#588 - Four Letter Murder - Falkner, Mississippi

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

Yay, Jo Cho!

Oh, yay indeed, Jimmy.

Yay indeed.

My name is James Petrigallo.

I'm here with my co-host.

I'm Jimmy Wistman.

Thank you, folks, so much for joining us today on another absolutely insane murder-stuffed episode of Small Town Murder Express.

10 pounds of murder in a two-pound bag, everybody.

And we got a wild one for you today that ended up with Christian Slater's involved in this.

Great.

You know, it's weird when we've somehow wrangled Christian Slater into the episode, but it's all there.

We'll get to that in some time.

That's a break from being a scumbag in Young Guns to being this one.

Oh, my God.

It's so weird, too.

The time, we'll talk all about it.

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That said, I think it's time, everybody.

I think it's time to sit back.

You say, let's all clear the lungs here.

Arms to the sky.

Let's all shout.

Shut

up

and give me murder.

Let's do this, everybody.

Okay.

Let's go on a trip, shall we?

Let's do it.

We are going down to Mississippi this week.

Yeah.

We are heading down there to Faulkner, Mississippi.

Okay.

There we go.

F-A-L-K-N-E-R.

Faulkner.

This is in northern Mississippi, way on up north up there.

It's about an hour and 20 to Memphis.

That's the closest place.

So that's up north for sure.

It's about five hours to Wiggins, Mississippi, which was our last episode down there, which was Biting Off More was the name of it.

That was the one where the guy was biting off parts of another person that you don't want to bite off.

It was pretty crazy.

Population in this town, 514.

Teeny tiny.

This is a s real small, small town.

Median household income here is about $55,000 a year, which is well under the national average.

Median home price here, this is crazy.

This is the median home price, $125,400.

That's a lot of free.

That's just, yeah, you just, what's my mortgage?

Like $50 a month?

Sounds great.

It is a shit.

Our town's bigger.

Wow.

History in this town here.

A little bit here.

The creation of this village of Faulkner is related to the railroad coming here.

Colonel W.C.

Faulkner was the president of Ripley Railroad Company.

Good stuff.

So that's how they did it.

The first and only depot was loaded where it was located for this company, where the town of Faulkner is today, and was called Faulkner Station.

And then they just shortened it and they built a community around it.

Listen to how cheap this is.

They incorporated the community in 1992, but the aldermen of the town later abolished the incorporation to avoid paying their share of the construction of Highway 15.

They didn't want to pay their share of it, the cost.

Cheap bastards.

And then once they figured all the roads are built and they don't have to pay for anything, they reincorporate it again in 1962.

Cheap.

Cheap.

No one from this town allowed to drive on that highway.

Sorry.

Just getting citizenship of Canada for April 13th through 16th.

So weird.

So reviews of this town.

There's only two.

Here's five stars.

I've been living in Faulkner because, or I'm sorry, basically my whole life since I was very young.

Well, that would be your whole life.

Yeah, that's that's you tend.

Yeah, your life, life tends to start when you're very young.

That's how it works.

I even enjoy living here because of my family and friends.

I recommend people to visit it sometime, even though it is a very small town in Mississippi.

Yeah.

And then

there's nothing to do here at all.

And there really is.

This is not a lot to do kind of a place.

Four stars here.

Faulkner is a very small town.

The community is very close to one another.

You'd have to be.

There's no one else around.

What else are you going to do?

There is one school in the town.

I like it there because small towns are basically like a big family community.

I would change that there would be, that there be more job, more options job-wise.

Well, yeah, then you wouldn't all be so close as a community if there was

different places to work.

You guys all work at the same three places.

So, yeah, that's community.

Things to do here.

I don't know what's happening up here, but this is crazy.

The Boots and Dukes trail ride/slash field party goes on up here.

Boots and Dukes is something important, though.

Let me show you a picture.

Oh, oh, no.

It's like a black thing, too.

That's like Boots and Daisy Dukes.

Yeah, that's what it's for.

Boots and Daisy Dukes and four-wheelers.

And the posters are all like black ladies and boots and ladies, yeah.

Yeah, half naked, which is just this area.

I wouldn't picture like a

big like black people gathering.

Black people gathering to ride trails is like I never heard of that, but I mean I'm sure

bring a hot chick whose ass and tits are out and bring the kids.

Bring the kids.

Well, it says, get ready for a good old country time and countries with a K for some reason.

I don't know how that works.

Let's ride through the trails followed by a good old field party with live music and fun.

It says, welcome y'all to the Mid-Delta Mud Slangas Boots and Dukes Trail Ride slash field party.

Get ready for a full day of fun and excitement as we hit the trails.

Grab your boots and your best dukes for a trail ride like no other.

That's not trail riding attire, by the way.

Also, I think I mean the ladies.

I would hope so.

Me and you will show up.

Me and you got to show up with boots and dukes on and see what happens there.

With a nut out.

It's going out.

Well, it'll fall out eventually.

I mean, there's no way we're keeping both balls instead of those things.

They're coming out somewhere.

Sorry about that.

I'm not aged into these.

Hopefully not on the trail.

And then here's another one.

There's another poster for

a different year

for Dukes and Boots.

Posted by who?

Featuring Tay Cheesy

with a Z.

Posted by Clevey B?

What is that?

Cleave B and DJ Eric Turner are on the set.

Oh, DJ Eric Turner.

Oh, wow.

Now I'm definitely going.

Jesus.

Jimmy, you got to lend me some Dukes.

I'll tell you what.

This really is a black party.

I like it.

Yeah.

First place trophy, longest distance as a group, all these different trophies.

And you know, you get tickets at a barber shop.

This is crazy.

This is the weirdest rural event I've ever heard of in my life.

So strange.

So there we go.

That said, let's talk about some murder here.

Let's dive in.

We've got a lot to talk about.

Let's leave Tay Cheesy out of this for now.

Okay, we got to go back in some time here.

Let's set up our shop in 1981.

What do you say?

Okay.

Yeah.

So 1981, number one, everything's different.

Everything.

Oh, yeah.

Yeah.

Everything's different.

I mean, most people, you're like, cable is new.

Put it that way.

Never mind internet.

Does it exist?

Yes, and it's new.

Here it doesn't.

There's no way it exists here yet.

Actually, rural areas got cable first because it was easier to lay the lines.

You You didn't have to dig up sidewalks and shit.

So, yeah, like

big cities got it last, actually.

Wow.

So, yeah, that's how it's weird.

That's how MTV spread so big was because

the first place.

First places that got it were like Kansas and places like that were the places that had it the heaviest because they had cable lines being thrown down in new areas and stuff.

So, yeah, no internet, no cell phones.

This is house phone.

Oh, this is wild time.

Rabbit ear TV.

Yeah.

You know, that kind of shit.

So, just so you can get an idea and an overview.

Let's talk about a young man here named Stephen Brown.

Okay, now Stephen Brown's 15 years old here.

So, young guy, he's a sophomore in high school.

And let me show you a picture of old Stephen Brown here.

Look at those braces.

Yeah, they are.

Those things look, they look like they're bulletproof.

Those are the biggest braces I've ever seen.

Those are 81 braces.

Yeah, they are, man.

And he's a good kid, Steve.

