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So a couple days after that first phone call I
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had with Joe Hogue, the one where he decided he
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was going to go lean on his Texas Rangers buddies
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and try to get Kelly Wilson's case looked at again,
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Hogue calls me back, and I could tell right off
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that something had changed. So I'm out in my backyard
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smoking a brisket, having a pretty normal Sunday, and Hogue, man,
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it sounds like he has not slept in about a week.
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Oh my gosh, what a night, man. It's been a
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roller coaster.
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See, after we'd hung up that first time, Joe had
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gone back home and sat down and listened to both
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of my Joe Henry interviews again, back to back, the
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whole way through in one night. And he took notes.
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I've got like 25 pages of notes. Anyway, I think
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you should have the privilege of hearing some of this.
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I'd love to, yeah. When he called me, he said
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that he had been up for 36 hours working on this.
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And I guess that's what this episode is really about.
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It's about what a guy hears when he stays up
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all night convinced he's listening to a killer. And then
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there's what I hear sitting right next to him, which
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it turns out is maybe not always the same thing.
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In his mind, he's now at the point where he's
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killed her. And this is what comes out of his mouth.
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From Free Range Productions in association with Imperative Entertainment. I'm
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Wes Ferguson, and this is Deviltown. Chapter 16, Silence. Okay,
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here is just a very quick reminder of who we're
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dealing with. Joe Hogue is a Texas state trooper, 27
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years in, retired now, who stumbled onto my show on
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those long border drives and just could not put the
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Kelly Wilson case down. And out of this whole thing,
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the guy he keeps coming back to over and over
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is Joe Henry. And of course you know Joe Henry.
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He ran the burger joint on the square, he leased
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the movies to the video store where Kelly worked, and
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he's always said he was the last person to see
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her on the night she disappeared. And just like I
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said last time, I'm going to repeat that Joe Henry
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is has never been charged with anything in this case.
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He is innocent until proven guilty. Everything you are about
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to hear Joe Hogue say about him is just opinion.
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It's not fact. It's not a conviction. Joe Henry is
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innocent until proven guilty. Okay, so Hogue has been through
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my interviews with a fine-tooth comb, and the first thing
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he wants to talk about when he calls me back
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is how Joe Henry acts when the questions get hard.
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He redirects you every single thing that you asked him
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some specifics about. Like, there's a couple times in there
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where his mouth goes dry.
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Mm-hmm.
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You may have saw that. Did you pick up on that?
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Yeah.
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Where he went cotton mouth? Mm-hmm. And so his real
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demeanor is real down. But when you... shift, and then
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you start asking about these other questions you want to ask,
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and these questions were like off-the-wall rumor stuff.
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So here Hoag is referring to several questions that I
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asked Joe Henry about some rumors flying around. I got
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into all these in previous episodes, so I won't really
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get into.
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It too much here.
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There was the story about the guy who supposedly came
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home the morning after she disappeared, covered in mud. stuff
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about the rich old guys in town and all the
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rumors about where Kelly's body supposedly is hidden, like under
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the pizza hut, under Gilmer Lake, or maybe she was
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put in the incinerator at a lumber yard. Joe Henry
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described all of this as fanciful talk.
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He does a 180. Like, his spirit, his demeanor, like,
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came back up.
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Hogue brought this up a little bit on our last call,
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but now he pushes it even further.
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Well, he was.
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Relieved to move on. You know, it's kind of human nature.
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Not on the spot anymore. And that's true as far
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as it goes. You know, a guy is getting grilled
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about one of the worst nights in his life when
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there has been this suspicion cast over him for decades.
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And then when I change the subject, of course he
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loosens up. But the more of those hard moments that
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I went back and listened to, the less I felt
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like all of that left him off the hook. Because
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it wasn't just a one-time thing. I mean, it was
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a lot. Ask Joe something real, he shrinks. Bring up
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some rumor, he's chatty as can be. Hoag heard the
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exact same thing that I did. He just wasn't willing
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to explain it away. You'll also remember that Joe Henry
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does not have a clean slate. As you heard in
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the last episode, he has a child pornography conviction. And
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to be fair, that conviction came more than a decade
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after Kelly vanished. And as far as we know, it
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really has nothing to do with her case. But it's
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also a good deal uglier than the folks defending him
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have let on. And Joe admitted to some other things
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around Kelly at the store that a grown man has
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no business doing. Now, does any of that prove that
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he hurt Kelly Wilson? No, of course it doesn't. Joe
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Henry has never been charged with that. But it's also
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not nothing. So when Joe Hogue tells me he hears
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something dark on my tape, I can't just wave that away.
