#568 - Preacher's Daughter & The Soul Stealer - Middlebury, Indiana

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Hello, everybody, and welcome back to Small Town Murder Express. Yay, choo-choo.
Oh, yay indeed, Jimmy. Yay indeed.
My name is James Petrigallo. I'm here with my co-host.
I'm Jimmy Wissman. Thank you, folks, so much for joining us today on another absolutely wild edition of Small Town Murder Express.
As you people know, this is 10 pounds of murder in a in a two pound bag and we have a lot to jam in today it's a crazy story with a real weird kind of like a a weird like almost one of the characters is like a west memphis 3 character almost it's we'll talk all about it but before we get to that definitely head over to shut up and give me. Tickets for live shows.
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This is a no exception. This week for crime and sports, we're going to get into something dirty here.
We're going to talk about the Kobe Bryant rape fiasco from 2003. And then for small town murder, it is internet salad time again, where we're going to give you a peek behind the curtain, what we do before a show starts, which is basically look on the internet, see what's going on, and make fun of it, because that's what we do.
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For sure. Jimmy will mess your name all up while he wants to get it correct.
That said, I think it's time, everybody. We got to dive right in here.
It's time to sit back. What do you say, everybody? Deep breaths.
Arms to the sky. Let's all shout.
Shut up and give me murder. Let's do this, everybody.
Okay. Let's go on a trip, shall we? Let's do it.
We're going to Indiana. That's a place.
It's certainly a state and a place. People go, oh, yeah, Indiana.
It does exist. There is stuff there, yeah.
Middlebury, Indiana. Oh, the Middlebury.
The Middlebury, which I've never heard of before. It's in northern Indiana.
It's about an hour and 20 minutes away from Fort Wayne, if you want to go there for some reason. By the way, I had somebody tag me and was like, when are you guys coming to Fort Wayne? And I was like, probably not ever.
I'll be honest with you. Drive to Chicago.
I don't know what to tell you. I've never been sitting around being like, like you know all the travel i've done in my life i really want to check out fort wayne one place i've never been that i'm just just bucket list fort wayne this is about uh two hours to marion indiana which is our last indiana episode which was beauty and the Beast.
And that was a wild one, of course. Indiana, really.
You guys bring it hard with weird murders, I'll say. This week is no exception.
This is in Elkhart County. And the population here, 3,446.
So this is a small town. Under 5,000 is a real small town.
Median household income here, $78,813, which is above the national average. And the median home price here, which you wouldn't imagine.
If I said middle of nowhere, hour and a half from Fort Wayne in Indiana, you'd be like, oh, the houses are free, basically, right? They're probably, you know, $60,000. $313,100 is the median home price here.
The audacity. I don't know what the draw is, but whatever.
The motto here is grown from tradition. I don't know what they're growing.
Tomatoes, corn. I don't know what, but something.
1832, a little bit of the history here. 1832 was when the first settlers came here, and they were from Middlebury, Vermont.
They really came a long way. And they chose this area because the Rolling Hills reminded them of Vermont.
So why not just stay in... If only we could just go to a place that's just like where we lived.
Why don't you just stay in Vermont? Just go to Vermont. Go to Middlebury.
We've been traveling for three months, you guys. Did we go in a circle? I don't know i don't know let's just let's go to an identical place and name it the same thing that'll be fine right really weird here the first children born in middlebury were in 1835 so for three years nobody was it was a nobody did a chastened existence here in middlebury i guess we could fuck yeah i guess's probably all guys at first.
You know, it's usually the settlers come in. They're just dudes at first here.
Some of the first people here, there was a guy who came, a carpenter named Squire Lee, who came in 1839, and he lived to be 100 years old, allegedly. Wow.
Who knows if that's true or not. I don't know how great the birth records were in the 1730s or whatever.
So we have no idea here. So they eventually got a railroad, which was helpful.
And then they started to become like a manufacturing center as well. They had a bunch of different manufacturing centers came in here.
By 1839, there was only 12 families living here. So that's it.
Never really grew that much. But then in 1841, the first Amish families came to the camp from Pennsylvania and settled around town.
This is known as like an Amish area. Watch out.
It's super Amish around here is what people say. You never know.
It was incorporated as a town in 1868. So reviews of this town because we've never been there.
We don't know. Here's one.
Five stars. Middlebury is the quintessential Norman Rockwell community, which that says a lot.
Yeah. Middle America.
Yeah. All right.
Yeah. Nineteen, you know, forties, whatever.
It's safe, friendly and caring. The children play happily outside on warm days.
Families ride and stroll along the pumpkin vine bike trail. And being only an hour to an hour and a half from Chicago, you can easily do day trips to a major city on a whim without living with all the crime and filth.
Yeah, right. Yeah.
Indianapolis. So apparently Chicago is only an hour.
So it's commutable to Chicago if you want to take a drive. So that's something.
I guess that would make a sense. That would make a sense.
I just, why I said it like that. That would make a sense.
Five stars. Middlebury is a wonderful small town rich with Amish and Mennonite history.
Yeah, we've all been clamoring for that history. Amish and English live, work, eat, and socialize together in all of our school functions, restaurants, and churches.

They said Amish and English in like the 1700s when it was just English people here.

Right.

We're not all English now.

That's weird to say, the Amish and English.

Finally, one star, the town I live in have only two parks that are seldomly used, have only two parks that are seldomly used. People generally go out to the nearby towns to find things to do and how to entertain themselves.
Yeah. So there's that.
And then things to do here in this town, the Middlebury summer festival. It's a big deal here, boy.
This is the 56th coming this year. Oh, shit.
It's been going on a long time, since 1949. Steeped in history.
Gather your family to reconnect with old friends and make new ones while enjoying live bluegrass and gospel music. Yep.
Delicious festival fair, artisan crafts, children's activities, and much more. They have the largest small town parade in our area.
That's what they claim. The largest small town parade in our town.
We don't know about the other small towns. I don't know.
Free entertainment and live music, which we'll talk about in a moment here. And The Run is back with five exclamation points.
So that must have been really clamoring for that one that one they couldn't do it they've been just chomping at the bit for that shit and then a summer festival three-on-three basketball tournament on saturday as well so you got that now the bands here and different activities here you have uh starving artist which is a band yeah um and i i bet they are too probably starving i'll bet they're not they're not eaten by this club quite hungry money that's for sure no especially from their uh coveted 12 p.m friday slot that they got i really feel like feels like that was free that's an opener yeah it's 50 bucks for the whole band all right yeah that's one of those uh keith miller will be there yeah okay mill Miller's little brother. Yeah, he's just going to sing Jet Airplane over and over again.
Buddy Pearson will be here. Yeah.
Who sounds like a 50s comedian, doesn't it? The Buddy Pearson Show. Hey, everybody.
Or somebody that just covers the big bopper. Yeah, it's a 50s guy.
Marty Miles. They're just singular named people it's a bunch of yeah and it's a bunch of like names of big bopper style yeah but they're singing bluegrass and and gospel uh the barrel scrappers are gonna play after that but they're gonna have to compete with the rail of the tractor pull which is going on at the same time.
Best of luck, motherfuckers. Good luck, assholes.
Jesus Christ. There's also a fishing tournament, which makes me think of Funny Farm every time.
You're just beating the shit out of them. You're beating the piss out of them.
That's what it was. You're not knocking them out.
You're just beating the piss out of them. Pancake and sausage breakfast.
We got the three-on-three thing. Cornhole tournament, of course.
Let's see and free face painting of course with artist linda pierre so there you go that's what they got going on there yeah um that said let's talk about i'd rather some murder shall we you want to talk about bluegrass gospel music anymore come on jimmy jesus christ be a sport What are we doing here all right let's go back in time a little bit 20 years 2005 we're gonna go back to so you know pretty similar to today yeah cell phone in your hand not doing as much though just you're still you're real excited it's taking pictures at this point jacked about that i still remember t-zones from t-mobile the most frustrating shit on the planet yeah why even act like this is the internet this is not the internet if you want to check your email you can do it in about an hour and a half so there's that while you wait for it to load so this one 2005 let's start by talking about a lady here bar Barbara Jo Neff is her.

