#590 - Murdering As A Family - Jonesboro, Arkansas
This week, in Jonesboro, Arkansas, when someone is brutally murdered, in their own kitchen, a huge mystery unfolds. It seems like there are plenty of people who wanted this person dead, including the man's own father. But when a tip is called in to detectives, the terrible plot becomes clear. It turns out to the a cold, calculated plot that involves a conspiracy, with 4 people in on the murder plans!!
Along the way, we find out that the potential for tornados in this town are way scarier than any murder, that when you're kicking people out of their homes, some of them may have murder to kill you, and that no matter how many people want to kill you, you need to be the most careful about those closest to you!!
New episodes every Thursday!
Donate at: patreon.com/crimeinsports or go to paypal.com and use our email: crimeinsports@gmail.com
Go to shutupandgivememurder.com for all things Small Town Murder & Crime In Sports!
Follow us on...
twitter.com/@murdersmall
facebook.com/smalltownpod
instagram.com/smalltownmurder
Also, check out James & Jimmie's other show, Crime In Sports! On Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, Wondery, Wondery+, Stitcher, or wherever you listen to podcasts!
Listen and follow along
Transcript
Heads up, California.
There's a statewide special election November 4th.
Active registered voters will receive a vote-by-mail ballot that can be returned at a drop-off location in person or by mail.
Rest assured, your vote is secure.
You can even sign up to track your ballot.
Your vote is your voice.
Use it.
Don't delay.
Vote right away.
Get more information or check your voter status at sos.ca.gov.
A message from the California Secretary of State.
Looking for an exceptional driving experience, find it behind the wheel of a Mercedes-Benz SUV.
Experience the power, precision, and intelligence of an iconic Mercedes-Benz SUV at your local Mercedes-Benz dealer today.
Hello, everybody, and welcome back to Small Town Murder Express.
Yay, choo-choo!
Oh, yay, indeed, Jimmy.
Yay, indeed.
My name is James Petrogallo.
I'm here with my co-host.
I'm Jimmy Wistman.
Thank you, folks, so much for joining us today, all aboard the murder train, pulling away from the station, because we got some crazy stuff for you, as usual, today.
Very strange goings on today, and some weird alliances.
It's just a real weird case, as usual, today.
10 pounds of murder in a two-pound bag,
like Express is.
Before we get to that, very quickly, head over to shutup and give me murder.com.
What do you get there?
You might ask.
Tickets.
Tickets, tickets, and also merchandise, everything from coffee cups to skateboards, but tickets to live shows, including the virtual live show.
419, April the 19th.
It's our 420 virtual live show.
But you're saying, I'm listening to this and it's already passed.
Doesn't matter.
You got two weeks.
Still there.
Still there.
Two weeks to buy it, purchase it.
You can watch it 100 times.
Do whatever you want within that two weeks, just like a regular live show, except in your living room.
Can't wait.
We got costumes that we think you're going to enjoy and all sorts of strange smoking apparatus for Jimmy to be scared of.
Going to be a lot of fun.
Also, while you're there, get your tickets for May the 17th at the Riviera in Chicago.
The night before in St.
Louis is sold out.
So if you want to see us in the Midwest, that is the place to do it.
So thank you so much for everyone that has.
A lot of the shows toward the end of the year are already sold out or close to it.
Yeah.
If you want to come to a show, get those tickets now.
Shut upandgivememurder.com.
Also, get Patreon if you want extra stuff here.
Patreon.com/slash crime in sports, which is the name of our other show that you should be listening to because it's very funny.
But check that out.
And anybody, $5 a month or above, you are going to get a first hundreds of episodes of bonus stuff you've never heard before to binge on.
And then new ones every other week.
One crime in sports, one small town murder, and you get it all, man.
Every one of them.
This week, what you're going to get for crime and sports, we're going to talk about, we're going to go back to fraternity hazing and do a part two because I feel like we were an hour into it and I felt like we were two minutes into it.
I was like, this is crazy.
We need another hour with this stuff.
So we'll do that.
Then for Small Town Murder, the Lori Vallo Day Bell trial that's going on in Arizona where she's representing herself.
Oh, boy.
And oh, boy, is that a party.
Let me tell you.
I have watched every second of that trial, so we got some real fun stuff.
We'll show you why it's a bad idea to represent yourself.
Don't do that.
They say anyone who represents themselves has a fool for a client.
You didn't go to school for that.
She proves that rule.
Let me tell you something.
That'll be a lot of fun.
Patreon.com/slash crime in sports.
And you get a shout-out at the end of the regular show.
That said, I think it's time.
Jimmy, let's sit back.
What do you say, everybody?
Clear the lungs.
Arms to the sky.
Let's all shout.
Shut up
and give me murder.
Let's do this.
Oh, buddy.
Hey.
Let's go on a trip.
Yeah.
Shall we?
Let's do it.
We are going to Arkansas this week.
Oh, boy.
We know it's going to be something crazy when it's in Arkansas.
It always is.
You guys have some creative murders down there, let me tell you.
This is in Jonesboro, Arkansas, which is kind of a little bit of a bigger town, but not a big city by any stretch of the imagination.
If you've ever seen any of the West Memphis 3 stuff or any of that stuff,
not a real big place.
This is in Northeast Arkansas.
About an hour, an hour and five to Memphis, which is right there.
About two hours the other direction to Little Rock.
Sure.
It's kind of in the the middle.
And an hour and 20 to Horseshoe Lake, Arkansas, which was our last Arkansas episode, Kill and Let Live,
which is the one where someone had their family member killed.
Then
they ended up taking the murderer in when they got out of jail, and then the murderer killed them too.
So it's like, you know, come on.
Population here, 77,520.
And it's bigger than it was at the time.
Median household income here is low.
Normally it's about $69,000.
Here it's $48,901.
Why is it growing?
It's lower.
Yeah, it's because I think
it's cheaper than Memphis, maybe, is what it is.
Median home price here, $197,900, which is under $200,000.
You don't see that a lot.
Yeah, it's real low.
Motto.
People, pride, progress.
You bet.
Yeah.
Wow.
I was going to say there's a couple words.
There's people there, probably.
And that other part.
There's people.
History of this town here.
After the U.S.
acquired Arkansas as part of the Louisiana Purchase, that's when American settlers started making their way around Jonesboro.
Yeah.
Started out with hunting and trapping and trading with the local tribes and all that kind of thing.
Permanent settlement was established here in 1859 when the county
was established, Craighead County there.
Craighead.
Craighead, head of Craig.
The first courthouse was destroyed by a fire in 1869.
History should just be called old-timey fires.
That's what we should go.
Let's go to the old-timey fire section and tornadoes.
I've got old-timey fire too for second semester.
It's going to be good.
Yeah, it's a
2.0.
Old-timey.
That's good.
You got to have that.
I think it's a prerequisite.
I think so.
You have to have that to graduate.
A store across the street from the court was rented.
They just said, we'll take your store and use that as the courthouse.
You know, sit up by the cash register there, the judge.
That was destroyed by a fire seven years later.
So that didn't work out either.
They burnt plastic for your warrant.
So then another building was constructed on the same site of the second fire.
And then two years later, it burned.
Are we sensing a pattern here?
Stop building with wood.
A major fire that destroyed most of
downtown Jonesboro.
So then they constructed another courthouse.
That lasted until 1934 when they just built another.
No, no, no.
1968, an F4
struck Jonesboro.
That's the other farm.
It's not on fire.
It's being blown into the fucking Mississippi.
Maybe if it's on fire and then it's blown while it's on fire, it'll spread it.
At least put the fire out.
Yeah.
34 people died.
Got fire.
Jesus.
It struck at 10 o'clock at night.
People going to bed.
Sleepy ones.
May 27, 1973.
An F4 struck Jonesboro, killing three, injuring 289.
$60 million in damage in 1973 dollars.
So that's like, what, 80 billion today?
Who knows?
Then a large, destructive F3 tornado struck them in 2020.
Are you sensing a pattern?
I hate how funny this is.
Well, it's, and it's so religious there.
Do you take a hint that God does not want you there?
They don't.
How do you?
Literally trying to blow you away from the area.
It does not want you.
I guess it pushes you the other way where you're like, please, Jesus, stop.
I guess.
I don't know.
This
caused severe damage to the mall at Turtle Creek.
Yeah.
So the mall's all fucked up.
The Chess King is full of garbage.
Reviews of this town, because we've never been there.
I've driven by it.
Well, I can't now.
I'm scared to death.
I guess.
You've got to check the weather constantly.
Jonesboro, here's five stars of a review.
Jonesboro is a very personal town.
I don't know what that means.
It is a big town, but the town is small enough to make very personal connections.
A lot has changed since COVID-19 and the tornado came through.
