go out with your friends from work?

You just work with them all week and all that.

I understand that.

I can never understand why people want to do that.

To me, that's the

craziest thing that humans do.

Hanging out with coworkers?

Work all all week with people, and then Friday be like, hey, everybody, it's Friday.

Happy hour.

What are you talking about?

I've just spent 40 hours when I get the fuck home.

40 hours with you people.

I have people that I've chosen to spend time with.

That's my family, my spouse, things like that.

I married them.

I just work with you.

That is really, really taking, you know, an inch taking a mile to think that because we sit in a cubicle next to each other, I also want to see you on my off hours is nuts.

There's only one guy in my entire life that I was a co-worker of, like, apart from comedy.

Yeah, comedy doesn't count.

Where I had to

go.

But we're jerking off telling

people giggling.

Yeah, that's a totally different thing.

But there was only one dude in my entire life that I actually enjoyed.

I mean, I hung out with co-workers outside work, but I was like, why am I doing that?

You know what I mean?

I guess you never really.

You never really have that realization until you stop hanging out with them.

There's like, why did I ever do that?

Why was I doing that?

I would literally laugh and be like, no way am I hanging out with you?

Fucking crazy.

No, no offense, but I don't like you that much to hang out with you in my off time.

Like when I'm not getting paid for it.

So

I can understand that, but also I can understand if you're working with people you like and you want to hang out with them.

So that's fine.

Here.

So yeah,

so she's got to navigate that.

His,

you know, his grumpiness and then her wanting to do her thing.

By the 80s, it becomes harder because

he wants even less to do with doing anything.

He's withdrawn even more.

He just wants to be at home.

Yeah, and that's it.

And it starts to affect Marilyn to the point where people at school start to notice

that there was some, she seemed distracted, she would seem tired, just kind of not her usual engaged, chipper self, really.

People would ask, is everything cool?

And she would go, oh, yeah, yeah, no, it's okay.

You know, I'm fine, I'm fine, I'm fine.

But they could tell something was up here.

And, you know, the kids are getting older and stuff's happening like that.

He really, really, over time, gets angrier and angrier at the time that she spends outside of the house, though.

He really, really gets annoyed.

And then he starts accusing her of things.

Oh.

Not of like, you're out cheating on me, which.

He started telling everybody, her especially, and the kids, that she was turning the children against him.

Yeah.

Which she wasn't turning anybody against anybody.

He was just.

By spending time with him, and he's not?

I don't know.

It's basically the kids are turning into teenagers, especially the girls.

Yeah.

And let's see, Jimmy, you have a teenage girl.

Oh, my God.

She's so against me.

Drop a toot going on there, right?

All of you have turned her against me.

That's exactly

exactly where I was going with that.

The whole world has turned her against me.

You have two teenage girls and you're like, you've turned them against me.

He's like, no, nature has hormones and turned them against you.

They hate both of us and everything because they're teenagers and that's life.

They're just mad, man.

Yeah.

Wait till they're about sophomores in college.

You'll get along great.

You know what I'm saying?

But until then, you're going to have some troubles.

But he took that as

because the kids have an attitude, it must be her making them that way against me,

which is ridiculous.

And she would try to be like, no, no, no, and tell the girls, you know, be extra nice to your dad and all kinds of shit like that, which that's exhausting

for her to have to do that.

That's exhausting.

So after a while, just to not hear his shit, she started not go, not engaging in,

you know, social activities quite as much.

And she's just tired of it.

She didn't want to argue anymore.

So certain things that she would,

big community events that she knows would piss Dennis off, she would just say, forget it, not go.

So, and the kids notice that too.

You know, the kids are noticing mom's not the same cheerful, outgoing mom.

She's starting to be a little bit more,

like, it sounds like basically,

do you remember like Sissy Spacek and Blast from the Past?

Yeah.

She's like running around like, oh, I'll fix that.

Oh, I'll do that.

That's what she seems like she is.

Like, she's running around trying, oh, I'll make everybody happy.

It's okay.

I'll do this.

I'll keep all the plates spinning.

So, yeah, the kids noticed that too.

And everybody kind of started to, the first thing everybody wanted to is, what mood is dad in today?

You know what I mean?

Like, that's that's a

gross cloud to hang over a house when there's anybody like that.

So, uh, even when they would go to social gatherings together, he would go sit apart from everybody and just like watch Marilyn while she talked to people, which is

bizarre, bizarre behavior.

Sit next to her and be quiet.

That's fine, but don't go sit somewhere else and like stare and stalk.

Might as well go outside looking through the window, just putting his hand around his eyes, just creeping on her.

So

by 1988, she starts, basically starts telling her friends that, you know, my marriage is kind of shitty now.

And, you know, he's starting to be, Dennis is more controlling, and he's demanding, and he doesn't want me to do things I want to do, and, you know, just wants to have control over everything.

You know,

even like when she was allowed to work late, when she could go out with friends, you know, it was an argument all the time.

So she was really trying to pick and choose her battles here.

Right.

So, and then also, again,

through all of this, he continued to say that she was poisoning the kids against him.

You're turning them against me.

You're making them mean to me,

which is hilarious.

Nature did that, not her.

You know, so he said that I don't think you are real committed to this family.

