WEBVTT
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I cut a lot of hair when I was in
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high school. I mean I cut enough hair that I
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purchased two motorcycles with my hair cutting money.
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This is John Dodd. John grew up in Gilmer, Texas,
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and he's not lying when he says he cut a
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lot of hair back when he was in high school.
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I used to cut a lot of the boy's hair
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and even some of the girls hair. I used to
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charge three dollars a haircut.
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On the night that Kelly Wilson vanished from Gilmer, Texas,
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guess what John was doing. Yeah, he was cutting hair.
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Two of John's friends came by and their names were
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Chris Denton and Marvin Pritchett.
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It was dark by then, of course, it was January
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the fifth, and so you know, it was getting dark,
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probably about five o'clock in East Texas, and Marvin and
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Chris had come over.
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Chris, you probably remember, Chris Denton was one of the
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first suspects in Kelly's case. Marvin is another name we
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talked about earlier in the podcast, and I'll tell you
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more about him in a little bit now.
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I can't tell you one hundred percent if I cut
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Chris's hair that night, or Marvin's hair. But I know
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for a fact they were at the house. They were
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waiting for me because we were gonna go to Gilmer
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and just grab some chicken or something like that. I
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am guessing that it's gonna be sometime around seven, eight
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o'clock or so. I got finished cutting hair and we
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all went out and we got into Marvin's truck and
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Marvin was sitting in the driver's seat, Chris was in
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the middle, and I was in the passenger seat. And
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before we pulled out of the driveway, Yeah, I heard
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a voice tell my mind and said get out of
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the car. And I told him. I said, hey, man,
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you know what, I don't think I'm going tonight. And
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Marvin and Chris looked at me and they said why not, John,
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And I said, you know, I got homework tod And
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they looked at me, and I looked at them and
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we all laughed. And the reason why that was funny
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is because Wes, I never did homework. Like my whole
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high schoo career, I'd never did homework, and so they
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knew that I wasn't going to go do homework. But
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I reaffirmed and I just said, look, yeah, I'm getting out.
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So John was a senior the same year as Kelly
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Day Wilson, and on the night she disappeared January fifth,
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nineteen ninety two, he was supposed to be in that truck.
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He got out instead. And that decision to climb out
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over homework he had no intention of doing, is the
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only reason John Dodd wasn't writing around Gilmert with his
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two friends on the last night. Anybody can account for
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Kelly because of that feeling he had. John escaped the
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allegations that would hound his friends, especially Chris, for years.
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But John was about to get drawn into the case anyway,
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and you might be surprised to learn how that happened.
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Now here's where I'm telling you independent from any other
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person on this planet, because I witnessed it with my
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own eyes.
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From Free Range Productions in association with Imperative Entertainment. I'm
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West Ferguson, and this is Deviltown, chapter thirteen, the tape.
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All right, let me back up and tell you more
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about John Dodd. Most of the people who have reached
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out to me about Kelly are you know, regular folks.
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They've got a rumor, or a memory or a theory
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they heard from a cousin, and I take it all seriously,
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but I also take it all with a grain of salt,
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because you know, that's the job. John is a little
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different because John does this for a living. He's a
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federal police chief, and he spent his entire career working
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major crimes, homicides, all the serious stuff.
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Just f y. I'm a child friendsic interviewer. I've been
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doing it since two thousand and nine. And listen, I
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am an evidence based person.
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I have to be.
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I don't have the luxury of just believing people because
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they kail me something right. My job requires us to
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provide evidence. And one of the reasons why in the
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past I haven't ever got involved is because some of
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the cases that I've worked in my career. I'm a
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federal investigator, and I mean, I've spent my career doing
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this kind of stuff.
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So this is kind of John's whole thing. He's a
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guy whose entire career is built on not getting carried away,
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on not deciding what happened first, and then going out
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looking for proof. He'll actually tell you more than once
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that he's careful about what he'll swear to and what
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he won't. And that's part of why for thirty years,
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John mostly stayed out of this. He had a demanding job,
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a life out west, and a healthy suspicion of the
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kind of storytelling that had already turned Kelly's case into
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an absolute circus. But John is not a stranger to
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this story and close his father is John Melvin Dodd.
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If you've been with me for a while, you know Melvin.
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He's one of the founders of the Justice for Kelly
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Wilson Committee, the group of folks in Gilmert who never
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stopped pushing, never stopped believing there was more to this
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than the official version. I interviewed Melvin at least once,
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maybe a couple of times.
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You're gonna write a book about this or what?
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No, sir, I'm making a podcast series.
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Okay, okay, I'm gonna have to after a phone here,
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I take me long? Hello, What.
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Didn't So?
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John is extremely familiar with all of this, and even
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more than that, he grew up with the people who
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ended up at the center of it. He told me
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he had three best friends in high school, and one
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of them was Christentton. Now, Christen has often been described
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as Kelly's boyfriend. The people that know them say that's
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not true. They just had, like, you know, a hookup basically.
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But for thirty years, Christenton was law enforcement's favorite suspect
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in her disappearance. Chris died back in two thousand and four,
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and we spent a good chunk of an earlier episode
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or two on him, and just so we're clear, no
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one ever proved that he actually had anything to do
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with her disappearance. But we do know that Chris was
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in that truck that night cruising around Gilmer when Kelly disappeared,
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and so was Marvin Pritchett, another kid from that same circle.
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These guys were John's friends, which brings me back to
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his Grandma's driveway because when John tells that story about
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the voice saying get out of the car, my first instinct, honestly,
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is probably the same as yours. It's a good story,
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but it's just a feeling a hunch. How much can
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you really hang on that? And then John told me
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why he listened to that voice. In nineteen eighty eight,
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John and Chris's older brother, Allan were in a horrible
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car wreck.
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Alan and I had just dropped his girlfriend off in
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Longview at her house, and we were driving back in
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his little low nineteen eighty something Ford Escort, little two door,
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and I remember I was in the back seat after
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because we were wasted, and I'm talking about I'm laying
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across the back seat and so I'm curled up lane
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there and then her boye tell me, he said, get up,
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get the front seat. And I woke up and I
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saw Alan. He was on the front porch, kissing the land.
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And I crawled over and got in the passenger seat,
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and I laid my chair all the way back and
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I went right back to sleep. And we're driving from
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Longview back to Gimberg. And there was two ways to
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get to my house. One way you could turn left
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and you could go by the old Dean Lake and
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go to my house that way. The other way was
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you had to go in through town. Well, when we
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pulled up, I woke up. The reason why I'm telling
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you this, though, West, is because you remember certain things.
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And this is why I remember this very vividly, that
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little voice. This is probably the first time that I
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recall every hearing a voice to somebody or something talking
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to me into my mind. And we pulled up to
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two seventy one from three hundred, and a voice tells me.
