A Deadly Blame Game - Pierre, South Dakota

Speaker 1 Hello, everybody, and welcome back to Small Town Murder Express.

Speaker 1 Yay and choo-choo. Oh, yay, indeed, Jimmy.
Yay, indeed. My name is James Petrogallo.
I'm here with my co-host. I'm Jimmy Wisman.

Speaker 1 Thank you so much for for joining us this week for another absolutely insane edition of Small Town Murder Express.

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Speaker 1 This week, what you're going to get for that $5 is for crime and sports, we are going to continue the team relocations thing with part two.

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Like, they took all my children, man.

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Speaker 1 That said, I think it's time to get into this. We have a lot of crazy murder for you here.
So, let's do this here. I think it's time to sit back, let's all clear the lungs, and let's all shout:

Speaker 1 shut

Speaker 1 up

Speaker 1 and give me murder.

Speaker 1 Let's do this, everybody.

Speaker 1 Let's go on a trip, shall we?

Speaker 1 We shall. We are going to...

Speaker 1 Now this is going to be a contentious one right off the bat.

Speaker 1 We're going to South Dakota, and we're going to the capital of South Dakota, which is called Pierre.

Speaker 1 Oh, Pierre.

Speaker 1 That is how the rest of the universe pronounces that word. P-I-E.

Speaker 1 They call it Pierre.

Speaker 1 Pierre is how they say it.

Speaker 1 Like a short one. Oh, that is.

Speaker 1 Oh, yeah. And they'll laugh at you.

Speaker 1 He pronounced Pierre.

Speaker 1 They'll laugh at you if you don't say Pierre. Yes.
And it's not. They didn't invent the word Pierre.
It's been around forever. You can't just change the pronunciation of it.
You can't do it.

Speaker 1 This is like El Dorado territory in Illinois. I can't deal with it.
It's not even spelled even anywhere near the same. It's spelled goddamn Pierre.
Like a guy named Pierre. I knew a guy named Pierre.

Speaker 1 That was how he spelled his name. I didn't call him Pierre.
But a Pier is spelled with an EI.

Speaker 1 Yeah,

Speaker 1 or EE if it's, you know, me and you are peers.

Speaker 1 Yeah. Pierre, South Dakota is how they say it here.
It is in dead center, Bullseye, South Dakota, right there in the middle, nothing around it.

Speaker 1 About three hours and 15 minutes to Sioux Falls if you go east, and about three hours and 15 minutes in the other direction to Belfouche. I was it, Belfouche, I think they pronounced it.

Speaker 1 That town, episode 596, our last South Dakota episode, which was the Messi, Methy murder conspiracy, which was a very fun episode.

Speaker 1 This is in Hughes County, area code 605.

Speaker 1 Population here for the capital of the state has to be the smallest state capital in terms of population.

Speaker 1 $14,000. $14,126.
Got to be at least up there.

Speaker 1 Median household income here just above the national average at $73,787.

Speaker 1 And the median home price is lower than the national average, $265,400.

Speaker 1 So if they're making more money than average and the homes are cheaper than average, that's a good sign usually for a decent place. The motto here is on the river, on the move.

Speaker 1 What river? Who knows? We'll talk about it. It'll be in here.
Don't worry. There's rivers

Speaker 1 and reservoirs in here. So the fort, Fort Pier, I guess you'd say, developed earlier with a permanent settlement since 1817.
It was around originally a fur trading post. Oh.

Speaker 1 Fort Pierre Chateau, by the way. Chouteau, French.
So it is named after a goddamn guy named Pierre that's French. It's Pierre.

Speaker 1 Oh, my God. They named it after that guy, who was an American fur trader from St.
Louis, who was of colonial French origin. French guy named Pierre.

Speaker 1 The actual town itself, founded in 1880 on the east bank of the Missouri River, opposite Fort Pierre.

Speaker 1 So there it is. It was selected to be the capital of the state.
Do you know why? Why? Because it's right in the middle. Literally, because it's

Speaker 1 exactly why. It's the same distance for everybody.
That's why.

Speaker 1 Jesus. It makes it convenient for anyone coming.
Except completely inconvenient because it's nowhere near the interstate highway system. So it's

Speaker 1 literally one of four state capitals that is not served by the interstate highway system.

Speaker 1 Eisenhower, what the fuck? Well, not really. These people needed to

Speaker 1 put it in a better place. That's on you.

Speaker 1 Juneau, Alaska. I mean, who knows what goes on up there? Dover, Delaware.

Speaker 1 Who knows? It just seems to bypass it probably.

Speaker 1 Jefferson City, Missouri, which.

Speaker 1 Yeah. And then

Speaker 1 we've got to swing that interstate down to Jefferson City. No.
Put your capital in Kansas City or St. Louis.
You should. St.
Louis. Weirdos.
No, you should have.

Speaker 1 Like normal people, and of course, Pierre. Reviews of this town.
Here we go. Five stars.
Best place to grow up. Okay.

Speaker 1 Small country town feel with the needed commodities to be, I don't think that's the word they're going for there. The needed commodities to be comfortable because of the local state government.
Okay.

Speaker 1 Okay. Interesting.
Three stars. Personally, I like the smaller town.
It makes it easier to get around. However, because it is a smaller town, there isn't much to do,

Speaker 1 much around to do,

Speaker 1 much around it to do anything fun. It's just weird syntax there.

Speaker 1 On the other hand, it's a great town if you're very interested in fishing and hunting. I am.
That sounds

Speaker 1 I've never heard you go fishing or hunting. Fishing.
I love the fishing. I like fishing.
Yeah, a lot. Yeah.
Definitely never heard you go hunting.

Speaker 1 I'm interested in being outdoorsy. I like going outside.
Wear some real tree camo and wander around the woods. I like the woods.
I wander around the woods every day. My house is in the woods.

Speaker 1 I love it. I'm always in the woods.
That's hunting, right? Yeah, that's hunting. I go, hey, look at that deer.
Shh. And then we watch it run.

Speaker 1 Yeah, that's one of our deer. Three stars, a very average community of hardworking people, more patrol of animal control units.
I guess they're asking for more patrol.

Speaker 1 They're asking for the dog catcher to come out more.

Speaker 1 And then finally, one star. If you don't like fishing, hunting, drinking, or bowling, this town is not for you.
I think that...

Speaker 1 I think that definitely paints a portrait of the town, though.

Speaker 1 You come in from your day of hunting, so you can drink at the bowling alley, I feel like, is what goes on here. So, I mean, those all sound like wonderful activities.

Speaker 1 I'm not much of a hunter, but I'll fish and drink and bowl. I mean, that's fine.
It's all good.

Speaker 1 So, so small, everyone is in each other's business. Very clicky.
If you want to shop for much of anything, you have to drive two and a half plus hours. Jesus.

Speaker 1 Wow. No culture in town.
No fall or spring. If you're lucky, you get a week of each.
Other than that, from straight from summer to winter.

Speaker 1 Real estate here is outrageous. House prices are extremely high for not much of anything.
I don't know. They were lower than the national average.
So calm down, chief.

Speaker 1 And then here we go. Things to do in this town.
We have the, how do you pronounce this? I wrote it down. Oahi.
O-A-H-E, Oahi. Just so you know.

Speaker 1 I really had to go crazy on the pronunciation lookups here. Oahi Days Art and Arts and Music Festival.
So you're going to have music and beer garden and carnival rides and all sorts of shit like that.

Speaker 1 Let's find out who is playing here, though. The music is what we're interested in here.

Speaker 1 You got a Street Masters car show. Carnival opens.
Lance Spears will be at the Steamboat Amphitheater. Oh, boy.

Speaker 1 Then at 7.30, that's at 5, the coveted 5 p.m. spot he's got.
Well, it's still light out. Everyone loves that.
Then at 7.30, Loaded Dice will be playing. Oh, yeah.

Speaker 1 Yeah. 10 o'clock, the coveted 10 p.m.
slot.

Speaker 1 Mall rats will be there.

Speaker 1 Jason Lee and Jason Mews and Kevin Smith will be there.

Speaker 1 Then the next day,

Speaker 1 Cricket the Entertainer will be there.

Speaker 1 It's Cedric's daughter, I assume.