And, you know, people, there's people who want, there's forces out there who want to see us apart.

And you're giving into it.

Oh, boy.

And you're turning the kids against me.

There's a lot of conspiracy theories going on that he's got.

Sounds like it, yeah.

Are kind of weird.

He's still,

I don't know if maybe because he's still working with the state treasury department.

So maybe he's just so bored at work that his brain needs to do something else.

I don't know what is going on here.

But

one of his co-workers said, Dennis worked out of our office on occasion.

He was a conscientious, good worker, a fairly quiet individual.

But since the divorce proceedings, he got a lot more quiet than normal.

Oh?

Yeah, because Marilyn's going to file for divorce.

Oh, boy.

This guy said it was a bitter situation.

When you consider the stress he was under and that he took it so bitterly, who knows how that affects a person.

He changed quite a bit and lost a lot of weight.

He was an avid Michigan State fan, and during basketball season this year, he didn't make any comments like he did in the past.

So just not the same guy.

No, he's just

not the same cat here.

Hey, everybody.

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nope and uh the kids don't want to be around him now which just fuels his whole thing sure so they said he would have periods where he seemed pretty cool and uh you know like old old dad and then he would all of a sudden be angry and start accusing people of shit and freaking out and making the whole family uncomfortable.

And so the kids don't want to spend time with him at all.

They don't even want to be in the house.

They do that thing where they like to go to school, go to some like after-school activity, then go to a friend's house,

then come home at nine o'clock, go in the room and go to bed.

Yeah, you know that.

Try this shit again tomorrow.

Avoid the house.

I've done that.

You know what I mean?

So just come in and maybe we can just get a quick, how you doing?

And I can go in my room.

And again,

Dennis would notice this and and then blame Marilyn for it.

You've been turning them against me.

So she said, maybe we could go to counseling.

And he said, no, no, nobody could understand us except for us.

So she said, you know, what do you want?

And anytime she would say, okay, what's the problem?

And he would explain it, well, when you do this, it makes me feel like that.

When you go there, she'd go, okay, well, then I won't do that.

Well, then he would take that as, well, then I don't want you to do this, this, and this either.

Oh, boy.

You'd take a mile when given an inch again.

So

at this point, by the way, one person said about the kids, the kids were well-behaved, very intelligent, good students.

Both girls were in the National Honor Society, and Scott was in the gifted program in elementary school.

Wow.

So despite all of this, the kids are still thriving.

Yeah.

And maybe

wanting to be outside the home

and be in school, even just to get away from your family, that'll make you a decent student.

You're at school all the time.

So yeah, you'll stay after school, do your homework, shit like that.

Why not?

So by 89, she has consulted a divorce attorney and, you know, she told a lawyer that basically her marriage is a prison.

So

that's that.

Absolutely.

She said that she tried, Dennis is too controlling, and it went from a couple of things to every little thing in her life, and she can't take it anymore.

So she said that she's always doesn't trust her own judgment anymore, even because Dennis has made her second guess everything.

So the attorney told Marilyn to document his behavior, and then, you know, we'll put that all in the proceedings and try to, you know, build a case basically for divorce.

So Dennis, not happy that Marilyn filed for divorce.

Furious.

At all, like we said, at work, he got weird and everything else, but wouldn't talk about Michigan State basketball anymore.

They said he he would be rageful and then he would be depressed and he would be, you know, he would threaten to fight the divorce and beg

Marilyn not to divorce him at the same time.

So

you never knew what he was going to come up with, whether he was going to be attacking or conciliatory.

You never knew.

So

he would, it was weird because she would have her, this is what I want in a divorce.

Everybody has this is what you want and this is what you want and then you

whatever.

So Dennis would challenge all of everything that she wanted and say no to everything.

And then

certain things he would just not fight at all, things you would expect him to fight about.

Like he didn't fight for the house at all.

He said, you can have the house, which is weird.

And her financial arrangements that her lawyers drew up to say, this is what we like from you.

He said,

no problem, fine.

Didn't even negotiate.

You got it.

Take what you want.

These are the things you fight about.

Who gets the house?

Who gets the money?

And then the rest of the stuff you try to make compromises.

But he was like, no, I want to see the kids at 10 o'clock on Saturday, not noon.

But you can have the house and I'll give you however much you want.

Like things like that.

It's like, who cares?

Stop arguing.

So

I don't know.

They thought that a lot of his friends said that they figured that he was doing this to try to get her back.

If he's like told her, if he was nice to her and said, yeah, yeah, I understand you can have whatever.

She might think that he was changing and she might want him back after that.

So who knows?

But December 1989, the divorce is final.

And Dennis is granted visitation with his kids every other week.

And the kids, and also, here's another weird part.

Okay.

They have their home, and outside their home is a guest house.

Yeah.

That is where he has a home office.

So in the divorce proceedings, he is allowed to use the guest house as his office still.

yes so he has access still to the property and the guest house that is

one thing that's an odd arrangement that's not how you that's not how you separate no that's really fucking weird and confusing for the kids i would imagine too

real confusing so it's odd but the strange thing is through all this their their middle daughter said that she never saw her parents fight really they never fought that's the weird through all of this fight he's just like a chill guy they would just not speak to each other for days at a time.

That's what they do.

Not fight, but not.

