WEBVTT
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This podcast is intended for mature audiences. Listener discretion is advised.
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On a dark winter night in nineteen ninety two, high
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school senior Kelly day Wilson finished her shift at NTV
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Northeast Texas Video, a movie rental store on the town
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square in Gilmer, Texas. Kelly locked up the shop with
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manager Joe Henry.
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I say, you opened tomorrow and she says yes, and
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I said, okay.
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See that was the last time anyone is known to
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have seen Kelly.
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The mom called me about six the next morning and
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asked me if she'd go anywhere sink. I said, yes,
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you going with the girls house? And that's all I
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knew at the time. It was a little bit disturbing
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to me, but I mean's like much of.
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A Kelly and one of her friends, a fellow student
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at Gilmour High School, had made plans to attend a
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party together, a party out of town. Kelly never showed.
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At seven a m Kelly's mom, Kathy, called the police department.
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She got on the phone with a veteran sergeant named
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James York Brown. From the get go, Sergeant Brown wondered
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if Kelly simply ran away from home he asked Kathy
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and her husband Robert to come down to the station
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to file a missing person's report. Then Sergeant Brown drove
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over to look at Kelly's car. Her gold Dodge Charger
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was still parked beside the video store. There was a
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bottle of vodka inside the car. The keys were missing,
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no signs of a struggle, but the left rear tire
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had been slashed. The tire had even come off the rim.
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That's an important detail. Obviously Kelly or someone had tried
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to drive the car before realizing it was flat. After
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closing up the video store with Joe Kelly's life, last
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task of the night would have been to drop off
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all the cash from that day's movie rentals. The bank
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was just a couple of blocks northeast of the store,
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and when Sergeant Brown checked with the bank, sure enough
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the nightly deposit had been made.
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Lati has probably been slash by this time. Is not
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known if she backed out, started off in the tires
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flat and cooled back in, or if she went all
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the way around to the mine to do the deposit
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and then come back in.
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Kelly's parents were divorced, her dad and stepmom Robbie and
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Waverlin lived in the town of Knaketish, Louisiana, which is
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about two and a half hours southeast of Gilmour. That winter,
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Kelly had been telling her friends that she was moving
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back to Louisiana, where she'd spent most of her childhood.
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Had she left Gilmour without saying goodbye, Kathy called Waverlin.
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Waverland called Robbie.
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Won't say. It was like eight or nine o'clock in
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the morning.
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Wavern called me at work, said, told me a little bit,
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and you know, I told my people I had to
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go sham home.
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We got backed up, we went, we went to So
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you were worried at that point.
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Oh?
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Yeah.
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Robbie had always felt that his daughter was just a
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little too trusting.
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Kearn never met a stranger. She was very, very outgoing,
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probably to her own.
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Yeah, it concerned me a little bit because she again,
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she never she could go up to a perfect stranger,
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strike a conversation, just like she'd known them all her life.
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Best I can remember, we went straight to the police
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station and talked to.
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Uh, sorry Brown.
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Sergeant Brown was lean and linky. He rocked a dark
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brown mustache and aviator sunglasses. Picture a local cop from
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like an eighties movie. That's James Brown.
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Oh, he's a fairly typical small town police officer from
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what I could you know, be away describe it. He
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kind of ran us through what they had had so far. Uh,
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pretty much the basics of the story. She you know,
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she had closed the stores, she'd she'd her car had
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been moved from where it was originally parked, assuming that
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she had taken a bank deposits to the bank which
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they were made. Uh, and her car was back at
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the store in it but in a different parking slot.
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I think there was a I think her person.
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Was still in the car. There was I think I
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remember writing a vodka bottle in the car. There were uh,
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you know, who knows how long that stuff, and her
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purse probably was there.
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But that, you know, and that's pretty much about it. Really.
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Why why they didn't impound the car treated as a
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crime scene, I mean they were treating everything as just
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a common, ordinary, everyday missing person runaway type same rather
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than a crime scene. So there was a lot of
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probably potential evidence that could have been collected.
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It wasn't.
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Hard to imagine the teenage girl running away without her purse.
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Yeah, or without her car. Why wouldn't she take a car? Uh,
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you know, let's unless somebody you know abducted her. What
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else do you hear she voluntarily left for somebody else,
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you know, that would be the only two scenarios I
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could come up with.
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That's what a lot of people thought at first. Maybe
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Kelly couldn't decide which household to live in, so she
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skipped down with a boyfriend.
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I just remember in the beginning, it was a.
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She ran off.
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They just kept saying, Oh, she ran off with some boy.
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That's Kelly's friend from high school.
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Lee.
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It was a lot of she's a wild child.
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She definitely just ran off with some boy for the
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first couple of days, I believe.
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I feel like it took them a couple of days
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before they took it seriously.
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That mindset was about to shift. The bank where everybody
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thought Kelly made the deposit right before she disappeared had
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a security camera. Sergeant Brown got hold of the footage.
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It showed three vehicles making deposits around the time that
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Kelly would have left the video store. None of the
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vehicles was an eighty five Dodge Charger, though, nor did
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any of the drivers look like Kelly. Although the video
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quality was so bad it was hard to know for sure.
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I just had a feeling, ominous feeling that just did
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not go to run well, and that I can't tell
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you why I did fail, and I just had that
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as Unfortunately it turned out to be pretty true.
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Robbie had no idea how bad it was going to get.
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It's the story of a missing teenage girl.
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To find her would change the lines of just about
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everyone she knew.
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In this case of missing Gilmourtine Kelly Wilson.
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She told be careful that I could end up like
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Kelly Wilson. The strip put fear in me.
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If there was devil worshiping back in the woods right
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behind your.
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House, Yeah, further back in the woods.
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The details are sketchy, the trail goes cold, and Kelly
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Wilson vanishes forever in the small town of Gilmour, everyone
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wants to know what happened to Kelly Wilson.
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From Imperative Entertainment. I'm West Ferguson. This is Deviltown. This
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is chapter two, The Devil comes to town. It's been
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thirty years since Kelly Wilson walked out of Northeast Texas.
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Video and vanished into the night. I was a kid
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back then. Now I'm trying to answer a question that
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seems so simple, and yet it's been devil the town
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of Gilmer for decades.
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STA Steel, no answers, and the disappearance of Kelly Wilson.
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Leaving the city wondering well they ever know. That's all
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anyone can say for certain.
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Kelly Wilson has vanished.
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From day one. Sergeant James York Brown led the investigation.
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He probably knows more about Kelly's disappearance than anyone else,
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but this case changed his life. It nearly broke him.
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To this day. Some folks in Gilmer wonder if Sergeant
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Brown knows more than he's letting on. I mailed Sergeant
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Brown a letter and called a few times. Nothing. One day,
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I even tried to drive by his house to knock
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on his front door. He lives way out in the country. Now,
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the map on my phone sent me far off course
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to a pine forest in the middle of nowhere, not
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a house in sight. Kelly's mom, Kathy, had already decided
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not to talk to me. Without Sergeant Brown, I'd probably
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never find out what happened to Kelly. Then I dove
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a little deeper into Facebook and Reddit comments about the case.
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They were full of finger pointing and amateur investigators. James
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York Brown was a prime suspect in the eyes of some.
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Here are a few examples.
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I still think it was the cop.
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To me, he was so creepy.
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It was in it up to his ears.
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One of the commenters caught my attention. This guy was feisty.
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Plenty of bad information here. I'd be proud to set
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some things straight. I lost good years of my childhood
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to this case. He is my father. I'd be happy
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to answer any questions you have. Jan Brown has a son.
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His name is Josh. I found a phone number.
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Oh I've been mad. Yeah, I've been mad.
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I've even questioned my own dad, just out of out
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of fury, out of out of fucking lost time, and
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just just being just flat out mad, you know, trying
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to figure out why I've questioned dad, My brother's questioned dad.
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My brother and I both questioned each other just you know,
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we wanted to know what we were shielded from. But
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I can guarantee you that I can guarantee you he
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didn't do it.
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Josh's mom and dad split up when he was a toddler.
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He was eight when his dad took on Kelly's case.
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They've been divorced. It's all I can remember, you know.
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I just see dad on the weekends, first, third, and fifth.
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Back then, Sergeant Brown was always on the job, whether
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he was in uniform or not.
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He had a Brown trans am and uh, you know,
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we we would go ride the back roads on the weekend.
