Ep.6: Drunk Talkers - Why Can't We Talk About Amanda's Mom?

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Coach, the energy out there felt different.

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Those games sent the team's energy through the roof.

Are you saying it was the off-field play that made the difference on the field?

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That's all for now.

Coach, one more question.

Play the new Los Angeles Chargers, San Francisco 49ers, and Los Angeles Rams Scratchers from the California Lottery.

A little play can make your day.

Please play responsibly.

Must be 18 years or older to purchase, play, or claim.

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This episode contains explicit language and descriptions of violence.

Please be advised.

But all I can remember is him making a gesture towards his neck, you know, like like cut, and he says, and I remember that those words, cut their head off.

Really?

I swear to God, yes, I remember that.

For ID and ARC Media, I'm Sarah Kalin, and this is Why Can't We Talk About Amanda's Mom.

Previously, on Why Can't We Talk About Amanda's Mom.

I knew it was going to be a complicated case because she was found without her head.

Well, we certainly know that rage was a part part of that.

Anger, rage, there was such intensity of injury to this young woman.

So somebody knew her.

It's not going to be a stranger.

And it says, Happy Valentine's Day.

And then David wrote, and please don't ever forget that I think about and love you forever.

Love always, David.

And then one year, he never came.

And then he never came again.

He just stopped coming.

No letter, no phone call, and just stopped out of nowhere.

They found the head the very next day.

Yes, she was an informant for me.

Are you serious?

Yeah,

she called me two days before that about setting somebody up.

She didn't give much, but I was in narcotics at the time.

She was just, I don't know, flaky.

Today's night is 11:23.93 time.

It's 7:45 p.m.

michael there musgrove

on november 23rd 1993 nine days after renee's body was found detectives interview a guy by the name of mike musgrove okay michael do you know ronnie parker yes i do

go in detail mike initiated this conversation with detectives he said he had information relating to the renee bergeron case said it had to do with a guy named ronnie parker Go in detail and tell me how you came to know about him.

Well, I met Ronnie about, I guess I say two years ago.

Worked on a Christmas tree farm, went out and drank a few beers with him here and there.

And

seemed to think that he was a pretty decent guy.

When he stops drinking, he'll

he's pretty much aggressive from what I can see of him.

And

he ain't the same person, that's for sure.

This is Mike's story.

A few days after Renee's murder, he attended a party.

At the party, Mike says that his friend Ronnie got drunk and started bragging about something he had done the weekend before, the same weekend that Renee disappeared and was murdered.

Warning, this tape is graphic.

He wanted to tell me about the girl he picked up, and so I guess I went along with him and I said, well, you know, what'd you do or who wasn't?

He said, I picked her up, and I didn't really get the name of where he picked her up he just

stated that he picked up a girl

Ronnie told me that he took a beer bottle and he stuck it in her and he fucked her with the beer bottle and she wouldn't get up so he took the handle of a knife and he fucked her with a knife and she still didn't get up so he went on to take her to the house and undoubtedly from what he told me when he got halfway to her house he didn't want to drive up to her house so he opened the the door and put her out

since this tape is old and a little hard to hear let me summarize what mike tells investigators mike claims that ronnie told him he picked up an intoxicated woman at a bar the same weekend renee was killed

She was so drunk that she passed out, but Ronnie wanted to have sex with her, so he raped her with a Budweiser beer bottle in an effort to wake her up.

This did not work, So then, Ronnie raped her with a knife.

She remained unconscious.

Ronnie then drove partly up to her house and pushed her out of the car onto the side of the road.

Ronnie told Mike that she was still alive when he left her there.

Again, this is all from Mike's account to detectives.

That's kind of new about this girl.

That would have been that

Friday night.

Yeah, correct?

And he had this girl out of this room.

and he stated that

that's to the best of my knowledge.

Now I'm going to level with you.

I don't know what to make of Mike's original tip.

Drunk talkers are a dime a dozen when it comes to murder cases.

They always show up.

Maybe Ronnie was one.

It's too common a phenomenon not to take it with a huge grain of salt.

But

too many details from this account line up with Renee's murder, and that makes it difficult to ignore.

Remember that autopsy report?

Well, it said that Renee was raped with a sharp object.