Very healthy.

Very healthy.

Very good way to resolve conflict, that is.

So anyway, he is allowed, like we said,

he wanted five,

he said that, I guess he's allowed to see the kids.

I'm sorry, more than once a week, not every other week.

So

he said he wanted to see the kids all the time, weekly visitation.

And

she said that was fine.

And he was allowed to be in the guest house where he did his work and all that kind of thing.

So he continued, though, to she changed the locks in the house to try to have some sort of control.

But he would find ways to get in when no one was home anyway.

Right.

Because it was his house.

He knows how to break.

Everyone knows how to break into their own house.

Yeah.

You know your own house is soft spots.

Everybody does.

So, yeah.

So she would return and see like things moved around.

Her papers were got like rifled through.

Oh, boy.

Just someone was in the house looking through shit.

And so she didn't like that.

And the kids,

because he was being so weird, they didn't like really being around him anymore.

They would make excuses to not go to their court visit, you know, appointed visits and things like that.

And Dennis said, that's Marilyn, again, poisoning the children.

Poisoning the Love Well is what they're doing.

So the kids not wanting to see their dad became a problem, obviously, and they would fight over that.

Nobody wanted to go, basically.

And for the teenage kids, one is 16.

It's hard to force 16-year-olds to do visits.

Once somebody gets a car, it's hard to force them to go visit your dad.

Well, maybe I want to go to the mall in the middle of that.

You know what I mean?

I'd rather not do any of that.

Exactly.

And 14, they have to, but they'll just complain the whole time.

Yes.

And Scott was a little younger than that, so he's more pliable, but even he didn't really want to go.

So

it's tough.

Then this all comes to a head on April 15th, 1990.

It's Easter Sunday.

Yeah, it is.

Oh, yeah.

Marilyn is preparing for a big meal, a big Easter meal.

She likes the holidays and she likes having the family and making food and all that kind of thing.

But Dennis is scheduled this day to pick up two of the three kids.

He's supposed to do that.

Now, Julie that morning said she didn't want to go, period.

That was it.

And Dennis, under the divorce agreement, couldn't force her to do it if she didn't want to.

But the fact that she didn't want to really pissed him off.

Yeah, that's a problem.

Yeah.

So now he's just going to get Scott.

So he's pissed off about that.

So he arrives about 11 a.m.

pissed because he knows that he's only getting Scott already.

already and he thought he was getting all three and he's getting one.

So then he gets there and Scott whines and complains and says he doesn't want to go with him.

Damn it.

So he wanted to go out.

He said, you know, he wanted to play with his friends and shit like that.

You know, the kid was, Christ, he's eight years old or something, at the nine years old.

He wants to go out and play.

I mean, it's a child.

And he just didn't want to go sit and look at his fucking...

Look at his morbid dad.

Yeah, just sit there and be depressed and

asking him weird questions about what mom does at night.

You know what I mean?

Why don't you want to be here?

It's a real, real fucking, yeah, not cool.

So Marilyn tries to intervene because Dennis is yelling at Scott or, you know, trying to tell Scott that you're coming with me.

And he's saying, no, no, no.

So she's like, listen, listen, let's figure this out.

Let's, you know, come on, everybody.

Out of nowhere, Dennis, instead of he and Marilyn being the parents and explaining to Scott that it's important that you spend time with your father as well,

which would be the healthy thing and what Marilyn was trying to do.

Dennis then turns everything on to Marilyn and says, this is your fault.

Even though she's trying to help him with the kid,

he said, this is all your fault.

You're turning the kids against me.

This is everything.

You're manipulative and

all of this type of shit.

Then out of nowhere, he grabs Marilyn.

All three kids are standing right there, by the way.

Grabs Marilyn and throws her down the basement steps.

Oh, boy.

And I don't mean go walk down there.

We're going to have a talk.

He threw her down the fucking stairs.

Like

laundry that needs to be done later.

Like, it's, wow.

So she fell down.

These are wooden stairs.

Thankfully, they're not concrete basement stairs.

That would be much worse.

But I mean, still, go down some wooden stairs to a basement.

See how it feels.

So she lay.

She got to the bottom and just laid there.

They didn't know if she was unconscious, dead.

She's just laying there in a heap on the bottom.

So these kids are screaming, oh my God, mom, mom.

Dennis runs down the steps.

So, you know, they think obviously he's going to help her up.

Instead, he starts pummeling her.

Oh, he's punching her now and kicking her in the face.

I mean, stomping her and just absolutely savagely attacking this woman out of nowhere.

He's been set off for some reason.

And the kids have never really even seen their parents fight that much.

And now,

and they've never seen dad explode.

He's just weird and sullen.

He's not a fucking this.

But now he's just exploded into this frenzy of violence.

And just real-life fight.

Absolutely

pummeling this poor woman

in front of the kids.

So they're watching in horror, screaming, and all this type of shit.

Next thing you know, Dennis picks her up and carries her up the basement stairs.

She's completely unconscious.

Carries Marilyn up the basement stairs.

The kids are watching.

And he says, the kids go,

what are you doing?

And he said, I'm going to take her to the hospital.

He's got her over his shoulder, and he says, I'm going to get her help.

And then he hops into his van.

It's a 1984 Chevy van.

