BONUS: Susan and Blane Barksdale (Snapped: Killer Couples)

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Speaker 1 Hi, Snap listeners. We are bringing you a special bonus episode today from Oxygen's hit series Killer Couples.

Speaker 1 You can also watch full episodes live or on demand on the free Oxygen app or on Peacock by clicking the link in our description. Enjoy.

Speaker 2 He was a retired veteran enjoying his golden years in the southwest.

Speaker 7 He ended up being stationed in Arizona.

Speaker 9 And he fell in love with it out there.

Speaker 10 He kept his circle very small.

Speaker 11 He was close with his brother and his family and was living his life.

Speaker 2 But a comfortable retirement would be upended by a devastating fire.

Speaker 14 The calls reported sounds of an explosion and a house that was fully engulfed in flames. The owner of the house is missing.

Speaker 17 The investigators find large, open, empty safes inside.

Speaker 7 I knew something wasn't right.

Speaker 2 As the investigation unfolds, the search for a missing person will escalate to the hunt for a killer.

Speaker 13 There had been a considerable amount of blood.

Speaker 14 We were treating it as a homicide investigation.

Speaker 2 Culminating in a nationwide manhunt for a pair of dangerous fugitives who will stop at nothing for freedom.

Speaker 18 There's Bonnie and Clyde on the run. Their violent tendencies could come through, especially in desperation.

Speaker 20 Both of them showed this greed.

Speaker 21 She didn't necessarily want to see him killed, but we all know how it ended.

Speaker 22 She was so blinded by this fantasy that he was presenting to her. His character came shining through full bright beacon like a lighthouse.

Speaker 9 Eagle.

Speaker 2 With its warm weather and breathtaking scenery, Tucson, Arizona ranks as one of the Southwest's most popular places to call home.

Speaker 24 Really what draws people to Tucson is a sense of community,

Speaker 25 affordability, fun things to do, and the climate that we have.

Speaker 16 It allows you to be active year-round.

Speaker 2 On April 16th, 2019, a dark cloud looms over that community when residents of one quiet neighborhood are jolted awake at 4 a.m.

Speaker 16 They all awoke to the sounds of this explosion and this fire.

Speaker 2 Within seconds, Tucson dispatchers receive a flurry of calls.

Speaker 14 The calls reported the house that was fully engulfed in flames. The neighbors who called in were scared.

Speaker 14 So the fire department responded immediately.

Speaker 14 It was important to get this fire put out as quickly as possible.

Speaker 14 Not only so that they could get inside the residence to determine if anybody needed medical help, but also to prevent that fire from spreading to other houses in the neighborhood.

Speaker 2 By daylight, firefighters are finally able to extinguish the blaze.

Speaker 2 But the home is destroyed.

Speaker 16 By the time they got it put out, there were portions of the roof that had caved in,

Speaker 28 portions of walls that had come down.

Speaker 13 The home was a complete loss.

Speaker 17 And so Tucson Police Department arrived on scene.

Speaker 16 The first thing that they're going to collectively do between both of the field public safety resources is look for victims, which they didn't find that night.

Speaker 14 The owner of the house is missing.

Speaker 13 Where's the homeowner?

Speaker 2 Detectives don't have to wait long for the answer.

Speaker 14 Later on on that same day, April 16th, William Skip Bly called Tucson Police to request a check welfare on his brother, Frank.

Speaker 7 Every Sunday, either he called me or I called him.

Speaker 7 And that last Sunday that I called him, which was April 7th, there was no answer. And I called Monday, no answer.

Speaker 6 Wednesday, I called, no answer.

Speaker 7 And I'm sitting there, I said, this is not like him at all.

Speaker 8 Something's not right here.

Speaker 7 So I called the police department.

Speaker 14 Police ultimately responded out to the house, and it was at that point that police realized: oh, this is the same house where that house fire and explosion had occurred earlier on.

Speaker 10 The important part of the conversation with William at that point in time was to obtain as much information about Frank as possible to assist us in locating him.

Speaker 2 Originally from Connecticut, 72-year-old Frank Bly had called Arizona home for more than four decades.

Speaker 7 He graduated in 66

Speaker 7 and he joined the Air Force.

Speaker 7 He spent two turns of duty in Vietnam. He was a helicopter and jet mechanic and he ended up being stationed in Tucson, Arizona.

Speaker 8 And he fell in love with it out there.