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And uh, I didn't know this, but you know he
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was he was looking. I remember he would talk to
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people when we were just, you know, quote riding around
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and he would ask him, hey, you know, you see anything?
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You know, he was always asking questions. You know anybody
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and everybody that you know, everybody. Gimmer's a small town.
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Josh and I had been talking for a while. I
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had to ask, do you think he'd want to talk
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to me.
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I don't know that he would.
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I think he's I think he's pretty well done with
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that stage in his life that you know, he's moved
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on from that really doesn't want anything to do with it.
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I will call him and ask him and see if
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he'll do one more interview. However, my request, if I'm
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going to do that for you, give us the direction
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that's going to be geared, because if you're going to
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try to make him look like a criminal, yeah, we
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ain't got much use for that.
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Josh and I hung up. Minutes later, the phone buzzed
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in my pocket Josh again. He had his dad on
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the line. I scrambled to find my recorder. Mister Brown,
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thank you so much for being willing to get on
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the phone with me.
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My name is he.
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Before you get started, lest I want you understand.
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You've I've talked to Dad and h You've got a
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few minutes.
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And if he gets uncomfortable, I told him to hung up,
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or he can say hey, I don't feel comfortable and
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hang up. So understood, get started, understood, and I won't
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take too much of your time.
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Sergeant Brown. James had been a cop for several years
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in Gilmer before he answered the call to search for
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Kelly Wilson. He believed in his mission to serve and protect.
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And that was the whole region of being in law
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enforcement anyway, or in my opinion, it is is to
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help people and take them And I mean I went
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to shootings and bandage people up until they get the ambulance.
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The whole hopefully they subviigned it.
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You know, it didn't matter if they were the bad
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guy or the good guy.
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It was just your job was to take it.
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Didn't take him long to realize that Kelly's situation was
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more dire than a case of a teenage runaway.
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Usually if somebody runs from their home or was a
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runaway or usually sign them within cyber or six days.
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But then from what I understood, she was supposed to
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live with her father in Louisiana.
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And when he told me that, I said, just don't.
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Look good at all, because usually a person don't maybe
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eight from where.
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They want to go.
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They could have run away, or anything could have happened.
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But you start at that point and then you.
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Go from where the last place was.
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And you know, even in this case, there was problems
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with that because the vehicle was tampered with by this
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stepfather and mother of her at that time, before we
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were notified.
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Kelly's stepdad, Robert, not to be confused with Kelly's dad, Robbie,
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probably didn't give a second thought to grabbing the purse
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when he found Kelly's unlocked car beside the video store.
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But in Sergeant Brown's opinion, Robert had had already compromised
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the crime scene purse.
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With thetization of another They had already went.
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Through that car before we got that.
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You had to start at zero because you don't know
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what was removed from the vega or anything.
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Sergeant Brown didn't really think the car held any clues,
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so he turned his search elsewhere. That meant interviewing everyone
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he could find.
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You talked to the people that were there at the story,
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You talked to people outside you.
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I mean, there's a lot of interviews that were done
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with the last people that had contact, and from there
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you start nearing your focus. And of course I was
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and a loan in the investigation.
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Enter Philip Williams.
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About two or three days that you disa feared, he
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called me in said I need some help. Distinct remember
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saying that.
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Philip Williams was and is a newspaper reporter in Gilmer.
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You heard from him in the first episode.
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And then he told me we got this missing girl.
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To spread the word, Philip wrote a news article that
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described Kelly blue eyes, sandy, blonde hair, five foot seven,
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one hundred and twenty pounds. She was last seen wearing
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blue jean cut off shorts and a purple rugby shirt
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with a white collar and white sleeve bands. Sergeant Brown
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00:16:17.200 --> 00:16:21.440
also called the Texas Rangers, Louisiana Police, and the FBI,
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looking for help anywhere he could find it.
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The FBI help when Danley's and interview people.
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There had been a few skateboarders out that night on
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00:16:30.240 --> 00:16:33.360
the town square. According to at least one news report,
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A handful of people told police they saw Kelly go
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00:16:36.360 --> 00:16:39.600
back into the video store after she discovered her flat tire,
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00:16:40.080 --> 00:16:45.240
but apparently no one saw what happened after that. Asking around,
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Sergeant Brown found out that one of Kelly's tires also
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00:16:48.200 --> 00:16:51.399
had been slashed that Friday, two nights before she vanished.
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Another girl who worked with Kelly at the video store
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also had one of her tires slashed on Saturday, just
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00:16:57.799 --> 00:17:01.200
one night before. Maybe this this last tire was related,
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00:17:01.720 --> 00:17:05.720
maybe not. Another baffling detail has to do with that
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bank deposit. For some reason, Sergeant Brown told the news
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media that Kelly was shown on the security camera making
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the deposit, even though the camera didn't really show that.
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I guess it's possible she walked two blocks to make
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the deposit off camera, but that seems unlikely given that
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00:17:23.279 --> 00:17:25.559
it was dark and pretty cold in Gilmer that night.
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If not Kelly, then who dropped off the money?
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00:17:29.079 --> 00:17:32.160
I'll let them carry my truck through to eliminate it.
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That's Joe Henry again, the store manager.
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We went drove through. Do that twice. Let's screw it.
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Did that to us? Eliminated my truck.
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Sergeant Brown, the FBI and Texas Rangers all interviewed Joe.
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Joe was a bachelor in his mid thirties. He and
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Kelly had been alone on her last night at the
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video store. Was he hiding something? Did you get the
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impression that they were asking some certain questions because they
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were trying to decide if you were.
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Yeah, yeah, but they were very very nice. I mean yes,
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because I mean you start, I'm the proverbial last person.
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To see here.
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That's that's you know. I wasn't but whatever happened was
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the last person. But I'm the proverbial last person to
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see her. So we started with me and you worked
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away out.
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Well.
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We went through all this stuff, and it was very hard,
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very difficult, because I'd gone home that night. My mom
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was home the next door navy and that saw me
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come home. A guy at the grocery store. I bet
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and bought some stuff from my mom and group the
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frozen and stuff. Went home, took shower, eight and supper.
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Call my girlfriend and talked to her. She got me
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back in a little bit and this was crazy and
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asked me, he says, your dog in the yard.
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And I said, yeah, I think so, kind of random.
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So I got up and looked out the one and
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there he was, you know, and her name was Angela.
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She since passed away. But but all these people, now,
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I tried to think, y'all, go comp.
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Of these people. We don't need to.
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It's hard.
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So okay, I mean I had never ready here, interesting,
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00:19:00.440 --> 00:19:04.079
anything like this before, and this is just terrifying, you know.
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But yeah, but they were very courteous and I didn't
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want They told me too and all that, and we
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went through any time they wanted.
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To talk, we talked.
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Everybody in town knew Joe, and not just from the
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video store or his burger joined around the block. Joe
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was from a good family with deep ties in Gilmer.
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He also had a solid alibi. Pretty soon he was
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more or less eliminated from the list of suspects, at
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00:19:28.039 --> 00:19:31.759
least in the eyes of law. Enforcement, although Joe says
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he remained in touch with Sergeant Brown and the FBI
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and goa Jane to tell me something.
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We were kind of confident with each other. After a time,
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we got over the hurdle of me and I mine. Obviously,
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00:19:42.720 --> 00:19:45.039
they ever quit looking at me in that respect. But
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after a while it changed and they would come over
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and eat lunch. We would talk and I told the
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guy I felt bad about that, about not staying an
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extra ten minutes or whatever. He said, you cannot lay yourself.
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He said, that is not your problem. He said, I
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know it's a bad situation, but he said you can't.
359
00:20:06.480 --> 00:20:09.240
You can't put yourself in that situation that if you
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had been then this wouldn't have happened. I mean, it's
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just that you just can't speculate on my kind stuff.
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Winding through the woods northwest of Gilmour is a narrow,
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and some would say mysterious road named the Cherokee Trace.
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It's much older than all the other roads in the area.
365
00:20:27.559 --> 00:20:31.240
In fact, Cherokee Indians blazed the trail more than two
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centuries ago, supposedly by dragging buffalo skins through the brush.
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To this day, it remains a lonely out of the
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way black Top Lane meandering out of town for several miles.
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In this story, the Cherokee Trace will come up again
370
00:20:46.680 --> 00:20:51.720
and again. One month after Kelly disappeared, three hundred volunteers
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and a pack of search dogs combed the woods near
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Cherokee Trace. The spot was a popular hangout for local teens.