Speaker 1 I just assume Cedric's daughter, Cricket the Entertainer.

Speaker 1 Magic Joe Productions. Oh, boy.
There's a cardboard boat regatta, a duck derby race. Cricket the Entertainer is going to be doing a second set.
She's got an on-core. Cricket's got a 10 a.m.

Speaker 1 and a 12 p.m. set.
Oh, my God. Which is a 10 a.m.
set is rough, man. Then she's got a 2 p.m.
set.

Speaker 1 Then she yields the stage to the hot dog eating contest, which you got to have. Then Allison Harmony will be there playing.

Speaker 1 Then Trailer Park Country, which is a band. Trailer Park Country.
Do you know who this is? You've heard of it? Oh, okay. It sounds.
I know what kind of music they play. Oh, for sure.

Speaker 1 And then my favorite name of all time at 10 p.m. closing this out.
Struggle Jennings will be playing.

Speaker 1 Just named his first name Struggle. Shit's rough, man.
It's Whalen's great-grandson. Yeah, it's Struggle.
Struggle Jennings. Oh, is it really? Yeah.

Speaker 1 Oh, my God.

Speaker 1 It's been an uphill battle.

Speaker 1 I didn't get any of my grandfather's money.

Speaker 1 I'm struggling. Not great.
I think it's just his grandson. He's struggling, all right.

Speaker 1 He's doing the 10 p.m. slot on Saturday night at Owahi Days.
So what does that tell me? He was great about 10 years ago, and then

Speaker 1 it all changed.

Speaker 1 It was him and Jellyroll were pals. Oh, okay.
It was struggling.

Speaker 1 One of them's still struggling.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 1 Two struggle life. Oh, man, the struggle.

Speaker 1 That said, let's talk about some murder. Let's talk about this.
All right. All right.
Let's go back in time here. 20 years.
So,

Speaker 1 you know, instead of an iPhone, you got a BlackBerry

Speaker 1 flip phone, LG, Motorola Razor, things of that nature.

Speaker 1 No social media except for MySpace, but everything else is the same. Yeah.
You know, pretty much.

Speaker 1 You still got a phone on your camera or camera on your phone and stuff like that, or a phone on your camera, however you want to look at it. So 2005, let's talk about a woman here,

Speaker 1 Tamara Donnell Burns, okay? Tammy, she goes by. Sure.
Tammy's born June 15th, 1964. So Tammy's 41 in 2005 here.

Speaker 1 She is born in Lander, Wyoming. That's where she grew up, which sounds out there.
I've never heard of Lander, Wyoming.

Speaker 1 I mean, Wyoming, there's only a couple towns that are like populated. So if it's one you haven't heard of, it's out there.
There's nobody there. Her parents are Donald and Bonnie there.

Speaker 1 She has two sisters. She's the oldest of three daughters that they have.

Speaker 1 Her sisters are Raquel and Holly. But like we said, Tammy's the oldest here.

Speaker 1 She grew up in Lander, graduated from Lander Valley High School in 1982. Yeah.

Speaker 1 Probably a graduating class of, you know, 38 or something. One of those towns, I'm sure.
She attended Central Wyoming College for two years on a volleyball scholarship. So she's an athlete.

Speaker 1 She's an athlete. She's probably, you know, a little taller, I would assume.

Speaker 1 She's shoulders.

Speaker 1 An athlete, yeah. So she left Lander and moved to Casper to work for the Sweet Briar clothing store.
Oh, so she's done with volleyball. She's done with volleyball after that.

Speaker 1 Yeah, I don't know what the professional volleyball circuit was like in 1984, but probably not great. I can't imagine it was very good.
I think it was sand, and that's it. That's it.

Speaker 1 Yeah, either go to the beach or don't. So she moved to Cheyenne for a short time, then moved to Sacramento, California for four years,

Speaker 1 where she worked still in women's retail. So she's got a whole women's retail thing going on here.
She is going to end up in Billings, Billings, Montana, where she's going to meet a man here.

Speaker 1 She's hanging out at a bar one night

Speaker 1 and she comes across a fella that

Speaker 1 she takes a liking to here. This is Bradley Rie.

Speaker 1 Rie? How do you say it? I got that. Rie.
Yes, it is. R-E-A-Y, Rie.

Speaker 1 Wow. Okay.

Speaker 1 So they met in a bar in Billings. He'd been previously married.
He was divorced. He had a son from a previous marriage that doesn't sound like he saw very much

Speaker 1 from the looks of everything. He also has an identical twin brother.
All right. Whose name is Brett?

Speaker 1 Brett and Brad. Brad and Brett.
These people had identical twin sons and named them Brad and Brett.

Speaker 1 That's what they were doing back then. That's wild, man.
That is wild shit, man. Brad and Brad.
Yeah, no, shit. Could have been.
So that's what he has. Now, Brad works at Walmart.
That's his gig here.

Speaker 1 Became a manager. Yeah, started up as a regular employee, worked his way up to manager.

Speaker 1 He's known as very...

Speaker 1 He's like Mr. Walmart.
Yeah. If anybody needs to know where something is, they go ask Brad.
Brad's the guy who knows where it is. He's Johnny Walmart over here.

Speaker 1 So

Speaker 1 they're all in Billings and doing that. They have a daughter in 1993 named Haley,

Speaker 1 H-A-Y-L-E-E, Haley.

Speaker 1 And then they stay in Billings with the daughter. And that's where they live together as a family.
They get married, Brad and Tammy, and have a daughter.

Speaker 1 And Tammy's a stay-at-home mom for much of this time. She did odd jobs here and there

Speaker 1 while Haley was in school, but pretty much like a

Speaker 1 homemaker type. She worked a little bit at Sky View High School, stuff like that, doing paperwork and during school hours when her daughter's in school here.

Speaker 1 Brad continues his march up the corporate Walmart ladder. Love it.
From assistant manager to manager. I mean, just working it here.

Speaker 1 He said he worked long hours as an assistant manager, not only for Walmart, but he also worked for a grocery store as well as an assistant manager.

Speaker 1 So he said he's basically worked two full-time jobs in billings while this is all happening. Very impressive.

Speaker 1 He said that he's working basically 100 hours a week, just constantly, which is, you know, all day, every day pretty much here.

Speaker 1 And so August of 2004, Brad transfers with Walmart

Speaker 1 for a promotion.

Speaker 1 So maybe now he doesn't have to work two jobs here. There we go.
So they move to Pier, South Dakota. Oh, that's where they end up.
Little Rock, Arkansas or some shit that's a blowing metropolis? No.

Speaker 1 Weird, right? You really expect Jefferson City, Missouri, really, is what we're. Is he going to be Mr.
Walmart of Pier then? He is going to be

Speaker 1 the old guy.

Speaker 1 They must have shipped out the old guy because you can't have two. Town's not big enough for two Walmart experts.
You just can't have it. So, no, he transfers.

Speaker 1 Yeah, it can only be one. So he transfers there, gets his promotion.
Tammy gets a job there as well. Hallie, at this point, she's a teenager, almost a teenager.
I think she's 12 at this point.

Speaker 1 So doesn't really need to be home with her all the time and stuff like that. So Tammy gets a job at Kmart.

Speaker 1 Why didn't they just hire her? Why didn't Brad just hire? Honestly, what are we doing? Well,

Speaker 1 I don't want to fuck your subordinate.

Speaker 1 It's your wife.

Speaker 1 Who cares? Why are they? Yeah. Why are they doing? This isn't corporate America.

Speaker 1 They're wearing vests, vests, for Christ's sake.

Speaker 1 Any job you have where everyone's wearing a vest, fuck each other freely. Who cares? What's the difference? Red one or a blue one? Who gives a shit? Who cares?

Speaker 1 Why are they dominating the discount superstar? That's the other thing. That's crazy.
That's the other thing. I got it covered from both angles.
It's really weird.

Speaker 1 Whichever one wins, we'll just go to work at the other one. That's all, man.
Yeah, well, you never know. This battle could turn into winner-take-all, and then what are we going to do?

Speaker 1 It did, and Walmart took it. They took all.
So Tammy working for the losing team here at Kmart is working in the shoe department at Kmart. Even better Kmart shoes.
All quality, baby.

