INFAMOUS: The Lake Waco Murders Part 1
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Hi, Crime Junkies. I'm your host, Ashley Flowers. And I'm Fritz. And I have some exciting news. Last week, we officially shared that we are hitting the road for a Crime Junkie tour. And today, I'm excited to tell you that tickets are officially on sale! We are so excited to see you guys in just a few short months, and I cannot wait to bring you, seriously, like, the wildest case, Ashley. Like, and to do it in person? I know. You guys can find...

a full list of tour stops and purchase tickets to a show near you on our website, CrimeJunkiePodcast.com. Listen, the best I can like tell you is to get it now because how many years? It's been five years. It'll be six years since we're on tour again. We might wait another six years. If you want to see us in the flesh, do a show. This is it. And six years ago, tickets sold

super, super fast. Oh, yeah. Venues are bigger this time, but we sold out like lickety split. I know. Oh, and like you even like it even happened when you went on a tour with the deck, too. Yes. So do not wait. Get yours. Get them fast. And while you're over there, like going to CrimeJunkiePodcast.com and securing your tickets, let me jump into our story. It's a big one.

This story that I have for you today is about the people we trust to steer the ship of justice and those who sometimes get swallowed up in their wake. This is the story of the Lake Waco murders. Patrol Sergeant Truman Simons isn't your standard American cop. He is a go-at-it-alone man. Thing is, law enforcement is a group sport. You got to be able to play well with others and play by the rules.

So being more rebel than ride or die hasn't always endeared him to his brothers in blue. But in his 17 years on the force, his record of closing tough cases is second to none. So this guy's not here to make friends. And people kind of know that about him by now.

When the radio in his patrol car crackles to life early in the evening of July 14th, 1982, and dispatch directs him, another officer, and a special investigator to one of the parks on the shores of Lake Waco, he can read between the lines. Chances are this is something serious because special investigators are the big guns. They don't get called out for just anything. Mm-hmm.

Just then, dispatch radios over again and says that they're responding to a quote-unquote questionable death and that deputies from the sheriff's office are going to meet them out there too. He pulls up to the Spiegelville Park gate at the same time as a bunch of other investigators. A few of the faces he recognizes, like Detective Ramon Salinas from his own agency, Waco PD.

Now, the crime scene isn't something you can just ride up on. So a pickup truck has to escort this, like, line of people down deep into the park, down this, like, winding dirt road.

But for a remote woodsy scene in a remote woodsy park, what they pull up to is borderline chaos. A local television news crew or two beat them there. A good number of other investigators did as well, like the sheriff's deputies, some park rangers, some constables. And unbelievably, Carlton Stowers writes in his book, Careless Whispers, that someone even brought their young kid to this crime scene. That feels like maybe not the right move.

you don't even like know at this point because among all of these people like bustling about, Simon's zeroes right in on the reason they're all there. And it is so much worse than he expected.

Under a nearby tree, there is a young man. He is dead and propped up against the trunk of the tree. His shirt is drenched in blood and it's shredded with flash marks. There's a gag in his mouth that is looped around his head. His hands are bound together, tied behind his back, and sitting on his face is a pair of sunglasses.

Which is like a small detail and maybe doesn't even register with some of the people at first. But it's like eerie because there had to have been some kind of struggle, even if it wasn't a big one. So it just feels like at some point that would have fallen off. And so someone had to have put it there. And it's like they put it there in almost like a playful way. Like whoever did this enjoyed it and wanted the police to know.

Altogether, the scene tells Simons that this isn't the work of your average violent criminal. Whoever did this is a special kind of f***. They spent time with this kid. They made sure his last moments were awful. And then, like, put him up on display almost. Yeah. As Simons is taking it all in, Detective Salinas approaches him. He glosses right past the niceties and starts briefing him on what they know.

Even though they got there at the same time, Detective Salinas already has the victim all but ID'd. He tells Simons that they're looking at an 18-year-old local boy named Kenneth Franks. And they know this because Kenneth's dad, Richard, had reported him missing that morning after he didn't come home the night before. Detective Salinas has a picture of Kenneth in his hands, the one that Richard had brought in, and it is clear. Today is the worst day of Richard Franks' life, and he probably doesn't even know it yet.

