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This podcast is intended for mature audiences. Listener discretion is advised.
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A bizarre case is murder, sexual abuse and alleged law
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enforcement misconduct is unfolding here, and it's questioned the innocence
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of children, a police officer, and a legal system. Few
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people question the Kerr children's claims of sexual abuse, but
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it's the stories of devil worshiping and Satanic sacrifice that
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have some wondering if the children may have been led
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or prompted into saying those things by adults. You don't
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believe there's in satanic rituals.
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Nobody nobody found any kind of evidence to show that
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they would.
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If they have, they're not making it public.
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For the past few years, Sergeant James Brown has been
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the only investigator on the Wilson Kate. It was a
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job he volunteered for. Now he's a suspect in her disappearance.
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So our last episode was all about Raymond Smith, the
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little boy who falsely accused his mom and stepdad of
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being in a satanic cult of murdering Kelly Wilson, the
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teenager who vanished on January fifth, nineteen ninety two, from
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the town square in Gilmour two years after Kelly disappeared,
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just to quickly recap, Special Prosecutor Scott Leefford and his
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pair of investigators, Steve Baggs and Brooks Flagg convinced a
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grand jury to indict eight people for the kidnapping, rape,
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and murder of Kelly. The suspects included Gilmert police sergeant
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James York Brown, and Raymond's parents Don and Tammy. They
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were facing death penalty offenses. But there were big problems
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with Leefford's case. Here's Kelly's mom, Kathy on the local news.
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I feel like you'll have to prove it in order
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for us the family to believe, to believe that he's
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going to have to prove it. Beyond shadow of dot,
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this is all happened, and it's the people are involved
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with Kelly's disappearance, and artist got to maintain objectivity and
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they're going to have to have lord and circumstance argents
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and they haven't shown missed anything.
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Special Prosecutor Scott Lyfford's case against Sergeant Brown and its
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co defendants. Most of the members of the Kerr family
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hinged on the witness statements of Raymond and Connie Martin
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the common law wife of one of the Kerr brothers,
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with a little help from Connie's sister in law Wanda,
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if Scott Lyfford had the goods, though he was keeping
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the details to himself.
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I really am not comfortable talking about the evidence at
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this point, and Connie Martin's not being charged because she's
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cooperating with it.
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Another star witness for the Lifer team had already recanted
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Wanda's brother, Lucas.
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A new set back to Lyford's case is Lucas Gear,
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a Kerr family uncle. Gear is currently serving time in
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prison on child molestation charges. In the Search War, Gear
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is listed as a coroborating witness to the children's accounts
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of Satanic rituals and human sacris. He passed a polygraph test,
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but Nawgere says he lied.
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Thank him, kept nay.
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They wanted something.
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They wounded me to go along with them.
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Oh, they'd lead me home, so I had to lead
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them on to enter.
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Shane Phelps, Assistant Attorney General for the State of Texas.
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Now the Texas Attorney General's Office has stepped in. Assistant
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Attorney's General Shane Phelps and Lisa Turner are conducting the
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investigation and working with the grand jury.
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Reviewing the case files, Shane Phelps and his assistant prosecutor,
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Lisa Tanner knew what they had to do. Shane had
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to drop the charges and clear Sergeant Brown's name. By
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this time, Sergeant Brown had already been released after spending
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six days in the county jail. To cover his bond,
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Sergeant Brown's dad put up the family farm as surety,
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but the city council had already voted to suspend Sergeant
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Brown from the police department. No pay, no job. Sergeant
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Brown was so broke he put his own mobile home
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and pickup truck on the market. As for the curs
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and Raymond's parents, his mom Tammy and stepdad Dawn, they
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had it even worse. They were still behind bars.
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I'll never forget being in jail and going into the
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courtroom to be arrain.
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That's Tammy turned myself in.
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I mean, I'll just never forget how shocked I was, like,
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what in the hell is going on? You know, I
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mean it was just crazy. And that was the first
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time you see us coming out in the orange suits.
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That was what was on my.
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Mind as I'd be like, I cannot believe that that
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just happened. You just feel like you're in a movie,
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you know what I mean. It's just feel like it's real.
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You just can't believe. And all I kept thinking is
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these are smart, intelligent people, you know, because like I said,
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I had all trust in our government, I had all
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trust in our system, police officers, and do the right thing,
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do what they say. They're gonna figure this all out.
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They're smart, educated people. Come on, it just kept getting
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stupider worse. I mean, they had like when they would
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interrogate me, they would have pictures of skulls on the table,
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you know, trying to convince me that I had had
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these babies and sacrificed them to the devil.
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And I was just like, what in the.
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Heck is going on here?
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My lawyer's sitting there going now, Tammy, They're gonna give
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you a deal and give you your kids back in
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six months if you just tell them what happened. And
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I said, Mike, I don't even know what all the
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other girls are saying.
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If I did want to take the deal.
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And he sat there and told me he's up there
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and told me what the other girls were and I'm like,
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I am praying and asking God out of this crap.
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I ain't lying on the one person, and so don't
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ask me again to do that. And because my ownlawyer
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tried to get me to lie and say stuff, this
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is bull crap. When your own lawyer is telling you
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to confess, confess on dawn and lie on dawn. And
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since I'm so much younger, you know, I'm going to
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get off and then we'll fly around and do a
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book deal.
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And this is my lawyer.
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Telling me this crap. I'm like, jeez, I can't trust
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anybody literally.
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Any of this that they alleged actually happened.
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Absolutely none. Absolutely. I have not ever met Kelly Wilson,
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not once. I've never molested my children.
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When she was first locked up, Tammy didn't believe her
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son Raymond would ever accuse her of such horrible crimes.
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After he got in foster care. My lawyer at the time,
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the good one. I can't even think away, he said Tammy. Unfortunately,
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he said, Raymon is a smart kid and he will
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be their star witness. And I went, no, Raman is
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a kurch young boy.
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He will not.
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Lie, Timmy, Yes he will.
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You know.
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That was my lawyer telling me.
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He was, you know, he's being awestome with Timmy.
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They're gonna convert him or whatever because he's smart, and
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they're gonna make him their star witness. And I be
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darned if he wasn't right. I remember one time being
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in jail and one of the guys has books Brooks flag.
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They let him come in. Myself, my one man self, myself,
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and he touches my hand and he goes, how does
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it feel to know you're never gonna know the touch
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of a man? And I just thought, And then he
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looks up at my wall, and you know, in jail,
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you take toothpaste and you stick your pictures on the wall.
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And he goes, I see you're getting used to your
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new home. You're going to have a good married Christmas
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hunchin and he walks out. I mean, I just couldn't
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believe that people were really like that. That's how innocent
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and naive I was. One time I was brought into
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this room and I don't never forget all these big men,
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big men, and there was probably like seven or eight
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of them, and they set me down. They're all looking
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at me like me, mugging me. And they turned on
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this TV and they go, we want you to watch this,
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and I sit down and there's my little Raymond. His
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head's all shaved completely. He's sitting in a chair and
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Anne Gore is on her knees in front of him,
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asking him questions did your mama? And he's putting his
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hands in his mouth and he's mumbling, and she says,
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did your mama do that? And you can tell she's
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like suggests of questioning him over and over and over,
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and them guys are just looking at me like you
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are sick. You ought to be it, you know. I'm
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just sitting there crying and thinking, what is this? What
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what are they doing to my baby? You know, that's
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when I realized my kids are not safe where they're at.
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You know, this isn't what I thought.
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It was anymore.
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For some reason, I always had faith in God that
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it was just gonna get better.
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I always had that faith that it was going to
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get better. I just couldn't believe though that all the lies,
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you know, how these people had.
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So much control.
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And they lie are so bad, and then everybody else
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just lets them. I mean judges. I remember being at
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court and Barbara Best and they're talking about how they
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kept getting these threats and everything. And I'm thinking, we're
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in jail, how can we threaten you? Oh you know
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they were Cannis. We can't call you unless you accept
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the phone called. I mean, there would be records of
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all this stuff.
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And they're saying all these lies in court, and I'm thinking, why.
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Isn't anybody doing anything? Why is this judge sitting here
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allowing these lies when he freaking knows better. I mean,
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I just couldn't. I couldn't grasp it, and I still
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can't grasp it.
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The lurid details and sensational indictments swept East Texas. It
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was all anybody could talk about.
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This case still has many people in Gilma riveted to
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the goings on at the courthouse and wondering if there
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will ever be a resolution to the mystery.
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Every day on the news, we were on the news
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every day for two years.
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On the news.
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Top story.
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It was either Kanya Harding or.
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For us.
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Tanya Harding had nothing on this From Imperative Entertainment, I'm
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wes Ferguson. This is Deviltown. This is chapter six courtroom drama.
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Here's Raymonds stepdad Don Holman.
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I went to a church for about three and a
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half years that you couldn't go the amboree.
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The Yamboree is the fall festival in Gilmer. It's a
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lot like any county fair, parade, Queen's Court, livestock show
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if you throw in a lot of yams. Don is
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a self described Bible thumper. His church back then was
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so strict he couldn't even have fun at the Yamboree.
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You can't watch showbiz pizza, you can't go on a
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trip without asking to get permission from the preacher. And
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I'm not that I was a sergeant in the army.
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I mean I told people what to do in a
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nice way, but they come and ask me, hey home
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and listen my wife. I think my wife's running around
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on me. Would you help me out? You know yeah,
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send her a dozen roses and apologize, you cheat, bastard.
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You know I've been around. I've been a cop before
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in Big Sandy, back when Texas largest man hunt. I
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was a good guy and then all of a sudden
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I'm in jail, going killing, killing eight a seventeen year
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old girl and sacrificed ten babies to the devil. And
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I mean just hateful things to me and put me
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in a dorm with a bunch of idiots. I'm not
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saying idiots. They was all right after I threatened to
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kill them, you know, but one had I kept up
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with him and he got seventy five years from murder,
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nineteen year old black guy. Another one he had tattoos,
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had his head shaved on each sign. Me and him
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used to get a water iglue and work out with it.
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We got along.
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I got along with everybody. Oh and one boy was
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in there in that hole and cell guy. I said,
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what's that all about? Who's that guy? And he goes, oh,
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that's one of them old charm listening curves. And when
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he said that, I walked over to him. I said,
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I said, come here. I said, you see a name
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right there. I said, my name is Don Holman, not Curve.
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Don't call me a curve. He goes, okay. I wasn't
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gonna hurt the guy. But from then on, when he
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woke my my jail, cell, he put his head down.
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You don't, I mean, you don't call me no charm listener.
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When he said you lost a bunch of weight, was
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that fasting? I fasted not to show off. I fasted
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to God. And when they asked me, I'll go get
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you a cheeseburger or whatever want you want to eat,
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I said, ma'am, listen please. I said, I'm not doing
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this to be stubborn headed. I appreciate anything you do.
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And I said, I can't. This is something I got
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to deal with. And I asked one of them, I said,
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you know what I'm in here and she said not really.
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I said, they're saying I'm a rapist and a murderer
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and a child lester. And they said want and I
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said yeah. And I said, and I've got to get
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in touch with God. Humbled. I mean, if David said
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I humbled, my soul was fasting, so fasten and he
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doesn't turn away.
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The Humble Down had a long history with the Kirklan
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local family, who's incest and child abuse got tangled up
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with the search for Kelly Wilson. Don says he was
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not particularly close to Wendell, the Kerr brother who was
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first convicted of abusing his own kids, which is how
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the case against the entire family got started, but Don
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says he and Wendell talked in lock up after they
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were both arrested So when.
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Wendell was telling you about some stuff about his own dad,
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was that when.
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Y'all were in jail.
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What did he say?
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Well, I hate to say this, I really do because
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it relates to Wendell, and I don't like to tell
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on him for what he was already done. Roman He said,
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his daddy used to soldomize him. I said, well, Wendell,
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does he do it anymore? He said, well, what I
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would do, I'd go out work, and he said, I
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just take the money home and give it to him.
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He said, after why, he said, I said no more,
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You're not doing this no more? He said. I got mad,
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and he didn't do it no more. I said, when
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let me tell you something, you're not to hold that
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00:16:12.840 --> 00:16:15.840
against you. It's whether you go do somebody else like that.
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I said, you couldn't help that.
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Did Wendall say how old he was when he.
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Was getting abused?
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Young? Young, probably liking grad school.
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Wendell, the abused became the abuser. He was also a
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00:16:35.120 --> 00:16:38.799
truck driver, the one who had shipping receipts which proved
284
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he'd been hauling freight on the East Coast when Kelly disappeared.
285
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The receipts even had Wendell's own signature on them. Although
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00:16:47.360 --> 00:16:50.080
members of Scott Lyffort's team were convinced that Wendell was
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a master Satanist who'd forged the receipts, it should have
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00:16:54.279 --> 00:16:57.080
been obvious to anyone else that Wendell had done no
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such thing, whatever his other crime. Wendell, who died in
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twenty eighteen, was innocent in the murder of Kelly Wilson.
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00:17:07.319 --> 00:17:10.400
No grand jury's indict based on probable cause. But there
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00:17:10.480 --> 00:17:14.319
wasn't probable cause, and they acknowledged that. Liferd acknowledged that.
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To me that Shane Phelps again.
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00:17:16.960 --> 00:17:20.960
Credible witness statements could be enough, but this was outlandish stuff.