I don't know why this week is full of vans, but it is.

I love vans, yeah.

And he said, I'll be back soon.

Okay.

So the kids were like, holy shit, this is fucking crazy.

They watch.

Dennis puts Marilyn in the passenger seat of the van.

They pull out.

They're like, shit.

So they all sit around the phone because he said, I'll call you from the hospital, let you know how she's doing.

And he went from this rage to just super calm.

I'm going to take her to the hospital now.

Like, got it all out of his system.

He's like, well, all right, let's clean this mess up.

So the children are watching as they drive away, and it's fucking crazy.

So

all of this, while all this is going on, Jennifer, the oldest, had

as soon as he threw Marilyn down the stairs, she ran to a neighbor's house to call the cops.

Smart.

So she comes back to her dad driving away and the other two kids just standing there in shock, essentially.

So she's like, holy shit.

Now, enter Ray and Marie

Thornton.

Okay.

Ray and Marie, they've been married and they have a, every Sunday they do a specific thing.

They take a drive through the countryside around Coldwater because they like to look at the landscape and things like that.

And this is their time that they spend talking and just being with each other.

No one else, you're in a car, so no one else is around.

You get some private time.

So they were driving south on Snow Prairie Road, and they were playing a little game.

They looked at license plates of passing cars to try to make words or phrases out of the letters.

That's their game.

That's what you do.

It's like little kids sitting in the backwards-facing seats of a station wagon in 1973 or something.

100%.

So just fun, and that's what they like to do, have a little fun.

So

they see

a green Chevy van coming toward them.

Okay.

He said he saw it in the rearview mirror, and Ray did, said he saw it in the rear view.

It was driving aggressively and very fast.

Yeah.

So Ray tried to speed up, but the van passed them anyway and basically passed them in in a way that kind of forced them partially off the road.

A real aggressive pass.

That's

snapped in before he passed them.

Yeah, not Sunday afternoon driving behavior.

Like, where are you going?

So as the van went past, Marie saw the license plate.

It started with GZ,

were the two letters.

So she said, geez, he's in a hurry.

That's the sentence they made out of it.

So they laughed.

Ha ha, that guy's a jerk off.

And they kept driving.

That's all.

So they're just driving, driving, driving.

A few minutes later, for some reason, they approach, there's an abandoned schoolhouse.

Yeah.

Okay, terrifying place here.

That's where they're driving.

And the schoolhouse, by the way, it's a big brick building built in 1908 that was just empty and abandoned in the middle of a farm country.

There's nothing else around.

Creepy as fuck.

Just horror movie setting for the ages is what it is.

And even says like, there's graffiti all over it because, you know, kids come here and finger each other and smoke weed or do whatever the fuck they do.

And one, when you come in, it says enter hell in graffiti.

Hell yeah.

Hell yeah.

So, yeah, for kids, that's what they're going to do.

So they go into here, driving in, and Marie,

of the Ray and Marie Thornton, said behind the building, she saw a man carrying what appeared to be a white sheet stained with red.

Okay.

So that's what she did.

Now, where the hell has Dennis gone?

Where has Dennis gone?

Well, he drove along Snow Prairie Road

at a very high rate of speed, passing people.

And at some point during this trip,

he had put a 357

to the back of Marilyn's head and shot her and killed her.

Whoa.

Yes, in the van.

In the car?

In the van, he did this.

So now we don't.

I mean, we're not even positive whether he beat her to death and then shot her or she started gurgling and he said, well, I better shoot her.

But either way, 357 in the back of the head.

So,

yeah.

Then he had to figure out, what do I do?

Right.

You know, what do I do?

So he chose, like we said, to drive along that road and he wrapped her body in a sheet.

And now he needed a place to hide it.

So he said, Hey, there's that abandoned schoolhouse

out on Snow Prairie Road, about 12 miles outside of town.

Welcome to enter hell.

So, real weird.

It's surrounded by fields and woods.

There's no neighbors.

There's no traffic.

This is a perfect place for this.

So he parked his van behind the building

and started trying to figure out how to dispose of things.

So he brought the sheet to wrap the body and he tried to

to to stuff it into an animal hole the sheet

yeah

but the hole wasn't big enough so there's just a bloody sheet sticking out of the ground which is extremely conspicuous you really notice that i would say

so he's like shit that's not great uh so he all of a sudden grabs whatever he can and tries to start digging a deeper hole

or do something and that's when the thorntons pulled up

and saw him with a sheet

Yeah, and saw him with a sheet.

And Marie, when she sees that, said, Ray, look at that.

What do you think he's doing?

Yeah.

Gee, I don't know.

Abandoned schoolhouse in the middle of nowhere, bloody sheet.

And a picture.

He's disposing of a body, honey.

He's doing something that we're not going to watch him do.

Let's go.

We're getting the fuck out of here.

Get in the car.

So Ray slows down.

They're in the car, and they see a man struggling with a bloody sheet.

near what looked like a hole in the ground.

They were like, what is happening right now?

They couldn't figure it out.

So they continued, they just kept driving and continued down the road.

And they were talking about, what the fuck was that?

What a weirdo.

What's going on?

We don't know.

We didn't know what to do.

So then after they're driving a while, Ray looks in the rearview mirror and notices the green van is behind them again.