His dad uh dwight is a vocational agriculture teacher at faulkner high school that's a class there vocational agriculture what does vocational mean that means it's going to be your job oh yeah like that's that's for kids who are going to be this is for kids yeah because a lot of the kids in this area they're not going to college they're farming they're going to work on the family farm or that's just what they do yeah it's a rural area so there's no point in teaching them shakespeare because no they're going to farm they don't want to learn

Get you on-the-job experience while you're in fucking home row.

Yeah.

I assume if you don't want to be a farmer, there's other classes to take.

But if you want to be a farmer, you can do that.

So his dad's a teacher at the high school for 20 years.

Steve sings in the church choir.

Sure.

You know, he's that kind of guy.

He's a popular kid in high school, actually.

He's a tall guy,

you know, just confident,

plays sports, does things.

He's got a nice girlfriend here, too, named Tammy Glisson.

Tammy Glisson is 16 here, and her father, by the way, is, and this is from a newspaper, quote, a notoriously short-tempered alcoholic.

Yeah.

So that's a nice, those are good words to put together.

Notorious, short-tempered, and alcoholic are all bad.

So in a town like this, though, honestly, though, anything could make you notorious.

Yeah, but anything you do is short-tempered you are.

Short-temper and alcohol combined with it is, man, in a town like this, there's probably

60% of these people are alcoholics.

In a town like this, though, somebody may have seen you have three beers once, and one time you like kicked a tree because you were angry at something.

They're like, he's a short-tempered alcoholic, though.

Yeah.

Because there's just nothing else going on.

She's a cheerleader

here.

She also plays on the basketball team and is like one of the head cheerleaders, too, of the whole deal.

So

she's a, you know, hot shit for a young high school Mississippi girl here.

So so they're dating these two.

They start dating in 1979.

Yep.

Okay.

Now, Tammy was in the ninth grade, Steve was in the eighth grade, and that's a that's a pull for an eighth grade boy.

Yeah, yeah, ninth grade aimed at another campus.

Yeah, eighth, eighth-grade girls want, you know, older guys, but generally

ninth-grade girls don't want eighth-grade boys.

So Steve's a Steve's a catch, is what that says.

Sure is.

So

they keep

they date all through 1980, which is long term for back then, for, you know,

for school.

And about Christmas 1980, they decided that they should date other people.

Oh, it's over now.

They break up.

Seems like it was probably Tammy's idea when I tell you what happened next.

I don't know if they decided mutually or not, but they decided that they weren't going to be steady anymore and that they would date other people.

So after Christmas of 1980, Tammy began seeing another guy here named Michael Meskelli.

He goes by Mike.

And Meskelli, just like Jesse Meskelli, the West Memphis 3

killer, yeah, or not killer, one of the accused killers.

So, yeah, the one who confessed falsely there.

So, Meskelli, by the way, is M-I-S-K-E-L-L, and then either E-Y or just Y, depending on which court document you look at, depending on which newspaper article there is.

No one knows how to spell this fucking guy's name.

I found him on a fucking hunting people down website, and it looks like officially it's no E.

It's just an L Y.

So he's born August 1964, same age as the rest of these kids.

He was on the football team as well.

He's a short guy, though.

Shorter guy, kind of wiry hair, kind of that kind of deal here.

But well liked, though.

You know, all these people are well liked.

Then Thursday, March 19th, 1981 comes along.

So they've been together for almost three months.

Yeah.

Mike and Tammy here.

And that's when Tammy and Mike break up.

It's all over with, man.

Then Saturday, March 21st, 1981, two days later, Tammy starts dating Steve Brown again.

Oh.

She just had something for Steve and couldn't get it out of her head.

You know what I mean?

Yeah.

So then the next day, Sunday, March 22nd, 1981, Tammy.

calls Mike up and says, meet me down at the church.

I got to talk to you.

Yeah.

So she tells him that, look, I'm going out with Steve again.

So this is over.

And she said, I even have a date with Steve the next evening.

We're going to Corinth.

And Monday night, we got a date.

So, you know, this is all over with, which

good of her to tell him in person.

That was nice.

No text message to give it to back then.

Very kind.

So Monday, March 23rd, 1981 comes around.

The next day, things happen fast when you're

in high school.

From Wednesday to Monday, she had one boyfriend.

Now that he's gone, she's got another boyfriend.

Everything can flip in high school in a second, right?

So Steve goes to school.

So does Mike.

Steve

goes to his house around 3.30 and gets changed.

Now, he stayed after school for baseball practice, so that's why he was there so late.

And then he goes home at 3.30, gets changed out of his gear there, and he is going to go hunting with Mike.

Him and Mike are going to go hunting, and I guess talk about how they both like Tammy.

I don't know what's going on here.

So now Steve is in preparation this week, by the way.

The next weekend, he has a solo singing appearance at the church congregation.

It's his first solo singing.

He's in the choir.

Yeah, he's got a solo here.

So he even like won't tell anybody what he's going to sing.

Like his family members, he wants it to be a big surprise.

He's like, wait, do you see what I fucking unfurl for you bastards?

It's going to be wild.

It's going to be wild.

Performance.

It's going to be crazy.

It's just going to be the Bee Gee's, How Deep Is My Love, which is really weird for church.

They're not going to expect it.

How deep is Christ's love?

It's going to be

quit disco music playing.

Oh, boy.

So Mike called Steve that afternoon when he stopped home to change his clothes, happened to catch him at home, and Mike said, hey, you want to go hunting with me quick?

There's a place that's got some you know I'm about about to head out so if you're not doing anything come with me so Steve said well shit yeah sounds good he said yeah pick me up about four four fifteen at the steps of the high school I'll be back go back there so

he

Mike comes to pick him up about four o'clock at the high school and Steve is sitting there with a guy named Dwayne Hopkins and Steve has a 22 caliber Mossberg rifle which his father had given him to go hunting so they're waiting to go hunting that was a time when you could just meet, I'll get my gun and I'll meet you at the school.

And that was totally fine.

That's totally no problem at all.

Wow.

Sure.

The principal coming.

Hey, Steve.

Hey, principal, how you doing with the fucking rifle on his shoulder?

What you got there?

Oh, it's my 22.

Is it loaded?

Yeah, it is.

Yeah, you want to see here?

Check it out.

So 8 p.m.

comes around.

Yeah.

And

Steve's father comes knocking at Mike's house, at Mike Moskelly's house, and and says, I don't know where Steve's missing.

Where is he?

I can't find him.

Do you know where Steve went?

I know he was going out with you.

What's the deal here?

And the reason why they're on the hunt for him is because Steve didn't show up for the Future Farmers of America meeting.

That old FFA, you better do it.

And literally, the FFA was like, This is such a small town.

When someone doesn't show up for the FFA meeting, they break up the meeting and go look for them.

Because

something must be wrong.

Yeah.

Literally.

It's great.

The fire department put out a fucking siren, and everybody from town came to the fire department.

They just put a siren out, and everybody goes, oh, we got to go head over to the fire department.

Somebody's missing.

Let's go.

And that's to say we're going to go look for the Steve kid.

He's, you know, 16 years old at this point.

And so it's about 11 o'clock.

The whole group goes out looking for him.

County officials, fire department, the townspeople.

It's Mike.

Mike's dad.

Everybody's out there looking for Steve.

You missed the FFA, James.

You show up for that.

You show the fuck up.

So

police talk to Mike and they go, well, you saw him.

You know, everybody knows you went hunting with him.

So what happened when you guys were hunting?

And he said, you know, Mike said he got home from school and he called Steve and asked if Steve wanted to go hunting.

And Steve said, yeah.

So I picked him up about 4 o'clock.

