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The Blue Ridge Murders

The Blue Ridge Murders

Released Monday, 3rd June 2024
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The Blue Ridge Murders

The Blue Ridge Murders

The Blue Ridge Murders

The Blue Ridge Murders

Monday, 3rd June 2024
Good episode? Give it some love!
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They say money can't buy love, but it

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turns out you just have to wait till

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the end for the check to come. We

1:38

trade uncomfortable truths for comfortable lies, imaginary solutions

1:40

to real problems. I'm James Sexton, host of

1:42

Unlikely Sources. You may know me from my

1:44

books or my many interviews such as Soft

1:47

White Underbelly, Lex Friedman, or one of the

1:49

many other places I've shared my perspective on

1:51

love, life, and the law. I know a

1:53

divorce lawyer isn't the first person you think

1:55

of for advice on how to keep your

1:57

relationship strong, but wisdom is found in unexpected.

2:00

counterintuitive places. In sickness, we see

2:02

the value of health. The godfather, he

2:04

can teach you more about business than

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an MBA. Fight Club, it's actually about

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religion. The most valuable practical wisdom comes

2:10

from unlikely sources, and it's time we

2:12

sit up and pay attention to what

2:14

they can teach us. So if you're

2:16

looking for compelling conversation, blunt talk about

2:18

culture, religion, romance, and how to navigate

2:20

life in the machine of modern society,

2:23

I'll look forward to spending some time

2:25

with you. I'm Jim Sexton. Unlikely sources

2:27

will be available May 28th. Hello,

3:06

everyone, and welcome to episode 366 of the

3:08

True Crime All the Time Month, all podcast.

3:10

I'm Mike Ferguson. And with me, as always,

3:12

is my partner in true crime, Mike Gibson.

3:14

Gibby, how are you? Hey, I'm doing good.

3:17

How about you? I'm doing great. Yeah. We're

3:20

just coming off of the Memorial

3:22

Day weekend, recording early. We are.

3:24

So that we can get everything done

3:26

before we head out to CrimeCon. So

3:28

crunch time. Yep. Looking forward to it.

3:30

I got a lot to do. You

3:32

do. Let's go ahead and give our

3:35

Patreon shout outs. We had Emily Watson.

3:37

Hey, Watson. Heather Koval Dimiola.

3:40

Easy for you to say. Not really. I

3:43

hope I got it right. Dimioli. Jenny

3:45

Heather. Hey, Jenny. Candy. What's

3:48

up, Candy? Alessandra Galletti. Oh,

3:50

thanks, Alessandra. Kerry

3:52

Gimond. Hey, Kerry. Crystal

3:55

Valdez. Appreciate that, Valdez. And

3:57

last but not least, Stephanie

3:59

Yelvington. There's Stephanie. And then if

4:01

we go back into the vault, this

4:04

week we selected David Regan. What's

4:06

up Regan. We also had a

4:08

great PayPal donation from Mark to

4:10

Spain. Hey Mark, appreciate that. Yeah.

4:12

So we appreciate all the support

4:14

we get. Gives, we have

4:16

an episode out right now on true

4:18

crime all the time, where we're talking

4:20

about father Gerald Robinson and the murder

4:23

of sister Margaret and Paul. This

4:25

is up in Toledo, Ohio,

4:27

happened back in the eighties

4:30

and, you know, it took them a

4:32

very long time, over 20 years to kind

4:35

of figure out who murdered

4:38

sister Mark. Well, you know,

4:41

when you have so much trust in

4:44

someone who is in a position

4:46

of trust. Yes. I think

4:48

it was very hard to believe early

4:51

on, even though he, he was a person

4:53

of interest that he was

4:55

capable of this type of thing

4:57

because it was a very brutal crime. Absolutely

4:59

brutal. All right, buddy. Are you ready to

5:02

get into this episode of true crime all

5:04

the time on salt? I am. We're talking

5:06

about the Blue Ridge murders on

5:08

July 22nd, 1966. Three

5:11

bodies were found near Lake summit

5:14

in Henderson County, North Carolina. The

5:16

victims were 43 year old Vernon

5:18

Shipman, 36 year

5:21

old Charles Glass, and 61

5:23

year old Louise human Vernon

5:26

and Charles had been friends for

5:28

over 10 years, but Louise had

5:30

no known connection to the men

5:33

and nearly 60 years later, their

5:35

murders remain unsolved. Now, most

5:37

of the information for this

5:39

episode comes from the Hendersonville

5:41

Times News in July, 2006, reporter

5:45

Jenny Giles published a

5:47

series for the Times news titled

5:49

small town big crime, and

5:52

she spent eight months researching the

5:54

case and conducting interviews with investigators,

5:56

family members, and even one of

5:59

the suspects. Vernon Shipman

6:01

was born on January 7, 1923,

6:04

in Hendersonville, North

6:06

Carolina. He graduated from

6:08

Hendersonville High in 1944. Vernon

6:12

was drafted after high school graduation, but

6:14

he served in the military for less

6:16

than a year. No one

6:18

knows why he left, and he never really

6:21

talked about it with family and friends. Jenny

6:23

Giles could not find his discharge

6:26

papers. I don't think

6:28

it's that uncommon for some people

6:30

who have served not to

6:32

really want to talk about their time. I

6:35

know I had an uncle who served in Vietnam.

6:38

He absolutely would not talk about

6:40

it. I think it was

6:42

just a subject he didn't want to

6:44

relive. It's a little different. He

6:47

was in the military for less than a year, doesn't

6:50

want to talk about why he left.

6:52

So to me, there's something

6:54

there. Yeah, who

6:56

knows what his experience was, but obviously it sounds

6:59

like maybe it wasn't good. After

7:01

he left the military, Vernon graduated

7:04

from Blanton's Business College in Asheville,

7:06

North Carolina in the late 1940s. He

7:09

worked in Washington. In the early 50s,

7:12

he started working for the

7:14

North Carolina Employment Security Commission.

7:17

His co-workers thought he was dependable

7:19

and hardworking. Vernon lived

7:21

with his parents in Hendersonville all his

7:23

life, excluding the times he'd

7:25

left home to serve in the military,

7:28

attend college, or work out of state.

7:31

I was just stuck on that dependable and

7:33

hardworking. Doesn't that sound familiar? Like

7:35

somebody you know? Like somebody who's

7:37

sitting across from me? Oh, I mean,

7:39

if you're going to... Yeah, sure, I'll take

7:42

that. Like you weren't talking about yourself? You know?

7:44

Okay. I'll take credit for that. I

7:47

got you. But do you think it's strange

7:49

that, you know, here's the guy who lived

7:52

with his parents, essentially

7:54

all his life, even though it sounds

7:56

like he had a pretty good job,

7:58

probably had the meat. to move out,

8:00

I think it's a little strange.

8:03

Now there are some reasons maybe he was

8:05

helping to take care of them. We don't

8:07

know right exactly why that

8:09

that would have been, but what

8:12

I do know is most people can't

8:14

wait to kind of get out on their

8:17

own. In 1952 Vernon started

8:19

the record shop called Tempo

8:21

Music. The business was originally set

8:23

up in the corner of a hotel

8:26

lobby. 1952 that's pre

8:29

Elvis. I mean you

8:32

know you haven't really hit the rock and

8:34

roll bonanza at that

8:37

point. I don't know

8:39

what record you're selling in 1952. Perry Como, I

8:44

really don't know who was active in

8:46

the early early 50s. Vernon's

8:49

co-founder was a man named Charles Glass whom

8:52

he met in the late 40s

8:54

or early 50s. The two men

8:56

developed a close friendship that lasted

8:58

more than a decade. They started

9:01

a cafe together before they founded

9:03

Tempo. The record shop was

9:05

a successful business venture and they

9:07

eventually moved into a space on

9:09

Main Street in Hendersonville. You

9:12

probably were listening to like Benny Goodman if you

9:14

were around back then. Maybe you would have been.

9:16

Yeah. Yeah. In his orchestra?

9:18

Yes. But yeah I do want to

9:20

talk about the record shop or

9:23

you know the music store

9:26

as we got a little bit older

9:28

CDs came along all of

9:30

that but you had cassette tapes, records,

9:34

CDs, H-track.

9:37

Did you say H-track? Yeah. Okay.

9:39

I'm pretty sure it was eight track.

9:41

Yeah those. For you. Yeah. I

9:44

myself never listened to an eight track but

9:46

I do know what they are. But

9:49

that was like such a big deal.

9:51

Getting to go to the mall. Oh

9:54

yeah. Where they had a record store

9:56

or you know somewhere where you could

9:58

just see all the latest

10:00

stuff. There was no Apple

10:03

music or some

10:05

way to stream any

10:08

song you wanted at any time on your

10:10

phone. I mean, if you think about some

10:13

of the really good movies back in the

10:15

late 80s, 90, like your

10:17

timeframe, you had

10:19

Empire Records. That was a huge movie.

10:21

Yeah, I remember that. Yeah. Because it

10:23

was like one of those

10:26

big record stores. And that's how it was,

10:28

right? When you went to the mall, you went to these big

10:30

record stores and you can flip through

10:32

and find your favorite artist

10:35

and go to the listening booth to check

10:37

it out. Yeah. Well, short of listening to

10:39

the radio and

10:41

perhaps recording that

10:44

song on a cassette, which

10:46

a lot of us did back then, there

10:48

was no way to kind of preserve

10:50

a song and listen to it whenever you

10:53

want it, other than going out and buying

10:55

it. Charles Glass was born

10:57

on September 16th, 1929 in Asheville,

10:59

North Carolina. He joined the army

11:02

in the forties and was discharged

11:04

in August, 1951. By

11:06

1952, he was living

11:09

in Hendersonville. Charles was the

11:11

manager of Tempo Records. He

11:13

also worked as a

11:15

nightclub at the Vanderbilt Hotel in

11:18

Asheville and the Battery Park

11:20

Hotel. In addition to

11:22

this, he wrote a weekly

11:24

advice column for the WNC

11:26

Tribune, A. Hendersonville Paper. Well,

11:28

interesting. I also write a

11:30

device column, which is called

11:33

Advice by Gibby, Advice by Gibby.