Oh, it's back, yeah.

It's back.

It pulls up right behind them, like on their ass for several miles.

They can't get rid of them.

He's on their ass.

Now Ray could see the guy driving.

It was a man wearing a white hat, and he said he was just staring intently at them.

Real, real intense shit.

So

they were frightened.

And Marie's asking her husband, why is he following us?

And she goes, He's like, How the fuck do I know?

I don't fucking know.

So Ray decided to turn off the road onto a dirt path, saying, Okay, if he's not following us, he's going to not turn down this path.

But the van pulled over to the side of the road and stopped.

Okay.

So

I don't know if they expected them to do the same, if the van did.

So Ray decides to turn around and go the other way because he wants to get a look at the license plate so he can report it to the police because he said this guy's been following him.

So as they approached the van, they said the driver was crouched down beside the vehicle changing the rear license plate.

Oh.

So they were like, what the fuck?

And they said the passenger door of the van was wide open and they can see the interior was covered in blood.

All right.

So they were like, holy shit.

So they said, this is a wild decision for Ray and Marie.

Ray and Marie out on a Sunday drive should not make decisions like this.

They said, well, we don't want to confront the guy.

That would be dangerous.

But let's go back to the schoolhouse and investigate.

This is not a Scooby-Doo episode.

Don't go back and see what's going on at the old abandoned schoolhouse.

Go to the cops and let them fucking do it.

What are you doing?

Fuck out of here.

Yeah, why would you do that?

That's not your job.

You're on a Sunday drive.

Lunatics.

This is crazy.

So they got there and they found a bloody sheet partially stuffed into a hole in the ground behind the building.

So they were like, shit, that's when they finally contacted the Michigan State Police here.

They've got descriptions of the van, the driver, and the location of the bloody evidence and all that kind of thing.

So the cops show up at the schoolhouse and they find exactly that, a bloody sheet partially stuffed into an animal hole behind the building.

Yeah.

But then they also found tire tracks that they made casts of and everything like that, took pictures of, and found pools of blood as well back there.

All the murder accoutrements.

You know, things that are surrounding a murder.

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So back at the house now,

remember the kids back there.

Cops arrive to check on this family because Jennifer called the cops and they find three kids sitting there saying, holy shit, my dad and my mom, we were talking and everything was fine.

Next thing you know, he hurls her down the steps.

He's savagely pummeling her with hands and feet, and then he carried her away and said, We were going to the hospital.

So the cops called every hospital within 50 miles.

Yeah.

And they have no Marilyn DePue being admitted anywhere.

Oh, boy.

So they don't know anything about schoolhouse or anything like that.

Those are just separate and completely separate.

All this is happening.

So they're going to search for Dennis now.

They're searching for a 1984 van with possibly a Michigan license plate of GZ0383.

A tall, white guy with dark hair they're looking for.

They said,

they're also looking for Marilyn.

They said,

she could be out there.

She's about 140 pounds, light brown or blonde hair as well.

So then the next day, April 16th, there are highway workers near a deserted road in Bethel Township,

which is about halfway between

the family home and the schoolhouse where he was.

And they find Marilyn's body

on the side of a deserted road out there.

Someone would kind of have to know the area to know where it is.

She'd been shot once in the back of the head with a 357 and

beaten and everything else.

Yeah, this is not great.

So it's really, really fucking difficult here.

One of her co-workers here said, I had hoped she was alive until I heard they found her body.

Yeah, that's generally how it works.

Once they find the body, you generally lose hope that they're alive.

I still had hope.

I mean,

still fingers crossed.

You know what I mean?

You never know, but

it started to wane anyway.

I was surprised to find out that anything violent happened.

She was very brave because of the way she handled her job and her life.

Now, Dennis, where the fuck is he?

They don't know.

They go to his house where he's living in Baroque, and he's not there at all.

He's gone, no sign of him anywhere.

And so they go to his house.

They search his house, and the Branch County Sheriff Sergeant said there are a few things we've got to check out,

but I don't think it will pan out to much, meaning they have some tips on where he is, but we don't think we're going to find him right now.

They said, we came across new evidence yesterday in a couple different locations that hopefully is going to lead us to him.

So the search, this is he, they're searching his parents' home because that's where he lives now.

They said they didn't know where their son was, they hadn't heard from him.

One of the investigators said, We learned that he was kind of a loner.

Yeah.

And this is, by the way, when they searched the house the day of Marilyn's funeral.

So, obviously, there's warrants issued for his arrest, charging him with murder.

So, they'd love to have a chat with him here.

So,

they're looking for Dennis and they launch

a full-blown effort all across Michigan and neighboring states too to try to find him.

They don't know where he is.

What he starts doing is some weird shit.

Instead of doing anything, he starts sending letters to people.

Oh.

Yeah, all sorts of letters.

Real weird letters, rambling letters,

excuses for what he did, I've been wronged, letters, no remorse, nothing.

From where?

Real Real from all over.

The first letters began arriving about two weeks after the murder.

Marilyn's colleagues at Coldwater High School got a letter from Dennis postmarked from Virginia.

So,

yeah.

He blamed the school staff for Marilyn's death.

Yeah, they did it.

They did it.

Yep.

They made me shoot her.

They said that they encouraged her to seek a divorce and had poisoned her mind against him.