We went target shooting in the woods near the Little Hope Cemetery in back of the Blackwell Church.

And also they went up to a nearby lake and shot some stuff, target practice.

And then they went back up to my car.

He goes, and that was it.

He goes, I drove him back.

I dropped him off in front of the Bank of Faulkner because that's where he asked me to drop him off.

And he goes, I went home.

And then, you know, his dad showed up.

The fire fucking siren went off.

And here we are.

I don't know.

Church, school, and the bank.

Three places you certainly shouldn't be bringing guns.

All guns.

He also said he picked up his paycheck at Griffin Brothers grocery store where he worked part-time.

Then he also said that he didn't want his dad to hear this, but he said he stashed some beer.

He remembered that he had stashed some beer near the county line.

Oh.

That's where I keep my beer, too.

I keep it at the county line.

That's the thing they do.

Yeah.

The old county line.

The county line, yeah.

And he went and got it and drank a can and then hid the remaining cans of beer in an abandoned pickup truck near his house so his parents wouldn't find it.

That's so funny.

That's hilarious.

That's very just normal teenager shit.

It doesn't get any more normal than that.

165 Chevy out in the woods.

I'm going to put my beers in it.

Hiding a five-pack in a fucking burnt out Ford in the woods is definitely a thing because we did that.

There was a van in the woods and we used to hide shit in it.

Yeah, absolutely.

This van used to sit in it when it was cold and hotbox it.

So, yeah, he said he went home and the next time he heard anything was his dad coming around.

So he doesn't know.

And then he said, you know, the town's fire siren blows at 9 o'clock and everybody gathered at the schoolhouse and started this search.

So everybody's there.

This search basically continues around the clock for two weeks with no sign of Steve.

Wow.

He just disappeared.

And the FFA missing is what spurred the whole thing.

That's it.

He missed the FFA.

They go, that's not right.

Steve shows up for his FFA shit.

Full week of looking.

Let's go.

So right after that,

he just,

gone.

And a lot of people think he ran away.

It's a lot of people are thinking he's a runaway because, you know, Mike said, I dropped him off in front of the bank.

And I don't know.

And so they think he might have ran away.

That's a thing that happens sometimes.

So after that, Tammy just starts dating Mike again.

Well, yeah, I mean, this is fucking.

I guess the other guy's gone.

There seems to be not a lot of boys in this town to date because

these are the only two that have any interest here.

So months go by.

That's March.

April goes by.

No sign of Steve.

What the fuck?

Then May 18th comes around, and Tammy goes to her father, and she says, Dad, I got something I have to tell you here.

Mike told me that he killed Steve.

Yeah, told me that.

Yeah.

So the dad calls the sheriff and the highway patrol and all these

authorities he can get involved to.

Everybody's got a badge.

Hey,

whoever's got jurisdiction over here.

So she said that that's May 18th.

Now, this is what she said.

This is her statement.

She says, this is a written statement.

Quote, Steve and I began dating when I was in the ninth grade and he was in the eighth.

On March 23rd, 1981, Steve and I had an agreement in effect by the terms of which we had decided to date other people.

What the?

I have heard this legal document you're reading.

I've read like dissolutions of corporations that are less fucking jargon-y than this.

This is crazy, dude.

That's incredible.

Divorce papers have more clear

thing by the term effect by the terms of which we had decided to date other people.

However, we had a date for that night.

I had not dated anyone else.

I had not dated Mike Muskelly.

I went places with Mike Muskelly, but I didn't call them dates.

Mike Muskelly was a real close friend.

I really cared for him.

He was very nice to me.

She's lying, by the way.

We'll find out later.

Absolutely.

On March 23rd, on the 23rd of March, 1981, sorry, she has to make it very legalese.

Steve Brown and I had made plans to go to Corinth that night to get him a pair of tennis shoes.

He had a date the Friday night before his disappearance, and on that Saturday, we got back together.

On Sunday, March 22nd, 1981, I saw Mike Meskelli at church, Pleasant Hill Baptist Church.

I told Mike that I was going to go with Steve the next night.

Mike got up and left the church.

Okay, what's he going to do?

We're going to talk about it.

The following morning, March 23rd, 1981, I went to school and I recall seeing Steve Brown at school that day.

The first night when Steve disappeared, I questioned Mike Meskelli regarding Steve's disappearance.

I asked whether or not he knew where Steve was.

Seems reasonable.

Yeah.

You know where he is if he ran away.

Where'd he go?

Mike responded that he didn't, and that if he did know where Steve was, he'd go find him.

I mean, if I knew,

I'd be walking back here with him, going found him.

So he said, about the, she said, about the 1st of May, Mike Biskelli began to tell me that he had something to tell me.

Began to tell me that he had something to tell me.

That he would tell me on his deathbed.

Okay.

One night on the telephone, he mentioned that he had something to tell me, and I told him that if he didn't tell me, I would hate him.

And he said, okay, I'll tell you.

This is the most high school shit ever.

If you don't tell me, I hate you.

All right, fine.

Then he told me it was about Steve.

That's all he said.

The next morning in the auditorium at school, he said that he did this for me and that he thought Steve was coming between me and him and that he'd done it for a four-letter word called love.

I'd done it for a four-letter word called love.

Called love.

Oh, my God.

I don't think that's what the Queen had in mind when they were singing that song.

This is a crazy little thing called lover, right?

Yeah.

He said he'd gotten mad the Sunday before Steve disappeared.

He said that he dug a hole and said the next morning he talked Steve into going hunting with him.

That is

premeditated.

And that is unbelievable.

Dude, to dig somebody's grave a day ahead of time before they're even dead is crazy.

Mad, I dug a hole, said, want to go hunting?

That is, I mean, diabolical.

Good lord.

Holy shit.

And he said the next morning he talked Steve into going hunting with him.

He said he picked Steve up at school and headed down Highway 370.

He said Steve didn't talk much, but that they talked about bulldogs and the band that was at school that day.

Just bulldogs, actual dogs, not like the Georgia Bulldogs or something.

That's what I thought too, but no, it's just dogs.

He said that when they got to the woods, he didn't have his gun, but Steve had his.

He said they set up a bottle and shot at it with Steve's rifle.

He said that they, quote, went on, went on up into the woods.

He said that he saw the hole that he had dug and he knew what he had come to do.

He said he turned his head and pulled the trigger and then turned around.

Then he turned around.

He said Steve took a step and then another one and then went down to his knees and just looked at him.

He said Steve mumbled something, then fell.

I started crying.

Mike asked me not to cry, then I settled down.

She is pliable as shit.

Oh, shit.

Your boyfriend, I killed your boyfriend in a horrible premeditated murder.

Stop crying.

Okay.

Fine.

Fine.

I just wanted to know more.

I wanted to know where, and I asked him how it looked.

And he said it didn't look bad, meaning the wound, I guess.

Was his whole face blown off or whatever.

He said he loved Steve, but that he loved me more.

Yeah.

That's a crazy little four-letter word, boy.

I love a boy and talking underbot dogs with him, but I like you better.

I like you better, baby.

He said it only took one.

He said it hit Steve behind the left ear.

I asked him, did he have blood in his blonde hair, meaning Steve's blonde hair?

He said he buried Steve together with Steve's rifle.

I asked him how he covered it up to keep it from being seen, and Mike said he used, quote, the shovel to cover it up.

That's all he told me that day.

He never told me where.

Said he did it for a four-letter word, love.