And according to Mike, Ronnie claims to have raped a drunk woman with a beer bottle and knife.

At that time, the details of her injuries were not known to the public, so it's not like Ronnie or Mike would know that fact.

Then there's the issue of location.

The bars where Ronnie and Mike hang out, Renee also hung out at those bars, according to her friends.

Plus, those bars are only a few miles away from where Renee lived and where her body was found.

It just all feels a little too

close.

As I dig deeper into this case, I'm realizing there are other leads that I can't ignore, other leads that demand my immediate attention, attention.

And Ronnie might just be one of those leads.

When I start looking into a new suspect, like Ronnie, I always want to reach out to people on the periphery first.

I don't want to jump into an interview with a suspect.

I want to prepare.

I want to know the answers to hack the questions I'm going to ask.

This helps me read them.

This gives me a sort of baseline for their level of honesty.

When I look through the case notes, I see one name connected to Ronnie that looks promising.

I'm going to call her Angela.

Now, we're using a pseudonym here because Angela is afraid of Ronnie.

So that is why I'm not going to use any identifying details about her.

But what you should know about Angela is that she knows Ronnie well.

And when I reach out to her, she agrees to speak with me, again, on a condition of anonymity.

She also connects me to other people who know Ronnie well, old friends, exes, family family members.

Here is what I learn about Ronnie.

Back in 1993, Ronnie worked at a Christmas tree farm out in rural Mobile County.

Like a lot of farm workers, he sometimes lived on the farm, sleeping in a little trailer with another worker and friend by the name of John.

Ronnie hung around with a group of guys who had all known each other since way back.

This included Mike, who we heard earlier, as well as as two other guys, Willie and Steve.

They'd all go drinking at honky-tonk bars in the Theodore area, bars that locals told me used to serve a mostly white clientele.

These bars included the Old Mill Club, a place called Knott's Landing, another one called Jerry's Cabaret.

It is important to mention that these bars, the Christmas tree farm where Ronnie worked, Rene's house, and the service road where Renee's body was found, are all within a few miles radius of each other.

Ronnie grew up around Muscle Shoals, Alabama before moving down to the Mobile area.

According to Angela, rumors swirled around Ronnie that he was involved in some situations that might bring cops to his door.

That is why he fled Muscle Shoals for the Gulf Coast.

In Mobile, Ronnie worked manual jobs, sometimes in landscaping, sometimes at seasonal Christmas tree farms.

This was where he was working at the time of Renee's murder.

In talking to people who know Ronnie, I also learned that he later got married, had a daughter.

According to his record, he was arrested and convicted multiple times for domestic violence and multiple times for drunk and disorderly related offenses.

This seems in keeping with what people close to him told me.

He could be totally fine sober, but horrible.

Brutal even when drunk.

Altogether, Ronnie appears to be a viable suspect.

He has a documented history of violence, and he was in close proximity to Renee during the time of her murder.

But before I can find Ronnie, I need to talk to the man who first brought this tip to the attention of detectives back in 1993, Mike Musgrove.

Hey, Miss Phyllis.

Hey, it's Detective Gazir from Sheriff's Office.

Hey, is Michael home?

He is.

I'm going to call him on the phone.

Okay.

Okay.

Detective Vince Gazier and I decide to visit Mike.

At the door, we're greeted by his mom.

Hey, Ms.

Musgrove, how you doing, sir?

I'm good, man.

How are y'all?

Doing good.

Like, you look to be in better spirits from, I guess, last time we came and checked on.

I said you was in UAB, so good.

Are they waiting on a transplant?

Today, Mike Musgrove is 53 years old.

He still lives in the Mobile area in a small house at the back of his parents' property.

He mentions that he's on dialysis treatment three days a week.

He's just returned from a long stay in a Birmingham hospital.

Still, he seems sharp mentally, as sharp as he had been in that original interview.

And he is friendly.

He keeps saying how much he wants to help us out.

There's like a piece of an audio recording that seems to be an interview with you.

And that's why we're so eager to talk to you because it's like it's not a complete recording.

So that's why we're like, we really need as much information.

It sounds like you had given some information that somebody confessed to you.

Well, I tell you the honesty, God's Ruth, I don't remember nothing.

It's been so long ago.

