Deadly Dark Delusions - Lashmeet, West Virginia

Speaker 1 The holidays are here.

Speaker 1 You're inviting over your friends, your family, and if you're not careful, you might also be inviting in some microplastics, and those can get into the places and also the people that you care about the most.

Speaker 1 And that is why I have made the switch to Blue Land across all my cleaning products, especially during the holidays when most of us spend more time cooking, hosting, and cozying up indoors.

Speaker 1 Blue Land products meet the highest standard of clean. They're effective, yet gentle on people and the the planet.
In fact, Blue Land was named an EPA Safer Choice Partner of the Year.

Speaker 1 From cleaning sprays and toilet bowl cleaner to dishwasher and laundry detergent tablets, Blue Land's formulas are 100% microplastic-free, made with certified clean ingredients free from chlorine bleach and harsh chemicals that are safe to use around your family, your loved ones, your dogs, your cats, your houseplants, yourself.

Speaker 1 You're going to love not having to choose between the safe option and what actually gets your home clean. Have to shout out Blue Land's toilet tablets.
They have this beautiful, lemony, fresh scent.

Speaker 1 All you got to do is drop it in, give it a quick little wipe. It feels like you've done some really heavy cleaning lifting, but it's unbelievably easy and super effective.

Speaker 1 To stock up on sustainable cleaning products for yourself or to give a beautiful sustainable gift to your friends and family this holiday season, go to blue land.com/slash clean and save up to 30% during Blue Land's holiday sale.

Speaker 1 Don't wait. They only do this once a year.
That's 30% off during Blue Land's holiday sale by going to blueland.com/slash clean. Blue

Speaker 1 slash clean save up to 30% during Blue Land's holiday sale.

Speaker 4 OnDeck is built to back small businesses like yours.

Speaker 5 Whether you're buying equipment, expanding your team, or bridging cash flow gaps, ONDEC's loans up to $250,000 help make it happen fast.

Speaker 6 Rated A plus by the Better Business Bureau and earning thousands of five-star trust pilot reviews, ONDEC delivers funding you can count on.

Speaker 5 Apply in minutes at on deck.com. Depending on certain loan attributes, your business loan may be issued by ONDEC or Celtic Bank.
Ondeck does not lend in North Dakota.

Speaker 5 All loans and amounts subject to lender approval.

Speaker 3 Hello, everybody, and welcome back to Small Town Murder Express. Yay, choo-choo.
Oh, yay indeed, Jimmy. Yay, indeed.
My name is James Petrick Allo. I'm here with my co-host.
I'm Jimmy Wistman.

Speaker 3 Thank you, folks, so much for joining us today on another crazy edition of Small Town Murder Express, all aboard the murder trade. Yeah.
Leaving the station, we got a wild one for you.

Speaker 3 It's West Virginia today, so that's all I have to say. We're going to West Virginia.
And you go, oh, it's going to be a good one. We all know that.
So can't wait to get into that.

Speaker 3 Before we do, very quickly, head over to shutupandgivemeurder.com for all of your merchandise needs and everything like that. No tickets to buy at the moment in time.
None, no. None.

Speaker 3 Virtual live shows over. Our two shows left this year are sold out.
We are having, we're announcing our whole new slate of 2026 live shows very soon. Those will be available to purchase in December.

Speaker 3 So keep an eye out there. Shut up at GiveMeMurder.com.
You should also listen to our other two shows, Crime in Sports and Your Stupid Opinions,

Speaker 3 which are hilarious. You don't need to like sports for crime and sports.
And I'm telling you, Your Stupid Opinions is just as funny as it gets. Just the reviews of everything, they're amazing.

Speaker 3 And if like if you like the Patreon we just did, we have a review on the next year stupid opinions of that Winchester mystery house. So that'll be fun too.
We're going to get into that.

Speaker 3 Also, get yourself Patreon.

Speaker 3 It is worth it. Patreon.com slash crime in sports.
All you have to do is be $5 a month or above, and you get everything we could possibly give you.

Speaker 3 You're going to get immediately upon subscription, hundreds of bonus episodes you've never heard before.

Speaker 3 Immediately, you can listen to, then new ones every other week, one crime and sports, one small town murder, and you get all of that.

Speaker 3 This week, for crime and sports, we're going to get into part two of team relocations and the pain they've caused. It's hilarious how angry people are.

Speaker 3 And then, for small-town murder, we're going to do talk about the American prison system, where it started and where it is now, where it started in a completely different place than it is now.

Speaker 3 And we'll talk about the progression of all of that. Lots of fun stuff there.
Patreon.com/slash crimeinsports.

Speaker 3 And you get all the shows: Crime and Sports, Your Stupid Opinions, and Small Town Murder all ad-free

Speaker 3 with your Patreon subscription. And you get a shout out at the end of the regular show.
You can't beat it, patreon.com/slash crime and sports.

Speaker 3 So do that right now and get in there and hang out with us. That said, I think it's time everybody to sit back.
There we go. Let's all clear the lungs.
What do you say here? And let's all shout.

Speaker 3 Shut

Speaker 3 up and give me

Speaker 3 murder.

Speaker 3 Let's do this, everybody. All right.
Let's go on a trip, shall we? Yeah. We're going to West Virginia.
All right. Again, oh, boy.
We're going to Lashmeat, West Virginia. Oh, yeah.
Lashmeet.

Speaker 3 L-A-S-S-H, Lash, and M-E-E-T. So it's not like the meat of a Lash.
It's different. We're going to meet up here.
Lash Meet, West Virginia. It's in pretty much extreme southern West Virginia there.

Speaker 3 Way down. It's not very far from Parisburg, where we did that crazy Appalachian Trail Killer episode in Virginia.
So it's up in that, up in the hills. I mean, this is, this is the hollers, man.

Speaker 3 There is nothing around here.

Speaker 3 The whole county has like 11,000 people in it. It's crazy.
This place is very small. It's about an hour 50 to Roanoke, Virginia.
That's the closest kind of big town here, big city.

Speaker 3 And about three hours to Parkersburg, West Virginia, our last West Virginia episode, episode 605, the serial butcher killer. That was a bad guy.

Speaker 3 He was the guy who was leaving heads displayed certain ways for the cops to find and stuff like that. Very weird guy.
This is in Mercer County. Area code 304 and 681.

Speaker 3 That's all of West Virginia is just a mix of those two area codes. Median household, or I'm sorry, population here is 599

Speaker 3 in this town. And it has just gone down, down, down, down, down over the last, ever since the coal mines dried up in a lot of these places, these counties, their populations are just sinking.

Speaker 3 Median household income here is about $40,271 a year. The median home cost here, median home cost, $65,700.

Speaker 3 That is insanity.

Speaker 3 Incredibly affordable. Insanity.
You can almost, with your normal household income, you can almost buy a house after one year. That's wild.

Speaker 3 A little bit of history of this town here. The county itself was named for Revolutionary War General Hugh Mercer.
Oh. Yes.

Speaker 3 And also in this county, Princeton is the county seat, which was named for the Battle of Princeton, New Jersey, where General Mercer died. Oh.
That's why. Yeah.

Speaker 3 This guy is real important around here. Everything is connected to that.

Speaker 3 Everything.

Speaker 3 All the people here when they first came around this area were farmers and they're growing corn and oats and wheat and things like that. And it's basically severe isolation.

Speaker 3 This county is in the middle of nowhere. This town is in the middle of nowhere.
So this was a very self-sustaining little economy they had going on here.

Speaker 3 There's not a lot of outsiders coming in, not a lot of them going out. So they had their own salt work, their own tannery and grist mill and foundry.
They made everything themselves there.

Speaker 3 The first mine opened, and that's when the population exploded and things like that. It opened on Mill Creek in 1884.

Speaker 3 And soon coal operators from other states, people with money, capital, started seeing that, oh man, we can go there, extract everything from the ground, use these people like worker ants, and bury them beneath

Speaker 3 the coal dust when we're done. And that's what they did.
They started coming in and just absolutely sucking every last bit of resources out of the ground that they could.

Speaker 3 Now, Lash Meat was likely named after a family that was here called the Lash Meat, or they might have been the Lash Mutt family. We're not sure.
Oh, nice.

Speaker 3 Lashmeat sounds better, I think.

Speaker 3 And it developed just because of coal mining, early 20th century.

Speaker 3 Coal mining started happening around here, and a town sprung up.

Speaker 3 There's one review of this town that exists on Earth. There's only 599 people.
Just one review.

Speaker 3 It's two stars, and it says, quote, there aren't many nice places around, and you don't have many attractions other than the churches and gas stations, which aren't known normally as attractions.

Speaker 3 If you look up things to do when, you know, the Exxon station pops up, you're in a really

Speaker 3 boring house. Come on over to Sheets.
Yeah, you can do it. The houses aren't the greatest, but they are livable.

Speaker 3 That's not good. This does not sound wonderful, man.
This sounds depressing. This house is barely livable, and you spend your nights at AMP.

Speaker 3 That's or church, one of the two. Well, the days at church, the nights at the gas station, it's really

Speaker 3 a packed schedule in here. Wow.
Things to do here.

Speaker 3 Not a lot, put it that way. I found the Mercer County Fair.
Oh.

Speaker 3 Now, the Mercer County Fair has been a big deal to the Mercer residents since its first inception, since it first came in in 1853. Yeah.
So this is an old fair. We're talking 172-year-old fair.

Speaker 3 And it's still going.

Speaker 3 Still going in July. It's literally all there is to do here.

Speaker 3 And for years and years, everybody would mine coal and do all this shit, and then this would be the one thing to do is the county fair would come around.

Speaker 3 And they say, we are a small county with only 15,000 residents. The whole county, that is insane.
There's apartment buildings in Manhattan with 15,000 people in my feelings.

Speaker 3 That's wild. Yet over 11,000 visit our fairgrounds each summer.
So

Speaker 3 I don't think there's a lot of people coming from the outside to go to the Mercer County Fair. I feel like, you know, 85% of this county goes to the Mercer County Fair.
Yeah. I really do.

Speaker 3 Our exhibitions are from livestock to hobbies, antiques, photography to culinary arts, flowers and vegetables. Also, a large number of our people

Speaker 3 to,

Speaker 3 this is what it says on their site.