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And when I was actually in the room with Joe Henry,
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first at his burger shop and then in his living room,
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there was more than one moment where I think I
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felt it too. And I told Joe Hogue that.
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I was curious, your mindset during that, You know that,
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I mean, it's you and it's him sitting there. And
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you've got the guy that's done it.
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Hogue and I are just speculating here. We're not saying
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it was Joe Henry. What we are saying is that
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we are looking hard at him.
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Yeah, yeah.
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I mean, that was definitely going through my head. Whether
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he acted alone, I don't know. He's kind of a smaller,
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kind of a weak and mild, timid kind of guy.
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So I've wondered if he, you know, had help or
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maybe he was the help. I don't know, but I
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definitely got the read on him that he was feeling
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extremely guilty and was not disclosing everything that he knew.
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That's for sure. Again, this is just us speculating here, spitballing.
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Joe Henry could have been nervous. After all, nobody wants
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to be accused of something. But I still felt like
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something was off, and obviously Joe Hogue felt that too.
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On our second phone call, Hogue told me something really chilling.
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I cried last night. I prayed. I kept praying over
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and over and over, you know, because I started to
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panic at one point when I'm listening to his interview
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and he's went through these timelines of his alibi, which
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he's lying about all of them. But do you realize,
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you know, when he tells you that off-the-wall story about
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the dog in the yard. There's your dog in the yard?
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And I thought, yeah, I think so. So I got
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up and looked out the window, and there he was,
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you know. This is what comes out of his mouth,
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you know, because he doesn't know what to say. So
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he's just saying. And so at that point, I was
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having problems breathing because I felt that I was listening to, like,
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the moment where In his mind, this is when he
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killed her.
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I mean, yeah, I thought it was really weird at
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the time too, but I didn't really know what to
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make of it. Why would his girlfriend, who wasn't even there,
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call him and ask if his dog was in the yard?
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Without more context, it really makes no sense. But I
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did push back on Joe Hogue's theory just a bit.
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It seems like he had 30 years. He could have
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come up with a better alibi than, is your dog
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in the yard? If you did this and you had
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three decades to smooth your story out, why would you
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leave in the one detail that sounds insane? And Hogue,
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to his credit, had an answer for that, and it
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wasn't a crazy one.
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When you get put in that position and that stress
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level goes way up like that, I mean, it's hard
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to control what the body does when the stress level
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is at And like he can practice it and he
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can think about it in his mind. But until that
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time happens where somebody's in front of him and is
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asking to answer something, when that stress hits the roof,
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the human body can't prepare itself for that. And so
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it's just the human body just does things that a
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person can't control.
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So at this point, Joe Hogue is 100% certain that
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Joe Henry did this, and he wants to do something
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about it. If you remember from last episode, he started
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reaching out to his law enforcement connections to try and
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make things happen. He didn't call me back to just
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share more thoughts about the interviews. He called to give
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me some updates. After the break, more investigators get involved. Okay,
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so this is the part of our podcast where Joe
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Hogue turns from a guy with headphones and 25 pages
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of notes into a guy actually trying to reopen a
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30-year-old murder case. And remember who we're dealing with. 27
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years at DPS, he knows people. He already told me
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on that first call that he was going to go
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talk to his friend, the Texas Ranger, who had just
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been assigned to Upshur County. Well, by the second call,
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he'd done a whole lot more than talk.
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The right people are involved. I was wanting the wheels
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to start rolling today, but they're not. You know, I've
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talked to the Ranger and then the Lieutenant Ranger. I've
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got a couple of demands, and they're on board.
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So all of a sudden, we are not talking about
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a maybe anymore. He's got actual Texas Rangers, plural, willing
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to take a look. And when Joe Hogue says he's
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got demands, understand he is not kidding around. He had
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worked up this whole plan for how these Rangers were
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going to get up to speed, and it's honestly kind
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of intense.
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I'm going to make them listen to these interviews. With me,
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with nothing being said. They're going to listen to them
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and not say a word. Okay? I don't know how
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good they are at interpreting interviews. And so it's vital.
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It's vital that people that are very well trained. So
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the reason I'm going to make them listen to it
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in front of me, and then I need to see
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that they pick up on what I picked on.
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So he doesn't want to just hand the Rangers a
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case and walk away. He wants to sit them down,
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play my tapes, and watch their faces to make sure
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they hear the guilt he thinks he hears. And if
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they don't?
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If they don't pick up on what I pick up on,
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then somebody else is going to listen to it.
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And that tells you right where Joe Hoag's head was at.
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This is a man who has decided flat out that
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he is right. And now he's auditioning the Texas Rangers
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to see if they're sharp enough to agree with him.