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00:17:21.519 --> 00:17:23.440
I don't think there's a prosecutor in the state of
296
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Texas who has any sense of what prosecution is about.
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Whoever would have been dieted that case if for nothing
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00:17:30.000 --> 00:17:32.079
else for the fear of I would get my ass
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00:17:32.079 --> 00:17:35.160
handed to me in court. Because it didn't take long
300
00:17:35.920 --> 00:17:37.039
for their case just to.
301
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Fall apart, Shane says the Lifeer team had lost sight
302
00:17:40.559 --> 00:17:43.240
of what should have been their first priority.
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00:17:43.440 --> 00:17:47.480
Prosecutors are sworn to do justice, not to seek convictions,
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and to my mind, and this is a case that
305
00:17:50.279 --> 00:17:53.839
I've often pointed to as illustrative of this idea. To
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00:17:53.920 --> 00:17:57.160
my mind, it is every bit is important, if not
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00:17:57.359 --> 00:18:00.759
more so, for a prosecutor to protect the innocence than
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00:18:00.839 --> 00:18:05.160
convict the guilty. And I truly believe that it is
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more important to make sure that the criminal justicism doesn't
310
00:18:08.440 --> 00:18:11.640
victimize in this person than it is ultimately to convict
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a guilty person. It's that old adage about you know,
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ten guilty people go free rather than one innocent person
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going to prison or the death end. There's no oversight
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00:18:26.319 --> 00:18:33.319
to prosecutors in Texas. They have the power to basically
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affect the lives of citizens in pretty detrimental ways. Put
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00:18:39.279 --> 00:18:43.160
people in prison, put people on death row, you know,
317
00:18:43.200 --> 00:18:49.720
and if you're not motivated properly ethically, you will damage people.
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You will end up doing more harm than good. When
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I told them that their rationalization was nobody was talking
320
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to us, they were again in their mind, we know
321
00:19:02.920 --> 00:19:05.960
this happened, So when somebody won't talk to us about it,
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00:19:06.240 --> 00:19:10.720
they must either be lying part of it, or afraid
323
00:19:11.039 --> 00:19:16.039
of Scott or Little Life or team afraid of law
324
00:19:16.119 --> 00:19:22.559
enforcement in Upshire County. Don't know who's involved and this
325
00:19:22.599 --> 00:19:24.200
is how they put it. We had to show them
326
00:19:24.200 --> 00:19:27.480
who had the power. In fact, there's an exchange with
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00:19:27.559 --> 00:19:31.480
Kannie or Wanda in one of their interviews subsequent to
328
00:19:31.559 --> 00:19:36.079
the indictments where they say the response from Connie or
329
00:19:36.079 --> 00:19:38.759
Wander was, we didn't know you had that kind of power.
330
00:19:39.559 --> 00:19:45.519
So in their minds, it would let whoever they're talking to,
331
00:19:45.640 --> 00:19:49.640
who had information that they wanted, know, we're more powerful
332
00:19:49.799 --> 00:19:53.160
than what you're afraid of, so you can talk to us.
333
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That's why they indicted it.
334
00:19:55.359 --> 00:19:59.039
So they were using indictment as a tool for their investigation.
335
00:19:59.319 --> 00:20:01.799
Yes, I think that's right. You know there was a
336
00:20:01.799 --> 00:20:03.920
great deal of ignorance involved in that approach.
337
00:20:04.599 --> 00:20:07.960
On March fourteenth, Shane was back in Gilmer his first
338
00:20:07.960 --> 00:20:11.480
pre trial hearing as the lead prosecutor after taking over
339
00:20:11.519 --> 00:20:15.559
for Scott Leiford. Nearly everyone in the courtroom was expecting
340
00:20:15.640 --> 00:20:16.519
routine stuff.
341
00:20:17.319 --> 00:20:22.720
We went to Gilmer for the first setting. Basically what
342
00:20:22.839 --> 00:20:28.400
was an arrangement on all of the defendants. So they
343
00:20:28.400 --> 00:20:29.960
were all in the court. I'll never forget this one,
344
00:20:30.000 --> 00:20:32.079
all in the courtroom, all their lawyers are in the courtroom,
345
00:20:32.480 --> 00:20:34.079
and the judge called the case and I said, well,
346
00:20:34.119 --> 00:20:37.880
judge the timber We're going to dismiss everything, which took
347
00:20:37.920 --> 00:20:39.000
a lot of people by surprise.
348
00:20:39.119 --> 00:20:44.880
They did not expect that kidnapping, rape, murder. Just like that,
349
00:20:45.240 --> 00:20:48.359
all the charges involving Kelly Wilson, they were gone.
350
00:20:48.880 --> 00:20:52.319
Sort of, it is back to square one in the
351
00:20:52.440 --> 00:20:55.759
Kelly Wilson case. Could happen in everyone. Charges against eight
352
00:20:55.799 --> 00:20:58.559
people in the Kelly Wilson case have been dropped. The
353
00:20:58.559 --> 00:21:01.519
Attorney General's office moved were dismissal of the chargers deal
354
00:21:01.599 --> 00:21:04.640
with a lack of evidence. Judge James Zimmerman granted the
355
00:21:04.680 --> 00:21:08.200
motion this morning, and now eight people, including Sergeant James Brown,
356
00:21:08.400 --> 00:21:12.839
Don Holman, Danny Kerr, Eugene Kerr, Geneva Kerr, Wendel Kerr,
357
00:21:12.880 --> 00:21:16.480
Tammy Smith, and Wanda Kerr, are no longer suspects in
358
00:21:16.519 --> 00:21:19.559
the Kelly Wilson case. The state says the Wilson case
359
00:21:19.599 --> 00:21:20.240
remains open.
360
00:21:20.599 --> 00:21:23.640
This preliminary hearing originally was scheduled to go over motions
361
00:21:23.640 --> 00:21:26.759
by attorneys and to also look at the pre trial order.
362
00:21:26.920 --> 00:21:29.799
But after this development, many people are now just scratching
363
00:21:29.799 --> 00:21:30.880
their heads in disbelief.
364
00:21:31.640 --> 00:21:33.680
I think the judge was actually quoted at some point
365
00:21:34.279 --> 00:21:37.519
saying I just had no idea that was coming. I
366
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didn't give anybody any warning, and there was no reason to.
367
00:21:40.799 --> 00:21:43.440
Raymond's mom, Tammy was just as clueless.
368
00:21:44.599 --> 00:21:47.119
I didn't know it was going to happen. I was
369
00:21:47.160 --> 00:21:53.880
sitting in jail and it was lunchtime, and I was
370
00:21:53.920 --> 00:21:54.759
sitting right in.
371
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Front of the TV fixing to eat lunch in jail,
372
00:21:57.960 --> 00:22:01.519
and all of a sudden, this kicker came on on
373
00:22:01.559 --> 00:22:05.279
the bottom of the screen and it said all charges
374
00:22:05.400 --> 00:22:07.880
in the Gilmer Killy Wilson case.
375
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Had been and I remember just thinking, holy shit, we're
376
00:22:13.119 --> 00:22:14.119
gonna get out of here.
377
00:22:14.839 --> 00:22:17.359
That was on a Monday, when Shane dismissed the charges.
378
00:22:17.920 --> 00:22:21.519
By Friday, Don and Tammy were out of jail unreduced bond.
379
00:22:22.000 --> 00:22:24.599
As for the parents of Kelly Wilson, they were split
380
00:22:24.640 --> 00:22:29.160
when the case imploded. On one side Kelly's mom and Stepdadlene.
381
00:22:29.160 --> 00:22:31.960
What about reaction tonight from Kelly's parents.
382
00:22:32.200 --> 00:22:34.960
We talked with the Carlsons this afternoon and they said
383
00:22:34.960 --> 00:22:36.519
that they were basically stunned.
384
00:22:37.240 --> 00:22:38.799
On the other side was Kelly's dad.
385
00:22:38.880 --> 00:22:43.279
Robbie worked with James pretty close for the last two years. Firstly,
386
00:22:43.400 --> 00:22:45.559
my gut thinking the names. He has no involvement in it.
387
00:22:45.640 --> 00:22:49.680
And secondly, we were presented with no evidence.
388
00:22:49.319 --> 00:22:54.599
Towards James Brown was a free man, believe it or not.
389
00:22:54.759 --> 00:22:59.519
Though James wasn't thrilled, but what has happened to me
390
00:23:00.079 --> 00:23:04.960
to date is a travesty.
391
00:23:05.759 --> 00:23:09.440
I have always maintained my innocence and still do.
392
00:23:10.400 --> 00:23:12.279
We would haveferred.
393
00:23:14.359 --> 00:23:16.200
To have been able to have a speak trial in
394
00:23:16.240 --> 00:23:20.440
this guy. We would haveferred to be able to take
395
00:23:20.519 --> 00:23:23.640
Connie Martin's deposition so we can see whether or not.
396
00:23:25.160 --> 00:23:26.319
You know she's telling me the truth.
397
00:23:27.480 --> 00:23:30.960
James Brown and his attorney David Moore actually wanted to
398
00:23:30.960 --> 00:23:34.640
take the case to trial. Sergeant Brown's reputation had already
399
00:23:34.680 --> 00:23:37.480
been so tarnished in gilmer He wanted a chance to
400
00:23:37.599 --> 00:23:40.680
prove without a shadow of a doubt that he was innocent,
401
00:23:41.119 --> 00:23:43.240
not just in the court of law, in the court
402
00:23:43.279 --> 00:23:44.440
of public opinion too.
403
00:23:45.200 --> 00:23:47.200
I would ask if he would move back to Gilmour.
404
00:23:47.200 --> 00:23:48.240
Brown seemed unsure.
405
00:23:48.920 --> 00:23:54.880
There's a lot of herd, there's.
406
00:23:54.680 --> 00:23:55.559
Been a lot of stress.
407
00:23:57.079 --> 00:23:58.920
Well, Brown is out of jail. The knife it seven
408
00:23:58.960 --> 00:24:01.440
others charged in the will and case remained behind bars.
409
00:24:01.559 --> 00:24:03.839
Several members of the Kerr family and others are still
410
00:24:03.839 --> 00:24:07.000
being held charged with several accounts of child molestation. But
411
00:24:07.079 --> 00:24:09.319
despite that, Danny Kerry today from his jail cell in
412
00:24:09.400 --> 00:24:11.559
Upsu County, said he was happy to hear charges in
413
00:24:11.599 --> 00:24:13.039
the Wilson case were dropped.
414
00:24:14.119 --> 00:24:18.359
Well, I'm more relieved than anything else. It's just like
415
00:24:18.400 --> 00:24:22.519
I said, all these murder charges were bound. I didn't
416
00:24:22.559 --> 00:24:24.640
want to get back to my normal life like it's
417
00:24:24.640 --> 00:24:25.200
supposed to be.
418
00:24:26.279 --> 00:24:30.799
The molestation trial against Raymond's stepdad, Dawn, was actually scheduled
419
00:24:30.839 --> 00:24:33.599
to begin in just a week's time, but the Attorney
420
00:24:33.640 --> 00:24:36.680
General's office decided to postpone Dawn's and all the other
421
00:24:36.720 --> 00:24:41.039
molestation cases. Assistant Attorney General Shane Phelps had to regroup.
422
00:24:41.559 --> 00:24:43.920
He just made a bunch of enemies in Gilmer.
423
00:24:45.480 --> 00:24:50.880
There really was quite a bit of a fure about
424
00:24:51.279 --> 00:24:54.640
the dismissals because by this time the life Or team
425
00:24:54.640 --> 00:24:58.480
had really gathered kind of a following. It's almost like
426
00:24:58.480 --> 00:25:03.400
a cult of people who just believed this happened so
427
00:25:03.519 --> 00:25:06.599
again in their in their minds. If I step in
428
00:25:06.759 --> 00:25:12.279
and dismiss them all, then I'm corrupt. Not this guy's
429
00:25:12.319 --> 00:25:13.880
been doing this for a long time. He knows what
430
00:25:13.960 --> 00:25:16.839
he's doing and so on. It was I'm corrupt, I
431
00:25:16.880 --> 00:25:22.240
must be protecting powerful people in Upshire County from this
432
00:25:22.319 --> 00:25:26.839
information getting out. But I also, you know, made it
433
00:25:26.920 --> 00:25:31.440
clear that we were going to devote the full resources
434
00:25:31.440 --> 00:25:35.359
of my division in the Attorney Dental's office to investigating
435
00:25:35.359 --> 00:25:37.000
this whole thing, and we would be back before the
436
00:25:37.039 --> 00:25:38.240
grand jury.
437
00:25:38.440 --> 00:25:41.519
Shane was going to reinvestigate the kidnapping and death of
438
00:25:41.599 --> 00:25:44.480
Kelly Wilson, and then he'd take the case back in
439
00:25:44.519 --> 00:25:47.839
front of the grand jury, the same grand jury that
440
00:25:47.920 --> 00:25:51.720
indicted Sergeant Brown, the curs and Don and Tammy in
441
00:25:51.759 --> 00:25:55.160
the first place. But he couldn't hold the grand jury forever.
442
00:25:55.880 --> 00:26:03.920
He had three months.
443
00:26:06.960 --> 00:26:09.480
I guess. I dismissed the charges in the March, and
444
00:26:09.519 --> 00:26:10.200
I was back in.