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It says, turn left, and I said, hey, Alan, wyon't
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we turn left? And you look at me, You're like,
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what're for? And I was like, uh, never mind, now
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let's just go, you know whichever. And I fell back
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to sleep and we got hit by another car going
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sixty miles an hour, and I got ejected from the vehicle. Okay,
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I would wear in my seat belt and I broke
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my left side of my face. I had reconstructed surgery
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on my face. I got screwed up and glass all
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over my body, my head, my back, you know. I mean,
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it screwed me up pretty good. And so I remember
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I told them. I said, man, I heard a voice
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tell me to get up, get in the front seat,
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and then to turn left instead of turning right. And
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I didn't listen to it. I said, I listened to it,
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but I didn't convince Allan, you know. And I said,
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I'll never do that again. If I ever hear that
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voice in my head telling me to do something, I'm
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gonna do it. I'm gonna listen. Well here it was
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years later, this time, I'm a senior anywhere the fifth,
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I go hop in the car. All we're doing is
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we're going to town. We're going to JRS at that
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gas station. You know. I was just probably gonna go
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eat some chicken and eat some potatoes, you know. And
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the next thing, you know, that same voice came to
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me and said get out, and I was like, oh snap,
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I remember that. Now.
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I'm not here to tell you what that voice was.
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John's a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of
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Latter day Saints, and to him, this is a spiritual thing.
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So you could believe that or not believe it. That's
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totally up to you. What I can tell you is
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that it's not something John made up for a podcast.
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His dad told me a version of this the same
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story several years ago before John and I had ever spoken.
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Is back in episode ten.
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And John said he just got a strong impression don't go.
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So you told him, James of mine, I'm not going.
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So they stopped me got up and he's the only
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reason my son, John was not a Ben Gilmer with BAM.
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Then I think Kelly Wilson disappeared, So that's John.
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But none of that, the voice, the driveway, the wreck,
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none of that is why John finally picked up the
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phone and called me after thirty years. He called me
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because of something, he says that he saw with his
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own eyes, something on a piece of evidence that's been
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sitting at the center of this case since the very beginning.
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After the break, John gets his hands on the bank
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video and he takes it somewhere. No other investigator ever.
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Did as plain as day as I'm looking at the
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sun right now. In Yeah, James Brown was the one
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who was in that vein.
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All right, So to understand what John says he saw.
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I just want to quickly remind you about the bank
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video because we talked about it all the way back
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in episode two. So here's the short version. The night
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that Kelly disappeared, part of her job at that video
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store was to take the day's cash to the bank
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just a couple blocks away and drop it in the
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night deposit box. And there was a surveillance camera at
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the bank and it captured a few vehicles coming through
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around the time that Kelly would have made the drop.
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The problem was that back in nineteen ninety two, that
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footage was well, it was terrible, grainy, dark, low quality.
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Sergeant James Brown, the Gilmour police officer who ran the
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search for Kelly, told the media that the video showed
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Kelly make that deposit, even though from everything we've been
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able to tell, the camera didn't really show that clearly
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at all. And here's a refresher on James yorke Brown.
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Two years after a Kelly vanished, Brown himself got arrested
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and was charged as part of that alleged satanic cult,
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along with the Kerr family and several others. And then
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the Texas Attorney General's Office came in. They took the
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case apart, found no real evidence behind any of those charges,
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and dropped every charge. Brown has always maintained he had
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nothing to do with Kelly's disappearance and he was never
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convicted of anything. As far as the law is concerned,
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and as far as I'm concerned, James yorke Brown is
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an innocent man. And here's James himself from an interview
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we played earlier in the season where he's talking about
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those first days searching for Kelly. This is back from
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episode two.
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There's a lot of interviews that were done with the
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last people that had contact, and from there you start
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nearing your focus and of course I was a loan
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in the investigation.
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For a long time in this story, that's who James
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Brown was the officer running the case. So I want
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to be crystal clear before I tell you this next part,
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because this next part is John Dodd looking at that
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same grainy video and telling me he sees that same
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man somewhere he was never supposed to be. And how
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did John, this high school kid at the time, or
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maybe fresh out of high school, end up with this
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bank tape at all? He says, it came through the
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back door. Kelly's father had hired a private investigator down
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in Louisiana, and that PI somehow got hold of a
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copy of the surveillance video, and he's the one who
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handed his material over to the Justice for Kelly Folks,
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and a copy of the bank video made its way
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to John.
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I take that copy over to my cousin, Jeff Dodds.
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Jeff had gotten his degree at brig Up Young University,
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and it has something to do with graphic design, and
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he had a brand new, state of the art computer.
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We took and I say we, myself, Sam Robinson Denny
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Pilcher went over at Jeff's house with this video We
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had Jeff analyze this on this computer and he blew
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it up. He was able to remove some of the
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static and stuff off of this and he blew up
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this video and the still shots taken from the surveillance video.
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So picture this. It's the mid nineties. Four young guys
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crowded around a computer in somebody's house watching a blurry
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frame of video get bigger and clearer line by line,
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and John says, what came into focus is the thing
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he's been carrying around for thirty years.
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Now here's where I'm telling you that I know of
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myself independent from any other person on this planet, independent
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from Melvin Dodd, independent of any other person, because I
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witnessed it with my own eyes. We blew those videos up,
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those steal shots up, those frames up, and as plain
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as day as I'm looking at the sun right now
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in the sky. James Brown was the one who was
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in that van. There was another person who was sitting
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in the passenger seat who I could not identify because
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you couldn't see his face. But Geneva Kerr was in
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the back.
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Geneva Kerr, the woman the state once accused of being
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at the head of that satanic cult, the one who
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charges like Brown's got dropped for lack of evidence. John
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says he saw her and James York Brown in a
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van at the bank the night Kelly disappeared, not making
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a deposit like Kelly was supposed to do. John says
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the van pulled up first around eight point fifteen, and
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the driver leaned out and dropped an envelope in the
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night deposit. Now here's something else important. John's own father, Melvin,
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has told this video story publicly for years, but when
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John describes it, he actually corrects his dad on the details.
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I had a talk with my dad. I said, Dad,
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James never got out of the car. Well, he most
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certainly did, said Dad, James never got out of that vehicle.
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He leaned out, That's why we could see him. And
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he never got out. And I said, Dad, he wasn't
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wearing the police unit for him either.
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He was wearing a jacket.
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Now Dad was inaccurate when he said that you could
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see her through the window. Through the glass, No, James
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Brown had the window of that dark colored van rode down,
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he leaned out. Geneva was sitting directly behind him in
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the back seat, and she leaned up and stuck her
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face in between the seat and the door jam, and
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she is looking directly at whatever James is doing, but
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her face is as plain as day in the camera.
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Melvin has been telling this story one way. But John,
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the trained investigator, the guy who was actually in the
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room when they enhanced the footage, is gently telling his
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own father he got the details a little wrong. Brown
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leaned out, He didn't get out. A jacket, not a uniform.
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Geneva's face at the doorframe, not against the.
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Glass plane as day. I saw this, Jeff Dodd saw it,
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Denny saw it, Sam saw it.