Speaker 1 All quality. That's a lot of returns.
That's a whole lot. Hey, these are terrible.

Speaker 1 Not even they don't fit or the wrong. These broke.

Speaker 1 These shoes suck.

Speaker 1 Is that a reason for return? They just suck. These aren't shoes.
These are,

Speaker 1 you just saw, you sold me like the bottoms of milk cartons with

Speaker 1 zip ties on top.

Speaker 1 With zip ties holding them on my foot. I don't understand how that works.

Speaker 1 So what is this? Banded fucking

Speaker 1 banded flower leaves you made? This is terrible. I think this is old tire trading.
I think that's what we're doing here. Now, she is real friendly, chatty with the customers.
Good for retail. Sure.

Speaker 1 That's what you want for retail. Now, their marriage is not terrific at this point in time.
No, they're not real close. And I assume years of him working 100 hours a week will do that.

Speaker 1 And they don't share a bedroom either. They sleep in separate bedrooms because Brad has restless leg syndrome and disturbs her sleep.

Speaker 1 He's always kicking. He's always restless.
He's always kicking.

Speaker 1 He's like he's riding a unicycle in his sleep. He's just going.
Is that how bad it is? I mean, I've got it. I know I've got it.
Everybody's got it

Speaker 1 once in a while

Speaker 1 to an extent, but

Speaker 1 I don't know if he does it in his sleep, too.

Speaker 1 That's

Speaker 1 a lot of wrestlers. You kick, you walk around, you come back, and then like you eventually go to sleep and you stop.
So I don't know if he just is always moving or what, but that's unbelievable.

Speaker 1 Disturbed her sleep. Now, Haley at this point, she's thriving in Pier.
She is at Georgia Morse Middle School. She's a volleyball player as well.
She's small, though.

Speaker 1 She's only at this point, she's only 5'1, like 90 pounds. She's a little tiny thing.
A little barrel, but she's playing it.

Speaker 1 She was so little, she couldn't serve the volleyball overhand yet. Oh, she's still doing underhand.
She's little. She's just tiny.
It's cute.

Speaker 1 Haley said about her whole childhood experience: quote, I had always been afraid of my dad, which is a terrible thing for a daughter to say, or a son or anybody.

Speaker 1 I've always been afraid of my dad, especially a daughter, though. You know what I mean? Like, that's really not good.
You're setting her up for failure in the future here.

Speaker 1 He was a quiet character who only cared about work or going fishing. Oh.
Which is, he's going to fit right into Pierre, as we know.

Speaker 1 If you add bowling and hunting to that, he's set.

Speaker 1 He was a self-centered,

Speaker 1 he was self-centered, obsessed with work, and we didn't have much of a relationship.

Speaker 1 So he's blowing it with his daughter big time.

Speaker 1 All right. Now, enter.
Tammy makes a friend here. Okay.

Speaker 1 Here we go.

Speaker 1 This is the assistant manager at Kmart. Yeah.
She's got a type. Let's just say that.

Speaker 1 People who know

Speaker 1 which aisle the WD-40 is in is her type.

Speaker 1 If you can.

Speaker 1 Where can I get WD-40 and G.I. Joe figures? And he tells you two different aisles, and you go there.
ASAP. Swoon.
So this is Brian Clark is his name.

Speaker 1 Brian Clark, like I said, assistant manager at Tammy's

Speaker 1 Kmart

Speaker 1 there. So, oh, boy.
About December 2005, Tammy and Brian start up an affair. Well, I mean, the smell of cheap shoes hovering in the air.
Who could resist it? It's like Bugs Bunny.

Speaker 1 Yeah, it's like Bugs Bunny floating toward a pie. You know what I mean?

Speaker 1 Who can resist pussy and cheap shoes

Speaker 1 if they're coexisting in the same Zent space? Who can resist it?

Speaker 1 So they start up an affair, December 2005. And it wasn't even like they were hiding it.

Speaker 1 No? He's, by the way, married with children also. Of course he is.
Of course he is.

Speaker 1 So

Speaker 1 they hide it from their spouses and families, which is easy, but like at work, they're pretty open about it. Really? People, yeah, the co-workers notice.
Everybody knows what's going on like that.

Speaker 1 Bent over the jewelry counters.

Speaker 1 Yeah, totally.

Speaker 1 Well, they try to sell her a knockoff cell phone plan. That's how it works.
She's rubbing her butt and stuff in public. What are they doing? I don't know if it's just extra flirty.

Speaker 1 We don't know the details of it, but everybody knows that something's going on here. Obvious.
Yeah. I think Brian acts a certain way toward everyone else and a certain way toward Tammy.
There you go.

Speaker 1 So now early February 2006, we're talking first couple days of February 2006. Tammy wants a divorce now.
Oh, really? She's

Speaker 1 overcome with passion, I believe,

Speaker 1 from

Speaker 1 Brian here, or something's going on.

Speaker 1 Now, I don't know if he's planning on getting a divorce too, and this is their planning to be together, or this is Tammy going, hey, I'm not happy in my marriage, and this just kind of woke me up to the, that I don't even feel bad.

Speaker 1 I just don't want to be with this person anymore. So that might be it, too.
We're not sure.

Speaker 1 But Tammy tells Brad that she wants a divorce and she wants to see other people, which kind of comes with a divorce.

Speaker 1 I'm already doing it. Yeah.

Speaker 1 Also, yeah, we've got to get a divorce and see other people. That's like saying, I want to go buy food and then eat it.
Like, yeah.

Speaker 1 I want a divorce and only fuck you. Yeah, I want a divorce, but not fuck anybody else.
He said, let's work things out.

Speaker 1 He wasn't, he didn't want to get a divorce. He's on board with being a father forever.

Speaker 1 I guess, yeah. So he even called Tammy's mother, Bonnie,

Speaker 1 asking that she help convince Tammy to save this marriage. We got a daughter,

Speaker 1 which, I mean,

Speaker 1 if you have a kid and you really want to try to make it work and there's no violence or nobody's doing anything like that, then yeah, that's not a bad thing to do.

Speaker 1 Like saying, I convince her to go to counseling or convince her to something, you know, maybe whatever. But Tammy said, no, I am done and I'm done, and that's it.

Speaker 1 So she said, let's get a divorce after Haley's school year ends. It's February now.
It's over in June. Then we'll get a divorce.
Let's not fuck up her school year here, which is

Speaker 1 that's fine. At least they're being somewhat cognizant of the children, of the child's need here.
That's good. So Brad does not take this well.
No. Takes it hard.
Takes it real hard.

Speaker 1 Haley would later say that he was very somber about the prospect of a divorce. He just went into a complete depression, basically.

Speaker 1 This first week of February, Haley first learned from her parents that they were getting a divorce. She said her dad was, quote, acting weird.
She said he wouldn't eat anything.

Speaker 1 He'd just sit in his bed and not talk or anything. Yeah, your stomach hurts so bad.
Yeah. When that rug got yanked out.
It's not easy. He's depressed.

Speaker 1 She just described depression to a T. I mean,

Speaker 1 if he did eat, he'd just throw it up anyway. Yeah, it's not interested.
It's when you take a bite of food and you go,

Speaker 1 you want to just spit it out? You want to just let it fall out of your mouth? Because it's like, I just don't feel like doing this. You don't feel like it.
Yeah. Right.
So, God, can you tell?

Speaker 1 We've both been

Speaker 1 through it, man. We've both been depressed.
Can you tell?

Speaker 1 My friends forced me to go out to eat. I went to a Mexican food restaurant.
I don't know how long ago. This is years ago.

Speaker 1 I ate enchiladas and then got up from the table and went and deposited those straight into the toilet then I left and went home I was like what a stoop why did I leave my house I'm not paying for that and then you left

Speaker 1 I returned they're in the toilet I returned them

Speaker 1 oh god so

Speaker 1 no it's a terrible awful

Speaker 1 feeling and when you're in it there's no way to get out of it it feels like just wait on you yeah you just got to either run the course or do the fucking therapy work to get through Something.

Speaker 1 Those are your two choices, though.

Speaker 1 Otherwise, it's just lay in your bed until it stops.

Speaker 1 And mush food around in your mouth and let it fall out before you swallow it. Throw up a bunch of times.
Ruin your bowlers. Yeah, do that.
It's great.