Speaker 2 After retiring from active duty, Frank bought a home in Tucson and worked in the aviation industry.

Speaker 7 So he joined the Air Force Reserves, loved that. He went flying all over the world.

Speaker 7 He got a job working for Grumman Northrop, and they were working on either a stealth fighter or a stealth bomber, one or the other. It was all top secret.

Speaker 2 In his spare time, the deserts and long stretches of highway outside Tucson afforded Frank the opportunity to practice his two favorite hobbies.

Speaker 7 My brother was a very avid gun collector.

Speaker 7 He had quite an extensive collection of guns. Also, my brother had more to say.
He had Harleys, he had dirt bikes. There were times that when I used to go out and visit him, we'd go riding together.

Speaker 7 In fact, he rode with a bunch of guys from Tucson up to Sturgis, South Dakota. My brother used to go on these trips all the time because he wasn't married.
He was a guy, you know.

Speaker 7 He did what he wanted.

Speaker 2 By 2019, Frank had settled into his golden years and enjoyed a weekly social routine.

Speaker 14 He would go to breakfast with his friends the same day of the week, every week without fail. He would go to the same bar, meet with the same group of friends,

Speaker 14 have one or two beers, and then he would leave and go home.

Speaker 10 He kept his circle very small.

Speaker 11 He was close with his brother and his family and was living his life.

Speaker 2 But on April 16th, 2019, concern grows when Frank's home erupts into flames and the 72-year-old is nowhere to be found.

Speaker 2 Inside, detectives uncover evidence of arson.

Speaker 17 Tucson police concluded that accelerants were found inside the house. They have the odor of gasoline, and that that led them to conclude that the fire was deliberately set.

Speaker 12 When you are searching a residence that has been burned, it creates a number of different challenges.

Speaker 10 First and foremost is that fires destroy physical evidence.

Speaker 12 It prohibits the responding, investigating detectives to be able to obtain any sort of physical evidence from the crime scene itself, such as DNA or fibers or fingerprints.

Speaker 14 As investigators were walking through the house, police investigators noted multiple gun safes that were inside the residence.

Speaker 14 They were open, unlocked, and they were empty. There were no guns inside them.

Speaker 17 When the investigators find large, open, empty safes inside of a house, It's certainly a suspicious factor at that point.

Speaker 17 They would have been concluding that someone had perhaps deliberately set the fire after having taken items, probably valuable items, from inside those safes.

Speaker 14 It was potential evidence of some kind of theft or potential robbery. Like the fire damage eradicated a lot of potential evidence for us.

Speaker 33 The only place that was left intact, so to speak, was the garage portion of the residence.

Speaker 14 The information that Skip gave investigators was that his brother Frank had two cars.

Speaker 14 He had an old pickup truck and he had a red or maroon passenger car.

Speaker 14 And now that pickup truck was in the garage when the fire occurred. However, the red passenger car was missing.

Speaker 14 We need to locate Frank.

Speaker 2 Coming up, a discovery on a remote highway all but confirms detectives' worst fears.

Speaker 14 At that point, we were treating it as a homicide investigation.

Speaker 23 There had been a considerable amount of blood.

Speaker 2 in the trunk and a disturbing phone call reveals someone else may be in danger She called me and she's like, I got to leave town.

Speaker 22 She was panicked. I was really concerned that he would just kill her.

Speaker 2 Detectives in Tucson, Arizona are searching for 72-year-old Frank Bly after discovering his house ransacked and set on fire.

Speaker 14 Well, at that point, we don't know if Frank has been the victim of some kind of foul play, if Frank has had some role in his house burning down.

Speaker 14 We know that Frank's missing and a vehicle is missing from his residence as well.

Speaker 2 As authorities begin searching for Frank's car, detectives follow up with Frank's brother, William Skipbly, to update him on the situation.

Speaker 7 We were in a complete fog.

Speaker 13 in what was going on.

Speaker 7 My brother's missing. I knew something wasn't right.

Speaker 14 It was very unusual for Frank to kind of drop off the radar. According to Skip, Frank led a very regimented lifestyle.
So he had a very set routine and he rarely deviated from that routine.

Speaker 7 I told the detectives that the cow pony was his Sunday routine.

Speaker 9 Detective Cheek and I spoke to a bartender at the cow pony whom remembered Frank and knew who he was.

Speaker 14 The last person that we were able to find at that point who had seen him was the folks at the cow pony that saw him leaving on, I believe, April 7th.