Called love.

Called love.

Later on, I asked him where because I wanted Steve to be found.

I loved Steve and wanted him to be found.

Mike said he couldn't tell me where.

Okay.

So she's got a story that he's admitted to this, but we don't know where it is.

So obviously the cops need to bring Mike in and have a little chip

with him here.

So he's 16, and they bring him in, and Mike, they bring him in with his dad and, you know,

family because he's a kid.

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So

he said, yeah, me and Steve drove to a wooded area located off Little Hope Road behind the Little Hope Cemetery.

He said that he had a 20-gauge shotgun and that Steve was carrying his own 22.

He said they shot at some jars.

He also said he used Steve's gun to shoot at one of the jars because, you know, more fun for target practice than buckshot spray.

You don't stand back from target

That's boring.

I got like four of the bottles.

It's going to hit a bunch of them, probably.

I got four of them.

So

he then said they returned to Faulkner and said that they were headed to another place to go hunting when Steve changed his mind and said, ah, just dropped me off in front of the bank of Faulkner.

I'm going to go home now.

So he said, that's what he did.

And a cop later recounted that he's, that's what he said.

He said they shot guns and he said that

first, he said at first,

Mike denied driving that day into Benton County where they went.

But after they found witnesses who said they saw him driving back from there, he said, Oh, yeah, we did go there.

Yeah, but he said, I didn't want to tell you why I went there because I went there to get the beer I had stashed.

I had nothing to do with Steve.

I had beer, and

I didn't want to sit here next to my dad saying, oh, yeah, then I went and grabbed my six-pack.

So didn't do that.

That didn't work.

I promise.

Yeah.

So then why, they're like, well, why is Tammy saying that you said you killed Steve?

Why would she say that?

She's your girlfriend, right?

Like,

what the fuck?

And he said, well, actually, she said that because that's what I told her.

But I only told her that because she wouldn't shut the fuck up.

About what?

About Steve?

Okay.

Yeah, he said that she continually questioned me regarding the disappearance, and she kept saying she loved Steve and wanted him found.

So I gave her a false confession.

Yeah, so Tammy asked him over and over again where Steve was.

He said, this went on for a month and a half.

She kept asking me, where is he?

Where is he?

And I kept saying, I don't know.

I don't know.

I don't know.

She kept asking.

So finally, she said, you killed him, didn't you?

And according to him, he said, Tammy asked him every day at school and called him at home about the whereabouts of Steve and said, quote, if you don't tell me where Steve is, I ain't going to love you no more.

I'm going to hate you.

That's literally the quote, by the way.

I didn't Mississippi that up at all.

That's a quote from a newspaper.

she good cop bad cop him without being a good cop she just bad copped the shit out of him she's not even a cop she just batted him

she's a pretty good interrogator though she's not bad yeah so finally he said i just told her yes tammy sure i did it i killed him

and tammy said that um tammy then said to him that um you know

What the fuck basically and he said yeah, I don't know.

That's what happened.

So he's telling the cops that I only said that to shut her up he said during this period the reason why why do you why do you say it i mean anybody you could just say i don't want to hang out with you anymore leave me alone he said well she was providing sexual favors for me at the time

during this whole time period and basically she told me she

wasn't gonna fuck me no more if i didn't tell her what happened So I told her, and then she sucked my dick.

That's how it worked.

That's what he said.

He literally was, yeah, once I told her, then she resumed fucking me again.

So it worked.

That's what I was, I was just trying to get laid.

That's what he tells the cops.

So the cops go, okay, these are two likely stories.

Either one could be true.

So let's sit down and take a polygraph test.

What do you say?

They said, here's the guy.

They called him the best examiner in the state of Mississippi.

He's a highway patrol examiner in Jackson, which is the capital of Mississippi.

So he might be the best they have to offer.

Now,

he said, okay, him, his father, his mother all came in.

They went all the way to Jackson, where he underwent a polygraph examination.

Now, Mike claims that they told him if he took the test and passed, then they'd leave him alone and he'd be cleared and they'd move on to the next thing.

Okay.

He says they told him that he passed.

The polygraph examiner later on tells everybody, though, that it was inconclusive, the polygraph examination.

So you're saying I didn't fail.

So they just go, I don't know, I don't know.

Everybody shrugs.

Mike goes home and

it just goes away.

It goes nowhere.

Yeah.

And it goes nowhere for a long time.

Steve is nowhere to be found.

No one can find Steve.

A man went, a boy went hunting with another boy where they both had guns.

One boy didn't come back.

Yes.

I don't know.

I don't know.

I dropped him off by the bank.

Don't know what to tell you.

Well, we'll look at the bank.

Well, you look guilty, and then you told a girlfriend.

But yeah, that was just for pussy, though.

You know, that don't count.

Man will say anything for a blowjob.

Shit.

Two left with guns, one came back.

Hmm.

Head scratcher.

Yeah, Jack and Jill went up the hill.

What are we talking about here?

Like,

two thugs.

Why does she come back with 250?

This is Craig's.

You know that was on the tip of my fucking tongue.

I was like, I'm stopping myself from

going.

Hey, Jill came down with 250.

So

then.

The Brown family, Steve's family, begins getting odd phone calls.

Yeah.

The dad said that, quote, someone called and said we'd hear from Steve on a certain day and hung up and they didn't hear from Steve.

Another person called, a different person, and said that someone was paid to keep Steve.

That's what he said.

And so he was, he just got these weird phone calls with like tips, like, I heard this.

Bizarre.

So, and the dad said he recently dreamed that his son stood before him.

and was talking to him.

And also his, his mother, Mary Ruth, said that she felt like her her son was close.

She said, he's close by.

I can feel it.

I can feel it.

And a relative called and said that she'd had a vision that he was in

a hospital in Missouri.

No, no, no, a vision.

A vision's when you're awake.

A dream is when you're asleep.

That's what it is.

A vision's a hallucination.

A dream is a dream.

Those are, that's the difference there.

Yeah.

Did you make the booze you drank, ma'am?

A vision denotes you've been drinking rubbing alcohol or possibly have a mental illness.

A dream is just a dream.

Butt chugging Listerine, man.

Stop it.

No, shit.

So mom said, sometimes I get depressed real bad, but sometimes I think wait a day or two and he'll return.

Well, months go by.

Months.

August 1981, the Mississippi Press newspaper, Faulkner residents wonder what happened to Steve Brown.

Straight through the summer.

Yep, and Dwight, the dad, said, we don't know which way to go now.

I still hope that we can find him and that he's okay.

And his wife said she's holding up better now, and their other child

is making it fine.

It's six months.

I don't know how anybody's making it fine.

The highway patrol investigator who's leading this whole thing, Kenny Dickerson,

said that he's at a loss.

He doesn't know.

He said, when you don't have

anything to start with, it doesn't give you much to go on.

We don't have any new leads whatsoever.

We're still very much interested in it.

We'll carry out any new leads.

There's a good possibility the boy is still alive.

What possibility?

He ran away to Mexico.

He's in the future farmers of fucking America.

He's going to have to come back for those little fucking rubber bands just for his braces.

This is not a kid who's just going to run off and live his life forever.

The Orthodontist hasn't seen him.

Those things are rusty by now.

That's what I mean.

It's fucking crazy.

Now, the Reverend Floyd Beasley, who's the pastor of the Faulkner Baptist Church, somehow has a more realistic view of this than the police do, which I is mind-boggling.