Speaker 1 Destroy your enamel. Have fun.
Yeah. So Haley said,

Speaker 1 quote, dad began acting strangely, sitting in bed all day, not eating or sleeping. So he's in bed, but not sleeping.

Speaker 1 He took me for drives where he'd try to turn me against mom, saying it was all her fault our family was splitting up.

Speaker 1 I felt sorry for him, but I came to realize that the divorce was the best for mom, which is funny because, and I mean no offense to Haley here, obviously, but she's a child, but like, I feel like if dad was fucking somebody else and wanted to get a divorce, nobody would Nobody would be like, this is just best for him.

Speaker 1 It's good. And he's, they'd be like, he's an asshole in a scumbag.
But for her, it's like, well, she's having an awakening of her soul, and we all understand. Like, it's very different,

Speaker 1 absolutely

Speaker 1 different ground rules, I think, for those. But either way, Haley also at this point doesn't understand that mom's having an affair.

Speaker 1 She doesn't know mom's having an affair either. She just thinks they're getting a divorce, and she's like, oh, I guess mom's unhappy, so this will be better for her, which is good.

Speaker 1 At least Haley seems very mature, is what I'm getting at. Yeah, which is true too.

Speaker 1 I mean, if she's having an affair, then she's unhappy.

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Speaker 1 Now, back to the show.

Speaker 1 So, February 7th, 2006, this is the end of this week here.

Speaker 1 During the afternoon, Tammy and Brian, Kmart manager there,

Speaker 1 they meet at a motel for several hours that day. God dang.
Imagine the shitty motel, by the way, that

Speaker 1 two Kmart employees get to have an affair. Because they both have to hide.

Speaker 1 They have to hide this loss using this money from their spouses and stuff. So it's probably somewhere.
Two Kmart employees go Dutch on this hotel. What's it look like?

Speaker 1 What's it looking like, everybody?

Speaker 1 So Brian drops Tammy back off at her house around 5 p.m.

Speaker 1 Then Tammy goes to Georgia Morse Middle School to watch Haley play basketball. She's got a basketball game that night.
Haley's playing all the sports.

Speaker 1 After the game, they grab some fast food. Nothing, you know, just pick something up on the way.

Speaker 1 Then they went shopping. So they grabbed some food first because they were hungry.
Then they went shopping, I think food shopping. They get home around 8.30.
Tammy's in bed by 9 p.m.

Speaker 1 Wow. Bushed.
That's a lot. Got home at 8.30 in bed by 9.

Speaker 1 Put your groceries away and climbed in the sack

Speaker 1 30 minutes later. Dude, I need some time to unwind.
I can't do that. I can't come in from the outside world and be in bed in a half hour.
There's no way on earth I can do that.

Speaker 1 I need like two hours of wind down

Speaker 1 for anything. Yeah, it doesn't matter.
I don't care how tired I am. So now, obviously, like we said, the restless legs have kept them apart.

Speaker 1 They're sleeping in separate beds, and also they're going to get a divorce now. So Haley goes to her room after Tammy does, and she falls asleep, too.

Speaker 1 She played a basketball game and, you know, ate Arby's.

Speaker 1 You're beat after that. Just the Arby's will put you down, but you had a basketball game to it.
Now, at some point in the middle of the night, Haley wakes up. Okay.

Speaker 1 Brad, according to Haley, Brad opened her bedroom door and he had a bunch of clothes under his arm,

Speaker 1 like you're going to put in the washer. And she said, what are you doing? And he said, nothing.

Speaker 1 And then he put the clothes down, came over and laid down with her and told her he loved her and she fell back asleep. Oh, that's nice.
That's a nice dad moment there. So the next morning,

Speaker 1 that's the last nice dad moment we're going to see for a while.

Speaker 1 The next morning, February 8th, 2006, Brad wakes Haley up. And she noticed the washing machine was running.
So that made sense with the clothes in his hand, washing machine. Okay, he's doing laundry.

Speaker 1 That makes sense. She said, where's mom? And Brad said, in bed.
She's in her bed. I don't know.
Whatever. So Haley goes into Tammy's bedroom.
The bed was unmade.

Speaker 1 It looked like it had been, someone had been in there. Tammy's cell phone's on the dresser.
Her purse is in the kitchen. And her black Dodge Durango is in the garage.
Nice.

Speaker 1 So all of Tammy's stuff, these are all the accoutrements of all the things that she would gather to go somewhere. But Tammy's not there.
No, Tammy.

Speaker 1 Can't find her mom anywhere, but her purse is there, her phone's together.

Speaker 1 So she's mom, mom, mom. And then she said, dad, mom's not here.

Speaker 1 And Brad shrugged and said, quote, she has a boyfriend. She's probably at his house.
Oh, boy. Which I doubt it because I don't think his wife would be okay with that.

Speaker 1 I think she'd be thrilled about it. I think Brian's wife and kids would like that very much, but maybe you never know what kind of arrangement they have.
Who knows? I don't think Brad knows that part.

Speaker 1 There's some swinging going on at Kmart that maybe we don't know about. So that's what Brad said.
She has a boyfriend. She's probably at his house.
So that's, don't say that to your kid, by the way.

Speaker 1 You don't tell her. No.
Don't disparage the ex to your kids no matter what. Don't make blue light special jokes.
So fucking stupid. Yeah.
Stay out of it. Don't make mom's asses on blue light.

Speaker 1 Don't put any of that stuff out there. Don't say that shit.
Just let her make an ass of herself.

Speaker 1 Dude, I ate so much. Or she won't.
And either way, good for that kid. When I got a divorce, I would not say a negative word about my ex-wife to the kids.
I just won't do it. I refuse to.

Speaker 1 I'm not going to have that floating around.

Speaker 1 I don't want them later on. I picture in therapy at 30 years old going, and they used us as pawns against each other.
Not happening, motherfucker. No, no, no.
Preemptive. Not doing that.

Speaker 1 I think about that pretty frequently.

Speaker 1 What negative things are going to come up in therapy about me later. Yeah, oh, yeah, yeah.
Oh, plenty. No matter what you do, it's not perfect.
Oh, boy, oh, boy.

Speaker 1 We all mess up based on our own fucked up.

Speaker 1 If I died, will my daughter say nice things at my funeral? Oh, for sure.

Speaker 1 Oh, at the funeral, absolutely. The funeral, yeah, it's still fresh.
My son won't have shit to say.

Speaker 1 It's well, kids, they're not going to say, but it's three years later that where they'd be like, you know, now that I think about it,

Speaker 1 that's when they'd start talking shit. So don't worry.
There's all these nice things I said standing over that stupid cask. Yeah.
But you'll get a nice funeral still. Don't worry about it.

Speaker 1 That'll be great. You probably should have pissed in at the beginning.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 So anyway, after that, Brad drives Haley to school. And

Speaker 1 on the drive to school, Brad told Haley, don't tell anybody because it's personal. Don't tell anybody mom took off.
Don't tell anybody mom's with her boyfriend or all that.

Speaker 1 So Haley thought the whole morning was very odd. You know, her dad was doing laundry, and that's not, he doesn't usually do laundry in the morning.
Mom's gone. He's talking shit.

Speaker 1 The whole thing's weird.

Speaker 1 So midday comes around. Now, during the midday, Tammy calls her mother Bonnie every single day.
It's not optional.

Speaker 1 Every day. That's what she does.
Every single day around the same time. Calls mom up, which is a little whatever, however you would.

Speaker 1 That could be looked at as sweet and nice

Speaker 1 or completely over-enmeshed, one of the two. Depending on their relationship, we have no idea.

Speaker 1 We'll call it nice. It seems nice.
Lean on that for now.

Speaker 1 So Bonnie, mom, doesn't hear from Tammy that day and gets gets worried. So she calls Haley at school.
Haley's got a phone.

Speaker 1 Says, when did you last see your mom? I haven't talked to her today. And Haley said, last night.

Speaker 1 So then Bonnie called Brian at Kmart.

Speaker 1 So Bonnie already knows about

Speaker 1 has Brian's contact in or just called Kmart and said, let me talk to Brian. Let me talk to whoever's in charge of

Speaker 1 dipping his stick in the employees. I need to talk to him.
So she said, have you seen Tammy? And he said, no, not at all. He said she was supposed to work at 10 a.m.
and didn't show up. Oh.