445
00:26:10.200 --> 00:26:12.160
June Shane Phelps again.
446
00:26:13.200 --> 00:26:18.759
So maybe three months that's all we did. And we
447
00:26:18.839 --> 00:26:23.880
devoted thousands of man hours to that case. We worked
448
00:26:23.880 --> 00:26:26.079
with the FBI, we worked with the Sheriff's department, the
449
00:26:26.119 --> 00:26:29.759
police department. A big part of that focus was on
450
00:26:30.480 --> 00:26:33.160
changed around really involved, and we got things like his
451
00:26:33.240 --> 00:26:37.359
lawyer provided to us his personal diary that that was
452
00:26:37.400 --> 00:26:39.920
clearly his personal diary that recorded you know, a lot
453
00:26:39.920 --> 00:26:45.000
of his investigation into into Kelly's disappearance. You know, we
454
00:26:45.039 --> 00:26:48.599
talked to FBI agents who who were involved at that
455
00:26:48.720 --> 00:26:50.759
early stages, and we're saying this guy was doing everything
456
00:26:50.759 --> 00:26:54.559
he could to find this girl. Of police officers he
457
00:26:54.640 --> 00:26:56.160
worked with, We're talking about the fact that he was
458
00:26:56.200 --> 00:27:00.680
working around the clock when all this is supposed to happen, Right,
459
00:27:00.759 --> 00:27:03.039
He's working with people trying to find this girl while
460
00:27:03.039 --> 00:27:07.920
he's allegedly part of this cult that is were theoretically
461
00:27:07.960 --> 00:27:11.759
she was still alive, and so he would work to
462
00:27:11.759 --> 00:27:15.000
find her and then go get involved in It was
463
00:27:15.039 --> 00:27:19.400
just absurd. I have no doubt we were able to
464
00:27:19.440 --> 00:27:23.960
alibi him. He just had nothing to do with this.
465
00:27:26.079 --> 00:27:29.559
Only we had his his journal, We had his He
466
00:27:29.599 --> 00:27:31.640
was alibied by I think at the time, his girlfriend.
467
00:27:33.960 --> 00:27:37.240
The FBI. Actually, he just didn't have anything to do
468
00:27:37.359 --> 00:27:42.440
with that. That's and that made me angry because you know,
469
00:27:42.440 --> 00:27:44.480
we're talking about a death penalty case, but we're also
470
00:27:44.519 --> 00:27:48.680
talking about them destroying the career of a guy. And
471
00:27:48.759 --> 00:27:51.039
in law enforcement. I mean, I don't know that James Brown.
472
00:27:51.079 --> 00:27:53.400
I mean he was a chargeant in the Gilbert Police Department.
473
00:27:54.559 --> 00:27:56.440
I did not know who he was. I just knew
474
00:27:56.440 --> 00:27:58.279
he was a police officer who had been in charge
475
00:27:58.279 --> 00:28:02.000
of these crimes. And it became absolutely clear to me
476
00:28:02.039 --> 00:28:04.960
over the next ninety days getting the thing ready to
477
00:28:04.960 --> 00:28:06.559
go back to the grand jury, that he didn't have
478
00:28:06.559 --> 00:28:08.119
anything to do with it at all, that he was
479
00:28:08.160 --> 00:28:12.039
a victim, and as were all these other people, because
480
00:28:12.119 --> 00:28:14.680
there was no evidence to support like window Kerr. I mean,
481
00:28:14.720 --> 00:28:18.759
I got those original bills of lading and hotel receipts
482
00:28:18.759 --> 00:28:21.240
and gas receipts and sent those to the Department of
483
00:28:21.240 --> 00:28:26.240
Public Safety crime Lab, which Scott Leiford could have done,
484
00:28:26.319 --> 00:28:32.400
and they confirmed one percent these are original signatures by
485
00:28:32.839 --> 00:28:37.640
window Kerr. And I knew when I saw the bills
486
00:28:37.680 --> 00:28:39.880
of lading and his exemplar that it was the same guy.
487
00:28:40.519 --> 00:28:42.480
It was clear to me, But we sent it to
488
00:28:42.480 --> 00:28:45.799
the Department of Public Safety anyway for their forensic handwriting
489
00:28:45.839 --> 00:28:47.759
group to take a look at it, and they confirmed
490
00:28:49.039 --> 00:28:51.559
this was Wendell Kerr. He was out of the state
491
00:28:51.599 --> 00:28:52.319
the entire time.
492
00:28:52.880 --> 00:28:55.720
In June of nineteen ninety four, Shane Phelps took his
493
00:28:55.799 --> 00:28:59.160
findings back to the Grand Jury in Gilmer. By this time,
494
00:28:59.279 --> 00:29:02.799
Shane was so convinced of the suspect's innocence. He did
495
00:29:02.839 --> 00:29:05.960
something kind of unusual. He didn't even give the grand
496
00:29:06.000 --> 00:29:09.119
jury a chance to reindict Sergeant Brown and the others.
497
00:29:09.400 --> 00:29:11.440
The fact is, I wasn't going to present an indictment
498
00:29:11.440 --> 00:29:13.839
against people I knew to be innocent of these charges.
499
00:29:16.039 --> 00:29:18.720
So I made a decision. I did some things that
500
00:29:18.720 --> 00:29:28.680
were somewhat irregular in this whole thing. When the grand
501
00:29:28.720 --> 00:29:37.440
jury basically agreed with me, I had prepared a statement
502
00:29:37.480 --> 00:29:40.160
that I showed a grand jury, and they said yes.
503
00:29:41.039 --> 00:29:43.160
So I had a press conference as soon as we
504
00:29:43.160 --> 00:29:47.759
were done. We were in the courthouse, had been going
505
00:29:47.799 --> 00:29:51.000
in and out of the grand jury. I remember the
506
00:29:51.039 --> 00:29:54.319
press was just it was crazy. There was press everywhere.
507
00:29:54.200 --> 00:29:56.119
They were following me to the bathroom.
508
00:29:56.920 --> 00:29:57.559
It was wild.
509
00:29:58.079 --> 00:29:59.960
To the coke machine. I mean, I couldn't say anything.
510
00:30:00.759 --> 00:30:02.400
You know, I'm not going to make a comment about
511
00:30:02.400 --> 00:30:04.799
an ongoing investigation. I'm not going to tell you what
512
00:30:04.839 --> 00:30:07.400
happened in the grand jury because it's secret. The reason
513
00:30:07.440 --> 00:30:11.160
it's secret. So it was it was a bit of
514
00:30:11.200 --> 00:30:15.000
pandemonium attached on this and a lot of a lot
515
00:30:15.000 --> 00:30:19.000
of tension, a lot of high tension just across the board.
516
00:30:19.960 --> 00:30:23.359
It was. It was a bit of a circus. But
517
00:30:23.400 --> 00:30:26.519
I understood that people were interested in this case for
518
00:30:26.599 --> 00:30:27.559
obvious reasons.
519
00:30:29.240 --> 00:30:31.759
I think he did did what he said he was
520
00:30:31.799 --> 00:30:34.359
going to do, and that was look at it, look
521
00:30:34.359 --> 00:30:37.400
at it objectively, and when he did, he dismissed the case.
522
00:30:37.599 --> 00:30:40.640
That's Sergeant Brown's attorney, David Moore again fact.
523
00:30:40.680 --> 00:30:43.720
Not only did they just dismiss it, he made a
524
00:30:43.880 --> 00:30:48.119
statement to the media that it won a matter of
525
00:30:48.119 --> 00:30:51.519
not having enough evidence, but he said James Yort Brown
526
00:30:51.680 --> 00:30:57.240
is in fact an innocent man, which was a stout
527
00:30:57.279 --> 00:31:01.119
comment for a prosecutor to make, andppreciating him doing that.
528
00:31:02.559 --> 00:31:05.319
Oh, I remember it quite well. I think I said
529
00:31:05.400 --> 00:31:08.720
James Brown had nothing to do with this, he is innocent,
530
00:31:10.440 --> 00:31:15.519
because I guess that's kind of a personal thing. I
531
00:31:15.640 --> 00:31:18.599
think James Brown deserved having somebody in a position of
532
00:31:18.640 --> 00:31:21.319
authority tell the rest of the world he didn't have
533
00:31:21.319 --> 00:31:28.400
anything to do with it. I know the insidious power
534
00:31:28.440 --> 00:31:33.640
of an accusation. That is, even if it's disproved, people
535
00:31:34.279 --> 00:31:37.200
will still there are some people out there stood believe it.
536
00:31:38.359 --> 00:31:42.279
And I kind of slammed the life or team. People
537
00:31:42.319 --> 00:31:49.799
needed to hear that this was such a disruptive event
538
00:31:49.960 --> 00:31:54.200
in the lives of so many people. But James Brown
539
00:31:54.240 --> 00:31:59.160
had been accused of brutally raping, torturing, and abducting and
540
00:31:59.279 --> 00:32:03.400
murdering a seventeen year old girl. If I had just
541
00:32:03.440 --> 00:32:05.240
gotten in a plane and flown back to Austin, how
542
00:32:05.279 --> 00:32:07.640
would he have ever lived that down? Well, that he
543
00:32:07.880 --> 00:32:09.279
needed somebody to say.
544
00:32:09.079 --> 00:32:12.599
That, I mean, one of there's so many tragedies in
545
00:32:12.640 --> 00:32:15.880
this story, but one of the big ones is that
546
00:32:16.839 --> 00:32:21.319
so many people in Gilmer still think that James Brown
547
00:32:21.440 --> 00:32:22.720
had something to do with this.
548
00:32:23.319 --> 00:32:25.960
That's what I say. That's the insidious power of an accusation,
549
00:32:26.039 --> 00:32:33.440
particularly a wrongful accusation, And those people, you know, felt
550
00:32:33.440 --> 00:32:36.359
great of the same nonsense that I think Scott Leiffer did,
551
00:32:36.400 --> 00:32:40.319
because I think this Scott Leifert wasn't experienced, He didn't
552
00:32:40.359 --> 00:32:45.440
know how to conduct a criminal investigation, and he was
553
00:32:45.480 --> 00:32:49.279
swayed by this nonsense he was hearing from bags and flag.
554
00:32:50.599 --> 00:32:54.039
Even the victim's mom cappy at first, he said this
555
00:32:54.079 --> 00:32:56.880
is this can't be true, but at some points she
556
00:32:57.039 --> 00:32:57.599
was persuaded.
557
00:32:57.640 --> 00:33:02.319
Otherwise, his dad never did. I mean, he was relieved
558
00:33:02.359 --> 00:33:07.640
when when James was exonerated and these and these indictments
559
00:33:07.680 --> 00:33:12.799
were dismissed. It was you know, you asked the question,
560
00:33:15.279 --> 00:33:17.359
you know, why did I do that? Because, as I say,
561
00:33:17.400 --> 00:33:21.759
it was a fairly irregular thing from my perspective, from
562
00:33:21.799 --> 00:33:29.720
my moral framework, from my ethical foundation of being a prosecutor,
563
00:33:30.480 --> 00:33:33.279
I didn't think I had any of the choice. You
564
00:33:33.279 --> 00:33:35.400
can't just point to figure at somebody and say horrible
565
00:33:35.400 --> 00:33:37.559
things about them and then when you know you're wrong,
566
00:33:38.599 --> 00:33:45.480
not corrected, and that's that's what we did. I to
567
00:33:45.559 --> 00:33:49.519
this day have absolutely no regrets about doing that. I
568
00:33:49.559 --> 00:33:50.920
think it was the right thing to do.
569
00:33:52.319 --> 00:33:56.039
Shane's decision angered a lot of people in Gilmer. Remember
570
00:33:56.079 --> 00:33:58.920
Melvin Dodd, the Gilmer school teacher and co founder of
571
00:33:58.960 --> 00:34:02.440
the Justice for Kelly Wilson Committee. When Melvin read Shane's
572
00:34:02.440 --> 00:34:06.319
statement in the newspaper, he immediately called his friend Harvey,
573
00:34:06.519 --> 00:34:07.920
who'd sat on the grand jury.
574
00:34:08.519 --> 00:34:10.960
And then the charge has been dropped. They were dropped
575
00:34:10.960 --> 00:34:17.079
by the Texas Attorney General's Office, and there was a
576
00:34:17.159 --> 00:34:20.880
statement in there they said that they were acting on
577
00:34:21.119 --> 00:34:25.719
behalf of the grand jury. I'm trying to think of
578
00:34:25.760 --> 00:34:29.159
the name of the man from the Attorney General's Office who,
579
00:34:29.239 --> 00:34:30.760
in my opinion's totals.
580
00:34:30.440 --> 00:34:32.119
Come back Shane Phelps.
581
00:34:32.719 --> 00:34:37.440
Shane, Yeah, Shane Phelps. So I read Harvey Rason this
582
00:34:37.599 --> 00:34:43.400
statement where Shane Phelps said that the grand jury requested
583
00:34:44.599 --> 00:34:49.039
that they dropped the charges. This is the way Harvey
584
00:34:49.199 --> 00:34:50.400
Rason spoke to.
585
00:34:50.360 --> 00:35:05.559
Me, Melvin. The grand jury took no action, So every
586
00:35:05.639 --> 00:35:08.400
raceing was saying that that was a lie. The grand
587
00:35:08.480 --> 00:35:13.800
jury absolutely did not ask Shane Phepps and Lisa Tanner
588
00:35:13.840 --> 00:35:16.559
and the Attorney General's office to drop the charges.