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What's more, a new reservoir, Gilmour Lake, was being planned
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for the area. The searchers found some mounds of recently
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00:21:06.640 --> 00:21:08.799
turned earth, but it turned out that a team of
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archaeologists had been digging for Indian relics. There were no
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signs of Kelly. Sergeant Brown kept up the search on
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00:21:16.039 --> 00:21:20.799
his own time. Meanwhile, Kelly's dad and stepmom practically moved
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to Gilmour.
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It seemed like every weekend there for quite a few months, we.
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Were over there.
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You know, we would follow a lead or just find
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a place in search. I mean, it was just, you know,
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he felt like he had to do some.
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Finally, in late April, Sergeant Brown seemed to get his
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00:21:38.160 --> 00:21:41.799
first real break. A high school dropout named Michael Biby
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00:21:41.920 --> 00:21:46.680
confessed to slashing Kelly's car tire on the night she vanished. Biby,
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who was seventeen years old at the time, was arrested
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00:21:50.119 --> 00:21:52.400
on a misdemeanor charge of criminal mischief.
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The guy that's last retire He was brought in the court,
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00:21:57.119 --> 00:22:02.519
played guilty and to a missdemainor, and I was there
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00:22:02.519 --> 00:22:06.640
when he was sentenced. But apparently, through a remarkable coincidence,
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00:22:06.680 --> 00:22:11.079
he had nothing to do with her disappearance. He's last retired,
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00:22:11.200 --> 00:22:13.240
she disappears, but he didn't have thing to do with
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00:22:13.240 --> 00:22:14.559
the disappearance.
396
00:22:14.079 --> 00:22:18.920
Or as a law was concerned. That's quite the coincidence.
397
00:22:23.279 --> 00:22:25.799
Michael Biby moved out of state a long time ago.
398
00:22:26.319 --> 00:22:29.720
I've tried really hard to reach him, phone calls, emails,
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00:22:30.319 --> 00:22:34.319
he blocked me on Facebook. Ultimately police decided his tire
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00:22:34.359 --> 00:22:38.640
slashing was just a random act of vandalism. Police were
401
00:22:38.680 --> 00:22:42.920
back to square one. That spring high school graduation came
402
00:22:42.960 --> 00:22:46.319
and went with no sign of Kelly. The Gilmer class
403
00:22:46.359 --> 00:22:49.759
of ninety two dedicated this ceremony to their missing classmate.
404
00:22:50.480 --> 00:22:53.119
In the news, Sergeant Brown maintained that he was still
405
00:22:53.119 --> 00:22:57.680
interviewing people and pursuing leads, but reading between the lines,
406
00:22:58.240 --> 00:22:59.559
it seemed like the case.
407
00:22:59.440 --> 00:22:59.960
Had gone.
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00:23:01.359 --> 00:23:04.599
Desperate for clues. Sergeant Brown was about to take a
409
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trip to the spirit world.
410
00:23:12.319 --> 00:23:13.680
Hi, Sergeant Brown, is it?
411
00:23:14.400 --> 00:23:15.279
Hi? Sergeant Brown?
412
00:23:16.160 --> 00:23:19.400
Just fine? Well, James, have you ever worked with the
413
00:23:19.400 --> 00:23:20.319
psychic before?
414
00:23:21.319 --> 00:23:42.039
No, ma'am James Brown dial to psychic. With the search
415
00:23:42.079 --> 00:23:45.119
for their daughter seeming to stall out, Kelly's parents had
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00:23:45.119 --> 00:23:48.200
asked Sergeant James York Brown of the Gilmert Police Department
417
00:23:48.279 --> 00:23:51.279
to seek help from none other than Narene Rainier, a
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00:23:51.319 --> 00:23:56.000
psychic detective in Florida. Here's Miss Renier being interviewed for
419
00:23:56.079 --> 00:23:57.920
a YouTube show just last year.
420
00:24:00.119 --> 00:24:01.880
Welcome to Paranormal Yaker.
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00:24:02.400 --> 00:24:06.319
My guest today is psychic detective Noreen Rainier.
422
00:24:06.680 --> 00:24:10.000
She is the only psychic ever to lecture at the
423
00:24:10.039 --> 00:24:12.839
FBI Academy and has assisted.
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00:24:12.440 --> 00:24:15.519
Law enforcement officials all over the world.
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00:24:16.519 --> 00:24:19.519
I've been shot with a shotgun, and I've been a
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00:24:19.599 --> 00:24:24.440
male in male parts. I've had my throat slit many times,
427
00:24:24.839 --> 00:24:29.440
stammed in the head, and for some reason, while I'm
428
00:24:29.599 --> 00:24:33.480
in this sort of trance state, I don't get upset.
429
00:24:34.799 --> 00:24:38.039
Ranier is famous for her paranormal services. She's worked on
430
00:24:38.119 --> 00:24:41.319
more than six hundred unsolved cases and even lectured at
431
00:24:41.319 --> 00:24:44.680
the FBI Academy in nineteen eighty one. Believe it or not,
432
00:24:45.039 --> 00:24:48.279
Using psychics on missing persons cases at that time was
433
00:24:48.319 --> 00:24:52.039
a thing. The Atlanta child murders, where many young black
434
00:24:52.039 --> 00:24:54.759
boys went missing at the hands of a mysterious killer,
435
00:24:55.000 --> 00:24:58.039
most famously used psychics to help scour the woods for
436
00:24:58.119 --> 00:25:01.519
bodies around the Atlanta area. In the early nineteen eighties.
437
00:25:02.400 --> 00:25:06.680
The Gilmer Police sent Lorene a tennis shoe, scarf, belt, necklace,
438
00:25:06.799 --> 00:25:10.680
and watch, all items that had belonged to Kelly. This
439
00:25:10.759 --> 00:25:14.000
is an actual recording from the psychic session with Sergeant Brown.
440
00:25:15.480 --> 00:25:22.559
Now, I'm gonna ask Nouren to relax, be with Kelly.
441
00:25:22.920 --> 00:25:27.920
See Kelly. What just describe Kelly for.
442
00:25:28.279 --> 00:25:34.640
More short than pause, more short around your pretty prettiness
443
00:25:34.799 --> 00:25:35.799
in her face.
444
00:25:36.519 --> 00:25:38.759
Sergeant Brown was on the other end of the line.
445
00:25:39.160 --> 00:25:40.640
It went on like that for a while.
446
00:25:40.960 --> 00:25:44.279
Tell us what you're feeling seeing this killer. Want to
447
00:25:44.319 --> 00:25:50.880
know only about the killer, Kelly. Relax, tell us what
448
00:25:50.920 --> 00:25:54.519
you feel. Tell us what you feel.
449
00:25:57.400 --> 00:25:59.559
Stunning is cousingly pain.
450
00:26:00.559 --> 00:26:03.359
You know to tell you the murderers, but I'm having
451
00:26:03.359 --> 00:26:05.119
an the stomach.
452
00:26:05.400 --> 00:26:09.279
Go beyond the pain. Now, you want to go beyond the.
453
00:26:09.279 --> 00:26:11.839
Pains were pushed up me.
454
00:26:15.279 --> 00:26:16.200
Go beyond the pain.
455
00:26:19.519 --> 00:26:26.480
Relax, relax, come back to Noreene. To come back to Noreene,
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00:26:26.640 --> 00:26:31.519
be relaxed, James. We want Nourene to take just a
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00:26:31.559 --> 00:26:36.160
little break from being psychic at this point. When we
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00:26:36.240 --> 00:26:39.480
hit upon something that's stressful or painful, sometimes we have
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00:26:39.640 --> 00:26:41.880
to do this so we don't lose very completely.
460
00:26:43.079 --> 00:26:45.160
I'm going to ask her to take in her trance
461
00:26:45.279 --> 00:26:49.400
like state, Noreene envision two possible suspects. She described their
462
00:26:49.440 --> 00:26:53.400
facial appearances, a big man with thin hair, small eyes,
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00:26:53.880 --> 00:26:57.920
round narrow shoulders, and baggy jeans, and a smaller man
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00:26:58.039 --> 00:27:02.240
with curly hair and a broad note listening along. A
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00:27:02.279 --> 00:27:07.400
police sketch artist drew their composite pictures that winner nearly
466
00:27:07.440 --> 00:27:10.279
to the day since Kelly was last seen. Gilmur Police
467
00:27:10.359 --> 00:27:13.599
Chief al McAllister unveiled the drawings and asked for the
468
00:27:13.599 --> 00:27:16.880
public's help finding the two men, while noting that information
469
00:27:17.039 --> 00:27:21.640
from psychics is not admissible in court. This really was
470
00:27:21.720 --> 00:27:24.160
presented to the town to try to find who might
471
00:27:24.200 --> 00:27:26.039
have been behind Kelly's disappearance.