Well, we've got a police officer named Kenny on the fucking cage.

Old Kenny Dickerson.

Yeah, he said, I don't really think he ran away.

He's just not that kind of person.

This has caused us to stop and think and wonder what's really going on.

Things like this just don't happen in Faulkner.

Apparently they do, motherfucker, because here you are.

So,

yeah, they said that they had heard that someone called,

authorities from Florida called saying they had a youth with an appearance that matched Steve's and they needed the parents to come see if it was their kid or not.

And so, a bunch of the guys from Faulkner, Dwight and a bunch of a carload of men from Faulkner, drove to Florida, and

it just looked like him.

Random kid.

And he was driving a car with Mississippi tags, too.

And they said

just a kid who looked like Steve.

That's all it was.

Just kid with braces and a southern accent.

So,

September 23rd, 1981, big article.

Nation joins Hunt in two of States' disappearances.

Oh.

And it's a big article about, you know, just there's her, him and this woman that disappeared too from the area, and no one can find either one of them.

And this is written by Loretta Pendergrast, who keeps with this story for years.

She's got the byline on like everything.

March 1982, headline, Steve Brown, 17, missing still.

God damn.

Over a year now, we're talking about.

April 1982, there's an article that says Stephen Brown trail heats up.

Authorities will drain Private Lake next week.

Oh, my.

Yeah, they said now foul play is high on the list of possible reasons for the youth's disappearance.

A chief investigator said, We came up with some information that leads us to believe that the Brown boy was in the area at that time.

That doesn't sound good.

If you didn't know, his last name is Brown.

We're not only looking for a body, but we're also looking for a gun.

It's one of several possibilities.

And they said the lake is, they went in the vicinity of the lake.

Maybe he came back here.

It's about 18 miles from where they did their initial search for Brown.

They said that it'll take two or three days to drain the 70-acre lake within three feet of the bottom.

Yeah.

How long?

It's three days to drain that.

God dang.

That's a lot of water.

They said that the average depth of the lake is about seven feet.

It's eight feet deep at its

deepest point.

The agency's plan to open the lower gate on the lake's dam and allow the water to flow into Walnut Creek, which is another town that we've done before.

They said that they've never done this before, and they said it might be tricky.

Well, no shit.

Then the head investigator said, There's so many tales going on around there.

The rumors have really hindered us, but we've got to eliminate possibilities by whatever means they can.

There's several articles where they're annoyed that these small-town fucking rumors are wasting their time, essentially, yeah, and driving them down wrong paths.

Then on December 22nd, 1982,

we are talking almost two years here, 20 months, 21 months.

Danny Ross is a guy hunting with his father and his brother behind Blackwell Church in Benton County, Mississippi.

They found a.22-caliber Mossberg rifle in a hollowed-out tree in the middle of a

small drain, they said.

Now, guy picks up the rifle and goes, look at this, guys.

I found a fucking rifle.

Shows his father and his brother.

Don't touch that, you fucking.

Is that crazy?

They didn't know.

They just found a rifle in the woods.

It was out.

They're like, look at this.

Somebody left their fucking gun out here.

So they're like, oh, that's weird.

They don't know of this.

Not everyone's following this.

You know what I mean?

They're not from this town.

So this is in another county.

Yeah, but it's just a gun out there.

I don't want to touch any gun that's just free range.

That's because we do a murder show.

Normal people just pick things up.

That's a great point.

We do a murder.

But if a hillbilly finds a gun in the woods in 1981, they're not going to go, oh, nobody touch it.

Back off.

They're going to go free gun and pick it up.

That's what they do.

Gold, boys.

Look.

Yeah, it's a free gun.

Anybody in the wood do that?

So they pick it up and they walk back to the location where the gun was near to see if there's anything else over there.

Shit, people dropped their gun.

Maybe they dropped some cash.

They dropped a wallet.

Shit.

Yeah.

Shit.

It's para ray-bans.

I don't know.

They find something much weirder.

They return to the location, and approximately two feet from where they found the gun, they find a skull.

Yeah, that's not good.

Just a skull, human skull sitting there.

They called the cops, obviously.

They had to think about this.

Is it worth the gun?

Do we take it or do we?

We got to call somebody.

So they search the area and they also find a human lower jawbone

with braces on it.

Oh, what?

Yes.

So, and the skull found lying on its side had a hole behind the left ear

and another hole in the forehead

going out and exiting through.

Yep.

So they said the remains were approximately 30 paces from a hole that had been dug in the ground, like an animal must have taken

some of this.

Yeah.

And the.22-caliber Mossberg rifle was the rifle that Steve's father bought for him.

Oh, boy.

So the body is identified from the orthodontist.

Luckily, this guy has tons of dental records, Steve, to identify him with.

Oh, boy, they've been taking pictures of his face for a long time.

Yep.

The orthodontist identifies the braces as his work.

And it's Steve's.

So Cops got to talk to Mike again, obviously.

Have a little chit-chat, a little chit-chat with him.

The problem is, it's, here's an article about how crazy this thing goes.

Okay.

Unspoken accusations hover over a town staging its own soap opera.

This is from a Jackson newspaper.

After Steve Brown disappeared, it was open season.

A teacher left his job in the town under duress while students eyed one another suspiciously.

It just turned everybody against each other.

They all got crazy here.

There are repeated allusions to another man's temper, meaning Tammy's father, because they're saying people are, a lot of people in town were accusing Tammy's father of killing him.

For kissing his daughter.

Yeah, for kissing on his young, his little girl there.

So they said arson is suspected in a recent store fire.

There are no direct connections, only implied ones.

Anything that happens now, everyone goes, mm-hmm, it's all connected.

The same small-town intimacy that worked as a binding force in Walnut is threatening to choke the residents of Faulkner.

If skeletons falling from closets could augment a census count, the population would have tripled.

This is the dark flip side of small-town life.

Party-line politics and intense familiarity have bred contempt.

Steve's father, Dwight Brown, taught the Meskelly boy.

He was a teacher of Mike's.

Mike's father, Wayne Muskelly, was on the town committee that raised the reward for information that led to finding Steve.

Oh.

So everyone's finger fucking and got something in the pie here.

So they said there was sometimes

there was that sometimes comforting, sometimes smothering

snugness, snugness that small towns are famous for.

So they talk to Mike again and they go, look, bud.

Yeah, thank you.

Your girl said you said you shot him behind the left ear.

Yeah.

He's got a gunshot wound behind his left ear.

We found a head with a shot.

Yeah, that's the place you took him hunting.

You're under arrest, big guy.

So

they take him to trial for murder.

That's it.

During this week-long trial, by the way,

the courthouse is choked with people.

There's people that bring folding chairs and sit outside the courtroom and with their ears out trying to listen to shit.

The court's full.

It's crazy.

Like a milk cup.

Yes.

Hundreds of people every day, like as many people as live in this town show up to this trial every day.

Wow.

Insane.

It's like fucking OJ, Southern OJ.

So they call Tammy first.

She's the main witness.

I mean, that's it.

It's her story.

Yeah.

So she said, Mike said

he saw the hole that he dug earlier and knew what he had come to do, pulled the trigger, and like just all the stuff he said before.

Basically, her exact statement, but in court here.

And she also said, he told me he did it for me.

He said that Steve was coming between him and me, and he did it for a four-letter word.

Love.

Called love.

By the way, she's married now.

How long has it been?

She's now Tammy Nance.

She just turned 18, but she's been married for over a year.