589
00:35:17.559 --> 00:35:21.440
But our rations dead now, so he he was not
590
00:35:21.639 --> 00:35:24.199
convinced then to drop the charges. He would have.
591
00:35:24.760 --> 00:35:27.960
Oh, he was upset that the charges were dropped.
592
00:35:29.800 --> 00:35:30.119
Now.
593
00:35:30.519 --> 00:35:35.000
We had on the south side of the court House
594
00:35:35.199 --> 00:35:42.079
in Gilmer a rally called Justice for Kelly Wilson. And
595
00:35:42.280 --> 00:35:45.320
I think I didn't go around county, but I think
596
00:35:45.400 --> 00:35:48.760
we probably had over five hundred people there.
597
00:35:50.800 --> 00:35:53.519
You know, a little bit of knowledge about the criminal
598
00:35:53.599 --> 00:35:56.480
justice system can be dangerous. So everybody assumed that because
599
00:35:56.480 --> 00:36:02.320
the grand jury didn't no. Billet said, that means that
600
00:36:02.360 --> 00:36:04.239
there must have been something going on that I fooled
601
00:36:04.239 --> 00:36:06.000
the grand jury in which is nonsense.
602
00:36:06.280 --> 00:36:08.880
The Justice for Kelly Wilson committee would go on to
603
00:36:08.920 --> 00:36:12.199
hold a bunch of rallies. They even protested outside the
604
00:36:12.199 --> 00:36:16.119
Attorney General's office in Austin, but their protests went nowhere.
605
00:36:16.400 --> 00:36:19.400
To this day, many Gilmer residents believe Shane was part
606
00:36:19.440 --> 00:36:23.760
of a conspiracy to protect evildoers, and Gore, the CPS
607
00:36:23.760 --> 00:36:27.159
caseworker who uncovered the abuse in the curR home, is
608
00:36:27.199 --> 00:36:28.000
among them.
609
00:36:28.320 --> 00:36:30.880
And I talked to Anne Gore.
610
00:36:31.280 --> 00:36:37.840
She wouldn't talk for the recorders, but she still professes
611
00:36:37.920 --> 00:36:43.079
to believe that, you know, she thinks she was in
612
00:36:43.119 --> 00:36:45.159
the right. You know, she thinks that she was like
613
00:36:45.960 --> 00:36:47.920
following this holy crusade or something.
614
00:36:48.519 --> 00:36:51.239
You know. I suppose, you know, I can't speak for
615
00:36:51.280 --> 00:36:56.039
Anne Gore. I suppose when you get so invested in
616
00:36:56.119 --> 00:37:04.039
something being true that cause was so much damage that
617
00:37:04.760 --> 00:37:09.000
I guess from a psychological perspective, you just can't admit
618
00:37:09.079 --> 00:37:15.719
you were wrong. I feel sorry for her, you know,
619
00:37:15.960 --> 00:37:21.280
laboring under a you know, an apprehension that is just
620
00:37:21.480 --> 00:37:24.639
not true. We know it not to be true, and
621
00:37:24.760 --> 00:37:27.760
yet in her mind, for the rest of her life,
622
00:37:27.760 --> 00:37:30.159
she's going to think it was. And some horrible things happened.
623
00:37:30.199 --> 00:37:34.000
And in terms of you know, killers getting away with it,
624
00:37:35.519 --> 00:37:39.320
people in power protecting other people in power, I mean,
625
00:37:39.320 --> 00:37:44.440
it is a fantasy world that she lives in that
626
00:37:44.519 --> 00:37:47.159
I guess she just can't disabuse herself, which is which
627
00:37:47.159 --> 00:37:47.840
is tragedy.
628
00:37:48.559 --> 00:37:51.079
And then the injustice of.
629
00:37:53.159 --> 00:37:57.599
You know, there was actual abuse that was kind of
630
00:37:58.519 --> 00:38:01.119
paper over, you know, because it morphed.
631
00:38:00.760 --> 00:38:04.119
Into this story as he did. And a Gore and
632
00:38:04.199 --> 00:38:08.039
Debbie Minshew and Brooks slag and Scott or Steve Baggs
633
00:38:08.280 --> 00:38:11.519
and Scott Lafford are responsible for the people who abuse
634
00:38:11.559 --> 00:38:17.880
those kids never being held responsible. It's their fault because
635
00:38:17.920 --> 00:38:22.840
they contaminated those children to the extent that those children
636
00:38:22.960 --> 00:38:27.000
could never be credible in the court of law. I mean,
637
00:38:27.039 --> 00:38:30.440
you can imagine the cross examination when we start talking about,
638
00:38:30.440 --> 00:38:34.760
well you also saw those penis shaped elevators, didn't you. Yeah,
639
00:38:34.800 --> 00:38:37.679
and nobody would believe. I mean, these children were horribly
640
00:38:37.760 --> 00:38:41.840
manipulated and they were destroyed in terms of their credibility
641
00:38:41.880 --> 00:38:45.800
and frankly, how much damage did it do to these kids?
642
00:38:46.920 --> 00:38:48.280
It did a ton of damage.
643
00:38:48.719 --> 00:38:51.840
To evaluate Raymond and the Kirk kids, the state of
644
00:38:51.880 --> 00:38:56.039
Texas hired a noted psychiatrist named Bruce Perry. His research
645
00:38:56.079 --> 00:38:59.039
focuses on the long term effects of trauma and children,
646
00:38:59.280 --> 00:39:01.840
and he's been an expert witness and a number of
647
00:39:01.920 --> 00:39:07.039
high profile incidents, including the Oklahoma bombing and the Columbine massacre.
648
00:39:07.280 --> 00:39:09.360
You know, one of the reasons that Bruce Perry came
649
00:39:09.400 --> 00:39:11.760
into the picture was to try and deal with these children,
650
00:39:11.760 --> 00:39:15.360
to try and sort this out. Can can these cases
651
00:39:15.400 --> 00:39:19.719
be salvaged? And the bottom line was non. I could
652
00:39:19.760 --> 00:39:23.400
not be salvaged. And that was hard, you know, but again,
653
00:39:23.519 --> 00:39:26.920
you walk away as a good prosecutor from a case,
654
00:39:27.079 --> 00:39:30.840
even though you may believe that the person is guilty,
655
00:39:30.880 --> 00:39:35.079
but if it has been so compromised because of misconduct
656
00:39:36.559 --> 00:39:39.360
and the credibility of the children has been so destroyed,
657
00:39:41.480 --> 00:39:44.280
you may not like it. You have no choice. You
658
00:39:44.400 --> 00:39:47.039
have to walk away. And that's what happened in that case.
659
00:39:48.559 --> 00:39:51.320
We had to dismiss and I had already left the
660
00:39:51.320 --> 00:39:53.440
AG's office. Wouldn't happen, but we all knew it was
661
00:39:53.440 --> 00:39:56.519
going to happen. That was one of our biggest concerns
662
00:39:57.239 --> 00:39:59.400
was is there any way to salvage these cases against
663
00:39:59.400 --> 00:40:01.480
these people who may or may not have I mean,
664
00:40:01.519 --> 00:40:04.679
I can't tell you at this point. I believe something happened.
665
00:40:05.559 --> 00:40:08.280
I believe there was some validity in those original cases
666
00:40:08.960 --> 00:40:13.360
but it was all just lost in all of the subnunsense.
667
00:40:13.719 --> 00:40:16.840
So not only was the search for Kelly Wilson lost
668
00:40:16.960 --> 00:40:19.800
in the hysteria, there was very little doubt that at
669
00:40:19.880 --> 00:40:22.719
least some members of the Kerr family had abused their
670
00:40:22.719 --> 00:40:27.000
own kids. In those cases, they were ruined too. But
671
00:40:27.079 --> 00:40:30.119
there was a bright side. Don and Tammy hadn't done
672
00:40:30.199 --> 00:40:33.519
anything wrong. Their son Raymond had been pressured into making
673
00:40:33.639 --> 00:40:36.880
up abuse claims against them. For all this time, Don
674
00:40:36.880 --> 00:40:39.719
and Tammy had been waiting for justice too. Folks and
675
00:40:39.760 --> 00:40:42.480
Gilmer were split on their guilt or innocence.
676
00:40:42.679 --> 00:40:46.400
Somebody took a spray paint and spray painted a big
677
00:40:46.440 --> 00:40:52.239
IM on my car for molester. He had a big Cadillac,
678
00:40:52.519 --> 00:40:56.239
Maroon Cadillac, and I mean this huge m spray painting
679
00:40:56.480 --> 00:40:58.039
all over my Cadillac.
680
00:40:58.480 --> 00:41:04.039
So much stuff that want and people were so hateful,
681
00:41:05.559 --> 00:41:10.079
big old go limb written across tobacco it and people
682
00:41:10.119 --> 00:41:11.840
told me how to get it off. I said, I
683
00:41:11.840 --> 00:41:14.280
ain't getting it off. I drove around town with it
684
00:41:14.360 --> 00:41:16.159
on there. I mean, like you want to call me
685
00:41:16.159 --> 00:41:19.480
a name? I said, Now it's gone. Now it finally
686
00:41:19.480 --> 00:41:19.920
wore all.
687
00:41:21.360 --> 00:41:24.039
Don was also fielding anonymous phone calls.
688
00:41:25.039 --> 00:41:29.800
Like, hey, yeah, ho's this. Well I just saw you
689
00:41:29.840 --> 00:41:33.360
on TV and I thought she's good looking and I'd
690
00:41:33.480 --> 00:41:35.639
like to get to know you. And I said, well,
691
00:41:36.199 --> 00:41:38.719
I got me a woman and I'm faithful to her.
692
00:41:39.159 --> 00:41:44.119
Well okay, and one of us said, hey, you you
693
00:41:44.320 --> 00:41:50.599
that guy like to eat women, you know, and well
694
00:41:51.119 --> 00:41:52.239
killed then eat them.
695
00:41:52.400 --> 00:41:54.639
Don tries to make light of things now, but the
696
00:41:54.719 --> 00:41:56.960
legal limbo was clearly taking a toll.
697
00:41:57.519 --> 00:42:00.199
We got to coordinate and then they cancel it court
698
00:42:00.280 --> 00:42:02.400
they knew they cancel it, and I mean, my nerves
699
00:42:02.400 --> 00:42:05.960
were just shot. And I remember one day I broke
700
00:42:06.039 --> 00:42:09.440
down crimes so hard, right in the middle of work,
701
00:42:09.880 --> 00:42:12.960
and I was a cashier at a convenience store and
702
00:42:13.000 --> 00:42:14.800
there was it was full, and I remember this guy
703
00:42:14.920 --> 00:42:18.239
walked up to me, goes, baby, we've been watching you
704
00:42:18.400 --> 00:42:22.280
for years. He goes, You've been so strong, he said,
705
00:42:22.320 --> 00:42:24.800
don't give up now, and I just I was like,
706
00:42:24.960 --> 00:42:26.760
you don't know, you just don't know.
707
00:42:26.920 --> 00:42:28.440
He goes, no, we know you.
708
00:42:28.519 --> 00:42:29.639
We're so proud of you.
709
00:42:29.920 --> 00:42:32.559
And it was just like a lift me up, you know.
710
00:42:32.559 --> 00:42:35.920
I mean, this stranger guy knew who I was. I
711
00:42:35.920 --> 00:42:38.039
didn't even know if they knew because that was the
712
00:42:38.079 --> 00:42:41.280
embarrassing part. You don't know who knows who you are.
713
00:42:41.960 --> 00:42:44.719
You know, and I always feel I had an obligation
714
00:42:44.840 --> 00:42:47.000
when I'd meet you people, I needed to tell them
715
00:42:47.039 --> 00:42:48.159
right off who I was.
716
00:42:50.400 --> 00:42:53.360
Now, thanks to the bungling of Scott Lyfford's team and
717
00:42:53.400 --> 00:42:58.000
the CPS caseworkers, the molestation charges were gone. Don and
718
00:42:58.079 --> 00:43:02.239
Tammy were free and clear, But Raymond he was still
719
00:43:02.280 --> 00:43:09.079
trapped in foster care and Kelly was still missing. Deviltown
720
00:43:09.159 --> 00:43:11.800
is a production of Imperative Entertainment. It was written and
721
00:43:11.840 --> 00:43:15.559
created by me Wes Ferguson. Executive producer is Jason Hoak.
722
00:43:15.719 --> 00:43:19.159
Audio engineering and editing by Shane Freeman and Jason Hoak.
723
00:43:19.559 --> 00:43:23.440
Original score is by Robert Ellis. Recording by Austin Sissler
724
00:43:23.559 --> 00:43:26.320
at Eastside Studios. If you like the show, leave a
725
00:43:26.360 --> 00:43:29.360
review and don't forget to tell your friends thanks for listening.
1
00:00:00.120 --> 00:00:05.759
This podcast is intended for mature audiences. Listener discretion is advised.
2
00:00:16.920 --> 00:00:20.399
A bizarre case is murder, sexual abuse and alleged law
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enforcement misconduct is unfolding here, and it's questioned the innocence
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of children, a police officer, and a legal system. Few
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people question the Kerr children's claims of sexual abuse, but
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it's the stories of devil worshiping and Satanic sacrifice that
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have some wondering if the children may have been led
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or prompted into saying those things by adults. You don't
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believe there's in satanic rituals.