Speaker 3 This allows a large number of our people to enter the competitions. Meaning all the competitions for flowers, vegetables, photos.

Speaker 3 I don't know how you have an antique competition. That's a weird.

Speaker 3 Whose shit's the oldest? I don't know.

Speaker 3 His shit's a a little older than your shit. I'm sorry.
We're going to have to give it to him. There's also a pageant, of course.
Nice. These fucking hill people, they love pageants.
Love

Speaker 3 each other's looks. Let's line our little girls up and judge their looks now.
Now we got to

Speaker 3 get them young while they still got all their teeth. Well, we got to find out who's going to be the local newscaster, the local anchor woman.
Because

Speaker 3 every 30 years,

Speaker 3 we replace one of them, and she sits in there.

Speaker 3 They say this is the queen pageant they have.

Speaker 3 And they say there's three divisions of the Mercer County Fair Pageant that allow young ladies of Mercer County to gain poise and confidence in themselves.

Speaker 3 By participating in the pageant, they also have the opportunity to make new friends and have a lot of fun.

Speaker 3 New friends, like they're not stabbing each other in the back, these pageant girls. Please.
A lot of fun.

Speaker 3 I'm hiding your Vaseline so you can't put it on your teeth and smile. Sorry.

Speaker 3 What's the fun? I don't know. Being judged by adults.

Speaker 3 They have the Little Miss Division, the Junior Miss Division, and then the Queen Division, which I assume is adults. I hope.
Anyway,

Speaker 3 better be. There's also a poultry show over at the swine barn.
Yeah. Literally, that's what it's called.

Speaker 3 A rabbit show. Uh-huh.
Rabbit show? Who wants to look at other people's rabbits? That's a weird thing.

Speaker 3 I got the best-looking ones.

Speaker 3 Show them off. A sheep show.
A floppy rabbit. Yeah.
Yeah. Oh, who doesn't like a floppy eared rabbit? A floppeared rabbit is the best.
They're great. Sheep show,

Speaker 3 a 4-H

Speaker 3 beef check-in.

Speaker 3 That's an event.

Speaker 3 On Wednesday, July 9th, they have the 4-H only beef check-in and weigh-in, and also the swine check-in and weigh-in. That's what's going on on Wednesday.
Then there's a swine show, a goat show.

Speaker 3 Oh, baby. There's a goat show.
And also a junior and senior master showmanship contest.

Speaker 3 All right. Whatever that may be.
I don't know if that's showing the the animals. I don't know what the hell that is here.
They have some music here as well. They have Far Out will be playing.

Speaker 3 Oh, sorry. Far Out 283.
Oh, and that's the name of the band.

Speaker 3 Okay. 283rd.

Speaker 3 That sounds like a weird chemical you get at a rave that gets you high. I got Far Out 283, man.
Oh, shit. Let me get three drops under my tongue, man.
Put them in there. Are there 282 others?

Speaker 3 I must be.

Speaker 3 Wow. They'll be playing on Friday from 8 p.m.
to midnight. God damn.
Isn't the area code of this 283? No, it's not. Not at all.
What in the fuck? No idea.

Speaker 3 They play,

Speaker 3 they're an alternative blues rock band. Those words don't go together.
Well, there's no such thing as alternative blues. Alternative which?

Speaker 3 Don't know what that is.

Speaker 3 Playing an array of unique covers and original music that you will go to the bathroom while they play, and then you'll come back once taking care of business is played for the third time.

Speaker 3 Then Vital Signs plays the next night. Okay.
Vital Signs.

Speaker 3 They sound elderly. Oh, yeah.
We're almost just beeping. Vital Signs is a local band that, local band, number one, that plays all kinds of music.
Here's the, from what to what.

Speaker 3 This always reminds me of Cheechin Shang when he says everything from, you know, Santana to El Chicano, you know, everything, which is the same thing.

Speaker 3 This is everything from Johnny Cash to Judas Priest. Yeah.
That's a wide array of shit.

Speaker 3 Just shit that white people sing. That's it.

Speaker 3 They're all bent for leather.

Speaker 3 Wow. Oh, you know, they are.
That said, whether that's leather chaps to ride a horse or

Speaker 3 to show your ass. Or to show your ass and do fucking bondage, one of the two.

Speaker 3 Just get in the way. Yeah, to hang out at a gay leather shop.
One of the two. That said, let's talk about some murder that happened around here.

Speaker 3 Oh, boy. Let's talk about a young woman first.
Well, a young woman for a while, not young in our story, but her name is Monica Suzette Hartwell.

Speaker 3 H-A-R-T-W-E-L-L Hartwell. Now, Monica, oh boy, she's interesting.
What an interesting life this Monica has. She's born in November of 1968.

Speaker 3 She's born in nearby Princeton, which is in this county, from this county, grew up here. She is, you don't know how local I am.
I mean, she is that girl.

Speaker 3 Very local.

Speaker 3 In school,

Speaker 3 she seemed to be social and active in things. I found her involved in the school chorus for multiple years doing that.
So that's an activity. She also competed in the Miss Matoka High contest.

Speaker 3 They did a pageant, not just for the high school. For the high school.
As if the hierarchies and tiers and social whatever wasn't already sharply defined in high school. Let's make it worse.

Speaker 3 Now let's really pick it up a notch. This is worse than Prom Queen.
This is terrible. And the county has 15,000 people, so we got to really whittle it down so that

Speaker 3 this chick with

Speaker 3 the teeth that overlap can win. Because, yeah, and this is

Speaker 3 the whole school, man. They say the principal, I found this in the newspaper.
Principal has announced plans for the annual Miss Matoka High School pageant. Great.

Speaker 3 Jesus, 54 girls will be vying for the title. The theme for the pageant will be Sweet Dreams.

Speaker 3 All right. Okay.

Speaker 3 Mrs. Richard Preservati, former Miss West Virginia, will serve as Mistress of Ceremonies.
What's her name? They use her husband's name? Mrs. Richard Preservati.
What the fuck?

Speaker 3 And this is in 1984, not 1954.

Speaker 3 God damn. She doesn't even have a first name, this woman.
Nothing.

Speaker 3 And she is a former Miss West Virginia, but it would be impossible to look her up because

Speaker 3 Mrs. Richard Preservati, that wasn't her fucking name.
What are we talking about?

Speaker 3 She'll be assisted by Freddie Ray Graham, a senior at Matoka High School. So son Dickhead Sr.

Speaker 3 who's going to be like... She's going to judge this with a lady who doesn't even have a first name.
No, no, they're the MCs. Oh, nice.
That's how it goes. Yeah.
Him and this unnamed lady.

Speaker 3 That'll be his jokes when he comes out. So what's your name? Never mind, Richard.
Okay.

Speaker 3 Judges will be Dr. Arthur W.
Steller, Dr. Barbara Steller, Barbara Cheetwood, and Ellen Thompson.
All the barbs. Ralph S.
Bird will serve as statistician.

Speaker 3 What do you need a statistician for a West Virginia beauty contest for? Wow. Music will be provided by the high school music.
Contestants will be judged on poise,

Speaker 3 facial beauty,

Speaker 3 and stage presence. At least they don't put their fucking body in there as for teenage girls.
We're going to judge them.

Speaker 3 It seems fucked up, too.

Speaker 3 Yeah, I think.

Speaker 3 With five finalists being asked to respond verbally to questions. Oh, boy, can they talk.
So

Speaker 3 I found out what happened in this because our girl is, Monica, is involved in this here.

Speaker 3 Apparently, she didn't win.

Speaker 3 They said Bridget Meadows won. That's a problem.

Speaker 3 Yeah, she does all sorts of stuff. She's a real achiever, this Bridget.
Cheerleader, Spanish Club, Future Business Leaders of America, Pep Club, newspaper. Yeah.
She does a lot.

Speaker 3 But

Speaker 3 second runner-up is, well, the first runner-up was another Hartwell, not Monica Hartwell, a different one, maybe a cousin or something. But the fourth runner-up is Monica.

Speaker 3 She's the fifth hottest girl in Matoka High School, apparently. She did it.

Speaker 3 Top five's not bad. Top five's great.
54 women.

Speaker 3 No, 54 young ladies get in there now she had an interesting upbringing too she definitely

Speaker 3 um

Speaker 3 as a young woman she grew up very much in a rural environment like

Speaker 3 it is absolutely completely rural it's um and her life was that i mean beauty contest and all that makes it seem like

Speaker 3 you know there's something

Speaker 3 you know that she was like uh

Speaker 3 i don't know like sitting in her pink room doing her nails and shit like that.

Speaker 3 And it wasn't like that at all for her. Like,

Speaker 3 she had a very rural upbringing, like, bringing

Speaker 3 bringing water up from the

Speaker 3 shit like that. I mean, she really did that.
She said how her and her sister worked at a grocery store while they were growing up.

Speaker 3 They kept a garden that they had to water by carrying five-gallon buckets from the Bluestone River. Jesus.
Yeah, that's no hose or anything. They had her grandfather taught her how to trap and fish.

Speaker 3 And her grandmother taught her how to cook and how to make dresses so she could be in more pageants.

Speaker 3 She's a dress-making, water-carrying. She's really doing it.
Very old school. I mean, she is like extremely old school.

Speaker 3 She's going down and getting some fish and getting a bucket of water and coming up and sewing a dress so she can do the pageant. And she's got to hurry because she's got to gut the trout.

Speaker 3 Yeah, I mean, yeah, you can't let it sit there. You don't want to sit.
It's in rigor now. You got to cut it and do it.
So I'm telling you, so growing up like that.

Speaker 3 Yeah, they do. Does it? Yeah.
Yeah. They get stiff.
They're too hard? Wow. Yeah, they get stiff.
You can see them twist with rigor and then they relax again, just like people. I don't know.

Speaker 3 It's weird. So

Speaker 3 that's an interesting life. She's not any one thing.
She's not doing it. Yeah.
Not any one thing at all.

Speaker 3 Now, her sister said, Seems like she's an achiever and she can do things and she's real, you know, tough. But her sister said also she's got some problems and she does.
They really surface.

Speaker 3 Her sister, Teresa,

Speaker 3 said that, you know, Monica was always taking care of animals and helping people when they were growing up. And also later on, she becomes, she gets into, she's a beautician.