Wow.

She was looking to settle down at some point with somebody.

So, yeah, he said that she said that's what happened.

He went and dug a hole, and he said he didn't have his gun, but Steve had his, all the same things.

It didn't look that bad, and everything else.

He said that when they

he said he then handed Steve's, Steve handed the gun to Mike, and Mike said that

Steve told him, I don't believe we're going to find any beavers here, Red.

That's he called him Red.

Steve called Mike Red.

And he said at that point, that's when he.

ended up shooting him.

He turned around and shot him.

So

that's crazy.

Now,

here's a big deal that comes out.

Obviously, the defense counsel wants to really cross-examine the shit out of her and break her story down because that's what you do with witnesses.

So

they said, the defense counsel says, Your Honor, there's a lot of questions I want to ask this witness pertaining to matters that took place after this disappearance.

The very confession she says Mike gave her was, I guess, spread over a long period of time, culminating in something dated

May the 18th.

And if the court, I want to make some ground rules now, if you're going to restrict me on my cross-examination on things that took place after, I think it's important in the defense.

So they say, what kind of shit are you going to ask?

And he says, well, going out with Mike Moskelly, sexual intercourse with him, various places they went, secret meetings, notes written, all of which she has denied in statements to us, and all of which we've got other independent witnesses to impeach her with.

So just to show she's a liar.

Yeah.

Because she said, I was done with him at that point.

And we know from that point on, she wrote him love letters.

They were having sex.

She wrote notes alluding to it.

I mean, there was, she's lying completely.

She's, she absolutely was like, oh, you killed him.

That's horrible.

Well, I guess, you know, you can still, I'll still blow you.

So that's, yeah.

So, I mean, it's not for, it doesn't, I mean, obviously, I mean, maybe they want to embarrass her, but it's also.

Because it's impeaching.

It's shit she lied about in court.

So the district attorney said, you're talking talking about things that are totally irrelevant and immaterial.

They're so far removed in time that they could have no probative value.

The defense counsel said, I don't believe so.

I think they're very probative.

The state's trying to paint a case of a fight over a girl, and we're trying to show that she had other interests as well, Your Honor, and there wasn't any fight over this girl.

So the court said, the judge says, well, I don't see where the sexual life of someone may or may not have occurred after this occurrence is related to has any probative value whatsoever.

It's nothing but an attack and an assassination of her character is all it is.

I don't see where it's the basis of setting up anything as to credibility.

I mean, it seems like it, yeah.

You can't just lie about shit.

No, even if it's embarrassing,

you have to say it.

It's under oath, right?

I mean,

absolutely, yeah.

Unless they changed it down there.

She said, I think a person's life in that area is a very personal thing, and I'm going to rule that it's so prejudicial that it cannot contribute, that it cannot contribute nothing to the case.

And I think it's a collateral thing that has no probative value.

So then they go into chambers and they talk about it.

And the defense counsel says it's important because the fact that here's a girl that just testified she loved Steve Brown.

She was good friends with Mike Muskelly.

She loved Steve Brown so much.

We're going to prove, Your Honor, that she had sexual intercourse with him long after Steve Brown disappeared with Mike Muskelly.

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It's tough to do.

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That's why when you set up direct deposit through QIIME, you get access to fee-free features like free overdraft coverage, getting paid up to two days early with direct deposit, and more.

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CHIME is banking done right.

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Now back to the show.

So, you know, she's saying she hated him after that.

She wasn't.

So they said

it keeps going back and forth.

And the defense counsel says, the purpose of this line of questioning of this witness is now that we're here in chambers, they went into judges' chambers, is to show the bias and prejudice on the part of this young girl in cooperating with law enforcement, who we're going to show, Your Honor, served upon her father a deposition subpoena that was requested to be served.

In fact, issued by the clerk of the court on the same day the deposition was issued for us for this young girl.

He got served.

She left town, we think, in a hurry, and the proof will show that she's given an inconsistent statement about who took her out of town.

We know it does show that that's the purpose of the inquiry is to to show bias.

So they ask her, they get Mike and they said, were you intimate with her, she with you?

And Mike said, yes, sir, seemed to be.

They said, what do you mean by that?

And he said, well, we had sex.

And the DA object.

This is what Mike is testifying.

And the DA objects to that.

Any talk, basically, from the minute the words, I killed him came out of his mouth, anything that Tammy did or lied about is irrelevant, they said.

They don't care.

They don't give a shit.

And they object to that.

They object to him him saying they had sex after the fact even though that's kind of important yeah so they said if the court allows the defense lawyer said that you know if the core is a court allows this in front of the jury that this young girl had sex with the defendant before this disappearance after the disappearance and she continually badgered him harassing him harassed him called caused herself to be a nuisance to him picking on him trying to uh trying to get him to say something or admit to things to her when she would suggest answers then it turned into a more coercive type affair where she would tell him she wasn't going to love him and this sort of thing if he didn't talk to her.

And she would use this sex bribe in a sense against Mike Muskelly repeatedly.

And then she'd go out with him and then they'd have sex again and then they'd start to work.

She'd start to work on him again.

And she'd get a little bit here or there.

She's a great investigator, apparently.

She said they put this girl on the witness stand who appears to be like the Virgin Mary, who says she loves Steve and she's just friends with Mike,

which is a lie.

She's saying that I asked her point blank several times, did she have sex with Mike Muskelli before or after?

She said, well, I was telling him I loved him, but I was just fooling him and all this kind of testimony.

So anyway, they basically decide that they said,

I'm going to

sustain the objection on a basis of this sex thing.

Now, any relationship other than that, you can go ahead with, but if you're going to stay out of this sex business, everything I can find in the law and the evidence in this case is purely a collateral issue.

If it was a rape case, it'd be a different thing, but it's not.

So they're not allowed to question Tammy about shit.

Tammy goes up, says, this is what he told me.

That's it.

And then Mike's not even allowed to say, she blew me right afterwards.

So

that's, you know, whatever.

So now, regardless, her information was right.

That's where they went.

Yeah, that's right.

Yeah.

But they're going to say she knows what happened, so therefore he didn't do it.

Yes, that's true.

So they also, they try to say that maybe somebody dumped his body there, and the investigator said, I mean, they could have dumped his body there.

It's possible.

You know, we don't have any evidence around in the outside for a year and a half.

So that goes into it.

Now, the defense has a witness here named Tim Hopper who testifies that he saw Steve Brown at school the night of March 23rd, around 7 p.m.

at the Future Farmers of America meeting.

Oh.

Well, then why would the meeting have broken up and turned into a search party then?

That doesn't make sense.

So another student testified in rebuttal that Tim Hopper had told him he really didn't know if he saw Steve Brown that night.

He thought he did.

So Mike's testimony is Tammy badgered me.

I wanted a fucking banger.

That's that.

So the verdict comes in.

Deliberation lasts one hour.

And he is found guilty of murder.

Yeah, because there was, yeah, okay.

Yeah, so sentencing comes around here, and uh, the judge says, You, young man, may fuck off life in prison, oh my god, of which you have to serve at least seven years before you're eligible for parole.

Okay, so that's seven to life, essentially, is what it is.

That's a fascinating choice, anywhere from seven to life, yeah, based on you, I suppose.

So

outside the court after this, Mike's dad is hugely pissed.

He said, quote,

he said, so help me, God, Mike had nothing to do with the disappearance of Steve Brown, and it's my obligation to see that

justice is done.