That's where she was born.

Later on, she'll be Keim.

K-E-I-M.

Wow.

Keim.

Or Keem, however you want to do it.

I'm sure it's Keim.

Keim.

Barbara here, she's 41 years old in 2005.

So she's born in 64.

She's from this area.

She's from Elkhart County.

Lived here her whole life.

Sure.

She has one brother and four sisters. So she's one of six kids.
That's a lot. Wow.
That's a lot. Real close with her sisters as well as I would imagine.
Five sisters are probably. It's all girls? There's five sisters and one brother.
Oh, my. That kid is.
That poor bastard. Man.
How many times has he been made over? He's like, oh, God. Yeah.
Everything he sees has a tint of pink to it. Everywhere he looks.
Pink is burned into his fucking retinas. He could probably do makeup better than Trixie Mattel, though, I bet this guy.
He's been made up quite a bit. Yeah, that guy knows the smoky eyelid.
For sure. So people always say about Barbara, she is a nurturer and a very nice, caring woman, which makes sense because she eventually goes into a career in nursing, which those two things kind of go hand in hand.
You can't be like, I just hate people, but I want to be a nurse. I hate taking care of them.
I just hate being at their beck and call and helping them and shit. I just don't like it.
So, yeah, she ends up becoming a nurse at the general hospital in the maternity department in Elkhart County. So she's a maternity nurse.
So that's, you know. That's tough.
That's tough. And it's nice because there's a lot of joy in that, too.
People are happy. And it's quick turnover.
You got 48 hours. You're coming in and getting out.
Unless it's, you know, something complicated, most of the deliveries are probably joyous deliveries are probably and even then the baby stays and mom gets the fuck if it lives yeah yeah if everybody lives it's great well that's jesus it's dark it's dark my first daughter neonatal intensive care unit for a while if it lives we will be happy that's feels like. So 1986, she meets a man named Alex Stone.
Now, Alex Stone is a Methodist, and in various articles they call him a Methodist preacher, pastor, and priest, which I don't know what Methodists have, but he's the guy in the front telling you what Jesus did. Let's just say that much.
Well, at least he's not a moil. I don't know.

Yeah. And he's a moil also.
So she meets him and they get married in late 1986. They are going to have a young daughter in 1988 named Hannah.
So Hannah Stone is her name. 1988.
Yeah. We'll talk about her in a little bit here so 1991 she divorces alex the first husband alex stone barbara and him get a divorce a couple years later she's going to marry a man named robert kime that's how she got the kime and they're going to have a son as well in about the year 2000 they're going to have a little boy named timothy.
So, yeah, she's got the two kids from separate marriages.

She's also very big into church, Barbara.

She likes to go to church.

She's a very small town, Indiana.

I mean, nurse.

She's very nice.

She hasn't lived in Middlebury very long when she's been around Elkhart County here.

But everyone knows her as a nice person.

Everyone thinks she's a sweetheart, basically, here. Everyone at the hospital loves her, thinks she's great.
Everybody wants to work with her. So 1996 is when she ends up marrying Robert.
Okay? Now, Hannah, the daughter, doesn't like Robert. No? No.
Absolutely not. They don't get along, apparently, a lot.
Not sure why, but she's like eight years old at the time they get together. Well, yep, that's why.
But it's tough, yeah, so they don't get along, and that causes a lot of strife in the household and things like that. Robert was a deputy sheriff with the Elkhart County Sheriff's Office, And he apparently was very strict and stern.

Oh, man, yeah.

Very strict and stern with Hannah, who was not used to that.

And if you start imposing that on an eight-year-old girl who hasn't had that,

it's going to be some issues there.

I mean, he's basically a town sitter.

Yeah.

That's no fun. You don't want the town sitter in your house.

That is tough, man, yeah.

He tells adults what to do.

Yeah, he's always watching. You have to punish them when they're bad, yeah.
Catches's always watching. He's on the side of the road, but you're driving too fast.
Jesus, come down. And then punishes them.
Fuck. Jesus, so 2000 is when the little boy, Timothy, is born and Hannah loves her little brother, by the way.
She holds no acrimony toward the little brother for being a product of a relationship she's not crazy about. But she would always tell her friends that Barbara loved her little brother more than she loved her.
So that was a thing she was known for saying all the time. Oh, my mom only cares about my little brother.
Things like that. Which is just what you feel like when you are the kid from the previous family and now you're the fourth the fourth wheel in a new family you know what i mean when you are the uh child whose novelty wore off yeah that's how you feel whether it's true or not i had it twice i have my both my parents went on to get remarried and have kids so i was like oh okay so i always felt like i was never even though they didn't try to make me feel like that or anything but i never felt like I was a part of anybody's family.
I always felt like I was my own entity. You know, you go back and forth.
It's made more fucked up when, like, your parents call each other to celebrate and giggle. They're real nice.
Yeah. Remember when we got married and made that stupid fuckhead kid? Remember when we did that dumb shit?

And they're both still married to the people they remarried and had a real stable shit.

And my brothers had real stable upbringings and all that.

Mine is a fucking mess.

And it's like, yeah, thanks, guys.

I never even thought about that.

That's a lot of fun. That's the funniest thing I've ever heard.

Yeah.

And you wonder why I'm kind of leery of joining things.

Your parents call each other to laugh that they used to be married. Isn't that weird? It's fucking true, man.
See? We made a human being together, but they think it's hilarious. It's funny as shit.
Through the course of this show, people have gotten to know me and a little weirdness a little peek

behind the curtain every once in a while what created this might help but i think that's certainly detrimental to your to your fucking development wasn't helpful i'll tell you that much so and that's why you become a comedian you're like look at me i know you got a cute baby but Look over here.

I'm funny.

Christ, that's so funny.