Speaker 3 She does hair and does all that kind of stuff. She goes to school for that.

Speaker 3 Now, the way her sister puts it, she was a wonderful person and a great beautician before she became sick.

Speaker 3 Oh, what happened? Now, that's the thing. We don't know what her illness is or if it was even a physical ailment.
We're not sure. Oh.
Because it just went away.

Speaker 3 And this was an ailment that would make her unable to walk or see.

Speaker 3 It blinded her? Blinded her and crippled her. Now, I can't imagine they never diabetic.

Speaker 3 That's the problem. They never, no, they never found a physical reason for this.
So to me,

Speaker 3 if you have something that, and it also would cause her to become very confused,

Speaker 3 all it's so if you have something that makes you not be able to walk or see and becomes confused, that's a stroke. You know what I mean? Like that's a, that's a physical problem.

Speaker 3 And that just doesn't go away if you have that. That's a, you have some sort of issue and it never kind of came to fruition, really.
So

Speaker 3 in the end, they decided that it was probably a mental condition that did this. It was probably some sort of psychosomatic thing or some sort of mental illness.

Speaker 3 And they said the treatments that they would try to give her for these ailments, because they were just trying shit.

Speaker 3 This young lady can't walk or see. So they try things that would have a problem and it would affect her cognition because they would give her crazy drugs.
Okay.

Speaker 3 And this is in the 80s too, so who knows what they were giving her. Maybe the drugs blinded her? What the fuck? No, no, that was.

Speaker 3 That was, they'd give her that to try to rectify the problem, and that's when that would affect her cognition. They didn't just give her drugs for no reason.
Yeah.

Speaker 3 She would, she got drugs because she couldn't walk or see and was confused.

Speaker 3 Later on, when she's an adult, she's diagnosed with pretty severe bipolar disorder, which they believe that's probably what it was, something

Speaker 3 in that universe here, and other mental conditions, not just by, they said, she's got bipolar and a bunch of other shit, too. Like,

Speaker 3 that's her main feature is bipolar, but there's a lot of other stuff there. So,

Speaker 3 yeah, it's weird. We don't know what exactly happened,

Speaker 3 but that's the problem, apparently. That's her sickness is

Speaker 3 mental issues.

Speaker 3 She'd been

Speaker 3 actually put into psychiatric institutions more than once, committed to them. So she's got some problems coming up.
We'll just say that.

Speaker 3 Now, it doesn't matter, though, because she still, it's weird. She still seems to live a full life.

Speaker 3 And even we'll find out she'll have a daughter that seems to be a very successful young lady and things like that. So she keeps it together, but also then will unravel sometimes, it seems like.

Speaker 3 Only way I can kind of put it. I suppose some, I mean, not everybody that's mentally unwell is just always mentally unwell.
Sometimes

Speaker 3 the environment causes that unwellness to really kick into overdrive. True, that's what I mean.

Speaker 3 She's not just, oh, completely, you know, sitting in bed, not knowing where she is and stuff like that. She seems to go through periods of achievement and lucidity and then

Speaker 3 she loses it, deteriorate, lose it, have to be institutionalized for a while and then come out and then be back okay again. So that's what seems to be her cycle here that goes on.

Speaker 3 It's not all one thing. In December 1985, there's

Speaker 3 an engagement announcement in the newspaper. Yeah.
And they're saying, Mr. and Mrs.
Michael Hartwell, that's just how they do shit around there.

Speaker 3 This is in December 1985

Speaker 3 of Lashmeet announced the engagement and forthcoming marriage of their daughter, Monica Suzette Hartwell, to Larry

Speaker 3 Van de Hart of Norfolk, Virginia. Oh.

Speaker 3 So, yeah, they said,

Speaker 3 at this point, he was in the U.S. Navy, and she was studying cosmetology, it says, and will continue to study cosmetology.
They're going to have a big church wedding on December 27th of that year.

Speaker 3 And they do.

Speaker 3 Now,

Speaker 3 she ends up having a daughter, though. She's married a bunch of times, by the way.
Oh, boy. Her relationships come and go fast, as we'll find out.

Speaker 3 But she was married to this guy, DeHart, and then has a daughter with a different last name. It's not hers or his, so it must be from a different guy.

Speaker 3 And she has that daughter right around this time, right around the mid-80s. She has this daughter.
So it's kind of interesting, honestly.

Speaker 3 So, yeah, she has this daughter named Ashley, and she gets married then. And

Speaker 3 the other thing is, I find out like Ashley has a bunch of

Speaker 3 like there's newspaper announcements when Ashley does stuff. So Monica has it together enough to put in a thing at the newspaper for an announcement.
You know what I mean?

Speaker 3 So that's that's something.

Speaker 3 She's married a couple times real quick here.

Speaker 3 March 30th, 2000, she gets divorced from a guy named Freddie Harlis II.

Speaker 3 Don't know where he came from. Yeah, right.

Speaker 3 But that's March 30th, 2000. Now, by the middle of 2001, she is married and divorced again.

Speaker 3 Wow. She gets married and divorced within a year after she just gets divorced.

Speaker 3 If you want to call being divorced at least three times by the time you're fucking 30 five years old, I would say, yeah, she's doing great.

Speaker 3 Just great.

Speaker 3 Now, in 2001, it's a guy named Brian W. Smith is who she's divorced from.
Now, Brian Smith, keep that name in mind. You'd imagine they're divorced, so that'll be the end of him.

Speaker 3 Oh, no, he hangs around. He keeps coming back.
She'll be living with him later, even though she's with somebody else. It's insanity.

Speaker 3 So Brian does not go away, as we'll talk about. 2008, her daughter Ashley graduated from high school, and she graduated with a college preparatory diploma.
Yeah.

Speaker 3 Apparently, she's going to pursue a career in cosmetology at the Princeton Votec. Good God, Ashley, you can leave.
You're allowed to leave the county.

Speaker 3 She's just going to follow in mom's footsteps and be a cosmetology person at the Princeton VoTech.

Speaker 3 How many reason is that?

Speaker 3 Vocational technical school. It's literally, that's not what you want.

Speaker 3 And Drop Dead Gorgeous, that was the prize.

Speaker 3 was like a gift certificate for tuition at a VoTech beauty school. It was the same shit.
So Ashley gets married in 2009. So 2008, she's graduating.

Speaker 3 2009, she's getting married, following 100% in mom's footsteps when it comes to that. Marriage right after high school, cosmetology school at the Votec, everything.
Jesus. She married a guy named J.P.

Speaker 3 Surface.

Speaker 3 Surface. Surface, just like a surface.
And I only say this because I feel like

Speaker 3 To have newspaper announcements, your family has to have some kind of shit together to put those into the paper. You know what I mean? Generally, yeah.
You have to fill a thing out.

Speaker 3 You have to give them like $12 or whatever back in the day.

Speaker 3 You have to pay a few bucks. Like, there has to be a thing.
So there's some sort of

Speaker 3 something pushing them forward. My family would have never done this.
They're

Speaker 3 too no-count to do any of this shit. Nobody would have remembered to do any newspaper announcements or anything like that.

Speaker 3 The money part was the first issue here. Yeah.

Speaker 3 The money. And also just nobody would have thought to do it.

Speaker 3 So, you know, oh, we got to fill a a format. Never mind.
No one's, that's too much. I got work in the morning.
Like, that's how my family would have been. I'm not doing that.
So they got married.

Speaker 3 Apparently,

Speaker 3 she was escorted by her grandfather. So I don't know where the hell her father is.
She was escorted by Monica's mom. Jesus.
So I'm not sure. Or dad.
Or Monica's dad. Yeah, Michael.
Yeah.

Speaker 3 Monica's grandma. Yeah.
Come on. Come on, grandma.
Walk me down the aisle. The bride was attired in a white chiffon gown with a long train, crystals down the side.
Very nice here. Sounds nice.

Speaker 3 The couple honeymooned in Tennessee is the dream honeymoon we all have. Ooh,

Speaker 3 we're going to Knoxville, everybody. That's going to be

Speaker 3 from Maynardsville. From old Maynardsville now.

Speaker 3 Now,

Speaker 3 hey, everybody, just going to take a quick break from the show, tell you a little bit more about Acorns Early. At acorns.com.
Absolutely. Ah, man.
So many of us only focus on where our money is today.

Speaker 3 Acorns is the financial wellness app that cares about where your money is going tomorrow. Tomorrow.

Speaker 3 Acorns believes that everybody's money has potential. And if you want to see what your money is capable of, Acorns Potential Screen makes it easy.
So many people are focused on all of this.

Speaker 3 It's a big deal. Obviously, you should be focused on

Speaker 3 your money. You know what I mean? Acorns is a smart way to give your money a chance to grow.
Acorns is easy.

Speaker 3 You can sign up in minutes and start automatically investing your spare money, even if all you've got is spare change. Yeah.
Yeah, it could be a little bit, a lot, whatever you got.

Speaker 3 Acorns grows with you. Whether you're just starting out or thinking about settling down, Acorns supports your big and small goals across every life stage.
That's important.

Speaker 3 The Acorns potential screen shows you the power of compounding and how your money could grow over time.

Speaker 3 Plus, you can quickly adjust how much you're investing every day, week, or month to make sure you're building toward your goals. Acorns is all in one.
No more finance apps cluttering up your phone.

Speaker 3 You don't need a whole folder for all your, you don't need that. You need just one.
That's important. With Acorns, you can invest, save, and give your money a chance to grow in one trusted place.

Speaker 3 It's really easy, too. It's just an easy app to navigate.
It's really good and really easy. And you're looking to grow your money a little bit or a lot.

Speaker 3 Just like an Acorn, it will sprout an oak. And that's what you can do here.
Sign up now, and Acorns will boost your new account with a $5 $5 bonus investment.

Speaker 3 Join the over 14 million all-time customers who've already saved and invested over $27 billion with Acorns. Head to acorns.com/slash small or download the Acorns app to get started.

Speaker 3 Paid non-client endorsement compensation provides incentive to positively promote Acorns.

Speaker 3 Tier 2 compensation provided potential subject to various factors such as customers' accounts, age, and investment settings, does not include Acorns fees.