All your friends.

Philly is a victim.

He's a real victim, this fucking guy.

He sent a total of 17 letters to various friends, family members, and acquaintances.

Got a lot to say.

In one, he wrote, Marilyn had many, many opportunities to treat me fairly during the divorce, and she chose to string it out, trick me, lie to me.

And when you lose your wife, children, and home, there's not much left.

I was too old to start over.

There's nothing.

That's what he said.

Woe is me.

I can't do it again.

Yeah, give me a fucking break.

People start over.

You're fine.

All of these letters were postmarked from different states, Virginia, Iowa, Oklahoma.

He's meaning he is on the move

and they never know.

And once they go to the place where he mailed it from, he's long gone.

Obviously.

So after three months, he sends a real weird letter,

a 13-page letter filled with insane bullshit, just

blaming blaming other people, biblical quotations, religious justification for his actions.

Really?

Yeah, this is what God wants.

You know what I mean?

Eye for an eye.

Oh, yeah.

He said he was a righteous man in all these letters who'd been driven to desperate, desperate means because of the unfair treatment he received.

By a Judas of a woman.

That backstabber.

That fucking backstabber.

So one he sent to the Battle Creek Inquirer, and it's an attempt to justify killing.

He uses phrases like an eye for an eye in there.

Oh, yeah.

He said, a life for a life was received Wednesday by the Battle Creek.

He called it a life for a life.

Saying she took my life, so I took hers?

Is that what he said?

He took hers.

That's right.

Real fucking weird.

11-page letter

to the newspaper here.

It was postmarked from Des Moines, Iowa.

It was unsigned, and he said it was his final communication.

Oh.

Yeah.

He said it was

problems between them, their attorneys and relatives.

He blamed the tragedy on Marilyn's attorney also

for encouraging her to issue a restraining order against him.

And he blames his own attorney for not telling him that he could have stayed in the house during divorce proceedings.

You're supposed to know that.

It's your place, man.

I mean, well, I mean, your lawyer should advise you of legal things, but you don't kill your wife because your lawyer didn't advise hire a new lawyer.

That's the solution there.

So the letter calls the divorce legal system a failure and says it needs to be changed.

He accused

the lawyer of trying to hurt her, saying, quote, Marilyn had every right to divorce, but she made a fatal mistake in lying and deceiving to force Dennis out of the house and estranging the children from Dennis, the letter said.

Third person.

He refers in the letter twice during the letter, refers to the movie The War of the Roses.

Remember that movie?

No.

Danny DeVito and was it Michael Douglas is in it, possibly?

It's about two rich people fighting over a divorce.

They're both named Rose.

It's The War of the Roses.

It's a dark, fucking cool movie from like the late 80s, I think.

It's a weird, dark comedy that wasn't really around much back then.

It was cool.

Check it out.

It's about people fucking divorcing.

And she said that if Mara, he said, if Marilyn had just seen that movie, everything would have been resolved amicably.

Okay.

Just needed to see the movie.

He said, all the, you know, the children were bitter from this divorce, and they were all mad at me, and it's not fair.

And it's wild, dude.

It's wild.

The delusions are fucking insane already.

He said he was unfairly thrown out of his house with depression overtaking Dennis

and saying that she was wanting everything her own way and being too proud, too haughty, and too stubborn for her own good.

Marilyn never knew when to stop pushing to get her own way for everything.

She never realized how she was getting all the good things and all the bad things that were happening to Dennis.

The letter says Marilyn chose to throw Dennis over the fence and stay on her side of the fence with the children, house, furniture, and make Dennis pay for college expenses.

Dennis got very, very hurt when Marilyn threw Dennis over the fence.

Oh, boy.

Then said also, she exacerbated Dennis's depression and left him in a hopeless situation with drastically unfair treatment by turning the kids against him.

Right.

Then he said this,

when do people, as a last resort, react with violence?

And he said, when they're treated unfairly and when there's little or nothing to lose.

And then he says, all these things happened to Dennis.

And then he also has a list and giving six interesting thoughts, including do unto others as they have

done unto you.

An eye for an eye, a life for a life.

Here he goes.

Holy shit.

Yeah, all sorts of letters.

By the way, when he disappeared, he took $4,000 in cash that they know he took.

That

they know.

So they know he had some money, but I mean, that's not enough to like live forever or anything like that.

They said none of the letters gave any indication of where he might be or where he might be headed.

They just know he's got an 84 full-size van.

So

after about eight months of this, the trail, it's cold.

There's no nothing.

He stopped sending letters, and that's it.

They don't know where the hell he is.

No clue.

So we know where he is, though.

You know where he is?

And I'm wondering if this is just because this was his dad's name or what, but he went to Dallas.

Did he really?

He went to Dallas.

He went to Texas.

Jesus.

He went to Dallas, Dallas, Texas, where he

changes his name

and just pretends to be somebody else.

That's not going to work, right?

Well,

I mean, he's in the 1970, it could work.

It can work, yeah.

By 1991, that was the very end of that being able to start to taper off, yeah.

I'll give you this.