Speaker 2 According to the bartender, Frank was alone that night, but a few weeks earlier, someone had joined him for drinks.

Speaker 37 Questioning the bartender further, she remembered a

Speaker 12 friend of Frank's coming in that was introduced as Sue.

Speaker 2 When detectives run the name by William, he informs them that Sue is Frank's close friend, 58-year-old Susan Barksdale.

Speaker 17 Detectives learn that Susan and Frank were longtime friends.

Speaker 7 Sue is married to Frank's boss.

Speaker 8 I guess that's how he ended up meeting her.

Speaker 7 My brother, he got to be very good friends with Sue and the family and the kids and everything.

Speaker 8 They called him Uncle Frank.

Speaker 14 Susan was married previously and divorced.

Speaker 16 After that, Susan had married another male by the name of Blaine Barksdale.

Speaker 14 Susan lived in the Sholow area, and that's a location roughly four hours north of Tucson. It's comprised of several towns.

Speaker 28 One of those is Vernon, Arizona.

Speaker 34 So Detective Cheek and I interviewed Susan.

Speaker 30 Through the course of the interview, Susan seemed concerned for Frank.

Speaker 16 She had no idea what had happened with Frank and didn't know where he was.

Speaker 14 We asked when the last time she saw Frank was.

Speaker 2 According to Susan, she had last seen Frank on April 12th.

Speaker 17 She said both she and Blaine had been in Tucson. They had seen Frank.

Speaker 24 They'd been at Frank's house.

Speaker 14 She and Blaine ended up driving back to Vernon, and she claimed that that was the last time she'd spoken with him.

Speaker 2 Susan promises to contact authorities if she hears from Frank. In the meantime, Tucson police focus their efforts on finding Frank's car and release its description to neighboring communities.

Speaker 2 One day later, they get a call from the Sheriff's Department.

Speaker 17 The day after the fire, Pima County Sheriff's deputy sees a vehicle on South Wilmot Road about 10 miles away from Frank Bly's house.

Speaker 17 And the vehicle vehicle is pulled over on the side of the road nobody's inside the vehicle

Speaker 29 when the sheriff's department personnel ran the license plate it returned to frank and they notified us that they had located the vehicle that was a huge step forward in the investigation

Speaker 12 immediately personnel from the department responded to this area and began a ground search in an attempt to locate frank

Speaker 2 there's no sign of frank Frank in the surrounding desert.

Speaker 2 But when authorities search his car, they make a harrowing discovery.

Speaker 13 The vehicle was fairly clean.

Speaker 29 However, in the trunk, there was visual signs of blood.

Speaker 36 And there were bags with rags that were soaked in gasoline.

Speaker 17 We used a chemical reagent.

Speaker 23 to figure out that there had been a considerable amount of blood in the trunk at one time.

Speaker 17 They were able to collect and figure out that it was Frank's blood through DNA test.

Speaker 17 The fact that the blood was in Frank's own vehicle led them to the conclusion that Frank had been seriously injured, he had bled, and then somebody had placed him into the trunk of his own car where he'd been for at least some period of time after that.

Speaker 14 Just based on the quantity of blood that appeared to have been in that trunk, I believed that Frank had died, died, that he had been murdered.

Speaker 14 At that point, we were treating it as a homicide investigation.

Speaker 2 Unfortunately, there is little evidence to suggest who had put him there.

Speaker 38 There weren't many leads at this point in time.

Speaker 2 Then, one week into the investigation, the daughter of Frank's close friend, Susan Barksdale, reaches out to law enforcement. claiming to have received an alarming call from her mother.

Speaker 22 She called me from a random number and she's like, I gotta go, I gotta leave town.

Speaker 22 Like you could hear it in her voice. She was panicked.

Speaker 21 Jada expressed to investigators that Susan's husband Blaine was a danger

Speaker 36 and she was concerned that he hurt Frank.

Speaker 22 I believe Blaine saw Frank as a threat. He knew that, you know, Frank and my mother had been good friends for many years.

Speaker 14 They would hang out together.

Speaker 16 They would go to eat together.

Speaker 14 Susan would go out shooting with Frank.

Speaker 2 But Jada claims that when her mother married Blaine, he became jealous of her relationship with Frank.

Speaker 22 Blaine had a lot of control over my mom. And he was very verbally, emotionally, and eventually physically abusive with my mother.