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Nobody nobody found any kind of evidence to show that
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they would.
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If they have, they're not making it public.
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For the past few years, Sergeant James Brown has been
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the only investigator on the Wilson Kate. It was a
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job he volunteered for. Now he's a suspect in her disappearance.
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So our last episode was all about Raymond Smith, the
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little boy who falsely accused his mom and stepdad of
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being in a satanic cult of murdering Kelly Wilson, the
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teenager who vanished on January fifth, nineteen ninety two, from
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the town square in Gilmour two years after Kelly disappeared,
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just to quickly recap, Special Prosecutor Scott Leefford and his
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pair of investigators, Steve Baggs and Brooks Flagg convinced a
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grand jury to indict eight people for the kidnapping, rape,
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and murder of Kelly. The suspects included Gilmert police sergeant
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James York Brown, and Raymond's parents Don and Tammy. They
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were facing death penalty offenses. But there were big problems
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with Leefford's case. Here's Kelly's mom, Kathy on the local news.
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I feel like you'll have to prove it in order
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for us the family to believe, to believe that he's
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going to have to prove it. Beyond shadow of dot,
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this is all happened, and it's the people are involved
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with Kelly's disappearance, and artist got to maintain objectivity and
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they're going to have to have lord and circumstance argents
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and they haven't shown missed anything.
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Special Prosecutor Scott Lyfford's case against Sergeant Brown and its
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co defendants. Most of the members of the Kerr family
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hinged on the witness statements of Raymond and Connie Martin
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the common law wife of one of the Kerr brothers,
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with a little help from Connie's sister in law Wanda,
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if Scott Lyfford had the goods, though he was keeping
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the details to himself.
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I really am not comfortable talking about the evidence at
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this point, and Connie Martin's not being charged because she's
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cooperating with it.
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Another star witness for the Lifer team had already recanted
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Wanda's brother, Lucas.
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A new set back to Lyford's case is Lucas Gear,
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a Kerr family uncle. Gear is currently serving time in
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prison on child molestation charges. In the Search War, Gear
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is listed as a coroborating witness to the children's accounts
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of Satanic rituals and human sacris. He passed a polygraph test,
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but Nawgere says he lied.
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Thank him, kept nay.
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They wanted something.
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They wounded me to go along with them.
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Oh, they'd lead me home, so I had to lead
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them on to enter.
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Shane Phelps, Assistant Attorney General for the State of Texas.
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Now the Texas Attorney General's Office has stepped in. Assistant
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Attorney's General Shane Phelps and Lisa Turner are conducting the
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investigation and working with the grand jury.
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Reviewing the case files, Shane Phelps and his assistant prosecutor,
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Lisa Tanner knew what they had to do. Shane had
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to drop the charges and clear Sergeant Brown's name. By
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this time, Sergeant Brown had already been released after spending
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six days in the county jail. To cover his bond,
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Sergeant Brown's dad put up the family farm as surety,
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but the city council had already voted to suspend Sergeant
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Brown from the police department. No pay, no job. Sergeant
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Brown was so broke he put his own mobile home
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and pickup truck on the market. As for the curs
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and Raymond's parents, his mom Tammy and stepdad Dawn, they
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had it even worse. They were still behind bars.
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I'll never forget being in jail and going into the
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courtroom to be arrain.
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That's Tammy turned myself in.
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I mean, I'll just never forget how shocked I was, like,
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what in the hell is going on? You know, I
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mean it was just crazy. And that was the first
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time you see us coming out in the orange suits.
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That was what was on my.
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Mind as I'd be like, I cannot believe that that
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just happened. You just feel like you're in a movie,
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you know what I mean. It's just feel like it's real.
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You just can't believe. And all I kept thinking is
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these are smart, intelligent people, you know, because like I said,
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I had all trust in our government, I had all
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trust in our system, police officers, and do the right thing,
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do what they say. They're gonna figure this all out.
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They're smart, educated people. Come on, it just kept getting
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stupider worse. I mean, they had like when they would
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interrogate me, they would have pictures of skulls on the table,
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you know, trying to convince me that I had had
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these babies and sacrificed them to the devil.
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And I was just like, what in the.
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Heck is going on here?
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My lawyer's sitting there going now, Tammy, They're gonna give
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you a deal and give you your kids back in
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six months if you just tell them what happened. And
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I said, Mike, I don't even know what all the
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other girls are saying.
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If I did want to take the deal.
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And he sat there and told me he's up there
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and told me what the other girls were and I'm like,
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I am praying and asking God out of this crap.
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I ain't lying on the one person, and so don't
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ask me again to do that. And because my ownlawyer
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tried to get me to lie and say stuff, this
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is bull crap. When your own lawyer is telling you
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to confess, confess on dawn and lie on dawn. And
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since I'm so much younger, you know, I'm going to
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get off and then we'll fly around and do a
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book deal.
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And this is my lawyer.
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Telling me this crap. I'm like, jeez, I can't trust
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anybody literally.
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Any of this that they alleged actually happened.
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Absolutely none. Absolutely. I have not ever met Kelly Wilson,
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not once. I've never molested my children.
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When she was first locked up, Tammy didn't believe her
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son Raymond would ever accuse her of such horrible crimes.
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After he got in foster care. My lawyer at the time,
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the good one. I can't even think away, he said Tammy. Unfortunately,
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he said, Raymon is a smart kid and he will
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be their star witness. And I went, no, Raman is
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a kurch young boy.
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He will not.
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Lie, Timmy, Yes he will.
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You know.
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That was my lawyer telling me.
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He was, you know, he's being awestome with Timmy.
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They're gonna convert him or whatever because he's smart, and
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they're gonna make him their star witness. And I be
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darned if he wasn't right. I remember one time being
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in jail and one of the guys has books Brooks flag.
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They let him come in. Myself, my one man self, myself,
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and he touches my hand and he goes, how does
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it feel to know you're never gonna know the touch
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of a man? And I just thought, And then he
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looks up at my wall, and you know, in jail,
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you take toothpaste and you stick your pictures on the wall.
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And he goes, I see you're getting used to your
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new home. You're going to have a good married Christmas
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hunchin and he walks out. I mean, I just couldn't
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believe that people were really like that. That's how innocent
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and naive I was. One time I was brought into
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this room and I don't never forget all these big men,
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big men, and there was probably like seven or eight
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of them, and they set me down. They're all looking
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at me like me, mugging me. And they turned on
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this TV and they go, we want you to watch this,
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and I sit down and there's my little Raymond. His
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head's all shaved completely. He's sitting in a chair and
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Anne Gore is on her knees in front of him,
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asking him questions did your mama? And he's putting his
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hands in his mouth and he's mumbling, and she says,
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did your mama do that? And you can tell she's
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like suggests of questioning him over and over and over,
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and them guys are just looking at me like you
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are sick. You ought to be it, you know. I'm
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just sitting there crying and thinking, what is this? What
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what are they doing to my baby? You know, that's
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when I realized my kids are not safe where they're at.
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You know, this isn't what I thought.
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It was anymore.
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For some reason, I always had faith in God that
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it was just gonna get better.
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I always had that faith that it was going to
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get better. I just couldn't believe though that all the lies,
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you know, how these people had.
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So much control.
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And they lie are so bad, and then everybody else
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just lets them. I mean judges. I remember being at
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court and Barbara Best and they're talking about how they
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kept getting these threats and everything. And I'm thinking, we're
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in jail, how can we threaten you? Oh you know
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they were Cannis. We can't call you unless you accept
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the phone called. I mean, there would be records of
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all this stuff.
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And they're saying all these lies in court, and I'm thinking, why.
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Isn't anybody doing anything? Why is this judge sitting here
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allowing these lies when he freaking knows better. I mean,
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I just couldn't. I couldn't grasp it, and I still
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can't grasp it.
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The lurid details and sensational indictments swept East Texas. It
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was all anybody could talk about.
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This case still has many people in Gilma riveted to
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the goings on at the courthouse and wondering if there
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will ever be a resolution to the mystery.
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Every day on the news, we were on the news
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every day for two years.
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On the news.
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Top story.
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It was either Kanya Harding or.
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For us.
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Tanya Harding had nothing on this From Imperative Entertainment, I'm
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wes Ferguson. This is Deviltown. This is chapter six courtroom drama.
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Here's Raymonds stepdad Don Holman.
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I went to a church for about three and a
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half years that you couldn't go the amboree.
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The Yamboree is the fall festival in Gilmer. It's a
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lot like any county fair, parade, Queen's Court, livestock show
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if you throw in a lot of yams. Don is
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a self described Bible thumper. His church back then was
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so strict he couldn't even have fun at the Yamboree.
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You can't watch showbiz pizza, you can't go on a
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trip without asking to get permission from the preacher. And
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I'm not that I was a sergeant in the army.
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I mean I told people what to do in a
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nice way, but they come and ask me, hey home
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and listen my wife. I think my wife's running around
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on me. Would you help me out? You know yeah,
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send her a dozen roses and apologize, you cheat, bastard.
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You know I've been around. I've been a cop before
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in Big Sandy, back when Texas largest man hunt. I
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was a good guy and then all of a sudden
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I'm in jail, going killing, killing eight a seventeen year
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old girl and sacrificed ten babies to the devil. And
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I mean just hateful things to me and put me
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in a dorm with a bunch of idiots. I'm not
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saying idiots. They was all right after I threatened to
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kill them, you know, but one had I kept up
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with him and he got seventy five years from murder,
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nineteen year old black guy. Another one he had tattoos,
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had his head shaved on each sign. Me and him
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used to get a water iglue and work out with it.
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We got along.
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I got along with everybody. Oh and one boy was
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in there in that hole and cell guy. I said,
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what's that all about? Who's that guy? And he goes, oh,
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that's one of them old charm listening curves. And when
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he said that, I walked over to him. I said,
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I said, come here. I said, you see a name
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right there. I said, my name is Don Holman, not Curve.
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Don't call me a curve. He goes, okay. I wasn't
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gonna hurt the guy. But from then on, when he
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woke my my jail, cell, he put his head down.
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You don't, I mean, you don't call me no charm listener.
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When he said you lost a bunch of weight, was
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that fasting? I fasted not to show off. I fasted
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to God. And when they asked me, I'll go get
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you a cheeseburger or whatever want you want to eat,
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I said, ma'am, listen please. I said, I'm not doing
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this to be stubborn headed. I appreciate anything you do.
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And I said, I can't. This is something I got
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to deal with. And I asked one of them, I said,
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you know what I'm in here and she said not really.
248
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I said, they're saying I'm a rapist and a murderer
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and a child lester. And they said want and I
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said yeah. And I said, and I've got to get
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in touch with God. Humbled. I mean, if David said
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I humbled, my soul was fasting, so fasten and he
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doesn't turn away.
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The Humble Down had a long history with the Kirklan
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local family, who's incest and child abuse got tangled up
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with the search for Kelly Wilson. Don says he was
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not particularly close to Wendell, the Kerr brother who was
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first convicted of abusing his own kids, which is how
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the case against the entire family got started, but Don
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00:15:16.279 --> 00:15:18.840
says he and Wendell talked in lock up after they
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were both arrested So when.
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Wendell was telling you about some stuff about his own dad,
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was that when.
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Y'all were in jail.
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What did he say?
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Well, I hate to say this, I really do because
267
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it relates to Wendell, and I don't like to tell
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on him for what he was already done. Roman He said,
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his daddy used to soldomize him. I said, well, Wendell,
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does he do it anymore? He said, well, what I
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would do, I'd go out work, and he said, I
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just take the money home and give it to him.
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He said, after why, he said, I said no more,
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You're not doing this no more? He said. I got mad,
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and he didn't do it no more. I said, when
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let me tell you something, you're not to hold that
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00:16:12.840 --> 00:16:15.840
against you. It's whether you go do somebody else like that.
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I said, you couldn't help that.
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Did Wendall say how old he was when he.
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Was getting abused?
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Young? Young, probably liking grad school.
282
00:16:30.279 --> 00:16:35.080
Wendell, the abused became the abuser. He was also a
283
00:16:35.120 --> 00:16:38.799
truck driver, the one who had shipping receipts which proved
284
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he'd been hauling freight on the East Coast when Kelly disappeared.
285
00:16:43.039 --> 00:16:47.360
The receipts even had Wendell's own signature on them. Although
286
00:16:47.360 --> 00:16:50.080
members of Scott Lyffort's team were convinced that Wendell was
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00:16:50.120 --> 00:16:54.240
a master Satanist who'd forged the receipts, it should have
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00:16:54.279 --> 00:16:57.080
been obvious to anyone else that Wendell had done no
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such thing, whatever his other crime. Wendell, who died in
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00:17:01.559 --> 00:17:05.200
twenty eighteen, was innocent in the murder of Kelly Wilson.
291
00:17:07.319 --> 00:17:10.400
No grand jury's indict based on probable cause. But there
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00:17:10.480 --> 00:17:14.319
wasn't probable cause, and they acknowledged that. Liferd acknowledged that.
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To me that Shane Phelps again.
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00:17:16.960 --> 00:17:20.960
Credible witness statements could be enough, but this was outlandish stuff.
295
00:17:21.519 --> 00:17:23.440
I don't think there's a prosecutor in the state of
296
00:17:23.480 --> 00:17:27.079
Texas who has any sense of what prosecution is about.