I'll give you one guess of, I'll i'll give you one a guess

what do you think he changed his name to giuseppe no no no

nothing ethnic i'll tell you that much

did he change it to pensacola he changed it to hank

what hank for a first name yeah that's a i'm a man hank last name queen

hank queen queen what which sounds like a real butch drag queen that's what that sounds like like a big like a you know hairy 350 pound drag queen he's like i'm hank queen that's yeah you know what i mean that'd be a good name for somebody like that right not feminine up at all just no no no

so

like he moves in who's the guy that used to throw the glitter what was his name with the stick not rip taylor uh no the other one uh it's also rip charles bruce valance

charles nelson riley and him too he would come out with the confetti didn't he yeah

these are all like crazy old people from our childhood.

Just flamboyant and masculine flamboyant.

Yeah, yeah.

Yeah.

It's real confusing.

Hank Queen.

Somehow he gets ID and documents in the name of Hank Queen.

Really?

And he starts building a life.

He meets Mary Blizzard.

What?

Hank Queen and Mary Blizzard.

Get out of here.

Shit, you not.

A couple made at Dair Queen.

It's the weirdest fucking thing in the world.

You took my joke in a minute here.

That's okay, though.

It worked there, too.

I was going to say, because they end up talking about getting married, and I'm like, where are they going to have their wedding?

Yeah.

Brilliant bars for everyone.

The queen.

You know it, baby.

Peanut buster parfaits all around.

As far as the eye can see.

They met at a Halloween party at a Dallas nightclub.

Wow.

They dated and they were fine.

By Christmas, Dennis, who had been living in Mesquite, moves into her house in Grapevine.

Yeah.

He's a sports fan.

He tells her that he graduated from Michigan State, said he worked for a publishing company doing illustrations.

You've got to be able to draw to say that.

He always carried cash, but didn't leave the house much during the day.

Nice.

So anyway, she's into him.

He's employed, reliable, and seems to be into her.

So she's like, awesome.

She wrote down his license plate number in the beginning of their relationship because she did that always as a safety measure.

Brilliant.

That's what women, now they just send their friend their location and they keep it tracked.

That's the new thing.

But back then, all you could do was write a license plate number down and hope they'd find that bloody piece of paper clutched in your dead hand as they...

Tuck that right there into the coin purse of

your handbag.

Yeah, the fifth pocket of your jeans or some shit.

So,

yeah, she thought, oh, man,

he was vague about his past, but she was like, a lot of people are private.

Maybe he had know, painful relationships in the past.

This isn't weird.

So Mary would introduce Hank to her friends and family.

He fit right in.

He's polite.

He's a nice guy.

A little weird, though.

Doesn't like to be recognized.

No?

Doesn't like crowds.

Doesn't like social events, which, I mean, he's always kind of been like that.

Didn't really like newspapers very much.

Didn't like newspapers.

Didn't like to watch the news.

Didn't like things like that.

When Mary would say, hey, let's watch the news or let's go out.

he would be like, well, we could do this other thing instead.

Yeah, I'd rather not.

Just in case they run an old cold case or something.

You never know.

I don't want to be, I don't want to ruin it.

So one of the friends said, we'd become a little suspicious of him.

Linda didn't know his middle name.

She knew he grew up in Michigan, but he wouldn't directly say.

He didn't have a driver's license, and she never saw any mail coming to the house.

He was really evasive about a lot of things.

Evasive.

Evasive.

So then on March 20th, 1991, Unsolved Mysteries

comes on TV.

Oh, man.

So they do reenactments of the whole case.

They have Ray and Marie Thornton talking about the abandoned schoolhouse,

the van, everything like that.

Now, this is on TV.

It popped on.

So Dennis is trying to get her out of the room.

He just doesn't want her to be in the room.

So he says, as it starts, he said, uh maybe you know what you could do could you could you make me some sandwiches or snacks

because i got i got to go early in the morning to go visit my sick mother so

you got to make me a bunch of snacks so she's like okay so he's white knuckling through an episode of unsolved mysteries that's featuring himself while she's in the kitchen making snacks and he's trying to like extend it going oh oh you made bologna i really wanted ham there any yoo who's in there can you have some of those uh where's the cold thing it might be in the back of the freezer.

Really look for it.

Could you make some Yoo-Hoo?

Please.

I don't know how you make it.

Just chopped it.

Homemade is better.

Melt some fudge sickles, would you?

So he said that all of a sudden he needed to leave immediately because his mother's condition had taken a turn for the worse.

Oh.

So he's like, oh, my God.

She helped him pack up quickly and he took off.

Now, a friend of theirs had seen the show

and been like, that guy looks just like Hank.

They were like, no, that's, that's got to be a coincidence.

Did y'all see that?

Yeah, she said, people look the same.

But then she thought about it and she said, no, that's him.

Not that the same.

Not that she said, I was watching TV and I thought, oh, Michigan.

And then things kind of clicked.

Like, it kind of looks like him.

But then Michigan and all these other stuff things started popping up.

She said, next thing I know, they flashed this picture on the screen and I had no doubt in my mind it was him.

It was so obvious it was him.

I jumped up.

It frightened me.

So she called Mary and was like, dude, your boyfriend's a fucking murderer.

And she's like, get the fuck out of here.

She goes, no, seriously, Michigan, age, description, America.

Then the girlfriend's like, oh, shit, this could be bad.

Then they found out that she had written down the license plate number.