11:35

Yeah. Okay. You

11:37

know, it jumped out at me is this

11:39

guy's got a lot going on. Pretty busy,

11:41

right? Managing a record store, night

11:44

clerk at a hotel. And you

11:46

know, one of these is pretty

11:48

famous, right? That Vanderbilt Hotel, the

11:51

record shop was a popular spot for

11:53

the local teens. And Charles and Vernon

11:55

were well known in town. Vernon

11:57

was described as quiet and easy. going.

12:00

He loved to cook and host dinner parties.

12:02

He was also close to his family because

12:04

he was his parents only child. Charles

12:07

loved music and was a performer.

12:09

He recorded albums when he lived in

12:11

Baltimore in the 1940s. Charles

12:15

once opened for Esther Phillips,

12:17

aka Little Esther. Esther

12:19

was a black rhythm and blues singer who

12:21

rose to prominence in 1950.

12:24

She died in 1984. So he

12:26

must have had some chops as

12:30

a performer to open

12:32

for somebody who was pretty famous. Charles

12:34

and Esther maintained their friendship over the years.

12:37

At this time, interracial friendships were

12:40

not common or widely accepted

12:42

in the South. When Esther

12:44

came to visit Charles in Hendersonville,

12:47

some people burned a cross in his yard, according

12:49

to a former employee at Tempo.

12:52

Charles and Vernon recorded at least

12:55

two records together, with Charles singing

12:57

and Vernon playing the piano. One

13:00

of Charles's songs was called Screaming

13:02

and Dying and was about

13:04

a man who kills his lover. Because

13:07

they cheated, the song was

13:09

released around the US and was

13:11

written about by Cashbox Magazine. And

13:14

for those listening who don't really

13:16

know anything about Cashbox Magazine, that

13:19

was huge. I mean, it

13:21

really kind of painted

13:24

the picture of what was

13:26

popular, really. Now, there

13:28

was a big payola

13:31

scandal that involved, I

13:33

think, paying to get played

13:36

or paying to get your

13:39

single up the list

13:42

on Cashbox Magazine. I don't remember

13:44

exactly what it was about, but

13:47

it was a big thing, Cashbox Magazine. So

13:50

if you read it, you were something at that moment.

13:52

Yeah. So I mean, it was a big deal

13:54

to be in it. Charles was an

13:56

outgoing and friendly person. He was known

13:59

for hosting parties. parties at his home, at

14:01

times more than 100 people would

14:04

show up for the party. This

14:06

guy is so unlike me, he

14:08

couldn't be more unlike me. I'm

14:10

just thinking about 100 people showing up your

14:12

home, you would freak out. Well, there's two

14:15

things. First of all, I don't host parties.

14:17

Secondly, I'm not even sure

14:19

that I would know 100 people

14:23

to invite to a party if I was

14:25

so inclined. Charles also enjoyed

14:27

going out to clubs. On

14:29

December 5th, 1965, Charles

14:32

fell and broke his shin and ankle, and

14:34

his legs didn't heal properly and he

14:37

was still using crutches at the time of

14:39

his death. That's rough, man,

14:41

breaking your shin and your ankle.

14:43

It's a painful break. Yeah, I

14:45

have broken an ankle once. It

14:48

was not fun. Not broken

14:50

a shin. Shins are kind

14:52

of resilient, but when they

14:54

get injured and they hurt, have

14:57

you broken a shin? I've broken it,

14:59

but I've bruised it pretty good. Oh, okay. Yeah,

15:01

that seems like on the same level

15:04

as what we're talking about. Another

15:06

one of Charles' interests was voodoo.

15:09

He published a booklet titled, Tales

15:11

of Voodoo and Black Magic under

15:14

the pen name Charles Laver, which is

15:16

the French word for glass.

15:19

I cannot believe how

15:21

much this guy is going on. He's a

15:23

busy guy, man. How does he have time

15:25

to do all of these things

15:27

he's doing? You ever read about people

15:29

like this and just think, man, what am I

15:31

doing with my life? Yeah, I'm wasting a lot

15:34

of time, I guess. I guess I could be

15:36

doing a lot more. I mean, you tell

15:38

me all the time, I'm wasting a lot of time, but

15:40

maybe I really am. Maybe.

15:43

One friend told the Hendersonville Times

15:45

News that Charles was not serious

15:48

about voodoo. In fact, he

15:50

might have been somewhat of a scam

15:52

artist. He sold products to black people

15:54

in the area, including

15:56

a special elixir and

15:59

curses. His charms and

16:01

hexes were just crushed herbs

16:04

according to the Hendersonville Times

16:06

News. This is something

16:08

that goes

16:10

back so many years. Tonics,

16:15

cure-alls, Post. Dr.

16:17

Feelgood's cure-all medicine, I don't

16:20

know, whatever it is. There's

16:23

always someone willing

16:25

to bet on and buy

16:27

a product claiming it will do X. I

16:30

mean, look at it today, it's a

16:32

billion dollar industry. People

16:34

are advertising and selling things that really

16:37

don't work. It's

16:40

the placebo effect. Easy

16:42

for you to say. One

16:45

of the most important facts about

16:47

Vernon Shipman and Charles Glass is

16:49

that both men were gay. Most

16:51

people in Hendersonville knew this. Sources

16:54

did not report that Vernon and Charles were

16:56

in a relationship with each other or that

16:59

they were in a serious relationship with

17:01

anyone else at the time of their death.

17:04

Although many people knew Vernon and Charles

17:07

were gay, they weren't very open about

17:09

it because members of the

17:11

LGBTQ community were not accepted

17:13

in small southern towns at

17:15

this time. Vernon Shipman

17:17

and Charles Glass were last seen alive

17:20

on Sunday, July 17th, 1966. The

17:24

day before, Charles was in

17:27

a sullen mood, according to Calvert

17:29

Hunt Jr., a former employee

17:31

of Tempo Music. Vernon

17:33

was invited to a business center

17:35

the following day and Charles was

17:38

not. So apparently, he felt slighted.

17:41

I get that. It's happened to you

17:43

many times. Absolutely. I've been

17:45

invited somewhere. You haven't. Yes.

17:48

You don't understand why that is. It

17:50

all seems very obvious, but you just can't pick

17:52

it up. On July

17:54

17th, Charles called a friend and

17:57

an employee that morning to ask him out

17:59

to lunch. but he had other

18:01

plans. Vernon ate a late

18:03

breakfast with his father, Harley Shipman. Vernon

18:06

was still home when Harley left.

18:08

He was on the phone with Charles around

18:10

2 p.m. Johnny Pestolas, the

18:13

owner of Johnny's restaurant and nearby

18:15

Mountain Home, reported that Charles and

18:17

Vernon ate lunch together and

18:19

were both drinking between 2.30 and 3.30 p.m. So we

18:22

are kind of setting up their

18:26

schedule their day. After

18:28

that they stopped to see their friends at

18:31

an antique shop. Vernon, Charles,

18:33

and their friend Robert Amstin were

18:35

supposed to eat dinner together that

18:37

evening around 4.45 p.m.

18:39

Robert Amstin called Vernon to tell

18:41

him their dinner would be at

18:44

the Hendersonville Country Club and

18:46

it was now at 6 instead of 5.30. Charles

18:49

answered the phone and said that he would

18:51

tell Vernon. Vernon was supposed

18:53

to pick up Amstin at the Echo Inn

18:55

at 5.30 but he never showed

18:57

up. Sue Nichols, a friend of

18:59

Vernon's, called him at 5.30. Charles

19:02

answered the phone and he sounded

19:04

drunk. According to Sue, she

19:06

could hear someone else who she

19:09

assumed was Vernon telling Charles to

19:11

get off the phone. Charles

19:13

said, no Vernon, God

19:15

no, don't hit me and

19:17

the phone went dead. Interesting.

19:20

Well I think it's

19:22

interesting on a number of levels.

19:24

First of all, if you're Sue on

19:26

the other end of the line, you're

19:28

trying to figure out what in the heck

19:30

that means. Yeah, what just happened? And

19:33

then secondly, it's

19:35

interesting from the standpoint that

19:37

both of these individuals we

19:39

know are going to wind

19:41

up dead and what does this

19:43

interaction, if it did actually

19:46

occur, mean? A woman

19:48

identified as Mrs. Hubert Orr,

19:51

saw Vernon's car driving north

19:53

on NC 191 around 5.45 p.m.

19:56

She saw Vernon driving in Charles's car.

20:00

in the passenger seat, there

20:02

were two people in the back

20:04

she did not recognize. Ambs

20:06

then called Vernon at 545 when

20:09

he had not arrived to pick him up, but

20:11

he didn't get an answer. He canceled the

20:13

reservations after 6 and

20:15

waited in the lobby until 7 and

20:18

that's about 50 minutes longer than I would

20:20

have waited. Yeah, you don't wait very long

20:23

at all. You have no patience. I

20:25

have very little patience. Now today

20:27

we have cell phones. People can call or

20:29

you can call them, but if

20:32

I say we're meeting at 6 o'clock and

20:34

605, 610 rolls around and I can't get

20:38

ahold of you, you haven't called me, I'm not

20:41

waiting around till 7 to see if you

20:44

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or situations. Prices vary based on

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how you buy. Ronnie

22:48

Hollifield, the circulation manager for

22:51

the Hendersonville Times News, saw

22:54

Vernon on Evans Road, a single

22:56

lane dirt road in Hendersonville. Hollifield

22:58

stopped at a curve in the

23:00

road and waved Vernon through. He

23:03

saw Charles in the passenger seat and

23:05

two others he didn't know in the backseat.