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So I asked Kogue the obvious thing, the thing I
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couldn't get my head around. You can't just walk up
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to a man after 30 years and accuse him of murder.
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I mean, how do you even start a conversation like that? Well,
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wouldn't the interviewer kind of frame it as, you know,
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a general investigation and just seeing if he can help out,
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you know, not pinning him down.
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Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, no, there's psychological steps
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that you can do, you know, to make him not suspicious,
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to make him think everything is all right, you know,
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in the beginning. But that's over my head, you know,
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and how they do that. But, yeah, all that will
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have to be analyzed by what type of person this is,
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you know, and we've learned everything we need to know
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from your interviews, what type of witness he is. They'll
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make that decision on how they want to go about it,
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you know. They may come at him at an angle
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that they're looking at something else, you know. They just
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got to get in there.
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So the plan was to go in soft. Sit somebody
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down with Joe Henry, get him talking about anything but Kelly,
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at least a start, and just wait for a crack
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to show. And here's the part that sat a little
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funny with me, honestly. To build a plan like that,
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they were not starting from nothing. They had hours of
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Joe Henry already on tape.
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My tape.
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Not every journalist agrees with me on this, but I
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always try to help law enforcement when I can. I
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do talk to a lot of people who ask me
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not to reveal their identity. And I definitely don't do that.
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I never break their trust. But if our conversation is
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on the record, sure, I'll probably pass that along to
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the right authorities since it could do more good in
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their hands. The interviews I did with Joe Henry, I
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was trying to stay right down the middle, not jump
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to a bunch of conclusions. And now Hoag is handing
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those same interviews to the Texas Rangers. And there's a
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real difference between me asking a guy questions for a
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story and the law using my recordings to go plan
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an interrogation. Somewhere across these two phone calls with Joe Hogue,
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without ever really deciding to, I maybe had crossed the
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line from journalist to, I don't know, hopefully something more helpful.
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And there's a reason Hogue was so sure that Joe
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Henry's weak spot was the element of surprise. Because the
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two times I got Joe Henry to talk, I did
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not call ahead. I just drove over and knocked. Hogue
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picked up on that right away.
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In my mind, I'm thinking you went there because you
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knew that that was your only chance to get him
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to talk to you again was to ask him in person.
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And he was right. It never once occurred to me
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to call. On the phone, someone has every reason in
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the world to say no thanks, no comment. And that
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was the whole thing Hogue was trying to line up.
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He had a meeting set with the Rangers Tuesday morning,
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8 a.m., and he asked me, real plainly, to keep
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all of that quiet. You know, obviously I'm not going
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to be, you know, trumpeting this out to the public
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at all, you know, until that time is appropriate, but
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I'd love to be just kind of kept in the
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loop if you don't mind. And I meant that. I've
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sat on all of this for a long time, literally years,
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because he asked me to, And because the last thing
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I wanted was to be the guy who blew a
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chance to find answers for Kelly Wilson's family. And I'll
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be honest, hanging up the phone, I kind of got excited.
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A Texas Ranger, new to the county, ready to make
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his mark. Another Ranger and his lieutenant, also on board.
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A meeting on the calendar. For the first time in
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a really long time, it felt like something was actually
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about to move. Before I tell you where this went,
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I want to play you one more thing Hogue said
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because it stuck with me more than just about anything
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in either call. I asked him basically, why does a
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case just sit like this? 30 years. Everybody in Gilmer
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knew the names. Why does nobody ever pick it back up?
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And Hogue had a theory, and it's not about one
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bad cop. It's a little sadder than that.
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These people up there I've been talking to They think
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that the reason that nobody has done anything about this
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in all these years is that if these people were wrong,
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if these investigators were truly wrong, that not only did
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they ruin those people's lives that they arrested, well, they
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allowed this guy to be free all these years. I've
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heard that's a possibility that people... Don't want to dig
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into that because if he did do it, then a
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lot of people, a lot of people didn't do their job.
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He's careful about this, which I appreciated. He's not calling
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anybody a villain.
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It's awful, you know. They didn't do it purposely. They
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truly believed, you know, that they were doing the right
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thing and these people were guilty. They just... They didn't
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have the training to evaluate those people, and they just
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made mistakes and didn't have the training to realize that
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they made those mistakes. But if this guy did it,
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that means that a lot of people failed.
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And that's the real weight of this whole thing. That's
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why it's so much easier to just leave a case
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sitting in a drawer than to open it up and
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find out you spent 30 years looking at the wrong
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man or the wrong people and wrecking innocent people along
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the way. And then, right at the end of that
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second call, Joe Hogue said something I did not see coming.