Speaker 3 results do not predict or represent the performance of any acorns portfolio investment results will vary investing involves risk acorns advisors llc is an sec registered investment advisor view important disclosures at acorns.com slash small and now back to the show

Speaker 3 this message is sponsored by raycon buy raycon.com and we want you to buy raycon.com because they are so good these are great earbuds raycon's everyday earbuds have become a go-to gift for the holidays.

Speaker 3 They really are terrific for yourself for a gift. They sound great.
They last all day. And then some with 32 hours of battery life and actually stay comfortable no matter how long you wear them.

Speaker 3 None of that weird pinched ear thing that you get going on. Over 4 million people already have a pair.
So you might have been curious.

Speaker 3 And if you are, now is the time to buy them for Black Friday and Cyber Monday. You can get up to...
30% off all of Raycon products. Perfect for gifting or for keeping it for yourself.

Speaker 3 You You know what I mean? Between you and me, you know, you don't have to tell anybody. It's all right.

Speaker 3 The Everyday Earbuds Classic are loaded with upgrades, active noise cancellation, multi-point connectivity. That is so cool.
You can pair two devices at once on there. Excellent.

Speaker 3 And an ergonomic fit that actually stays put no matter what you're doing. I have searched for years for earbuds that don't fall out of my ears and into the toilet bowl.

Speaker 3 And Raycon finally has delivered this for me. I love these things so much.
They have new colors too that are really, really cool. I like the mint green one or cool mint it is.
That's what it's called.

Speaker 3 They're green. They're cool.
They have the blush violet, bunch of new colors, really cool.

Speaker 3 That way they feel less like just earbuds and more like you're putting yourself together, like a whole part of your vibe that you got going on here. Lots of great features.

Speaker 3 Quick charge means 10 minutes of charging, gives you 90 minutes of playtime, up to 32 hours of battery life with the case, this cool awareness mode so you can walk the dog and not get hit by a car because you still hear things that are going on around you while hearing the great quality from your earbuds as well.

Speaker 3 They're excellent. Plus, over 3 million customers already love Raycons and they come with a 30-day happiness guarantee.
So if you don't love them, returns are easy. You have nothing to lose except.

Speaker 3 uncomfortable earbuds that don't work right and fall out of your ears. Lose those, get yourself Raycons.
Raycon's going big for Black Friday and Cyber Monday. Everything is up to 30% off.

Speaker 3 Just click the link in the description or go to buyraycon.com slash small town murder to save on Raycon audio products site-wide. Now back to the show.

Speaker 3 Monica, as this goes on into the 2010s, Monica has a longtime boyfriend. I'm shocked that

Speaker 3 she didn't marry him because she marries everybody else. But this is Michael Walker.
He's about the same age as her, born about 19 or about 10 years older.

Speaker 3 I'm sorry, born in 1958 as opposed to 68 for her.

Speaker 3 Now,

Speaker 3 birds of a feather here, because we know that Monica has quite a few psychological problems, obviously, and no judgment, just that's a fact.

Speaker 3 Michael has at least as much or more psychological issues than Monica.

Speaker 3 So that is bad when you get those people together.

Speaker 3 And for a bipolar person, too, to

Speaker 3 be very into a relationship to the point where you get married quickly and then end up divorced pretty quickly is kind of, that's kind of standard shit, for, like, especially for an unmedicated person who's got bipolar.

Speaker 3 That's a thing. It's the ups and downs and ebbs and flows here.
So, Michael Walker has what's called unspecified mental health issues. What does that mean?

Speaker 3 So many, you can't even put a finger on it. Because you would say the rare ones.
We don't know what they are. We don't even know what they are.
You'd say unspecified, you think undiagnosed. Yeah.

Speaker 3 But that's not the case because he pushed him over. They just can't figure it out.
He is hospitalized, quote, several times a year

Speaker 3 in psychiatric facilities to readjust his medication and, quote, get his head straight, as he puts it.

Speaker 3 Four times a year. So he goes, got to go get my head straight.
And he checks into the hospital for a while.

Speaker 3 Every season, he's getting. Yeah.
I feel, well, the leaves are changing. I better.

Speaker 3 Inside, too. Wow.
You know, when the barometric pressure changes, really, my medication works way way different. I got to get it fixed.
So that's a lot.

Speaker 3 And I mean, you know, I feel bad for the guy, obviously. That's terrible.
That's horrible.

Speaker 3 Also, at the same time, you want to keep your distance a lot of times, you know, if you're in a relation, like a serious relationship. So these two

Speaker 3 safety and well-being of our relationship. Absolutely.
These two are a match made in heaven. I mean, you can't.
Well, certainly made in the waiting room. Made in somewhere.
Yeah.

Speaker 3 Match made in this ward of the fourth floor of this hospital. So by 2020,

Speaker 3 they're living together, Monica and Michael. Yeah.
Okay.

Speaker 3 And

Speaker 3 also living in the house is her ex-husband, Brian. Yeah, of course he is.
She's living with her current boyfriend and her ex-husband at the same time.

Speaker 3 Now, the ex-husband, from what I understand, Craig doesn't, or Brian, I'm sorry, Craig is a next-door neighbor we're going to talk about, but Brian Smith, he doesn't have any like mental issues that we know about.

Speaker 3 He doesn't, like, he doesn't, hasn't been to a hospital, doesn't have bipolar disorder or anything like that. So imagine if you're him, you're living with your ex-wife,

Speaker 3 who you, I'm sure he calls her fucking crazy all the time and to his friends and she's crazy fucking bitch, Jesus Christ, and her crazy goddamn new boyfriend. Right.

Speaker 3 He's living with them. How shitty is this guy's life? Imagine living with your ex and her new fucking boyfriend.
Hey, just imagine that, number one.

Speaker 3 If they're the sanest. Oh, boy.
If they're as sane as a fucking, you know, whatever, like, imagine that. Like, this is a single thing.
If you have a healthy relationship with you.

Speaker 3 How can you do that? I don't know how you can do that.

Speaker 3 No, you can't. That's what I mean.
Nothing about this is healthy.

Speaker 3 This is some West Virginia Hills shit right here. There's no amicable separation that makes

Speaker 3 her ex and her new

Speaker 3 healthy. That's not healthy.
I have never. That's aggressively amicable.

Speaker 3 I've never been that amicable with anybody where I'm like, you know what? I've never been that amicable with somebody else in a relationship. That's what I mean.
That is extra amicable right there.

Speaker 3 It's amicable plus. That's too much.

Speaker 3 So that's a wild living arrangement. I've never literally put my penis inside.
I was never that amicable. Never that amicable.
And they're living in like a small trailer.

Speaker 3 So you're here and she's like a little bit of a shot. This is not a palace.
No. That's what I mean.
It's not, oh, I'll live in the east wing and you guys are in the west. It's not that.

Speaker 3 We're talking, they're sharing 700 square feet, probably, these people. So, this is terrifying.
Now, July 26th, 2020 comes around.

Speaker 3 Okay. And we were all going a little crazy there in 2020 and losing our minds a bit.
No, it was a tough mental time for everybody.

Speaker 3 But this day, apparently, old Michael is having, Michael Walker is having way more of a breakdown than most people.

Speaker 3 Apparently, all day, according to everyone around, his neighbors and

Speaker 3 Craig and everybody, or not Craig, I keep calling him Craig, Brian, damn it, the ex-husband.

Speaker 3 Michael has been, quote, loudly spouting gibberish all day. Gibberish.
I love the word gibberish, number one. That is so close, man.
That is great.

Speaker 3 Hunter Thompson used to use the word gibberish all the time, and it was always the perfect way of use. And blazing saddles, authentic frontier gibberish.
It's always a great word.

Speaker 3 So, including claims, he's spouting general gibberish of blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, whatever.

Speaker 3 But the main thing that strikes people's attention, because this is normal for him to have a gibberish breakdown, is on this particular day, he is claiming to be variously different times either God or Jesus.

Speaker 3 One of the two. Okay, but, you know, one of the two.
A deity. A deity of some kind.
The Father, the Son. One day he's the Holy Ghost.
He doesn't care. He's just whatever comes up.

Speaker 3 So he is out. Him and Monica are on the front porch of their home while he is shouting.

Speaker 3 apparently loudly spouting gibberish as the neighbors put it about i'm jesus christ and I'm God and all this type of shit.

Speaker 3 Now, at the same time that might have contributed to this, Monica and Michael have been drinking all day as well. Uh-huh.

Speaker 3 So it's like the afternoon. They've been drinking since the a.m.

Speaker 3 They have, they're taking antipsychotics while drinking. We don't know if they're taking meds.
That's the other thing. We don't know if they're, if they're actively taking their meds.

Speaker 3 They probably prescribe them. Another thing, bipolar, and this is very common for bipolar people, they don't like to take their meds.
They don't like it. They like the highs because that feels good.

Speaker 3 A manic phase is fucking great.

Speaker 3 Yeah. Manic phase feels amazing.
You feel like it's like being on Coke because you feel like you can do anything. You can't, but you feel like you can.
You get a lot done. Yeah.

Speaker 3 You feel like, oh, I could, you know, I could figure this out.

Speaker 3 Peace in the Middle East. Let me sit down with it for a minute.
I think I can figure this out. Literally, that's what you think if you're in a manic phase.

Speaker 3 And then, you know, the depressive phase comes on. It's not that much.
But so they don't generally, a lot of them don't enjoy taking medicine. So sometimes they'll go off meds.

Speaker 3 And we don't know if they are on meds, off meds. They're in a fucking West Virginia trailer.
All bets are off. Who knows? Yeah.

Speaker 3 And even if you're on antipsychotics, just being in a West Virginia trailer might make you psychotic anyway. That could do it right there.
And especially drinking.

Speaker 3 Yeah. And then if you are taking the drugs, drinking is, I don't think, goes with them at all.
No, that's not any of these drugs. And

Speaker 3 if you're not taking your drugs, just drinking is just going to exacerbate any mental illness you have. So it's not good.

Speaker 3 Um, so uh, they're both drinking, and he's talking about being Jesus and God, and talking about the Holy Spirit from time to time, literally, and doing all this.

Speaker 3 Now, the ex-husband, Brian, he's in the imagine this, they're shit-faced, yelling at each other on the front porch, arguing about who's Jesus and who's God.