Give me a microphone so i can fucking make people listen to me it's your weekend to have a reminder that we used to be married hope he doesn't cramp your guys's style too much here you gotta take it with you would you take james we're trying to have a happy life

we're trying to have a happy life i was just gonna do the same thing it's even sadder because it was little jimmy will you take little jimmy that's even sadder that's outside of the show i'm jimmy to everybody else so that's what's fucked up makes it sound sadder me with my fucking ball cut nice perfect looking like 77 pete rose unreal okay so uh yeah that's what's going on here so barbara would always reassure hannah she loved both of them equally and i believe barbara too from what everybody says she didn't treat them poorly or anything like that but anyway before hannah right before she gets to high school barbara and robert decide to get a divorce so they split up so yeah so now barbara and hannah end up moving into a small apartment in middlebury and then the son has its shared custody with the father so he goes back and forth so we've got two failed marriages now two failed yeah and hannah's like well how do you like that little brother now you know who's the intruder now you know how it feels one of us lives here all the time now a little bit about hannah here people always call her the preacher's daughter that's a big thing preacher's daughter preacher's daughter because her dad's a preacher so that that has a lot of tentacles to it being a preacher's kid that's sometimes positive and sometimes negative. So when she entered high school, she was feeling rebellious, we'll say.

I'm sure.

And it's just, you know, the way it is.

It makes sense.

She transferred to the high school in Middlebury and found a new group of friends.

And they're a little more of a kind of like an emo gothy group than she's used to, that she used to hang out with. But it's high school.
So, yeah. I don't know.
You find people. Sometimes it's fun.
Yeah. It's just the way they dress and what music they listen to.
I mean, it's all. You don't, not like you have a weird lifestyle in high school.
No. You still go home and eat dinner with your parents and then put black shirts on.
Who gives a shit? It's just how you, you're just projecting how you feel. That's all.
And if that's how you feel, and we get it. That's it.
So she really gets tight with her new group of friends and that's kind of like her support system in terms of the way she thinks about it here. And basically there isn't a lot to do around Middlebury for a teenager.
No I can't imagine. So you just drive around the back roads of Amish country is all you do like as a teenager.
Even like saying I'm from Middlebury, it sounds so lovely. It sounds very nice.
Yeah. It doesn't sound like there would be a kid with all black clothing there and black lipstick.
No, I would have certainly found a field to grow weed in here. That would have been my teenage goal here.
Just toss it out the window at the exact same spot every day. There we go.
Go back and see. Keep going.
See what's going on here. So they would drive around and, you know, play music and do all that kind of thing here.
Now, she has a complete jerk-off of a boyfriend. Of course she does.
This guy, Spencer, and that's with an S, by the way. Spen, S-E-R, not C-E-R.
Stop it. What? Oh, yeah.
Someone is not good at spelling in his No. Spencer Anthony Krempetz.
K-R-E-M-P-E-T-Z. Krempetz.
God damn. That's a bad name.
He's 18 in 2005 so he's a year older than Hannah and apparently they met at a place called The Post. Hannah and Spencer which is a youth center outside of Middlebury where local bands play and they have like a little coffee shop kind of a thing going on and kids hang out there, which sounds like the 50s.
I mean, or any, it's basically the center spot that every fucking city has too. Yeah.
You know what I mean? We didn't have a little coffee spot where the teens heard the bands bop. No.
If you wanted to go somewhere, fucking New York City's an hour away. Get in a fucking train and go see Metallica at Madison Square Garden, you pussy.
What are you doing? No one wants to do this. But this person, I don't know.
This sounds like the 50s, though. We're going to go down to a little coffee shop and hear the bands play.
Put your hoop skirt on. It's strange.
I mean, we had, there were just no bands playing, but it was where everybody congregated. You know what I mean? Perhaps.
Oh, you'd have like the places people hung out at. Yeah.
Yeah. Totally.
But like to have local bands playing that, that looks like one of those early sixties movies where everybody's bopping. You know what I mean? Like there weren't many bands that were playing when I was a kid.
No, no, never. So yeah, if they were, it was in someone's garage.
So the way they met is Spencer met one of Hannah's girlfriends and offered her a cigarette, which is a nice come on. Want to smoke, baby? Yeah.
And she said no. What are you, a square? What are you, a square? No, no, that's what they called him.
No, no, yeah, I know it's a square, but I was thinking the 50s still. I was stuck in the 50s.
I'm there with you. So the girlfriend said no, and Spencer said, why?

We're all going to die at some point anyway.

It doesn't matter.

Oh, Spencer.

I have such 18-year-old angst, man.

Angsty energy, yeah.

You're all going to die anyway.

Now, Spencer's had not a great life either.

I mean, things create an 18-year-old that acts like a jackass.ass like yeah they're made they're not just they don't sprout out of the ground looking for attention though that's oh yeah i mean he is just screaming look at me look at me oh his clothes everything he's got he's a lot of dame he's got a lot of damien eckles in him as far as and that's not an insult even to damien eckles because that's like as far as he wants to show i'm not like you hicks in this little town and i am i'm different that's his thing you know what i mean and he's and it's the same type of thing he's a smart kid that has shit grades yeah same we all know those people that's what i mean there's a lot of those in every town he was molested when he was five by an older kid jesus christ at least it wasn't like his grandfather or somebody in a position of trust, an older kid, but still, that'll fuck your whole shit up, obviously. So he was in and out of an abusive household.
He attended 13 schools, which puts me to shame, so that sucks, 13 schools. He is smart, but he gets shit grades.
He started drinking while still in elementary school. Yikes.
And by 11, he was smoking weed and doing acid as well. You should not be doing acid.
You shouldn't be smoking weed or drinking either. Fifth grade doing acid? But you should definitely not be doing acid until your brain is fucking off.
That'll make cartoons fun. Your concrete has to set a little bit before you start doing acid because that fucks with your brain man it really does footprints in it yeah so then from ages 14 to 16 he was doing heroin this is terrible this is not good um then when he was 16 he gave up heroin but he learned that the guy he always thought was his father wasn't his father

fantastic which is also again never good at all that's when does he start mutilating puppies gonna say that's what they think set ted bundy off right yeah to this day that's what everybody thinks set ted bundy off when he found out that his who he thought was his dad wasn't his dad yeah So that age, around 16, that's when he left home and moved out.

And he moved in with friends and things like that. He got real into the whole death thing.
That was a real big thing, much like Damien Eccles. He was real into the whole death thing.
He stole, this is funny, he stole bats from Halloween displays. Oh, the animal bat little wings yeah batty so that that's not real dark let's be realistic here just because he thought it was cool to hang bats around but i mean from halloween displays are not exactly what are you a vampire yeah if he was out like killing bats and like you know laminating them and hanging them from a ceiling that would be weird yeah when your bedroom just smells like rubber that's no good that's strange so he's real into like you know metal music obviously and anything about death you know i'm sure he's into like that weird northern european death metal and shit like that um he spent the night in a mausoleum a couple times just to be creepy and tell people that here.

He would walk around Middlebury in a black trench coat.

Does this sound familiar if you've listened to the West Memphis stuff?

A lot of kids like this at this time, too.

That's it.

Yeah.

And this was just to try to make people look at him.

He was trying to cause a stir.

And that's it.

He tried to make a statement by the way he walked.

And he tried to intimidate people.

And people mentioned people would always say that he had an evil look in his eye.

I don't know what that means other than I'm 18 and I want to be tough.

So nobody else molest me.