The tornado.
The tornado.
That's what they're doing now.
There are many changes that took place, but it has helped us to not take Jonesboro for granted.
Okay.
Or too seriously, because it's about to go away.
This guy says he's going to continue to support the town as it's rebuilding slowly but surely from this tornado that destroyed them all.
The tornado.
The tornado.
Three stars here.
This is a long one, so I'm just going to read one line of it that's important.
A lot of it is just boring.
Tornadoes will be a constant threat to this area for the majority of the year.
So if that scares you, you might reconsider moving here.
It's all fornaddy.
If it doesn't scare you, what the fuck have you been through?
What are you doing?
Two stars.
We're a military family.
We had to move here since my husband became a recruiter.
We've seen many other places.
And let me tell you, for being such a small place, there is more shootings per year than El Paso with half a million population.
That has half a million, more than five times as many people.
Other than that, we can't wait to get out of this mosquito hell and get stationed wherever as long as it's not here.
Anywhere else.
Alaska, great.
I'll buy a parka.
Fuck it.
One star, finally.
Mosquito hell.
Mosquito hell.
One star.
I've never been to a worse town in my entire life.
Wow.
Crackheads are everywhere.
I've seen villages in Serbia that look better than this trash hall.
I've been to 16 countries and lived on three different continents.
And Jonesboro is one of the most ugliest, most disgusting places I've ever seen.
I will never go back there for any reason, ever.
I'd rather be in war-torn streets.
Jesus Christ.
And by the way, because we had a couple of people in Wyoming get mad at it.
These aren't our reviews.
We're just reading other people's reviews.
It's on the internet.
You can see it.
We threw a five-star in there.
We've got to have balance.
I don't know.
Things to do here.
Local Fest.
That's literally what it's called.
Local Fest.
Come see the locals.
It says they're going to showcase artists, artisans, businesses, comedians, musicians, and so much more.
Oh, those poor comedians in that one.
Poor comics.
Oh, boy.
Oh, can you imagine?
In between two bands with like a magic guy walking around with kids in the crowd.
What a fucking nightmare.
But they have a lot of music here.
Yeah.
I'll read them off.
Lucas Tyler.
Yeah.
Zach Childers.
Yeah.
You know these people?
Yeah.
Oh, you do?
No.
Okay.
Zach Childers sounds like the,
that's just a country singer.
It's like Tyler Childers.
He's terrific, but I don't know this guy.
Tyler Zach, the same thing.
If I ever hear a country song from now on, I'm going to go, it's Zach Childers.
I know that.
And everyone will go, yeah, probably.
It sounds right.
James Carvel, not James Carvel, James Carvel, different guy.
And if somebody calls him,
honestly.
Just be like, no, no, no.
I'm talking about who wrote the song.
The original Zach.
It's Zach Childers.
You know, you think this is Luke Bryan, but Zach wrote this.
Zach knows what's up.
Joe Bateman.
That's Jason.
Jason and fucking
his brother.
Zayden G, who's an Elvis tribute artist.
That's one person?
One person.
Elvis tribute artist.
Striding the blast.
Okay.
Okay.
Jay Ray.
Not Ray Jeff.
Not Ray Jeff.
I was going to say J Ray.
He did that.
He made a sex tape with a different Kardashian.
No blowjobs from anybody.
It's J.
Ray.
J.
Ray.
Aaron Walters, Nathan Younger, The Last Monarchs of Fall, Just Jeff.
Is that what it's called?
Just Jeff.
Hi, I'm Jeff.
Electric Voodoo Explosion.
Welcome to Local Fest, everybody.
I'm just Jeff.
Welcome to Local Fest.
Here's Jeff.
Just Jeff.
Hi, guys.
I'm just Jeff.
Play you some songs.
Zach Childers wrote me this one.
I think you'll like it.
That said, let's talk about some murder, everybody.
What do you say now?
We have this down down.
This does not sound great.
No.
All right.
First, let's talk about a man, Mark Despain, or Despain, I guess it is.
Probably Despain here.
Yeah, D-E-S-P-A.
D-E-Spain.
Right.
Despain.
Of Spain.
Yeah.
Despain.
He is born April 16th, 1977.
Parents' names are Jack and Tana.
Tana?
T-A-N-A?
Tana, right?
I'm going with it.
It's probably Tana.
I guess Tana.
Down in the Arkansas.
It's Tana.
Tana.
The sound ah doesn't really exist much.
And their mom tried to give her the name Tanya, but she said it real quick.
She got a Y in there or an I or something.
She had that epidural kicking.
She said, Tana.
Tana, just T-A, there's an N and something in there.
I don't know.
Put it in.
I can't feel my toes.
And it's wonderful.
Never felt that.
And I kind of like it.
I kind of like it.
Grew up in Jonesboro.
He's a 1995 graduate of Nettleton High School.
He was a member of the football team.
He's a big football star there and stuff.
So kind of small town, Arkansas kind of guy.
Now, he meets a young woman when he's 19.
He meets an 18-year-old named Michelle Kelly at the time.
And she is 18, already has a daughter from a previous relationship.
Not a girl.
So, she's coming into this with a child.
Through
Arkansas.
Busy.
When they met, she's 18, he's 19.
Yep.
And she's a pretty young lady.
Sure.
And
when he met her, she was sitting on top of a car.
That's my gal.
gal.
Which is on the roof.
Dude, and for, think about when Mark is born, 1977.
So he came up watching like white snake videos.
If you see a chick on a car, that's just hot.
It doesn't matter if she's hot.
It doesn't matter if it's a 70 fucking seven Nova.
It doesn't matter.
It's hot.
Although, license to drive did take all of the mystique of that being sexy out of it.
Kind of.
When she was dancing on the roof in her high heels, just scratching the motherfucking.
Destroying the Cadillac.
He still wanted to fuck her, though, didn't he?
You're destroying my grandfather's car, and I still want to have sex with you.
Why?
Because you're on top of a car.
I don't know what it is.
Circles with your heels on the roof.
But to be sitting up there, forget about it.
So they start going out.
Before long, she's pregnant again.
Oh, man.
She's fertile, this one.
Yeah.
You got to be careful on this.
And you're leaving it in there.
Oh, yeah.
This is not.
She's making babies.
Yeah, she's in.
This is not into, which is weird, too, because at the time, we're talking mid-90s.
I mean, it's not like anyone, everyone knew about condoms by then.
Yeah.
Yeah.
They were pretty...
It's constant.
Yes.
Oh, it was.
If you was watching MTV, every other commercial was for safe sex and shit.
It was, for lack of a better term, rammed down your throat.
We all knew so much.
There were jokes and movies.
They were everything.
That's everything.
So that is, at that point, and in Jonesboro, if you got a girl pregnant, you better marry her.
You're about to have a baby and get married.
The last guy didn't take that
to heart, but this guy does.
Mark's, I guess, a decent guy.
Spain's a good fella.
So they basically had a shotgun wedding.
Yeah.
Mark and his parents here.
Now, her parents are divorced.
Her mom and her dad, Kathy and Carl,
there.
So
everybody was there and everything like that.
Mark's parents bought them a trailer to live in.
And Mark started working for the family real estate business.
So they're not poor people, his family at all.
So they can help them out a little bit, which helps.
They get married.
This is 1996.
They get married and all that.
Mark, by the way, happy to help raise the daughter from the previous relationship.
Doesn't care.
So
we're all one family here.
This is us, yeah.
So they end up having two sons.
Oh, boy.
These two here.
The one that was from the beginning of the marriage, and they have another one a couple years later.
Now, after a few years,
Mark and his family start having business problems.
Sure.
Meaning, not that the business is going bad, but they are fighting about the business.
Oh?
Yeah.
He worked for a number of years with his parents, but had a big argument with them, so he leaves to start his own.
Yeah.
He wanted a bigger slice of the money.
He's going to compete.
I think he's going into something slightly different, too.
But he wanted a bigger slice of cash, and Jack said no, his dad, and then that was that.
The mom here said the fight really began between Michelle and Jack, not Mark and Jack.
Oh.
But Mark stood up for his wife, and that put pressure between him and his dad.
Yep.
She's like, you're screwing my husband over.
And she said, he said, who the hell are you?
Say anything.
And she said, that's my wife.
That's who it is.
The lady that wants to have the foundation under the house.
That's who I am.
You know the argument.
Yeah.
The lady who'd like to be on a fucking concrete slab.
Yeah.
So I guess that was a big deal.
And the mom said that when Michelle said something, then the dad just flipped out.
Flipped off the handle and really had a freak out about the whole thing.
So he said, okay, I'm starting my own real estate appraisal and investment business with his wife, he said, with Michelle.
So Jack was like, good, fucking fine with me.