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He brought up the very first episode of Deviltown from
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years back, something I said that honestly I'd half forgotten about.
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Do you know in the beginning of the story that
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you made the comment that we've all had to live
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with this, you know, all these years and it's unsettling
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and that all you're.
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Hoping is that somebody sees this and asks some questions.
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Do you remember saying something like that, that that is
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your hope?
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Yeah, yeah, I kind of remember that.
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Well. Somebody has seen it and somebody's asked it some questions.
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All right. Amen.
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We ended our call and I can't speak for Hogue,
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but for me, it felt like something might actually happen. Finally.
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Hogue had the Texas Rangers. He had his meeting on
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the books. He had that fire in him. A couple
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weeks went by and I texted Hogue just to check in.
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And here's what came back. January 16th, 2024. Sadly, no.
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They haven't said anything to me. I give you my
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word we will get some answers. Then a few more
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months go by. And in April, another text. Just an update.
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I spoke with a DPS investigator at length today. He's
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actually from Gilmer originally. He is 100% on board. We
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00:20:14.779 --> 00:20:18.769
will work together moving forward. So I wrote back and
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00:20:18.890 --> 00:20:23.230
asked him straight up, has anybody ever actually interviewed Joe Henry?
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And he told me not to their knowledge and no
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record of any previous polygraph either. In over 30 years,
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the last man to see Kelly Wilson had apparently never
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once sat down for a real interview with law enforcement.
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And then, well, things just got quiet. Summer came. I
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texted Hoag again, mostly just to say hey, see if
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he'd heard anything. And there was nothing new. No interview,
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no ranger sitting across from Joe Henry. Still no answers, obviously.
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Joe Hoag never got his shot. And Kelly Wilson is
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still out there somewhere, and her family still does not
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00:21:00.829 --> 00:21:05.140
have answers. So somewhere along the way, I started kicking
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around a different idea. A simple one. If the Rangers
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weren't going to go knock on Joe Henry's door and
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just ask him what happened, well, maybe I should try again.
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Coming up next time on Deviltown. So I'm in Gilmer
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and just drove past Joe Henry's house.
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I've got butterflies in my stomach.
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I'm nervous, obviously.
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I go see Joe Henry and he opens up again.
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I am very nervous. Yeah, I was scared to death.
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But this time, I'm just going to come out and
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ask him.
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I mean, if some law enforcement officer, if it's this
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state trooper, someone else comes in and says, you know,
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by listening to this audio, listening to this interview, I
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think that you had some involvement in this case that
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you have not shared in the past 30 something years.
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I mean, what's your, what's your response to that?
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Deviltown is a free-range production in association with Imperative Entertainment.
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00:22:09.240 --> 00:22:12.740
The show was created by me, Wes Ferguson. Our producer
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00:22:12.819 --> 00:22:17.000
is Aislinn Gaddis. Theme music by Robert Ellis. Stay up
369
00:22:17.019 --> 00:22:19.690
to date with our progress on the story when you
370
00:22:19.710 --> 00:22:25.470
sign up for our free newsletter at UnforgottenPod.com. That's UnforgottenPod.com
371
00:22:25.509 --> 00:22:29.890
because our other podcast is The Unforgotten. As always, thank
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00:22:29.910 --> 00:22:30.500
you for listening.
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So a couple days after that first phone call I
2
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had with Joe Hogue, the one where he decided he
3
00:00:06.240 --> 00:00:08.960
was going to go lean on his Texas Rangers buddies
4
00:00:09.539 --> 00:00:11.699
and try to get Kelly Wilson's case looked at again,
5
00:00:12.339 --> 00:00:15.380
Hogue calls me back, and I could tell right off
6
00:00:15.419 --> 00:00:18.859
that something had changed. So I'm out in my backyard
7
00:00:18.940 --> 00:00:23.160
smoking a brisket, having a pretty normal Sunday, and Hogue, man,
8
00:00:23.280 --> 00:00:26.320
it sounds like he has not slept in about a week.
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Oh my gosh, what a night, man. It's been a
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roller coaster.
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00:00:33.340 --> 00:00:36.119
See, after we'd hung up that first time, Joe had
12
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gone back home and sat down and listened to both
13
00:00:39.659 --> 00:00:42.880
of my Joe Henry interviews again, back to back, the
14
00:00:42.950 --> 00:00:46.130
whole way through in one night. And he took notes.
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00:00:47.109 --> 00:00:51.810
I've got like 25 pages of notes. Anyway, I think
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00:00:51.850 --> 00:00:55.270
you should have the privilege of hearing some of this.