472
00:27:27.039 --> 00:27:30.279
They had at the end of that year where us
473
00:27:30.359 --> 00:27:33.799
the girl disappeared On January fifth of ninety two, on
474
00:27:33.960 --> 00:27:36.680
New Year's Eve, they had a press conference where the
475
00:27:36.680 --> 00:27:41.119
police station was then, and they got so desperate that
476
00:27:41.160 --> 00:27:45.319
they had looked up a psyche out of Florida and
477
00:27:45.400 --> 00:27:49.640
this woman from this psyching in Florida. Based on her description,
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00:27:49.799 --> 00:27:55.319
they had drawings there two men, and they said, if
479
00:27:55.359 --> 00:27:58.200
anybody knows these people, the police you said, we'd like
480
00:27:58.240 --> 00:28:01.680
to hear from our words to that effect. So the
481
00:28:01.799 --> 00:28:04.440
case was not just put in a drawer and showed
482
00:28:04.519 --> 00:28:08.319
to the back. This was nearly a year later to
483
00:28:08.440 --> 00:28:11.480
the day. In fact, it lacked five days being here
484
00:28:11.559 --> 00:28:14.759
to the day, and they were still trying to solve it.
485
00:28:15.519 --> 00:28:18.400
Phone calls flooded in from people who thought they recognized
486
00:28:18.440 --> 00:28:21.799
the police sketches. They didn't lead to any arrest, though
487
00:28:22.759 --> 00:28:25.119
none of us knew it at the time, but Sergeant
488
00:28:25.160 --> 00:28:27.960
Brown did have a different lead, or maybe a hunch.
489
00:28:28.839 --> 00:28:31.279
He zeroed in on the guys Kelly had been dating
490
00:28:31.359 --> 00:28:36.039
prior to her disappearance. Of particular interest was Chris Denton,
491
00:28:36.400 --> 00:28:39.960
a fellow senior at Gilmer High School. But neither Chris
492
00:28:40.160 --> 00:28:43.319
nor any of Kelly's other exes looked like the suspects
493
00:28:43.319 --> 00:28:47.039
in the police sketch. We'll go deeper into Chris Denton's
494
00:28:47.079 --> 00:28:48.319
story later in the series.
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00:28:49.759 --> 00:28:52.559
He was once named publicly as the chief suspect, but
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they never could apparently get the.
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00:28:53.960 --> 00:28:55.480
Goods of them and even never charged.
498
00:28:56.079 --> 00:28:58.440
By this point, as far as most of us knew,
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00:28:59.000 --> 00:29:02.039
James Brown was still a trusted member of law enforcement,
500
00:29:03.200 --> 00:29:05.799
but he also had a life outside of work, and
501
00:29:05.920 --> 00:29:08.359
Sergeant Brown had met someone.
502
00:29:08.599 --> 00:29:14.559
He was just a real outgoing kind person. He was tall,
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00:29:15.480 --> 00:29:21.640
in good shape, He was handsome to me, and his personality,
504
00:29:22.519 --> 00:29:25.640
you know, has really what won me over, because he
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00:29:25.759 --> 00:29:28.000
was just a real kind individual.
506
00:29:28.200 --> 00:29:31.039
This is Penny. She was soon to be Penny Brown.
507
00:29:31.319 --> 00:29:36.400
He was working on that case when I met him.
508
00:29:37.599 --> 00:29:41.880
I wasn't familiar with that case at all. He didn't
509
00:29:42.000 --> 00:29:48.000
share cases Case Stiles with me. I'd say maybe about
510
00:29:48.039 --> 00:29:51.599
a month after I met him, we started dating and
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00:29:52.559 --> 00:29:57.279
we really enjoyed each other's company. Real happy, outgoing, hard
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00:29:57.319 --> 00:29:58.680
working person.
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00:29:59.319 --> 00:30:01.480
By this time, and the search for Kelly was entering
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00:30:01.519 --> 00:30:04.400
its second year and it really seemed to be going nowhere.
515
00:30:04.839 --> 00:30:08.200
But James and Penny were in love. In November nineteen
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00:30:08.240 --> 00:30:11.599
ninety three, just ten months after the couple met, they
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00:30:11.640 --> 00:30:13.680
got married at the local Methodist church.
518
00:30:13.920 --> 00:30:14.119
Oh.
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00:30:14.160 --> 00:30:19.240
I was ecstatic I was really happy, very happy. We
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00:30:20.559 --> 00:30:27.119
returned from our honeymoon and I we both went back
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00:30:27.160 --> 00:30:32.599
to work and just trying to think. I don't know
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00:30:32.720 --> 00:30:35.119
if it was a month later or a month and
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00:30:35.119 --> 00:30:38.680
a half later that I was at home with my
524
00:30:38.839 --> 00:30:45.759
daughter and he had gone out of town to a school.
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00:30:46.440 --> 00:30:48.640
What it had to do with law enforcement.
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00:30:49.960 --> 00:30:53.240
James Brown had been at law enforcement training in College Station,
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00:30:53.599 --> 00:30:55.799
three and a half hours south of Gilmour when a
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00:30:55.920 --> 00:30:59.000
SWAT team descended on the training facility and took him
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00:30:59.039 --> 00:31:02.720
into custody. Penny was back home in Gilmer when she
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00:31:02.799 --> 00:31:03.640
heard a knock.
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On the door.
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00:31:05.000 --> 00:31:13.359
The chaplain came by my house and told me that
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00:31:13.440 --> 00:31:16.839
he was either arrested or was going to be arrested
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00:31:17.000 --> 00:31:22.759
for the kidnapping, rape, and murder of Kellen Wilson. And
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00:31:22.839 --> 00:31:27.240
I was dumbfounded. I was just blown away. It was
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00:31:27.480 --> 00:31:28.240
very shocking.
537
00:31:29.240 --> 00:31:32.680
The sensational news of James Brown's arrest tore through East
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00:31:32.720 --> 00:31:37.519
Texas and beyond. Everybody was stunned. It turns out there
539
00:31:37.599 --> 00:31:40.680
was another investigation going on at the same time as
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00:31:40.720 --> 00:31:44.079
the search for Kelly, an investigation that led not just
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00:31:44.119 --> 00:31:47.200
to Sergeant Brown, but to seven other men and women
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00:31:47.279 --> 00:31:52.400
who were already in jail on other terrible charges. Almost
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00:31:52.480 --> 00:31:55.000
two years to the day after Kelly disappeared from the
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00:31:55.000 --> 00:31:58.759
Downtown Square in Gilmer, Texas, the police sergeant who was
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00:31:58.799 --> 00:32:01.599
supposed to be leading the search was instead thrown in
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00:32:01.680 --> 00:32:06.160
jail indicted in the kidnapping, sexual assault, and death of
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00:32:06.279 --> 00:32:09.519
Kelly Day Wilson. Brown showed no emotion and made no
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00:32:09.680 --> 00:32:12.519
comment as he passed through the hallway leading to the jail.
549
00:32:13.160 --> 00:32:15.519
Brown's bond is six hundred and fifty thousand.
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00:32:15.279 --> 00:32:18.720
Dollars the murder, kidnapping, and rape of seventeen year old
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00:32:18.839 --> 00:32:19.519
Kelly Wilson.
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00:32:19.799 --> 00:32:20.440
I'm innocent.
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00:32:21.200 --> 00:32:27.039
I'm looking forward to a coordinated as soon as possible
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00:32:27.319 --> 00:32:29.079
so that the truth can come out and.
555
00:32:29.000 --> 00:32:29.880
I can be acquitted.
556
00:32:31.079 --> 00:32:35.480
Maybe even more shocking, if that's possible, was how and
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00:32:35.519 --> 00:32:39.400
why Brown and these other folks had supposedly pulled off
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00:32:39.720 --> 00:32:43.279
a crime more heinous than any of us could have imagined.