Speaker 22 Anyone who knew my mom knew that she's very assertive in her opinions and beliefs, just a

Speaker 22 very strong personality, and he was able to chip away at her very strong personality until she was just terrified to have an opinion about anything.

Speaker 22 I know that Frank did confront Flain about this abuse and said to keep your hands off Sue.

Speaker 22 Flain knew that

Speaker 22 Frank could help her get on her feet if she decided to leave him.

Speaker 2 Jada tells detectives that she can no longer get a hold of her mother, and she believes Blaine has taken her hostage.

Speaker 22 I was really concerned that he would just kill her. I believe her life is absolutely in danger.

Speaker 2 Authorities immediately attempt to locate Susan and Blaine at their residence,

Speaker 2 but they're too late.

Speaker 16 They are nowhere to be found.

Speaker 14 We did, however, locate some of Blaine's family members up in that area, and they were able to tell us that Blaine talked about signing over titles of vehicles to them.

Speaker 14 He talked about, hey, can you check on our dog?

Speaker 16 We're leaving our dog.

Speaker 14 And that was obviously suspicious to us. That was suspicious to family as well.
It didn't make any sense as to why Susan and Blaine would be doing this.

Speaker 14 By all appearances, it seemed that Susan and Blaine were just walking away from that property, their vehicles, their dog, and never coming back.

Speaker 14 It was clear to us at that point that Susan and Blaine were going on the run.

Speaker 1 Do I have time for men?

Speaker 14 Yes, I do. Let's party.

Speaker 1 I'm a baddie. The real housewives of Potomac are back.
I know she ain't bring TJ round.

Speaker 1 Yeah, back with her men.

Speaker 2 Oh my God.

Speaker 3 I've never touched you around my house, Stacy. You don't have one.

Speaker 2 I'm so confused.

Speaker 1 All new the real housewives of Potomac.

Speaker 2 Mondays, watch Bravo on Peacock.

Speaker 4 On the night before Halloween in 1975, 15-year-old Martha Moxley was murdered, but police failed to make an arrest. Until, in 2000, her one-time neighbor, Michael Skakal, was arrested.

Speaker 4 He was also a cousin of the Kennedys. The Kennedy connection is the reason that most people know about this case.
But the deeper I dug, the more I came to question everything I thought I knew.

Speaker 4 Search Dead Certain the Martha Moxley murder to listen now, wherever you get your podcasts. And follow to get new episodes every week.

Speaker 2 One week after Frank Bly's home erupted into flames, Frank is presumed dead, and detectives are searching for his friend Susan Barksdale and her husband, Blaine.

Speaker 11 Blaine and Susan were nowhere to be found.

Speaker 26 In speaking with some of their friends and family, we learned that they had indicated that they were leaving town.

Speaker 38 So investigators served a search warrant on the Barksdales property in Vernon.

Speaker 10 Through the course of that search, detectives were able to locate some cell phones.

Speaker 14 We were able to actually access the content of those cell phones.

Speaker 2 When detectives perform a forensic analysis on the phones, they uncover a potential clue.

Speaker 14 One of the cell phones that belonged to Susan, there were deleted text messages that we recovered from that phone.

Speaker 17 Around the time that Frank's home went up in flames, Susan had been in contact with a person named Brent.

Speaker 14 And so that became immediately significant to us. They were sent the morning of the fire on April 16th.

Speaker 14 And in those text messages, Susan expressed concern that Brent and Blaine had become separated from each other in Tucson, where Frank lived.

Speaker 17 The phone number for Brent was researched by Tucson police detectives.

Speaker 24 They were able to figure out Brent was Brent Mallard.

Speaker 14 We learned that Blaine was his uncle.

Speaker 13 On April 24th, we worked with police in the Avondale area.

Speaker 14 That's in the outskirts of Phoenix. And they were able to locate an address associated to Brent Mallard.

Speaker 2 When detectives meet with Brent, they're immediately taken off guard by his appearance.

Speaker 13 Detective Cheek and I had observed that he had numerous bandages over different parts of his body.

Speaker 21 He had abrasions on his face, and the marks on him and the injuries appeared to be that of burns.

Speaker 9 I remember just looking at Detective Cheek and having a moment because

Speaker 20 burns all over your body are...

Speaker 12 that's a clue.

Speaker 2 Detectives asked Brent to accompany them to the station for an interview.

Speaker 13 We didn't tell Brent initially what we were talking to him for, and he was cooperative and calm.