17
00:00:55.909 --> 00:00:58.700
I'd love to, yeah. When he called me, he said
18
00:00:58.719 --> 00:01:02.079
that he had been up for 36 hours working on this.
19
00:01:02.880 --> 00:01:04.980
And I guess that's what this episode is really about.
20
00:01:05.159 --> 00:01:07.519
It's about what a guy hears when he stays up
21
00:01:07.819 --> 00:01:11.500
all night convinced he's listening to a killer. And then
22
00:01:11.519 --> 00:01:14.409
there's what I hear sitting right next to him, which
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00:01:14.769 --> 00:01:17.730
it turns out is maybe not always the same thing.
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00:01:18.769 --> 00:01:21.969
In his mind, he's now at the point where he's
25
00:01:22.030 --> 00:01:25.250
killed her. And this is what comes out of his mouth.
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From Free Range Productions in association with Imperative Entertainment. I'm
27
00:01:30.959 --> 00:01:46.230
Wes Ferguson, and this is Deviltown. Chapter 16, Silence. Okay,
28
00:01:46.290 --> 00:01:48.890
here is just a very quick reminder of who we're
29
00:01:48.909 --> 00:01:52.030
dealing with. Joe Hogue is a Texas state trooper, 27
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00:01:52.030 --> 00:01:56.980
years in, retired now, who stumbled onto my show on
31
00:01:57.019 --> 00:01:59.840
those long border drives and just could not put the
32
00:01:59.879 --> 00:02:03.219
Kelly Wilson case down. And out of this whole thing,
33
00:02:03.280 --> 00:02:05.819
the guy he keeps coming back to over and over
34
00:02:06.120 --> 00:02:09.020
is Joe Henry. And of course you know Joe Henry.
35
00:02:09.639 --> 00:02:12.370
He ran the burger joint on the square, he leased
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00:02:12.409 --> 00:02:15.449
the movies to the video store where Kelly worked, and
37
00:02:15.469 --> 00:02:17.550
he's always said he was the last person to see
38
00:02:17.610 --> 00:02:20.650
her on the night she disappeared. And just like I
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00:02:20.689 --> 00:02:23.490
said last time, I'm going to repeat that Joe Henry
40
00:02:23.509 --> 00:02:27.039
is has never been charged with anything in this case.
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He is innocent until proven guilty. Everything you are about
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to hear Joe Hogue say about him is just opinion.
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It's not fact. It's not a conviction. Joe Henry is
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innocent until proven guilty. Okay, so Hogue has been through
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00:02:43.689 --> 00:02:47.069
my interviews with a fine-tooth comb, and the first thing
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he wants to talk about when he calls me back
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00:02:49.539 --> 00:02:52.580
is how Joe Henry acts when the questions get hard.
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00:02:53.629 --> 00:02:58.990
He redirects you every single thing that you asked him
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00:02:59.069 --> 00:03:03.789
some specifics about. Like, there's a couple times in there
50
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where his mouth goes dry.
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Mm-hmm.
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You may have saw that. Did you pick up on that?
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Yeah.
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00:03:11.780 --> 00:03:18.180
Where he went cotton mouth? Mm-hmm. And so his real
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00:03:18.699 --> 00:03:24.710
demeanor is real down. But when you... shift, and then
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you start asking about these other questions you want to ask,
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00:03:29.319 --> 00:03:33.560
and these questions were like off-the-wall rumor stuff.
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00:03:34.599 --> 00:03:37.500
So here Hoag is referring to several questions that I
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00:03:37.620 --> 00:03:40.770
asked Joe Henry about some rumors flying around. I got
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into all these in previous episodes, so I won't really
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get into.
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It too much here.
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There was the story about the guy who supposedly came
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home the morning after she disappeared, covered in mud. stuff
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about the rich old guys in town and all the
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rumors about where Kelly's body supposedly is hidden, like under
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the pizza hut, under Gilmer Lake, or maybe she was
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put in the incinerator at a lumber yard. Joe Henry
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described all of this as fanciful talk.
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He does a 180. Like, his spirit, his demeanor, like,
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came back up.
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Hogue brought this up a little bit on our last call,
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but now he pushes it even further.
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Well, he was.
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Relieved to move on. You know, it's kind of human nature.
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Not on the spot anymore. And that's true as far
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as it goes. You know, a guy is getting grilled
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about one of the worst nights in his life when
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there has been this suspicion cast over him for decades.