You do your own thing.
Now, Jack later said, my wife and I both wanted to be separated from Mark and Michelle as far as the business was concerned.
They were tired of it there.
So Mark does his own thing.
Michelle helps out.
She's like the bookkeeper and does paperwork and all that kind of shit.
Apparently, Mark had some balls.
Yeah.
Everybody said.
He bought some trailer park.
Oh.
That was, everybody was like, that's a huge piece of shit.
What are you guys, what are you, the hell are you doing?
And he ended up flipping it and making about $100,000 in profit.
So people were like, okay.
Piece of shit, what?
Well, look, he knows what he's doing.
So he figured out how to do that and how to flip things, and that's what he was doing.
So he starts making a shitload of money.
Yeah.
Starts doing really, really well.
They move out of the trailer.
They move into an absolutely beautiful, nice, big four-bedroom home with a big swimming pool.
And, you know, whole deal.
I mean, American dream shit there.
They go from the trailer to a big, not only a foundation, a basement.
Yeah.
You can go underground.
Hole underground for when that F3 comes through.
And then another one to swim in.
Got many holes, my friend.
Got many.
Bought me a couple of holes today.
Smart Manny figured out you can sell shit and still make money off it.
Walmart's done it for fucking 50 years.
You have to find underpriced,
undervalued assets, and you can flip them to
make money.
It's like people do on eBay or whatever.
It's all kinds of stuff.
Yeah, they do that with everything.
People have, they go out to thrift stores and just buy crap.
I can make $2 on that and $3 on that.
All of a sudden, I got $5.
Yeah, look at that.
So they ended up, they're working very hard, Michelle and Mark.
And apparently, you know, material things are
aplenty.
We're buying them.
They're flowing.
The kids get anything they want.
They're swimming in the pool and, you know, all that kind of shit.
They go on multiple vacations a year.
And they're not going to like, you know, hot springs.
They're going to Jamaica and Cancun and shit like that.
Several times a year, yeah, real vacations and islands, and people that you know don't want you there and shit like that
for a couple weeks a year, each time.
Yeah, like a week here, week there.
It's a lot.
So, there's an incident that happens known as the incident to these people.
It's the tornado.
No, no, no.
This is different.
Yeah, this is a tornado that goes through their life.
Apparently, Mark and Michelle
found topless photos
of Michelle's teenage daughter.
Nope.
Okay.
On
Grandpa Jack's cell phone.
What though?
That's the accusation.
So, yeah, that was a big deal.
Michelle would later say he just immediately stood up for Brooke and stood up for me.
Brooke is the daughter.
So
the
Tana ends up, or Tana, whatever Tana, ends up leaving Jack over this.
Really?
Yeah, she leaves Jack, ends up that she ends up coming back to him because it was learned later on it was found out that apparently Brooke had borrowed Jack's phone
and the pictures were selfies she took them herself took them herself on his phone and you know they were she didn't realize it she didn't remember no no apparently she had taken the photographs of herself and was sending them to a boy
From grandpa's phone grandpa's phone what the fuck Brooke she didn't have her own phone so
that's how she was sending them away so then they blamed Jack yeah and uh I guess it came out that she said, I was sending him a boy.
Yeah.
Ended up coming out.
Oh, so she probably had some guilt.
And then was like, now grandpa's.
Broke up the family.
Yeah, now Christmas is.
You're not even related to these people, by the way.
And you've already.
So,
and that's
just a messy situation.
A teenage girl.
I mean, who the hell knows what was going on?
So they said there was never any charges filed in that case.
And now Tana ended up going back to Jack and saying it looked like a cruel plan cooked up by Michelle to try to.
So, but that would
mean that Michelle went to her teenage daughter and said, listen, first of all, get your tits out.
Number one.
You got a friend?
Second of all, is there any boys that you'd like to see those?
Well, here's what you're going to do.
Use this.
Which would be maybe the worst parenting move I've ever heard of, possibly.
I mean, close.
It's a.
But what this also sounds like to me is
they already don't like her.
That's part of it.
That is very evident.
Oh, yeah.
And boy, is it
prevalent?
They don't put it past her to do that.
That's how that's how low
they think of her.
So, yeah.
And then Tana later on said, we found out later that Michelle had just decided to put Brooke up to doing that so that it would draw a wedge between us and the family.
That is a
big accusation.
It would make more sense if the kid was just trying to do it.
If she did it from one of her parents' phones, she thought they might find it and figured Grandpa Jack doesn't know shit about phones.
Yeah, I'll never see this.
That's kind of
Occam's razor anyway, but probably just deleted the messages and didn't even think about the camera, the phone.
The picture's still staying in the middle.
Who knows?
The teenagers, their brains aren't formed all the way.
So this is what happens.
They're not good at this.
Well, she forgot to delete it.
So we don't put them in charge of anything because they'll forget things.
They can't even be in charge of their own goddamn lives.
No, no, not at all.
So apparently, the father and son, though, never spoke to each other again after that.
Jack's done with him.
Yeah, and he's done with Jack because he thinks, yeah, so it's a big deal.
So either way, Michelle is telling him that this is what happened.
And who knows?
So Michelle here by the 2000, the late aughts here, 08, 09, 10, she's working at a local bank in addition to helping Mark with his business.
Now, you go, why is he, why is she working?
Yeah.
If they're doing so well.
Because they're not.
Because they're not.
Because it's real estate in 08.
Oh,
2010.
Banking is not a good time to be in either.
Well, if you're a teller, I guess it's fine.
I wouldn't want to be investing in any of them.
But for the real estate business, that's tough times.
Yeah, not easy.
So now, Tana said originally about Michelle before the whole Brooke debacle, I liked her.
And as their children began to come along, I thought she was a good wife and a good mother.
And that was before.
But she said, he always worked hard, whereas Michelle spent money hard.
That's what Tanna said.
But Mark.
Would tell me he liked them to speak.
He liked being able to provide.
I work hard so that we can have have a nice time.
It feels good to buy your family ship.
It does.
It feels good to be able to provide things.
So Tana said she liked to buy things for the kids and it was always extravagance, including vacations at resorts.
She said sometimes three and four times a year to Cancun or Jamaica.
Every three months?
That's too much.
That's a lot.
That's a lot.
I don't know who the hell you think you are vacationing like that.
That's crazy.
That's just arrogant, isn't it?
Every 90 days you're in another country?
That's like you may as well just live there.
And that's what she wants to do.
She wants to be an expat and live somewhere opulent.
She just wants to go out to exotic.
They both do.
They want to bring me
vacations.
The two of them, they want to take the kids.
Tana said the more money that Mark made, the more things she wanted.
She liked to associate with people who had money.
She liked to rub elbows with bigwigs.
Why?
She was into it.
I don't know.
Who made her feel important?
It's the last thing I want to do.
But some people like to be like, ooh, I'm in with the important people who they deem important.
So
the problem is
around 2010 and all that, 2011, money troubles are coming up big.
Apparently, he
went to Michelle's mother to borrow some money to get gifts for them and stuff because he didn't have any money.
And she said he was kind of embarrassed to have to come to get money because usually he has a lot of money, but he needed to buy Michelle a birthday present.
So
it was bad stuff.
A lot of Mark's rental properties were upside down in value.
The banks are closing in on shit.
Tenants are being forced out of the homes because they can't afford to pay the rent.
So it's a lot.
So
he's kicking a lot of people out, pissing off a lot of people, by the way, as you can imagine.
Yeah, the guy who's booting everyone out is not a popular guy.
No.
So that's a lot.
Now, Wednesday, August 24th, 2011.
All right.
Here's Michelle's day.
Went to work at the bank.
She ended up going out to lunch with Mark that day and then coming back to the bank by like 1.30.
And then at 2.30, she takes off, telling the people at the bank she had to go home that afternoon to pick up some bills that needed to be paid.
She's off early then.
She's taking off early.
Well, whether she's off early or not, she's going home.
She's going.
So she got home.
She said there's no lights on in the house at all.
Yeah, 2.30 in the afternoon.
And what lights are you leaving on when you go?
Yeah, what the fuck?
So she said the house was completely ransacked.
They were just torn apart.
All the drawers were open.
All their shit was thrown on the floor.
There was like clothes in the bathtub.
It was a very weird thing.
Broken glass everywhere, she said, all throughout the house, crunching glass as she walked around.
A jewelry box had been opened in the bedroom, you know, shit strewn about.
So she walks all through the house.
Then she gets to the kitchen.
And on the kitchen floor is Mark.
Oh.
Very dead.
Yeah.
And very bloody.
Oh.
Two gunshot wounds.
Oh, no.
Not looking good good at all.
And Michelle said she shook his leg and said, Mark, and he didn't respond, you know, because he's got holes in his head.