Yeah.

You know, psychologically, that's what's behind that.

You know what I mean? Keep your finger out of my ass.

That's it.

So August 3rd, 2005.

This is all kind of coming to a head where, as you can imagine, Barbara is not thrilled that Hannah has chosen this man as her boyfriend. It's a little disappointing, sure.
Not liking him at all. No.
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It's an ongoing battle and this day it happens where finally Barbara tells Hannah

if you're not going to break up with Spencer, you

got to get out. I can't have this here.

It's too much disruption.

I don't want him in my house.

Blah, blah, blah. So Hannah

said, fine, I'll leave.

And so she

and Spencer went to their friend's house,

Aaron McDonald, who's 17 years old, to hang out and smoke weed and figure out what they're going to do with their lives now. This is the danger in giving your kid an ultimatum.
That's the problem, yeah, especially at 17, because they feel like if they back down now, then they're not as grown up as they thought they were. Well, there's also the, I'm 17, so within at least 11 months, at maximum 11 months, you can't tell me shit anyway.
That's part of it, too, I think. That's what they think, yeah.
And it's also like, if you're going to tell me what I can do and what I can't do, I'm going to leave, but then you don't have really a plan for how you're going to leave. You're just 17.
No, no, no, no, of course not. So Aaron McDonald, their buddy started, he has predates Spencer in weed smoking.
He started smoking weed at age six. Yeah.
Which, I love weed. I'm a big weed guy.
That is too early to start smoking weed. Six? Certainly an interesting choice.
Wow. He's a regular presence in church and school, though.
And everyone thought he was a real nice kid, Aaron. He kind of hides his shit behind everything here.
Everyone says he's kind of a follower, always trying to be a part of something. That's kind of his thing.
He's got a good childhood and a good family, though. I don't know how they weren't noticing that he was fucking high at age six, but I don't know.
He might've went and stayed at an aunt's house and he had an older car. Who the hell knows how that happened.
So, um, when he was in elementary school though, he starts to fall behind as elementary school starts going. And he basically wasn't bright enough to keep up in class, which he might've been before he started smoking weed age six, though.
Who knows? Perhaps he killed the brain cells it needed. Fuck, he would come home from school and he'd be crying because the kids at school thought he was stupid and made fun of him for it.
And he was pretty stupid. And he wanted to be accepted and he wanted friends and they were just like, you're a fucking dummy.
So that's how it went. He came home crying because they found out.
home crying because they found out yeah and then so you end up with this group of other kind of misfits that's how it's the misfit toys you know they go together yeah dum-dums hang out with dum-dums that's it so this week by the way barbara's divorce just became final earlier that week so i don't know if she was just laying down the law i got divorced i don't want this kid in my house either. Fuck off.
Meeting Spencer, not Hannah, obviously. So August 4th is going to be a busy day for Barbara.
August 4th, 2005. She's supposed to spend the morning at the Elkhart General Hospital and doing her job.
The afternoon, she was going to go house hunting with a friend, and in the evening, she had plans to get together with her sisters. It's a full day here.
Problem is, she doesn't show up for any of that shit. Including picking her son up also the next day, August 5th, from her ex-husband.
You gotta do that. No one has heard from her since 7.30pm onust 3rd basically is what they figure out um she is described as five foot six inches 150 pounds brown hair brown eyes and people at work report her missing oh because she doesn't she never doesn't show up and then when they find out she hasn't shown up to anything else either not like barbara at all and uh the cops are called and the Middlebury police said that they're looking into it and they weren't ruling anything out.
They were investigating it as a missing person case. And as a matter of fact, no one can find Hannah either.
She's also missing. Oh, no.
So they're like, oh, no, mother and daughter have been disappeared here. This isn't good.
Friends and family, they like right, because it's a town of 3,500 people, the press is all over it. Right away, friends and family are the next day posting flyers.
It's, you know, her friend said that you just feel helpless. What more can you do? We're exhausted from lack of sleep.
That's like two days later. He said she doesn't miss appointments.

She's a responsible person.

And yeah, so the investigation here on August 5th is so that's the day after she goes missing.

August 3rd, she has a fight with Hannah.

Hannah leaves August 4th.

She has a lot of plans and goes missing August 5th.

The police are investigating.

They're called to Barbara and Hannah's apartment to do a welfare check after one of Barbara's sisters called 911 to report that she didn't show up for work that day. Because work had called the sister to say, hey, you know where your sister is.
So police look around the apartment. They don't have a search warrant or anything, so they can't really search.
But they do a look around, a welfare check, you know, see if anybody's there. they find some cigarette butts in the living room which they thought was odd because the sister said barbara doesn't smoke and hate smoking and wouldn't let anyone smoke in her house and smoking in the house if of somebody that doesn't smoke that's that's oh they're gonna that's insane no one does that out's past about 1985 that's never happened yeah smoking somebody's house? Back in the day, we all had that old uncle who was like 70, who no matter whose house they were in, he was allowed to smoke because he was smoking.
I had one of those. You just get him an ashtray.
He's lighting up, so you might as well get him an ashtray. So police didn't know if maybe the cigarette butts belonged to Hannah or maybe some of her friends because no one's home at the time.
So they don't know what's going on. They do see her wallet laying out on the table, Barbara's wallet.
Her ID is still in there, but her credit card is missing along with some cash. But there's some cash there still, which is interesting.
So they said that's odd. Why would you? Yeah.
But they ruled it that there's suspicious activity because of the cigarette butts that definitely don't belong to the resident. So they decide they're going to really look into this further here.
So they put out an attempt to locate notice for Barbara and Hannah, and they're missing. They called the hospitals and different police departments and everything else.

And now this is an apartment.

So there's people who live above and below Barbara as well.

And they said that several neighbors that lived above and below said that they heard scuffling the day before on August 4th and also heard yelling and screaming.

But they just thought, you know, people were fighting.

Barbara's going to Barbara. None of my business.
Yeah. So they weren't called that night.
Nobody called the cops. But the detective said, oh, shit, now we've heard scuffling and screaming and they're missing and there's cigarette butts and something's not right here.
So later that day, police get a call from Barbara's ex-husband, who is a cop, Robert, the one she just divorced. Obviously, the divorce just went through last week, so they would love to have a chit-chat with this fucking guy.
Those guys are oftentimes not good. They oftentimes know how to hide things, too.
He called to report that Barbara was supposed to pick up the five-year-old and take care of him and she didn't show. So he said, no, we don't have even a bad relationship.
Our divorce was amicable. It was a mutual split.
Everything is fine. We're still friends.
So he gave police her phone number, other contact info, relative, anybody he could give them, basically, and cooperated completely. They later interviewed her other ex-husband, Alex Stone, and he said he would file an official missing persons report for his daughter, Hannah.
That way they can get search warrants and really attack this thing here. So one of Barbara's neighbors says that they witnessed a couple people taking out the trash from Barbara's apartment on the night of the 4th, August 4th, and loading some boxes into Barbara's red vehicle.

The person was described as a female with dark hair and heavy set, which describes Hannah pretty well.

And the man was described as a, quote, thin dude.

Yeah.

