0:00

Drowning Creek is a new 10

0:02

episode podcast series investigating the disappearance

0:05

of 18 year old Justin Gaines

0:07

in 2007. 8

0:09

years later, information about what happened finally

0:12

came to light. It was

0:14

a confession of murder. But this

0:16

story is only just beginning to unravel. From

0:19

Waveland, I'm Sean Kite, the creator of

0:21

hit podcasts such as In the Red

0:23

Clay and Fox Hunter. This

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is Drowning Creek. Listen wherever you

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get your podcasts. We

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all know that our credit card numbers can be stolen.

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is more than a day on the calendar or a

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be love. Our

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card this week is Joe Laughlin, the

1:33

Jack of Diamonds from South Carolina. 54-year-old

1:37

Joe was a true country guy, living

1:39

a simple life in Anderson, South Carolina

1:41

in 2012. He

1:43

was a husband, father, provider, and handyman.

1:47

It didn't take much to make him happy. All

1:49

he needed in life was his family, his

1:51

work shed, and an ice cold beer. So

1:53

why someone would want to gun him down

1:56

inside his own home remains a mystery. Even

1:59

over a decade after... The

16:00

gun he had been attempting to sell

16:02

was a .32 caliber revolver, that

16:04

it was black with a brown handle, not

16:06

a .22. So where

16:09

was the .22, they asked, the

16:11

one that he traded Joe Laughlin a nine millimeter for.

16:14

Matt told us that Laughlin paid him to sign

16:16

that. And we're like, that don't

16:18

make any sense at all. They even told him, like,

16:20

your reasoning does not make any sense. When

16:23

pressed, parts of his story began to

16:25

change. He said, okay, yeah, he'd

16:27

been trying to sell a gun, but it

16:30

was one he'd stolen from his ex-stepmother's house

16:32

after breaking in. And when it

16:34

came to the situation with Joe, yeah, he

16:36

said he had made a trade with him, but

16:38

he claimed it was for a .40 caliber handgun

16:40

instead of the nine millimeter. The

16:42

part about him getting a hundred bucks as part of

16:45

the deal remained the same. Matt told

16:47

detectives that he had even ridden with Joe to

16:49

SunTrust Bank, where Joe withdrew the money and gave

16:51

it to him. Which police

16:53

were able to verify through Joe's bank

16:55

records? So the interesting part

16:57

about this is he is placing himself with

17:00

Joe, admitting to the trade. But he was

17:02

not conceding to the fact that he had

17:04

sold a nine millimeter caliber gun as other

17:06

people and a signed piece of paper had

17:08

detailed. So one of the detectives

17:10

just called him out on this. Why the heck

17:13

would you sign a note that clearly stated it

17:15

was a nine millimeter involved in the transaction if

17:17

that wasn't the case? And that's

17:19

when Matt's story changed again. He

17:22

said, okay, yes, it was indeed a nine

17:24

millimeter that he traded Joe. He

17:26

talked about trying to sell off the .22 that he

17:28

had gotten in exchange. But at this

17:30

point, it was hard to trust anything he was

17:33

saying. Investigators couldn't get enough

17:35

out of him to pinpoint where that gun

17:37

was now. So they were back

17:39

at square one, at least

17:41

until July 20th. That's

17:43

when Matt Ritchie called with a

17:46

pretty fantastical story. That

17:49

gun that they'd been looking for, the one

17:51

he never had, well, he just found

17:53

it. According to Matt Ritchie,

17:55

it just magically showed up in his yard.

17:58

Here's Sergeant Cash reading from Matt Ritchie. Richie's

18:00

statement. That

18:32

day, detectives recovered a New England

18:34

six-shot revolver with a brown handle

18:36

and black body from Matt Richie's

18:38

yard. But they were still unsure

18:40

if this gun had ever belonged to Joe

18:42

or not. Everyone

18:44

had always described Joe's .22 as being a

18:47

nine-shot, not a six-shot. They'd

18:49

have to do some ballistics testing to see if

18:51

they could confirm if it was Joe's original gun,

18:53

the one that could have been used to kill

18:55

him. And when the results came

18:57

back less than a week later, they

18:59

found that the revolver was capable of

19:02

firing caliber .22 long-rifle cartridges. But...