And then she freaked out.
So that's what she said.
She said that, quote, and he was laying on the floor and there was blood coming all out from behind him.
And I shook his leg and said his name.
And I looked around and there was stuff on the floor everywhere.
And I got scared.
And I put it together, this is not good.
This is bad.
I should leave.
So she ran outside and called 911.
She told the 911 operator she doesn't know if there's someone in the house and she's afraid for her own safety.
So they told her to stay out of the fucking house, obviously.
So she calls 911 and does all of that.
Then she goes and bangs on a neighbor's house to try to get into their house.
Nobody answered.
So she called her mother, Kathy, and then Kathy came to be with her.
And then basically, everybody ends up in the yard pretty soon.
Heads up, California.
There's a statewide special election, November 4th.
Active registered voters will receive a vote-by-mail ballot that can be returned at a drop-off location in person, or by mail.
Rest assured, your vote is secure.
You can even sign up to track your ballot.
Your vote is your voice.
Use it.
Don't delay.
Vote right away.
Get more information or check your voter status at sos.ca.gov.
A message from the California Secretary of State.
Looking for an exceptional driving experience?
Find it behind the wheel of a Mercedes-Benz SUV.
Experience the power, precision, and intelligence of an iconic Mercedes-Benz SUV at your local Mercedes-Benz dealer today.
Police get there, and it obviously looks like a burglary that went bad.
Maybe somebody can't pay their rent.
Perhaps.
So there's one gunshot wound to the left side of his chest and one in his head.
Both shots from close range.
Shotgun?
No, no.
Just gunshot.
A handgun, yeah.
Pistol.
So they said there appeared to be one gunshot wound to the left side of his chest through his shirt and a second bullet wound in his head.
That was the kill shot.
It was inflicted from very close range after he'd fallen to the floor.
Oh, from the first shot.
Yeah, so he went down, and they came over, finished him off.
He said that the detective said, I refer to it as an execution style, almost directly between his eyes.
Is that how you refer to it?
A lot of people refer to it.
I was going to say, I refer.
I came up with this term.
I just coined a real nice one.
Listen, it's called.
I think it's kind of clever.
I think people are going to pick up on it.
I don't know.
I like to say.
I like to say this.
It's fun to say.
But directly between the eyes.
So that means he was probably still alive and had to see it coming.
Saw it.
Yeah.
Which is pretty
cold.
Yeah.
So they said Mark not only went all the way to the kitchen, but they noticed that on the kitchen table, there is ice cream sitting there melting and his cell phone right next to the ice cream.
About to have some ice cream.
About to have some ice cream.
So, which is funny because that, not funny, but if you follow the OJ case really closely, Nicole Brown Simpson had some Haage-Dash melting in there when this all this happened.
So it just made me think of that.
So they said, they looked all around and the cops said that the weird thing is that like
TVs, computers, all that stuff, not touched.
All left alone.
All that's left alone.
All the high-ticket item shit is all left alone.
Very easy to move, less traceable.
Yeah, that's what I mean.
So
they look at that and they're like, huh, that's interesting.
The fact that his keys, cell phone, and ice cream are right on the counter, and the fact that he and his wife had went out and gotten ice cream and he brought that home says that they think that it's probably he walked in, got ambushed, and was totally off guard.
Just put his shit down like a normal thing, and somebody was there and popped out.
So they're looking at the burglary, and Detective Vic Brooks said, when I first walked in, I noticed there were some papers that appeared to be knocked on the ground, and there were some broken glass and stuff like that on the floor.
So they said that, you know, the jewelry case was toppled over like somebody was looking for something.
But as they look at the items that have been left behind, like the computers and TVs and all that thing, and it's just a weird thing, too.
And it's very personal in the forehead type thing.
It's real strange.
So then they said that they believed that it wasn't a burglary and instead a planned attack
because somebody attacked him before he even got the ice cream put away.
So they got him right then.
Probably if it was a burglar, they might hide for a little while or something.
They're not going to be like, as soon as this guy walks in, I'm going to shoot him.
That's a lot.
So they believe the person was already inside the house when he got home.
Had to be.
And it said it looked like whoever entered the home that day was not there to steal, but to kill.
So what do you do?
And the kill had to, nothing was broken or anything, but before.
They did it after.
Yeah, probably.
Or we might have broken it up beforehand.
Probably after nobody wouldn't want him to notice it.
So police go around and question all the neighbors on the street.
And they are informed of two separate sightings that they thought were odd in the neighborhood.
One is a black guy.
I don't know if it's that or if it's just a black guy.
They said they had never seen this particular black guy on the street before that day.
So
they also saw a blue Mercedes that appeared to be circling the neighborhood.
Separate things.
Black guy walking, Mercedes circling.
So they were trying to figure that out.
So they go, okay, that's something to put on the shelf for later.
It's just somebody that was seen in the neighborhood.
So they try to establish, does he have any enemies?
So many.
And they're told by a shitload of people, fuck yeah, I hate that guy.
Fuck that guy.
Like, he's got a lot of enemies.
A lot of people told them that he was a ruthless, ambitious businessman.
He kicks people out of his places.
And I mean, he's just, he's an ambitious guy.
He's a businessman.
It's a tough way to be, but it's the only way to be.
Doesn't make any fucking friends, though.
It's when you're dead on the floor, people go, I didn't like him either.
That's not great.
I mean, a lot of people probably, yeah.
So the day of
this whole thing,
they don't
only speak to Michelle briefly at the crime scene just to say, you know, you came in, what time, and to do all of that.
But the detective said, you're speaking with an individual who's just lost her husband.
At that time, she was upset.
So I waited until the following day to conduct a formal interview with her.
But they do a lot of other shit putting together before that.
So they retrace Mark's steps because he wasn't supposed to be home at that time at that day.
Oh.
It's not a time when he always comes home.
It's not like you could watch him and find a pattern.
This was an aberrant thing.
So that, or they're thinking either that he surprised somebody who thought he would be gone, or this would be a person who knows exactly.
Land it.
It knows exactly where he is, even when he's not supposed to be somewhere.
They know.
So that would be someone very close to him.
So one or the other.
Either way, it's either somebody incredibly far or somebody incredibly close.
Incredibly close, yeah.
Can't be in between.
Either real diabolical or just terrible luck for a burglar.
One of the two.
And him, obviously, more.
So Michelle told police that she met him for lunch that day.
They went to a place close to the bank where she worked.
She said she was back in her office by 1.30 and then left at 2.30 again to get some bills.
And that's when she found Mark.
And that is all corroborated by security camera footage and all that kind of thing.
So does anyone hate Mark?
They asked her.
Who hates, who really hates Mark?
Not just, oh, he got an argument with some guy at the gas station.
Who hates him?
And her answer is, his father.
True.
That's 1A, is it the father.
So she said, I mean, I hate to think his dad would do anything like that because it's his son, but he is just very, very cold-hearted, meaning the father.
She said that Jack's just a cold-hearted guy.
She told them there'd been some trouble due to an incident that happened between a 13-year-old Brooke
at the time.
Wow.
That's awkward.
13.
That's, yeah, that's crazy.
Who found him?
You know what I mean?
Did he find him?
God damn.
I don't know.
I'd be horrified.
Or did the wife find him?
Fuck.
That's a lot.
So
now, Michelle's father, they talked to him too, because Michelle's father works for Mark as a rent collector.
So they talked to him.
And do you know anybody that would, you know, the business people?
Do you know anyone that would hate him?
And he said, this is Carl Kelly, the dad, Carl Dwayne Kelly.
He said that.
Jack, that's the guy.
It's Jack.
He said, I've heard him threaten him in the past.
He said, yeah, if I was going to point a finger at anybody, if that's what you're asking, I'd point it at Jack.
That's what he said.
He said, he's told Mark he's the devil hisself.
Hisself.
He's the devil's advocate, which is not the devil.
The devil's advocate's a totally different person.
He's told him that more than once, and he believes that.
Oh, Carl Dwayne.
Carl Dwayne.
He said, Jack told Mark, I will ruin you and your family.
I've heard him say that.
Yeah.
Well, that means you, motherfucker.
You're part of it.
Yeah.
He said, I went deer hunting with him and everything else.
He treated me real well, talking about Mark.
He said, Mark was nice to me.
And he said, yeah, Michelle said the same thing.
He's got a really good relationship with my family, just not his own family.
So they said,
you know, they keep looking around.
And then everybody they talk to, multiple people, five, six people,
said the same thing.
They said, yeah, Mark told me that if anything ever happens to me, look at my dad.
He's the one who did it.
My dad did it.
So they're like, hmm, all right.
He calls me Kiana Reeves.
It's so weird.
Such a strange thing.