Speaker 1 Yeah. So now Brian gets real worried and calls the police department to report her missing.

Speaker 1 Well, if mom doesn't know where she is and she talks to mom every day and she's supposed to show up at 10 and she's normally reliable, this is not good.

Speaker 1 And I'm sleeping with her and I don't know where anything she's at. That's the thing.
So he goes to the police station voluntarily.

Speaker 1 He calls and they were like, and they were like, well, so you're just her manager and she didn't show up. She's three hours late for Kmart and you're calling the cops.
Here's the thing.

Speaker 1 And he goes, well, there's a little more than that to it.

Speaker 1 She's married. We're having an affair.
She recently told her husband about the divorce. And

Speaker 1 he says that she told him about the affair.

Speaker 1 So she's not happy. I know what her toes taste like.
You know, it's all weird.

Speaker 1 You get the idea. They taste like cheap shoes, by the way.

Speaker 1 Shitty, shitty shoes. But she gets them for half price.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 Half price off of an already low rock bottom floor. That's right.
So, no, he says, I go in there and there's more.

Speaker 1 I'm worried that the husband might have done something to her since we're having an affair. And she said he's been acting weird.
And, you know, I mean, this is,

Speaker 1 he's as upfront as you can be laying his cards on the table here. He's cooperative.

Speaker 1 He didn't ask for a lawyer. He doesn't hide anything.
Talks about the affair, how long it's been going on, different places they've gone to have sex, all that kind of thing.

Speaker 1 So automatically, he's a person of interest.

Speaker 1 A, because of his willingness to just run down there and report it after this short of time. And she's been with Brad for 15 years and he hasn't killed her yet.

Speaker 1 These two just got together and now she's missing.

Speaker 1 So that's a, you know, you talk to him first. He's the wild card here.
But when you look at everything else, He did all the things right. He's willing to cooperate.

Speaker 1 And he has a stone-cold fucking alibi as well where he's at work at Kmart. He opened that morning.
Oh, the whole time, yeah.

Speaker 1 He's been at Kmart the whole morning, and he definitely wasn't like in their house in the middle of the night. So

Speaker 1 where'd she go? You know what I mean? Coworkers saw him, time cards confirmed it. They have security footage.
Even Kmart had security footage camera, security camera footage, which is shocking.

Speaker 1 Kmart should just be like,

Speaker 1 we'll probably lose more installing cameras than we would lose in this shit cheap merchandise that we have. I can't believe Kmart was still around in 2005.
Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah.

Speaker 1 It was around for a a while. We'll talk about the fate of that, this Kmart, by the way.
So they're like, there's no way Brian could have done anything with Tammy.

Speaker 1 She was seen in the house the night before. He was at home with his wife and kids that night before.
His alibi checks out that he was sleeping in the recliner that night. Oh.

Speaker 1 His wife saw him, kids saw him. So he slept in the recliner, didn't do anything in the night, and then he went right to work.
Couldn't have done anything. He's nowhere near their house.
So

Speaker 1 they also thought his demeanor was all wrong. He seemed genuinely worried and wanting to find her rather than being like, I don't know.
I guess, you know, bitches disappear, you know what I mean?

Speaker 1 And like, give an elbow, none of that bullshit. So they rule him out as a suspect pretty quick.
Old Kmart manager here. So they want to go obviously talk to Haley and Brad.

Speaker 1 They're the ones who saw her last. So they do.
They send a detective to the middle school to talk to Haley.

Speaker 1 I think they probably could have waited an hour until she got out, but

Speaker 1 police also head to the house. They head to Brad's house and knock on on the front door.
No answer.

Speaker 1 So they go around back and look into a window into the garage and they see Tammy's black Dodge Durango parked in the garage.

Speaker 1 They also see a reddish-brown stain in the garage through the window

Speaker 1 near the car and on the floor.

Speaker 1 So they're like, interesting. Don't like that at all.

Speaker 1 So they know where Brad is. He's at work.
So they go to his Walmart to talk to him. Nice.
They bring him into the Walmart security office, where a lot of delinquent teenagers have seen the inside of.

Speaker 1 Lots of shoplifting gone down there.

Speaker 1 They brought him in there and they said, your wife is missing. We're concerned.
Now, he hadn't said she was missing or anything.

Speaker 1 He said, whatever. So he said, well, they said, what happened? And Brad says, well, here's all I got to tell you.
He said, I got home.

Speaker 1 When I got home the night before, Tammy wasn't there. That was around 1 a.m.

Speaker 1 I got in at 1. She wasn't there.
He said he heard a vehicle pull into the driveway around 1 a.m. This is

Speaker 1 when he got home, she wasn't there. But around 1 a.m.
is not when he got home. It was when he heard a vehicle pull into the driveway.

Speaker 1 He said he looked outside and the Durango was parked there in the driveway, but didn't see Tammy. He said another vehicle was driving away.
Brad said then he jumped into the Durango.

Speaker 1 He got out of bed,

Speaker 1 grabbed the keys off the counter, ran outside, hopped in the Durango,

Speaker 1 threw it in reverse, and chased him. Chased after him.
Give chase. All right.
Which in February in South Dakota, that is not going to be good for the engine. I'll tell you that right now.

Speaker 1 It's not easy for you to do. I'm going to warm that bad boy up.
No.

Speaker 1 That thing will roll a few times before it starts.

Speaker 1 It's going to do that. So he said he chased this other vehicle through the streets of Pier,

Speaker 1 but couldn't catch it. It got away.
Too, couldn't get to it. Couldn't get to it.
So they were like, wow, that's quite the tale. It's an astonishing tale there.

Speaker 1 So they said, do you mind if we search your house? He said, no problem. Signed a written consent and everything like that.
So

Speaker 1 there was detectives sent to the house to watch the house while they interviewed Brad. And as soon as he gave permission, then they would, we have the consent for him, go on in there.

Speaker 1 So they get Brad. Brad comes to the house too, waits outside, and they search the house.
They find a blood droplet on the garage floor. Just one.
One, but a pretty good sized blood droplet.

Speaker 1 They say there's a strong smell of cleaning solution coming from the Dodge Durango. Like it has been cleaned really hastily and with something strong.
And also

Speaker 1 fresh laundry on Brad's bed and in the washer and dryer.

Speaker 1 So at this point, they get a warrant, even though they have a signed consent form, they still get a warrant just to cover themselves twice over, basically. Great.

Speaker 1 And they bring Brad down to the police station because they said, we'd like to talk to you about some of the shit that we found in there, basically.

Speaker 1 So they interview him for five hours, Brad.

Speaker 1 Five-hour interrogation. He does not crack at all.

Speaker 1 Tells him everything that he did, though. Yep.
He said, I did not do anything to Tammy. I don't know where she is.
That's all she kept. He kept saying, I didn't do anything to her.

Speaker 1 I don't know where she is. I don't know where she is.

Speaker 1 So back at the search here, with the search warrant, they're really going over everything with a fine-tooth comb here. They said the Durango had been very freshly, recently cleaned.

Speaker 1 Like within a few hours, it's been cleaned. Oh, just got off the

Speaker 1 strong odor,

Speaker 1 all that kind of thing. They swabbed blood samples.
Blood samples were swabbed from the garage floor, the washer, the walls. a light switch,

Speaker 1 trim around the bottom of a wall there,

Speaker 1 connected. There's blood in all these places.
A bed and on Tammy's dresser. They got blood from all these places.
Now, there's going to be blood in your house. Yeah.

Speaker 1 If you go around with luminol and a fucking swab, you are going to find some blood in your house, but not all of these.

Speaker 1 Guarantee in your bathroom,

Speaker 1 your bed, probably. Blood, even on your pillow.
Okay, yeah, you got like a pimple at something. Okay.
So you scratch yourself.