297
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Whoever would have been dieted that case if for nothing
298
00:17:30.000 --> 00:17:32.079
else for the fear of I would get my ass
299
00:17:32.079 --> 00:17:35.160
handed to me in court. Because it didn't take long
300
00:17:35.920 --> 00:17:37.039
for their case just to.
301
00:17:37.000 --> 00:17:40.519
Fall apart, Shane says the Lifeer team had lost sight
302
00:17:40.559 --> 00:17:43.240
of what should have been their first priority.
303
00:17:43.440 --> 00:17:47.480
Prosecutors are sworn to do justice, not to seek convictions,
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and to my mind, and this is a case that
305
00:17:50.279 --> 00:17:53.839
I've often pointed to as illustrative of this idea. To
306
00:17:53.920 --> 00:17:57.160
my mind, it is every bit is important, if not
307
00:17:57.359 --> 00:18:00.759
more so, for a prosecutor to protect the innocence than
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00:18:00.839 --> 00:18:05.160
convict the guilty. And I truly believe that it is
309
00:18:05.279 --> 00:18:08.400
more important to make sure that the criminal justicism doesn't
310
00:18:08.440 --> 00:18:11.640
victimize in this person than it is ultimately to convict
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00:18:11.640 --> 00:18:15.680
a guilty person. It's that old adage about you know,
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00:18:15.799 --> 00:18:20.920
ten guilty people go free rather than one innocent person
313
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going to prison or the death end. There's no oversight
314
00:18:26.319 --> 00:18:33.319
to prosecutors in Texas. They have the power to basically
315
00:18:34.720 --> 00:18:39.279
affect the lives of citizens in pretty detrimental ways. Put
316
00:18:39.279 --> 00:18:43.160
people in prison, put people on death row, you know,
317
00:18:43.200 --> 00:18:49.720
and if you're not motivated properly ethically, you will damage people.
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You will end up doing more harm than good. When
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00:18:53.000 --> 00:18:57.519
I told them that their rationalization was nobody was talking
320
00:18:57.519 --> 00:19:02.759
to us, they were again in their mind, we know
321
00:19:02.920 --> 00:19:05.960
this happened, So when somebody won't talk to us about it,
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00:19:06.240 --> 00:19:10.720
they must either be lying part of it, or afraid
323
00:19:11.039 --> 00:19:16.039
of Scott or Little Life or team afraid of law
324
00:19:16.119 --> 00:19:22.559
enforcement in Upshire County. Don't know who's involved and this
325
00:19:22.599 --> 00:19:24.200
is how they put it. We had to show them
326
00:19:24.200 --> 00:19:27.480
who had the power. In fact, there's an exchange with
327
00:19:27.559 --> 00:19:31.480
Kannie or Wanda in one of their interviews subsequent to
328
00:19:31.559 --> 00:19:36.079
the indictments where they say the response from Connie or
329
00:19:36.079 --> 00:19:38.759
Wander was, we didn't know you had that kind of power.
330
00:19:39.559 --> 00:19:45.519
So in their minds, it would let whoever they're talking to,
331
00:19:45.640 --> 00:19:49.640
who had information that they wanted, know, we're more powerful
332
00:19:49.799 --> 00:19:53.160
than what you're afraid of, so you can talk to us.
333
00:19:54.039 --> 00:19:55.160
That's why they indicted it.
334
00:19:55.359 --> 00:19:59.039
So they were using indictment as a tool for their investigation.
335
00:19:59.319 --> 00:20:01.799
Yes, I think that's right. You know there was a
336
00:20:01.799 --> 00:20:03.920
great deal of ignorance involved in that approach.
337
00:20:04.599 --> 00:20:07.960
On March fourteenth, Shane was back in Gilmer his first
338
00:20:07.960 --> 00:20:11.480
pre trial hearing as the lead prosecutor after taking over
339
00:20:11.519 --> 00:20:15.559
for Scott Leiford. Nearly everyone in the courtroom was expecting
340
00:20:15.640 --> 00:20:16.519
routine stuff.
341
00:20:17.319 --> 00:20:22.720
We went to Gilmer for the first setting. Basically what
342
00:20:22.839 --> 00:20:28.400
was an arrangement on all of the defendants. So they
343
00:20:28.400 --> 00:20:29.960
were all in the court. I'll never forget this one,
344
00:20:30.000 --> 00:20:32.079
all in the courtroom, all their lawyers are in the courtroom,
345
00:20:32.480 --> 00:20:34.079
and the judge called the case and I said, well,
346
00:20:34.119 --> 00:20:37.880
judge the timber We're going to dismiss everything, which took
347
00:20:37.920 --> 00:20:39.000
a lot of people by surprise.
348
00:20:39.119 --> 00:20:44.880
They did not expect that kidnapping, rape, murder. Just like that,
349
00:20:45.240 --> 00:20:48.359
all the charges involving Kelly Wilson, they were gone.
350
00:20:48.880 --> 00:20:52.319
Sort of, it is back to square one in the
351
00:20:52.440 --> 00:20:55.759
Kelly Wilson case. Could happen in everyone. Charges against eight
352
00:20:55.799 --> 00:20:58.559
people in the Kelly Wilson case have been dropped. The
353
00:20:58.559 --> 00:21:01.519
Attorney General's office moved were dismissal of the chargers deal
354
00:21:01.599 --> 00:21:04.640
with a lack of evidence. Judge James Zimmerman granted the
355
00:21:04.680 --> 00:21:08.200
motion this morning, and now eight people, including Sergeant James Brown,
356
00:21:08.400 --> 00:21:12.839
Don Holman, Danny Kerr, Eugene Kerr, Geneva Kerr, Wendel Kerr,
357
00:21:12.880 --> 00:21:16.480
Tammy Smith, and Wanda Kerr, are no longer suspects in
358
00:21:16.519 --> 00:21:19.559
the Kelly Wilson case. The state says the Wilson case
359
00:21:19.599 --> 00:21:20.240
remains open.
360
00:21:20.599 --> 00:21:23.640
This preliminary hearing originally was scheduled to go over motions
361
00:21:23.640 --> 00:21:26.759
by attorneys and to also look at the pre trial order.
362
00:21:26.920 --> 00:21:29.799
But after this development, many people are now just scratching
363
00:21:29.799 --> 00:21:30.880
their heads in disbelief.
364
00:21:31.640 --> 00:21:33.680
I think the judge was actually quoted at some point
365
00:21:34.279 --> 00:21:37.519
saying I just had no idea that was coming. I
366
00:21:37.559 --> 00:21:39.799
didn't give anybody any warning, and there was no reason to.
367
00:21:40.799 --> 00:21:43.440
Raymond's mom, Tammy was just as clueless.
368
00:21:44.599 --> 00:21:47.119
I didn't know it was going to happen. I was
369
00:21:47.160 --> 00:21:53.880
sitting in jail and it was lunchtime, and I was
370
00:21:53.920 --> 00:21:54.759
sitting right in.
371
00:21:54.720 --> 00:21:57.839
Front of the TV fixing to eat lunch in jail,
372
00:21:57.960 --> 00:22:01.519
and all of a sudden, this kicker came on on
373
00:22:01.559 --> 00:22:05.279
the bottom of the screen and it said all charges
374
00:22:05.400 --> 00:22:07.880
in the Gilmer Killy Wilson case.
375
00:22:07.599 --> 00:22:13.119
Had been and I remember just thinking, holy shit, we're
376
00:22:13.119 --> 00:22:14.119
gonna get out of here.
377
00:22:14.839 --> 00:22:17.359
That was on a Monday, when Shane dismissed the charges.
378
00:22:17.920 --> 00:22:21.519
By Friday, Don and Tammy were out of jail unreduced bond.
379
00:22:22.000 --> 00:22:24.599
As for the parents of Kelly Wilson, they were split
380
00:22:24.640 --> 00:22:29.160
when the case imploded. On one side Kelly's mom and Stepdadlene.
381
00:22:29.160 --> 00:22:31.960
What about reaction tonight from Kelly's parents.
382
00:22:32.200 --> 00:22:34.960
We talked with the Carlsons this afternoon and they said
383
00:22:34.960 --> 00:22:36.519
that they were basically stunned.
384
00:22:37.240 --> 00:22:38.799
On the other side was Kelly's dad.
385
00:22:38.880 --> 00:22:43.279
Robbie worked with James pretty close for the last two years. Firstly,
386
00:22:43.400 --> 00:22:45.559
my gut thinking the names. He has no involvement in it.
387
00:22:45.640 --> 00:22:49.680
And secondly, we were presented with no evidence.
388
00:22:49.319 --> 00:22:54.599
Towards James Brown was a free man, believe it or not.
389
00:22:54.759 --> 00:22:59.519
Though James wasn't thrilled, but what has happened to me
390
00:23:00.079 --> 00:23:04.960
to date is a travesty.
391
00:23:05.759 --> 00:23:09.440
I have always maintained my innocence and still do.
392
00:23:10.400 --> 00:23:12.279
We would haveferred.
393
00:23:14.359 --> 00:23:16.200
To have been able to have a speak trial in
394
00:23:16.240 --> 00:23:20.440
this guy. We would haveferred to be able to take
395
00:23:20.519 --> 00:23:23.640
Connie Martin's deposition so we can see whether or not.
396
00:23:25.160 --> 00:23:26.319
You know she's telling me the truth.
397
00:23:27.480 --> 00:23:30.960
James Brown and his attorney David Moore actually wanted to
398
00:23:30.960 --> 00:23:34.640
take the case to trial. Sergeant Brown's reputation had already
399
00:23:34.680 --> 00:23:37.480
been so tarnished in gilmer He wanted a chance to
400
00:23:37.599 --> 00:23:40.680
prove without a shadow of a doubt that he was innocent,
401
00:23:41.119 --> 00:23:43.240
not just in the court of law, in the court
402
00:23:43.279 --> 00:23:44.440
of public opinion too.
403
00:23:45.200 --> 00:23:47.200
I would ask if he would move back to Gilmour.
404
00:23:47.200 --> 00:23:48.240
Brown seemed unsure.
405
00:23:48.920 --> 00:23:54.880
There's a lot of herd, there's.
406
00:23:54.680 --> 00:23:55.559
Been a lot of stress.
407
00:23:57.079 --> 00:23:58.920
Well, Brown is out of jail. The knife it seven
408
00:23:58.960 --> 00:24:01.440
others charged in the will and case remained behind bars.
409
00:24:01.559 --> 00:24:03.839
Several members of the Kerr family and others are still
410
00:24:03.839 --> 00:24:07.000
being held charged with several accounts of child molestation. But
411
00:24:07.079 --> 00:24:09.319
despite that, Danny Kerry today from his jail cell in
412
00:24:09.400 --> 00:24:11.559
Upsu County, said he was happy to hear charges in
413
00:24:11.599 --> 00:24:13.039
the Wilson case were dropped.
414
00:24:14.119 --> 00:24:18.359
Well, I'm more relieved than anything else. It's just like
415
00:24:18.400 --> 00:24:22.519
I said, all these murder charges were bound. I didn't
416
00:24:22.559 --> 00:24:24.640
want to get back to my normal life like it's
417
00:24:24.640 --> 00:24:25.200
supposed to be.
418
00:24:26.279 --> 00:24:30.799
The molestation trial against Raymond's stepdad, Dawn, was actually scheduled
419
00:24:30.839 --> 00:24:33.599
to begin in just a week's time, but the Attorney
420
00:24:33.640 --> 00:24:36.680
General's office decided to postpone Dawn's and all the other
421
00:24:36.720 --> 00:24:41.039
molestation cases. Assistant Attorney General Shane Phelps had to regroup.
422
00:24:41.559 --> 00:24:43.920
He just made a bunch of enemies in Gilmer.
423
00:24:45.480 --> 00:24:50.880
There really was quite a bit of a fure about
424
00:24:51.279 --> 00:24:54.640
the dismissals because by this time the life Or team
425
00:24:54.640 --> 00:24:58.480
had really gathered kind of a following. It's almost like
426
00:24:58.480 --> 00:25:03.400
a cult of people who just believed this happened so
427
00:25:03.519 --> 00:25:06.599
again in their in their minds. If I step in
428
00:25:06.759 --> 00:25:12.279
and dismiss them all, then I'm corrupt. Not this guy's
429
00:25:12.319 --> 00:25:13.880
been doing this for a long time. He knows what
430
00:25:13.960 --> 00:25:16.839
he's doing and so on. It was I'm corrupt, I
431
00:25:16.880 --> 00:25:22.240
must be protecting powerful people in Upshire County from this
432
00:25:22.319 --> 00:25:26.839
information getting out. But I also, you know, made it
433
00:25:26.920 --> 00:25:31.440
clear that we were going to devote the full resources
434
00:25:31.440 --> 00:25:35.359
of my division in the Attorney Dental's office to investigating
435
00:25:35.359 --> 00:25:37.000
this whole thing, and we would be back before the
436
00:25:37.039 --> 00:25:38.240
grand jury.
437
00:25:38.440 --> 00:25:41.519
Shane was going to reinvestigate the kidnapping and death of
438
00:25:41.599 --> 00:25:44.480
Kelly Wilson, and then he'd take the case back in
439
00:25:44.519 --> 00:25:47.839
front of the grand jury, the same grand jury that
440
00:25:47.920 --> 00:25:51.720
indicted Sergeant Brown, the curs and Don and Tammy in
441
00:25:51.759 --> 00:25:55.160
the first place. But he couldn't hold the grand jury forever.