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Now I have to be honest with you about what
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this is and what this isn't. This is just John's account,
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his memory, and his read on a piece of grainy
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video from thirty years ago. No investigator, no prosecutor, no
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00:17:38.079 --> 00:17:41.759
jury has ever confirmed what John says he saw. James
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Brown was cleared, Geneva Kerr was cleared. And I'm not
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gonna sit here and tell you that John is right.
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But I also can't quite let go of the question
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John keeps coming back to, because whatever you make of
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the voice in the driveway, John is not some guy
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with a wild theory he's a professional, and he has
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one question that really bugs me.
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Here's what's so disturbing to me. How come a twenty
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four twenty five year old, you know, if I was
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that age but somewhere between twenty three and twenty five
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years of age. How come I can take a video
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and go make an absolute, definitive identification on who the
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00:18:22.240 --> 00:18:24.920
driver was? And how come that was never done by
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the investigative parties. How Come that's never been done by
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the FBI.
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How Come nobody with a badge and a budget ever
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did what four kids did around a computer one afternoon.
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I don't have a great answer for that, and John
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00:18:37.759 --> 00:18:40.319
doesn't either. But he'll be the first to tell you
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that his answer, even if he's one hundred percent right
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about what he saw, doesn't actually prove anything on his own.
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After the break, the catch the one thing John's entire
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theory depends on, and it leads me to a name
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I had never heard before.
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It's not John Dodd telling you what I saw, because Wes,
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you haven't seen it. You're not convinced, right.
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So here's where John, to his credit, turns this whole
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thing on himself, because he knows what I was thinking
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he knows that a guy saying I saw James York
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Brown on a tape thirty years ago is not the
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same as proof. Far from it.
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Here's the thing, though, I'm telling you, as an experienced investigator,
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that if you were ever to get your hands and
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to solve anything, your key is the video. It's not
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John Dodd telling you what I saw because Wes, you
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haven't seen it. You're not convinced. Right. I can get
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up in front of a damn jury all day long
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and rant and rave and tell you and cry and
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everything else and say, oh my god, it was James,
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you know. But until the jury sees that video to
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00:19:58.440 --> 00:20:02.960
confirm that that individual is in fact without I mean
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beyond a reasonable doubt, James, it's irrelevant.
359
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I really respect that a lot of people who come
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to me with a theory want me to just believe them.
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John wants me to go check, and there's one particular
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00:20:16.839 --> 00:20:19.400
thing he wants me to check, because it's the piece
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00:20:19.720 --> 00:20:23.599
his whole theory rests on. Remember, the official story was
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that the car at the bank was Kelly's making that deposit.
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John says, no one of those vehicles that came through
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at eight thirty one PM. Was a white Ford Mustang
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and it didn't go to the deposit box. It pulled
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up to the ATM, and John says he knows exactly
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whose mustang that was. It belonged to a classmate of
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his and Kelly's, a girl named Stacy.
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James Brown insisted in his case that that was Kelly
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Wilson who drove her Dodge through there and made the
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not deposit. But that's inaccurate. That was Stacy in her
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white Ford Mustang and her boyfriend, and she testified to
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that to the grand jury. That wasn't Kelly, that that
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was her.
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Okay, Now hang on, because this is a big deal.
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John's whole case comes down to this. If the car
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00:21:12.519 --> 00:21:15.799
at the bank wasn't Kelly, then the official timeline falls
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00:21:15.839 --> 00:21:19.559
apart and the door opens to everything else John is saying.
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00:21:20.240 --> 00:21:23.960
And it's proof that it wasn't Kelly, would be Stacy.
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John says. Stacy stood up in front of a grand
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00:21:26.960 --> 00:21:29.880
jury and swore it was her at the bank, not Kelly.
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00:21:30.799 --> 00:21:32.039
He says he saw her there.
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00:21:32.720 --> 00:21:35.359
I got called in front of the grand jury. Okay,
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00:21:35.680 --> 00:21:38.000
I remember seeing Stacy there at the grand jury.
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00:21:38.720 --> 00:21:42.119
John says that even years later, He and another Justice
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00:21:42.160 --> 00:21:45.720
for Kelly member named Glenn Leech tracked down Stacy in
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00:21:45.799 --> 00:21:49.160
Houston and interviewed her, and she said the same thing again.
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00:21:50.359 --> 00:21:55.240
That is a very specific, very checkable claim. And here's
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00:21:55.279 --> 00:21:59.000
a surprising part. Across everybody I talked to, I had
392
00:21:59.039 --> 00:22:02.759
never once heard the named Stacy. John could not believe that.
393
00:22:03.759 --> 00:22:05.759
I can't believe that this is the first time you've
394
00:22:05.759 --> 00:22:08.319
ever heard the name of Stacy. So this is insane
395
00:22:08.359 --> 00:22:08.519
to me.
396
00:22:09.480 --> 00:22:12.880
So I did what John asked. I went and found her. Actually,
397
00:22:12.960 --> 00:22:15.880
Jennifer Dean, a friend of Kelly's that you've heard from
398
00:22:16.279 --> 00:22:18.559
many times throughout the show, helped put us in touch.
399
00:22:19.319 --> 00:22:21.359
And I want to be straight with you, Stacey was
400
00:22:21.400 --> 00:22:23.640
a little nervous about being on the show at all.
401
00:22:24.440 --> 00:22:27.240
She's got a career, she's got a community, and she
402
00:22:27.359 --> 00:22:30.000
asked me to be careful. So you're going to hear
403
00:22:30.039 --> 00:22:33.279
a short piece of our conversation, but she asked us
404
00:22:33.279 --> 00:22:36.279
to not include her last name. Okay. So I got
405
00:22:36.359 --> 00:22:39.279
Stacy on the phone, and pretty early on I asked
406
00:22:39.279 --> 00:22:42.480
her the thing that John's whole theory hangs on. Did
407
00:22:42.519 --> 00:22:45.000
she testify to the grand jury that the car at
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00:22:45.000 --> 00:22:48.079
the bank was hers.
409
00:22:47.119 --> 00:22:50.400
Well, I didn't testify before a grand jury for anyone.
410
00:22:50.440 --> 00:22:53.599
I'm not sure where that information came from. Jennifer had
411
00:22:53.640 --> 00:22:55.160
said that to me, so.
412
00:22:55.559 --> 00:22:56.039
I did not.
413
00:22:57.519 --> 00:23:00.680
So the whole theory of John's, the fact that's supposed
414
00:23:00.720 --> 00:23:04.119
to prove the car wasn't Kelly's, is that Stacy testified
415
00:23:04.119 --> 00:23:07.559
to the grand jury, and now Stacy says it never happened.
416
00:23:08.240 --> 00:23:12.119
She does say that an investigator, maybe a private investigator,
417
00:23:12.759 --> 00:23:16.720
came and interviewed her about the case in like nineteen
418
00:23:16.799 --> 00:23:17.759
ninety six or so.
419
00:23:18.359 --> 00:23:21.599
And just asked me questions that kind of the same thing.
420
00:23:21.640 --> 00:23:23.079
Now, I didn't really.