Speaker 1 I'm talking scientifically, if you go over with luminol, you'd find traces of all sorts of shit everywhere but this is a bit much though for blood so i don't know about the baseboard part that that's what i'm saying that's scary when you add it all together yeah you know any one of these places it's fine or any two three of these places but all of these places at the same time it looks like a lot of blood so

Speaker 1 they have some evidence but they have no

Speaker 1 they don't have tammy is the problem right

Speaker 1 So they have, she's not around, and there's blood everywhere. So not good.
No body, no crime is the question here. Well, is he Bob Marley in it? Nobody, no problem.
That's what he's saying, huh?

Speaker 1 That's what he's saying. Um, so they interview him for five hours.
He doesn't crack. I don't know where Tammy is.
They have all this blood. They say, We're going to take a shot here.

Speaker 1 They arrest him for first-degree murder. Oh, right out of the gate, huh? Even though they don't even know if what's going on.

Speaker 1 But they feel like if they let him go, he's going to fucking cover up evidence that they need. He's going to find a way to cover up evidence.
He's going to hide the body better.

Speaker 1 They need to arrest him now. So

Speaker 1 anyway, yeah.

Speaker 1 So what's going on with Haley at this point? This poor kid. What is going on? Mom's gone.
Dad's in cuffs.

Speaker 1 24 hours ago, the world was fine. You know what I mean? Yeah.
Where's she at now? So that afternoon, I'll leave, this is her statement here that she made later on.

Speaker 1 That afternoon, I was called into the head teacher's office to speak to my panicked aunt, Raquel, on the phone.

Speaker 1 Mom spoke to my mother, to her mother, Bonnie, every morning without fail, but Bonnie hadn't been able to get a hold of mom that day. She called her mom in the interview.

Speaker 1 That day, and she and Raquel were concerned. I told them that I had last seen her the previous evening and that her purse and phone were still on the kitchen counter.

Speaker 1 My aunt explained they had a feeling that something was wrong and had called the supermarket where she had worked, it's Kmart, and find out she wasn't there.

Speaker 1 After speaking to her manager, Brian, and telling them they were worried, he'd called the police. Already sick with worry, I began to panic.
I was taken into foster care overnight.

Speaker 1 They just moved here. There's no family around here.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 And

Speaker 1 legally, they can't just put her with like a neighbor or something. They have to put her in some sort of secure.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 1 And the next morning, a detective sat me down at the foster home and told me they launched an investigation into the disappearance and that dad had been arrested on suspicion of murder.

Speaker 1 Dude, that is a crazy few days for this poor kid. Imagine being 13 and having your world just tumble like that.

Speaker 1 She said, within 24 hours, my granddad, Don, had driven nine hours to pick me up from our family home in South Dakota, and I started living with my mom's parents in Wyoming, more than 500 miles away.

Speaker 1 Wow. I had just one suitcase of clothes to my name.
I was totally bewildered at how my dad could have killed my kind, caring mom after 13 years of marriage. I'd never seen him be violent before.

Speaker 1 However, I later learned that he had been coercively controlling her.

Speaker 1 My granddad told me my dad was obsessed with her, and when he wasn't working long hours at Walmart, he'd be on her like cling film, almost as if he was attached to his wife.

Speaker 1 But I thought he's either fishing or working, though.

Speaker 1 Right. Yeah, maybe he takes her fishing.
I'm not sure. So that's the February 9th, is that whole thing.
That's her waking up in the foster home, finding out dad's been arrested.

Speaker 1 February 10th, the next day here.

Speaker 1 The tight 10 days at the Oahi. Yes, Oahi that's how you pronounce that, A-H- or I'm sorry, A-O-A-A-H-E, O-A-H-E, Oahi, the Oahi Dam Emergency Spillway.

Speaker 1 Yep. Okay.

Speaker 1 A pilot flying a National Guard helicopter saw something near the dam emergency spillway here. It looked like a body that was near the power station in Lake Oahi.
How low was he? That's

Speaker 1 a helicopter, so it probably could have been pretty low.

Speaker 1 When they go to check it out, they find that it is Tammy. It is a body.
Tammy Rie's body. God dang.
She is nude and found there.

Speaker 1 The scene is rough. Her throat is slashed.
She's been stabbed 37 times. Oh, boy.
So this is

Speaker 1 hardcore, man. This is terrible.
Yeah, somebody did some business here. Nearby, they find a t-shirt, just knife holes all over it.
She was obviously wearing it when she was stabbed a lot.

Speaker 1 And they find some bloody gloves over there as well. Fucking hell.
So they're immediately started looking for O.J.

Speaker 1 Simpson and found out he was already in prison in Nevada and were like, shit, damn it.

Speaker 1 Damn it. And they're too small anyway.
So the autopsy comes around here

Speaker 1 and they said it was just, the brutality of it was horrifying. It was just so brutal.
37 stab wounds, numerous stab wounds in the chest, back, face, arms.

Speaker 1 She suffered wounds to the heart, aorta, lungs. They said she likely died pretty quickly within a couple of minutes.

Speaker 1 The medical examiner said whoever killed her was obviously very angry. He said there's more wounds here than were needed to kill a person.

Speaker 1 And some of the wounds were also post-mortem, so after she died. So this person killed her and kept going.
Right.

Speaker 1 That's a lot of rage there.

Speaker 1 They thought it was just overkill. And also, they found some marks

Speaker 1 on her breasts, I believe, especially her left breast, that they thought could possibly have been made by biting.

Speaker 1 So this is like a Ted Bundy crime scene, essentially.

Speaker 1 So they said, the medical examiner said, you wonder not only is the person mad, but is there something sexual with this?

Speaker 1 Right. Yeah, the whole psychology of the whole thing here.

Speaker 1 But they said, you know, all we have is these abrasions that could be bite marks. That's really all we have.

Speaker 1 They said, yeah, it was near the left breast, two linear abrasions, it's described as, that seem like possible bite marks.

Speaker 1 So they conclude that she was initially stabbed in the back, then stabbed several more times in the chest.

Speaker 1 And they believe she was alive while stabbed in a second attack after being placed on what we're going to find later on to be a tarp here. They said they couldn't say if the,

Speaker 1 they collected a bunch of knives. They said the wounds could have were similar to wounds that could have come from knives found around Brad's dresser.

Speaker 1 So knives he had.

Speaker 1 Knives sitting in the bedroom. I don't know if he collects them or he has like

Speaker 1 whatever. Or Walmart manager, he might have box cutter type things too.

Speaker 1 Because I had those when I worked for retail. He just snatches them up when they're on sale.
Maybe. You never know.
He knows when the good prices are coming up.

Speaker 1 They said they couldn't say

Speaker 1 conclusively if any of these knives were the murder weapon. Sure.
But

Speaker 1 definitely seem to indicate that she was attacked twice, Tammy. Once in bed at her home and a second time later on when she was wrapped in what we'll find to be a tarp later, but that's coming up.

Speaker 1 Jesus. They also find something else out interesting: that Tammy's body, where it was found, was a spot that she had gone to have sex on at least two occasions with Brian Clark.
Oh, my God.

Speaker 1 So I don't know if that's a coincidence coincidence or

Speaker 1 he knew. Or he knew.

Speaker 1 That's the thing.

Speaker 1 Oh, boy. We're not sure.

Speaker 1 So when he's in jail, he says he did not know his wife was having an affair until after he was arrested and they got discovery from the prosecution. Oh, okay.

Speaker 1 Which seems unlikely considering Haley said he's told her she's got a boyfriend.

Speaker 1 And also, Brian said that Tammy had told her that he told, she told Brian about the affair.

Speaker 1 So he said he was devastated when his wife asked for a divorce, but he said it was probably his fault for being a workaholic. He said, I just drove her away.
She said she just needed to be free.

Speaker 1 While he's in jail, he has conversations with twin brother Brett.

Speaker 1 Now, obviously, the jail monitors everything that comes in and out, letters, phone calls, all that shit.

Speaker 1 They have recorded conversations and photocopied correspondence that they got from this.

Speaker 1 In one letter, Brad drew a map. He told Brett it showed, quote, good fishing spots around Oahi Dam.
Right.

Speaker 1 The agents went, aided by a bloodhound and a cadaver dog, used that map to search the area at these good fishing spots here.

Speaker 1 In that,

Speaker 1 very interesting here,

Speaker 1 in that they found three city of

Speaker 1 God, it hurts me to say it, city of pier garbage bags hidden in a row of

Speaker 1 juniper hedges near the power station at Owahi Dam.