23:08

A woman with what he described

23:10

as an odd smile and

23:13

a man wearing sunglasses. A

23:16

woman with an odd smile.

23:18

Trying to think what a odd smile would

23:20

be like a fake smile like

23:23

a forest or fake maybe. As the core

23:26

got closer the strange man obscured

23:29

his face. The woman

23:31

however looked over at Hollifield

23:33

and smiled with what I

23:35

assume was an odd smile. Yeah. This

23:38

unknown man became the main

23:40

subject of the investigation. Many

23:43

investigators believe he was the

23:45

killer. Hollifield described the third

23:47

man as white and 40

23:50

to 50 years old with light hair. He

23:52

was wearing a dark blue suit with

23:54

pinstripes. Vernon and Charles were last

23:56

seen at 6.30 p.m. on Little

23:59

River Road. by tempo employee

24:01

Calvert Hunt Jr. He

24:03

saw Vernon's car heading to US 25 South. Yeah.

24:07

The one thing that is really jumping out at

24:09

me is the number of people that solve

24:13

Vernon's car that night. A lot

24:15

of eyewitnesses. Yeah. A lot of people recognized

24:17

his car, actually

24:19

saw four individuals in

24:22

the car. Knew that

24:24

it was Vernon Charles, a strange

24:26

woman, a strange man. Very

24:29

observant. Yeah. That's what I was thinking.

24:31

Now, maybe it's a small town atmosphere.

24:35

Everybody knows each other kind of thing. I don't

24:37

know. Harley Shipman got home at

24:39

8 30 PM and saw that

24:41

the front door was open. Vernon's

24:43

coat and tie were on Harley's

24:45

bed, which was unusual. Vernon's

24:48

parents were worried when he didn't come

24:50

home, but he was an adult. The

24:53

Charlotte Observer quoted Harley is saying he

24:55

always did tell me where he was

24:57

going or always left the note and

25:00

said, when he'd be back, I

25:02

always knew where he was going to be and

25:04

how long he was going to stay. But this

25:06

time he just told me he was going up

25:09

to echo in the dinner that night. When

25:11

I left here at two 30 that

25:13

Sunday, Vernon and his friend glass. We're

25:16

still here. That's the bad thing about

25:18

it. I don't know what time they left

25:20

and I don't know what they were going

25:22

to do. Vernon and Charles

25:25

were officially reported missing on

25:27

Wednesday, July 20. And

25:30

it's been said that prejudice

25:32

likely influenced the case from

25:34

the beginning. Retired Hendersonville

25:36

police chief, Bill Powers told

25:39

the Hendersonville Times news. We

25:41

had a report of shipment and glass

25:43

missing prior to the bodies

25:45

being found. Both being

25:47

homosexuals. We thought they

25:49

were probably off partying someplace.

25:53

Okay. As if all

25:55

gay men are partying all

25:58

the time. I

26:00

guess that's the way that we're supposed to

26:02

take that. But you and I

26:05

throughout the years have covered,

26:07

you know, a lot of

26:09

episodes where it does

26:11

seem very likely that prejudice played

26:14

a big role in the

26:16

investigation, whether it was

26:19

because police thought that

26:21

or knew that the victim was a sex

26:24

worker, whether it was due

26:26

to race or

26:28

sexual orientation. There's

26:30

no doubt that over the years, police

26:33

have treated some of

26:36

these cases differently. Just

26:38

a strange assumption to make, but

26:40

that they were partying. Yeah. Yeah. Well,

26:43

when it comes directly after

26:46

both being homosexual, you

26:48

can only take that to me because

26:51

they were homosexuals. They must have

26:53

been out partying. Right. Just so

26:55

strange. Harley Shipman stormed into

26:57

the Times news office to demand that

26:59

they put his son's picture on the

27:02

front page. Circulation manager,

27:04

Ronnie Hollifield overheard him

27:06

and said he saw

27:08

Vernon on Sunday afternoon with

27:10

Charles gloss and two unidentified

27:13

passengers on July 22nd, 1966. The

27:17

bodies of 43 year old Vernon Shipman, 36

27:20

year old Charles glass and 61

27:22

year old Louise Davis Schumacher

27:24

were found in a grassy

27:26

clearing near Lake summit

27:28

in Henderson County, North Carolina.

27:31

The bodies were found by

27:33

Charles Hill and Larry Shipman, both

27:35

with the Lake summit court. They

27:38

were driving on a dirt road

27:40

off North Lake summit road, and

27:42

we're at a spot where people

27:44

normally dump their trash. They were

27:46

going to dispose of some brush,

27:48

nothing like headed out to the local county

27:51

site, dumped some trash to find

27:53

a few bodies laying there. Oh, like we

27:56

always say, right? It's going to change your

27:58

day very, very quickly. I don't know what. What your

28:00

plans were besides the disposing of

28:02

the brush, but you got other

28:04

things to worry about. Now, at

28:06

this point, the two men had

28:08

to drive to get to a phone. At

28:10

first, dispatch sent an ambulance driver

28:13

that worked for a local funeral

28:15

service, but within a

28:17

few hours, the county rescue squad,

28:19

sheriff's deputies, police officers, and highway

28:21

patrol were at the scene. The

28:24

bodies were decomposed because they had been out

28:26

for days in the summer heat. The

28:29

bodies were lying in a semicircle with

28:31

objects placed on top of them. All

28:34

three victims died from

28:36

skull fractures. Investigators

28:39

came to believe that the murder weapon

28:42

was part of an automobile jet.

28:45

The killer put an 18-inch

28:47

long piece of scrap iron on Vernon's

28:49

neck. Charles' crutches were laid on

28:52

top of him in the shape of a

28:54

cross. Louise Shumate had

28:56

a whiskey bottle on

28:58

her neck. Okay, this is all

29:00

bizarre. It's very bizarre. We

29:03

have three brutal murders, but

29:06

then it's the posing of

29:08

the bodies and putting

29:11

various objects on

29:14

the bodies. Louise and Charles

29:16

had puncture wounds to their bodies.

29:19

Charles was punctured 21 times and

29:22

Louise was punctured 17 times. The

29:25

men were fully clothed, but

29:27

Louise was partially undressed. Rape

29:30

kits and DNA testing were not

29:32

available at the time, but the

29:34

police believed she was sexually assaulted

29:37

based on the evidence they had. Louise's

29:39

blouse was pulled back from her shoulders

29:41

and her slacks were below her knees.

29:44

Her bra was found a few feet from her

29:46

body, and a portion

29:48

of an automobile jack was

29:50

inserted into her vagina. Gibbs,

29:54

we're dealing with one seriously

29:57

nasty individual here. a

30:00

sick son of a, you know, a

30:02

medical examiner later determined that

30:04

Louise was punctured before she

30:06

died. Her left wrist and

30:09

elbow were broken, which indicated

30:11

she put up an arm to block

30:13

the attacker. She had other

30:16

bruises on her genitals and

30:18

inner thighs, which likely occurred

30:20

during the sexual assault. Investigators

30:23

found Louise's sunglasses

30:25

nearby, along with the

30:27

two men's wallets and

30:29

Louise's change purse. Vernon

30:31

and Charles' wallets were empty. Louise's

30:34

purse had 16 cents inside.

30:37

So we have three brutal

30:39

murders, skull fractures,

30:43

punctures of sexual

30:45

assault, a very nasty

30:48

sexual assault, but we also

30:50

have robbery. So

30:53

we have some different motives here

30:55

potentially, but it was unclear

30:57

what, if any, connection Louise

31:00

had to Charles and Vernon. And

31:03

we mentioned it upfront and kind

31:05

of detailed it out, right? Charles and Vernon

31:07

had been friends for over 10 years. Yeah,

31:09

they were close. But I don't

31:11

think anyone who knew them knew

31:13

Louise. Louise Davis

31:15

Schumate was born in Asheville,

31:17

North Carolina on August 21st, 1904.

31:19

She went to nursing school

31:22

from 1923 to 1925, but

31:24

she never had a career as

31:27

a nurse. She moved often and

31:29

lived in different states around the

31:31

US. In 1933,

31:33

she married Hazel Francis Schumate

31:36

from Beckley, West Virginia. The

31:38

couple moved to Massachusetts. In

31:41

1937, Louise returned to

31:43

Asheville alone and she divorced her husband

31:45

in 1942. She

31:47

had moved back to North Carolina by 1961. Her

31:51

niece, Linda Sherlin, told the Hendersonville

31:53

Times News that she

31:55

was a very private person and

31:58

a hard person to get to know. that. I

32:00

understand that. I have met a number of

32:02

people like that in my life. Doesn't

32:05

mean they're bad people. No, but some

32:07

people are more private than

32:09

others. They don't let their guard

32:12

down right away. Takes a

32:14

while for them to open up to you.

32:16

I'm pretty private. You are. Louise

32:19

didn't have a phone. She enjoyed

32:21

photography and often carried her camera

32:23

around with her, but she did

32:26

not keep any photos in her

32:28

apartment. Louise only

32:30

told her family about one friend, a

32:33

woman named Ruby Taylor who lived

32:35

in Henderson County. Louise

32:37

started working at the Taylor instrument

32:39

company in Arden, North Carolina in

32:41

1963. Her

32:43

coworkers said she was

32:45

difficult to get along with mean and

32:48

racist. All right. I've known

32:50

some people who fit one

32:52

or all of those descriptions,

32:55

descriptions in my working

32:57

life. Louise lived at

32:59

the Ravenscroft apartments in Asheville, but

33:01

her family didn't learn this until

33:03

after she died. She wouldn't

33:06

give her address to anyone when her

33:08

family went to her apartment after she was killed.

33:11

They said there were no personal

33:13

items inside. And some of

33:15

this about her is pretty strange.

33:17

You'd have to say, she

33:19

carried a camera everywhere she went

33:21

yet had no pictures, right

33:24

inside of her place. She didn't

33:26

even have any type of personal items.