559
00:32:44.000 --> 00:32:46.960
It's feared she was kidnapped, raped and murdered by a
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00:32:47.000 --> 00:32:50.519
group locals are calling a satanic cult, and that Kelly
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00:32:50.599 --> 00:32:53.799
may have actually been eaten in a ritualistic killing.
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00:32:54.160 --> 00:32:56.599
For the past two years, Sergeant James Brown has been
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00:32:56.640 --> 00:32:58.920
the only investigator on the Wilson case.
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00:32:59.480 --> 00:33:01.119
It was a j he volunteered for.
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00:33:01.960 --> 00:33:04.200
Now he's a suspect in her disappearance.
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00:33:12.559 --> 00:33:15.720
Deviltown is a production of Imperative Entertainment. It was written
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00:33:15.720 --> 00:33:19.559
and created by me Wes Ferguson. Executive producer is Jason Hoak.
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00:33:19.759 --> 00:33:23.200
Audio engineering and editing by Shane Freeman and Jason Hoak.
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00:33:23.599 --> 00:33:27.440
Original score is by Robert Ellis, recording by Austin Sissler
570
00:33:27.599 --> 00:33:30.359
at Eastside Studios. If you like the show, leave a
571
00:33:30.400 --> 00:33:33.359
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.
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On a dark winter night in nineteen ninety two, high
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school senior Kelly day Wilson finished her shift at NTV
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Northeast Texas Video, a movie rental store on the town
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square in Gilmer, Texas. Kelly locked up the shop with
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manager Joe Henry.
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I say, you opened tomorrow and she says yes, and
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I said, okay.
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See that was the last time anyone is known to
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have seen Kelly.
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The mom called me about six the next morning and
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asked me if she'd go anywhere sink. I said, yes,
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you going with the girls house? And that's all I
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knew at the time. It was a little bit disturbing
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to me, but I mean's like much of.
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A Kelly and one of her friends, a fellow student
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at Gilmour High School, had made plans to attend a
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party together, a party out of town. Kelly never showed.
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At seven a m Kelly's mom, Kathy, called the police department.
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She got on the phone with a veteran sergeant named
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James York Brown. From the get go, Sergeant Brown wondered
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if Kelly simply ran away from home he asked Kathy
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00:01:26.400 --> 00:01:28.760
and her husband Robert to come down to the station
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00:01:29.040 --> 00:01:32.519
to file a missing person's report. Then Sergeant Brown drove
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over to look at Kelly's car. Her gold Dodge Charger
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was still parked beside the video store. There was a
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bottle of vodka inside the car. The keys were missing,
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no signs of a struggle, but the left rear tire
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00:01:45.400 --> 00:01:48.280
had been slashed. The tire had even come off the rim.
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That's an important detail. Obviously Kelly or someone had tried
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to drive the car before realizing it was flat. After
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closing up the video store with Joe Kelly's life, last
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task of the night would have been to drop off
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00:02:02.680 --> 00:02:06.079
all the cash from that day's movie rentals. The bank
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was just a couple of blocks northeast of the store,
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and when Sergeant Brown checked with the bank, sure enough
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the nightly deposit had been made.
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Lati has probably been slash by this time. Is not
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00:02:18.280 --> 00:02:22.719
known if she backed out, started off in the tires
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flat and cooled back in, or if she went all
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the way around to the mine to do the deposit
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and then come back in.
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Kelly's parents were divorced, her dad and stepmom Robbie and
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Waverlin lived in the town of Knaketish, Louisiana, which is
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about two and a half hours southeast of Gilmour. That winter,
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Kelly had been telling her friends that she was moving
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back to Louisiana, where she'd spent most of her childhood.
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Had she left Gilmour without saying goodbye, Kathy called Waverlin.
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Waverland called Robbie.
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Won't say. It was like eight or nine o'clock in
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the morning.
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Wavern called me at work, said, told me a little bit,
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and you know, I told my people I had to
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go sham home.
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We got backed up, we went, we went to So
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you were worried at that point.
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Oh?
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Yeah.
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Robbie had always felt that his daughter was just a
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little too trusting.
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Kearn never met a stranger. She was very, very outgoing,
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probably to her own.
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Yeah, it concerned me a little bit because she again,
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she never she could go up to a perfect stranger,
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strike a conversation, just like she'd known them all her life.
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Best I can remember, we went straight to the police
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station and talked to.
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Uh, sorry Brown.
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Sergeant Brown was lean and linky. He rocked a dark
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brown mustache and aviator sunglasses. Picture a local cop from
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like an eighties movie. That's James Brown.
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Oh, he's a fairly typical small town police officer from
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00:03:58.199 --> 00:04:01.319
what I could you know, be away describe it. He
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kind of ran us through what they had had so far. Uh,
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pretty much the basics of the story. She you know,
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she had closed the stores, she'd she'd her car had
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been moved from where it was originally parked, assuming that
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she had taken a bank deposits to the bank which
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they were made. Uh, and her car was back at
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the store in it but in a different parking slot.
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I think there was a I think her person.
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Was still in the car. There was I think I
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00:04:34.560 --> 00:04:38.639
remember writing a vodka bottle in the car. There were uh,
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you know, who knows how long that stuff, and her
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purse probably was there.
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But that, you know, and that's pretty much about it. Really.
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Why why they didn't impound the car treated as a
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crime scene, I mean they were treating everything as just
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a common, ordinary, everyday missing person runaway type same rather
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00:05:00.959 --> 00:05:02.680
than a crime scene. So there was a lot of
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probably potential evidence that could have been collected.
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It wasn't.
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Hard to imagine the teenage girl running away without her purse.
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00:05:12.920 --> 00:05:20.759
Yeah, or without her car. Why wouldn't she take a car? Uh,
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00:05:21.360 --> 00:05:29.279
you know, let's unless somebody you know abducted her. What
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00:05:29.399 --> 00:05:32.120
else do you hear she voluntarily left for somebody else,
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you know, that would be the only two scenarios I
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00:05:37.360 --> 00:05:38.120
could come up with.
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00:05:40.079 --> 00:05:42.839
That's what a lot of people thought at first. Maybe
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Kelly couldn't decide which household to live in, so she
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skipped down with a boyfriend.
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I just remember in the beginning, it was a.
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She ran off.
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They just kept saying, Oh, she ran off with some boy.
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00:05:56.920 --> 00:05:58.439
That's Kelly's friend from high school.
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00:05:58.519 --> 00:05:58.680
Lee.
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00:05:59.240 --> 00:06:02.079
It was a lot of she's a wild child.
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00:06:02.920 --> 00:06:05.959
She definitely just ran off with some boy for the
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00:06:06.000 --> 00:06:07.360
first couple of days, I believe.
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00:06:08.240 --> 00:06:10.079
I feel like it took them a couple of days
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00:06:10.120 --> 00:06:11.759
before they took it seriously.
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00:06:12.360 --> 00:06:15.920
That mindset was about to shift. The bank where everybody
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thought Kelly made the deposit right before she disappeared had
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a security camera. Sergeant Brown got hold of the footage.
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00:06:23.560 --> 00:06:26.800
It showed three vehicles making deposits around the time that
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Kelly would have left the video store. None of the
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00:06:29.800 --> 00:06:33.600
vehicles was an eighty five Dodge Charger, though, nor did
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00:06:33.680 --> 00:06:37.079
any of the drivers look like Kelly. Although the video
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00:06:37.160 --> 00:06:39.680
quality was so bad it was hard to know for sure.
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I just had a feeling, ominous feeling that just did
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not go to run well, and that I can't tell
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00:06:48.000 --> 00:06:49.720
you why I did fail, and I just had that
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00:06:50.639 --> 00:06:53.480
as Unfortunately it turned out to be pretty true.
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Robbie had no idea how bad it was going to get.
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It's the story of a missing teenage girl.
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To find her would change the lines of just about
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everyone she knew.
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In this case of missing Gilmourtine Kelly Wilson.
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She told be careful that I could end up like
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Kelly Wilson. The strip put fear in me.
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If there was devil worshiping back in the woods right
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behind your.
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House, Yeah, further back in the woods.
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The details are sketchy, the trail goes cold, and Kelly
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Wilson vanishes forever in the small town of Gilmour, everyone
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wants to know what happened to Kelly Wilson.
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From Imperative Entertainment. I'm West Ferguson. This is Deviltown. This
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00:08:00.560 --> 00:08:05.560
is chapter two, The Devil comes to town. It's been
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00:08:05.680 --> 00:08:08.800
thirty years since Kelly Wilson walked out of Northeast Texas.