And I do remember the girl having that, the girl dying down there.

I do remember that.

And I remember somebody telling me that they thought the boy on the Christmas tree farm

had something to do with it.

Well, you know who that would be?

Because there's two of them that worked out there.

The one I'm talking about, Ronnie Parker.

Ronnie Parker?

Yeah.

And

now he was a real bad pilot.

Right.

Wow.

Mike says he remembers none of it when we ask him about his interview with detectives.

He says he does remember the murder itself, and he remembers someone telling him that that boy on the Christmas tree farm had something to do with it.

This is very different than what he told detectives back in 1993.

Is he lying, or does he really just not remember?

Well, in the statement that we have, the little piece that we have,

what it sounded like what you were saying was that Ronnie Parker had told you he did it and that he gave you information that as you were relaying it to the detectives, we know had not been released to the public, right?

So that is why.

Kind of refresh your memory, I guess, what they had on record.

You guys were at somebody's house and Ronnie started telling you that he had done it

and then saying some of the stuff he had done to her body that it turns out is true but was not you know what I mean so if it's not known to the public then that's valuable to us yeah well I I can't remember

for the life of me I can't remember

I've seen it I've tried

do you think now remembering what you knew about Ronnie that he was capable of something like that

no

I don't think he would

because um

he was trying to turn his life around.

That's what shocked me so bad.

I think the alcohol

made him think he was kind of a

badass.

In his original 1993 interview, Mike suggests Ronnie may be guilty.

Here, he is clear that he does not think Ronnie could have been capable of a murder like Renee's.

There could be multiple reasons leading Mike to change his mind over the past 30 years.

Changing his mind about someone someone or something isn't odd.

What is odd is not remembering sitting down and giving a statement to detectives about a friend being potentially guilty of a gruesome murder.

I don't know what else to do but to keep pushing to see if we can jog his memory or he will finally admit to giving this tip.

Do you think if we were able to

sit down in our offices and play the recording that it might help jog your memory at all?

Or do you you think that it's maybe just

I can't remember none of it I just

and I don't even know who told me something like y'all saying that he told me yeah that's that's what you said to the detectives at the time was that Ronnie flat out told you now

it and like I said that he sort of described in in pretty graphic detail some of the the things he was doing to her before the knife got involved but there was talk of the Christmas tree knife you know

yeah

like said, I said, I try to remember, I just,

I don't know, and I wouldn't want to tell y'all something that, you know, wasn't

that I didn't know for a fact.

Yeah, no, no, that's that's fair.

At the time it seemed like it alarms you, you know, enough to reach out and

give a statement.

So, you know, somebody tells you something like that, it's, you know,

you know, you're dealing with an actual case where the lady was found dismembered, you know, then somebody's telling you, yeah, you want to.

And at the time that you spoke with the detectives, it was only, less than two weeks after she'd been found.

Mike was friendly with us and said repeatedly how much he wanted to be of help to us, how he would never do anything to protect someone who might have done something so awful.

But it still sticks out to me that Mike simply doesn't remember anything about the tip he gave detectives.

I wonder if he's hiding something.

Sure.

All right, man.

Thank you, Mr.

Musgrove.

Yes, sir.

Thank you.

Conclude the interview with Mr.

Musgrove.

Time is 12:45.

We're at the Mr.

Musgrove's residence.

Interview was 28 minutes and 23 seconds.

The top number should be his phone.

I'll talk if you want.

A month later, I try Mike again.

I still think if he listens to his police interview from 93, we may be able to get some information out of him.

Hello?

Hi, is this Michael?

Is this Mike Musgrove?

Yes.

Hi, Mike.

This is Sarah Calen with the Mobile County Sheriff's Office.

We met last month.

Yeah.

Hi.

I was wondering if you might be able to come in and sit down so we can play that

recording we told you about and see if it helps jog your memory at all about the Ronnie Parker situation.

Yeah.

I'm at the kidney house.

It would be a couple of days.

That's fine.

That's fine.

Is there a day this week that works for you?

We can work around it.

Not this week.

Mike sounds bad.

It's clear his health is declining, and he seems even less willing to cooperate than before.

He avoids scheduling a time to come into the office and, unconvincingly, says he'll call us.

But he never calls.