33:29

Kind of like a pretty mysterious. Something's

33:31

like a safe house or something. According

33:34

to her niece, Linda Sherlin, Louise

33:37

liked to go to parties, but not

33:39

family functions. I think there's a lot of

33:41

people that would prefer to go to a

33:43

party than a family function. Yeah. Not everybody's

33:46

family functions are what

33:48

people would call at the top

33:50

of their lips. Yeah. A good time. A

33:53

lot of that depends on your family.

33:55

Exactly. Or your extended family. For

33:57

unknown reasons, Louise lied about. her

34:00

age. She listed her birth year as 1911

34:02

on her driver's license. She would not

34:06

be the first person to make

34:09

herself younger than what she really... What?

34:12

No, I think it's a pretty popular thing to

34:14

do. With some people, workers

34:17

at the Horseshoe Post Office, where

34:19

she collected her mail, thought

34:21

she was in her mid 40s. Her

34:23

co-workers thought she looked 15 years

34:25

younger than what she really was. Oh

34:28

yeah, I get that a lot too. Did you

34:30

look 15 years younger? Oh, absolutely.

34:32

Oh my gosh, you must be 85. No, but this

34:37

is saying something about her. It

34:39

is. It really is. Obviously, she

34:41

must have taken pretty good care

34:44

of herself to stay

34:46

looking so young, or she

34:48

was just genetically gifted, which I

34:51

guess some people are. Some people

34:53

are lucky like that. Investigators tried

34:55

to retrace Louise's last day.

34:58

They learned she went to work on

35:00

Friday, July 15th, and called her niece

35:02

on the evening of the 16th. She

35:04

was last seen leaving her apartment at 4.30

35:07

p.m. on July 17th. Both

35:10

Vernon and Louise's vehicles were found

35:12

while they were still considered missing

35:15

persons. And there were two important

35:17

vehicle sightings during that time

35:19

period. Two teens were on

35:21

North Lake Summit Road at 9

35:23

p.m. on July 17th. They

35:25

saw a light blue 1963 Pontiac parked on a dirt

35:28

trail that

35:31

led to the clearing where the bodies were

35:33

found. A man named Bruce Gordon

35:35

took North Lake Summit Road at 5.45 a.m. on

35:37

Monday, July 18th, and saw four

35:41

men and three cars at

35:44

the dirt trail. At 5.30 p.m. on

35:46

July 20th, Vernon's Ford

35:48

Fairlane was found by the Hendersonville

35:51

Police on a road parallel

35:53

to the local railroad tracks. It also

35:55

happened to be near his home on

35:57

Maple Street. Witnesses said the

35:59

car car had been there since

36:01

at least 7 a.m. on the

36:03

18th. The backseat was pushed

36:06

forward. There was a hole in the

36:08

middle of the backseat and the

36:10

separator board that joined the back window.

36:13

It was thought that Vernon most likely made

36:15

the hole because he lost the key to

36:17

his truck. Vernon's jack

36:19

was missing, but a

36:22

jack shaft was found at the crime scene.

36:24

A brand new jack was found in the

36:27

trunk of his car believed to be from

36:29

a Pontiac. Three tires were muddy,

36:31

but the fourth was clean and

36:33

two hubcaps were missing. One

36:36

of Vernon's hubcaps had been stolen before

36:38

the murders, but it was unclear

36:40

what happened to the second one. There

36:42

were scratches on the side of the car and

36:45

two fingerprints were found on the rearview

36:47

mirror. It's more mystery, right? There's

36:49

a lot of mystery here. Just

36:52

take the jack. It's

36:54

thought to have been the murder

36:56

weapon. His jack was

36:59

missing from his car, but

37:01

a brand new jack was found in the

37:03

trunk of his car believed

37:05

to be from another vehicle.

37:09

What do you make of that? Why are three

37:11

tires muddy, but the fourth

37:13

is clean? Yeah, was that the one that had

37:15

to be changed? I don't know. And

37:18

that's why Jack was out at some

37:20

point. Louise's preferred brand

37:22

of cigarettes, Paul Moll, were

37:25

found in the right rear

37:27

ashtray. One had cigarette

37:29

lipstick stains on it. Hardly

37:31

Shipman had the oil changed on

37:33

July 15th. The car had been driven

37:35

259 miles since then, but

37:39

the drive from Vernon's house to where he

37:41

was found was just 40 miles. So

37:44

that's a pretty big discrepancy there.

37:47

When you think about the timeframe, you know,

37:49

this oil was changed not

37:51

long at all before the murders

37:54

occurred, 200 and some

37:56

miles of driving in

37:58

that short amount of time. Yeah, so how

38:01

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a year later, on May 11, 1967, a

40:12

local teen named Dennis Waters signed

40:15

a statement admitting that he and

40:17

other youths found Vernon's car on

40:20

July 17 and moved it

40:22

to where the police found it. They found

40:24

the car parked in the grass near Ray

40:26

Avenue and 7th Avenue

40:28

East, about 6 miles from the

40:30

crime scene. They went out for

40:33

a joyride and returned the car where

40:35

they found it. They came back to

40:37

strip the tires and brought a jack

40:39

with them, but they decided not to

40:41

go through with it and left the

40:43

jack on the back floorboard. So

40:45

that helps answer, I think, some of the

40:47

questions. It does. You know, they probably

40:50

racked up quite a few of

40:52

those miles. Probably helps explain

40:54

where this new jack

40:56

came from, or at least a jack

40:58

from another vehicle. On

41:01

July 19, a light blue Ford

41:04

Fairlane was reported abandoned on

41:06

NC Highway 191 near the

41:08

French Broad River in the

41:11

rugby community. The car was first

41:13

seen on July 18. The

41:15

windows were down, the doors

41:17

unlocked, and the key was in

41:19

the ignition. This car belonged

41:22

to Louise Shoemake. A

41:24

complete jack was in the car. Louise's

41:26

handbag was hanging on the door handle,

41:29

and her camera was inside the

41:31

vehicle. Louise's friend, Ruby Taylor,

41:34

said she and Louise had picked

41:36

blackberries near the location where

41:38

the car was found. And

41:40

there are some strange things about this to

41:43

me. You know, windows

41:45

down, doors unlocked, keys in the

41:47

ignition. But then you also have

41:49

her handbag and her

41:51

camera, which people said she took

41:53

with her pretty much everywhere, was

41:56

inside the vehicle. normally

42:01

leave a vehicle if they were going

42:04

off with someone else. And

42:06

I would say probably not. Yeah.

42:08

I mean, even if it was in the sixties,

42:10

right? You mean you still wanted to lock up

42:13

certain things. Well, you're not just going to leave

42:15

your handbag sitting there. Not your

42:17

expensive camera. Initially investigators

42:19

thought Louise was killed because she was

42:21

in the wrong place at the wrong

42:24

time. One of her hobbies

42:26

was driving down back roads. And

42:28

as a friend mentioned, she had gone

42:30

blackberry picking before. The theory

42:32

was that she was killed because she

42:35

witnessed something. However, there

42:37

were no items in her car or on

42:39

her person to indicate she was out picking

42:42

blackberries. You ever picked blackberries?

42:45

I don't know about

42:47

blackberries specifically. I have

42:49

picked berries a number

42:51

of times. Yeah. I pick blackberries

42:53

at least once a year, wild ones. Okay.

42:55

Yeah. Well, at least I think they're

42:58

like berries. I haven't had any

43:00

medical conditions from eating them afterwards. I

43:02

think I'm safe. You did tell me

43:04

a story about taking off all your

43:06

clothes and running through the forest one

43:08

time after eating some berries. Yeah,

43:10

but I was okay. Oh, didn't have

43:12

to go to hospital. Wasn't out of the

43:15

ordinary is what you're saying. That was just a,

43:17

just a Thursday night. I

43:20

just signed the police report. But as you

43:22

can imagine, right? The entire community

43:24

was terrified after the murders. It

43:26

was all anyone could talk about. And

43:29

there were many rumors revolving around

43:31

the secret lives of Charles Glass

43:33

and Vernon Shippman. Authorities

43:35

believe that they had a large

43:37

pool of suspects because Vernon and

43:39

Charles were very social people. We

43:42

mentioned it, right? One of them had a party

43:44

and invited like a hundred people. Yeah. That's

43:47

a lot of people to consider or

43:49

have to interview, have to cross off. One

43:52

anonymous former state bureau of

43:54

investigation official told the Hendersonville

43:57

times news that that

43:59

man. Glass had relationships

44:01

with wealthy, prominent men

44:04

all over Asheville and Hendersonville.

44:07

There were rumors that their death was

44:09

a hate crime, but most of

44:11

the people in town knew the men were

44:13

gay before they were killed. Although

44:16

locals might not have liked or

44:18

approved of this fact, sources

44:20

did not report that anyone openly

44:22

hated them. Authorities also

44:25

ruled out the KKK's involvement in

44:27

the murders. So I don't

44:29

think there's any doubt it was

44:31

a tough time to be

44:33

gay, especially in the South. Oh

44:36

yeah, I would think so in the

44:38

60s. But you know,

44:40

if they're saying that everyone pretty

44:42

much knew they were gay, nobody

44:45

had an issue with them

44:47

specifically. Now they might not have

44:49

liked it, but they had

44:51

no known enemies. Okay,

44:54

you got to take that into account. One

44:57

of the biggest mysteries was how

44:59

Louise Schumate was involved in the

45:01

murders. She did have

45:03

connections to Henderson County. Her

45:05

mother grew up in the area and

45:07

many of her relatives lived there. She

45:09

also attended a church in Hendersonville the

45:12

weekend before the murder. She

45:14

enjoyed visiting different churches on

45:16

Sunday. One investigator said

45:19

to the Asheville citizen, it

45:21

appears that the fourth person

45:23

in Shipman's car was a

45:25

friend of Mrs. Schumate rather

45:27

than of Glass and Shipman. Louise's

45:30

family mentioned to the police that she

45:32

might have been addicted to prescription

45:35

pain pills. Investigators wondered

45:37

if she was getting those pills illegally. The

45:40

word in town was that there

45:42

were drugs at Charles Glass's parties

45:44

and there were rumors that they

45:47

allegedly gave people drugs for sexual

45:49

favors. But rumors, rumors, there's always

45:51

going to be a lot of rumors.