Speaker 1 Inside these bags are bloody linens, sheets, things like that.

Speaker 1 Bloody blankets,

Speaker 1 a bloody pair of women's underwear, a bloody tarp, six foot by eight foot blue plastic tarp, you know, regular tarp that you have, with a four by six foot patch of blood and 16 stabs in it, holes in it.

Speaker 1 And this is just stuck in a plastic bag to be preserved in a river? No, this was so his brother could go get rid of it for him. Right.
That's why he was telling him.

Speaker 1 Also, a box of condoms with one missing. We'll get to that in a moment.

Speaker 1 And cleaning agents, remnants of bottles of cleaning agents. Garbage bags, by the way,

Speaker 1 exact same kind found in Brad's garage. Oh, yeah, nice.
It's got those. And the juniper matched what was collected from the bottom of Brad's shoes as well when they were talking to him.

Speaker 1 He was there. The tarp, like we said, four by six foot patch of Tammy's blood on a

Speaker 1 six by eight tarp. 16 cuts in the tarp appeared to match, line up with 16 stab wounds on Tammy's torso as well.

Speaker 1 Like we said, that's the second attack. So she was stabbed about 19 times, and then, or actually, it'd be 21 times first, and then stabbed another 16.

Speaker 1 And somebody put these bags where Brad likes to fish?

Speaker 1 No, no, yeah, big coincidence.

Speaker 1 Wow. So interesting.
So they said Tammy was stabbed 14 times initially, four times in the back while in bed, matching the bed sheet, then 10 times in other areas.

Speaker 1 Then she was wrapped in the tarp and stabbed more. Yeah.
16 more times. The knife went through the tarp, through her t-shirt, into her body.
It's at this point they arrest Brett as well.

Speaker 1 They got Brett while he was in Spearfish

Speaker 1 doing something. Oh,

Speaker 1 he visited his brother in jail, and then as he drove away, they went and arrested him in Spearfish for having like a conspiracy with him to get rid of this.

Speaker 1 Yeah, he was going to go do it, huh? Yeah. Oh, well, yeah.
They said there's a letter they sent along with the map that he sent Brett that they end up finding on him. This is what's amazing.

Speaker 1 There's a notepad in Brett's car containing a narrative of what appeared to be a description of the murder and a reference to a map. Oh, dear lord.
Okay, they call this the phishing letter.

Speaker 1 Brad made several references to Tammy's alleged sexual infidelity,

Speaker 1 talking about their marriage problems. They said some pretty disturbing stuff about Tammy that I had no clue on.
This is what Brad said in this letter.

Speaker 1 It makes me sick to my stomach thinking of her sneaking around to hotels and me never catching on about it.

Speaker 1 Doing it in recreation areas at the lake, going on walks with him, lunch all the time, makes me feel stupid. Yeah.

Speaker 1 Also in this letter, he writes such phrases that he flipped out and started stabbing her, quote unquote, and he stabbed her in the back five times, then her throat, quote unquote.

Speaker 1 The next day after this,

Speaker 1 the next day, the Attorney General's office receives four anonymous letters. Oh, nice.
The letters disclosed here,

Speaker 1 these letters are basically like zodiac letters. They're from the killer to the police,

Speaker 1 goading them.

Speaker 1 In one of them, they reveal a certain detail where they say, quote, raped lost rubber and ass.

Speaker 1 That's a quote. Yeah, that's what they said.
Now, the letters were supposedly sent from the cousin of a man who,

Speaker 1 a cousin of Brian Clark,

Speaker 1 who says, Brian told me what he did, and this is what he did, and wrote it all out in the letters.

Speaker 1 The letter was obviously blaming Brian Clark.

Speaker 1 So they said immediately, rubber lost an ass, quote unquote.

Speaker 1 Let's get that back in the fucking medical examiner's office. They go in there, they find a condom inside of her.
Oh, no. So that's a detail only the killer would know.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 So they said this only makes Brad look more guilty and like he was framing, trying to frame Brian for the gig is what they say.

Speaker 1 They said that the letter intercepted because this was Brett had possession of this letter. So it's obvious

Speaker 1 had possession of another letter that was a similar thing. So obviously that's how this was going.

Speaker 1 Anyway,

Speaker 1 they said that there was details that only the investigators and the murderer could have known.

Speaker 1 The main detective said, I know Brian Clark didn't do this crime. I knew that Brad committed the crime.

Speaker 1 They said the apparent plan was to include details of the crime down to the actual or known to the actual killer and try to give the letter more credibility.

Speaker 1 However, in fact, the letter was drafted by Brad and sent anonymously to officials by Brett to Brad in avoiding prosecution. So

Speaker 1 they have DNA also that finds blood

Speaker 1 throughout Tammy's SUV and in her bedroom wall matched her DNA. Yeah.

Speaker 1 They also found a mix of the woman's DNA in her vehicle and could not rule out her husband as one of the contributors, either by his blood, sweat, or saliva. But the test does rule out Brian Clark

Speaker 1 as any contributor. So Brett's going to be charged to originally with being an accessory to a felony.
Oh, shit.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 1 Brad had told Brett, I need something gone and it should be done at night. Yeah.
That's another thing they said. Yeah.

Speaker 1 So there's a lot going on here. Brett's asking for reduced bail, saying he has no criminal record.
Give him a break here.

Speaker 1 You know what I mean? This is crazy.

Speaker 1 By the way,

Speaker 1 he said he also worked at Walmart, apparently. And he said he's not, the prosecution said he's a flight risk.
He has no local family ties. So

Speaker 1 he's held on a $100,000 bond. Now, they also found that Brad, at this point, was trying to hide assets, including a valuable collection of baseball cards.

Speaker 1 He doesn't want to use his assets to pay for a lawyer.

Speaker 1 So he wants a public defender. They gave him one, but they're saying if you have assets, you can't have a public defender.
It's only for people who don't have money. money.

Speaker 1 Don't worry about all these rookie cards. Everything's yeah,

Speaker 1 it's totally fine. I have a Willie Bays rookie, but he's good and safe.

Speaker 1 So they said that he had about $14,000 in accessible cash, $35,000 in equity in the family's house, and put up $70,000 and up to $70,000 in baseball cards.

Speaker 1 So that's what he had there. And they said, yeah, you can't hide that shit.
So Brett is going to, they end up indicting Brett on four counts of accessory to murder. Is that right?

Speaker 1 So Brett goes ahead and pleads guilty. He's like, I don't want any part of this show.

Speaker 1 My wife didn't fuck anybody. I'm not doing this.
So he ends up pleading guilty to two counts of accessory to a felony for copying and sending the letter as part of a deal.

Speaker 1 And he has to agree to testify against his brother.

Speaker 1 Okay. Now the trial comes up for Brad.
First-degree murder they have on the table. Alternative charge, first-degree manslaughter, in case the jury doesn't want that.

Speaker 1 So if you are first-degree murder, it's automatic life without parole. That's it.
So prosecution opening, they said he murdered his wife because she wanted a divorce. She's having an affair.

Speaker 1 It pissed her off. We have blood, freshly cleaned Durango, the phishing map, the letters, garbage bags full of bloody evidence, his DNA mixed up with her blood in there.

Speaker 1 He, by the way, admitted that the chase story was a lie. He didn't chase anybody away.
That's another thing.

Speaker 1 The letter contained the condom condom inside Tammy reference that only the killer would know.

Speaker 1 So it looks pretty bad. And also the guy he's trying to blame cooperated and has an airtight alibi.
So what do you want from us? His defense was this.

Speaker 1 He had a lawyer that had handled seven or eight murder cases, including a capital case. His lawyer told the jury that

Speaker 1 you're mistaken. It's not Brad that killed.
Tammy. And it's also not Brian, as a matter of fact, who killed Tammy.

Speaker 1 Brad does know who killed Tammy, and Brad did do something illegal, and that was try to cover up for this person only because he loved this person more than anything in the world.

Speaker 1 Brad awoke and found his daughter with a bloody knife at her mother's bedside. Haley did it.
Shit.

Speaker 1 Haley is the perpetrator here.

Speaker 1 He goes into court with this. Haley did it.
Really? This is what the opening fucking statements, the defense attorney said. Haley did it.
Did you do that?