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00:08:08.920 --> 00:08:12.360
Video and vanished into the night. I was a kid
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back then. Now I'm trying to answer a question that
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seems so simple, and yet it's been devil the town
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of Gilmer for decades.
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STA Steel, no answers, and the disappearance of Kelly Wilson.
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Leaving the city wondering well they ever know. That's all
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anyone can say for certain.
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Kelly Wilson has vanished.
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From day one. Sergeant James York Brown led the investigation.
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He probably knows more about Kelly's disappearance than anyone else,
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but this case changed his life. It nearly broke him.
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To this day. Some folks in Gilmer wonder if Sergeant
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Brown knows more than he's letting on. I mailed Sergeant
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Brown a letter and called a few times. Nothing. One day,
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I even tried to drive by his house to knock
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on his front door. He lives way out in the country. Now,
156
00:09:05.440 --> 00:09:08.039
the map on my phone sent me far off course
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to a pine forest in the middle of nowhere, not
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a house in sight. Kelly's mom, Kathy, had already decided
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not to talk to me. Without Sergeant Brown, I'd probably
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never find out what happened to Kelly. Then I dove
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00:09:21.200 --> 00:09:24.159
a little deeper into Facebook and Reddit comments about the case.
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They were full of finger pointing and amateur investigators. James
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York Brown was a prime suspect in the eyes of some.
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Here are a few examples.
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I still think it was the cop.
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To me, he was so creepy.
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It was in it up to his ears.
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One of the commenters caught my attention. This guy was feisty.
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Plenty of bad information here. I'd be proud to set
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some things straight. I lost good years of my childhood
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to this case. He is my father. I'd be happy
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to answer any questions you have. Jan Brown has a son.
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His name is Josh. I found a phone number.
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Oh I've been mad. Yeah, I've been mad.
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I've even questioned my own dad, just out of out
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of fury, out of out of fucking lost time, and
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just just being just flat out mad, you know, trying
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to figure out why I've questioned dad, My brother's questioned dad.
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My brother and I both questioned each other just you know,
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we wanted to know what we were shielded from. But
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I can guarantee you that I can guarantee you he
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didn't do it.
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Josh's mom and dad split up when he was a toddler.
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He was eight when his dad took on Kelly's case.
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They've been divorced. It's all I can remember, you know.
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I just see dad on the weekends, first, third, and fifth.
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Back then, Sergeant Brown was always on the job, whether
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he was in uniform or not.
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He had a Brown trans am and uh, you know,
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we we would go ride the back roads on the weekend.
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And uh, I didn't know this, but you know he
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was he was looking. I remember he would talk to
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people when we were just, you know, quote riding around
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and he would ask him, hey, you know, you see anything?
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You know, he was always asking questions. You know anybody
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and everybody that you know, everybody. Gimmer's a small town.
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Josh and I had been talking for a while. I
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had to ask, do you think he'd want to talk
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to me.
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I don't know that he would.
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I think he's I think he's pretty well done with
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that stage in his life that you know, he's moved
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on from that really doesn't want anything to do with it.
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I will call him and ask him and see if
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he'll do one more interview. However, my request, if I'm
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going to do that for you, give us the direction
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that's going to be geared, because if you're going to
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try to make him look like a criminal, yeah, we
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ain't got much use for that.
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Josh and I hung up. Minutes later, the phone buzzed
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in my pocket Josh again. He had his dad on
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the line. I scrambled to find my recorder. Mister Brown,
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thank you so much for being willing to get on
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the phone with me.
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My name is he.
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Before you get started, lest I want you understand.
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You've I've talked to Dad and h You've got a
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few minutes.
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And if he gets uncomfortable, I told him to hung up,
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or he can say hey, I don't feel comfortable and
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hang up. So understood, get started, understood, and I won't
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take too much of your time.
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Sergeant Brown. James had been a cop for several years
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in Gilmer before he answered the call to search for
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Kelly Wilson. He believed in his mission to serve and protect.
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And that was the whole region of being in law
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enforcement anyway, or in my opinion, it is is to
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help people and take them And I mean I went
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to shootings and bandage people up until they get the ambulance.
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The whole hopefully they subviigned it.
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You know, it didn't matter if they were the bad
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guy or the good guy.
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It was just your job was to take it.
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Didn't take him long to realize that Kelly's situation was
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more dire than a case of a teenage runaway.
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Usually if somebody runs from their home or was a
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runaway or usually sign them within cyber or six days.
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But then from what I understood, she was supposed to
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live with her father in Louisiana.
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And when he told me that, I said, just don't.
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Look good at all, because usually a person don't maybe
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eight from where.
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They want to go.
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They could have run away, or anything could have happened.
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But you start at that point and then you.
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Go from where the last place was.
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And you know, even in this case, there was problems
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with that because the vehicle was tampered with by this
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stepfather and mother of her at that time, before we
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were notified.
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Kelly's stepdad, Robert, not to be confused with Kelly's dad, Robbie,
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probably didn't give a second thought to grabbing the purse
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when he found Kelly's unlocked car beside the video store.
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But in Sergeant Brown's opinion, Robert had had already compromised
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the crime scene purse.
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With thetization of another They had already went.
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Through that car before we got that.
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You had to start at zero because you don't know
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what was removed from the vega or anything.
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Sergeant Brown didn't really think the car held any clues,
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so he turned his search elsewhere. That meant interviewing everyone
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he could find.
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You talked to the people that were there at the story,
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You talked to people outside you.
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I mean, there's a lot of interviews that were done
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with the last people that had contact, and from there
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you start nearing your focus. And of course I was
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and a loan in the investigation.
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Enter Philip Williams.
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About two or three days that you disa feared, he
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called me in said I need some help. Distinct remember
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saying that.
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Philip Williams was and is a newspaper reporter in Gilmer.
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You heard from him in the first episode.
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And then he told me we got this missing girl.
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To spread the word, Philip wrote a news article that
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described Kelly blue eyes, sandy, blonde hair, five foot seven,
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one hundred and twenty pounds. She was last seen wearing
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blue jean cut off shorts and a purple rugby shirt
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with a white collar and white sleeve bands. Sergeant Brown
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also called the Texas Rangers, Louisiana Police, and the FBI,
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looking for help anywhere he could find it.
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The FBI help when Danley's and interview people.
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There had been a few skateboarders out that night on
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the town square. According to at least one news report,
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A handful of people told police they saw Kelly go
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back into the video store after she discovered her flat tire,
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but apparently no one saw what happened after that. Asking around,
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Sergeant Brown found out that one of Kelly's tires also
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had been slashed that Friday, two nights before she vanished.
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Another girl who worked with Kelly at the video store
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also had one of her tires slashed on Saturday, just
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one night before. Maybe this this last tire was related,
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maybe not. Another baffling detail has to do with that
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bank deposit. For some reason, Sergeant Brown told the news
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media that Kelly was shown on the security camera making
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the deposit, even though the camera didn't really show that.
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I guess it's possible she walked two blocks to make
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the deposit off camera, but that seems unlikely given that
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it was dark and pretty cold in Gilmer that night.
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If not Kelly, then who dropped off the money?
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I'll let them carry my truck through to eliminate it.
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That's Joe Henry again, the store manager.
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We went drove through. Do that twice. Let's screw it.
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Did that to us? Eliminated my truck.
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Sergeant Brown, the FBI and Texas Rangers all interviewed Joe.
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Joe was a bachelor in his mid thirties. He and
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Kelly had been alone on her last night at the
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video store. Was he hiding something? Did you get the
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impression that they were asking some certain questions because they
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were trying to decide if you were.
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Yeah, yeah, but they were very very nice. I mean yes,
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because I mean you start, I'm the proverbial last person.
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To see here.
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That's that's you know. I wasn't but whatever happened was
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the last person. But I'm the proverbial last person to
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see her. So we started with me and you worked
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away out.
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Well.
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We went through all this stuff, and it was very hard,
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very difficult, because I'd gone home that night. My mom
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was home the next door navy and that saw me
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come home. A guy at the grocery store. I bet
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and bought some stuff from my mom and group the
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frozen and stuff. Went home, took shower, eight and supper.
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Call my girlfriend and talked to her. She got me
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back in a little bit and this was crazy and
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asked me, he says, your dog in the yard.
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And I said, yeah, I think so, kind of random.