So we keep calling him

yeah let me message I'll get back with you thank you

at the tone please record your message when you've finished recording you may hang up or press one for more options to leave a callback number press five

mr.

Musgrove this detective peak with the sheriff's office it's Friday

October 23rd about 115.

I know we've been in contact recently and had some storms that have come in and we hadn't been able to link up.

I still need you to listen to some of these audio recordings.

So if you would, give me a call back.

Thank you.

Have we hit a dead end?

So I return to the case files yet again.

The original detectives seem to think that Ronnie is worth investigating too.

His name is all over the notebooks.

They list important details.

Rape with a beer bottle.

The local bars where Ronnie and Renee both hung out.

Names of friends and acquaintances of Ronnie's.

It looks like the original detectives visit Ronnie at the Christmas tree farm where he worked.

They also bring him in for a polygraph test.

But I don't see any clues that they took their investigation further than that.

As I go through these files again, I find an arrest report.

It's from the Mobile Police Department, that is the city police, not the sheriff's office.

And it's dated December 14th, 1993, a month after Renee was murdered.

The report details that they arrested a guy named John.

He was drinking and being loud and obnoxious in a Walmart parking lot where his truck was parked.

The police arrest him and tow his truck.

But before they tow the truck, police inventory the contents of it.

And as they go through the truck, they find something.

A bladed instrument.

It appears to have a substance on it.

Maybe blood.

A machete is what the police call it in their report.

Okay, this all sounds like it's leading to some big reveal, but a machete does not match the murder weapon in Renee's case.

A machete has a really long, very curved blade.

The knife that decapitated Renee is long too, but would have had a straighter, slightly thinner blade.

But here is what I do know.

This John is a co-worker of Ronnie's at the Christmas tree farm and an occasional drinking buddy of his.

Despite this, the original case file does not connect the investigation into Ronnie with this guy John's arrest.

It's interesting.

As I continue to look into the case files, I see that back then, one of John's old bosses called the sheriff's office, asking them to look into John after Renee's murder.

Apparently, days before her body was found, John had a loud and violent outburst at work.

No one was hurt, but the boss fired him.

The boss called the sheriff's office because he knew that John also worked at the Christmas tree farm in Theodore, which was close to the place where Renee's body was found, the same farm where Ronnie worked.

The detective's notebook reads, and they quote:

John fired.

Violent.

Hard worker, real nervous, get mad at nothing, broke windows, didn't like to be around people.

Unquote.

Okay, so I already know that multiple people called in tips on Ronnie.

Now I see that someone called in a tip on John, Ronnie's co-worker and drinking buddy.

And a month later, police arrested John, finding a machete in his car.

But I keep getting hung up on this machete.

It is not the murder weapon.

So I decide to look at the forensic report on the machete.

I scan the page and my eyes catch on the second paragraph.

It reads, and I quote,

The item had a single blade measuring approximately 17 and a half inches long and a maximum width of approximately one and a quarter inches.

Oh my god, it's not a machete.

It's a Christmas tree knife.

Have you ever seen a Christmas tree knife?

I had to look it up.

You should.

It's a smooth razor on one side with jagged, vicious little teeth on the other.

The blade portion is usually 16 to 18 inches long, an inch to two inches wide.

It's kind of scary looking.

It is incredibly sharp.

can cut you right to the bone if you're working on a tree and accidentally catch your leg or arm on the other side of the branch.

And this fully matches the description of the weapon used to decapitate and murder Renee.

Clearly, I need to not only look into Ronnie, but this guy John too.

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Coach, the energy out there felt different.

What changed for the team today?

It was the new game day scratchers from the California Lottery.

Play is everything.

Those games sent the team's energy through the roof.

Are you saying it was the off-field play that made the difference on the field?

Hey, a little play makes your day, and today it made the game.

That's all for now.

Coach, one more question.

Play the new Los Angeles Chargers, San Francisco 49ers, and Los Angeles Rams Scratchers from the California Lottery.

A little play can make your day.

Please play responsibly, must be 18 years or older to purchase, play, or claim.

Hey, I'm Paige DeSorbo, and I'm always thinking about underwear.

I'm Hannah Berner, and I'm also thinking about underwear, but I prefer full coverage.