Speaker 3 Nobody's on meds, everybody's drinking, and this guy's like, I'm gonna try to stay in the back of the house. He literally is like, I'm gonna avoid the situation.

Speaker 3 So, he says he was in the yard in the back, either doing some yard birth, yard work or sunbathing.

Speaker 3 We don't know which one.

Speaker 3 But either way, he said it's an effort to put distance between himself and Michael Walker's ranting, deity-filled monologues. He does not want any part of that shit.

Speaker 3 And also, Monica's up there arguing with him, and they're both drunk. So let's stay back here.
Now, the next-door neighbors here, Craig Young and Teresa Horn, are...

Speaker 3 young fiancés. They're getting married soon.
They're engaged.

Speaker 3 Teresa and Craig were doing a woodworking project in their driveway, which is about 10 feet from the front porch.

Speaker 3 What are they woodworking?

Speaker 3 They're cutting trim.

Speaker 3 They're doing cutting trim into pieces to do something to redo the inside of the house.

Speaker 3 Maybe baseboards, maybe

Speaker 3 ceiling things. Who knows? Maybe they're spelling their name out.
Just some Wayne Scotting. We're not sure.

Speaker 3 Either way, this, where they're working in their driveway, is about 10 feet from the front porch.

Speaker 3 So a basketball hoop length distance. So, they're hearing every word that's being said on the porch, all the arguing, and they're trying to ignore it.
Oh, honey, yeah, that's a 4/15th right there.

Speaker 3 4/16th, you want to cut that? Yeah, no, no, no, measure that up. Yeah, we got that.
You need the jigsaw. Yeah, here you go.
Like, they're just ignoring shit.

Speaker 3 Yeah, here's the pencil, mark it off, as I would be doing as well. Um,

Speaker 3 so at some point, Monica walks down off the porch.

Speaker 3 I don't know why she walks over to them, considering they're 10 feet away. You could just talk to them, but she walks down, comes over here, and apologizes.

Speaker 3 She said, I am real sorry about what's going on over here. I understand that this is, you know,

Speaker 3 you're trying to have a nice afternoon doing your woodworking or whatever, and we're over here. He's acting like a crazy person.
I'm very sorry.

Speaker 3 She said it won't keep up for much longer. And she said, I'm going to, quote, get this neighborhood back to normal soon.
Don't you worry about it. All right.

Speaker 3 So they go, okay, maybe she's kicking her boyfriend boyfriend out great terrific then um they're still

Speaker 3 she goes back up there they're still arguing oh now

Speaker 3 okay now upon

Speaker 3 leaving the driveway monica goes back home and brian starts to the ex-husband walks around the house wanting to tell them to either shut the fuck up or go inside okay literally it was like you can't be arguing about who's jesus and who's God

Speaker 3 outside on the front fucking porch. Do it inside or shut up.
Take your pick. Right.
Basically.

Speaker 3 So, and at that point, Craig and Teresa, the next door neighbors, go into their house to determine to see if the piece of wood they just cut will fit. Sure.
So they take a piece of wood in to go in.

Speaker 3 Okay.

Speaker 3 Now, Craig said also he didn't think Monica's comment about Mr. Walker there, about Michael Walker,

Speaker 3 you know, this neighborhood will get back to normal soon and he's going to be out of here.

Speaker 3 he didn't find that unusual, he said, because he knew that Michael suffered from mental illnesses of all kinds and would routinely leave the house to seek mental health treatment.

Speaker 3 So remember, three, four times a year, he's at the mental hospital. So they are like, oh, yeah, that means he'll be leaving soon to go to the hospital.

Speaker 3 Basically, he comes home, he's okay for a while, he'll deteriorate, and then they go, oh, yeah, he'll be back in the hospital soon. He's acting nuts again.
That's how it is.

Speaker 3 So they go back inside. Now, a few minutes later, and we don't know the timing on this, by the way.
This could be 30 seconds. This could be two minutes.

Speaker 3 Nobody really knows because nobody was keeping track. But

Speaker 3 Teresa and Craig, the next-door neighbors, hear a gunshot,

Speaker 3 a loud one. Yeah.
And they walk outside and they see, as soon as they get out of the door, they see Brian Smith running toward them, yelling that Monica just shot Michael. Monica just shot Michael.

Speaker 3 Okay.

Speaker 3 Now we don't know. Between five and 30 seconds is what they say.
Who knows? So

Speaker 3 he's saying she shot Michael. She shot Michael.
Call 911. Call 911.
So Teresa calls 911.

Speaker 3 They see that the front, as they get out, they also see the front door is closing.

Speaker 3 And there's Michael laid out on the front porch, not

Speaker 3 claiming to be a deity at this point. So

Speaker 3 Brian says that he last saw them on the front porch. He exited the back door of the house a few minutes later, heard a gunshot, ran around the house and saw that.

Speaker 3 Saw Michaels Walker's dead body lying in the bushes. She shot him off the porch.
Wow.

Speaker 3 So the 911 call comes in.

Speaker 3 They said, you know, there's been a shooting over here. Can you please come on over?

Speaker 3 You know, they said, do you know who shot him? And the next door neighbors who called the cops said, we have no fucking idea. We were inside our house.

Speaker 3 So, I mean, you can ask them, I guess, but I don't know.

Speaker 3 Now, everybody remains near the front porch. Brian, Craig, Teresa, everybody but Monica, who went back in the house.
Yeah.

Speaker 3 She went back in the house and sat inside on the couch alone.

Speaker 3 The cops don't show up for 15 or 20 minutes. She's still on the couch inside.
Just sitting there watching TV. Sitting there, just enjoying the quiet.

Speaker 3 Yeah, not

Speaker 3 watching whatever show is going on in her brain at this point. So the cops arrive.
They get here. Did she do that? She's blind?

Speaker 3 What? Wait, no, she's not the blind one. What am I doing? Blind?

Speaker 3 No one in the story is blind. What are we talking? Where did blind come from? Never mind her.

Speaker 3 Oh, earlier, she couldn't see when she had an event when she was a teenager. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Yeah, she can see now, right? She can see in what? She's not forever. No, no, no.
Just my.

Speaker 3 Wow. Okay, yeah, that confused the shit out of me.
Thank you. Because the whole time I'm going, wait, is she still blind? She was only blind for when she had her issue.
Got it. Got it.

Speaker 3 So they get there. They're dispatched about 3.30.
They've been drinking all day, and it's 3.30.

Speaker 3 Holy p.m., not a.m. So imagine what this would have been like by midnight

Speaker 3 afternoon, they got. This is Groundhog for Breakfast type shit here, which is also West Virginia, which is.

Speaker 3 Shouldn't even be getting off work yet. No.
No, she should be going to hang out with the Groundhog for Breakfast guys. Yeah.

Speaker 3 Because they're drinking purple drink and all this shit early in the morning.

Speaker 3 So they get there. They realize, holy shit, there's Walker lying on the front steps, half in the bushes, bleeding and not moving.

Speaker 3 So there's a trooper weekly, and he's one of the officers here.

Speaker 3 He was advised by the next-door neighbor that I guess Monica shot him. That's what I heard.
Because

Speaker 3 he only heard that because that's what

Speaker 3 Brian said when he came around the corner.

Speaker 3 So they then secure the home from the outside. And they're like, well, where is she? Where is this Monica? They say she's in the house.
So they say, okay, they walk into the house.

Speaker 3 There she is sitting on the couch, calm as can be. Yeah.
They're like, can you stand up? No problem. She's cooperative.

Speaker 3 What the fuck? Trooper Wilkie or Weakly asks her, where's the gun?

Speaker 3 Okay. Now at that time,

Speaker 3 she was handcuffed, surrounded by the whole West Virginia State Police and Mercer County Sheriff's Department. There's 10 cops in their trailer living room.

Speaker 3 She's handcuffed, and she was being escorted out of the house. So she's not free to leave or anything like that.
And she's not been advised of her Miranda rights yet. She is not being her rights.

Speaker 3 But he said, Where's the gun? Okay.

Speaker 3 She answered by saying the gun's on the couch.

Speaker 3 Okay, so

Speaker 3 they sent another cop in to look for it, and there it is on the couch, a 410 single-shot shotgun.

Speaker 3 Okay.

Speaker 3 So, yeah, that's what she shot her with. That's it.
That's That's it. One shot.
Boom. Loaded at once.
Wow, that's the one.

Speaker 3 Now, Brian said that, you know, he gave the statement to the cops, and, you know, he said it was about, you know,

Speaker 3 they talked to him about 45 minutes after the shooting.

Speaker 3 He said that the last two hours before the shooting, they'd been drinking a lot, and Michael Walker was running his, quote, running his mouth all the time.

Speaker 3 God, Jesus, Holy Spirit, she threatened to do this. I didn't think she was going to do it.
I heard her say,

Speaker 3 he's demon-possessed. He's demon-possessed.
The county would be a better place if he wasn't here. I'm going to kill him.

Speaker 3 So that's why he went to the backyard. He's demon-possessed.
He's demon-possessed. County would be a better place.
I'm going to shoot him. He's like, I'll go in the backyard.

Speaker 3 This is why we're divorced. So he said that he was just getting some sun.
He heard the shot. And he couldn't see.
He said he couldn't see the front door because of the foliage.

Speaker 3 So he he ran out and he saw that Walker had been shot. He went to the next-door neighbor's house, said call 911.

Speaker 3 He said he had the phone with him because he had called to, he had planned to ask for a ride. So he had a cordless phone with him.
It's all confusing. So now other witnesses,

Speaker 3 they also say that, yeah, Monica had been threatening to kill Michael all day. and actually called up a family member and was like going over the merits of killing him or not.
Yeah.

Speaker 3 She was like, I feel like killing him, but I don't know. You know what I mean? And then she was going over, I mean, if I kill him, it'll be good for this reason, but bad for that reason.
County. Yeah.

Speaker 3 Yeah.

Speaker 3 She did say, though, he does need to at least be removed from the county or killed because, quote, he was a demon from hell.

Speaker 3 Not just a demon, demon straight from the fires. Yeah.
And the county would be a better place without him.

Speaker 3 She told this relative she loved him, but finally saw who he was, and killing him would protect her community, you know, from demons. Yeah.