421
00:23:22.880 --> 00:23:25.720
Have much to add other than I drove through the
422
00:23:25.759 --> 00:23:27.839
bank that night, So I don't know if both of
423
00:23:27.920 --> 00:23:28.599
us drove through.
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00:23:28.680 --> 00:23:29.759
I know I drove through.
425
00:23:30.480 --> 00:23:33.519
Now, she didn't contradict everything some of what John said.
426
00:23:33.599 --> 00:23:38.480
She did confirm, Well, I drove a white Mustang GT.
427
00:23:39.480 --> 00:23:42.359
I went to the ATM machine to get money. I
428
00:23:42.359 --> 00:23:44.279
wouldn't have been making a deposit.
429
00:23:44.559 --> 00:23:47.680
So that part lines up perfectly. She did drive a
430
00:23:47.680 --> 00:23:50.559
white Mustang, and she was at the bank that night
431
00:23:51.079 --> 00:23:54.640
she hit the ATM. She wasn't making a deposit. So
432
00:23:54.720 --> 00:23:57.920
john'stop pulling this out of thin air. There really was
433
00:23:57.960 --> 00:24:00.240
a girl in a light colored car at the bank
434
00:24:00.279 --> 00:24:04.119
that night. That much is real. The sworn grand jury
435
00:24:04.160 --> 00:24:07.559
testimony is the one thing that Stacy says never happened.
436
00:24:08.160 --> 00:24:10.480
And here's what gets me. I don't think either of
437
00:24:10.519 --> 00:24:13.359
them is lying. I really don't. John's not a liar,
438
00:24:13.559 --> 00:24:17.359
he's careful, he's a credible guy, and he clearly believes
439
00:24:17.440 --> 00:24:20.880
that Stacy testified to the grand jury, and Stacy has
440
00:24:20.960 --> 00:24:23.400
no reason to deny that. She's just telling me what
441
00:24:23.480 --> 00:24:26.759
she remembers. That's kind of the whole thing about this case, right,
442
00:24:27.440 --> 00:24:30.079
every time you think you finally got something solid to
443
00:24:30.119 --> 00:24:32.519
stand on, it just sort of slips out from under you.
444
00:24:33.400 --> 00:24:36.640
But John left me with one more thing, because for
445
00:24:36.799 --> 00:24:39.400
all his talk about how it doesn't matter what he saw,
446
00:24:40.200 --> 00:24:42.039
there is a way to settle at least part of
447
00:24:42.039 --> 00:24:45.799
this the actual tape, not John's memory of it, but
448
00:24:45.960 --> 00:24:50.039
the tape itself, the video. So I went looking for it,
449
00:24:50.960 --> 00:24:53.599
and the first place I tried was an old Dateline
450
00:24:53.640 --> 00:24:57.319
episode about Kelly's case. John told me he'd heard that
451
00:24:57.400 --> 00:25:00.359
the producer who made that episode way back in two
452
00:25:00.400 --> 00:25:02.960
thousand and two had looked at the bank video and
453
00:25:03.039 --> 00:25:06.480
come away seeing exactly what he saw. So I tracked
454
00:25:06.519 --> 00:25:09.599
her down. Her name is Marcia Bartel, and when she
455
00:25:09.720 --> 00:25:12.839
replied to my email, she told me the opposite. She
456
00:25:12.920 --> 00:25:15.279
said that she did not see James Brown in that
457
00:25:15.400 --> 00:25:18.000
video and she did not have a copy of it.
458
00:25:18.640 --> 00:25:20.680
If I wanted the tape, I'd have to take that
459
00:25:20.759 --> 00:25:25.440
up with Dateline. Fat chance, right, So, just to reiterate,
460
00:25:26.000 --> 00:25:29.480
nobody official ever made the same identification that John did.
461
00:25:30.200 --> 00:25:33.000
Not the gilm or police Nott, the FBI, not the
462
00:25:33.039 --> 00:25:36.720
Attorney General's office, and the one person outside this case
463
00:25:36.759 --> 00:25:40.519
that I knew of who actually studied that video very closely,
464
00:25:41.119 --> 00:25:44.079
the producer who made the Dateline episode, told me she
465
00:25:44.400 --> 00:25:47.759
didn't see James Brown in it either. So back when
466
00:25:47.799 --> 00:25:50.519
Doubletown was coming out the first time around, I had
467
00:25:50.559 --> 00:25:53.279
only seen a few short clips from the Bank video,
468
00:25:53.720 --> 00:25:56.319
plus some screenshots, and to me, the guy in the
469
00:25:56.400 --> 00:25:59.759
van doesn't really look like James Brown, not that it's
470
00:25:59.799 --> 00:26:02.599
really easy to tell one way or the other. But
471
00:26:02.680 --> 00:26:05.720
then after we finished making our first round of episodes,
472
00:26:06.240 --> 00:26:10.319
Kelly's dad, Robbie, actually found the Bank surveillance footage in
473
00:26:10.359 --> 00:26:13.000
a box of old videotapes. I think he said they
474
00:26:13.000 --> 00:26:15.480
were out in his garage. He sent the box to
475
00:26:15.559 --> 00:26:19.079
me and I had all the videos digitized and well,
476
00:26:19.240 --> 00:26:22.359
to be perfectly honest, when I hit play, I still
477
00:26:22.359 --> 00:26:25.160
couldn't make heads or tails of any of it. We'll
478
00:26:25.160 --> 00:26:28.640
share the video in our newsletter unforgottenpod dot com so
479
00:26:28.839 --> 00:26:31.759
you can see for yourself. Maybe it'll make more sense
480
00:26:31.799 --> 00:26:32.079
to you.
481
00:26:33.000 --> 00:26:34.440
She got off four at eight o'clock.
482
00:26:35.400 --> 00:26:39.400
This is Melvin again, John Stadd eight thirty.
483
00:26:39.119 --> 00:26:44.559
Two something About that time a van pulled in there
484
00:26:45.279 --> 00:26:50.480
and a man got out and made a deposits and
485
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this man, I guarantee you was James Brown in a
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Gilmer police uniform. Well, there was an old woman sitting
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right behind James Brown and she put her face up
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to the clear glass of the wind and it was
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Jenny Kerr.
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So that's it for this episode. And next time on
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Deviltown we are going to go in a totally different direction.
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We're going to unpack a weird detail about the slash
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tire that has always stuck with me and what it
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tells us about Kelly and her case. Deviltown is a
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free range production in association with Imperative Entertainment. The show
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00:27:37.119 --> 00:27:41.079
was created by me Wes Ferguson and edited by Aslan Gatis.
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Music by Robert Ellis. For updates on this case and others,
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00:27:46.279 --> 00:27:51.400
joined our free newsletter at Unforgotten pod dot com. As always,
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00:27:51.440 --> 00:27:52.319
thank you for listening.
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I cut a lot of hair when I was in
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high school. I mean I cut enough hair that I
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purchased two motorcycles with my hair cutting money.