But here is where the mystery takes an even darker turn. Detective Salinas tells Simons that Kenneth didn't go missing alone.

According to Richard, he had gone out the night before with two girls from a small town up north called Waxahachie. One of them was Kenneth's friend, Jill Montgomery. She was 17, and her friend was the same age. Her name was Raylene Rice. So the two had picked him up from Richard's at around 8.30 or 9, and they said that they were going to go watch the sunset over Lake Waco, but not at Spiegelville Park, where investigators are now.

They said they were going to go to Caney Park, which is clear on the other side of the lake. That one is smaller, less rugged, and that one tends to draw a crowd of local teens, especially over summer break.

But it's not like they just changed their plans. Here is what's so weird. Before Richard ever reported Kenneth missing, he had gone out looking for them. And apparently he had come across Raylene's car at Caney Park. So the question is, how did Kenneth get here? And the next question is, if Kenneth is here, where are Jill and Raylene? No one knows. Just like Kenneth, Jill and Raylene never made it home the night before.

And as the magnitude of all of this starts to set in, Simons looks around and realizes that with all the many investigators there, there is zero coordination taking place. No one is taking charge or thinking big picture.

So he kind of takes this deep breath and just starts issuing commands. The growing crowd of people has to go. More and more media outlets are showing up, and even civilians are starting to gather, like legit gawkers are here at their crime scene. But they got to get everyone out. They need to start preserving. They need to notify Richard. And most importantly, they need to find the girls now. Mm-hmm.

Officers spread out in every direction and within minutes, a distressed cry cuts through the woods and just stops everyone in their tracks. Simons charges in the direction of the scream and somehow, again, what he finds is worse than what he expected. He'd gotten descriptions of the girls by this point and judging from the blonde hair that he sees, he assumes that he's looking at Raylene.

She is gagged with her hands bound behind her back like Kenneth's, and she has too many stab wounds to count on sight. There is one giant gash that spans her neck. But where Kenneth was fully clothed, she has been stripped naked, except for a bra that's been tied around her right leg. There isn't much else around her except for a few beer cans that are littered in the grass.

And then someone spots something else. A flash of skin peeking up just a teensy tiny bit higher than the tall grass and the weeds around it. It's Jill. It's Jill. Just a few dozen feet away, the flash of skin is her knee. Jill's body is a lot like Raylene's. Naked, gagged, and bound. Disfigured with stab wounds. And there is a deep giant gash across her neck.

And taking it all in, Simon starts developing a hunch. Something about Jill just feels different to him.

What do you mean? He, like, can't totally put his finger on it, but, like, there's something in his gut that's telling him that it was her. Like, she was the main target of this whole thing. Like, whoever did this, whatever they were after, like, it involved her. She was, she's at the center of this. How does he even know that there was a single target, though? I mean, he doesn't. This is what I'm saying. It's a hunch. And Simons is a guy who just trusts his gut, and his gut is telling him that whoever did this was after Jill.

Michael Hall did the most thorough piece on this case for Texas Monthly. I highly recommend everyone read it. I'll link to it in the show notes. But in it, he describes this moment that Simons has this realization and is just kind of eerie because he says that Simons like crouches down by Jill's lifeless body and he whispers in her ear. He says, I don't know what's happened to you, but I promise you one thing.

Whoever did this won't just go to jail. He's going to pay for this. I promise you that this won't be another unsolved murder case in Waco, Texas. And he plans to make good on that promise, no matter what.

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Now, here's the thing about that promise Simon's just made. If he's going to keep it, he's going to have to do it on his own time. Because even though he took the reins when everyone needed some direction, he's not the guy put in charge. He's not even on the team. Patrol sergeants usually aren't.

Waco Police Lieutenant Marvin Horton is officially put in charge with a team of seven investigators working the case with him. And they hit the ground running. While the kids' bodies are sent off for autopsies in Dallas County, where they have more resources, the team starts talking to anyone and everyone in the teens' lives, trying to get a feel for who they were. What were their families like? What were they into? Did they have sketchy friends, enemies, love interests? Like, where were they last seen? When, where, and by whom? Like, all the things.