So
detectives talk to Jack, obviously.
They're going to interrogate Jack, and Jack says we fell out over money and business shit and all that kind of thing.
And that's what it was.
And due to Michelle always.
And Jack told police they should look into Michelle's movements the day his son was killed because he believed that she's involved in some way.
Okay.
So like some deflection, yeah.
Pointing fingers at each other.
Yeah.
He told police that his son returned home that day to get a bow for hunting, and Michelle would have been the only person who knew he was home.
So there you go.
Now, he also said, quote,
he was hard-nosed, my son.
He was not a very good people person.
As long as he could get that dollar out of you, he'd turn around and crap on you and walk away.
You know, that's the way he was.
Good kid.
Nice guy.
I raised him well.
Me and his mother raised him right.
We're very proud.
Turn off the old piece of shit.
Turn off the old old log.
Here, turn off the old log, my friend.
The detectives are taken aback that
this is their son.
His son was killed that day.
Yeah.
And he's saying this.
They're like, Jesus, dude.
They said you would do it.
And you're kind of telling us.
Nobody likes my son, including me.
That you would do it.
And then he tries to, Jack then says, I think Carl was in on it.
Oh, C.D.
Yeah, meaning the father-in-law there.
And my suspicion is that, you know, he did finally piss off Carl enough that he actually done something like that.
That's, once again, I'm not trying to point the finger.
That's just a concern.
That's what Jack says.
I'm not trying to point any fingers at somebody that just gave you their name.
I'm just saying a guy probably murdered someone, not accusing him of nothing, though.
You know what I'm saying?
If you're looking for a murderer, I'd investigate Carl Dwayne.
That's all I'm saying.
And I don't want to point fingers.
That's exactly what he said.
You tell, you know, not trying to point me.
Wow.
So, Jack tells, Jack tells the detectives that Mark was constantly rude to Carl.
He said, I have seen him personally, how he had just treated him like a dog.
Yeah, he said, Carl's told me that he's going to kill me personally, but he's also told my son that, you know, then why does he still work for him?
That's the thing.
Why would Mark have it?
We heard that about you.
Jack claims also an angry Carl even waved a gun around one time.
Oh, he said, quote, and quote, and said, I'll just kill your ass right now, and had the gun pointed right at me.
And he also blames Michelle.
He said, I know how he treated her pretty much like he treated his father-in-law.
Does she have anything to do with it?
That's another slight suspicion of mine.
Not trying to point any fingers.
Now,
not trying to say nothing about that.
I'm just giving you exact names and
facts.
That's all it is there.
Not pointing any fingers.
But I know investigator.
So they look into the incident, by the way.
Jack told police that Brooke had been sexting her boyfriend, and Jack found the photos and threatened to tell her parents, but she told them instead and said that Jack had taken the photos
and that were on the phone.
What the fuck, Brooke?
And that's when that started.
She tried to minimize
and realize that she was maximizing.
Yeah.
And also that they're selfies, too.
Yeah.
So that didn't work.
So much worse.
So when all that came out, it ended up that Tana ended up moving back.
And Jack said at that point, he said he was just
fucking, you know, his life was a mess.
He said, I could have opened up my own whiskey store.
I think there's that much whiskey.
Oh, that he was drinking.
Drinking.
I drank too much, and typically I don't drink.
Well, that was just to kill the pain because everybody assumed that you're abusing your own granddaughter.
Oh, my God.
That's horrifying.
Poor Jack.
So they said, did this maybe drive Jack to take some revenge against these people now?
It's a pretty, yeah, pretty easy jump.
Jack said, no, he wanted to reconcile with Mark.
I'd rather drink and take it out on me.
Yeah, he said, I'd want to reconcile with Mark.
And also, Jack said,
that whole afternoon, I was miles away at my own house.
And the alibi is checked out.
And
people,
you know, they're going to check that out.
But other family members came down to the police station and said, don't be fooled by Jack's tears.
He's a violent guy.
What is going on?
Yeah, so that's a lot.
That's a whole lot.
So police check out his alibi, and it turns out he was where he says he was.
His alibi checked out.
He was fixing his roof at home, which is the best thing to be fixing when you need to be seen because everyone in the neighborhood sees you.
You're on top.
You're standing in the chimney house.
Yeah.
Making all kinds of noise.
Your neighbors hate you about it.
Fucking, yeah.
That's the most.
Oh, he was roofing, trust me, because I was trying to take a fucking nap and just caught tap, tap, tap, tap.
I was trying to watch Wapner.
Fucking taking this whole thing.
Judge Judy didn't like it either.
So he also said, I didn't feel anything as being fake from him.
He appeared to be a broken man at the time, the detective said also about Jack.
So now they have to widen their investigation because Jack himself didn't do it.
He was on the roof.
Maybe he hired somebody, but he himself wasn't there.
So, and if you were going to have somebody murdered, you'd probably go on your roof and start hammering that day.
That's a great plan.
Yeah, that's like you might go into, that's like when people go to a store to be seen on the surveillance footage walking around.
So it's very weird.
So Jack, they said he had just lost his son.
So the detective said he was convinced that Jack's grief was genuine.
He said from all the interviews and everything that I've done over the years, it was very obvious that Mr.
Despain was representing and showing true sadness.
He was being honest.
So he's the first one to be cleared as a suspect.
Right.
And they verify everything where he was.
So then they turn their attention to Michelle because they have to interview her anyway.
And
they find out from asking around that they weren't exactly such a perfect couple after all.
Number one, there are two insurance policies on Mark,
each one of them for $500,000.
So there's a million dollars at stake here on one guy.
She didn't say that at first.
Then
they said that they found out that not only that,
Michelle has been having an affair with somebody from the bank.
What?
Yes, for quite a long time.
By the way, a 24-year-old guy from the bank.
Wow.
Yeah, she's like 34.
So she's going out and getting some live cut.
Wow.
So not only was she having an affair with him,
she also paid his rent and bought him groceries and anything else, his car insurance and all.
She was paying for this guy.
He's doing great, evidently.
Got a gumar on the side over here.
She's got this.
It's like a mob guy with his second wife here.
That young man cracked the Da Vinci coat.
That's genius.
Yeah, I guess so.
I think once people start coming up dead, I'm running away from the situation.
Oh, shit.
You don't want the married one.
You just want an older lady to take care of you.
That sounds great.
Wow.
So the detective said, Michelle told me that she was having an affair with a co-worker, a young man.
I believe he was 24 at the time.
Mark did not know about this.
Oh.
So they said that the detective said she was paying his rent.
She paid for him to move, bought him groceries.
And Michelle said in her interview here, I gave that guy, that young guy, a lot of money.
So they also found out that Michelle, they thought she was swindling money from the real estate business as well, too.
Yeah, she's got bills.
Yeah, and Tana said they were in a tremendous amount of debt.
I'm talking over $2 million.
Oh, my God.
A lot of debt.
And the detective said, looking at the books and everything, it appeared they were living well beyond their means.
They were just spending money like they were still making it
before the, you know, the market fell apart.
So they said that this was causing a lot of friction at home.
And then the detective said, I believe that Mark had finally become a little bit suspicious as to the events as they were happening.
Michelle told the cops that Mark did not know about the affair, but the cops wonder if that's true or not, or did he find out?
So
they ask him, they ask her, did Mark ever ask you for a divorce recently or anything like that?
And they said, Michelle, did Mark ask you for a divorce recently?
And she said, he didn't ask me for a divorce.
What did he ask you for?
What is that?
Yeah, that's what I mean.
If someone says that, I go, what am I,
what what lines am I reading between here?
Because that's not known.
What bullshit are you trying to pull?
So the detective obviously got the same shit.
And he said, well, what did he tell you?
Yeah.
And she said that he didn't know if we would stay married after the kids were grown.
Okay.
Which is, I mean, that's, we're growing a pair of people.
That's not, I'm filing papers.
Yeah.
That's, I don't want to ruin the kids' lives.
I don't want to upend anything.
Let's just keep it together until they graduate, and then we'll just go our separate ways.
That's all.
Have adult kids with divorced parents.
They have them all the the time.
Well, once they're gone, they're adults, and that's not
our fault anymore.
Listen, you grew up without psychological damage.
Now you deal with it.
Go have your own children.
Therapist is that way.
Enjoy.
You can pay for it too now.
Yeah, because you got your own insurance.
But you get your own kids.
You can make your own fucking traditions.
You don't need to come to mom and dad's house.
So she said that he hadn't, but he also told her that he couldn't see the future.
So they also discover here, they find out that about all the debt and everything.
PS, that's like the worst thing you could say to somebody.
You know, we're not going to, yeah, that's right.
Yeah.
What are we going to do?