45:54

And I think sometimes it's hard

45:56

to separate fact from fiction, but

45:59

despite all the rumors, members, investigators

46:01

never made a formal connection

46:03

between Louise, Charles, and

46:05

Vernon. A couple years

46:08

after Louise's death, her brother

46:10

received a call from Asheville Federal

46:12

Savings and Loan. Louise had

46:14

$12,000 in her savings account. Her

46:18

family had no idea how she got

46:20

this kind of money, which only added

46:22

to the mystery. Other

46:24

theories involved blackmail, a jealous

46:26

lover, or a hitman hired

46:28

by a wealthy resident of

46:30

Henderson County. I mean,

46:33

I guess you can throw anything up on the wall and see

46:35

if it sticks. Yeah.

46:37

Or you can say that

46:40

until we know for sure we can't

46:43

really discredit

46:46

any of these things, is

46:48

it possible that one of these

46:50

men was having, you know, some

46:52

kind of relationship with a

46:54

wealthy man. It turned

46:57

south or there was blackmail or there

46:59

was something going on that this

47:02

person feared being

47:04

exposed and they

47:07

weren't going to take that chance. And

47:10

said, take him out and whoever's

47:12

with him. There have been

47:14

six official suspects in the decades

47:16

since the murders. None

47:18

of them were ever charged and all

47:20

six are now dead. Although

47:22

there were a number of leads, the case

47:25

went cold and has remained unsolved

47:27

for decades. Much of

47:29

the evidence at the crime scene

47:31

was contaminated by investigators and crowds

47:33

of people who watched them work.

47:36

Ginny Gauss wrote on her

47:38

website, Henderson Heritage, the degradation of

47:40

the crime scene, inexperienced

47:43

investigators, lack of technology

47:45

and training, and the

47:47

reluctance of residents in the county to

47:49

come forward with information hampered

47:52

the investigation. I bet it did.

47:54

Well, I think all of that does, right?

47:57

If you have investigators,

48:00

with little experience. Okay,

48:02

how is the crime scene preserved?

48:05

Are they keeping people from

48:07

walking all over it? Is

48:10

evidence being collected

48:13

properly? All of that's important.

48:16

And then, you know, this thing about people

48:18

being reluctant to come forward with

48:21

information. On the one hand, you

48:23

don't really know how many people

48:26

had credible information. What

48:29

I will say in this case

48:31

especially is that I

48:34

think there is a possibility that

48:36

some people could have been reluctant

48:39

because maybe they didn't want

48:42

information about them to come to light.

48:45

Yeah, they were trying to keep

48:47

their identity secret. Yes. Or

48:50

their sexual orientation or whatever

48:52

it was, something that

48:54

you may not have in all

48:57

cases. But in the

48:59

1960s in North

49:01

Carolina, I'm sure there were a lot

49:03

of people who were

49:05

gay but were not wanting

49:08

that information to come out. Yes,

49:10

because they didn't want to deal with the

49:13

repercussions. Yeah, absolutely. It's

49:15

sad that they had to feel that way,

49:17

but it was a fact of life.

49:20

Additionally, all the physical evidence in

49:23

the case is now

49:25

missing. That's always a big-time

49:27

head scratcher for me. Sure. And

49:30

the number of cases that we've heard that in

49:33

is astounding. It's like, how do they

49:35

let that happen? This is an unsolved

49:37

case. It's marked evidence. Did

49:40

somebody say, you know what? It's been

49:42

20 years, 30 years. We don't have that. We don't

49:44

have the room for it. Yeah. Just

49:47

go ahead and dispose of it. Now, I understand there are

49:49

or have been instances

49:52

where there's a natural

49:54

disaster or the evidence room

49:56

floods or catches on fire

49:58

or whatever. That that's going

50:01

to happen. But in a

50:03

lot of these cases, it's just

50:05

missing. They don't know why they

50:07

don't know what happened to it. I

50:09

don't know. Here's the room where

50:11

we keep all the evidence and there's

50:14

really no reason for it to move unless,

50:16

you know, something

50:20

comes up and we need that evidence. It

50:22

should still be there, but it's not.

50:25

I think it's more like someone said, Hey, let's clean this

50:27

file room out a little bit and then like, Oh,

50:29

down the road. That would be my wife.

50:32

Those were those files that we might need.

50:34

Oh, yeah, that would be my wife. She

50:36

is very into order and

50:39

getting rid of things, putting

50:42

things in different places, only

50:44

to then not remember where

50:46

she put it. Lead SBI

50:49

investigator, Gary Satterfield drove all the

50:51

evidence to the SBI lab and

50:53

Raleigh. It was stored there until July

50:56

14th, 1969 boxes containing the most important pieces

51:01

of evidence were given to Henderson

51:03

County Sheriff James Kilpatrick. The

51:05

boxes contained the Jax from

51:07

Vernon and Louisa's cars, the

51:10

iron shaft found at the

51:12

scene believed to be

51:14

the murder weapon, Charles crutches, and

51:17

a frog gig shaft. You

51:19

ever go frog gigging? I

51:22

have not went gigging yet. I

51:24

have never done it. I know

51:26

of it. And I know of

51:28

some people who I grew up with

51:30

who were into frog gigging. It

51:32

seems kind of cruel to

51:35

me, but do you eat frog?

51:37

Frog legs. Do you? I

51:40

don't know. I don't eat. I'm

51:42

saying people I think who gig

51:44

or catch frogs eat the

51:47

legs. I believe only gig and I do

51:49

is your weekend gig.

51:52

In 2006, the Hendersonville

51:54

times news discovered SBI

51:56

documents stating that Sheriff

51:58

Kilpatrick and. another individual

52:01

signed papers indicating

52:03

the evidence was returned to the county

52:05

on July 14, 1969,

52:08

but no one has seen the evidence

52:11

since. So there is a paper trail

52:13

here. The SBI had it.

52:15

I'm sure they did some analysis

52:19

on some of the evidence, and then they

52:21

gave it back to the

52:24

county sheriff, and then it

52:26

just disappeared. That's just some really

52:28

bad management of evidence. Well, it

52:30

seems like it, but a former

52:32

detective told reporter Jenny Giles that

52:34

the evidence was put in a

52:37

landfill. That's even worse. Because

52:39

that's where you want to store your

52:41

important evidence. We didn't lose it. We decided to just go

52:43

ahead and get rid of it. One

52:45

of the early suspects was a

52:48

man named Frank Myers, former tempo

52:50

music employee, Calvert Hunt Jr. told

52:52

the police that the man

52:54

he saw in the backseat of Vernon's

52:56

car was Frank Myers. Frank

52:59

Myers was the son of Louise

53:01

Myers Nichols. Louise was one

53:03

of the people who reported Charles and

53:06

Vernon missing. Myers was also

53:08

the half-brother of Sue Nichols, the

53:10

woman who called Vernon at 5.30 p.m.

53:13

on July 17 and

53:15

spoke to Charles instead. She

53:17

was calling to see if Vernon would

53:20

babysit for her sister-in-law so that they

53:22

could go out to eat. Frank

53:24

Myers was friends with Vernon. According

53:27

to Calvert Hunt Jr., Charles was

53:29

jealous of their friendship. He once

53:31

made a voodoo doll of Frank and

53:34

disfigured the face. Soon

53:36

after, Frank was involved in

53:38

a car accident and needed

53:40

plastic surgery. Okay, don't

53:43

mess with that voodoo. Somebody that didn't

53:45

really believe in it, something like he knew

53:48

what he was doing. Maybe he did believe

53:50

in it a little bit more than people

53:52

thought. You know, that voodoo that you

53:54

do so well. Vernon's

53:57

friend, Lynn Martin Blackwell, said

53:59

Vernon helped pay for the surgery,

54:01

but he wanted Frank to pay him

54:03

back. On July 18, 1966, Calvert Hunt

54:08

was informed that Charles didn't come

54:10

to work. Hunt mentioned that

54:12

he saw Frank Myers with Charles

54:15

and Vernon the evening before. Soon

54:17

after he made this statement, Myers'

54:20

mother called Hunt and said he

54:22

must have been mistaken because he

54:24

was at Lake Norman near Sowell.

54:27

So mom's going to call up and say, well,

54:30

that can't be true because my son

54:32

was at the lake. So

54:34

is she right? Or is she just trying to cover

54:36

for her son, like some moms will do? Yeah,

54:39

I don't know. What I do know is

54:41

that when Myers talked to the police, he gave

54:43

the same story. One of

54:45

the many rumors in town was

54:47

that Vernon had compromising photos of

54:50

various people in town and Myers

54:52

allegedly removed those photos from his

54:55

house. One anonymous

54:57

friend told reporter Jenny Giles, I

54:59

saw some of the pictures. They were not

55:02

taken at parties. They were not of young

55:04

people. The pictures I saw

55:06

were of straight guys without their clothes

55:08

who posed willingly for the pictures.

55:11

None of the men were under 18. Some were

55:14

married men who lived in town. Everybody

55:16

thought they were straight, even their wives.