442
00:25:55.880 --> 00:26:03.920
He had three months.
443
00:26:06.960 --> 00:26:09.480
I guess. I dismissed the charges in the March, and
444
00:26:09.519 --> 00:26:10.200
I was back in.
445
00:26:10.200 --> 00:26:12.160
June Shane Phelps again.
446
00:26:13.200 --> 00:26:18.759
So maybe three months that's all we did. And we
447
00:26:18.839 --> 00:26:23.880
devoted thousands of man hours to that case. We worked
448
00:26:23.880 --> 00:26:26.079
with the FBI, we worked with the Sheriff's department, the
449
00:26:26.119 --> 00:26:29.759
police department. A big part of that focus was on
450
00:26:30.480 --> 00:26:33.160
changed around really involved, and we got things like his
451
00:26:33.240 --> 00:26:37.359
lawyer provided to us his personal diary that that was
452
00:26:37.400 --> 00:26:39.920
clearly his personal diary that recorded you know, a lot
453
00:26:39.920 --> 00:26:45.000
of his investigation into into Kelly's disappearance. You know, we
454
00:26:45.039 --> 00:26:48.599
talked to FBI agents who who were involved at that
455
00:26:48.720 --> 00:26:50.759
early stages, and we're saying this guy was doing everything
456
00:26:50.759 --> 00:26:54.559
he could to find this girl. Of police officers he
457
00:26:54.640 --> 00:26:56.160
worked with, We're talking about the fact that he was
458
00:26:56.200 --> 00:27:00.680
working around the clock when all this is supposed to happen, Right,
459
00:27:00.759 --> 00:27:03.039
He's working with people trying to find this girl while
460
00:27:03.039 --> 00:27:07.920
he's allegedly part of this cult that is were theoretically
461
00:27:07.960 --> 00:27:11.759
she was still alive, and so he would work to
462
00:27:11.759 --> 00:27:15.000
find her and then go get involved in It was
463
00:27:15.039 --> 00:27:19.400
just absurd. I have no doubt we were able to
464
00:27:19.440 --> 00:27:23.960
alibi him. He just had nothing to do with this.
465
00:27:26.079 --> 00:27:29.559
Only we had his his journal, We had his He
466
00:27:29.599 --> 00:27:31.640
was alibied by I think at the time, his girlfriend.
467
00:27:33.960 --> 00:27:37.240
The FBI. Actually, he just didn't have anything to do
468
00:27:37.359 --> 00:27:42.440
with that. That's and that made me angry because you know,
469
00:27:42.440 --> 00:27:44.480
we're talking about a death penalty case, but we're also
470
00:27:44.519 --> 00:27:48.680
talking about them destroying the career of a guy. And
471
00:27:48.759 --> 00:27:51.039
in law enforcement. I mean, I don't know that James Brown.
472
00:27:51.079 --> 00:27:53.400
I mean he was a chargeant in the Gilbert Police Department.
473
00:27:54.559 --> 00:27:56.440
I did not know who he was. I just knew
474
00:27:56.440 --> 00:27:58.279
he was a police officer who had been in charge
475
00:27:58.279 --> 00:28:02.000
of these crimes. And it became absolutely clear to me
476
00:28:02.039 --> 00:28:04.960
over the next ninety days getting the thing ready to
477
00:28:04.960 --> 00:28:06.559
go back to the grand jury, that he didn't have
478
00:28:06.559 --> 00:28:08.119
anything to do with it at all, that he was
479
00:28:08.160 --> 00:28:12.039
a victim, and as were all these other people, because
480
00:28:12.119 --> 00:28:14.680
there was no evidence to support like window Kerr. I mean,
481
00:28:14.720 --> 00:28:18.759
I got those original bills of lading and hotel receipts
482
00:28:18.759 --> 00:28:21.240
and gas receipts and sent those to the Department of
483
00:28:21.240 --> 00:28:26.240
Public Safety crime Lab, which Scott Leiford could have done,
484
00:28:26.319 --> 00:28:32.400
and they confirmed one percent these are original signatures by
485
00:28:32.839 --> 00:28:37.640
window Kerr. And I knew when I saw the bills
486
00:28:37.680 --> 00:28:39.880
of lading and his exemplar that it was the same guy.
487
00:28:40.519 --> 00:28:42.480
It was clear to me, But we sent it to
488
00:28:42.480 --> 00:28:45.799
the Department of Public Safety anyway for their forensic handwriting
489
00:28:45.839 --> 00:28:47.759
group to take a look at it, and they confirmed
490
00:28:49.039 --> 00:28:51.559
this was Wendell Kerr. He was out of the state
491
00:28:51.599 --> 00:28:52.319
the entire time.
492
00:28:52.880 --> 00:28:55.720
In June of nineteen ninety four, Shane Phelps took his
493
00:28:55.799 --> 00:28:59.160
findings back to the Grand Jury in Gilmer. By this time,
494
00:28:59.279 --> 00:29:02.799
Shane was so convinced of the suspect's innocence. He did
495
00:29:02.839 --> 00:29:05.960
something kind of unusual. He didn't even give the grand
496
00:29:06.000 --> 00:29:09.119
jury a chance to reindict Sergeant Brown and the others.
497
00:29:09.400 --> 00:29:11.440
The fact is, I wasn't going to present an indictment
498
00:29:11.440 --> 00:29:13.839
against people I knew to be innocent of these charges.
499
00:29:16.039 --> 00:29:18.720
So I made a decision. I did some things that
500
00:29:18.720 --> 00:29:28.680
were somewhat irregular in this whole thing. When the grand
501
00:29:28.720 --> 00:29:37.440
jury basically agreed with me, I had prepared a statement
502
00:29:37.480 --> 00:29:40.160
that I showed a grand jury, and they said yes.
503
00:29:41.039 --> 00:29:43.160
So I had a press conference as soon as we
504
00:29:43.160 --> 00:29:47.759
were done. We were in the courthouse, had been going
505
00:29:47.799 --> 00:29:51.000
in and out of the grand jury. I remember the
506
00:29:51.039 --> 00:29:54.319
press was just it was crazy. There was press everywhere.
507
00:29:54.200 --> 00:29:56.119
They were following me to the bathroom.
508
00:29:56.920 --> 00:29:57.559
It was wild.
509
00:29:58.079 --> 00:29:59.960
To the coke machine. I mean, I couldn't say anything.
510
00:30:00.759 --> 00:30:02.400
You know, I'm not going to make a comment about
511
00:30:02.400 --> 00:30:04.799
an ongoing investigation. I'm not going to tell you what
512
00:30:04.839 --> 00:30:07.400
happened in the grand jury because it's secret. The reason
513
00:30:07.440 --> 00:30:11.160
it's secret. So it was it was a bit of
514
00:30:11.200 --> 00:30:15.000
pandemonium attached on this and a lot of a lot
515
00:30:15.000 --> 00:30:19.000
of tension, a lot of high tension just across the board.
516
00:30:19.960 --> 00:30:23.359
It was. It was a bit of a circus. But
517
00:30:23.400 --> 00:30:26.519
I understood that people were interested in this case for
518
00:30:26.599 --> 00:30:27.559
obvious reasons.
519
00:30:29.240 --> 00:30:31.759
I think he did did what he said he was
520
00:30:31.799 --> 00:30:34.359
going to do, and that was look at it, look
521
00:30:34.359 --> 00:30:37.400
at it objectively, and when he did, he dismissed the case.
522
00:30:37.599 --> 00:30:40.640
That's Sergeant Brown's attorney, David Moore again fact.
523
00:30:40.680 --> 00:30:43.720
Not only did they just dismiss it, he made a
524
00:30:43.880 --> 00:30:48.119
statement to the media that it won a matter of
525
00:30:48.119 --> 00:30:51.519
not having enough evidence, but he said James Yort Brown
526
00:30:51.680 --> 00:30:57.240
is in fact an innocent man, which was a stout
527
00:30:57.279 --> 00:31:01.119
comment for a prosecutor to make, andppreciating him doing that.
528
00:31:02.559 --> 00:31:05.319
Oh, I remember it quite well. I think I said
529
00:31:05.400 --> 00:31:08.720
James Brown had nothing to do with this, he is innocent,
530
00:31:10.440 --> 00:31:15.519
because I guess that's kind of a personal thing. I
531
00:31:15.640 --> 00:31:18.599
think James Brown deserved having somebody in a position of
532
00:31:18.640 --> 00:31:21.319
authority tell the rest of the world he didn't have
533
00:31:21.319 --> 00:31:28.400
anything to do with it. I know the insidious power
534
00:31:28.440 --> 00:31:33.640
of an accusation. That is, even if it's disproved, people
535
00:31:34.279 --> 00:31:37.200
will still there are some people out there stood believe it.
536
00:31:38.359 --> 00:31:42.279
And I kind of slammed the life or team. People
537
00:31:42.319 --> 00:31:49.799
needed to hear that this was such a disruptive event
538
00:31:49.960 --> 00:31:54.200
in the lives of so many people. But James Brown
539
00:31:54.240 --> 00:31:59.160
had been accused of brutally raping, torturing, and abducting and
540
00:31:59.279 --> 00:32:03.400
murdering a seventeen year old girl. If I had just
541
00:32:03.440 --> 00:32:05.240
gotten in a plane and flown back to Austin, how
542
00:32:05.279 --> 00:32:07.640
would he have ever lived that down? Well, that he
543
00:32:07.880 --> 00:32:09.279
needed somebody to say.
544
00:32:09.079 --> 00:32:12.599
That, I mean, one of there's so many tragedies in
545
00:32:12.640 --> 00:32:15.880
this story, but one of the big ones is that
546
00:32:16.839 --> 00:32:21.319
so many people in Gilmer still think that James Brown
547
00:32:21.440 --> 00:32:22.720
had something to do with this.
548
00:32:23.319 --> 00:32:25.960
That's what I say. That's the insidious power of an accusation,
549
00:32:26.039 --> 00:32:33.440
particularly a wrongful accusation, And those people, you know, felt
550
00:32:33.440 --> 00:32:36.359
great of the same nonsense that I think Scott Leiffer did,
551
00:32:36.400 --> 00:32:40.319
because I think this Scott Leifert wasn't experienced, He didn't
552
00:32:40.359 --> 00:32:45.440
know how to conduct a criminal investigation, and he was
553
00:32:45.480 --> 00:32:49.279
swayed by this nonsense he was hearing from bags and flag.
554
00:32:50.599 --> 00:32:54.039
Even the victim's mom cappy at first, he said this
555
00:32:54.079 --> 00:32:56.880
is this can't be true, but at some points she
556
00:32:57.039 --> 00:32:57.599
was persuaded.
557
00:32:57.640 --> 00:33:02.319
Otherwise, his dad never did. I mean, he was relieved
558
00:33:02.359 --> 00:33:07.640
when when James was exonerated and these and these indictments
559
00:33:07.680 --> 00:33:12.799
were dismissed. It was you know, you asked the question,
560
00:33:15.279 --> 00:33:17.359
you know, why did I do that? Because, as I say,
561
00:33:17.400 --> 00:33:21.759
it was a fairly irregular thing from my perspective, from
562
00:33:21.799 --> 00:33:29.720
my moral framework, from my ethical foundation of being a prosecutor,
563
00:33:30.480 --> 00:33:33.279
I didn't think I had any of the choice. You
564
00:33:33.279 --> 00:33:35.400
can't just point to figure at somebody and say horrible
565
00:33:35.400 --> 00:33:37.559
things about them and then when you know you're wrong,
566
00:33:38.599 --> 00:33:45.480
not corrected, and that's that's what we did. I to
567
00:33:45.559 --> 00:33:49.519
this day have absolutely no regrets about doing that. I
568
00:33:49.559 --> 00:33:50.920
think it was the right thing to do.
569
00:33:52.319 --> 00:33:56.039
Shane's decision angered a lot of people in Gilmer. Remember
570
00:33:56.079 --> 00:33:58.920
Melvin Dodd, the Gilmer school teacher and co founder of
571
00:33:58.960 --> 00:34:02.440
the Justice for Kelly Wilson Committee. When Melvin read Shane's
572
00:34:02.440 --> 00:34:06.319
statement in the newspaper, he immediately called his friend Harvey,
573
00:34:06.519 --> 00:34:07.920
who'd sat on the grand jury.
574
00:34:08.519 --> 00:34:10.960
And then the charge has been dropped. They were dropped
575
00:34:10.960 --> 00:34:17.079
by the Texas Attorney General's Office, and there was a
576
00:34:17.159 --> 00:34:20.880
statement in there they said that they were acting on
577
00:34:21.119 --> 00:34:25.719
behalf of the grand jury. I'm trying to think of
578
00:34:25.760 --> 00:34:29.159
the name of the man from the Attorney General's Office who,
579
00:34:29.239 --> 00:34:30.760
in my opinion's totals.
580
00:34:30.440 --> 00:34:32.119
Come back Shane Phelps.
581
00:34:32.719 --> 00:34:37.440
Shane, Yeah, Shane Phelps. So I read Harvey Rason this
582
00:34:37.599 --> 00:34:43.400
statement where Shane Phelps said that the grand jury requested
583
00:34:44.599 --> 00:34:49.039
that they dropped the charges. This is the way Harvey
584
00:34:49.199 --> 00:34:50.400
Rason spoke to.