And what they learn actually muddies the picture almost as much as it clarifies it. So even though Jill and Raylene both live in Waxahachie with their families...

Jill had been living in Waco until very recently at this place called the Methodist Home. That's how she knew Kenneth. He had lived there, too. The Methodist Home, is that a hospital? No, it's kind of like this boarding school for troubled kids. Both of the teens had been sent there by their parents because they'd been doing stuff like skipping school, missing curfew, hanging out with questionable characters. And so all four of the parents felt like their kids were...

they would say on a dangerous path and they would like, they had run out of ideas about how to help them. And listen, I want to be really clear about something. Kenneth and Jill were not like,

Right.

Careless Whispers goes into this stuff at length, but the quick and dirty is that for both of them, trouble keeping up in school led to a lack of effort in school, which led to getting in trouble in school and finally just not going to school. And then all that downstream stuff like that we talked about before. Moral of the story being that both sets of parents were desperate to help their kids and they felt like they'd run out of less drastic options.

So that's how they both ended up at the Methodist home. And the two really hit it off. They even dated for a few months. Like, it didn't work out, but clearly they stayed friends. And they'd stayed friends even after they both left and moved back with their folks. Kenneth was living at his dad's house in Waco. Jill was living at her mom's in Waxahachie. But here's what's interesting about them leaving.

From what I can tell, Kenneth's departure was planned because like once he turned 18, it was his choice whether to stay or not. He decided not. But Jill's move was more impulsive and maybe a little bit more revealing.

Carlton Stowers writes in his book that at the tail end of a weekend visit home near the end of June 1982, Jill caught her mom Nancy like totally off guard when she announced that she didn't want to go back to the Methodist home. Which fell completely out of left field for Nancy because Jill had been doing really well there and she seemed happy. I mean, as far as Jill's dad Rod and her were concerned, like Jill was a success story.

Even so, Nancy says that she could sense she needed to hear her daughter out. Like her tone, it wasn't confrontational. Like I know sometimes it wasn't like rebelling and being like, I'm just not going back. It was sincere. Yeah, she was like more pleading. Like it was like vulnerable. She didn't recognize it. As she listened to Jill, she couldn't shake the feeling that there was something else in her voice, something big and significant that she couldn't quite place her finger on at first. But then suddenly it hit her.

that Jill sounded scared, but it wasn't clear what she was so scared of. And of course, mom tried to find out, but Nancy said no matter how many times she pressed, Jill wouldn't give specifics. Lots and lots of tears, but not specifics. So when her dad came over that night to kind of hash things out, he couldn't get more out of her either. And even though they didn't have a real why, they agreed to let her move home.

And she did start to open up little by little over the next few weeks. Just a day or two before she was killed, Stowers writes that she asked her mom, Mama, what do you do when you love someone you know isn't good for you?

Now, the question wasn't totally out of left field. Nancy knew about Kenneth. And like so many teenage relationships, Jill's with Kenneth had its share of ups and downs. And she knew that the next day Jill was going to be in Waco to pick up her final paycheck from this part-time job that she had while she was at Methodist Home. So she figured she was going to see him. Right. Or at least, like, had him on the brain. So this is where Raylene comes in. Originally, Jill had asked to borrow her mom's car to drive to Waco.

But Nancy didn't want her going alone. So Jill asked her older brother Brad to take her. And I'm sure Brad has lost so much sleep thinking about a world where he did, where they picked up the check, came home, never knew this reality.

But that's not what happened. Brad couldn't take her because he just started a new job. So Jill got a ride from her friend, Raylene. The girls were really close friends. They kind of decided to treat it like a mini girls trip. Like they'd grab Jill's last paycheck, hang out in Waco, then be home by curfew. I guess I don't get why Jill sounded so scared the day that she had talked to her mom about moving home. It doesn't seem like she was scared of curfew.