55:19

They weren't blackmailing anyone. Vernon

55:22

was extremely generous. He would give you

55:24

the shirt off his back. He

55:26

was that way towards everybody. So

55:29

it sounds like the pictures were no big deal. Well,

55:31

I think maybe that's what this

55:33

person's saying. But if you're

55:36

a straight married man

55:39

who allowed some pictures of you to

55:41

be taken and then

55:43

later thought, hmm, that was a

55:45

really bad idea. Those could

55:47

come back to haunt me. Could one of

55:49

these individuals have

55:52

paid somebody to not only

55:55

get the pictures back, but

55:57

silence the individuals involved

56:00

in taking. Yeah, I would

56:02

think that's possible, right? It's

56:04

a theory. You know, local

56:06

business guy, picture is taken with

56:09

him with no clothes on. Right. Pillar

56:11

of the community, married. Is

56:14

he going to want to risk the

56:16

fallout? Yeah. People could

56:19

make assumptions of those pictures. I

56:21

think you could make a lot of assumptions of

56:23

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the first time ever on 60 Days In. We're

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going in. United's front, you know. We signed up

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for this. Would

58:00

you? This day hit. New

58:02

episode Thursday at 9. Part of

58:04

the pursuit of a crime and investigation event

58:07

only on A&E. An

58:10

SBI agent later interviewed Frank Myers,

58:12

but he didn't reveal anything new.

58:16

Myers died in 1969 when

58:18

a Charlotte police officer shot him

58:21

during a domestic dispute. That's

58:23

pretty serious. Yeah, so something

58:26

very, very bad happened. Another

58:28

suspect was a man named John

58:31

Shadrick, who was 28 years old in 1966. Shadrick

58:35

had been in prison, but was paroled in

58:37

June of that year. He was

58:40

in Hendersonville on Saturday, July

58:42

16. Shadrick was

58:44

also blocked, which matched the

58:46

description of the unknown man

58:48

in Vernon's car on the 17th. On

58:51

August 13, 1966,

58:53

Shadrick and an accomplice tried to

58:55

force a young man to perform

58:57

a sexual act. The victim

59:00

reported that Shadrick said, I've killed

59:02

three people. I'd just as

59:04

soon kill you too. Shadrick

59:07

said he killed the three victims at

59:09

Lake Summit. He reportedly named

59:11

them, but the names he said were not

59:13

reported. According to the

59:15

victim, the accomplice

59:17

mumbled bumper jacks several

59:20

times, then said the

59:22

fourth man. That's where the cops messed

59:24

up. Unfortunately, Shadrick's charge

59:26

was later reduced to simple

59:29

assault, and he was

59:31

given a suspended sentence. That's

59:33

one of the very interesting things

59:35

that were said. If they were said. Yes.

59:39

That's the key. Then

59:41

you would have to say that this guy would

59:44

be up there, right on the radar. If

59:47

he really said, I killed

59:49

three people and I killed

59:52

these three people at Lake Summit

59:54

and named them. And that

59:56

the fact jacks were used. Yes. That

59:59

would be... Very very

1:00:01

damning a third

1:00:03

suspect was Jim burrows a

1:00:05

known homosexual acquaintance of shipment

1:00:07

and glass according to Hendersonville

1:00:10

police chief bill powers. Burrows

1:00:13

was an obituary writer for the

1:00:15

ashville citizen times until a week

1:00:17

before the murders he

1:00:19

was fired for reportedly coming into

1:00:22

work smelling like alcohol. That's

1:00:24

a big no no at most places. At

1:00:28

some point between july 18th and

1:00:30

the 22nd burrows called the

1:00:32

office to submit a tip he

1:00:34

said there are three

1:00:36

prominent people missing. Lewis green

1:00:38

the reporter who took the tip didn't

1:00:41

think anything of a statement until the

1:00:43

three bodies were found on july 22nd.

1:00:47

Burrows later confessed to committing

1:00:49

the murders to john shoulder

1:00:52

the editor of the wnc for

1:00:54

bune however he was never

1:00:56

charged because there was no real

1:00:58

evidence against most people

1:01:01

didn't think he was capable of

1:01:03

murder. Maybe just looking for

1:01:05

some attention could be we know

1:01:07

people confess to crime

1:01:09

even murders that they

1:01:11

didn't actually commit but i also

1:01:14

think there are times when. You

1:01:16

there are suspects that

1:01:19

police are really high

1:01:21

on but they just can't

1:01:23

charge them yeah because

1:01:25

they don't have enough like we like

1:01:28

to move forward but we can't move forward. In

1:01:31

early nineteen sixty seven another

1:01:33

suspect named joe henry parham

1:01:35

was arrested in fort meyers

1:01:37

forda on several charges while

1:01:39

in jail he confessed to the triple

1:01:41

homicide. He was soon ruled

1:01:43

out as a suspect because he was

1:01:46

incarcerated in another state at the time

1:01:48

of the murder these people are just

1:01:50

like wanna. Confess drives

1:01:52

me crazy i call it the

1:01:54

henry lee lukas effect yeah you

1:01:56

know there they're getting something out of

1:01:59

it you know. We know what he got out

1:02:01

of it. I don't know about some

1:02:03

of these other people. Maybe they just want

1:02:05

to mess with police. Maybe they want to

1:02:07

be more famous. They're already caught. But

1:02:09

I think if it's proven that

1:02:12

you're incarcerated at the time

1:02:14

the murders are committed kind

1:02:17

of tough. Yeah, you get scratched

1:02:19

off the suspect list pretty quick. I

1:02:21

think one of the

1:02:24

most promising suspects was a

1:02:26

chiropractor named Paul Saxman, who

1:02:28

was 40 years old at the time

1:02:30

of the murder and living in Indianapolis.

1:02:33

Saxman was born in Hendersonville.

1:02:35

His family owned a house next door

1:02:38

to Vernon's and they were childhood friends.

1:02:40

After he moved to Indianapolis, he rented

1:02:43

the house and Vernon Shipman agreed to

1:02:45

collect the rent for him. In

1:02:47

1965, Saxman found out the payments

1:02:50

were not being given to the

1:02:52

bank. He accused Charles Glass

1:02:54

of stealing the money. About

1:02:56

eight months before the murders, an

1:02:59

employee at Tempo Music overheard a

1:03:01

heated argument between Saxman and Charles

1:03:03

about the money. When Jenny

1:03:05

Giles interviewed Saxman for her 2006

1:03:08

series, he was the only

1:03:10

living suspect. Saxman tried to

1:03:12

end his life in May 1966, but

1:03:16

sources did not say why. Now

1:03:18

you would think, okay, this guy's

1:03:20

in Indianapolis. How did he, you

1:03:22

know, having the involvement in these

1:03:25

murders in North Carolina? Well,

1:03:27

apparently a woman offered to

1:03:29

buy his childhood home in

1:03:31

June 1966. He

1:03:34

said he would be in Hendersonville in July

1:03:36

and they could discuss the sale, but

1:03:38

the potential buyer was on vacation on

1:03:41

July 4th and wanted him to wait

1:03:43

for her offer after she

1:03:45

returned. She was the person who

1:03:47

told Saxman that the bodies were found on

1:03:49

July 22nd. Saxman

1:03:52

saw a patient on July 14th

1:03:55

and did not have another appointment

1:03:57

until July 18th. has

1:04:00

a timeframe there where

1:04:02

he could have potentially been

1:04:05

involved. His house went into foreclosure

1:04:07

after the murders and was sold in

1:04:10

November, 1966.

1:04:12

The woman who purchased the house found

1:04:14

a frog gigging pole with one

1:04:16

time broken off. She turned

1:04:18

it into the sheriff's office in February, 1967. Investigators

1:04:22

wondered if this tool could have

1:04:25

made the puncture wounds found on

1:04:27

Charles Glass and Louise Schumet's bodies.

1:04:29

The SBI crime lab tested the

1:04:32

frog gig and found blood

1:04:34

on it, but they didn't have

1:04:36

the technology at that time to

1:04:38

determine if it was human or animal

1:04:40

blood. And this was one of the

1:04:42

pieces of evidence that was lost in 1969. Well,

1:04:46

that's unfortunate because it could have been a key

1:04:48

piece of evidence that turned the case around. Well,

1:04:51

especially with today's technology,

1:04:54

I get it. They didn't have the technology

1:04:56

back then, but that's why

1:04:59

evidence is collected, preserved,

1:05:01

because technology is advancing all

1:05:04

the time. But if you lose

1:05:07

the evidence or if you intentionally

1:05:10

put it in a landfill, kind

1:05:12

of hard to go back and use any

1:05:15

technology because you don't have the

1:05:17

piece of evidence anymore. The

1:05:19

Indianapolis police interviewed Saxman.

1:05:21

He could not account for what he was

1:05:23

doing on the weekend of the murders. And

1:05:26

that's never good. No. Now,

1:05:28

I don't know how long it

1:05:31

was, you know, after

1:05:33

the murders, when they interviewed him, if

1:05:36

it wasn't all that long after and

1:05:39

you can't account for

1:05:41

your whereabouts, yeah, that's

1:05:43

not great. His estranged wife

1:05:46

told the police he was mad

1:05:48

enough to have committed the murders.