So cowboy hat, horse under him, you know.

Thin dude.

Very good. And the man was described as a, quote, thin dude.
Yeah. So cowboy hat, horse under him, you know.
Thin dude. Thin dude.
The person also reported those two taking the red vehicle with them, which is Barbara and Hannah's car that they share. So police, once they hear that, they rush back to the apartment.
When they get in the apartment, they find that the cigarette butts are gone now. What? Cigarette butts are gone, along with Barbara's wallet and her ID, all that shit that was on the table, and the keys to the car, which were there to begin with also.
Holy shit. It's all gone.
So somebody snuck in under the cop's nose and cleaned this fucking place out. Wow.
So this is starting to look very nefarious now.

Yeah, no kidding.

They found that the apartment had been cleaned and police are like, well, this is obviously an attempt to get rid of some evidence here.

Sure.

Now it's an official kidnapping case, not just a missing persons.

So they are granted police are a subpoena for Barbara's phone and financial records.

And that gives the pings of where the phone was and where it was used and everything like that.

Thank you. Police are a subpoena for Barbara's phone and financial records, and that gives the pings of where the phone was and where it was used and everything like that.
Apparently, the phone was steady in normal activities up until the night of August 4th, and then nothing after that time is found. The phone just stops.
The police do find, with the financial records, that at 10 p.m. on August 4th, a sum of money was taken out of an ATM, $200, using Barbara's card.
They said that Barbara, everybody said Barbara never took money out of ATMs at all. So that's strange.
No, never. They said that what they also found is that on August 5th, a check for $800 was written for her account, from her account to be used for vehicle repairs.
Okay. Okay.
The check was written to a name, not cash. The name they find it, Aaron McDonald.
Remember him? No. He's our 17-year-old friend who they went over to smoke weed at his house.
Sure. Yeah.
The one that's been smoked since 2006. The dummy.
Yeah. Yeah.
So apparently they had had previous contact with him in the past for minor incidents so they knew where he lived and who he was and how to get all of them so they questioned him about the check and he claims and the disappearance of hannah and barbara and he says i don't know anything about it he said i don't know me and my friend nate did vehicle repairs on her car and barbara's car so that's what the money was for right and the cop was like i don't think so they go you're not a fucking mechanic first of all you're a dummy 17 year old you don't know how shit works you're not a mechanic and they said well let me get your friend nate's contact information so they talked to nate and he says i wasn't with mcdonald then no i didn fix it. I don't know what the fuck he's talking about.
Nope. That was a real dummy thing to do.
Involve somebody that has no idea what you're talking about. None.
But loop him in, though. Don't tell him ahead of time.
Yeah. So he said that he was nervous that if he tells what he knows, then he's going to get in trouble.
Okay. So Nate.
Now you have to tell everything. Now must now it must be really good now I really want to know so Nate's mom encouraged him to come forwards here and come forward and say what you fucking know so Nate said that McDonald told him to lie about the vehicle mechanic work and mentioned a crime involving Hannah and Spencer the boyfriend so at some point during this, now they have some information.
They have Aaron. They get to Aaron.
They come sit Aaron down, and within an hour, they find Barbara. Oh.
Oh, yeah. They make an announcement.
The chief investigator for the prosecutor's office said, A body has been found. Oh, no.
We have not not made a positive identification we're withholding any other further information until positive identification is made persons of interest are being interviewed yeah they already know they know so aaron took the cops to her body uh here she is yeah so then at this is now saturday night of that week. At 3.40 a.m., they find at the

Goshen Motel nearby, they find the red car, Barbara's car, parked in the parking lot of the motel. So the vehicle has a broken out window, and there's also vomit on the side of the vehicle next to it.
Uh- interesting um so they surround everything they talk to the people in the hotel and they're like by any chance is this person or this person or this person registered and lo and behold there is a spencer crempits crempits crempits registered to one of the hotel rooms so they make entry into the room they kick the door down there's hannah and spencer in bed together all snuggled up oh here they are we need more towels oh shit housekeeping is a motherfucker now so they hold them at gunpoint there's no resistance they actually come nobody says shit they arrest hannah um some of barbara's things were in the room as well they were stolen from the house. So Aaron McDonald also arrested, obviously.
He was, you know. He knows too much.
Apparently, his conscience got to him here, and he had called his aunt on the night of August 6th, and his aunt showed up, and he was crying when she showed up, and he explained that Spencer killed a lady and that he was with them when it happened. Oh, boy.
So while he is sobbing and confessing to his aunt, the police show up and take him into custody. So like, we know you got something to tell us, brother.
You're a crying. What's up with the tears, bud? What's up with that? So, yeah, they figure out and then he takes them to the body.
Now, what the fuck happened? How did this happen? Why? Yeah, what's going on? Well, obviously, Barbara was abducted from her apartment here. Clearly, they said it would appear that she was murdered in either the late hours of Thursday evening or early Friday morning.
Based upon the information that we have, it would appear that she was murdered in the cornfield where she was found. What? Victim of a gunshot wound to the back of the head.
Wow. Okay.
So they said that apparently and we'll get into the details of it, but they bum rushed her and bound her wrists with tape and duct taped her eyes and mouth shut and everything too. What the fuck? So they loaded her into the car, drove her toward the county line, and then they led her into a cornfield and shot her in the back of the fucking head.
Wow. So they said the police announced statements from Spencer Krempitz and Aaron McDonald state that the idea to commit this act belonged to Hannah Stone.

Is that right?

Yeah.

Hannah Stone, Spencer Kremitz, and Aaron McDonald provided police with statements admitting guilt in this crime.

They said whatever reasons we determine will not be any reasons that anyone of normal sensibilities can justify.

Yeah, you're not going to understand this.

Because they were asked, why'd this happen?

The press was asking.