He said that all the bones were found and said the gun was found sticking up from a small stream, its barrel thrust into the sand.

Dad said it was a calling card.

He said the wooden stock of the gun was rotten as though it had been lying in the ground.

He said, that was somebody's calling card.

That's somebody.

Look for other cases that match up with that.

Oh, that's a serial killer.

Yeah, he's out of his mind.

Mike's friends,

35 relatives and townspeople drove 200 miles to Jackson to present a petition with 1,300 names on it asking the governor to intervene.

Yeah.

He said, if nothing else, the truth has been presented.

Like all other days dating back to day one, I've told the truth.

That's what Wayne Muskelli, Mike's dad, says.

Also, the kid who said he saw him at the meeting was there as well.

Sure.

And yeah, he said that

I know what I saw.

He said, I was young, but I know what I saw.

When I see you sitting there, I see you.

I know what I see.

So there you go.

And there's another, they have another person with a portfolio of affidavits and reports and newspaper clippings that say they will, quote, show the threat of the conspiracy through this thing.

Okay.

So

the internet just makes it easier, but this is people are always, our brains are wired for this shit.

500 people.

So

they're all worried about this.

This is crazy.

November 1985, he appeals this thing.

He appeals saying he only confessed to the girl after she threatened to withhold sexual favors.

Now they say the trial judge refused to allow the attorneys to...

adequately cross-examine her.

The prosecution called it nothing but an assassination of her character.

So he appeals on a bunch of different

grounds here.

One is failure to prove the cause of death, which I think a gunshot wound in the back of the fucking head is pretty clear.

All the way through?

I mean, it's pretty obvious.

Yeah,

he also says

exculpatory evidence or grant of immunity was improperly excluded.

He says, I passed the lie detector and they told me if I passed it, I wouldn't have to do this.

That's a deal.

And they say, well, that's not a deal because it wasn't in writing.

And number two, the guy says it was inconclusive.

So no.

Then they say

they limited cross-examination by defense counsel.

The judges here say we are of the opinion that the lower court unduly restricted cross-examination and impeachment on the above matters and that they were crucial on the issue of the confession or statement allegedly made by the appellant to Tammy.

And they require that this be reversed and remanded for a new trial.

Four to two vote of the Supreme Court there of whatever they get.

That's what they do.

So reversed.

He'll be set free, by the way.

Oh, is that right?

On bond.

Yeah.

So they

say.

Send a life or just go on home.

That's it.

One or the other.

He said he's eager to, quote, get used to being free.

Yeah.

He said, you can't explain how it feels, Mike goes on.

He says, it was the best feeling of my life.

Yesterday was the best day of my life.

He says he

fucking a few months.

No, a year, a year and change.

A year and change.

He says he expects to be freed within two weeks.

And he says he expected this to happen because he said, quote, I knew that.

I knew it was flawed.

And I'm not even a lawyer.

Really?

We didn't know.

That's shocking.

So

he maintains his innocence, said he plans to spend time at his parents' house before entering Northwest Community or Northwest Mississippi Junior College in Centobia.

He said he later plans to study law at the University of Mississippi.

Oh, he's bound to be a lawyer, huh?

He says, I want a little time to myself to relax, to get used to being free, though.

He said he worked in a garden in jail and read law books when he wasn't in his television-equipped private cell.

He did fine.

He said, I imagine I'll always be criticized by a few people and ridiculed.

I'm just going to try to outlive it as best I can.

So he's released on a $75,000 bond.

Yeah.

And the state goes, I don't know what the hell this guy's getting so comfortable for.

We're absolutely retrying him for murder.

So there's a couple of delays and people feel bad for him.

He's working for,

he's been working for the Benton County supervisor, Billy Taylor, at a grocery store as a clerk in the meantime while he's waiting for his.

The county supervisor owns the grocery store.

Yeah, it's, I mean, come on.

He says this, quote, he's a nice boy.

I feel very sorry for Mrs.

Brown, but I don't think he did it.

You have to convince me.

We had a trial.

It was pretty convincing.

They're going to do it again.

So June 87, retrial.

This is moved, by the way.

This is held in Benton County, outside of the Maine area here.

So still shitloads of people here.

Opening statements.

They told him the same thing as the first trial.

They started seeing each other again, him and Nancy.

And on May 18th, there was a breakthrough when Mike told Nancy, her last name is Nance now.

That's why I called her Nancy, Tammy, told Tammy Nance that he had shot him.

He said, then the defense said there's no proof of any altercation between Steve Brown and Mike Muskelly.

He said that Brown had a date with another girl just prior to his disappearance and also attacked the credibility of Nancy, or Nancy again, Tammy Nance,

calling the task of determining whether to believe her or Mike the juror's biggest jobs.

So there's also testimony here.

The victim, Steve's dad, talks about a creepy music teacher.

Oh.

Yeah, he testifies that his son's music music teacher once warned him, meaning Steve's father, that he would not return home.

He said he's not coming back.

And yeah, he said it was, so they looked into the music teacher big time and then cleared him.

But when they were looking into him, this is a guy named Pete Doles.

He said,

apparently that the...

private investigators and police searched this Pete Doles' home.

And he said they asked the father, did he tell you that

did you never see your son again?

And he said, yes.

They also heard that his son and other Faulkner High School students used to visit this teacher's home to drink beer and watch dirty movies.

He's fucking grooming them.

I don't like that at all.

He's fucking grooming them is what he's doing.

That's grooming.

Giving teenagers beer and give porn is grooming.

Yeah, that's what Gacy did.

Yes, exactly.

Exactly.

Which would be awesome.

It'd be cool if another 17-year-old had beer and porn.

Not a 45-year-old man.

Some 45-year-old man.

And why would the last thing I want to do is drink beer and watch porn with teenagers?

That's the worst thing I've ever heard in my life.

Sounds terrible.

I didn't want to drink beer with them.

Man, this testimony was not allowed in the first trial, by the way.

No, because he's going to go through his own trial.

Yeah.

No, shit, he's got his own problems.

He left town.

He ran away.

That guy

from this.

After about, I think it's two hours, they have a lunch break, and they come back from lunch break saying, no more trial, calling it off.

It's a plea deal.

It's all over.

Is that right?

Yep, we're getting a plea going.

Absolutely.

His lawyer did not like the case they have against him.

I think the prosecution didn't like it because they're bringing up creepy music teachers who are grooming kids, and now they can really grill Nance,

Tammy Nance on cross-examination, too.

They can fucking ask her anything they want now.

So he is going to plead guilty to manslaughter.

Really?

Way less than premeditated murder, which this obviously was.

So

his lawyer said that he did it because

Mike was calling he was calling the whole situation an oppressed hell.

So he just wanted to get it over with.

So the judge announced the guilty plea to manslaughter in the heat of passion.

What was the passion?

Absolutely.

He planned it.

This is diabolical.

This is fucking horrible.

That is crazy, man.

Wow, the defense lawyer said he told us he had lived under this for six years.

He said it was something of an oppressed hell.

There was never a day where he could get away from it.

So he wanted it over with.

Some people are mad about this.

They're not mad because.

No, I'd be mad at the plea.

No, no, that's not what they're mad at.

There's a lady in the newspaper here who's very mad that she didn't get to hear all this sex talk.

That's what she came for, she said.

She wanted to hear about 16-year-olds fingering each other and didn't get to hear it.

I brought a rabbit to the courthouse for the

audience.