Speaker 9 Brent initially stated that he was in fact burned, but he stated that it was due to a welding accident.

Speaker 14 Coincidentally, he talked about sustaining these burns around the same time period as the fire that occurred at Frank's house.

Speaker 32 We didn't believe his story, and we began to press him even harder in the interview for him to just come clean and tell us the truth.

Speaker 14 And it was at that point that he admitted that he lied to us.

Speaker 16 Brent eventually told Detective Cheek and I that he was involved in the arson in lighting the fire at Frank's house.

Speaker 2 According to Brent, on April 15th, his uncle had asked him for a ride to Tucson.

Speaker 12 Brent advised that Blaine provided a gun as payment and gave Brent a Ruger pistol for him to drive to Tucson.

Speaker 14 He and Blaine drove to Tucson.

Speaker 14 They went to a house.

Speaker 14 And Blaine had a garage remote control or a clicker that activated the remote control and opened a garage at this residence.

Speaker 10 Blaine had entered the home and had some gasoline.

Speaker 39 Blaine took the gasoline and spilled it throughout the house.

Speaker 2 Brent tells police, to his shock, his uncle ordered him to ignite the accelerant.

Speaker 35 Blaine told Brent that he was going to do it and that if he had told anyone, he would be in serious danger.

Speaker 32 Brent felt extremely threatened,

Speaker 10 stated he got a rolled-up magazine,

Speaker 32 lit the magazine, and threw it further into the home.

Speaker 14 Fire flashed back at Brent, and he ended up sustaining some serious burn injuries to his hands and his arms and his face.

Speaker 14 Brent described running away on foot, and

Speaker 14 he said that Blaine took off in a vehicle. This was huge because this was the first time we had anybody directly implicating Blaine Barksdale in the arson fire that occurred at the residence.

Speaker 2 Detectives finally have the confession they need, but the whereabouts of Frank's body is still unclear.

Speaker 36 Brett indicated that at no time did he see the homeowner or know who Frank Bly was.

Speaker 14 Brent said that he had no idea as to where Frank was, and he said that Blaine was very cautious not to give him details.

Speaker 37 It didn't make much sense to a degree why Brent had involved himself in this particular incident.

Speaker 30 However, I think that

Speaker 10 part of Brent wanted to prove himself to Blaine

Speaker 37 and also felt that he was a dangerous person and didn't want to cross him

Speaker 10 based upon the descriptions given and his admitted involvement

Speaker 15 brent was arrested for arson

Speaker 2 hoping to learn more about blaine and where he might go detectives continue interviewing his family members the same day that we interviewed brent mallard we interviewed his mother thailene blain's sister Thailene tells detectives that her brother had a troubled childhood growing up in Tucson.

Speaker 40 He dropped out of school. He was arrested right before his 18th birthday for selling drugs and stealing and selling like ATVs and things.
I believe he got seven years that time for that.

Speaker 40 But he got married right after he got out of prison, I believe.

Speaker 23 Had three children

Speaker 40 and then went back to prison. Another drug case, and they divorced while he was in prison.
So basically, he kind of grew up in the prison prison system.

Speaker 2 After his release from prison in 2011, Thilene says Blaine earned an honest living as a woodworker.

Speaker 41 He went to work building cabinets and things like the crayon and that type of thing.

Speaker 40 And that was where he met Susan.

Speaker 41 I thought that she was great for Blaine and I didn't know what she saw in him, but I was happy because I thought maybe that that would settle it down.

Speaker 41 i guess i was wrong

Speaker 14 thylene has no idea where her brother is now and she agrees with jada that susan is likely in danger we continually interviewed friends and family of susan barksdale and blaine barksdale and what family has been able to tell us is that after the fire blain ultimately procured or purchased an rv for for cash.

Speaker 2 Detectives issue a bolo for the RV and alert the U.S. Marshal Service.

Speaker 16 The U.S.

Speaker 14 Marshals have more resources in that regard because if somebody flees the state of Arizona, the Marshals can be anywhere.

Speaker 14 They can use a variety of different methods to locate and track potential fugitives.

Speaker 2 On May 23rd, more than a month after Frank went missing, authorities get a hit when when Blaine and Susan are spotted in New York.

Speaker 14 They were pawning items of property in a pawn shop.

Speaker 14 Anytime a person goes to a pawn shop, they have to show a photo ID if they're going to sell or pawn an item at that pawn shop.

Speaker 14 I don't know if Susan realized it, but when she did that, it set up a flag.