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So I got up and looked out the one and
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there he was, you know, and her name was Angela.
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She since passed away. But but all these people, now,
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I tried to think, y'all, go comp.
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Of these people. We don't need to.
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It's hard.
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So okay, I mean I had never ready here, interesting,
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anything like this before, and this is just terrifying, you know.
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But yeah, but they were very courteous and I didn't
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want They told me too and all that, and we
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went through any time they wanted.
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To talk, we talked.
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Everybody in town knew Joe, and not just from the
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video store or his burger joined around the block. Joe
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was from a good family with deep ties in Gilmer.
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He also had a solid alibi. Pretty soon he was
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more or less eliminated from the list of suspects, at
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least in the eyes of law. Enforcement, although Joe says
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he remained in touch with Sergeant Brown and the FBI
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and goa Jane to tell me something.
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We were kind of confident with each other. After a time,
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we got over the hurdle of me and I mine. Obviously,
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they ever quit looking at me in that respect. But
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after a while it changed and they would come over
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and eat lunch. We would talk and I told the
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guy I felt bad about that, about not staying an
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extra ten minutes or whatever. He said, you cannot lay yourself.
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He said, that is not your problem. He said, I
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know it's a bad situation, but he said you can't.
359
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You can't put yourself in that situation that if you
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had been then this wouldn't have happened. I mean, it's
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just that you just can't speculate on my kind stuff.
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Winding through the woods northwest of Gilmour is a narrow,
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and some would say mysterious road named the Cherokee Trace.
364
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It's much older than all the other roads in the area.
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In fact, Cherokee Indians blazed the trail more than two
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centuries ago, supposedly by dragging buffalo skins through the brush.
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To this day, it remains a lonely out of the
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way black Top Lane meandering out of town for several miles.
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In this story, the Cherokee Trace will come up again
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00:20:46.680 --> 00:20:51.720
and again. One month after Kelly disappeared, three hundred volunteers
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and a pack of search dogs combed the woods near
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Cherokee Trace. The spot was a popular hangout for local teens.
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What's more, a new reservoir, Gilmour Lake, was being planned
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for the area. The searchers found some mounds of recently
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turned earth, but it turned out that a team of
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archaeologists had been digging for Indian relics. There were no
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signs of Kelly. Sergeant Brown kept up the search on
378
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his own time. Meanwhile, Kelly's dad and stepmom practically moved
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to Gilmour.
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It seemed like every weekend there for quite a few months, we.
381
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Were over there.
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You know, we would follow a lead or just find
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a place in search. I mean, it was just, you know,
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he felt like he had to do some.
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Finally, in late April, Sergeant Brown seemed to get his
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first real break. A high school dropout named Michael Biby
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confessed to slashing Kelly's car tire on the night she vanished. Biby,
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who was seventeen years old at the time, was arrested
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on a misdemeanor charge of criminal mischief.
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The guy that's last retire He was brought in the court,
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played guilty and to a missdemainor, and I was there
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when he was sentenced. But apparently, through a remarkable coincidence,
393
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he had nothing to do with her disappearance. He's last retired,
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she disappears, but he didn't have thing to do with
395
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the disappearance.
396
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Or as a law was concerned. That's quite the coincidence.
397
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Michael Biby moved out of state a long time ago.
398
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I've tried really hard to reach him, phone calls, emails,
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he blocked me on Facebook. Ultimately police decided his tire
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slashing was just a random act of vandalism. Police were
401
00:22:38.680 --> 00:22:42.920
back to square one. That spring high school graduation came
402
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and went with no sign of Kelly. The Gilmer class
403
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of ninety two dedicated this ceremony to their missing classmate.
404
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In the news, Sergeant Brown maintained that he was still
405
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interviewing people and pursuing leads, but reading between the lines,
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it seemed like the case.
407
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Had gone.
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Desperate for clues. Sergeant Brown was about to take a
409
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trip to the spirit world.
410
00:23:12.319 --> 00:23:13.680
Hi, Sergeant Brown, is it?
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Hi? Sergeant Brown?
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Just fine? Well, James, have you ever worked with the
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psychic before?
414
00:23:21.319 --> 00:23:42.039
No, ma'am James Brown dial to psychic. With the search
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for their daughter seeming to stall out, Kelly's parents had
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asked Sergeant James York Brown of the Gilmert Police Department
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to seek help from none other than Narene Rainier, a
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psychic detective in Florida. Here's Miss Renier being interviewed for
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a YouTube show just last year.
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Welcome to Paranormal Yaker.
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My guest today is psychic detective Noreen Rainier.
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She is the only psychic ever to lecture at the
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00:24:10.039 --> 00:24:12.839
FBI Academy and has assisted.
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Law enforcement officials all over the world.
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00:24:16.519 --> 00:24:19.519
I've been shot with a shotgun, and I've been a
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male in male parts. I've had my throat slit many times,
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00:24:24.839 --> 00:24:29.440
stammed in the head, and for some reason, while I'm
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00:24:29.599 --> 00:24:33.480
in this sort of trance state, I don't get upset.
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00:24:34.799 --> 00:24:38.039
Ranier is famous for her paranormal services. She's worked on
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more than six hundred unsolved cases and even lectured at
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the FBI Academy in nineteen eighty one. Believe it or not,
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Using psychics on missing persons cases at that time was
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a thing. The Atlanta child murders, where many young black
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boys went missing at the hands of a mysterious killer,
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most famously used psychics to help scour the woods for
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bodies around the Atlanta area. In the early nineteen eighties.
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00:25:02.400 --> 00:25:06.680
The Gilmer Police sent Lorene a tennis shoe, scarf, belt, necklace,
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and watch, all items that had belonged to Kelly. This
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00:25:10.759 --> 00:25:14.000
is an actual recording from the psychic session with Sergeant Brown.
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00:25:15.480 --> 00:25:22.559
Now, I'm gonna ask Nouren to relax, be with Kelly.
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00:25:22.920 --> 00:25:27.920
See Kelly. What just describe Kelly for.
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00:25:28.279 --> 00:25:34.640
More short than pause, more short around your pretty prettiness
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00:25:34.799 --> 00:25:35.799
in her face.
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Sergeant Brown was on the other end of the line.
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00:25:39.160 --> 00:25:40.640
It went on like that for a while.
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00:25:40.960 --> 00:25:44.279
Tell us what you're feeling seeing this killer. Want to
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00:25:44.319 --> 00:25:50.880
know only about the killer, Kelly. Relax, tell us what
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00:25:50.920 --> 00:25:54.519
you feel. Tell us what you feel.
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00:25:57.400 --> 00:25:59.559
Stunning is cousingly pain.
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00:26:00.559 --> 00:26:03.359
You know to tell you the murderers, but I'm having
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an the stomach.
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Go beyond the pain. Now, you want to go beyond the.
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00:26:09.279 --> 00:26:11.839
Pains were pushed up me.
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Go beyond the pain.
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Relax, relax, come back to Noreene. To come back to Noreene,
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be relaxed, James. We want Nourene to take just a
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little break from being psychic at this point. When we
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00:26:36.240 --> 00:26:39.480
hit upon something that's stressful or painful, sometimes we have
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00:26:39.640 --> 00:26:41.880
to do this so we don't lose very completely.
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I'm going to ask her to take in her trance
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00:26:45.279 --> 00:26:49.400
like state, Noreene envision two possible suspects. She described their
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00:26:49.440 --> 00:26:53.400
facial appearances, a big man with thin hair, small eyes,
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00:26:53.880 --> 00:26:57.920
round narrow shoulders, and baggy jeans, and a smaller man
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00:26:58.039 --> 00:27:02.240
with curly hair and a broad note listening along. A
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00:27:02.279 --> 00:27:07.400
police sketch artist drew their composite pictures that winner nearly
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00:27:07.440 --> 00:27:10.279
to the day since Kelly was last seen. Gilmur Police
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00:27:10.359 --> 00:27:13.599
Chief al McAllister unveiled the drawings and asked for the
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public's help finding the two men, while noting that information
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from psychics is not admissible in court. This really was
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00:27:21.720 --> 00:27:24.160
presented to the town to try to find who might
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have been behind Kelly's disappearance.