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And then when I change the subject, of course he
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00:04:44.279 --> 00:04:47.589
loosens up. But the more of those hard moments that
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I went back and listened to, the less I felt
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like all of that left him off the hook. Because
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it wasn't just a one-time thing. I mean, it was
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a lot. Ask Joe something real, he shrinks. Bring up
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00:05:00.300 --> 00:05:03.779
some rumor, he's chatty as can be. Hoag heard the
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exact same thing that I did. He just wasn't willing
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00:05:07.259 --> 00:05:10.870
to explain it away. You'll also remember that Joe Henry
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does not have a clean slate. As you heard in
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the last episode, he has a child pornography conviction. And
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00:05:17.470 --> 00:05:20.709
to be fair, that conviction came more than a decade
92
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after Kelly vanished. And as far as we know, it
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really has nothing to do with her case. But it's
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00:05:27.410 --> 00:05:30.370
also a good deal uglier than the folks defending him
95
00:05:30.490 --> 00:05:33.610
have let on. And Joe admitted to some other things
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00:05:33.709 --> 00:05:36.829
around Kelly at the store that a grown man has
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00:05:36.930 --> 00:05:41.060
no business doing. Now, does any of that prove that
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00:05:41.129 --> 00:05:44.720
he hurt Kelly Wilson? No, of course it doesn't. Joe
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00:05:44.759 --> 00:05:47.740
Henry has never been charged with that. But it's also
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00:05:47.819 --> 00:05:51.860
not nothing. So when Joe Hogue tells me he hears
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00:05:51.920 --> 00:05:55.399
something dark on my tape, I can't just wave that away.
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And when I was actually in the room with Joe Henry,
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00:05:59.560 --> 00:06:02.060
first at his burger shop and then in his living room,
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there was more than one moment where I think I
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00:06:04.569 --> 00:06:06.730
felt it too. And I told Joe Hogue that.
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I was curious, your mindset during that, You know that,
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I mean, it's you and it's him sitting there. And
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you've got the guy that's done it.
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Hogue and I are just speculating here. We're not saying
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it was Joe Henry. What we are saying is that
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we are looking hard at him.
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Yeah, yeah.
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I mean, that was definitely going through my head. Whether
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he acted alone, I don't know. He's kind of a smaller,
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kind of a weak and mild, timid kind of guy.
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So I've wondered if he, you know, had help or
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maybe he was the help. I don't know, but I
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definitely got the read on him that he was feeling
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extremely guilty and was not disclosing everything that he knew.
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That's for sure. Again, this is just us speculating here, spitballing.
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Joe Henry could have been nervous. After all, nobody wants
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to be accused of something. But I still felt like
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something was off, and obviously Joe Hogue felt that too.
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On our second phone call, Hogue told me something really chilling.
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I cried last night. I prayed. I kept praying over
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and over and over, you know, because I started to
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panic at one point when I'm listening to his interview
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and he's went through these timelines of his alibi, which
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he's lying about all of them. But do you realize,
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you know, when he tells you that off-the-wall story about
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the dog in the yard. There's your dog in the yard?
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And I thought, yeah, I think so. So I got
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up and looked out the window, and there he was,
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you know. This is what comes out of his mouth,
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you know, because he doesn't know what to say. So
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he's just saying. And so at that point, I was
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having problems breathing because I felt that I was listening to, like,
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the moment where In his mind, this is when he
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killed her.
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I mean, yeah, I thought it was really weird at
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the time too, but I didn't really know what to
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make of it. Why would his girlfriend, who wasn't even there,
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call him and ask if his dog was in the yard?
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Without more context, it really makes no sense. But I
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did push back on Joe Hogue's theory just a bit.
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It seems like he had 30 years. He could have
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come up with a better alibi than, is your dog
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in the yard? If you did this and you had
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three decades to smooth your story out, why would you
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leave in the one detail that sounds insane? And Hogue,
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to his credit, had an answer for that, and it
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wasn't a crazy one.
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When you get put in that position and that stress
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level goes way up like that, I mean, it's hard
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to control what the body does when the stress level
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is at And like he can practice it and he
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can think about it in his mind. But until that
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time happens where somebody's in front of him and is
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asking to answer something, when that stress hits the roof,
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the human body can't prepare itself for that. And so
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it's just the human body just does things that a
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person can't control.
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So at this point, Joe Hogue is 100% certain that
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Joe Henry did this, and he wants to do something
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about it. If you remember from last episode, he started
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reaching out to his law enforcement connections to try and
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make things happen. He didn't call me back to just
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share more thoughts about the interviews. He called to give
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me some updates. After the break, more investigators get involved. Okay,
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so this is the part of our podcast where Joe
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Hogue turns from a guy with headphones and 25 pages
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of notes into a guy actually trying to reopen a
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30-year-old murder case. And remember who we're dealing with. 27
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years at DPS, he knows people. He already told me
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on that first call that he was going to go
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talk to his friend, the Texas Ranger, who had just
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been assigned to Upshur County. Well, by the second call,
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he'd done a whole lot more than talk.