19:05

It's not enough sufficient evidence to rule it

19:07

out. It's not excluded.

19:10

It's not included either. Weeks

19:12

passed by, then a few months, and

19:15

it was now late October. Detectives

19:17

were still waiting on forensic testing they'd sent

19:19

off at the beginning of all of this, stuff

19:22

they'd collected from Joe's house, the bugle swab

19:24

from both Aldrich Brothers, and

19:26

the t-shirt that they'd gotten from Brad Aldrich. So

19:28

in the meantime, on October 29, they

19:31

sat down with Matt Ritchie to interview him again.

19:34

What could it hurt, right? I mean, something about

19:36

the gun just appearing out of thin air in his

19:38

yard? It just felt like BS. And

19:41

they were right. During this

19:43

sit-down, Matt fessed up. He

19:45

had bought the gun off Matt Aldrich

19:47

about two days before Joe's body was

19:50

found, likely right after someone had shot

19:52

and killed Joe. Here's

19:54

more from Matt Ritchie's statement. When

19:56

the first detective came to my house, the first night

19:58

that they did the interview... that

26:00

a few years after Joe's murder, someone

26:02

related to the Aldrich family came

26:05

by her house one night, supposedly hyped up on

26:07

drugs. The story this person had

26:10

to tell implicated Greg

26:12

Aldrich and just one of his sons, Matt

26:14

Aldrich. And

26:17

she just sit here and let it all out. And said how

26:19

it went down and everything.

26:22

She told me how they were in the house whenever

26:24

Joe come back from going to get his cigarettes.

26:26

My thought was, okay, how did they

26:29

get in that house? Because the

26:31

only spare set of keys that Joe had was up

26:33

on a hook up under the house. Only

26:35

three people knew where them keys was. Me,

26:37

Joe, and Carl are the guy that lives back here. So

26:40

who told them where the keys was? I

26:43

didn't. I'm sure Joe didn't. They

26:45

were in the house when Joe got here. And

26:48

that's why Joe didn't have a chance to do nothing. Apparently

26:50

they must have hid until he got inside and

26:53

then they come out. So she claims

26:55

they planned this because they just were so

26:57

mad at him. Oh yeah. It's

27:01

doubtful that investigators at the time were

27:03

privy to this information or

27:05

the fact that there may have been

27:07

tension brewing between Joe, Greg Aldrich, and

27:09

Matt Aldrich. There wasn't anything about

27:11

it in any of the case files we obtained.