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00:27:27.039 --> 00:27:30.279
They had at the end of that year where us
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00:27:30.359 --> 00:27:33.799
the girl disappeared On January fifth of ninety two, on
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New Year's Eve, they had a press conference where the
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police station was then, and they got so desperate that
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00:27:41.160 --> 00:27:45.319
they had looked up a psyche out of Florida and
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00:27:45.400 --> 00:27:49.640
this woman from this psyching in Florida. Based on her description,
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00:27:49.799 --> 00:27:55.319
they had drawings there two men, and they said, if
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00:27:55.359 --> 00:27:58.200
anybody knows these people, the police you said, we'd like
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00:27:58.240 --> 00:28:01.680
to hear from our words to that effect. So the
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00:28:01.799 --> 00:28:04.440
case was not just put in a drawer and showed
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to the back. This was nearly a year later to
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00:28:08.440 --> 00:28:11.480
the day. In fact, it lacked five days being here
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00:28:11.559 --> 00:28:14.759
to the day, and they were still trying to solve it.
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00:28:15.519 --> 00:28:18.400
Phone calls flooded in from people who thought they recognized
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00:28:18.440 --> 00:28:21.799
the police sketches. They didn't lead to any arrest, though
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00:28:22.759 --> 00:28:25.119
none of us knew it at the time, but Sergeant
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00:28:25.160 --> 00:28:27.960
Brown did have a different lead, or maybe a hunch.
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00:28:28.839 --> 00:28:31.279
He zeroed in on the guys Kelly had been dating
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00:28:31.359 --> 00:28:36.039
prior to her disappearance. Of particular interest was Chris Denton,
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00:28:36.400 --> 00:28:39.960
a fellow senior at Gilmer High School. But neither Chris
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00:28:40.160 --> 00:28:43.319
nor any of Kelly's other exes looked like the suspects
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00:28:43.319 --> 00:28:47.039
in the police sketch. We'll go deeper into Chris Denton's
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00:28:47.079 --> 00:28:48.319
story later in the series.
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00:28:49.759 --> 00:28:52.559
He was once named publicly as the chief suspect, but
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they never could apparently get the.
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00:28:53.960 --> 00:28:55.480
Goods of them and even never charged.
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00:28:56.079 --> 00:28:58.440
By this point, as far as most of us knew,
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00:28:59.000 --> 00:29:02.039
James Brown was still a trusted member of law enforcement,
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00:29:03.200 --> 00:29:05.799
but he also had a life outside of work, and
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Sergeant Brown had met someone.
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00:29:08.599 --> 00:29:14.559
He was just a real outgoing kind person. He was tall,
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00:29:15.480 --> 00:29:21.640
in good shape, He was handsome to me, and his personality,
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00:29:22.519 --> 00:29:25.640
you know, has really what won me over, because he
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00:29:25.759 --> 00:29:28.000
was just a real kind individual.
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00:29:28.200 --> 00:29:31.039
This is Penny. She was soon to be Penny Brown.
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00:29:31.319 --> 00:29:36.400
He was working on that case when I met him.
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00:29:37.599 --> 00:29:41.880
I wasn't familiar with that case at all. He didn't
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00:29:42.000 --> 00:29:48.000
share cases Case Stiles with me. I'd say maybe about
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00:29:48.039 --> 00:29:51.599
a month after I met him, we started dating and
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00:29:52.559 --> 00:29:57.279
we really enjoyed each other's company. Real happy, outgoing, hard
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working person.
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00:29:59.319 --> 00:30:01.480
By this time, and the search for Kelly was entering
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00:30:01.519 --> 00:30:04.400
its second year and it really seemed to be going nowhere.
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00:30:04.839 --> 00:30:08.200
But James and Penny were in love. In November nineteen
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00:30:08.240 --> 00:30:11.599
ninety three, just ten months after the couple met, they
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00:30:11.640 --> 00:30:13.680
got married at the local Methodist church.
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00:30:13.920 --> 00:30:14.119
Oh.
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00:30:14.160 --> 00:30:19.240
I was ecstatic I was really happy, very happy. We
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00:30:20.559 --> 00:30:27.119
returned from our honeymoon and I we both went back
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00:30:27.160 --> 00:30:32.599
to work and just trying to think. I don't know
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00:30:32.720 --> 00:30:35.119
if it was a month later or a month and
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00:30:35.119 --> 00:30:38.680
a half later that I was at home with my
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00:30:38.839 --> 00:30:45.759
daughter and he had gone out of town to a school.
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00:30:46.440 --> 00:30:48.640
What it had to do with law enforcement.
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00:30:49.960 --> 00:30:53.240
James Brown had been at law enforcement training in College Station,
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three and a half hours south of Gilmour when a
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SWAT team descended on the training facility and took him
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00:30:59.039 --> 00:31:02.720
into custody. Penny was back home in Gilmer when she
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00:31:02.799 --> 00:31:03.640
heard a knock.
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On the door.
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00:31:05.000 --> 00:31:13.359
The chaplain came by my house and told me that
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00:31:13.440 --> 00:31:16.839
he was either arrested or was going to be arrested
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00:31:17.000 --> 00:31:22.759
for the kidnapping, rape, and murder of Kellen Wilson. And
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00:31:22.839 --> 00:31:27.240
I was dumbfounded. I was just blown away. It was
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00:31:27.480 --> 00:31:28.240
very shocking.
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00:31:29.240 --> 00:31:32.680
The sensational news of James Brown's arrest tore through East
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00:31:32.720 --> 00:31:37.519
Texas and beyond. Everybody was stunned. It turns out there
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00:31:37.599 --> 00:31:40.680
was another investigation going on at the same time as
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00:31:40.720 --> 00:31:44.079
the search for Kelly, an investigation that led not just
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00:31:44.119 --> 00:31:47.200
to Sergeant Brown, but to seven other men and women
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00:31:47.279 --> 00:31:52.400
who were already in jail on other terrible charges. Almost
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00:31:52.480 --> 00:31:55.000
two years to the day after Kelly disappeared from the
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00:31:55.000 --> 00:31:58.759
Downtown Square in Gilmer, Texas, the police sergeant who was
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00:31:58.799 --> 00:32:01.599
supposed to be leading the search was instead thrown in
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00:32:01.680 --> 00:32:06.160
jail indicted in the kidnapping, sexual assault, and death of
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00:32:06.279 --> 00:32:09.519
Kelly Day Wilson. Brown showed no emotion and made no
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00:32:09.680 --> 00:32:12.519
comment as he passed through the hallway leading to the jail.
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00:32:13.160 --> 00:32:15.519
Brown's bond is six hundred and fifty thousand.
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00:32:15.279 --> 00:32:18.720
Dollars the murder, kidnapping, and rape of seventeen year old
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00:32:18.839 --> 00:32:19.519
Kelly Wilson.
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00:32:19.799 --> 00:32:20.440
I'm innocent.
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00:32:21.200 --> 00:32:27.039
I'm looking forward to a coordinated as soon as possible
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00:32:27.319 --> 00:32:29.079
so that the truth can come out and.
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00:32:29.000 --> 00:32:29.880
I can be acquitted.
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00:32:31.079 --> 00:32:35.480
Maybe even more shocking, if that's possible, was how and
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00:32:35.519 --> 00:32:39.400
why Brown and these other folks had supposedly pulled off
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00:32:39.720 --> 00:32:43.279
a crime more heinous than any of us could have imagined.
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00:32:44.000 --> 00:32:46.960
It's feared she was kidnapped, raped and murdered by a
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00:32:47.000 --> 00:32:50.519
group locals are calling a satanic cult, and that Kelly
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00:32:50.599 --> 00:32:53.799
may have actually been eaten in a ritualistic killing.
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00:32:54.160 --> 00:32:56.599
For the past two years, Sergeant James Brown has been
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00:32:56.640 --> 00:32:58.920
the only investigator on the Wilson case.
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00:32:59.480 --> 00:33:01.119
It was a j he volunteered for.
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00:33:01.960 --> 00:33:04.200
Now he's a suspect in her disappearance.
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Deviltown is a production of Imperative Entertainment. It was written
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00:33:15.720 --> 00:33:19.559
and created by me Wes Ferguson. Executive producer is Jason Hoak.
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00:33:19.759 --> 00:33:23.200
Audio engineering and editing by Shane Freeman and Jason Hoak.
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00:33:23.599 --> 00:33:27.440
Original score is by Robert Ellis, recording by Austin Sissler
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00:33:27.599 --> 00:33:30.359
at Eastside Studios. If you like the show, leave a
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00:33:30.400 --> 00:33:33.359
review and don't forget to tell your friends thanks for listening.