I got my rose and my purse.

They said I brought it through security.

It's fine.

This is a lady named Mrs.

Magaha who said

it does.

This is my Ms.

Magaha right here.

Fuck you and the Magaha.

I'll give you the old Magaha.

So

she said she's second-guessing her decision to drive more than 60 miles

on her only day off as a waitress to see this.

Wow.

This is like

it was a real-life novel.

I was going to say it's a real-life romance novel.

That's what she was.

She was like, I'm going to see kids talking about fucking each other, then go home and deal myself in the tub.

That sounds right.

Some real hot Romeo and Juliet shit.

She said, I had really hoped I would come down here and

the boy didn't do it, and justice would prevail.

It just wasn't exciting courtroom drama.

Many said that they expected spicy testimony, not a guilty plea.

That's what they were pissed about.

I thought we were getting some sex talk.

Jesus Christ.

There's not a porn shop in this town.

Someone needs to get these people VHS tapes or something because this is crazy.

Get on out on I-15.

I'll bet you there's one out there somewhere.

No, shit.

So they sentence him to you, sir.

They fuck off again, 15 years in jail, in prison, with five years suspended.

So 10 years.

Oh, my God.

This is unbelievable.

They said,

why did you accept a plea to

everybody?

And they said, basically,

Mike Muskelly's team said, besides wanting the legal case to end, they also recognized that it was a close call, and he didn't want to be convicted of murder with a mandatory sentence of life.

So the maximum penalty for manslaughter is 20 years.

So they said, no, it's much better odds.

And they said that even though he's been sentenced and everything, he'll remain remain free on a bond for 30 days to, quote, take care of personal business.

What are you talking about?

What fucking 18-year-old kid has personal business?

He's got to put his companies in escrow.

What are you talking about?

I don't understand what's happening.

I'm going to put my affairs in order for I do my time.

What the fuck?

And

when do we care if a murderer's affairs are in order?

That's your problem.

His father, despite him saying in court he did it, said he still is unconvinced that his son did it.

Unbelievable.

He said instead he suspected his son pleaded guilty to avoid a possible life sentence.

He said, at this point, I can't say whether he did it or not.

He said, but I never believed it.

Now, the Brown family, they're not upset.

They're happy that it's over.

Yeah.

Yeah.

The dad says the family feels good that we can go home and know it's over.

It's been a long time since March 23rd, 1981, which, yeah.

And they also expressed nice people, the Browns.

They even expressed sympathy for the Meskelli family and said that we just wanted the fellow to own up to what he had done.

We don't want to torture the family, we just want to know what happened to our boy, which is fair.

Really nice people.

So they said, well, how much time is he going to serve here?

Yeah, because if he's only got 10 and 10 if you get out seven for life, yeah, yeah.

So, well, he already did two years and ten months in the Benton County jail awaiting his appeal there.

So the district attorney, Larry Little, says he expects Meskelly to serve a reasonable period in prison, even though he'll be eligible for parole within weeks.

Within weeks.

This is ridiculous.

He said we have a pretty good idea that he'll be in the Department of Corrections for at least a while, which is a very technical term.

That's what I want to hear from my elected officials.

At least a while he'll be there.

I don't know.

Wow.

He said he's not about to walk in one door and out the other.

He said, however, he doesn't know how much time he's going to serve.

Now, the defense attorney said he told Mike not to expect a a quick release from prison.

He said, I told him he was eligible, but that meant nothing.

I didn't promise him that he would get out at any time.

He said that his client

may already be eligible for parole.

He said, I do expect him to have to serve time in the Department of Corrections somewhere, not just a county jail.

So the state law requires parole officials at the time, 1987, to consider a parole for prisoners who've served one-fourth,

which would be two years, six months of a 10-year sentence.

He's already done two years, 10 months.

So he's already up for 10-year parole.

So they said that they have to give him a parole hearing like ASAP.

He's basically going to get there, put his shit down on his bunk, and go right to the parole hearing.

Let's go talk about it.

Yeah.

So July 19th, 1987, he finally begins serving his sentence.

Okay.

Finally.

How long will he serve?

Well, October 1988, he's out.

Paroled.

So he did, they gave him a year.

And anyway, anyway, you know, what did he get?

A total of less than four years in prison, though, for premeditated first-degree murder is pretty wild.

And he only caves because he likes blowchops.

Yeah, he was like, all right, fine.

If there was another girl in this town who would put out, none of this, he wouldn't have confessed any of this, and it wouldn't happen.

So the movie comes out then.

January of 1989, there is a CBS

TV movie about this starring Christian Slater.

Oh, there he is.

As Mike.

He's the murderer.

Yep.

It's called Desperate for Love.

Desperate for Blowjobs.

Desperate for Oral, it should be called.

It's based on a true story, and they take a lot of liberties here.

The plot is Alex Cutler and Cliff Petrie are 17-year-old teens who've been close friends since they were young.

Alex is the most popular guy in school with a promising future, while Cliff is an introverted teen who's never had a girlfriend.

Not true.

Mike was not like that.

Lily Becker, an attractive cheerleader who's very popular despite the fact that she's known for being promiscuous, has been dating Alex for a while and is planning to marry him after graduation.

I still lack her.

Jesus Christ.

She's a hoo-er, but I still lack her.

I tell you what.

Alex's father, however, feels that he should go to university and points out to him that Lily comes from a different environment.

Moreover, he and Lily's father, the town's notorious low-life hunter, are sworn enemies.

Again, that's not it.

They also move it to Georgia.

It's a small town in Georgia, not Mississippi.

They said, yeah.

So anyway, they sentenced to jail for eight years, released on parole after four.

That's the whole movie.

It's just a lot of little things.

So

it has Christian Slater, Tammy Lauren as Lily, Brian Bloom as Alex, Veronica Cartwright, Scott Paulin, and Amy O'Neill.

I don't know.

The family in the newspaper the next day says it's inaccurate.

I'm sure.

Yeah.

One guy, an attorney, oh, this is the defense attorney, said, I thought they took a lot of literary license with it.

It's a fucking TV movie.

Yeah.

Jesus Christ.

They said that it's interesting here.

The movie also wrongly depicted the father, they say, Thomas Glisson, Tammy's father, as a drunk who was mean to his wife.

So they said he wasn't like that.

And they said,

I liked a drink once in a while.

They said,

this is Tammy's sister, or yeah, Tammy's sister Tommy, T-O-M-M-I-E, Tommy.

Said that, I didn't like it because it made my family look like trash.

It made us look like poor hillbillies.

And we are middle-class hillbillies, at least.

We're upper, we're lower, middle, upper, upper, lower.

We're not low.

We ain't low.

So there you go.

That, everybody, is this movie.

Christian Slater stars as this murderer.

It's fucking crazy.

This is a crazy goddamn story.

I can't believe it.

He almost got away.

He may as well have gotten away with it.

He pretty much got away with it.

He got blowjobs and barely any jail time.

He's fine.

And Christian Slater played him in a movie.

He's great.

It's pretty sweet.

He's fucking, yeah, crime paid for this kid.

It's crazy.

Holy shit.

So anyway, there you go.

If you enjoy this story, please, please, please.

By the way, we weren't calling Tammy a whore.

It's perfectly fine to.

I didn't do it.

No.

I don't care at all.

Jesus.

But I have to say, people will go, hey, you got, not us, the prosecution, the defense.

None of them.

We're just arbitrators on the side.

We know nothing.

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