I like to call them my granny panties.

Actually, I never think about underwear.

That's the magic of Tommy John.

Same, they're so light and so comfy, and if it's not comfortable, I'm not wearing it.

And the bras, soft, supportive, and actually breathable.

Yes, Lord knows the girls need to breathe.

Also, I need my PJs to breathe and be buttery soft and stretchy enough for my dramatic tossing and turning at night.

That's why I live in my Tommy John pajamas.

Plus, they're so cute because they fit perfectly.

Put yourself on to Tommy John.

Upgrade your drawer with Tommy John.

Save 25% for a limited time at tommyjohn.com/slash comfort.

See site for details.

John's address is relatively easy to find.

Looks like he lives in a remote corner of Mississippi in a cabin set way back in the woods.

It's honestly a little difficult to navigate.

There are no markings on mailboxes, barely even anything that looks like a driveway, just long stretches of country road with occasional dirt cutouts that might lead to a house.

When I finally arrive at his place, there's a woman sitting on the porch who greets me politely but reservedly.

Hi, I'm a special investigator with Mobile County Sheriff's Office.

Yeah.

And I just have a couple questions.

I don't know if you want to chat privately or if you're all right with

your talk

a couple minutes later, John joins the woman on the porch.

He looks a little surprised, but agrees to talk.

Okay, well, I'm looking at a case from back in 1993.

A case, the victim's name was Renee Bergeron, but at the time she went by the name Maria Martinez.

Does that ring a bell at all?

Were you working out at McDavid's

in the 90s at that time?

Okay.

So

in the case, the woman was found murdered and dumped on the side of I-10.

Yeah.

I remember that.

Do you remember the case?

Yeah, police came by.

So they did come by and talk to you.

I lived right there.

Okay.

They talked to us.

And do you remember what they talked to you about at the time or if they asked you about anybody in?

So just to explain, I've got the old case notes, and I'm kind of just trying to piece it together.

So I've just like, I just see notes in a thing and I'll see a name scribbled down and I got to kind of run it all down and see, you know, see what they talked to police about back then

exactly exactly so I'm just trying to piece together and I saw your name so yeah

I it just wasn't much I just pulled up there and said that there was a woman found dead down the road I think it was over McDonald's road

back over that way yeah

and they just they looked through my vehicle you know and stuff

Did they

why did they do you know why they wanted to talk to you specifically?

I thought maybe they might have wanted to talk to you about somebody else from the farm.

Yeah, well, it was.

Mostly it was Parker.

Okay.

Are you still in touch with him at all?

No.

I haven't seen him in 20 years.

Pretty much ever since that time, around that time.

John and I speak for only a few minutes.

It's just a preliminary conversation.

But John already seems forthright and open to sharing details.

I want him to come sit down for a longer interview at the Mobile County Sheriff's Office.

Thankfully, John agrees to make the drive to Alabama for the interview.

We set a date.

Like I said, I appreciate you coming down.

I'm the technical peek.

You've met Miss Sarah before.

Yeah.

The next month, John drives over to Mobile and sits down for a follow-up interview with my partner, Matt, and me.

We've talked to a lot of people.

We know that

where you used to live and just put a lot of things together.

We're going back and re-interviewing anybody and everybody who had contact with her.

I never knew her.

But we don't know.

Yeah, I wanted to see a picture of her.

Y'all got a picture picture of her?

And just see if I may have seen her somewhere.

We begin by asking him about Renee.

He says he didn't know her personally.

But when we show him a picture, it seems to jog his memory.

Yeah, we played pool with her one time.

Okay.

And that was it.

I remember playing pool with her.

Okay.

I had no idea it was her that this happened.

Oh, really?

I didn't know anything about that.

Uh-uh.

I'll be damned.

Where did Ronnie stay out at the farm?

He had, there was a little trailer.

It was a little camper trailer right beside the barn.

And

that's, you know, we worked together.

And like I say, we went to Knott's Landing a couple times.

And yeah, I remember we played pool with her.

Knots Landing is one of those honky-tonk bars on the outskirts of the county, a rural watering hole.

Domestic beers, country music, pool tables.

How many times did she come back to

your truck?

Ronnie's camper?

She never came to me.

I never saw her.

Okay.