They're like, you crazy? Yeah. You've been doing acid since you're 11? If not, I don't think you can explain it.
You can't relate. No.
So here is the whole lowdown in what happened here. Wow.
Okay. Apparently, Hannah and Spencer, after the fight between Hannah and Barbara about you're not allowed to see Spencer anymore, Hannah and Spencer came to Aaron's house to hang out and smoke some weed.
Now, they said they wanted to rob and kill Hannah's mom. That was the plan.
McDonald said she said that her and her mother didn't get along. Hannah's mom wouldn't let her see Spencer, wouldn't let her and Spencer be together.
So McDonald said at first he wasn't interested. But when they brought it up again, he well apparently they really want to do it I should help so he offers to borrow a gun from a friend of his that's a step that's a step yeah he just didn't have to do that at all and then it would have been a lot easier if you guys don't shut the fuck up about this I'm going to bring a gun and make you do it also we're smoking're smoking weed.
What are you doing? Relax. What the fuck is happening right now? You're killing this, man.
So they planned it out. Part of the plan was that Aaron would be able to get the gun and then they said that they'd give him $400 for helping out and getting the gun and helping them do this.
He is going to participate in a murder for $400. So apparently Barbara was alone and there was a knock at the door.
Hannah was at the door. Okay, by herself at the door.
And apparently Hannah said from outside I need to pick up some clothes. You know, I'm not trying you I just need to pick up some clothes I gotta get some stuff gonna live with my boyfriend so Barbara opened the door and Hannah walked in and unfortunately hiding in the stairwell right outside the door was Spencer and Aaron both of them Spencer bum rushed in and tackled Barbara and started to choke her.
Aaron said she was screaming and Aaron showed her the gun and told her to be quiet. So he then said that Spencer used duct tape to cover Barbara's eyes and mouth and to bind her hands.
And after they bound Barbara Aaron said that hannah made noises like fake sniveling like she's trying to be sad now so yeah so what they said is they figured if they acted like hannah was also being held hostage and being attacked that barbara would be more compliant like i'll hurt her if you're not cool type of thing so So that's what they tried to act like. That's why the fake sniveling.
That's what that happened. So Spencer here pulls the tape off of her mouth and interrogates her saying, where's your ATM card and your pin number? What's your pin number? All that kind of shit.
So then Spencer starts to drag barbara outside to her car to her van but a neighbor came out so they take they run back inside with her now imagine if this isn't so horrifying it's hilarious if this was like three mob guys taking another mob guy in like a silly movie you'd be like oh take him out. Oh, no, back in.
But it's not funny at all because this poor woman is bound and like, oh, help me, help me, and no one can help her. Snatch is supposed to be a movie of like it's showing a lot of terrible things, but it's a very funny movie.
Well, yeah. There's a lot of people that die.
Goodfellas is fucking hilarious. The Sopranos is hilarious.
There's a lot of that shit you know the right context it's perfect here so he goes back inside and then um and had mcdonald pull the van closer to the door so they could run out and throw her in there basically because they had a van and then they come back and get her car as well so hannah agreed to stay in the apartment in case the neighbors heard any of that shit and called the cops she could be there to be like i I don't know what you're talking about. Everything's cool.
Have a good one, guys. So they do that.
Now, Spencer drives the van with McDonald in the back. And they go to an ATM near the Concord Mall where Aaron withdraws $200 from Barbara's account.

So,

um,

they do all of that.

They start driving again.

Aaron McDonald said that I don't know where I didn't know where we were.

It felt like we drove for hours.

Now during this,

by the way,

Aaron is fucking,

um,

basically from whatever he says,

terrorizing Barbara with saying shit to her,

holding the gun to her head.

He's being an asshole.

This is ridiculous.

At one point, though, Aaron says that Spencer asked me for the gun.

He got out and took Mrs. Kime out of the back seat.

I got out and he was walking her into the cornfield, which is terrifying.

Now, when they got out in the middle of the field, what Spencer deemed far enough, basically, he stops Barbara, and he's got the gun holding it to the back of her head, and he tells her to recite the Lord's Prayer, which is just weird. She was not doing it well, even though she's a church person.
She's terrified and nothing is coming out, really. So Aaron helps her finish it off.
Let me help you with that. Oh, boy.
Helps her say the Lord's Prayer, then turns around and goes back to the van. Spencer, when she finished, said, you're not going to say amen? And so Barbara said amen, and he shot her in the back of the head.
Wow. That's how that worked.
Cold-blooded shit. Yep.
Spencer said he was fascinated by the way her body fell. Just, you know, with nothing under it like that.
So he got back to the van, and Aaron said he had no remorse at all. You can tell that by his statement basically Aaron said quote he said he was going to have sex with Hannah and Mrs.
Kimes bed he was going to sleep in her bed he's like I'm gonna go bang her daughter in her bed now that's that's his fucking plan so obviously not a lot of remorse there even Gypsy Rose and her boyfriend got a hotel yeah well no they had some in the house too, but then they went to a hotel. Not in her bed though.
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You can listen early and ad-free right now by joining Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Spotify or Apple Podcasts. So, Aaron said that Spencer said it felt good to take someone's soul and he said what the fuck yes he said spencer was talking crazy and even roared like a lion he was trying to show off that look how crazy i am so they drove to a gas station and they both bought cigarettes uh they stopped at another atm but 200 limit on that one babe per day yeah to wait till tomorrow.
Yep. Couldn't get any more money.
So they drove. Big spender.
Big spender. So they drove to a house they could get drugs at in Elkhart, and they bought some weed.
And then they went to another gas station to buy some rolling papers. Then they drove back to Barbara's apartment to meet up with Hannah.
We got cigarettes, weed, and rolling papers. It's party time.
We're flush. So Spencer and Aaron, they drive back to meet up with Hannah and Aaron said that they were going back so he could have sex in her bed and all that kind of shit.
Once they got to the apartment, they got stoned and just chilled out and said that Hannah was giddy and excited. Hannah was in a happy mood and laughing and she said this is Aaron's quote.
She told Spencer, don't you know you've got blood on your face? And they were laughing about it. He's been doing this all day with blood on his face.
With blood on his face. He's been going to stores and shit.
God damn it. Didn't even go in the bathroom, wipe it off.
And at one point, Hannah said, I love my mom's dead. Oh, Hannah.
Wow. So then Aaron went home.
The next morning, Spencer and Hannah woke him up and asked if he wanted to go out. He said no, so they went and did something.
But Aaron said he wanted to do something. He went back to Barbara's apartment and stole a check and wrote a check to himself for $800 and cashed it.
And that's how he's in this fucking mess. So, yeah.
Now, the cops are real happy with themselves over this. Very impressed.
Yeah. Great police work.
Law enforcement personnel made something happen and made it happen quickly. Really, from Friday to Sunday, a lot of manpower went into this case.
They're like, man, they have like a woman who's like, oh, Jesus, I can't move after you. They're like, yeah, I gave it to her good.
Yeah, there she is. Yeah, that's right.
Then they said another statement. Normal people, we want to believe there's a reason or some rationale behind why these things

occur and it's hard to get caught up in that whatever reasons we determine won't be any reasons that anyone of any normal sensibility can justify so the funeral they have a big giant funeral and you know it's a it's a big deal here obviously the preacher made sure to say to follow barbara's example and learn to extend love without judgment.

Right.

No matter who did this or what happens. Obviously, the preacher made sure to say to follow Barbara's example and learn to extend love without judgment.

Right.

No matter who did this or what happens, you know, be fucking, you know, she wants you to be all Christian about it.

So you should.

Now, after his arrest, Spencer went back and forth here and he wrote a letter that he tried to send to Hannah in jail.

But it was intercepted, of course.

He said they were stupid to think they could get away with it. And at the end, he wrote what we did was senseless and reckless and dumb.
Jesus. He also wrote a giant thing to the judge, like a fucking book about why he did this and his thoughts and feelings and just it's a diary, basically.
And then he said, here guys have that i'm a disturbed individual yeah read about it he said at one point he said if you're going to get caught and go to jail or prison you might as well go for something big go big or go home really really so he's gonna go big and go he's gonna go big and go to court is what he's going to do because he's in a lot of fucking trouble. He is the trigger person.
He says it, admits it, and Aaron says it too. And the fact that he did it really coldly, there's a lot of call for the people want the death penalty for this kid.
So in order to avoid any of that, he's going to plead guilty to murder. Yeah, he's going to plead guilty.
murder yeah he's gonna plead guilty now there's a pre-sentencing a two-week delay so his attorneys could present a detailed mental health evaluation here and uh the sentencing this is what his the doctor said the psychiatrist dr yoder testified that crempitz was manipulative glorified his problems and was deceptive during testing. So not a good guy at all is what he said.
All the victims come in as well. All the victims, Barbara's family, you know, her sister said our beloved sister, aunt, mother and friend is gone forever, which is bad because the death penalty was not an option.
We feel that life without parole is the only adequate sentence. They also said there's no words to describe the pain and grief they've caused many families, not just ours.
And yeah. And then they talk about how little Timothy's not going to have his mom and all this type of shit.
And that's horrible. So the judge here has his writings, has Spencer's writings.