Speaker 14 And as soon as we conducted a records query on her name, we were able to determine that that paunt had actually occurred, where it had occurred, and surveillance images of Susan actually going into the shop.

Speaker 2 Detectives are relieved to learn Susan is alive, but whether she is acting of her own accord or not is still a mystery to law enforcement.

Speaker 42 We knew they're in the motorhome, and we pass it on.

Speaker 25 to the New Jersey, New York deputies out there.

Speaker 25 They were able to locate them at a motel parking lot in the Rochester area late that night.

Speaker 2 In the early morning hours of May 24th, 2019, authorities set up a perimeter.

Speaker 25 They had the state troopers, the SWAT, they had brought everybody out there.

Speaker 42 If you've taken the criminal history of Blaine with the desperation and then mixed that with guns that were missing and taken,

Speaker 16 you never know what you're going to get.

Speaker 2 Coming up, law enforcement have their suspect in their crosshairs, but a daring escape will leave the whole case in jeopardy.

Speaker 18 When you're on the run, your propensity for violence is very high.

Speaker 24 And I'd never seen an operation of this magnitude.

Speaker 2 More than a month into the search for assumed murder victim Frank Bly, authorities in upstate New York have surrounded a motorhome linked to their primary suspect, Blaine Barksdale and his wife Susan.

Speaker 16 We didn't know what Blaine was going to do.

Speaker 14 We certainly considered the possibility that he was armed and dangerous.

Speaker 18 When you're on the run and you're fleeing, your propensity for violence is very high.

Speaker 2 At 3.30 a.m., authorities cautiously approached the vehicle and announced their presence.

Speaker 25 We just had to wait and be patient till Blaine came up.

Speaker 42 Then, moments later, Susan came out.

Speaker 2 After more than three weeks on the run, the Barksdales are taken into custody and transported to the Monroe County Jail in Rochester, New York.

Speaker 2 When Arizona detectives arrive, Blaine refuses to give a statement.

Speaker 2 But Susan appears anxious anxious to talk.

Speaker 12 When I first saw Susan, she seemed extremely frightened.

Speaker 20 She was crying and it sure appeared like she had two black eyes was the first thing that I noticed about her. Susan claimed that she had been beaten by Blaine

Speaker 20 throughout their trip across the country.

Speaker 32 In addition, she told Detective Cheek and I some additional information about the events prior to Frank's disappearance.

Speaker 32 Frank had indicated that if anything were to happen to him, he wanted her to be responsible for his items.

Speaker 33 Frank had a large number of his gun safes throughout his house. Susan claims that Blaine was present when Frank showed her the combinations.

Speaker 2 Susan explains that Blaine saw an opportunity to make some quick cash.

Speaker 14 She'd indicated that Blaine had been taking guns from Frank for a period of time. She'd indicated that he was selling some of those guns to a male in the Sholow area.

Speaker 22 Blaine was a very opportunistic person, very manipulative.

Speaker 22 He knew that Frank had guns, money.

Speaker 22 He saw an opportunity to benefit from Frank.

Speaker 11 Susan said that Blaine was afraid that Frank was going to find out that he had been stealing his guns from him.

Speaker 2 According to Susan, that's when Blaine made the decision to kill Frank.

Speaker 2 On April 12, 2019, four days before the fire, Susan was visiting with Frank at his home when Blaine arrived, and a confrontation broke out between the two men.

Speaker 17 Frank's guns had been stolen. Frank confronted Blaine about that.
She says that Blaine and Frank were having a discussion or an argument.

Speaker 17 Frank left to walk down the hall, and that Blaine walked down the hall after Frank. She heard a loud thud, and she figured something bad had happened.

Speaker 24 She said she didn't see what happened.

Speaker 14 She came around a corner. She described seeing Frank on the ground, bleeding from his head, and Blaine standing over him.

Speaker 17 And that's when she learned that Frank had been killed by Blaine.

Speaker 14 Susan told us that Blaine forced her to clean up the blood and threatened to come after Susan's family if Susan did not help him clean this evidence up.

Speaker 14 At one point, Blaine moved Frank's body, but Susan claimed she didn't know where.

Speaker 14 Susan described driving her car back from Tucson to Vernon, and she said that Blaine drove Frank's car.

Speaker 14 At one point in time, she lost track of where Blaine was, and then he later arrived at their property up in Vernon.