Sit here and stare at each other for the next 10 years until they go.
It's so bad.
So she, well, though, ended up getting a million dollars in life insurance out of this.
Yeah.
So, but the police don't have any evidence against her or anything else.
Surveillance footage from the bank where she worked confirmed exactly what she said.
She was at the bank when this happened.
Michelle met her father, Carl, at the bank right around the time they think the murder was happening.
And Michelle, the surveillance footage confirms that.
So that's, you know, I mean, what do you do?
Also, what does that do for her?
A million dollars puts her still a million in debt.
Well, if he's dead, there's probably some of it that's wiped or yeah, it's probably, well, a lot of it's the business.
Oh, the business is in debt.
That's not, that's not.
Yeah, that's why you LLC yourself.
So to avoid that.
So Michelle's neighbor here
said that I thought it was odd that she was standing calmly in the middle of the lawn after her husband was shot.
They said that she was just talking on her phone.
They said she didn't appear to be grieving at all.
It wasn't like she was like, you know, running around asking for help and all that kind of thing.
Mark's sister said, I think what bothered me the most was how clean she was.
Like her hair was still perfect.
Her nails were still perfect.
What would you, and they said, well, would you have expected an interview?
And she said, oh, well, as brutal as it sounds, I don't know, some blood underneath her fingernails or something like that, where she tried to get down to try to help him.
You know, grab him and see if he's okay.
She kicked his foot.
Shake a pant leg.
Shake a fucking Docker fucking leg real quick.
It looks like you have a headache.
Oh, no.
And then run away.
Yeah.
All right.
Then an anonymous tip comes in.
Here we go.
Okay.
Yeah.
Someone who has nothing to do with any of these people called up and said that they know a guy who has been bragging around that he's the guy who killed Mark.
Oh.
Okay.
So they're like, okay, who the fuck is that?
So the guy they say did this is Terrence Odell Barker, known on the street as Quaylo.
Really?
Quaylo.
Yeah.
Old Quaylo.
Close.
Nope.
So they bring in old Quaylo for questioning here, and he denies being involved in Mark's death.
And he said, I suppose, quote,
I suppose to Bin shot a motherfucker.
I didn't shoot no motherfucker.
So if he didn't shoot no motherfucker, you know, that's whatever.
So, the police go, well, we have evidence against you because when we got your picture and showed it to all the neighbors, you're the black guy they said was walking around the neighborhood.
You don't live anywhere fucking near there.
You don't have any reason to be there.
So, what's up with that?
They said, as a matter of fact, your cell phone records also, the towers say that you were right by his house.
You were there.
You don't know this guy.
So, why are you there?
They said also that you were seen in a blue Mercedes right before
just before Mark was shot.
So they presented the evidence to him, and he said, okay, I shot him.
Oh my God, I did it.
I did it.
He just spills it off.
That's supposed to be, but I ain't done it.
I guess I've done it.
I did this.
Yeah, I did it.
I shot him, motherfucker.
You got me.
You got me.
So he said that he promised to shoot Mark for somewhere between $7,000 and $10,000, but never got a dime of it.
From who?
That's the thing here.
Now,
who the fuck is driving this car?
Because he's walking.
Johnny Hubbard is his name.
Johnny Hubbard.
Old Johnny Hubbard, police found the driver, and there he is.
And Johnny Hubbard would say, yeah, Terrence Barker there.
Quaylo is the guy who did it.
Hubbard said, quote, he said he shot him in the side, then shot him in the face.
Jesus.
Exactly what happened.
So they said everything lined up with the evidence as it showed.
Everybody's admitting it.
So they go, that's the thing.
How the fuck do you know Mark?
Right.
Heads up, California.
There's a statewide special election November 4th.
Active registered voters will receive a vote-by-mail ballot that can be returned at a drop-off location, in person, or by mail.
Rest assured, your vote is secure.
You can even sign up to track your ballot.
Your vote is your voice.
Use it.
Don't delay.
Vote right away.
Get more information or check your voter status at sos.ca.gov.
A message from the California Secretary of State.
Your global campaign just launched.
But wait, the logo's cropped.
The colors are off.
And did Legal clear that image?
When teams create without guardrails, mistakes slip through.
But not with Adobe Express, the quick and easy app to create on-brand content.
Brand kits and lock templates make following design guidelines a no-brainer for HR sales and marketing teams.
And commercially safe AI, powered by Firefly, lets them create confidently so your brand always shows up polished, protected, and consistent everywhere.
Learn more at adobe.com/slash go/slash express.
Our diets today are dominated by ultra-processed foods packed with sugar, low in fiber, and cause issues like diabetes and high blood pressure.
What if you could transform that processed food into real food that nourishes your body?
That's what Munch Munch does.
It absorbs excess carbs and sugars from the food you eat, blocking them from your body so you can enjoy your favorite meals with fewer calories, more stable blood sugar, and better gut health.
It's like turning apple juice back into apples.
Visit MunchMunch.shop today and start transforming your food into fuel.
So they discovered that Johnny Hubbard knew knew Mark because he was one of his tenants.
Yeah.
One of his tenants.
Johnny told police, Johnny Hubbard, that
Carl Kelly, Michelle's father, approached him about killing Mark.
He came to collect his rent and was like, how'd you like to have free rent for a minute?
I can't pay.
Well, we're behind.
I'll wash it.
If you do this.
If you drive this.
So they discovered that Hubbard was one of the tenants and that Kelly, Carl Kelly, had approached him about it.
And the detective said, if you don't do what he tells you, you'll be on on the street.
Is that what he threatened?
And Johnny said, Yeah, that's what he said.
We're going to kick you out of your shithole apartment.
So Terrence became involved when Johnny asked him if he wanted to make some money.
This all started with Johnny Hubbard.
I need your help.
Yeah.
So then they went to a church parking lot to meet Carl and discuss shooting Mark, the two of them.
So Terrence said he would do it.
Yeah.
He said he had no idea who Mark was, had never seen him before in his fucking life.
I don't care.
Didn't care.
Seven to ten grand.
So according to Terrence, Carl gave them the gun that was used to kill mark yeah he showed him mark's house and told him where to wait inside in the house uh but according to terrence though wasn't just carl what else he said that michelle was giving her father instructions that he said the wife was giving the father instructions of where the guy was going to be and it was what the shit going to me father uh daughter father tenant.
Then they find texts here.
The detective said Terrence Barker's statement is that Carl Kelly provided him with a firearm in order to do that with,
but they think Michelle's the one calling the shots.
They said that Michelle or Terrence Barker, he stated to me that she was giving play-by-play to her dad.
She sent him multiple text messages, including one sent the day of the murder at 8.20 a.m.
from Michelle to dad, quote, has to be today.
Can't live like this.
Awful this morning.
What is her problem?
And Carl said, okay, can you get him to lunch?
Fine.
You should probably leave then.
Well, okay, let's murder him is the answer.
I'm re-shingling, but
that was Jack.
Yeah.
Jack's guts good.
He's lucky he was re-shingling that day.
So the phone records indicate that Michelle and Carl sent several text messages to each other on the day of the murder, the majority of which were deleted the same day.
Yeah.
Bad sign.
Phone records show that Mark didn't want to meet Michelle for lunch.
He was saying, I'm busy.
She insisted they went out for lunch, then insisted they go for ice cream after lunch, too, and extend the whole thing.
That's why you get ice cream.
They're not at the house yet.
Let's go get cold stuff.
We got, oh, no, no, come on.
No, I really want ice cream.
Come on.
Apple pie a la moat.
Wow.
So the record showed that while they were in the ice cream place, she was in constant text with her father,
touch with her father via text.
That's a fucking psychotic thing.
She's eating her sundae going, oh, this is just my dad, and giving.
Oh, my God.
That is cold.
Colder than ice cream.
Yeah.
Colder than Coldstone.
You're about to die today.
Hold on.
Yeah, we'll take mix-ins.
We could mix up a cold stone on her body.
She's so cold.
She's cold.
So Michelle's mom
is not surprised, by the way.
Michelle's mom and Carl have been divorced.
And she said, I knew what Carl was capable of.
That's why I divorced him.
He had explosive temper.
She said that he would never hit her because he didn't want to leave a mark.
She said, quote, he would hold a gun to my head, hold a gun to your head.
That doesn't leave marks.
No marks, but scares the shit out of you.
So basic plot.
Police think that Michelle asked Mark to meet her for lunch that day, allowing Carl the opportunity to get to Terrence, get him, you know, going inside the house, setting him all up, and waiting.
A text found on Michelle's phone was initially supposed to be deleted by her, but was later used by the police to fuck her.
She forgot to delete a couple of texts.
Michelle pretended to be shocked when she found Mark dead.