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This is John Dodd. John grew up in Gilmer, Texas,
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and he's not lying when he says he cut a
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lot of hair back when he was in high school.
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I used to cut a lot of the boy's hair
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and even some of the girls hair. I used to
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charge three dollars a haircut.
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On the night that Kelly Wilson vanished from Gilmer, Texas,
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guess what John was doing. Yeah, he was cutting hair.
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Two of John's friends came by and their names were
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Chris Denton and Marvin Pritchett.
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It was dark by then, of course, it was January
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the fifth, and so you know, it was getting dark,
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probably about five o'clock in East Texas, and Marvin and
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Chris had come over.
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Chris, you probably remember, Chris Denton was one of the
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first suspects in Kelly's case. Marvin is another name we
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talked about earlier in the podcast, and I'll tell you
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more about him in a little bit now.
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I can't tell you one hundred percent if I cut
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Chris's hair that night, or Marvin's hair. But I know
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for a fact they were at the house. They were
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waiting for me because we were gonna go to Gilmer
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and just grab some chicken or something like that. I
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am guessing that it's gonna be sometime around seven, eight
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o'clock or so. I got finished cutting hair and we
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all went out and we got into Marvin's truck and
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Marvin was sitting in the driver's seat, Chris was in
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the middle, and I was in the passenger seat. And
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before we pulled out of the driveway, Yeah, I heard
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a voice tell my mind and said get out of
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the car. And I told him. I said, hey, man,
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you know what, I don't think I'm going tonight. And
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Marvin and Chris looked at me and they said why not, John,
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And I said, you know, I got homework tod And
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they looked at me, and I looked at them and
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we all laughed. And the reason why that was funny
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is because Wes, I never did homework. Like my whole
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high schoo career, I'd never did homework, and so they
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knew that I wasn't going to go do homework. But
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I reaffirmed and I just said, look, yeah, I'm getting out.
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So John was a senior the same year as Kelly
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Day Wilson, and on the night she disappeared January fifth,
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nineteen ninety two, he was supposed to be in that truck.
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He got out instead. And that decision to climb out
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over homework he had no intention of doing, is the
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only reason John Dodd wasn't writing around Gilmert with his
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two friends on the last night. Anybody can account for
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Kelly because of that feeling he had. John escaped the
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allegations that would hound his friends, especially Chris, for years.
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But John was about to get drawn into the case anyway,
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and you might be surprised to learn how that happened.
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Now here's where I'm telling you independent from any other
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person on this planet, because I witnessed it with my
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own eyes.
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From Free Range Productions in association with Imperative Entertainment. I'm
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West Ferguson, and this is Deviltown, chapter thirteen, the tape.
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All right, let me back up and tell you more
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about John Dodd. Most of the people who have reached
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out to me about Kelly are you know, regular folks.
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They've got a rumor, or a memory or a theory
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they heard from a cousin, and I take it all seriously,
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but I also take it all with a grain of salt,
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because you know, that's the job. John is a little
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different because John does this for a living. He's a
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federal police chief, and he spent his entire career working
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major crimes, homicides, all the serious stuff.
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Just f y. I'm a child friendsic interviewer. I've been
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doing it since two thousand and nine. And listen, I
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am an evidence based person.
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I have to be.
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I don't have the luxury of just believing people because
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they kail me something right. My job requires us to
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provide evidence. And one of the reasons why in the
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past I haven't ever got involved is because some of
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the cases that I've worked in my career. I'm a
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federal investigator, and I mean, I've spent my career doing
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this kind of stuff.
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So this is kind of John's whole thing. He's a
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guy whose entire career is built on not getting carried away,
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on not deciding what happened first, and then going out
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looking for proof. He'll actually tell you more than once
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that he's careful about what he'll swear to and what
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he won't. And that's part of why for thirty years,
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John mostly stayed out of this. He had a demanding job,
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a life out west, and a healthy suspicion of the
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kind of storytelling that had already turned Kelly's case into
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an absolute circus. But John is not a stranger to
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this story and close his father is John Melvin Dodd.
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If you've been with me for a while, you know Melvin.
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He's one of the founders of the Justice for Kelly
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Wilson Committee, the group of folks in Gilmert who never
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stopped pushing, never stopped believing there was more to this
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than the official version. I interviewed Melvin at least once,
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maybe a couple of times.
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You're gonna write a book about this or what?
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No, sir, I'm making a podcast series.
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Okay, okay, I'm gonna have to after a phone here,
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I take me long? Hello, What.
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Didn't So?
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John is extremely familiar with all of this, and even
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more than that, he grew up with the people who
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ended up at the center of it. He told me
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he had three best friends in high school, and one
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of them was Christentton. Now, Christen has often been described
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as Kelly's boyfriend. The people that know them say that's
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not true. They just had, like, you know, a hookup basically.
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But for thirty years, Christenton was law enforcement's favorite suspect
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in her disappearance. Chris died back in two thousand and four,
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and we spent a good chunk of an earlier episode
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or two on him, and just so we're clear, no
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one ever proved that he actually had anything to do
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with her disappearance. But we do know that Chris was
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in that truck that night cruising around Gilmer when Kelly disappeared,
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and so was Marvin Pritchett, another kid from that same circle.
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These guys were John's friends, which brings me back to
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his Grandma's driveway because when John tells that story about
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the voice saying get out of the car, my first instinct, honestly,
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is probably the same as yours. It's a good story,
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but it's just a feeling a hunch. How much can
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you really hang on that? And then John told me
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why he listened to that voice. In nineteen eighty eight,
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John and Chris's older brother, Allan were in a horrible
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car wreck.
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Alan and I had just dropped his girlfriend off in
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Longview at her house, and we were driving back in
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his little low nineteen eighty something Ford Escort, little two door,
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and I remember I was in the back seat after
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because we were wasted, and I'm talking about I'm laying
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across the back seat and so I'm curled up lane
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there and then her boye tell me, he said, get up,
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get the front seat. And I woke up and I
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saw Alan. He was on the front porch, kissing the land.
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And I crawled over and got in the passenger seat,
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and I laid my chair all the way back and
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I went right back to sleep. And we're driving from
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Longview back to Gimberg. And there was two ways to
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get to my house. One way you could turn left
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and you could go by the old Dean Lake and
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go to my house that way. The other way was
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you had to go in through town. Well, when we
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pulled up, I woke up. The reason why I'm telling
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you this, though, West, is because you remember certain things.
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And this is why I remember this very vividly, that
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little voice. This is probably the first time that I
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recall every hearing a voice to somebody or something talking
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to me into my mind. And we pulled up to
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two seventy one from three hundred, and a voice tells me.