Speaker 32 Susan denied that she had any involvement after that point besides cleaning up.

Speaker 17 Susan says that she was a victim of Blaine and was doing what Blaine directed her to do.

Speaker 16 Susan felt threatened.

Speaker 2 Despite her willingness to cooperate with law enforcement, authorities charge Susan with multiple crimes, including first-degree murder, first-degree burglary, arson, felony criminal damage, and theft.

Speaker 34 Susan was able to confirm much of the evidence and our suspicions of everything.

Speaker 33 What Susan couldn't confirm was the location of Frank's remains.

Speaker 2 Blaine faces the same charges as Susan.

Speaker 2 And in late August of 2019, the couple is is extradited back to Arizona.

Speaker 38 A subcontractor or a third-party vendor was responsible for the transportation of Blaine and Susan.

Speaker 38 This guard company was driving Blaine and Susan through South Utah when Blaine claimed that he had to use the restroom. Blaine was able to slip his handcuffs in front of his person,

Speaker 35 grab a hold of the guard.

Speaker 33 The guards were not armed at the time of this offense.

Speaker 34 There was no weapons readily available to them.

Speaker 11 Blaine was able to force both guards into the holding area of the vehicle.

Speaker 34 He had both of them remove their shirts, which were uniform shirts.

Speaker 10 Blaine and Susan put these shirts on.

Speaker 14 He detained them, locked them up inside the transport van.

Speaker 18 They kidnapped the guards.

Speaker 13 They drove quite a distance.

Speaker 14 At some point, Blaine and Susan left the guards locked in this transport vehicle, and they'd left the unknown individuals in this red truck.

Speaker 16 I was in complete disbelief.

Speaker 14 I've done this job for a number of years and I've never had anything even remotely like this happen on any of my cases that I've investigated.

Speaker 18 We believe that Susan was an accomplice at this point, that Blaine was the one that was kind of the mastermind of how they were going to be able to get away at that point when they kidnapped the guards.

Speaker 14 They were going on the run and they were going to try to put as much distance between themselves and investigators as possible.

Speaker 18 And at that point,

Speaker 18 the chase was on.

Speaker 2 In August of 2019, Blaine Barksdale and his wife Susan have escaped after being extradited for the murder of Frank Bly.

Speaker 2 Authorities from Utah to Arizona are desperately searching for the fugitives after receiving reports they've been spotted in a red truck.

Speaker 18 They've gained access to this red GMC pickup truck that became famous overnight in Arizona.

Speaker 18 Every billboard over all the interstates and the highways, DPS had already put up, you know, lookout for that vehicle. The media had really picked up on that.
There's Bonnie and Clyde on the run.

Speaker 14 Obviously, Blaine's actions indicated that he was a threat and that he was dangerous.

Speaker 14 Additionally, what's important to remember is that we have still dozens and dozens of firearms that are unaccounted for.

Speaker 14 We didn't know if Blaine had hidden those firearms somewhere where he might obtain access to them.

Speaker 18 We believe that from Blanding, Utah, they came down into kind of northeast Arizona, and that's where the marshals and our task force and all of our partners really kind of picked up the pieces and started the hunt.

Speaker 2 As the manhunt intensifies, authorities work to track down the couple's known contacts.

Speaker 2 In her earlier conversation with detectives, Susan had dropped a possible tip.

Speaker 33 Susan stated that Blaine sold a number of Frank's guns to a man in Sholo, Arizona, and identified him.

Speaker 10 We responded to his residence and interviewed him.

Speaker 36 He was in possession

Speaker 33 of a large number of guns, but he purchased those guns not from Blaine, but from Susan.

Speaker 18 Blaine has a pretty checkered criminal history. He has a past, but how was he able to turn this lady, you know, who lived a very normal life for all these decades now into being something else?

Speaker 29 Both of them were committing criminal acts.

Speaker 10 You know, both of them showed this greed that they needed to have more money and they thought it was a good idea to get that money by selling Frank's guns.

Speaker 33 I think all of those reasons are why Susan could bypass and look past the long friendship that she had with Frank.

Speaker 21 She didn't necessarily want to see him killed, I'm sure,

Speaker 32 but we all know how it ended.

Speaker 2 16 days into the manhunt, authorities receive a tip that the couple could be hiding out in a notorious stretch of northern Arizona.

Speaker 16 It's a very rural, rugged, remote area, and a lot of people will go there just to hide from law enforcement.