1:05:50

But the key part there for me is

1:05:52

the strange. Yeah. Is she really being

1:05:55

a hundred percent truthful or

1:05:57

is she mad at him and wanting to

1:05:59

throw up? him under the bus, I don't know. The

1:06:02

police set up a polygraph for Saxman,

1:06:04

but his lawyer told the police he

1:06:06

would not take the test. Smart

1:06:08

lawyer. Saxman never returned

1:06:10

to Henderson, though, and never collected a

1:06:13

$700 payment from

1:06:15

the foreclosure of his parents'

1:06:17

home. I thought that part was

1:06:19

strange. You have someone who

1:06:21

said they were willing to buy

1:06:23

the home. You never

1:06:26

really follow through with that. And

1:06:28

then the home is

1:06:30

sold at foreclosure. Apparently,

1:06:32

there was a $700 payment,

1:06:35

and you don't bother to

1:06:37

collect it. Why wouldn't you want to collect

1:06:39

it? Maybe you don't want to go back

1:06:41

to Henderson, though. Reporter Jenny Gao

1:06:43

spoke to Saxman at his nursing home

1:06:46

in October 2006. Again,

1:06:48

at that point, he was the

1:06:50

last living suspect. He told her

1:06:53

Charles Glass was behind the thing

1:06:55

and took my money. He

1:06:57

claimed he still had no memory of

1:06:59

where he was the weekend the bodies

1:07:01

were found. Saxman died on

1:07:03

November 24, 2006, based

1:07:07

on their conversation. Jenny

1:07:09

Gao did not believe he was the

1:07:11

killer. She believed the most

1:07:13

likely suspect was a man

1:07:15

named Edward Thompson Jr., who was 35

1:07:18

years old in 1966. Thompson was born

1:07:22

on June 18, 1931, in Eden,

1:07:25

North Carolina. He

1:07:27

was put in juvenile detention seven

1:07:29

times and never

1:07:31

completed high school. In 1945,

1:07:33

he was convicted of first-degree

1:07:35

burglary and sentenced to four to

1:07:37

seven years. In 1947, he

1:07:40

was charged with murder in

1:07:42

Rockingham County, North Carolina, but

1:07:44

was found not guilty. The

1:07:47

victim was the man who testified

1:07:49

against him in the 1945

1:07:51

case. Well, this

1:07:53

kid had a pretty Rough

1:07:56

childhood. First-degree burglary at the

1:07:58

age of what? The.

1:08:00

Murder. At sixteen Body sandbag

1:08:03

guilty And how are you found

1:08:05

not guilty when the victim was

1:08:07

a man who testified against you

1:08:10

and your earlier try. So.

1:08:13

Stretch. We don't have all the particulars,

1:08:15

but. Seem. Strange. In.

1:08:17

Nineteen System Thompson was convicted of

1:08:19

breaking and entering and censored ten

1:08:21

to fifteen years. In Nineteen Sixty

1:08:24

Six, he was convicted of breaking

1:08:26

and entering a second time in

1:08:28

since the nine to ten years.

1:08:31

So. He's decent.

1:08:33

At the breaking and entering. He's.

1:08:36

Terrible at the not getting caught. But.

1:08:38

Is in charge. These different time frames

1:08:40

from must not be. Completing.

1:08:43

Them all. Now. Ten to

1:08:45

fifteen years he's out, and probably

1:08:47

what? Five or six. But he's

1:08:49

going right back to breaking and

1:08:52

entering. And. Then the second

1:08:54

time. He. Gets a lesser

1:08:56

sense than the first time and

1:08:58

again only does maybe four years.

1:09:01

Because. And nineteen Sixty And nineteen

1:09:03

Sixty six, he was convicted of

1:09:06

assault. Escaped. Prison and

1:09:08

Nineteen Sixty Six, but was

1:09:10

soon rearrested. In sixty

1:09:12

seven. He was sentenced to

1:09:14

eight to ten years for breaking and

1:09:16

entering and been home town. Five.

1:09:19

Years were suspended on the condition

1:09:21

that he summit no further crimes

1:09:23

or I listen. We're. All gonna.

1:09:26

Make. You do all the time you just need to

1:09:28

tell is nava Do This anymore. Even

1:09:30

though you been doing it since you were

1:09:32

what fourteen years older than you commit to

1:09:34

us kinda do for us. Who

1:09:37

wouldn't say it's yeah. Yeah, I'll do

1:09:39

it anymore. Me: I'm good. Also, let's

1:09:41

break this down. He. Escaped

1:09:43

prison and nineteen Sixty

1:09:45

six. And then was

1:09:48

out. In. Nineteen Sixty Seven.

1:09:51

Year. Early grades. Prison.

1:09:54

System there another. all

1:09:56

the muslim the must not have been

1:09:58

much tacked on as anything for breaking

1:10:00

out of prison. But you're

1:10:02

right, I mean, that seems so

1:10:04

pie in the sky to say, you

1:10:07

know what, we believe in you. We're not

1:10:09

gonna put you in jail anymore. Just

1:10:11

promise us that you won't keep

1:10:13

committing these crimes. Later that

1:10:16

year, his conviction for the 1966 assault case

1:10:20

was set aside, but his appeal on

1:10:22

the escape conviction was denied, and

1:10:25

he was ordered to serve his sentence

1:10:27

in Buncombe County. In 1968, Thompson

1:10:30

went on a crime spree where

1:10:32

he kidnapped nine people, raped

1:10:35

five people, and killed two

1:10:37

others. We should be doing a whole episode

1:10:39

on this guy. Yeah, he should be on

1:10:41

TCAT. On TCAT. I mean, his

1:10:43

rap sheet printed out would

1:10:46

be quite a bit of paper. His

1:10:48

crime spree started in Hendersonville,

1:10:51

North Carolina on May 9th, 1968, at

1:10:53

10.30 p.m. A

1:10:56

doctor and his wife were kidnapped from

1:10:59

their home at gunpoint. They were

1:11:01

forced to drive their car to a house in

1:11:03

Fairview where they were injected

1:11:05

with drugs from the doctor's medical

1:11:07

kit. The captor drove the

1:11:09

car from Fairview to Batcave. The

1:11:12

couple was left at a clinic in Batcave at

1:11:14

3 a.m. and

1:11:16

the kidnappers stole their car. At 9.30 a.m.,

1:11:19

the doctor's car was found at a

1:11:21

local drive-in. His bag and tape

1:11:23

recorder were in the car, and the

1:11:26

keys were in the ignition. Officers

1:11:28

tried to arrest Thompson that

1:11:30

afternoon in Hendersonville, but he

1:11:32

shot at them and escaped out a back window

1:11:34

of a home. The crime spree

1:11:36

continued in June. On

1:11:38

the evening of June 16th, a 20-year-old man and

1:11:41

a 17-year-old girl were kidnapped at

1:11:43

gunpoint near Camp Green Cove

1:11:46

in Tuxedo. They were forced to drive

1:11:48

to a vacant house near Lake Summit.

1:11:51

The girl was raped at this location.

1:11:53

Thompson drove them from Lake Summit

1:11:56

to Saluda, North Carolina. The

1:11:58

young man was locked in the trunk. during

1:12:00

the drive. Thompson drove up

1:12:02

and down Pottscholes Road. It

1:12:04

appeared as if he was looking

1:12:06

for something. He finally stopped at

1:12:09

an abandoned cemetery and let the

1:12:11

man out, then ordered him

1:12:13

to drive to a gas station. The

1:12:15

young man wrecked the car at 4

1:12:17

a.m. and the couple escaped in Burke

1:12:19

County. On the night of June 23rd 1968, a 23-year-old

1:12:21

man and 14-year-old girl were accosted

1:12:27

at gunpoint at a

1:12:29

closed service station in Henderson County. They

1:12:31

had stopped to get drinks from a

1:12:33

vending machine. They were forced to

1:12:35

drive towards Mooresville. Once they

1:12:38

were out of Mooresville, the girl was raped and

1:12:40

the man was put in the trunk of the

1:12:42

car. Thompson drove 20 miles

1:12:44

north and the couple was taken

1:12:46

into the woods and tied up with

1:12:48

bedsheets. The girl was raped again. They

1:12:51

were left tied up and their captors

1:12:53

stole their car. They eventually managed

1:12:55

to free themselves. On

1:12:57

June 25th, the state trooper chased

1:12:59

the couple's vehicle north of Statesville

1:13:02

but the driver escaped. This

1:13:04

guy is pretty good at getting away from

1:13:06

the law. He is and he has no

1:13:08

fear. No, I think at this

1:13:11

point he doesn't. He

1:13:13

has a shootout with the cops. He's able to

1:13:15

escape out of a window. He's chased

1:13:17

by a state trooper. He's

1:13:20

able to get away from him.

1:13:22

Thompson was declared an outlaw

1:13:24

on June 26th which

1:13:26

stripped him of most legal protection.

1:13:29

He was the last person declared an

1:13:31

outlaw in the state. I

1:13:33

did not know that was actually

1:13:35

a thing. You are

1:13:37

now an outlaw. Maybe that means we

1:13:40

don't have to identify ourselves. We

1:13:42

can just shoot you. Shoot first, ask

1:13:44

questions later type of thing. One

1:13:47

article published by the Hendersonville Times

1:13:49

news during the crime spree said

1:13:52

any citizen who sees him may

1:13:54

arrest him on site or

1:13:56

kill him if he resists

1:13:58

without being subject to legal

1:14:00

action. So it's not

1:14:03

only shoot first and ask questions

1:14:05

later by police, any

1:14:07

person on the street can

1:14:09

try to arrest this man and

1:14:11

if he resists can shoot and kill him.

1:14:14

Now I don't know how many people are

1:14:16

going to want to take that on of

1:14:19

trying to arrest this really

1:14:21

bad guy but the young

1:14:24

couple's vehicle was found in early July

1:14:26

in the woods in Yadkin County with

1:14:29

the keys in the ignition. Edward

1:14:31

Thompson mailed a letter to the

1:14:34

Times News from the Hendersonville post

1:14:36

office on July 9th. He wrote,

1:14:39

every time I pick up your Jim Crow

1:14:41

news you got my name in it. Well

1:14:43

I'm still around town and

1:14:46

I hope to get a chance to blast the

1:14:48

daylights out of the whole crew. He

1:14:50

ended his letter with, I'm going

1:14:52

to give somebody something to write

1:14:54

about as soon as possible. Thompson

1:14:57

was a black man which likely

1:14:59

explains why he made the Jim

1:15:01

Crow comment. On July 14th, three

1:15:04

girls and two adults were kidnapped

1:15:06

and taken to a house near

1:15:08

Roanoke, Virginia. The man and woman

1:15:11

were shot to death. Thompson showed

1:15:13

up at a relative's house in

1:15:15

Rockingham County, North Carolina with the

1:15:17

three girls. His family was shocked

1:15:19

because they hadn't seen him since

1:15:21

1947. They

1:15:24

called law enforcement and Thompson

1:15:26

was finally arrested on July

1:15:28

17th. Hey, we haven't

1:15:30

seen you in 20 years. You're

1:15:33

in the paper as being

1:15:35

this horrible person. What do you

1:15:37

want us to do? Right. Break out

1:15:40

the mashed potatoes? Like

1:15:42

welcome home? No, we're

1:15:44

calling the police. On October

1:15:46

18th, 1968,

1:15:48

Thompson was convicted of

1:15:50

robbery with a dangerous weapon,

1:15:52

four counts of second-degree kidnapping,

1:15:54

first-degree rape, larceny, and

1:15:57

receiving. On July 16th, 1989.