Speaker 1 You can blame anybody you want. I guess you can, yeah.

Speaker 1 He claimed his 12-year-old 90-pound daughter

Speaker 1 frantically stabbed.

Speaker 1 Straight athlete, James. Wow.
Try and kill her. Kill her.

Speaker 1 Well, you don't know. She does sports.
You don't know what else she's doing with her time. This is ridiculous.
They said Brad was a good father, so he covered up to protect her.

Speaker 1 That's what he said. He's trying to protect her.

Speaker 1 He said that, you know, Tammy,

Speaker 1 I guess Haley was in some sort of dissociative episode is what they said. She was in a catatonic state or in shock.

Speaker 1 She said he found her standing over the body holding a knife.

Speaker 1 He said, you know, I didn't know what to do. So I just, I had to protect my daughter.
Sure.

Speaker 1 So they talk about the bite marks, they could be bite marks, but they might not be bite marks, but they could be.

Speaker 1 Who knows?

Speaker 1 They're not bite marks, so I kind of want them to be bite marks. We don't know.

Speaker 1 So there's also DNA where they said they found a purple washcloth at the crime scene, and there was blood on it that showed Tammy's DNA, and they could not rule out DNA from Brad, and they had DNA from an unidentified third person.

Speaker 1 Now, it can't be Brad's brother, Brett, because we know that they have the same DNA. Right.

Speaker 1 Twins, identical twins.

Speaker 1 So we don't know, but it could be from anywhere, honestly.

Speaker 1 They go through all the DNA evidence that they have,

Speaker 1 but they never, they didn't hire a DNA person to, the defense doesn't hire a DNA person to say that third unidentified person could be the murderer.

Speaker 1 They also get the tarp. The tarp, the cuts in the tarp didn't match the stab wounds perfectly, the defense said.

Speaker 1 So, you know,

Speaker 1 he must not have done it.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 1 Haley testifies, this poor girl had to go on. Imagine being a 13-year-old girl and having to go on a goddamn witness stand, not only because your mother murdered your father, but because your mother,

Speaker 1 your father murdered your mother, and now he's accusing you of doing it. Right.

Speaker 1 Imagine how horrible you feel.

Speaker 1 Now you got to to sit there and address the, wait for somebody to ask you, did you kill your mother? And are you shitting me right now? That's how little your father gives a fuck about you, too.

Speaker 1 Like, that has to feel triple bad. Triple bad.
She said no when asked if she ever would hurt her mother.

Speaker 1 She said she was

Speaker 1 five foot one, 94 pounds. She couldn't have done all of that.

Speaker 1 She said mom wanted a better life.

Speaker 1 You know, went over all the stuff we already talked about.

Speaker 1 Harris seeing him with the clothes and the laundry.

Speaker 1 During cross-examination, they were prodding her with questions about her athletic abilities.

Speaker 1 She said, yes, I'm good at basketball and volleyball and soccer, but I can't, I don't know how to kill a person. I don't have the strength to do it.
You haven't tried.

Speaker 1 Haven't tried, man. I mean, what are we talking about?

Speaker 1 Brett testifies. about, yes, my brother sent me letters and I was going to copy them.
We were going to try to frame Brian. Brad testifies against his lawyer's advice.

Speaker 1 He said that he found Haley standing over the body and said, what have you done? She was catatonic and he did all of this to save his daughter.

Speaker 1 He said that he planted a condom in Tammy's rectum to make it look like a sexual assault so his daughter wouldn't get in trouble. Oh my God, what a terrible thing to say out loud.
That is disturbing.

Speaker 1 Disturbing.

Speaker 1 He said that Haley had blood on her face and hands and was bleeding from the nostrils and in a catatonic state. So like 11 after she kills a demogorgon.
You know what I mean?

Speaker 1 Catatonic blood coming from the nose. You know, you know, the state she's in there.
That would be a fun conversation to have to explain how you deposited a condom into someone after

Speaker 1 you're already dead because he found her already dead. Found her already dead.
Wow. So the prosecutor said, if Haley killed Tammy, why was there no blood on her pajamas? And he said, I don't know.

Speaker 1 If you were trying to protect your, yeah, if you're trying to protect your daughter, why'd you insert a condom into your wife's rectum? And he said, to make it look like somebody else did it.

Speaker 1 And they said,

Speaker 1 you're trying to frame an innocent man, not just kill your wife. And he said, I didn't kill her.

Speaker 1 So in the closings,

Speaker 1 they had the defense said, Brad, or they said, the prosecution said, Brad didn't just kill his wife. He mutilated her.
He degraded her. He tried to make it look like a sexual assault.

Speaker 1 He stabbed her even after she was dead. He tried to frame Brian Clark and then tried to blame his own daughter.

Speaker 1 That's the most cowardly blame-sharing act I've seen from a defendant in 27 years. Ever.
Yeah. The defense, he said, the bite marks and DNA,

Speaker 1 there's other people. And, you know, Haley actually could have done it.
And the verdict comes in. He's guilty of first-degree murder.
Let's be realistic here. First-degree sentencing here.

Speaker 1 Wow, they bring in Tammy's sister who says, what kind of a father lies and blames so viciously his own flesh and blood? You know the kind. Oh, man.

Speaker 1 And the judge called him a calculating, cold-blooded murderer who killed his wife out of vengeance and jealousy, who wanted people to believe he was the victim, but said, quote, you are not the victim.

Speaker 1 You are a predator. You, sir, may fuck off life without parole.
Wow.

Speaker 1 Keep going.

Speaker 1 The prosecution said he was one of the best witnesses I've ever had. His testimony hurt him a bunch.
He changed his answers constantly, and his story moved around constantly.

Speaker 1 Brett gets sentenced as well, for his part. Yeah.
You identical, sir,

Speaker 1 May fuck off. Two and a half years in prison.
Wow. Times two, but concurrent.
So two and a half years in prison, but they say 172 days time served. Good enough.
Fuck off, Brett. You're good.

Speaker 1 Is that right? He gets out with time served, and he'll have his criminal record seals if he condition if he completes the conditions of his release.

Speaker 1 And he said his brother deserves to go where he's going. Yeah.
The family, by the way, filed a $5.3 million wrongful death civil lawsuit against Brad.

Speaker 1 Brad, doesn't really matter because he doesn't have the money. He appeals a whole bunch of times saying his lawyer was

Speaker 1 insufficient, ineffective assistance of counsel, saying that his lawyer didn't get experts and all that kind of thing.

Speaker 1 It doesn't really matter. All the evidence.
You lied about everything. It doesn't matter.
And experts would have just hurt you anyway because you didn't. Experts just don't prove you lied.
Yep.

Speaker 1 Haley ended up living with her grandparents. She's now in her 30s.
I believe she's married now and goes under a different name. She speaks publicly and advocates against domestic violence.
Wow.

Speaker 1 She has completely disowned her father. Yeah, it was a different thing.

Speaker 1 Yeah, she said, being blamed for something so horrific by my dad is something I could have never expected. My mom was so caring, and we were incredibly close.

Speaker 1 I haven't spoken to my dad since I was 12. Wow.
That's what she said. Brian's marriage going.

Speaker 1 Probably not great.

Speaker 1 Tammy,

Speaker 1 she was buried at Mount Hope Cemetery in Lander, Wyoming. Speaking of burials, the Kmart and Pierre is no longer there as well.

Speaker 1 It closed in April of 2016. Jesus, it lasted a while.
It did. That one on the freeway there on

Speaker 1 the 17, down further,

Speaker 1 northern, I believe, or something. That one was there until like the same time.

Speaker 1 Brad, February 18th, 2024, Brad dies. Oh, 64.
Yeah, got a whole story in there. Got 64 years?

Speaker 1 64 at the Jameson Annex Infirmary in prison. So we don't know what happened to it.
That's a song when I'm 64. At the Jameson Annex Infirmary, I believe Struggle Jennings, sir.
64.

Speaker 1 Yeah, I think Struggle Jennings sings that one. So that's it.

Speaker 1 That's the story. That's Pier,

Speaker 1 South Dakota, and Struggle. It's a one big Struggle Jennings.
Struggle's going to be playing it.

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