Speaker 18 We were able to put together information from a call that we got to this guy that's on probation that lives in the area that happened to be in custody in the past with Blaine.

Speaker 16 There's a likelihood that Blaine and Susan are there.

Speaker 18 And so that's when the decision was made and it was put together of a plan that we're going to go and surround this house.

Speaker 16 It was a large lot with a lot of vehicles and outbuildings.

Speaker 24 There's no streetlights in this area.

Speaker 15 It was a dark night.

Speaker 18 We wanted to make sure that we could make contact and as safe as possible in case Blaine, Susan, or this other guy decided we're going to shoot it out.

Speaker 14 It was a very tense period of time there.

Speaker 13 We were not going to allow them to escape again.

Speaker 2 While a helicopter moves into position, authorities on the ground move in.

Speaker 18 We started making the commands over the loudspeaker, both by loudspeaker that was down on the ground and also we asked the helicopter to put out announcements or turn on the spotlight.

Speaker 18 And we wanted Blaine and Susan to know that there was nowhere that they could escape from or that they could go to. Their only safe option was to come to us.

Speaker 2 After several tense minutes, the homeowner emerges and Susan follows.

Speaker 15 Moments later, Blaine Barksdale exits the residence

Speaker 24 with his hands up and he's complying with the directives and the orders of the officers.

Speaker 15 As he approached the marshals that were getting ready to take him into custody, it was almost like he had a change of mind last minute and he became very aggressive.

Speaker 18 He started cussing out the officers who were in front of him. He dropped his hands close to his waistband.
Blaine was pretty agitated, still wasn't complying.

Speaker 18 They use beanbag rounds when they hit Blaine. One of them struck him in the leg and kind of took his leg out from under him.

Speaker 18 That's when the team goes in there and puts cuffs on him.

Speaker 14 That's all right. They've got hands on him now.

Speaker 2 With Susan and Blaine Barksdale finally in custody, authorities push them for intel on the whereabouts of Frank Bly's body.

Speaker 17 And we were able to negotiate plea agreements in the case, so. Blaine agreed to plead guilty to a second-degree murder with a sentencing range of 19 to 22 years.

Speaker 17 And as as part of his plea deal, he had to reveal the whereabouts of Frank Bly to me.

Speaker 14 He stated that he pushed Frank Bly's body out over the edge of a cliff in Salt River Canyon.

Speaker 2 Following an exhaustive search, Arizona authorities finally recover Frank's remains on January 4th, 2022.

Speaker 7 Everybody said, oh, you must have closure now.

Speaker 8 You never have closure.

Speaker 7 You never will.

Speaker 7 Because you always sit there and say, why did this happen?

Speaker 17 Blaine said he had been kind of out of his mind during that time. He'd been using meth.
He felt terrible about getting himself into trouble, killing Frank, and then getting Susan into trouble as well.

Speaker 17 Blaine was never blaming Susan for Frank's death and was trying to take as much of the blame as he could throughout the process.

Speaker 17 So the relative roles of Blaine and Susan were pretty clear. Blaine was more culpable.
Blaine admits that.

Speaker 22 My mother was under extreme duress during this entire time period.

Speaker 22 The only reason my mom went anywhere with that man was in an effort to protect her family because our lives were under threat by Blaine.

Speaker 13 Susan says she's a victim.

Speaker 17 She says that Blaine made a lot of threats towards her and forced her to do things that she didn't want to do.

Speaker 17 Only Susan really knows how much of a victim she was and how willing or unwilling of a participant she was in Frank's death.

Speaker 2 Prosecutors also cut a deal with Susan.

Speaker 17 Susan pled guilty to manslaughter, which is a less serious crime than second-degree murder and first-degree murder. She was sentenced to five years' prison.

Speaker 22 I believe that Frank was trying to stand up for my mom, who was being terribly abused, and Blaine ended his life for it.

Speaker 14 None of this would have happened to Frank if it weren't for Blaine, and none of it would have happened to Frank if it weren't for Susan. If those two don't come together, Frank's still with us today.

Speaker 7 My brother, I miss our Sunday conversations. You know, going out and seeing him, he lived the life that he wanted, which I couldn't ask anything less of anybody.

Speaker 1 In September 2019, Brent Millard pled guilty to arson. He was sentenced to seven years probation.
Susan Barksdale served four years in prison. She was released in 2023 at the the age of 63.

Speaker 1 Blaine Barksdale will be released in 2041 at the age of 77.

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