Never saw her at the Christmas tree farm?

No.

I never saw her at no Christmas tree farm.

That's the only time I ever saw her.

So you all never hired her?

No.

She didn't work out there.

That's not what I mean.

Oh, hired.

Yeah, no, no.

I had nothing to do with any of that.

No sexual thing with her whatsoever.

What about Ronnie?

I barely remember playing a little bit of pool.

Now, he may have.

I don't, like I say, I don't remember seeing him with her or anything.

What John mostly remembers is that detectives were looking at Ronnie pretty closely.

He describes one time when detectives showed up at the farm, how Ronnie had asked him to head over to the barn with him, hoping the police would just leave them alone.

They didn't.

They interviewed Ronnie at the farm, but not John.

Ronnie was the only person of interest.

John says, in general, he doesn't remember bringing any women back to the farm at night.

He says he kept to himself as much as possible, and maybe Ronnie had people out there that he didn't meet.

He did say he knew Ronnie had used his camper for sex.

That is, John's camper on the property.

John wasn't pleased about it.

Felt like it was a violation.

Did Ronnie ever share any stories with you about hiring an escort and maybe

some stuff he might have done?

No.

So you never heard that Ronnie at the time was telling people that he did this.

No.

He never said that to you.

Yeah.

He never took credit for this.

No, he never said I would have remembered that.

He was just, and that was one thing he told me.

He said,

he just outright said it.

I don't know why.

He just said, he says, if they don't catch you in the first 30 minutes, they ain't going to catch you.

I'm like, really?

When did he say that?

Well, he told me that.

It was just later on after the

detectives, yeah.

And I'm thinking about that.

I mean, that's not really true, but if he did something like that, I guess it might have been for him.

I don't know.

It is an indication that he does criminal activity right now.

Yeah, yeah, exactly.

That's a clue.

And another thing he told me, he says, you're not going to pass a lie detector test?

I said, no, I'm not thinking about them.

He said,

you break off a toothpick and you put it between your toes.

in your shoe and you just squeeze that thing real tight.

So I guess he's thinking it just keeps like a stress level.

Probably keeps a baseline stress level.

Yeah, from jumping or something on a

scale or whatever the hell they do it.

And, you know, I'm thinking, man, that's weird.

What is he talking about all this?

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Coach, the energy out there felt different.

What changed for the team today?

It was the new game Day Scratchers from the California Lottery.

Play is everything.

Those games sent the team's energy through the roof.

Are you saying it was the off-field play that made the difference on the field?

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Coach, one more question.

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John seems like he's being forthright with us.

He appears to understand the severity of the circumstances.

His answers seem organic, thorough, genuine.

And people who know John now seem to speak well of him.

Like, yes, he had a temper back then, but he's not like that now.

We spoke to the family of an ex-girlfriend of his, a a woman who had since passed away.

They had nothing but good things to say about John.

They couldn't imagine him being involved in a crime like this in any way.

But even with all of this holding true, something is not quite right during this interview.

Yes, he struck us as sincere, but something is amiss.

At several points, he laughs nervously.

This is common for people under pressure, but I can't help but wonder if maybe he's not being fully honest with us.

We know he was fired from one job at a different Christmas tree farm, but John refers to it as him quitting.

When we ask him about sleeping in his car in the Walmart parking lot, which is where he got arrested for disorderly conduct, he says he did it to take a break from sleeping at work.

Okay, fine enough.

But when we then ask him about the knife found in the back of his car, he gets a little defensive, acting like, what does that have to do with anything?

He offers up a possible explanation.

Someone borrowed his car.

They could have put it there.

Ultimately, though, John tries to offer up information when he can.

The bars they hung out at, the type of stuff Ronnie said to him.

He seems like he's trying to be cooperative.

Basically, our overall impression is that John is telling us the truth.

Just maybe not all of it.

And I am not sure why.

I told John during the interview, the statutes of limitation are pretty much up on anything you could have done back then.

Like if you lied to the cops, we can't get you in trouble anymore.

So unless he murdered Renee, John has no reason to believe that we'd arrest him.

So this all begs the question,

what exactly is John holding back?

We end the interview and thank John for his time, sending him on his way.

Got you in my contacts and I'll give him my voice.