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The right people are involved. I was wanting the wheels
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to start rolling today, but they're not. You know, I've
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talked to the Ranger and then the Lieutenant Ranger. I've
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got a couple of demands, and they're on board.
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So all of a sudden, we are not talking about
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a maybe anymore. He's got actual Texas Rangers, plural, willing
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to take a look. And when Joe Hogue says he's
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got demands, understand he is not kidding around. He had
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worked up this whole plan for how these Rangers were
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going to get up to speed, and it's honestly kind
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of intense.
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I'm going to make them listen to these interviews. With me,
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with nothing being said. They're going to listen to them
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and not say a word. Okay? I don't know how
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good they are at interpreting interviews. And so it's vital.
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It's vital that people that are very well trained. So
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the reason I'm going to make them listen to it
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in front of me, and then I need to see
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that they pick up on what I picked on.
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So he doesn't want to just hand the Rangers a
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case and walk away. He wants to sit them down,
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play my tapes, and watch their faces to make sure
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they hear the guilt he thinks he hears. And if
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they don't?
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If they don't pick up on what I pick up on,
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then somebody else is going to listen to it.
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And that tells you right where Joe Hoag's head was at.
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This is a man who has decided flat out that
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he is right. And now he's auditioning the Texas Rangers
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to see if they're sharp enough to agree with him.
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So I asked Kogue the obvious thing, the thing I
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couldn't get my head around. You can't just walk up
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to a man after 30 years and accuse him of murder.
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I mean, how do you even start a conversation like that? Well,
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wouldn't the interviewer kind of frame it as, you know,
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a general investigation and just seeing if he can help out,
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you know, not pinning him down.
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Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, no, there's psychological steps
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that you can do, you know, to make him not suspicious,
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to make him think everything is all right, you know,
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in the beginning. But that's over my head, you know,
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and how they do that. But, yeah, all that will
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have to be analyzed by what type of person this is,
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you know, and we've learned everything we need to know
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from your interviews, what type of witness he is. They'll
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make that decision on how they want to go about it,
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you know. They may come at him at an angle
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that they're looking at something else, you know. They just
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got to get in there.
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So the plan was to go in soft. Sit somebody
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down with Joe Henry, get him talking about anything but Kelly,
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at least a start, and just wait for a crack
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to show. And here's the part that sat a little
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funny with me, honestly. To build a plan like that,
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they were not starting from nothing. They had hours of
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Joe Henry already on tape.
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My tape.
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Not every journalist agrees with me on this, but I
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always try to help law enforcement when I can. I
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do talk to a lot of people who ask me
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not to reveal their identity. And I definitely don't do that.
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I never break their trust. But if our conversation is
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on the record, sure, I'll probably pass that along to
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the right authorities since it could do more good in
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their hands. The interviews I did with Joe Henry, I
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was trying to stay right down the middle, not jump
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to a bunch of conclusions. And now Hoag is handing
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those same interviews to the Texas Rangers. And there's a
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real difference between me asking a guy questions for a
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story and the law using my recordings to go plan
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an interrogation. Somewhere across these two phone calls with Joe Hogue,
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without ever really deciding to, I maybe had crossed the
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line from journalist to, I don't know, hopefully something more helpful.
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And there's a reason Hogue was so sure that Joe
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Henry's weak spot was the element of surprise. Because the
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two times I got Joe Henry to talk, I did
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not call ahead. I just drove over and knocked. Hogue
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picked up on that right away.
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In my mind, I'm thinking you went there because you
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knew that that was your only chance to get him
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to talk to you again was to ask him in person.
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And he was right. It never once occurred to me
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to call. On the phone, someone has every reason in
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the world to say no thanks, no comment. And that
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was the whole thing Hogue was trying to line up.
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He had a meeting set with the Rangers Tuesday morning,
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8 a.m., and he asked me, real plainly, to keep
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all of that quiet. You know, obviously I'm not going
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to be, you know, trumpeting this out to the public
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at all, you know, until that time is appropriate, but
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I'd love to be just kind of kept in the
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loop if you don't mind. And I meant that. I've
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sat on all of this for a long time, literally years,
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because he asked me to, And because the last thing
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I wanted was to be the guy who blew a
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chance to find answers for Kelly Wilson's family. And I'll
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be honest, hanging up the phone, I kind of got excited.