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It says, turn left, and I said, hey, Alan, wyon't
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we turn left? And you look at me, You're like,
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what're for? And I was like, uh, never mind, now
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let's just go, you know whichever. And I fell back
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to sleep and we got hit by another car going
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sixty miles an hour, and I got ejected from the vehicle. Okay,
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I would wear in my seat belt and I broke
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my left side of my face. I had reconstructed surgery
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on my face. I got screwed up and glass all
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over my body, my head, my back, you know. I mean,
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it screwed me up pretty good. And so I remember
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I told them. I said, man, I heard a voice
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tell me to get up, get in the front seat,
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and then to turn left instead of turning right. And
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I didn't listen to it. I said, I listened to it,
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but I didn't convince Allan, you know. And I said,
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I'll never do that again. If I ever hear that
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voice in my head telling me to do something, I'm
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gonna do it. I'm gonna listen. Well here it was
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years later, this time, I'm a senior anywhere the fifth,
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I go hop in the car. All we're doing is
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we're going to town. We're going to JRS at that
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gas station. You know. I was just probably gonna go
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eat some chicken and eat some potatoes, you know. And
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the next thing, you know, that same voice came to
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me and said get out, and I was like, oh snap,
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I remember that. Now.
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I'm not here to tell you what that voice was.
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John's a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of
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Latter day Saints, and to him, this is a spiritual thing.
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So you could believe that or not believe it. That's
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totally up to you. What I can tell you is
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that it's not something John made up for a podcast.
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His dad told me a version of this the same
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story several years ago before John and I had ever spoken.
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Is back in episode ten.
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And John said he just got a strong impression don't go.
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So you told him, James of mine, I'm not going.
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So they stopped me got up and he's the only
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reason my son, John was not a Ben Gilmer with BAM.
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Then I think Kelly Wilson disappeared, So that's John.
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But none of that, the voice, the driveway, the wreck,
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none of that is why John finally picked up the
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phone and called me after thirty years. He called me
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because of something, he says that he saw with his
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own eyes, something on a piece of evidence that's been
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sitting at the center of this case since the very beginning.
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After the break, John gets his hands on the bank
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video and he takes it somewhere. No other investigator ever.
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Did as plain as day as I'm looking at the
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sun right now. In Yeah, James Brown was the one
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who was in that vein.
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All right, So to understand what John says he saw.
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I just want to quickly remind you about the bank
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video because we talked about it all the way back
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in episode two. So here's the short version. The night
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that Kelly disappeared, part of her job at that video
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store was to take the day's cash to the bank
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just a couple blocks away and drop it in the
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night deposit box. And there was a surveillance camera at
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the bank and it captured a few vehicles coming through
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around the time that Kelly would have made the drop.
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The problem was that back in nineteen ninety two, that
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footage was well, it was terrible, grainy, dark, low quality.
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Sergeant James Brown, the Gilmour police officer who ran the
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search for Kelly, told the media that the video showed
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Kelly make that deposit, even though from everything we've been
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able to tell, the camera didn't really show that clearly
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at all. And here's a refresher on James yorke Brown.
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Two years after a Kelly vanished, Brown himself got arrested
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and was charged as part of that alleged satanic cult,
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along with the Kerr family and several others. And then
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the Texas Attorney General's Office came in. They took the
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case apart, found no real evidence behind any of those charges,
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and dropped every charge. Brown has always maintained he had
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nothing to do with Kelly's disappearance and he was never
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convicted of anything. As far as the law is concerned,
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and as far as I'm concerned, James yorke Brown is
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an innocent man. And here's James himself from an interview
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we played earlier in the season where he's talking about
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those first days searching for Kelly. This is back from
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episode two.
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There's a lot of interviews that were done with the
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last people that had contact, and from there you start
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nearing your focus and of course I was a loan
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in the investigation.
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For a long time in this story, that's who James
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Brown was the officer running the case. So I want
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to be crystal clear before I tell you this next part,
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because this next part is John Dodd looking at that
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same grainy video and telling me he sees that same
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man somewhere he was never supposed to be. And how
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did John, this high school kid at the time, or
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maybe fresh out of high school, end up with this
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bank tape at all? He says, it came through the
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back door. Kelly's father had hired a private investigator down
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in Louisiana, and that PI somehow got hold of a
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copy of the surveillance video, and he's the one who
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handed his material over to the Justice for Kelly Folks,
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and a copy of the bank video made its way
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to John.
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I take that copy over to my cousin, Jeff Dodds.
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Jeff had gotten his degree at brig Up Young University,
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and it has something to do with graphic design, and
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he had a brand new, state of the art computer.
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We took and I say we, myself, Sam Robinson Denny
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Pilcher went over at Jeff's house with this video We
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had Jeff analyze this on this computer and he blew
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it up. He was able to remove some of the
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static and stuff off of this and he blew up
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this video and the still shots taken from the surveillance video.
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So picture this. It's the mid nineties. Four young guys
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crowded around a computer in somebody's house watching a blurry
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frame of video get bigger and clearer line by line,
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and John says, what came into focus is the thing
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he's been carrying around for thirty years.
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Now here's where I'm telling you that I know of
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myself independent from any other person on this planet, independent
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from Melvin Dodd, independent of any other person, because I
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witnessed it with my own eyes. We blew those videos up,
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those steal shots up, those frames up, and as plain
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as day as I'm looking at the sun right now
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in the sky. James Brown was the one who was
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in that van. There was another person who was sitting
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in the passenger seat who I could not identify because
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you couldn't see his face. But Geneva Kerr was in
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the back.
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Geneva Kerr, the woman the state once accused of being
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at the head of that satanic cult, the one who
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charges like Brown's got dropped for lack of evidence. John
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says he saw her and James York Brown in a
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van at the bank the night Kelly disappeared, not making
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a deposit like Kelly was supposed to do. John says
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the van pulled up first around eight point fifteen, and
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the driver leaned out and dropped an envelope in the
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night deposit. Now here's something else important. John's own father, Melvin,
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has told this video story publicly for years, but when
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John describes it, he actually corrects his dad on the details.
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I had a talk with my dad. I said, Dad,
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James never got out of the car. Well, he most
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certainly did, said Dad, James never got out of that vehicle.
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He leaned out, That's why we could see him. And
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he never got out. And I said, Dad, he wasn't
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wearing the police unit for him either.
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He was wearing a jacket.
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Now Dad was inaccurate when he said that you could
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see her through the window. Through the glass, No, James
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Brown had the window of that dark colored van rode down,
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he leaned out. Geneva was sitting directly behind him in
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the back seat, and she leaned up and stuck her
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face in between the seat and the door jam, and
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she is looking directly at whatever James is doing, but
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her face is as plain as day in the camera.
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Melvin has been telling this story one way. But John,
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the trained investigator, the guy who was actually in the
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room when they enhanced the footage, is gently telling his
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own father he got the details a little wrong. Brown
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leaned out, He didn't get out. A jacket, not a uniform.
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Geneva's face at the doorframe, not against the.
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Glass plane as day. I saw this, Jeff Dodd saw it,
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Denny saw it, Sam saw it.
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Now I have to be honest with you about what
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this is and what this isn't. This is just John's account,
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his memory, and his read on a piece of grainy
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video from thirty years ago. No investigator, no prosecutor, no
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00:17:38.079 --> 00:17:41.759
jury has ever confirmed what John says he saw. James
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Brown was cleared, Geneva Kerr was cleared. And I'm not
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gonna sit here and tell you that John is right.