And if you think of something when you're driving home or be like, I forgot to tell him this, call me.

Don't answer, leave me a voicemail because I'm not in the office a whole lot.

Okay.

Okay.

Yeah.

All right.

I appreciate you driving.

I know you worked all night and go to work tonight.

Well, I hope that does

get a little light.

It does.

Every little bit helps.

The next week, John calls us in Matt's office.

Hey, this is Detective Peak.

How are you?

Pretty good.

Pretty good.

I've been thinking,

you know, sitting here by myself, just been thinking about stuff.

And, well, there was one occasion I remember

we were both sitting in my, I thought we were sitting in my truck right there by the barn.

And he all of a sudden came up and said to me, he says,

let's go lay up in my trailer, man.

Come on.

And, you know, I said, dude, you know, I don't do that.

I'm not

coming here to lay up in the trailer.

Like, and he was talking in a sexual manner?

Yeah, that, well, yeah, that would come lay up in my trailer.

Yeah,

I mean, that's how I would have taken it.

Yeah, and I'm like, no, I don't do that, man.

So he eventually went on his trailer, you know, and went to bed, and I slept in the truck there that night.

You know, I did remember that earlier.

I just didn't say nothing to y'all because it was kind of embarrassing.

Sure, sure.

I mean, I totally get that, man.

Yeah, but I figured I got to tell you.

Yeah, and I'm glad you did.

And because I'm not gay and

nothing like that.

But I'm also, you know, I'm not a womanizer-y.

Sure.

You know,

at that time, I was more worried about, you know, money, my money, bettering myself, you know, than I was afraid of getting too close to any women at that time.

John says that Ronnie made an advance on him, offered to sleep with him.

John says he turned Ronnie down.

This explains why John didn't seem forthright with us.

He was holding back.

Just what he was holding back had nothing to do with whether or not Ronnie was involved in Renee's murder.

It was about a moment that might have been embarrassing for him.

And that was really the end of any thought that John had been involved.

There was no physical evidence connecting him.

In all the stories about Ronnie, there was no mention of John or anyone else for that matter.

I no longer think John is a viable suspect here.

But I just want to tell you this.

And there's one other thing.

Okay.

And this is a bigger thing.

When we were drinking, this is before.

I think, I guess it was before, you know, he wanted to do all that, you know,

come lay up with me and all that crap.

I don't remember, but I know we were drinking.

And

I was pretty lit up, but I remember him.

I don't know if it was in the bar or him sitting in the vehicle when he said it, but all I can remember is him making a gesture towards his neck, you know, like cut.

And he says, and I remember those words, cut their head off.

Really?

I swear to God, yes, I remember that.

I don't know what context it was in, whether he was talking about a man, woman, or what, but I just remember him making that gesture.

That's next time on Why Can't We Talk About Amanda's Mom.

Why Can't We Talk About Amanda's Mom is produced by Arc Media for ID.

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Coach, the energy out there felt different.

What changed for the team today?

It It was the new game day scratchers from the California Lottery.

Play is everything.

Those games sent the team's energy through the roof.

Are you saying it was the off-field play that made the difference on the field?

Hey, a little play makes your day, and today it made the game.

That's all for now.

Coach, one more question.

Play the new Los Angeles Chargers, San Francisco 49ers, and Los Angeles Rams Scratchers from the California Lottery.

A little play can make your day.

Please play responsibly.

Must be 18 years or older to purchase play or claim.

Hey, I'm Paige DeSorbo, and I'm always thinking about underwear.

I'm Hannah Berner, and I'm also thinking about underwear, but I prefer full coverage.

I like to call them my granny panties.

Actually, I never think about underwear.

That's the magic of Tommy John.

Same, they're so light and so comfy, and if it's not comfortable, I'm not wearing it.

And the bras, soft, supportive, and actually breathable.

Yes, Lord knows the girls need to breathe.

Also, I need my PJs to breathe and be buttery soft and stretchy enough for my dramatic tossing and turning at night.

That's why I live in my Tommy John pajamas.

Plus, they're so cute because they fit perfectly.

Put yourself on to Tommy John.

Upgrade your drawer with Tommy John.

Save 25% for a limited time at tommyjohn.com/slash comfort.

See site for details.