Obviously, that's part of the whole plot, but, you know, we don't know.
We know the real story.
She's a bad woman.
So the investigators discovered Carl had been talking to other people and told them that Mark had been physically abusing Michelle and he was tired of it.
So they said that
they found that no abuse ever happened, though, when they looked at it.
Of course not.
So that was a lie.
So that's kind of one of those.
The investigation uncovers the also a total of a million dollars.
So the detective said it was greed, it was money.
And Tana said it's always about the money with Michelle.
Oh, my word.
So what does Michelle have to say for herself when presented with all this?
Bad, bad, bitch.
Got some spleen into it, Michelle.
She initially denied everything.
Of course.
And then she said, okay,
you're right about my dad, but I wasn't involved.
Maybe my dad did it.
She said my father was involved.
That's how it works.
But I didn't know that till after Mark was dead.
I just found out.
Yeah, so this is, you know, it wasn't news.
So they went, well, you know, what are you talking about?
The detective said, I have the man that shot your husband, the one that killed him in jail right now.
She said, you know for sure.
Yeah, we know.
Yeah.
And the detective said, yes, ma'am, he's in jail.
Okay.
And then they said, at this point, I'll also be arresting your father.
And that's what she said, my father?
What'd he do?
What do you mean?
And the detective said, quote, yes, ma'am, your father will be arrested for murder.
I have all the information, all the evidence I need.
And Michelle said, not Mark's father?
It wasn't the guy I thought, but I said you should arrest him.
Yeah.
The detective said, no, ma'am, your father.
Yeah.
Carl Kelly's responsible for setting up this, setting this up partly to have your husband killed.
So then she turns on her father and says, and
they ask her basically,
were you going to split the life insurance with your father and all that?
So she turns on it, on the father hard here.
The detective said, the implications are, and everything else that's been gathered on this, is that money is supposed to have been coming from you.
Uh-oh.
He's greedy and lazy.
What would he get out of this, meaning your father?
So you're getting all the money.
Your father's lazy.
What are you going to do?
And Michelle said, he would think that I would take care of him.
And then she said that she doesn't, I quote, I don't want to talk about this again.
And he said, I know you don't.
And then she said, I want an attorney.
So they go, sure, he can talk to you in jail because you're under arrest.
I don't want to talk about this anymore.
The judge sets a million-dollar bond for her.
That's funny.
And they said it's because she,
with all that cash, she could flee.
So, you know, now she can give all that cash away if she wants to flee.
So, Terrence here, okay, Terrence Barker
in court.
They take him to court, and he agrees to testify against anybody and everybody that they need him to, gives up all the details of everything.
He doesn't mind.
He didn't even get paid yet.
He never got a dime for this.
He killed a stranger in his own house for nothing.
For nothing.
Absolutely.
They couldn't even find shit that was missing from the house.
He just ransacked it.
So he's an honest murderer.
He could have stole shit, too, but he didn't.
So he is going to plead guilty to first-degree murder here.
And he is told, you, sir, may fuck off 35 years in prison for you.
Not bad.
Not bad.
There's a parole up pretty quick, though.
Now, Johnny Hubbard is going to plead guilty to hindering apprehension and the revocation of probation from a prior drug charge.
Now, he is sentenced to, you, sir, may also fuck off, 18 years in prison plus another 20 years for violation of probation on the drug conviction, and they'll be running consecutively.
38 years.
38 years.
He just probably because he sold some weed a few years ago.
Fucking not good.
Whoops.
Whoops.
Now, Papa Carl, now, he's in court.
He's also going to plead guilty.
They have all the, I mean, it's just text messages.
They can just read the murder plot.
He's got to go to that.
He's stupid.
Yeah.
And everybody, except for Lori Vallo, when you have text messages that show how guilty you are, they fucking plead guilty, except she goes, no, that doesn't mean that.
You know what that means?
No, I just said he was a zombie.
In context.
So
he pleads guilty to first-degree murder.
During sentencing,
Jack and Tanna are going to speak to him a little bit here.
Tana says, How could you, Carl?
God damn it, Carl Duane.
I love when when they talk directly to the, not just like a speech, like, this has hurt my family.
You son of a bitch, Carl.
God damn it, Carl.
Carl, why are you such an asshole?
Something about that directness of the, of right to his face.
Carl, it's your fucking problem.
God damn it, Carl.
After all Mark had done, you just snuffed out his life without a thought of anything but the smell of money you thought was coming.
Wow.
Yep.
She said that you, my son has bought you,
bought you your family home and paid for vacations for you.
He did all this stuff for you, and this is what you do.
His money has put me in a house?
Yes, they helped put him in a house.
So she said, This is how you repaid his love for his family.
You've been nothing but the sorriest, low-life, scum, grandstanding, blow-hard bully from the start.
Fuck yeah, Tanna.
Lay it down.
Sorriest, low-life, scum, grandstanding, blow-hard bully.
Dude, that is like grandstanding.
That's mic drop.
Holy shit.
Shit.
That's awesome.
She could be a rapper.
He's a worthless piece of shit, isn't he?
Yeah, he is.
Carl sucks, man.
She told him so.
And he raised a terrible daughter, too.
They're just bad people here.
Grandstanding piece of shit bully.
God is amazing.
That's sorry, low-life scum, grandstanding, blow-hard.
That's a lot to...
It is.
For a regular person who's like flustered and
under the gun, that's a lot to come up with.
And she wrote it succinctly, but it's like, it's not, it's not hacky.
It's not from anywhere else.
She put Blowhard.
Who gets called a Blowhard?
Blowhard bully, grandstanding.
Grandstanding.
That's great.
It was like the scenes from Do the Right Thing when they're all
going racial slurs on each other.
That's what that seems like.
She nitpicked him
specific as fuck.
Laid down the law, Tanna.
So Jack also said the same thing, called him a, quote, piece of scum, lower than anything I've encountered or heard of on earth.
It was hacky until he was like, you know what?
There's not even a word for it.
I never heard of you.
In Antarctica,
under the first ice layer.
I've heard tell
down there.
There's a certain four-celled
shit eater.
It's a four-celled creature that lives under there and literally shits and eats its own shit and then redoes it over and over again.
You, sir, are lower than the excrement.
The pace of the shit that's been going back and forth around in there.
For 12 billion years.
You 12 billion-year-old shit, recycled shit turd.
That's all you are, just over and over.
You're a shit turd is what you are.
That's right.
You've been in and out of this being 100, 200 times.
So
thank you, Your Honor.
Thank you.
Thank you.
I was ever meant to say that.
And they'll let him say it, too.
They let him say anything on there.
So they said that when his son's money began ranning out, that he, Carl received, thought that he wasn't going to get his money anymore, wasn't going to get taken care of.
So Jack said, I was pissed at you from the beginning.
Yeah.
This is in court.
Yeah.
I've been out of you a long time.
Listen, piece of scum.
I'm pissed at you.
Hello, shit, turd.
Wow.
Carl, hear me now.
Yeah.
Shit crap, turd.
If I could take your life and bring my son back, I would, as they say in your stupid opinions.
If I could give you zero stars, Carl,
I would.
So, Carl says this: quote: I didn't know what I was doing.
I'm very sorry for what I had done.
Oh, Carl.
And then he says, I wish it never happened.
What a
spineless coward.
Well, he is a blowhard.
He was a sorry, grandstanding, blowhard, bully, scumbag, piece of scum, shit turn,
amoeba excrement,
whatever the fuck you want to call him.
So
then they said, this is the judge here and said, or this is the prosecutor saying, we have not entered into any of these pleas without the consent of Mark's parents.
We've been able to obtain guilty pleas from three of the four defendants.
Mark's parents have been in full agreement with our negotiations.
She's fighting it.
She's the last one.
Well, they got all three of them, and all three of them agree to testify against her.
So now they're putting the pressure on her to plead because it's like, we have everybody that's going to say that you started this.
And you're going to be a little bit more.
Her dad's ready to say you're an asshole.
Sorry.
You know, you turned on him.
He's turning on you now.
And they say that, quote, we will now focus our sights on the final defendant, which sounds like pretty aggressive.
Yeah.
And he is sentenced to, you, sir, may fuck off 35 years in prison.
Not bad.
Again.
They say here, this is the detective.
Oh, no, this is.
Okay, yeah, this is the prosecutor again.
With Kelly's guilty plea and sentencing, and thanks to the good work detective Vic Brooks and the Jonesboro Police Department, the state is one step closer in obtaining justice for Mark and his parents.
Today's proceedings will allow us to focus our time and resources on the Michelle DeSpain case.
Here we go.
Oh, boy.
So, Michelle pleads guilty.
Yeah.
Yeah.
That's.
What are you going to do?
She pleads guilty to a lesser charge of hindering apprehension.