Remember that?

Yeah.

They had his license plate number on Unsolved Mysteries.

They compared it.

It's the same fucking guy.

Oh, no.

So they're like, oh, shit.

So they call into the

Unsolved Mysteries tip line.

Yeah.

Four hours after that, Louisiana state troopers see him driving his Chevy van on Interstate 20 heading toward Mississippi.

Oh, boy.

So

six hours ago, they were lounging.

Now

he's on the run and the cops are behind him.

Holy shit, they tried to do a traffic stop, but he was not going.

In a 1984 Chevy van, he decides to gun it and make a run for it.

Yeah.

So he's taken off.

It's a high-speed chase now.

Oh, it's going to last for 15 miles and go across state lines.

Really?

It escalates.

More law enforcement joins.

There's cop cars everywhere.

It's now turned like Smoky and the Band that we got going on.

It's going to get crazy.

He's driving recklessly, blowing through fucking traffic lights.

People are swerving out of the way, ignoring commands.

He broke through two police roadblocks with his van, just plowed right through them.

It's crazy.

So finally, one of the sheriffs said, okay, if he tries to go through this road stop, this roadblock, shoot his tires out.

Really?

Really?

And so the sheriff said he drove right through the roadblock,

but officers managed to shoot out a tire.

Then we shot out another tire, and he kept going.

The van turned down the interstate, turned on the interstate or off the interstate and sped down several Vicksburg streets with both back tires blown out.

Oh, boy.

Shot out, I should say.

Sparks flying everywhere, swerving still.

Finally, Finally, he stopped.

4 a.m., March 21st, 1991.

Police surround the van.

Dennis fires two shots through his windshield at the deputies and then fires another shot through the open window.

Oh, boy.

The officers return fire, but the van is packed with boxes and everything he owns, so everything just gets absorbed into the boxes.

They said that they pulled, the sheriff said he pulled behind the van and fired a machine gun into the rear of the the vehicle.

And nothing happened anyway.

Nothing happened.

So officers rushed the van

and they found him dead.

Dead.

Damn.

Damn.

He said his thumb was on the trigger.

He had $16,000 in his pocket.

Single bullet from a Ruger 357 went in his mouth and exited the back of his head.

Dead.

Wow.

He did it with a thumb.

Yep, with his thumb like that, squeezed.

He said the van was full of clothes and boxes, and our bullets were not getting to him.

So he created a perfect little fortress for himself, but he was,

yeah, he was slumped over the steering wheel.

And they said that means it was a suicide because one of the bullets would not have gone in that direction.

They did the trajectory things.

They go, it wasn't from us.

That's himself.

The sheriff said he chose to fight it out, but in the end, he took his own life.

He died with his pistol in his hand, his thumb on the trigger, and 16,000 in his pocket.

And only a few hours earlier, they had told his stories on unsolved mysteries.

That's the quickest resolution.

They said they found bloodstains in the passenger side of the vehicle.

They had the crime lab come in, and they said it was not his blood.

They determined it is Marilyn's blood.

He never cleaned the blood off his fucking out of the body.

Really?

Yep.

So he's buried in the car.

After blood in the car.

Yep, that's right.

Jesus.

He was buried in LaGrange County, Indiana.

And Marilyn was in Oakland County, in like Detroit area there.

It's pretty crazy.

Now, Julie, the middle daughter who was interviewed by Unsolved Mysteries, said she had been excited about the show, but said as it came to a close, the reality of it hit her, what it meant, that it was going to bring a lot of old wounds, that she was going to have to deal with her feelings about it.

She became more hesitant and confused.

Do I really want this to happen?

Half of her wanted her father found, half didn't.

She was scared that if he was found and there were a trial and he went to jail, she would have some obligation to visit him in prison.

She didn't want to do that.

Now, Betty, Marilyn's mother, said, I was terribly upset.

I couldn't sleep.

I'd wake up through the night.

Things would flash in my mind.

I think he did a lot more to Marilyn before he shot her.

Scott told me he had kicked her in the face and stomped on it.

I still get an empty feeling in the pit of my stomach.

I remember her coming in to see me when I was so sick.

She was the kindest person there was to everybody.

I'll never get over it.

Now, very quickly, 2001, there's a movie called Jeepers Creepers.

Remember this movie?

Yeah, yeah.

There's a scene completely based on this.

Really?

Yes.

Apparently, they said they've never acknowledged the connection, but the opening scenes of the film is the exact thing that Ray and Marie Thornton said on Unsolved Mysteries.

Two people driving home from college when an aggressive driver in a truck nearly runs them off the road, and later they witness the same driver dumping what appears to be a body wrapped in a bloody sheet behind an abandoned church.

And that's how the whole thing starts.

So there's some legacy to this too.

So there you go, everybody.

That is insane.

Fucking, that's a crazy case.

I mean, it ends in a chase and machine gun fire, for Christ's sake.

It's crazy.

So wild stuff there.

What a day that is.

What a day.

What a day, Mark.

That day, Mark.

That was crazy.

Yeah, think about that.

He was just eating dinner, kicking it in a recliner.

And then...

By the end of that night, he's

shot himself after

a fucking multi-state chase.

This is crazy.

So, wow, we got to get to the end here.

We're just about out of time here.

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