Speaker 3 The one cop said after hearing all of this, quote, this murder seems to be pretty cut and dry, but we still have a lot of work to do on it, they said. So is she going to talk?

Speaker 3 Seems like she'd have a lot to say.

Speaker 3 If they tell her she doesn't have to, though, she might not. Who knows? Well, she's placed in a state police cruiser after she's arrested.

Speaker 3 She first declined to be interviewed after being advised of her Miranda rights, but later on, when one of the detectives checked on her, she changed her mind and said, now I do want to talk. Oh, okay.

Speaker 3 Now, neighbors told investigators that both Monica and Michael, quote, had mental issues that day and had been drinking all day as well.

Speaker 3 The one cop said, I believe Ms. Hartwell told me she was schizophrenic and bipolar.
That'll do it.

Speaker 3 That's a lot.

Speaker 3 He said,

Speaker 3 Ms. Hartwell told me that Walker believed he was God, Jesus Christ, and the Holy Spirit, and that she did not believe that.
Well, obviously, she's being, you know, she's logical, that's what it is.

Speaker 3 Until the next sentence, which is, quote, she believed he was possessed by a demon instead. Yeah.
So, you know, it's something. It's some kind of entity.

Speaker 3 We're not sure where it's from, but it's something.

Speaker 3 So is she competent? That's the question. That's the other thing.
Can't she be?

Speaker 3 A big deal here. So the prosecuting attorney right away told the court during the first first preliminaries that Monica was

Speaker 3 currently competent to stand, or he did not think she was currently competent to stand trial. That's the prosecutor.
I think she needs some work before we put her on trial. She's a little wacky.

Speaker 3 Hartwell's attorney, Ryan Flanagan, said his client had been, quote, in and out of competency, which means not competent.

Speaker 3 That's not competent is what that means. In and out.
In and out of competency. One minute she's competent, next minute she's not.
She's not, yeah.

Speaker 3 Wow. She never was.

Speaker 3 They also said that there's a prosecuting attorney said that Monica had been drinking when the shooting occurred, so there was the issue of diminished capacity to be considered as well.

Speaker 3 So the judge said that the reports concerning the shotgun and autopsy, you know, are

Speaker 3 pretty damning as far as obviously he was shot and things like that, but you guys have to look all over this.

Speaker 3 They said that, oh, she's going to have two other, she's going to have at least two mental evaluations to determine her competency, blah, blah, blah.

Speaker 3 In jail, she attempts to commit suicide, by the way, which is not surprising. Of course, I mean, she's in jail, she's mentally ill.
Who knows if she's getting any meds?

Speaker 3 We don't know. So now, the state's evidence at this point, it sounds pretty open and shut until you really look at it.

Speaker 3 The only evidence that she committed the crime was

Speaker 3 because Brian Smith said she did.

Speaker 3 Really? What? Okay. Brian Smith came around and said, Monica shot him.
Monica shot him.

Speaker 3 Nobody else saw Monica shoot him. Okay.
None of that shit. So,

Speaker 3 yeah. I mean, the neighbor said we last saw her with the victim on the porch, and they heard a gunshot and saw him in the bushes.

Speaker 3 But that's it.

Speaker 3 The gun, that's definitely the gun that killed him. They figure that out.

Speaker 3 So that's interesting.

Speaker 3 And she did say she thought he was possessed. That's a thing.

Speaker 3 The state of West Virginia's medical examiner testified that the distance between the barrel of the gun and the victim was less than two feet.

Speaker 3 Less than two feet with a shotgun. Well, and a 410 isn't crazy, but it's so

Speaker 3 two feet away. Any gun is pretty crazy.

Speaker 3 And two feet away, that gives that opportunity to... branch out too and spread and really take your own fucking head.

Speaker 3 Hey, everybody, just going to take a quick break from the show to tell you how to be safe with SimplySafe. SimplySafe.com, S-I-M-P-L-Isafe.com.
Absolutely.

Speaker 3 SimplySafe is the home security system, number one that we use and that we trust. Homes, studios, everything is trusted to SimplySafe because they do it right.

Speaker 3 And now they're having this amazing Black Friday sale, the early access Black Friday sale. It's so good.
That's the thing. Security.

Speaker 3 What is it? Security normally. It would be someone breaks in, a loud thing, a woo-woo-woo, and then they steal all your stuff, murder your whole family, and leave.
Now we got to check it. Great.

Speaker 3 And it's going woo-woo woo still. Who cares? You're hoping someone calls? No, that's not what it is.
What they do, it's a different thing. They're stopping crime before it starts.

Speaker 3 They are proactive with Simply Safe. This is how you do it.

Speaker 3 There's a way you can stop someone from actually entering your home because Simply Safe has, they will, they have active guard outdoor protection, AI-powered cameras that detect threats while they are still outside your home and alert real security agents.

Speaker 3 This is huge. They take action while the intruder is still outside.
Number one, they yell at the guy, get out of here. Stop.
Go.

Speaker 3 What are you doing?

Speaker 3 I'm calling the cops right now. They let them know they're being watched on camera.
There's cops on the way. And even sounding off a loud siren, triggering a spotlight if needed.

Speaker 3 This is how you do it. This is how you stop people from doing this.
If you listen to small-town murder, you know,

Speaker 3 you got to stop it before it starts. Once they're in, it's way too late.
So I'm telling you, you got to get Simply Safe. There's no long-term contracts.
That's

Speaker 3 wonderful. That's huge.
No hidden fees. You can cancel anytime.
Named best home security system by U.S. News and World Report for five years running.
Unbelievable. Because it's that good.

Speaker 3 60-day money-back guarantee. So you can try it and see the difference for yourself.
And they know you're going to like it. Tell you that right now.

Speaker 3 Don't miss out on Simply Safe's biggest sale of the year. 60% off right now.
Our listeners can save 60%

Speaker 3 off on a SimplySafe home security system at simply safe.com slash small. That's simply safe, S-I-M-P-L-I safe.com slash small.
There's no safe like SimplySafe. Now back to the show.

Speaker 3 Hey, everybody, just going to take a quick break from the show to tell you a little bit more about Quince. Oh, quince.com, Q-U-I-N-C-E.com.
Absolutely. Great place to buy your clothes.

Speaker 3 Man, they're such good stuff, such a great price. And

Speaker 3 we're getting into the cooler times here now. I mean, fall is going to be turned into winter here.
You know, you want stuff, you want good stuff, but you want it to be simple and easily accessible.

Speaker 3 Stuff that looks good, feels good, things you'll actually wear. Quince is how you do that.
And quince, they're so good. Quince pieces make great gifts too for the season coming up here.

Speaker 3 This season's lineup is simple, but smart and easy with Quince. $50 Mongolian cashmere sweaters that feel like an everyday luxury.
Wool coats that are equal parts stylish and durable.

Speaker 3 They have denim that nails the fit for everyday comfort, all at a fraction of what you expect to and what you'd think you should pay.

Speaker 3 You almost feel like you're, ah, you're getting one over on them, but that's how good the prices are.

Speaker 3 What they do here, how they do that, they partner directly with ethical factories and top artisans. And then Quince goes and cuts out that middleman.

Speaker 3 So you get the premium quality stuff at half the cost of other higher-end brands. It's great stuff.
So you can give luxury quality pieces without the luxury price tag.

Speaker 3 We buy some from Quince all the time. Just got a cool leather jacket that I wore out to dinner the other night.
It was good stuff. I know you've got your linen.
Go to Quince.

Speaker 3 It's really great stuff for a really great price. You got to go there.
Update your wardrobe. Get it cooking, guys.
Let's do this.

Speaker 3 Give and get timeless holiday staples that last this season with Quince. Go to quince.com/slash small town murder for free shipping on your order and 365-day returns.
Now available in Canada, too.

Speaker 3 That's q-u-in-ce-e.com slash small town murder. Free shipping and 365-day returns, quince.com slash small town murder.
Now back to the show.

Speaker 2 This podcast is supported by MIDI Health. Are you in midlife, feeling dismissed, unheard, or just plain tired of the old healthcare system? You're not alone.

Speaker 2 For too long, women's serious midlife health issues have been trivialized, ignored, and met with a just deal with it attitude. Many of us have been made to feel ashamed or forgotten.

Speaker 2 In fact, even today, 75% of women seeking care for menopause and perimenopause issues are left entirely untreated. But here's the powerful truth.
It's time for a change. It's time for MIDI.

Speaker 2 MIDI is not just a healthcare provider. It's a women's telehealth clinic founded and supported by world-class leaders in women's health.
What sets MIDI apart?

Speaker 2 We are the only women's telehealth brand covered by major insurance companies, making high-quality, expert care accessible and affordable for all women everywhere.

Speaker 2 Our clinicians provide one-on-one face-to-face consultations where they truly listen to your unique needs.

Speaker 2 We offer a full range of holistic, data-driven solutions, from hormonal therapies and weight loss protocols to lifestyle coaching and preventive health guidance. This isn't a one-size-fits-all care.

Speaker 2 This is care uniquely tailored for you. At MIDI, you will join our patients who feel seen, heard, and prioritized.

Speaker 2 You will find that our mission is clear: to help all women thrive in midlife, giving them access to the health care they deserve.

Speaker 2 Because we believe midlife isn't the middle at all, it's just the beginning of your second act. Ready to feel your best and write your second act script?

Speaker 2 Visit joinmitty.com today to book your personalized insurance-covered virtual visit. That's joinmitty.com.
MIDI, the care women deserve.

Speaker 3 It's brutal. Here's the thing: thing.

Speaker 3 Monica, when they went in and grabbed her, she had no blood on her body or clothing.

Speaker 3 I don't know how you would shoot somebody from two feet away and not get any spread, any blowback on you. Nothing.
Not a drop. It seems unlikely, right?

Speaker 3 Seems not easy. I'm not a physicist, but it seems like...
There'd be some spatter coming back at you. Because if you hit them with a fucking hammer from that distance, you'd get some spatter on you.

Speaker 3 So I would assume a bullet would also have that.

Speaker 3 And this is, depending on which, what's in that gun, if it's a slug, you're getting tons. Oh, tons.
But even if it's fucking bird shot, you're shot something. There's got to be something.