And Spencer requested that the judge read them in order to understand what was going on. That way, that's his statement.
I'm going to give you this whole manuscript and you can read it. And that's my statement of why I shouldn't get life without parole.
So the judge says that in this, Spencer focuses on his girlfriend and complains, among other things, that she was the central wrongdoer in the commission of this offense. He also said that she was getting in the way of my affairs, Spencer said.
What affairs do you have? You're an year old jerk off you have no affairs and he also

said I just wanted to kill

the money was just a bonus

what the fuck

he said he's been fascinated with robbery

and murder for a long time

and he was into it

he described himself as a quote

young man who was trying to do his girlfriend's

bidding trying to make himself useful

and probably trying to impress her

that he could be counted on to do the tough things

that she didn't want to do

Thank you. young man who was trying to do his girlfriend's bidding, trying to make himself useful and probably trying to impress her that he could be counted on to do the tough things that she didn't want to do.
So the judge said, at times you led a very lonely existence. You turned to drugs, alcohol, sexual activity, rebellion, perhaps to cope.
You read a rather nomadic lifestyle. You claimed few friends.
You were somewhat desperate for attention. Hannah Stone clearly filled a void in your life.
You missed your family. She became your family.
Taking a life seemed to fascinate you. You wanted to see what it was like.
You wanted to know what it was like. At one point, the judge asked Spencer if he thought about backing out.
And he said, but from your writings, it says in your own words, you did think about backing out backing out but you quote fought it off the way you put it fought off the fought off the urge to be a fucking decent human being yeah you know i thought about it for a while but i was like no that's crazy i considered it yeah and um then the judge says talks about making her recite the prayer. Okay.
And he said, you wanted to know, and this is what Spencer wrote in his thing. You wanted to know if God would deliver Barbara from evil.
You didn't think he would. Which, no.
They also note the contrary to Spencer's claim that he acted under the domination of his girlfriend. The trial court recounted his statements where he said, among other things, this is nobody's fault, but my own, nobody twisted my arm.
And I was only convinced that at the time it was the thing to do. And also to think we thought we could get away with it.
So stupid. These are all quotes from his writing to the judge, by the way.
So he shouldn't have wrote that shit and then said something else in court because the judge is going to notice. So the judge says.
They're pretty good at picking up on that shit. They pick up on little things like that.
It's kind of their job. Hypocrisy and lies.
All that shit. They say, you, sir, may fuck off.
Life without parole for young Spencer. Oh, boy.
18. Life without.
18 and life, you got it. That's it right there.
Threw it away. Fucking, he's like, I'm finally a Skid Row song.
Yes. Finally.
Thank you, Sebastian Bach, for singing my anthem. Fucking A.
So he's also sentenced to 65 years for conspiracy to commit murder and criminal confinement as well. But that's on top of life without parole, so who gives a shit shit he says he'll appeal here um yeah which i don't know how because he's um he admitted it he does all that hannah wants to change a venue reciting quote public hostility against the defendant intense publicity and public outrage over the offense that's weird that people get mad when you kill your mom for no reason who's a nice lady who didn't do anything to anybody real strange she argued she can't get a fair trial in the county because her mother was married to a police officer with the sheriff's department even though they were divorced the week before she said that's still gonna fuck her good anyway they say now you're good here let's just stick around so hannah is going to have to plead guilty as well i mean both of her co-conspirators are putting her right there you know there's no way how are you gonna defend it uh murder conspiracy and criminal confinement here uh the prosecuting attorney during sentencing said timothy is a five-year-old boy who has strong memories of his mother tomorrow those memories will fade and he won't be able to think of the wonderful memories he had of his mother um now Hannah here said that um quote I was to knock at the door of the apartment and Mr.
Krempitz was um and her voice is trailing off they had to tell her to speak up a couple of times. He said, she said, and Spencer was going to, um, I don't know the word he was going to get her.
He taped her using duct tape. She said, Aaron had the gun to threaten her to be quiet, to keep her from screaming.
Um, and she said, uh, then Spencer tied her up or taped her up. And she said from that point on, they, I don't know what order they were going to a bank or to the cornfield i don't know that's what she said well the judge says there is something i know and that is you young lady may fuck off yeah okay 55 years in prison for the murder of the mother 30 years for conspiracy to commit murder and 15 years for criminal confinement while

armed with a deadly weapon to be run consecutively.

Oh,

Jesus.

Not concurrently.

100 years for Hannah,

a hundred years.

Uh,

she will be eligible for parole in 2053 at the age of 65.