1:16:01

Thompson died of AIDS at the state prison

1:16:03

in Raleigh. He was 58 years old. 58

1:16:05

years old

1:16:08

because his crime spree started at like

1:16:10

the age of 14. Yeah.

1:16:12

Yeah. He was destined to

1:16:14

spend his life in prison.

1:16:17

Reporter Jenny Giles believes Thompson is

1:16:19

guilty of the 1966 triple

1:16:22

murders because he reportedly confessed to

1:16:25

multiple people. Giles also

1:16:28

sees 20 similarities between the

1:16:30

triple murder and Thompson's other

1:16:32

crimes. For example, the man

1:16:35

murdered in Virginia was fully clothed, but

1:16:37

the woman's clothes were in disarray. A

1:16:40

rubber hose was draped over her shoulders.

1:16:43

Objects were left on the three

1:16:45

Hendersonville victims' bodies. Thompson told

1:16:47

one of the couples he kidnapped per

1:16:49

the Times News, I have a gun.

1:16:52

I've already killed three people. Two

1:16:54

more won't make a difference. In

1:16:56

several cases, Thompson abandoned

1:16:58

vehicles close to where the kidnapping

1:17:01

occurred. He always left the

1:17:03

keys in the ignition. Both Vernon's

1:17:05

shipment and Louis Shoemates keys were

1:17:07

left in their ignitions. He

1:17:10

also ordered victims to drive around and

1:17:12

made the driver put both hands on the steering

1:17:14

wheel. One of the witnesses

1:17:17

who saw Vernon driving on July 17th

1:17:19

said he had both hands on the

1:17:21

steering wheel and did not

1:17:23

acknowledge him. Investigators believe that

1:17:26

Thompson was trying to find the

1:17:28

1966 crime scene after

1:17:30

he kidnapped the couple in

1:17:32

Henderson County in June 1968. The

1:17:36

murders occurred near North Lake Summit

1:17:38

Road, directly across US 176 from

1:17:40

Pot Sholes Road

1:17:44

where Thompson was driving that night. Hendersonville

1:17:47

police officers found newspaper clippings

1:17:49

about the triple murder in

1:17:51

Thompson's home during the crime

1:17:53

spree. He once asked a

1:17:55

former detective what was going on with

1:17:57

the investigation. all

1:18:01

of the suspects are now dead. The

1:18:04

main evidence has been lost, which

1:18:06

essentially makes it impossible to

1:18:09

apply any type of

1:18:11

modern forensic techniques to this

1:18:13

case. Right. Yeah. I

1:18:16

think, you know, when you look at some

1:18:18

of these suspects, I see

1:18:20

why, you know, Jenny Giles

1:18:22

looks at Thompson as a

1:18:25

real possible suspect. I think

1:18:27

the one thing that I'm

1:18:29

struggling with is that

1:18:31

he doesn't match the description

1:18:34

of the fourth person in the car. Right.

1:18:37

Thompson was a black man.

1:18:40

The guy in the car was said to

1:18:42

have been blonde. So assuming

1:18:45

that the guy in the

1:18:47

car killed the other three

1:18:49

in the car, which I think is

1:18:51

a good assumption because who is

1:18:53

he? What happened to him? And what

1:18:55

happened to him? Why didn't he come forward to tell

1:18:57

his story? That for

1:18:59

me kind of makes it

1:19:01

tough. I get it. Thompson was

1:19:04

a bad guy. He had

1:19:06

a horrible rap sheet and

1:19:08

did horrible things, but a

1:19:10

lot of the similarities that she

1:19:12

pointed out, I think

1:19:14

are things that many killers

1:19:17

might do. Sure. Yeah. So

1:19:19

I don't know. I

1:19:22

don't know. None of the suspects to

1:19:24

me jump out as,

1:19:27

well, this person has

1:19:29

to be the killer. Yeah.

1:19:31

The definitive, right? Yeah. There's

1:19:34

obviously nothing definitive. I

1:19:37

think you can make the case for a number

1:19:39

of them. Sure you can. But like you

1:19:41

said, what are you going to do if you

1:19:43

don't have any evidence anymore? Yeah, there's, there's

1:19:46

really nothing. You know, the Saxman

1:19:48

guy with the frog gig, he

1:19:50

was an interesting. Character.

1:19:53

And the reason I look at him,

1:19:55

maybe as opposed to Thompson is because

1:19:58

he actually had a connection. Yeah,

1:20:01

to at least one of the

1:20:03

victim where Thompson would

1:20:05

have been a random

1:20:08

killer. Yeah, he just had to show

1:20:10

up at the right place

1:20:12

and time for him the wrong place

1:20:14

and time for them. Yeah, which is

1:20:16

not out of the realm

1:20:18

of possibility. But more

1:20:20

often than not people are killed by

1:20:23

people they have some connection to.

1:20:25

Right. And there's a reason, there's

1:20:28

a motive other than just,

1:20:30

hey, I want to go out

1:20:32

and kill people. We know some people are like

1:20:34

that, but as we wrap

1:20:36

this one up, it's a

1:20:38

very interesting case. The

1:20:41

fact that these two individuals were gay

1:20:43

in the 60s, in

1:20:46

the South, could that have been

1:20:48

a motive for someone? Could have

1:20:50

been. Definitely. Maybe they didn't like

1:20:52

the fact that they were gay. It

1:20:55

sounded like everybody pretty much

1:20:57

knew it. The other interesting

1:21:00

angle is these

1:21:02

pictures that allegedly

1:21:05

existed. Could

1:21:07

someone have been in one of these

1:21:09

pictures and either have

1:21:11

been blackmailed with the

1:21:14

picture coming out or just

1:21:16

thought after the fact? The

1:21:20

picture or pictures exist. I

1:21:23

can't live with that. Yeah. Maybe they

1:21:25

were going to run for office or do something. Yeah.

1:21:28

So I don't know. I think

1:21:30

people are left to just kind of

1:21:32

weigh everything and come

1:21:34

to their own conclusions. And

1:21:37

sometimes those are some of the most interesting

1:21:39

cases. Sure. The Blue Ridge

1:21:41

murders are a mystery that still

1:21:43

haunts Henderson County, North Carolina. Unfortunately,

1:21:46

and I think you kind of said

1:21:48

this, this case is going to

1:21:50

be really hard to solve and

1:21:52

may remain unsolved forever.

1:21:55

There's no evidence. The known

1:21:57

suspects were all dead. Right. What

1:22:00

do you do? And my thought is even

1:22:03

if somehow they could tie

1:22:05

the murders to someone That

1:22:07

person probably would never be

1:22:09

punished because they would

1:22:12

likely already be dead,

1:22:14

right? But building a case

1:22:17

with no usable evidence is

1:22:20

really really tough Multiple

1:22:22

people have confessed to these murders. Oh,

1:22:24

yeah, but that's not enough. No,

1:22:26

no, you need evidence You need something

1:22:29

to back that up and when all

1:22:31

of that is in a landfill that

1:22:33

becomes a tough proposition Sure

1:22:35

does but that's it for our episode

1:22:37

on the Blue Ridge murders. We got some voicemails. You

1:22:40

want to check those out? Let's hear them I've

1:22:44

called before and a very big

1:22:46

fan. I'm currently listening to the Henry

1:22:49

McCobb or McCabe Story

1:22:51

and you guys are talking about, you know things that

1:22:53

makes sense in your drunk Don't make sense when you're

1:22:55

sober and it reminded me of a time where I

1:22:58

was beyond Inebriated at the bar and

1:23:00

I was arguing with the bartender because

1:23:02

I thought she stole my ID and

1:23:04

my largest Point was that without my

1:23:06

ID I would not be able to

1:23:08

vote and I started crying about my

1:23:10

ability to vote It was

1:23:12

not even November or March. There were no

1:23:15

elections or voting coming up, but I was

1:23:17

pretty distraught I also wanted to say in

1:23:19

one of the last Last

1:23:22

week's episodes you guys were talking about

1:23:24

someone removing a kidney I work in

1:23:26

the Oregon procurement organization world so like

1:23:28

with transplants and I was actually Listening

1:23:31

to that podcast episode in my ear,

1:23:33

of course Holding someone's

1:23:36

kidney in my hand Packaged

1:23:38

holding a kidney in my hand as you

1:23:40

were talking about one of these killers holding

1:23:43

a kidney So I thought that was pretty

1:23:45

ironic and I love the show. Thank you

1:23:47

guys for everything Do you

1:23:49

know how many times I've argued with a bartender? Inebriated

1:23:53

yes, I just thought it was

1:23:55

funny because it wasn't like I

1:23:57

need my ID to

1:24:00

get home or I'll

1:24:02

need it down the road.

1:24:04

I need it to vote and

1:24:07

voting's not going to occur for

1:24:10

months and months and months. But you know,

1:24:12

Hey, we've all been there. Oh yeah. Alcohol

1:24:14

can, uh, cloud you just a

1:24:16

bit. Sure can. And make

1:24:18

things that are not

1:24:21

important seem really, really

1:24:23

important. Yeah. At the

1:24:25

time. Cause it seems like it's so much, but

1:24:28

in the kidney in her hand, she had a kidney in

1:24:30

her hand. You know, we

1:24:33

keep hearing about these connections.

1:24:35

Yeah. I'll call them. We've

1:24:37

never heard that one. You remember the last

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