585
00:34:50.360 --> 00:35:05.559
Me, Melvin. The grand jury took no action, So every
586
00:35:05.639 --> 00:35:08.400
raceing was saying that that was a lie. The grand
587
00:35:08.480 --> 00:35:13.800
jury absolutely did not ask Shane Phepps and Lisa Tanner
588
00:35:13.840 --> 00:35:16.559
and the Attorney General's office to drop the charges.
589
00:35:17.559 --> 00:35:21.440
But our rations dead now, so he he was not
590
00:35:21.639 --> 00:35:24.199
convinced then to drop the charges. He would have.
591
00:35:24.760 --> 00:35:27.960
Oh, he was upset that the charges were dropped.
592
00:35:29.800 --> 00:35:30.119
Now.
593
00:35:30.519 --> 00:35:35.000
We had on the south side of the court House
594
00:35:35.199 --> 00:35:42.079
in Gilmer a rally called Justice for Kelly Wilson. And
595
00:35:42.280 --> 00:35:45.320
I think I didn't go around county, but I think
596
00:35:45.400 --> 00:35:48.760
we probably had over five hundred people there.
597
00:35:50.800 --> 00:35:53.519
You know, a little bit of knowledge about the criminal
598
00:35:53.599 --> 00:35:56.480
justice system can be dangerous. So everybody assumed that because
599
00:35:56.480 --> 00:36:02.320
the grand jury didn't no. Billet said, that means that
600
00:36:02.360 --> 00:36:04.239
there must have been something going on that I fooled
601
00:36:04.239 --> 00:36:06.000
the grand jury in which is nonsense.
602
00:36:06.280 --> 00:36:08.880
The Justice for Kelly Wilson committee would go on to
603
00:36:08.920 --> 00:36:12.199
hold a bunch of rallies. They even protested outside the
604
00:36:12.199 --> 00:36:16.119
Attorney General's office in Austin, but their protests went nowhere.
605
00:36:16.400 --> 00:36:19.400
To this day, many Gilmer residents believe Shane was part
606
00:36:19.440 --> 00:36:23.760
of a conspiracy to protect evildoers, and Gore, the CPS
607
00:36:23.760 --> 00:36:27.159
caseworker who uncovered the abuse in the curR home, is
608
00:36:27.199 --> 00:36:28.000
among them.
609
00:36:28.320 --> 00:36:30.880
And I talked to Anne Gore.
610
00:36:31.280 --> 00:36:37.840
She wouldn't talk for the recorders, but she still professes
611
00:36:37.920 --> 00:36:43.079
to believe that, you know, she thinks she was in
612
00:36:43.119 --> 00:36:45.159
the right. You know, she thinks that she was like
613
00:36:45.960 --> 00:36:47.920
following this holy crusade or something.
614
00:36:48.519 --> 00:36:51.239
You know. I suppose, you know, I can't speak for
615
00:36:51.280 --> 00:36:56.039
Anne Gore. I suppose when you get so invested in
616
00:36:56.119 --> 00:37:04.039
something being true that cause was so much damage that
617
00:37:04.760 --> 00:37:09.000
I guess from a psychological perspective, you just can't admit
618
00:37:09.079 --> 00:37:15.719
you were wrong. I feel sorry for her, you know,
619
00:37:15.960 --> 00:37:21.280
laboring under a you know, an apprehension that is just
620
00:37:21.480 --> 00:37:24.639
not true. We know it not to be true, and
621
00:37:24.760 --> 00:37:27.760
yet in her mind, for the rest of her life,
622
00:37:27.760 --> 00:37:30.159
she's going to think it was. And some horrible things happened.
623
00:37:30.199 --> 00:37:34.000
And in terms of you know, killers getting away with it,
624
00:37:35.519 --> 00:37:39.320
people in power protecting other people in power, I mean,
625
00:37:39.320 --> 00:37:44.440
it is a fantasy world that she lives in that
626
00:37:44.519 --> 00:37:47.159
I guess she just can't disabuse herself, which is which
627
00:37:47.159 --> 00:37:47.840
is tragedy.
628
00:37:48.559 --> 00:37:51.079
And then the injustice of.
629
00:37:53.159 --> 00:37:57.599
You know, there was actual abuse that was kind of
630
00:37:58.519 --> 00:38:01.119
paper over, you know, because it morphed.
631
00:38:00.760 --> 00:38:04.119
Into this story as he did. And a Gore and
632
00:38:04.199 --> 00:38:08.039
Debbie Minshew and Brooks slag and Scott or Steve Baggs
633
00:38:08.280 --> 00:38:11.519
and Scott Lafford are responsible for the people who abuse
634
00:38:11.559 --> 00:38:17.880
those kids never being held responsible. It's their fault because
635
00:38:17.920 --> 00:38:22.840
they contaminated those children to the extent that those children
636
00:38:22.960 --> 00:38:27.000
could never be credible in the court of law. I mean,
637
00:38:27.039 --> 00:38:30.440
you can imagine the cross examination when we start talking about,
638
00:38:30.440 --> 00:38:34.760
well you also saw those penis shaped elevators, didn't you. Yeah,
639
00:38:34.800 --> 00:38:37.679
and nobody would believe. I mean, these children were horribly
640
00:38:37.760 --> 00:38:41.840
manipulated and they were destroyed in terms of their credibility
641
00:38:41.880 --> 00:38:45.800
and frankly, how much damage did it do to these kids?
642
00:38:46.920 --> 00:38:48.280
It did a ton of damage.
643
00:38:48.719 --> 00:38:51.840
To evaluate Raymond and the Kirk kids, the state of
644
00:38:51.880 --> 00:38:56.039
Texas hired a noted psychiatrist named Bruce Perry. His research
645
00:38:56.079 --> 00:38:59.039
focuses on the long term effects of trauma and children,
646
00:38:59.280 --> 00:39:01.840
and he's been an expert witness and a number of
647
00:39:01.920 --> 00:39:07.039
high profile incidents, including the Oklahoma bombing and the Columbine massacre.
648
00:39:07.280 --> 00:39:09.360
You know, one of the reasons that Bruce Perry came
649
00:39:09.400 --> 00:39:11.760
into the picture was to try and deal with these children,
650
00:39:11.760 --> 00:39:15.360
to try and sort this out. Can can these cases
651
00:39:15.400 --> 00:39:19.719
be salvaged? And the bottom line was non. I could
652
00:39:19.760 --> 00:39:23.400
not be salvaged. And that was hard, you know, but again,
653
00:39:23.519 --> 00:39:26.920
you walk away as a good prosecutor from a case,
654
00:39:27.079 --> 00:39:30.840
even though you may believe that the person is guilty,
655
00:39:30.880 --> 00:39:35.079
but if it has been so compromised because of misconduct
656
00:39:36.559 --> 00:39:39.360
and the credibility of the children has been so destroyed,
657
00:39:41.480 --> 00:39:44.280
you may not like it. You have no choice. You
658
00:39:44.400 --> 00:39:47.039
have to walk away. And that's what happened in that case.
659
00:39:48.559 --> 00:39:51.320
We had to dismiss and I had already left the
660
00:39:51.320 --> 00:39:53.440
AG's office. Wouldn't happen, but we all knew it was
661
00:39:53.440 --> 00:39:56.519
going to happen. That was one of our biggest concerns
662
00:39:57.239 --> 00:39:59.400
was is there any way to salvage these cases against
663
00:39:59.400 --> 00:40:01.480
these people who may or may not have I mean,
664
00:40:01.519 --> 00:40:04.679
I can't tell you at this point. I believe something happened.
665
00:40:05.559 --> 00:40:08.280
I believe there was some validity in those original cases
666
00:40:08.960 --> 00:40:13.360
but it was all just lost in all of the subnunsense.
667
00:40:13.719 --> 00:40:16.840
So not only was the search for Kelly Wilson lost
668
00:40:16.960 --> 00:40:19.800
in the hysteria, there was very little doubt that at
669
00:40:19.880 --> 00:40:22.719
least some members of the Kerr family had abused their
670
00:40:22.719 --> 00:40:27.000
own kids. In those cases, they were ruined too. But
671
00:40:27.079 --> 00:40:30.119
there was a bright side. Don and Tammy hadn't done
672
00:40:30.199 --> 00:40:33.519
anything wrong. Their son Raymond had been pressured into making
673
00:40:33.639 --> 00:40:36.880
up abuse claims against them. For all this time, Don
674
00:40:36.880 --> 00:40:39.719
and Tammy had been waiting for justice too. Folks and
675
00:40:39.760 --> 00:40:42.480
Gilmer were split on their guilt or innocence.
676
00:40:42.679 --> 00:40:46.400
Somebody took a spray paint and spray painted a big
677
00:40:46.440 --> 00:40:52.239
IM on my car for molester. He had a big Cadillac,
678
00:40:52.519 --> 00:40:56.239
Maroon Cadillac, and I mean this huge m spray painting
679
00:40:56.480 --> 00:40:58.039
all over my Cadillac.
680
00:40:58.480 --> 00:41:04.039
So much stuff that want and people were so hateful,
681
00:41:05.559 --> 00:41:10.079
big old go limb written across tobacco it and people
682
00:41:10.119 --> 00:41:11.840
told me how to get it off. I said, I
683
00:41:11.840 --> 00:41:14.280
ain't getting it off. I drove around town with it
684
00:41:14.360 --> 00:41:16.159
on there. I mean, like you want to call me
685
00:41:16.159 --> 00:41:19.480
a name? I said, Now it's gone. Now it finally
686
00:41:19.480 --> 00:41:19.920
wore all.
687
00:41:21.360 --> 00:41:24.039
Don was also fielding anonymous phone calls.
688
00:41:25.039 --> 00:41:29.800
Like, hey, yeah, ho's this. Well I just saw you
689
00:41:29.840 --> 00:41:33.360
on TV and I thought she's good looking and I'd
690
00:41:33.480 --> 00:41:35.639
like to get to know you. And I said, well,
691
00:41:36.199 --> 00:41:38.719
I got me a woman and I'm faithful to her.
692
00:41:39.159 --> 00:41:44.119
Well okay, and one of us said, hey, you you
693
00:41:44.320 --> 00:41:50.599
that guy like to eat women, you know, and well
694
00:41:51.119 --> 00:41:52.239
killed then eat them.
695
00:41:52.400 --> 00:41:54.639
Don tries to make light of things now, but the
696
00:41:54.719 --> 00:41:56.960
legal limbo was clearly taking a toll.
697
00:41:57.519 --> 00:42:00.199
We got to coordinate and then they cancel it court
698
00:42:00.280 --> 00:42:02.400
they knew they cancel it, and I mean, my nerves
699
00:42:02.400 --> 00:42:05.960
were just shot. And I remember one day I broke
700
00:42:06.039 --> 00:42:09.440
down crimes so hard, right in the middle of work,
701
00:42:09.880 --> 00:42:12.960
and I was a cashier at a convenience store and
702
00:42:13.000 --> 00:42:14.800
there was it was full, and I remember this guy
703
00:42:14.920 --> 00:42:18.239
walked up to me, goes, baby, we've been watching you
704
00:42:18.400 --> 00:42:22.280
for years. He goes, You've been so strong, he said,
705
00:42:22.320 --> 00:42:24.800
don't give up now, and I just I was like,
706
00:42:24.960 --> 00:42:26.760
you don't know, you just don't know.
707
00:42:26.920 --> 00:42:28.440
He goes, no, we know you.
708
00:42:28.519 --> 00:42:29.639
We're so proud of you.
709
00:42:29.920 --> 00:42:32.559
And it was just like a lift me up, you know.
710
00:42:32.559 --> 00:42:35.920
I mean, this stranger guy knew who I was. I
711
00:42:35.920 --> 00:42:38.039
didn't even know if they knew because that was the
712
00:42:38.079 --> 00:42:41.280
embarrassing part. You don't know who knows who you are.
713
00:42:41.960 --> 00:42:44.719
You know, and I always feel I had an obligation
714
00:42:44.840 --> 00:42:47.000
when I'd meet you people, I needed to tell them
715
00:42:47.039 --> 00:42:48.159
right off who I was.
716
00:42:50.400 --> 00:42:53.360
Now, thanks to the bungling of Scott Lyfford's team and
717
00:42:53.400 --> 00:42:58.000
the CPS caseworkers, the molestation charges were gone. Don and
718
00:42:58.079 --> 00:43:02.239
Tammy were free and clear, But Raymond he was still
719
00:43:02.280 --> 00:43:09.079
trapped in foster care and Kelly was still missing. Deviltown
720
00:43:09.159 --> 00:43:11.800
is a production of Imperative Entertainment. It was written and
721
00:43:11.840 --> 00:43:15.559
created by me Wes Ferguson. Executive producer is Jason Hoak.
722
00:43:15.719 --> 00:43:19.159
Audio engineering and editing by Shane Freeman and Jason Hoak.
723
00:43:19.559 --> 00:43:23.440
Original score is by Robert Ellis. Recording by Austin Sissler
724
00:43:23.559 --> 00:43:26.320
at Eastside Studios. If you like the show, leave a
725
00:43:26.360 --> 00:43:29.360
review and don't forget to tell your friends thanks for listening.