No, I think that question she asked her mom was just one of the first things that came to her mom's mind when she was like looking back on that time leading up to her murder. Like, I feel like if that happens, like you look for meaning in everything. And it's totally possible that the reason she was scared and the question she asked are totally unrelated. It's also possible that the question she asked wasn't even about Kenneth at all. But make no mistake, she was still scared in the days leading up to her trip to Waco.

whatever fear drove her home hadn't subsided. Because investigators learned from Jill's sister-in-law, Gloria, that a few days before this Waco trip, she was in the kitchen with Jill, just kind of chatting whatever, when Jill started like rifling through her purse, kind of absentmindedly looking for something that she couldn't seem to find. And she's doing the thing we all do, right? Like she's like just pulling the most random shit out of her bag. It's like piling up on the table. And all of a sudden, she pulls out a knife. Now,

It's a pocket knife, but still it was like abnormal enough that it stood out. Why does Jill need a pocket knife? And right away, Gloria is like, um, can we talk about that knife on the table? Are you toting that thing around for any particular reason? And Jill's response was brief and to the point. Just one word, zero elaboration. She said, protection. She was carrying the knife for protection. Protection from what? Gloria didn't push.

Now, clearly, there is a whole lot more investigators need to find out. But even in talking to Raylene's family, too, they don't learn much more that's helpful in identifying a motive or a killer. She was just this sweet girl who was doing a solid for a friend. By all indications, she didn't have any other reason to be in Waco, not that day or any other. It's like this, almost like this stupid twist of fate for all of them, really. So,

It's kind of looking like Simons might have been right with his theory that, like, it all comes down to Jill. It's very possible because even though Kenneth was the one clearly posed at the scene, when they talked to Richard and learned more about his movements that day, it just doesn't seem like there was anything going on in his life that would lead to something like this. I mean, according to Richard, Kenneth didn't even know Jill was in town on the 13th until she called out of the blue that evening. And

And you go back to that, like, terrible twist of fate. Like, what if he'd missed her call? Would he still be alive? Would all three of them still be alive? I mean, it's enough. Like, I can't imagine being their parents and, like, having those questions just, like, drive you absolutely up a wall. And those questions are also driving the entire city a little crazy. Yeah.

As you can imagine, once word gets out, it spreads through Waco like wildfire and beyond. And everyone thinks that they've got the key to solving the case, which means the tips do start pouring in almost right away. It was some dude from a local biker gang. No, it was members of a satanic cult. Actually, it was the nervous hitchhiker with blood on his pants. Ugh!

Bloody Hitchhiker Dude might warrant some further investigation. They're all investigated, all of them. But like point being, in the blink of an eye, it becomes one of those everyone and no one predicaments. WPD is flooded with all of it. And before long, they can't keep track of which tips have been checked out, which ones haven't. Even days in, they still can't figure out why Raylene's car was found at Caney Park and the kids were found clear across the lake at Spiegelville Park.

I mean, witnesses do confirm that the kids were at Caney Park that night, just like Kenneth told his dad they would be. But then how did they get to Spiegelville? They don't know. Like, had they been taken there? Would they have gone there voluntarily? But then the car is back at Caney. And how did no one see them leave? Like, it's the trail just seems to end. And you didn't really talk much about the scene. Like.

Do we know they were actually killed at Spiegelville Park or could they have been killed at

Caney Park and then moved. This is like a whole thing. So at the time, Bill Moore reported for the Waco Tribune-Herald that the loose consensus among investigators is that the kids were killed where they were found. I think one of the contributing factors was the fact that there were people over at Caney Park and no one ever reported hearing any screams, nothing like that. So they figured they must have been killed in the more secluded park.

But I don't know, because the scene itself doesn't actually agree with that theory. Like, for something so brutal, there wasn't really a ton of blood there. There were...

kind of subtle signs of a struggle because Michael Hall reports that the grass around the girls' bodies had been visibly disturbed. Like it had been like, he calls it like flattened, suggesting that both had struggled in those spots. But that also could be like almost drag marks if like they could look kind of similar, right? Yeah. Or if that's where they were being posed or like. Just like a disturbance is just like. Or it's like if someone's carrying them and drops them and then like

I agree. And listen, not everyone is on the same page because guess who has a different hunch? Simons. Our man Simons. And it's true. He's not part of the investigation in an official capacity, but he can't let go of this case. I mean, he made a promise after all.