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But I also can't quite let go of the question
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John keeps coming back to, because whatever you make of
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the voice in the driveway, John is not some guy
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with a wild theory he's a professional, and he has
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one question that really bugs me.
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Here's what's so disturbing to me. How come a twenty
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four twenty five year old, you know, if I was
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that age but somewhere between twenty three and twenty five
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years of age. How come I can take a video
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and go make an absolute, definitive identification on who the
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00:18:22.240 --> 00:18:24.920
driver was? And how come that was never done by
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the investigative parties. How Come that's never been done by
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the FBI.
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How Come nobody with a badge and a budget ever
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did what four kids did around a computer one afternoon.
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I don't have a great answer for that, and John
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doesn't either. But he'll be the first to tell you
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that his answer, even if he's one hundred percent right
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about what he saw, doesn't actually prove anything on his own.
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After the break, the catch the one thing John's entire
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theory depends on, and it leads me to a name
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I had never heard before.
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It's not John Dodd telling you what I saw, because Wes,
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you haven't seen it. You're not convinced, right.
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So here's where John, to his credit, turns this whole
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thing on himself, because he knows what I was thinking
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he knows that a guy saying I saw James York
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Brown on a tape thirty years ago is not the
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same as proof. Far from it.
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Here's the thing, though, I'm telling you, as an experienced investigator,
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that if you were ever to get your hands and
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to solve anything, your key is the video. It's not
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John Dodd telling you what I saw because Wes, you
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haven't seen it. You're not convinced. Right. I can get
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up in front of a damn jury all day long
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and rant and rave and tell you and cry and
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everything else and say, oh my god, it was James,
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you know. But until the jury sees that video to
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confirm that that individual is in fact without I mean
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beyond a reasonable doubt, James, it's irrelevant.
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I really respect that a lot of people who come
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to me with a theory want me to just believe them.
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John wants me to go check, and there's one particular
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00:20:16.839 --> 00:20:19.400
thing he wants me to check, because it's the piece
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his whole theory rests on. Remember, the official story was
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that the car at the bank was Kelly's making that deposit.
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John says, no one of those vehicles that came through
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at eight thirty one PM. Was a white Ford Mustang
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and it didn't go to the deposit box. It pulled
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up to the ATM, and John says he knows exactly
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whose mustang that was. It belonged to a classmate of
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his and Kelly's, a girl named Stacy.
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James Brown insisted in his case that that was Kelly
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Wilson who drove her Dodge through there and made the
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not deposit. But that's inaccurate. That was Stacy in her
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white Ford Mustang and her boyfriend, and she testified to
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that to the grand jury. That wasn't Kelly, that that
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was her.
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00:21:06.519 --> 00:21:08.839
Okay, Now hang on, because this is a big deal.
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John's whole case comes down to this. If the car
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00:21:12.519 --> 00:21:15.799
at the bank wasn't Kelly, then the official timeline falls
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00:21:15.839 --> 00:21:19.559
apart and the door opens to everything else John is saying.
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And it's proof that it wasn't Kelly, would be Stacy.
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00:21:24.720 --> 00:21:26.880
John says. Stacy stood up in front of a grand
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00:21:26.960 --> 00:21:29.880
jury and swore it was her at the bank, not Kelly.
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00:21:30.799 --> 00:21:32.039
He says he saw her there.
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00:21:32.720 --> 00:21:35.359
I got called in front of the grand jury. Okay,
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00:21:35.680 --> 00:21:38.000
I remember seeing Stacy there at the grand jury.
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John says that even years later, He and another Justice
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00:21:42.160 --> 00:21:45.720
for Kelly member named Glenn Leech tracked down Stacy in
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00:21:45.799 --> 00:21:49.160
Houston and interviewed her, and she said the same thing again.
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00:21:50.359 --> 00:21:55.240
That is a very specific, very checkable claim. And here's
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00:21:55.279 --> 00:21:59.000
a surprising part. Across everybody I talked to, I had
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00:21:59.039 --> 00:22:02.759
never once heard the named Stacy. John could not believe that.
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00:22:03.759 --> 00:22:05.759
I can't believe that this is the first time you've
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00:22:05.759 --> 00:22:08.319
ever heard the name of Stacy. So this is insane
395
00:22:08.359 --> 00:22:08.519
to me.
396
00:22:09.480 --> 00:22:12.880
So I did what John asked. I went and found her. Actually,
397
00:22:12.960 --> 00:22:15.880
Jennifer Dean, a friend of Kelly's that you've heard from
398
00:22:16.279 --> 00:22:18.559
many times throughout the show, helped put us in touch.
399
00:22:19.319 --> 00:22:21.359
And I want to be straight with you, Stacey was
400
00:22:21.400 --> 00:22:23.640
a little nervous about being on the show at all.
401
00:22:24.440 --> 00:22:27.240
She's got a career, she's got a community, and she
402
00:22:27.359 --> 00:22:30.000
asked me to be careful. So you're going to hear
403
00:22:30.039 --> 00:22:33.279
a short piece of our conversation, but she asked us
404
00:22:33.279 --> 00:22:36.279
to not include her last name. Okay. So I got
405
00:22:36.359 --> 00:22:39.279
Stacy on the phone, and pretty early on I asked
406
00:22:39.279 --> 00:22:42.480
her the thing that John's whole theory hangs on. Did
407
00:22:42.519 --> 00:22:45.000
she testify to the grand jury that the car at
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00:22:45.000 --> 00:22:48.079
the bank was hers.
409
00:22:47.119 --> 00:22:50.400
Well, I didn't testify before a grand jury for anyone.
410
00:22:50.440 --> 00:22:53.599
I'm not sure where that information came from. Jennifer had
411
00:22:53.640 --> 00:22:55.160
said that to me, so.
412
00:22:55.559 --> 00:22:56.039
I did not.
413
00:22:57.519 --> 00:23:00.680
So the whole theory of John's, the fact that's supposed
414
00:23:00.720 --> 00:23:04.119
to prove the car wasn't Kelly's, is that Stacy testified
415
00:23:04.119 --> 00:23:07.559
to the grand jury, and now Stacy says it never happened.
416
00:23:08.240 --> 00:23:12.119
She does say that an investigator, maybe a private investigator,
417
00:23:12.759 --> 00:23:16.720
came and interviewed her about the case in like nineteen
418
00:23:16.799 --> 00:23:17.759
ninety six or so.
419
00:23:18.359 --> 00:23:21.599
And just asked me questions that kind of the same thing.
420
00:23:21.640 --> 00:23:23.079
Now, I didn't really.
421
00:23:22.880 --> 00:23:25.720
Have much to add other than I drove through the
422
00:23:25.759 --> 00:23:27.839
bank that night, So I don't know if both of
423
00:23:27.920 --> 00:23:28.599
us drove through.
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00:23:28.680 --> 00:23:29.759
I know I drove through.
425
00:23:30.480 --> 00:23:33.519
Now, she didn't contradict everything some of what John said.