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A Texas Ranger, new to the county, ready to make
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his mark. Another Ranger and his lieutenant, also on board.
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A meeting on the calendar. For the first time in
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a really long time, it felt like something was actually
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about to move. Before I tell you where this went,
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I want to play you one more thing Hogue said
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because it stuck with me more than just about anything
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in either call. I asked him basically, why does a
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case just sit like this? 30 years. Everybody in Gilmer
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knew the names. Why does nobody ever pick it back up?
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And Hogue had a theory, and it's not about one
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bad cop. It's a little sadder than that.
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These people up there I've been talking to They think
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that the reason that nobody has done anything about this
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in all these years is that if these people were wrong,
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if these investigators were truly wrong, that not only did
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they ruin those people's lives that they arrested, well, they
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allowed this guy to be free all these years. I've
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heard that's a possibility that people... Don't want to dig
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into that because if he did do it, then a
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lot of people, a lot of people didn't do their job.
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He's careful about this, which I appreciated. He's not calling
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anybody a villain.
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It's awful, you know. They didn't do it purposely. They
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truly believed, you know, that they were doing the right
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thing and these people were guilty. They just... They didn't
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have the training to evaluate those people, and they just
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made mistakes and didn't have the training to realize that
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they made those mistakes. But if this guy did it,
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that means that a lot of people failed.
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And that's the real weight of this whole thing. That's
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why it's so much easier to just leave a case
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sitting in a drawer than to open it up and
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find out you spent 30 years looking at the wrong
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man or the wrong people and wrecking innocent people along
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the way. And then, right at the end of that
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second call, Joe Hogue said something I did not see coming.
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He brought up the very first episode of Deviltown from
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years back, something I said that honestly I'd half forgotten about.
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Do you know in the beginning of the story that
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you made the comment that we've all had to live
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with this, you know, all these years and it's unsettling
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and that all you're.
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Hoping is that somebody sees this and asks some questions.
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Do you remember saying something like that, that that is
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your hope?
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Yeah, yeah, I kind of remember that.
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Well. Somebody has seen it and somebody's asked it some questions.
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All right. Amen.
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We ended our call and I can't speak for Hogue,
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but for me, it felt like something might actually happen. Finally.
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Hogue had the Texas Rangers. He had his meeting on
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the books. He had that fire in him. A couple
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weeks went by and I texted Hogue just to check in.
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And here's what came back. January 16th, 2024. Sadly, no.
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They haven't said anything to me. I give you my
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word we will get some answers. Then a few more
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months go by. And in April, another text. Just an update.
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I spoke with a DPS investigator at length today. He's
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actually from Gilmer originally. He is 100% on board. We
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will work together moving forward. So I wrote back and
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asked him straight up, has anybody ever actually interviewed Joe Henry?
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And he told me not to their knowledge and no
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record of any previous polygraph either. In over 30 years,
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the last man to see Kelly Wilson had apparently never
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once sat down for a real interview with law enforcement.
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And then, well, things just got quiet. Summer came. I
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texted Hoag again, mostly just to say hey, see if
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he'd heard anything. And there was nothing new. No interview,
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no ranger sitting across from Joe Henry. Still no answers, obviously.
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Joe Hoag never got his shot. And Kelly Wilson is
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still out there somewhere, and her family still does not
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have answers. So somewhere along the way, I started kicking
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around a different idea. A simple one. If the Rangers
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weren't going to go knock on Joe Henry's door and
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just ask him what happened, well, maybe I should try again.
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Coming up next time on Deviltown. So I'm in Gilmer
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and just drove past Joe Henry's house.
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I've got butterflies in my stomach.
355
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I'm nervous, obviously.
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I go see Joe Henry and he opens up again.
357
00:21:32.720 --> 00:21:35.839
I am very nervous. Yeah, I was scared to death.
358
00:21:36.759 --> 00:21:38.819
But this time, I'm just going to come out and
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ask him.
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I mean, if some law enforcement officer, if it's this
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state trooper, someone else comes in and says, you know,
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by listening to this audio, listening to this interview, I
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think that you had some involvement in this case that
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you have not shared in the past 30 something years.
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I mean, what's your, what's your response to that?
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Deviltown is a free-range production in association with Imperative Entertainment.
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The show was created by me, Wes Ferguson. Our producer
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00:22:12.819 --> 00:22:17.000
is Aislinn Gaddis. Theme music by Robert Ellis. Stay up
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00:22:17.019 --> 00:22:19.690
to date with our progress on the story when you
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00:22:19.710 --> 00:22:25.470
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because our other podcast is The Unforgotten. As always, thank
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you for listening.