Speaker 3 Yeah, that just tears the flesh apart. Little pieces of blood on you, little droplets even missed anything because

Speaker 3 they do it with the black light and all that, the sploominal. They'll see anything on there.

Speaker 3 Now,

Speaker 3 also, her team claims, and they don't have any tests to disprove this, that she did not have any gunshot residue on her hands either.

Speaker 3 So she can shoot someone from two feet away without getting any blood or gunshot residue on her, which is pretty impressive.

Speaker 3 She's a straight-up assassin, man.

Speaker 3 That's impressive.

Speaker 3 Now, Monica's legal team also claims, and we have not been able to figure out the veracity of this, that the only person on the property, out of the four people hanging around, or five people, meaning two neighbors, the dead man, Monica and Craig, only person with gunshot residue on their hands during during a test was Craig, the ex-husband.

Speaker 3 Okay, now. What the fuck? That's interesting.

Speaker 3 So the trial comes up. They end up taking her to trial.

Speaker 3 So, I'm sorry. Yes, Craig.
Okay. Now,

Speaker 3 I'm sorry. Brian, not Craig.
What am I talking about? Brian, the ex-husband. I keep calling him Craig.
Brian is the one with...

Speaker 3 gunshot residue on his hands. Not Craig.
Craig's the neighbor. He's making wood shit.
He has no gunshot residue.

Speaker 3 So the neighbor testifies. This is the actual neighbor, Craig.
He testifies at trial. I was just cutting wood, man.

Speaker 3 I don't know what the fuck happened. We were sitting and talking.
They were talking loud, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

Speaker 3 He said on the stand that, you know, Monica was talking about demons and that Walker would be leaving soon. And she said, the neighbor said that she usually spoke like this,

Speaker 3 this before Walker would go to the hospital. Michael would sign himself into a psychiatric institution every few months.

Speaker 3 And the lawyer asked him on the stand, and he was talking out of his head, which is a very weird legal thing.

Speaker 3 And he said, so he was talking out of his head. And Craig said very badly,

Speaker 3 out of his mind. So Craig also said that he spoke with Walker that day and advised him, you should go back to the hospital.
Hey, man, you just said you're the Holy Spirit.

Speaker 3 Maybe it's time to check back into the hospital. What do you say, buddy?

Speaker 3 He said, whenever he was talking to himself on the steps, it literally seemed like two or three voices were coming out of him, which is scary. Yeah.

Speaker 3 He said, adding that at one point, he thought that Monica was with Michael, but Michael was talking to himself, actually.

Speaker 3 He thought that there was a conversation between multiple people, and it was just Michael with different voices coming out of his head. Wild.

Speaker 3 So he's either, you know, the guy from fucking Police Academy. Yeah.
Name, coincidentally, is also Michael. Michael.

Speaker 3 Michael W. As a matter of fact, too.
Michael Linslow.

Speaker 3 That's pretty impressive.

Speaker 3 Or he's this. Now, Brian Smith here, the defense attorney asked Smith, did you shoot Michael Walker? Did you? And he said, I did not shoot Michael Walker.
No, not the shooter.

Speaker 3 So that's what we have. They're saying, you don't have any proof that

Speaker 3 she shot him other than this cop saying, where's the gun? And she pointed it out. So in closing, the prosecution here, I mean, they're asking the jurors, look at all the evidence.

Speaker 3 Use your common sense. He said, immediately after the shot, where was Monica? What did she do? Where was she at? It was a small house.
She had to have heard the shot.

Speaker 3 She stayed in the house while everybody in the neighborhood was outside. She knew what happened, which is a fair statement.
Sure. Everybody else ran over there.
There's cops and everything.

Speaker 3 She just sits on the couch. That seems weird.

Speaker 3 Also, Monica told the troopers where to find the shotgun. And yeah, so there you go.

Speaker 3 And she can blame Brian Smith all she wants, but his account of the shooting has stayed consistent from the second we started, and we don't know what's up with her. Now, the defense said that,

Speaker 3 no, they also said, by the way, the prosecution said that Brian Smith could not have fired the shotgun, put it in the house, then run back outside so quickly, and then like around the house to come out and say, hey, they shot him.

Speaker 3 Craig, the next-door neighbor, said that he was in his house when the shot was fired and was outside talking to Brian within 30 seconds. But again, it's a small house.

Speaker 3 You could easily drop the shotgun off, go out the back door, run around the side, and come out in 30 seconds.

Speaker 3 You could do that. That's very possible.
Now, the defense in their closing said there's no credible evidence showing that Monica committed the crime.

Speaker 3 There's no credible witnesses, no fingerprints on the shotgun. Wow.

Speaker 3 No fingerprints on the shotgun. No blood on her clothing.
No gunshot residue on her hands. Okay, if they figure this out, that is very impressive.
That is wild.

Speaker 3 He said there's reasonable doubt that she was the one that shot Michael and that it's possible that Brian Smith is the shooter.

Speaker 3 She said, ladies and gentlemen, we just talked to you and told you that there's no evidence. At the very least, it's reasonable doubt.

Speaker 3 And as the judge just instructed you, if you find reasonable doubt, the law requires you to find her not

Speaker 3 guilty.

Speaker 3 Now, prosecution rebuts and said that, oh, wow, the defense is saying that Brian Smith ran out, shot this guy, threw the shotgun down, ran around the side of the house, and oh boy, she shot him.

Speaker 3 Quote, Brian Smith must be Superman.

Speaker 3 He'd be flying.

Speaker 3 That's less crazy than being the Holy Spirit, I guess. Who knows? He's faster than the speeding bullet, James.
Yeah, he is.

Speaker 3 They said to be the shooter, he would have to shot the gun, did all that, ran outside, doing all the shit that we just said.

Speaker 3 Because Smith was also the person who first called 911. The prosecution says, why would Brian shoot this man right in front of her? Does he not expect her to tell the police?

Speaker 3 Okay. Now, the verdict comes in.
The jurors go in at 1.30 in the afternoon, and less than an hour later, they have a verdict. Got it.

Speaker 3 So they understand what happened, I guess, or they think they do, and they find her guilty of second-degree murder. Bingo.
Wait.

Speaker 3 Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 3 So members of her, by the way, Michael Walker's family didn't even attend the hearing.

Speaker 3 They couldn't find them. They said that a county probation department could not contact any one of his relatives.
This poor man had nobody. Had nobody.

Speaker 3 He literally had nobody that would come watch his murder trial.

Speaker 3 That's unbelievable. That's sad, man.
That's really sad. I feel bad for him.

Speaker 3 So the prosecution here, the prosecuting attorney, the judge asked the prosecution if the state was taking any position about sentencing.

Speaker 3 And the state said that the court was aware of her admissions to law enforcement and psychiatrists and would leave the sentencing to the court, basically. We don't know what to do with her.
She said,

Speaker 3 The prosecution said, we believe she needs to be sentenced to the penitentiary and receive treatment there. As far as duration, we will leave that to the court.

Speaker 3 Usually they have a real good idea exactly how long they want somebody in there. So for this, they're like, we don't know what the fuck to do with this.
You figure it out. This is on you.
Her attorney

Speaker 3 filed motions for a new trial and all that kind of shit.

Speaker 3 He also told the court that Monica had been a productive member of society before she came ill, became ill, and that she has been battling mental illness her entire life.

Speaker 3 He asked the court to have a pre-sentencing evaluation on her mental condition. Monica's sister said,

Speaker 3 Teresa said, quote, Monica does not know how to load a shotgun and never had a shotgun. I do know my sister is a very loving person.

Speaker 3 And she also adds that this is a case where the mental health system has failed because failed completely. Two people.
Both. Both.

Speaker 3 Her and him. Monica stands up and reads a statement to the court.

Speaker 3 Oh, what is this gibberish?

Speaker 3 There you go. Thank you.
I love it. Thank you for using it.

Speaker 3 She recalled her childhood as she worked at a grocery store and kept the garden and carried the five-gallon buckets up from the river.

Speaker 3 How her grandfather taught her to fish and trap and her grandmother taught her how to cook and make dresses, all the stuff we talked about. She brought all that up.
Yeah, that was nice.

Speaker 3 As she read her statement, she said that Walker, she didn't, she said she wasn't on her medication and sometimes she wouldn't be because Michael Walker would hide her medication

Speaker 3 because he didn't want either of them to be on meds that day because he was going loopy. And she said she still does not remember what happened the day that he was shot.

Speaker 3 She said, I don't remember what happened. She asked the judge for mercy so she could be with her family.
She said, quote, Your Honor, please have mercy on me. I pray you'll have mercy on me.

Speaker 3 She is begging to be let out of jail because she

Speaker 3 doesn't remember?

Speaker 3 I feel bad for everybody here because I don't think anybody could help with anything that went on today. You know what I mean?

Speaker 3 I think she may be

Speaker 3 beyond help. She doesn't, she's still, she's,

Speaker 3 you never, I don't know. She thinks that there's mercy to be given.
We're not even positive she did it for Christ's sake. That's the other thing.
Like, it's crazy. What the fuck?

Speaker 3 The judge said there was limits as to what he could do in cases involving mental illness. He's like, I can only do so much here.

Speaker 3 He said, quote, my hands are tied about what I can do with mental health.

Speaker 3 Yeah, he can't cure her, I guess. Wow, yeah.
He said that he couldn't put her on probation, obviously. She murdered a guy.
He couldn't send her to any other place but a penitentiary.

Speaker 3 He said, I haven't heard any reason why this man was killed. None.
Other than he was fucking annoying. Yeah.
He was spouting. So he sentences her to, you, ma'am, may fuck off 40 years in prison.

Speaker 3 40 years. 40 years with 789 days credit for time served.
So she was two years before they could get her on trial. So we got 38 more to go.
Wow.

Speaker 3 Also,

Speaker 3 she's assessed all court costs, which must be paid within one year of her release, or her driver's license will be suspended, which is hilarious.

Speaker 3 You're saying she'll have a driver's license when she gets out of jail in 38 years.

Speaker 3 And And they'll immediately say you can't drive. Yeah.

Speaker 3 50s?

Speaker 3 68. So she's, yeah, she's in her 50s.
So when you get out in your 90s, you better pay that or we'll take your driver's license away.

Speaker 3 They also, the judge suggests that a physician provide the maximum amount of mental health treatment while she's incarcerated.