426
00:23:33.599 --> 00:23:38.480
She did confirm, Well, I drove a white Mustang GT.
427
00:23:39.480 --> 00:23:42.359
I went to the ATM machine to get money. I
428
00:23:42.359 --> 00:23:44.279
wouldn't have been making a deposit.
429
00:23:44.559 --> 00:23:47.680
So that part lines up perfectly. She did drive a
430
00:23:47.680 --> 00:23:50.559
white Mustang, and she was at the bank that night
431
00:23:51.079 --> 00:23:54.640
she hit the ATM. She wasn't making a deposit. So
432
00:23:54.720 --> 00:23:57.920
john'stop pulling this out of thin air. There really was
433
00:23:57.960 --> 00:24:00.240
a girl in a light colored car at the bank
434
00:24:00.279 --> 00:24:04.119
that night. That much is real. The sworn grand jury
435
00:24:04.160 --> 00:24:07.559
testimony is the one thing that Stacy says never happened.
436
00:24:08.160 --> 00:24:10.480
And here's what gets me. I don't think either of
437
00:24:10.519 --> 00:24:13.359
them is lying. I really don't. John's not a liar,
438
00:24:13.559 --> 00:24:17.359
he's careful, he's a credible guy, and he clearly believes
439
00:24:17.440 --> 00:24:20.880
that Stacy testified to the grand jury, and Stacy has
440
00:24:20.960 --> 00:24:23.400
no reason to deny that. She's just telling me what
441
00:24:23.480 --> 00:24:26.759
she remembers. That's kind of the whole thing about this case, right,
442
00:24:27.440 --> 00:24:30.079
every time you think you finally got something solid to
443
00:24:30.119 --> 00:24:32.519
stand on, it just sort of slips out from under you.
444
00:24:33.400 --> 00:24:36.640
But John left me with one more thing, because for
445
00:24:36.799 --> 00:24:39.400
all his talk about how it doesn't matter what he saw,
446
00:24:40.200 --> 00:24:42.039
there is a way to settle at least part of
447
00:24:42.039 --> 00:24:45.799
this the actual tape, not John's memory of it, but
448
00:24:45.960 --> 00:24:50.039
the tape itself, the video. So I went looking for it,
449
00:24:50.960 --> 00:24:53.599
and the first place I tried was an old Dateline
450
00:24:53.640 --> 00:24:57.319
episode about Kelly's case. John told me he'd heard that
451
00:24:57.400 --> 00:25:00.359
the producer who made that episode way back in two
452
00:25:00.400 --> 00:25:02.960
thousand and two had looked at the bank video and
453
00:25:03.039 --> 00:25:06.480
come away seeing exactly what he saw. So I tracked
454
00:25:06.519 --> 00:25:09.599
her down. Her name is Marcia Bartel, and when she
455
00:25:09.720 --> 00:25:12.839
replied to my email, she told me the opposite. She
456
00:25:12.920 --> 00:25:15.279
said that she did not see James Brown in that
457
00:25:15.400 --> 00:25:18.000
video and she did not have a copy of it.
458
00:25:18.640 --> 00:25:20.680
If I wanted the tape, I'd have to take that
459
00:25:20.759 --> 00:25:25.440
up with Dateline. Fat chance, right, So, just to reiterate,
460
00:25:26.000 --> 00:25:29.480
nobody official ever made the same identification that John did.
461
00:25:30.200 --> 00:25:33.000
Not the gilm or police Nott, the FBI, not the
462
00:25:33.039 --> 00:25:36.720
Attorney General's office, and the one person outside this case
463
00:25:36.759 --> 00:25:40.519
that I knew of who actually studied that video very closely,
464
00:25:41.119 --> 00:25:44.079
the producer who made the Dateline episode, told me she
465
00:25:44.400 --> 00:25:47.759
didn't see James Brown in it either. So back when
466
00:25:47.799 --> 00:25:50.519
Doubletown was coming out the first time around, I had
467
00:25:50.559 --> 00:25:53.279
only seen a few short clips from the Bank video,
468
00:25:53.720 --> 00:25:56.319
plus some screenshots, and to me, the guy in the
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00:25:56.400 --> 00:25:59.759
van doesn't really look like James Brown, not that it's
470
00:25:59.799 --> 00:26:02.599
really easy to tell one way or the other. But
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00:26:02.680 --> 00:26:05.720
then after we finished making our first round of episodes,
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00:26:06.240 --> 00:26:10.319
Kelly's dad, Robbie, actually found the Bank surveillance footage in
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00:26:10.359 --> 00:26:13.000
a box of old videotapes. I think he said they
474
00:26:13.000 --> 00:26:15.480
were out in his garage. He sent the box to
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00:26:15.559 --> 00:26:19.079
me and I had all the videos digitized and well,
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00:26:19.240 --> 00:26:22.359
to be perfectly honest, when I hit play, I still
477
00:26:22.359 --> 00:26:25.160
couldn't make heads or tails of any of it. We'll
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00:26:25.160 --> 00:26:28.640
share the video in our newsletter unforgottenpod dot com so
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00:26:28.839 --> 00:26:31.759
you can see for yourself. Maybe it'll make more sense
480
00:26:31.799 --> 00:26:32.079
to you.
481
00:26:33.000 --> 00:26:34.440
She got off four at eight o'clock.
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00:26:35.400 --> 00:26:39.400
This is Melvin again, John Stadd eight thirty.
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00:26:39.119 --> 00:26:44.559
Two something About that time a van pulled in there
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00:26:45.279 --> 00:26:50.480
and a man got out and made a deposits and
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00:26:50.599 --> 00:26:55.720
this man, I guarantee you was James Brown in a
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00:26:55.839 --> 00:27:01.440
Gilmer police uniform. Well, there was an old woman sitting
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00:27:01.720 --> 00:27:07.519
right behind James Brown and she put her face up
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00:27:07.559 --> 00:27:10.880
to the clear glass of the wind and it was
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00:27:10.920 --> 00:27:11.720
Jenny Kerr.
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00:27:13.799 --> 00:27:16.000
So that's it for this episode. And next time on
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00:27:16.039 --> 00:27:19.240
Deviltown we are going to go in a totally different direction.
492
00:27:20.000 --> 00:27:22.440
We're going to unpack a weird detail about the slash
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00:27:22.559 --> 00:27:25.559
tire that has always stuck with me and what it
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00:27:25.640 --> 00:27:32.200
tells us about Kelly and her case. Deviltown is a
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00:27:32.240 --> 00:27:37.079
free range production in association with Imperative Entertainment. The show
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00:27:37.119 --> 00:27:41.079
was created by me Wes Ferguson and edited by Aslan Gatis.
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00:27:41.839 --> 00:27:46.000
Music by Robert Ellis. For updates on this case and others,
498
00:27:46.279 --> 00:27:51.400
joined our free newsletter at Unforgotten pod dot com. As always,
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00:27:51.440 --> 00:27:52.319
thank you for listening.