27:14

And Sergeant Cash wasn't aware of it either. Anita

27:17

told us she never did tell detectives

27:19

about this admission from that family member,

27:21

mostly because she just didn't have any

27:23

proof. Jen recorded the conversation

27:25

and because she suspects this person was on

27:28

drugs at the time, she didn't see the

27:30

point. But her daughter was there,

27:32

so at least she should be able to corroborate the

27:34

story. Now we couldn't

27:36

reach the woman for comment, the one who

27:38

supposedly came to Anita's house. So

27:40

for now, we just have this information through

27:43

hearsay. But we thought it was

27:45

significant enough to include and to pass on

27:47

to Sergeant Cash as it shows that there

27:49

could have been at least a few reasons

27:51

why there might have been some harbored resentment

27:53

between the two families, or at

27:56

least to demonstrate how things might have escalated. brothers

28:00

remained in and out of trouble over

28:02

the years, mostly for drugs, burglaries, stealing,

28:04

that sort of thing. But

28:06

things got extremely dark about five years down

28:08

the line in 2018. The

28:11

following story comes from local reporting

28:13

by WIFF News. According

28:16

to an article published on their

28:18

website, Bradley Aldrich fatally beat, strangled,

28:21

stabbed, and shot his grandmother, Judith

28:23

Calvert, and his mother, Teresa Wright,

28:26

who coincidentally was Joe's

28:28

ex-wife, though there doesn't seem

28:30

to be a connection between the two cases. In

28:33

that coverage, Brad had stated that he

28:35

was quote, looking for Lucifer, after

28:38

taking meth and cocaine, and

28:40

that he'd only found his mom and grandma

28:42

dead. But in the same breath, he also

28:44

said that if police found his DNA on the victims,

28:46

that he was the one who did it. His

28:49

DNA was located on fingernail scrapings

28:51

from both victims, and the

28:54

jeans he was wearing when he was arrested also had their

28:56

blood on it. The homicides

28:58

of his two family members came after

29:00

he had already shot and attempted to

29:02

kill another man just a few hours

29:04

earlier. We asked Anita about

29:07

her reaction to this news since she and

29:09

Teresa had actually become good friends living just

29:11

down the road from each other. Although Anita

29:13

was devastated and shaken up to learn what

29:15

had happened to Teresa, she still maintains

29:17

that she doesn't think Brad was the

29:19

one involved in Joe's murder. She

29:22

is still only suspicious of Matt Aldrich

29:24

and his father Greg Aldrich. And

29:26

that's because, again, Brad and Joe

29:28

were close. Anita said Brad

29:30

had always been a good kid before hard drugs

29:32

set him on the wrong path and altered his

29:34

mental wherewithal. WIFF reported

29:37

in 2021 that Brad entered a guilty but

29:39

mentally ill plea to two counts of murder,

29:41

one count of attempted murder, and two counts

29:43

of possession of a weapon during the commission

29:46

of a violent crime. He

29:48

was sentenced to 40 years in prison where he

29:50

remains to this day. So

29:52

if Brad was connected to Joe's

29:54

murder or knows more about his

29:56

brother Matt's potential involvement, maybe

29:58

he'd be more open to to talk now. I

30:01

mean, he doesn't have much more to lose. But

30:03

depending on what kind of care he's receiving in

30:05

state lockup, a prosecutor might have a hard time

30:08

using him as a witness now. Cash

30:10

said he still plans on paying him a

30:12

visit because by all accounts, Brad would have

30:14

no problem ratting out his brother if he

30:16

thought he was guilty. We're

30:18

at a point now with this case where

30:21

we interviewed every witness. They all pointed

30:23

the finger to Matt. There's no other

30:25

person of interest. There's no unknown individual

30:27

listed as a suspect I need to

30:29

track down. It's basically taking all

30:31

this and sitting down with Matt and just

30:34

confronting him. Speaking of

30:36

confronting people, we've tried to do that

30:38

ourselves. Madison called every number

30:40

she could find for Matt Aldrich and

30:43

his father, Greg, even other

30:45

family members. She left texts and

30:47

voicemails, even reached out on Facebook.

30:49

But so far, we've yet to hear back. Anita

30:53

will never forget a dream that she had where

30:55

she asked her husband, Joe, what

30:57

happened? Tell me. You got to tell me

30:59

what happened. But then she woke

31:01

up. Asking that question

31:03

is as far as she's ever gotten. Until

31:06

I get justice for him, I can't move on. And

31:10

I made a promise before he put him in the ground that

31:12

I'd make sure one day I'll get justice for you. I don't

31:14

know how long it's going to take, but you

31:16

know, I hope this does something.

31:19

I hope somebody comes forward. I

31:21

thought about putting something up on this billboard up here,

31:24

you know, just so people wouldn't forget. It's

31:27

the forgetting people do. Everybody forgets. They

31:29

don't even want to think about it no more. I

31:31

think about it every day. But I

31:34

try not to let it get me down. I

31:36

keep going because I ain't got no choice.

31:41

All the pieces seem to be present. Investigators

31:44

are just waiting on one final tie

31:46

to wrap things up. So

31:49

if you hold that missing thread, you're urged to

31:51

call the Anderson County Sheriff's Office at 864-260-4400. Or

31:58

you can call Sergeant Kendall Cash directly. at

32:00

864-209-0582. You

32:04

can always remain anonymous via the Anderson County

32:06

Crime Stoppers. We'll have all the ways you

32:08

can get in touch with law enforcement and

32:10

crime stoppers in the blog post and show

32:12

notes for this episode. The

32:18

Deck is an AudioChuck production with theme

32:20

music by Ryan Lewis. To

32:22

learn more about The Deck

32:24

and our advocacy work, visit

32:27

thedeckpodcast.com. So

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