So she's going to go in basically never living an adult life outside of prison. She goes in at 17 and comes out a senior citizen.
Think about that. Unbelievable.
Never like just I'm an adult. 17 to 65.
Can she get some security for that? She can't. She's never paid into it.
I don't know. I don't know what the system i don't know the rules of what do you i mean what do you do at that point they gotta give her something which i mean back into society you've got nothing you can't do anything no that goes they also ruled in addition to 100 years she's to have no contact with her five-year-old brother as well oh yeah um aaron also pleads guilty let's see that we kind of knew that was coming here.
They really a lot. The family really goes hard on him, too, like the which he said, man, it's crazy.
It's but I mean, Aaron is the reason why all these people got caught. And you know what I mean? So you think they'd be a little bit easier on him, but I guess not.
He's so dumb, but no. Yeah, he's a fucking dummy um so they said that uh you know they have to deal with the their kids asking where's my aunt and her kids asking or her son asking where the fuck you know where she is uh the judge said or i'm sorry the family said the whole the prosecutor jesus the whole community is in shock i think we all are at what such young people had in their minds.
It affects the whole community and puts a certain fear in everyone. They bring in Robert, the ex-husband here, and he says, Timothy will never have the mother that every child should have.
Nobody could replace that. I just can't fathom why anybody would want to do such a heinous crime in our community.
Our community needs to be safe from people like Mr. McDonald.
He was easily manipulated into a scheme that could have been stopped. He could have easily walked away.
He went and got the gun. Aaron said, quote, is there anything to say for yourself? He said, quote, I had money on my mind.
My mind on my money and my money on my mind is what he had. Yep.
What? I just wanted to get my money so i could get more dope cocaine and marijuana he said um he read a statement to the family and said to quote find it in your hearts to forgive me for the senseless act i was involved in i would do anything to bring her back i'm not a murderer i'm not a bad kid uh he said i would do anything including my i would give anything including my own life to turn back murderer. I'm not a bad kid.
He said, I would do anything, including my, I would give anything, including my own life to turn back the clock. I'm not a bad person.
I'm a kid who is at the wrong place at the wrong time with the wrong people. If I hadn't walked out of that cornfield when I did, I would have been dead too, which I don't think so.
I don't think at all Spencer was going to kill him. No.
You're their hero. You brought the gun, man.
That's what I'm saying here. Now, the prosecutor said he was at the wrong place at the wrong time holding the gun, is what the prosecutor said.
Bullshit. They said, also, the judge says, you could have called it all off.
The reason you chose not to do so, greed. That's it.
He said, it's hard for you. It's hard to see you as the victim.
He said, all the families involved in the murder lost people, but the difference is your family can come visit you in a department of corrections. And that's not the case with their family.
You ended up with $900. You were part of that conspiracy.
You did it for financial gain. Life is not that cheap.
You, sir, may fuck off 62 years in prison. Okay.
I guess his max that he could have gotten was 65, but leading the police to the body is what took three years off. Got three for free.
Wow. That's not a lot of credit for that, I don't think.
Okay. Now, 2006.
Everybody's in prison. Yeah.
An item is on eBay. Okay.
An auction closes without a bid, but according to the Elkhart County Sheriff's Department, the seller was a teenager, and it was county property he was trying to sell. Okay.
Now, they said that eBay is the one that closed the auction down because they didn't know about ownership. An anonymous tip to the sheriff's department website led them to the auction page advertising Elkhart County jail pants worn by the cornfield killer.
Oh, gee. Said, I have Spencer's pants.
The cornfield killer and the preacher's daughter. That's some couple.
So the police concluded the cornfield killer referred to Spencer who was convicted obviously of that so police didn't have to work hard to find the person he listed his name and address in the fucking listing it would have been a return address too Jesus Christ the teen noted he was unable to receive electronic payments so the winning bidder had to send a check or money order to this address with this name i don't have a bank account wow uh it was a i guess the uh started at 30 and the buy it now price was 500 they wanted 500 bucks for these things fucking ridiculous now they checked the records and they said that he had been in jail during the time sp was there, but they'd never stayed in the same ward and would not have had contact.

This guy just got an idea.

I got pants.

He's over there.

He probably just stole them.

Yeah.

Probably his.

And he said that, okay.

They went to his house.

He claimed he received the pants from the county work release center and didn't know he was supposed to return the pants or pay for them.

He goes, I just thought they were my pants.

I figured I'd get some idiot to buy them.

He promised to return the clothes, but then he didn't, and they arrested him. I'll return them, don't worry.
James Wright is his name of 250 East Bristol Street. He's 18 years old and a fucking dummy.
That's amazing. That is hilarious um he they apparently the jury deliberated for 20 minutes and that was that he got just he got convicted of that now spencer's going to appeal saying that his main appeal is that he shouldn't get life without parole because the robbery is separate from the murder.
He says that this is amazing because it has to be wild. He says the robbery had been completed in a sufficient amount of time before the murder took place, so the act of murder is outside the course of robbery.
Yeah, that's a great point. Like if you're a robber, you rob a bank, and then two weeks later you go murder somebody.
Is that where's the window well if you if you if you held what if you held one of the tellers hostage and then murdered them then yes if someone's separate now when does the window stop that's a great so they said we do not agree with the defendant's narrow interpretation of the word while you were on the way to kill her you stop that's in the same fucking thing it was the same day it was an hour later it was in the same act if you ate you were still full man yeah fuck there's also an intentional killing while lying in wait aggravator the hiding and all that kind of shit um they said also he said they didn't properly weigh his mitigating factors of his, you know,

a lack of adult criminal convictions been molested and all that kind of shit.

And also he has an impaired mental condition.

And they said, well, his mental state at the time couldn't be determined.

He wouldn't cooperate with psychiatrists.

There's no evidence he's of an inferior intellect. As a matter of fact, he's actually smart.

He's unhampered by debilitating mental conditions. Seems fine.
Yeah, that's it. I remember we said he was deceptive and glorified his problems and all that kind of shit.
They said, keep on keeping on, dickhead, life without. Hannah appeals as well.
She says about mitigating factors, saying she was only 18 and didn't have much of a criminal record even

though she was on probation for something small it looks bad yeah the court also notes as an

aggravating circumstance that she committed the offense while under the influence of smoking

marijuana which i don't think really matters but that's fine um so anyway uh also that um

the because the judge had knows her father and had met her father at something in the conflict of

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conflict of conflict of conflict of conflict the conflict of interest. All of these people know each other.
Her father knows everybody in this courtroom because he's a cop. So he knows lawyers and judges.
So they said that's a conflict of interest. But it turns out they said it's not a conflict of interest in the end.
Aaron appeals as well. I don't know what the hell he's talking about.
He's fucking his is just the sentence. He said it was too harsh because he improperly considered aggravating and mitigating factors because it did not fit the nature of the crime and his character.
They said, you sound like a dickhead. Fuck you.
You don't understand. I want to go home.
But I don't like this. I don't like what happened.
I only got nine i only got 900 this isn't worth it so that's what happens there january 18th 2015 spencer kills himself in prison at age 28 couldn't take it the only way it's gonna go down you knew that was gonna happen you knew it you're not getting the attention you want and all that shit in prison you'll just get the shit beat of you for that crap. Nobody cares.
And this sucks. And this sucks.
Yep. And so he is dead in prison.
July 23rd, 2020, Aaron McDonald dies in prison. Oh, my God.
Yeah. In his early 30s.
Like 32 years old. What happened to him? Was he beaten to death? We don't know.
No cause revealed here. We don't know.
So 23rd, 2020, it might have been COVID for Christ's sake. We have no idea.
It was all lockdowns and prisons at that point. And there was all sorts of diseases fucking flying through that shit.
That's just common anyway. But yeah.
Either way, he's dead too. What about her? Now, Hannah, she's still alive.
And doing interviews. They're doing interviews about, you know, the preacher's daughter in prison and how she's in all these programs and how she's so much better now.
I was influenced by two bad men. They're dead in prison.
I need to get out. Oh, yeah.
There's all these articles. She's in some documentary.
In an interview with Investigation Discovery, she said she'd do anything to go back and change what happened. She says her father is her only visitor ever.

Really?

Only none of the family will talk to her.

Comes around.

Wow. Her DOC number is 152679, and she is at the Indiana Women's Prison.

And August 31st, 2053 is her earliest release date.

Yeah.

Barbara is buried at the Napanee, oh no, I'm sorry, the Prairie Street elkart that is where she's buried in that everybody wow that girl may never have left indiana she may have never left ever no i don't think she ever got out of indiana no that's it just from the time it's just wild that from 17 to 65 you would be like well fascinating stretch i was a minor now i'm a senior citizen okay i'm coming out it's just so strange 30s 40s 50s and then half of your 60s that's wild crazy shit so there you go everybody if you like that show please get on whatever app you're listening on and give us five stars it helps tremendously helps drive the show up the charts follow us on social media we are at small town murder on instagram at murder small on no yeah at small Pod on Facebook. Find that there.
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