What?
Not conspiracy to commit murder.
Hindering apprehension.
Not even insurance from sentences.
murder, yeah.
Hindering apprehension, yeah.
There's not even a
hint or inclination that murder's involved.
That's crazy.
According to the plea agreement, the state said they agreed to the arrangement due to uncertainties faced at pre-trial motion hearings, so evidence they needed wasn't being allowed in.
Oh, probably the fact that she was the beneficiary had to be, because that's the only reason.
That would be allowed in.
Yeah, that's the first thing.
There's no reason to not allow that.
What are you going to fight with that?
That's conspiracy as fuck.
Totally fucked.
So, yeah, they said potential risks to evidence admissibility during trial, the state's unavoidable reliance upon uncertain testimony from previously convicted defendants, and the burden of providing unanimous proof beyond a reasonable doubt.
She could say anything about those three guys.
And they could come up and change their minds about it.
Who knows?
So they said she entered the negotiated plea, pleads guilty to three counts of hindering apprehension and prosecution of capital murder.
And that means she would not face a capital murder charge herself.
As part of the agreement, she waives her right to appeal, which she doesn't really need to because we'll find out here.
She's served nothing.
So Mark's parents said they were afraid that if she went on trial, there was a chance she may be found not guilty, and they wanted her to serve something.
So Mark's mom said, I felt Michelle was the ramrod of it.
I think Carl and Hubbard and Barker were just taking orders.
I just know that in my heart.
She said that the detective, Vic Brooks, never gave up.
He told me he would get her, and the day they arrested her was the best best day of my life.
They sentenced her.
You, ma'am, may fuck off 30 years in prison.
But whoa, okay.
That's in 2014.
Heavy.
But she got the lightest sentence of the group, which is crazy.
30 years on that charge is that's intense.
But
that is, she's up for, that's 2014.
September 2019 is her first parole hearing.
After five years?
And they let her out.
No way.
They fucking let her out.
No way.
Five years.
Five years.
That's a bad woman.
Out.
Oh, boy.
Residents of Arkansas.
Don't fucking wear.
Somebody's in danger right now.
She did five fucking years.
I guess
six, if you count jail.
And under the cover of COVID, they released her.
September, before that.
September 2019.
Right.
So the fucking tornado didn't even hit you.
No.
The big one didn't even come through.
Maybe it took her.
From what I understand, she's still around.
Wow.
Yep.
I looked her up.
She's kicking around right now.
I won't give her a location or anything like that because I don't want anybody to bother me and try to fucking attack her.
Be careful.
She's dangerous.
This is crazy.
It's a dangerous shit.
It's a chick named Michelle.
Don't dangerous.
Don't, don't, don't.
Yeah, that's that's bad shit.
So that is terrifying.
Five years she got for that.
That's she orchestrated.
She's having an affair with a 24-year-old.
The age doesn't matter, but she's having an affair with a 24-year-old, fucking signing all this shit.
Embezzling money from the family business to do
all this shit yeah kills has her husband killed has her manipulates her dad her father yeah into hiring people to kill her husband for money yeah and she gets five years for that oh that is and she's out there's people sitting on death row for that yeah that's i just want people to understand that that's a dead ass serious that is insane allegation and she did it
and she pled to it wow oh amazing now
beware of her, but don't beware of the other Michelle Despains because there's a few of them that are actually well-known.
Well, maybe just beware of them.
It's not them.
Just in case.
Well, this one, I don't think you have to worry about.
Michelle Despain Hoger.
She's an Argentinian-American luge athlete who competed for Argentina in the 2006 Winter Olympics.
Okay.
I think she's probably good.
Yeah.
And you can't catch her anyway.
She'll luge away from you.
You'll never find her.
Just support her.
Fuck her shirt or whatever.
And then a Michelle Despain, who has a book here on Amazon called called The Late Bloomers Almanac, Cultivating Mind, Body, and Soul Throughout the Year.
All year long.
Yes.
And I know this isn't this, Michelle, because the book came out in 2014
when she was in prison.
So yeah, I don't think she was doing that.
It's $29.99.
Jesus Christ.
Seems like
you must be a late bloomer if you're willing to pay 30 bucks for your fucking paperback.
Not doing that shit.
So there you go.
Oh, my God.
There's Jonesboro, Arkansas.
Stay the fuck out of Arkansas.
Jesus, tornadoes.
If not tornadoes, killer women and their fathers.
Why isn't that in the review?
If tornadoes don't scare you, maybe killer women do.
Yeah, and their fathers.
Watch out for that.
Killer families.
It's not even, yeah, the whole thing.
So, because I mean, she wouldn't have done it if she didn't have somebody willing to do it.
Yeah, because she couldn't do it.
I don't think she could do it, and I don't think she would have known where to go to get somebody.
I don't know, but the father does.
Figured it out.
I blame Carl a lot here.
So there you go.
There's Jonesboro.
If you like this show or anything about it, please get on whatever app you're listening on and give us five stars because it really helps drive the show up the charts.
So thank you for doing that.
Also, shut up and givememurder.com.
Tickets for live shows.
The 420 virtual live show takes place Saturday, April 19th.
If you're listening to this and it's already passed, you go, oh, well, that's no good for me.
Yes, it is.
If it's within two weeks of that, you can still order it.
You can get it.
You can still watch it 100 times, do whatever you want with it, and get tickets for the Chicago, Illinois Riviera show.
That is going to be May 17th.
St.
Louis is sold out the night before, so don't let St.
Louis beat you guys.
Do you want to be second to St.
Louis?
No.
In anything besides the NL Central
drunk coaches.
Yeah.
Nobody can top them there.
So do that.
Come see us and come see a live show.
It's going to be a lot of fun.
Shut up and give me murder.com.
Also, you want to follow us on social media at Small Town Murder on Instagram, at Small Town Pod on Facebook.
Certainly do that.
Definitely get Patreon.
Sure.
Patreon.com slash crime in sports is where you get all of the bonus material.
And there's so much.
Anybody $5 a month or above, here's what happens.
You subscribe, five bucks, you immediately get hundreds of bonus episodes you've never heard before.
I mean, just a whole other stream to binge, and it's crazy.
So there's so much there.
Then you get new ones every other week, too.
New crime and sports and new small town murder.
Every other week, you get that.
So four a month, and we do, and you get it all.
Everything.
So
this week, what you're going to get for crime and sports, we're going to dip our toes back into the fraternity hazing waters and hear some other shit.
Last time, Ben Franklin was involved in a man being burned to death alive.
And soaked him in brandy like a cigar.
So, I'm telling you, dude,
this is a lot of shit going on.
And then, for small-town murder, we are going to talk about the current ongoing, by the time this comes out publicly, will be over with because they're already doing jury instructions, but the Lori Vallo Daybell trial, of which I've seen every second.
The fun part, she's representing herself, and it is wild.
The fun part may be that we get
closure in that episode about it.
That'll be fun.
There's so much to call closure.
She's got another trial starting though for the attempted murder of somebody else.
The two of us might have some rage-filled rants.
Oh, it's going to be fun.
Oh, I've seen, I have had an ass full of Laurie.
I've watched her for six hours a day, dude.
We sit there working every day.
I'm watching Laurie.
I know it all, man.
I can't wait.
You guys are all right.
I know it's not to hate her.
Oh, my God.
It's going to be amazing.
So check that out.
And that is patreon.com/slash crime in sports.
And you get a shout-out at the end of the regular show as well, too.
Jimmy, you'll fuck your name all up.
That said, thank you so much for joining us.
If you want to follow us on social media, you can do that very easily.
Shout up and givememurder.com.
Drop-down menus take you everywhere you want to go that has to do with our shows.
Thank you so much for hanging out with us.
And until next week, everybody, it's been our pleasure.
Bye-bye, Michelle.
I've got to fax training updates, post seven job ads, and edit a 700-page manual today?
There's a better way.
Cornerstone Galaxy AI agents boost productivity by turning static content into smart conversations, personalizing learning, and handling admin tasks all in your workflow.
Don't work like it's 1989.
work like it's now.
Visit Cornerstoneondemand.com to see how AI can help.
Cornerstone's workforce development platform lets humans do what they do best and AI do the rest.
Visit Cornerstoneondemand.com.
Our diets today are dominated by ultra-processed foods packed with sugar, low in fiber, and cause issues like diabetes and high blood pressure.
What if you could transform that processed food into real food that nourishes your body?
That's what Monch Monch does.
It absorbs excess carbs and sugars from the food you eat, blocking them from your body so you can enjoy your favorite meals with fewer calories, more stable blood sugar, and better gut health.
It's like turning apple juice back into apples.
Visit MunchMunch.shop today and start transforming your food into fuel.