Speaker 3 He says, I certainly believe she needs to get help in the penal system, the maximum amount they can give her.

Speaker 3 Whatever they got, just give it to her.

Speaker 3 Now, she appeals this

Speaker 3 based on, they say that the court erred in denying a motion to suppress Trooper Weakley's testimony about her telling him the location of the gun because she was not Mirandized, but she was in custody.

Speaker 3 Okay. They said they had her.
She wasn't free. She was cuffed and surrounded by cops and being walked.
That is in custody. At that point, you ask anything, you need to do that.

Speaker 3 But there's extenuating circumstances because there's a loose gun in the house. Right.
So the prosecution's whole thing is the question of where's the gun,

Speaker 3 you know, the defense says that's a custodial interrogation at this point.

Speaker 3 Whereas they're saying, no, no, no, that's a matter of safety. Of safety for the county.
Of

Speaker 3 the county.

Speaker 3 Keep this county safe. Keep this county safe from this gun.
So they're saying safe county and all that. Now, in custody custody is a very, as we've talked about before, is a very precarious notion.

Speaker 3 Yeah, because you can be detained and not be in custody. Well, it's also about the letter of the law is about whether the person feels they're in custody.

Speaker 3 So sometimes it's not even about the actual whether they're in custody or not. It's whether they are under the impression they're in custody.
Okay.

Speaker 3 So what they're saying, the defense is being in handcuffs, surrounded by cops and walked somewhere,

Speaker 3 You think you're in custody, whether you are or not. That's custody.
You know what I mean? That's custodial interrogation at that point.

Speaker 3 So, you know, what the fuck, basically, is how they're saying it. So, and that kind of makes sense.

Speaker 3 But they're saying that,

Speaker 3 so they're calling it a response to custodial interrogation, telling him where the gun is and finding it.

Speaker 3 By the way, Brian, they question Brian more on this, the ex-husband. That's his gun, the shotgun.
Oh, no.

Speaker 3 He sleeps on the couch and keeps the shotgun between the cushions of the couch.

Speaker 3 Really? So that's where. He's as scared of them, is he?

Speaker 3 Dude. Yeah.

Speaker 3 Either that or they should be scared of him, one of the two.

Speaker 3 Why don't you guys kick him out? He has a shotgun in the couch.

Speaker 3 That's why we can wake him up, and within five seconds, he could be shooting us. That's why.
So he keeps it in the cushions of the couch, and his thing is, well, I kept it there.

Speaker 3 It doesn't mean that I did it. That just means she knew where the gun was.
Yeah.

Speaker 3 So anyway,

Speaker 3 they're asking for the whole thing to be overturned based on that,

Speaker 3 which I, you know, I guess you could say that.

Speaker 3 Now, they're saying what's critical to the resolution of the case is that the trooper testified without contradiction at the time he asked the petitioner, where's the gun?

Speaker 3 The officers had not yet secured the weapon.

Speaker 3 Prior to their entry into the home, officers knew only that the victim had been shot on the front porch and that the petitioner had apparently gone into the house immediately after and that she had not been seen again by Mr.

Speaker 3 Smith, Mr. Young, or Ms.
Horne during the 15 to 20 minutes it took for law enforcement to respond. No one actually saw her go into the house.

Speaker 3 Rather, Brian Smith said he heard a gunshot rounded the corner and saw the front door closing.

Speaker 3 So they didn't even know if she was in there.

Speaker 3 Thus, after the petitioner exited the house and had been handcuffed, the officers still did not know whether there might be someone else inside who had access to the weapon.

Speaker 3 That's what they're saying. So they're saying they asked her, where's the gun for immediate safety purposes, not for

Speaker 3 interrogation purposes or interrogatory purposes? So they said they

Speaker 3 didn't know whether she had left the weapon in the house or during the interval of time that had elapsed, thrown it from a window or back door into the unsecured environs of the property where it might be found by a passerby or an inquisitive child.

Speaker 3 So they're saying unless they asked her where's the gun before reading her her rights, which takes 20, 15 seconds, a child in that 15 seconds would have walked by, picked up the gun, and blew his brains out, obviously.

Speaker 3 That's an inquisitive child for you. That is a very inquisitive child.

Speaker 3 They said a passerby or an inquisitive child, which means if it was an inquisitive child who was passing by, he would have taken it for sure. There's no doubt about it.

Speaker 3 Fucking inquisitive kids. Inquisitive kids.

Speaker 3 They were also trying to say that Trooper Welke's testimony that the response to the question was, it's on the couch, was inadmissible hearsay based on that.

Speaker 3 But the court says it's well established beyond a dispute that the defendant's own statements are admissible against him or her as admissions of the party opponent.

Speaker 3 He's allowed to say that.

Speaker 3 Now, she cites no rule or cases to the contrary, and thus we reject the hearsay argument and they affirm the conviction. So it is affirmed.
She's currently being housed at the LCC facility.

Speaker 3 Her ID number is 365-4659.

Speaker 3 She looks like, from what it says here, her

Speaker 3 next parole hearing is in 2030.

Speaker 3 Wow. So that's not, that's only, you know,

Speaker 3 it's four and a half years away. It's July of 2030.
So that's amazing.

Speaker 3 Her projected release date

Speaker 3 is

Speaker 3 2040,

Speaker 3 which I guess because it 40 years. I don't know if it's an automatic, whatever.
I don't know. They expect her to be released in 20, apparently.
Wow.

Speaker 3 So there you go.

Speaker 3 That's when she might be released. So she won't be that old.
She might want that driver's license. So she better start saving up for court costs.
You better

Speaker 3 pay these fees, lady. Pay these fees and fines.
And for that matter, court costs and

Speaker 3 meds. She's going to be.
Brian's never, never fucked with about this. Nope, they just said it's her.
That's that. Oh my.
We don't know what happened.

Speaker 3 I don't know if he, if some dude pinned a fucking crime on a crazy lady

Speaker 3 because she's too crazy to figure it out and was having a breakdown.

Speaker 3 The crazy lady's so crazy, she doesn't blood doesn't. Doesn't even remember.

Speaker 3 That's the other thing. Who the fuck knows? Also, it's fucking rural West Virginia.
So maybe these people didn't look too well.

Speaker 3 I do not, I don't trust this investigation one fucking bit, to be honest with you. Who knows? I don't trust much of this story, to be honest with you.

Speaker 3 Who knows? That's what I mean. I don't even know if she was ever blind.

Speaker 3 We don't even know if she could, maybe she walked just fine back in the day.

Speaker 3 So, by the way,

Speaker 3 quick update: that Alaska case we did a couple weeks ago where we were waiting for the sentencing on Halloween night. Yeah.

Speaker 3 Moses Blanchard's sentencing was delayed. That's why it didn't come out.
Oh, it didn't come out until the next day. And also, and you know what else is delayed?

Speaker 3 People in Alaska's understanding how little we give a fuck what you think.

Speaker 3 Dude,

Speaker 3 you went there to run away from society. We don't care.
Stay there.

Speaker 3 Fuck off. And also, your reactions to things on Facebook have not been fixed.
No.

Speaker 3 There's a man dead.

Speaker 3 He's doing the same shit. To prove that you wouldn't do that.
That was the wild part. Fucking idiots.
It was insane. You burned a house down to prove that you don't like to play with matches.

Speaker 3 That's what you did. And it's crazy.

Speaker 3 That shit was nuts. There's a dead man who, by all intents and purposes, is fucking innocent.

Speaker 3 Wasn't convicted of anything. And

Speaker 3 you didn't like hearing about it. Nope.

Speaker 3 Thank God there's only 14 people in Alaska with Wi-Fi.

Speaker 3 There's all 14 of you, by the way.

Speaker 3 Yeah, they.

Speaker 3 And I did some research and looked back on it, by the way.

Speaker 3 There was a couple of things from like the 70s that the old man got arrested for indecent exposure one time and stuff like that, but I found nothing that he was like the town rapist or anything. So

Speaker 3 that was crazy.

Speaker 3 You guys, you can't hurt.

Speaker 3 That was wild.

Speaker 3 Perhaps he was drunk and his dick was out. It sounds like that's common up there.
That seems very common. So either way, there you go.
That is West Virginia. Hope you enjoyed that.

Speaker 3 If you did, definitely go to whatever app you're listening on. Give us five stars.
It helps a lot. ShutupandGiveMeMurder.com is a website.
You can get tickets, but no tickets are left right now.

Speaker 3 Tickets will be available for 2026 in December, so keep an eye out for that.

Speaker 3 Also, Patreon, or social media, actually. You want to follow on Instagram at Small Town Murder, on Facebook at Small Town Pod, patreon.com slash crimeinsports is where you get the bonus material.

Speaker 3 Anybody $5 a month or above, you get it all, a whole back catalog, hundreds of episodes.

Speaker 3 You've never heard new ones every other week, including this week, Crime and Sports, Team Relocations, Part Two, Small Town Murder, American Prison System, the whole thing from where it started, where it is now.

Speaker 3 And then we're going to do Charles Starkweather in two weeks after that. That's going to be a lot of fun.
Can't wait for that. And you get everything, of course, and you get everything ad-free.

Speaker 3 And you get a shout-out at the end of the regular show: patreon.com/slash crime in sports. Do that.
Head over to shutupandgivemeurder.com if you want to follow us on social media.

Speaker 3 All the drop-down menus take you where you want to go. That's it.
Thank you so much, everybody. It's been amazing.
And until next week, everybody, it's been our pleasure.

Speaker 7 Despite wintry conditions and heavy traffic, the holidays have to go on. That's why Mercedes-Benz SUVs come equipped with the latest safety technology to keep your festive plans on track.

Speaker 7 Discover the incredible offers for yourself at the Mercedes-Benz Holiday Love Celebration.

Speaker 3 You're going to want to open this gift first because someone used too much tape.

Speaker 3 There's apocalypse-proof plastic packaging, gifts that require some assembling, um, okay, a lot of assembling, stringed lights to check, it's the 103rd bulb that's broken, and boxes to break down.

Speaker 3 So many boxes. This holiday, don't go into curse word debt.
Give the most useful gift: a Leatherman multi-tool. Bonus offer, get 50% off customization for a limited time.

Speaker 3 Visit Leatherman.com for details.