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He said that he knew the minute he stepped out of his patrol car, the day that the bodies were found, he just, I mean, feels it is what he says, like kind of literally. And I can't do it justice. So I pulled this excerpt from Careless Whispers that I condensed just a bit, but I'm going to have you read. Quote, though he rarely discusses it with other law enforcement officers, Simons insists he's always been able to feel a certain violence in the air at the scene of a crime.

It lingers, he says, like a choking residue, a grim, almost tangible reminder that on a particular spot, some unspeakable evil has taken place. On several occasions, in fact, he's returned to the scene only to find the atmosphere of violence still present, as real as it had been at the time of the initial investigation. In the darkening woods of Speakoville Park, there were no such feelings.

Poetic. Yeah, like visceral feelings. Yeah. I mean, it's like a little over the top. But at the same time, I've always said, I think, call it whatever you want. Energy. Energy. But I think like intuition feels like the right thing that I think certain investigators or people who like program

profilers. I think that people have a different level of, like, intuition. You know, whether this guy's is right or wrong, TBD. Right. But, like, and again, very flowery language, but, like, whatever. Do you know if anyone searched Caney Park to see if there was blood there? I mean, screams or not? Yeah, no, they searched both of them, like, rigorously. Not so much as a drop of blood found at Caney Park. I mean...

Who's to say that they were killed outside, I guess? Like, no one. It doesn't have to be both either place, like both places, either place, whatever. So maybe he's right. Maybe everyone else is right. Maybe the autopsies will tell more and maybe no one's right. You know what I mean? Right. So the autopsies were done by Dr. Mary Gilliland. She is the Dallas County M.E.,

Now, listen, you know you're a Deep Tracks diehard crime junkie if that name rings a bell because Delia just spent a lot of time talking about Dr. Gilliland in season six of Counter Clock for a case out of North Carolina, which like gives me a little pause because I can't even begin to get into it. Like, if you know, you know, if you don't go listen to season six and then come back and see if it changes your opinion.

But at a high level, the biggest takeaways from the autopsies are this. One, the pattern of the wounds on all three suggests to Dr. Gilliland that the perp was likely left-handed. Two, neither Jill nor Raylene's sexual assault kit detected the presence of semen, but they were both determined to have been sexually assaulted. Three, Jill is the only one with defensive wounds, and she also has what Dr. Gilliland calls torture wounds.

Four, she's also got some weird small bruises that the doctor doesn't place much importance on, but notes anyways. And five, Kenneth also has some quote unquote torture wounds too. Although without getting into a ton of detail, his weren't as extensive as Jill's.

But are you ready for something unexpected? Or at least something that was unexpected for me. So, Bill Moore reports in the Waco Tribune-Herald that even with all of this carnage, Dr. Gilliland isn't shocked about the relative lack of blood where the victims were found in the park. That same reporting by Moore says that according to a justice of the peace named Joe Johnson, quote,

The autopsy showed the wounds would not normally have bled much when compared with a cut artery. End quote. A slit throat? I don't know. This is what it said, so I don't know the extent of which the throat was cut. It seems like... You said kind of notable gashes. Yeah, and it seems like no arteries were cut based on this quote when compared with a cut artery. So I don't know. Did she make any kind of conclusions about what kind of weapon had been used? No.

She just has one knife that had a single blade. It was less than an inch wide, maybe five inches in length.

She suspects that it was a buck knife. Oh, and she has something interesting to add about the bindings that were used. So she determines that most of the restraints and bindings on the victims weren't restraints or bindings at all, or at least like that's not how they started, not designed to be anyways. So really what they were was stuff that was taken from the victims. Like I guess Jill had been wearing a terrycloth shirt that night and

And that shirt turned out to be a lot of the bindings. Like, it was ripped into strips. They also used shoelaces. Even that bra that was tied around Raylene's leg, that was actually Jill's bra used to bind her. The first thing that comes to mind is, like, whoever did this, like, didn't come, quote-unquote, prepared, right? Or at least prepared for three people. Three people, exactly. And it's weird that, like, it's all...

Jill's stuff, right? Isn't it? It's her bra. It's her shirt. Like, she's the through line with the bindings. She's the only one with defensive wounds. She has the, like, most notable torture wounds. It all comes back to Jill. Yeah. Yeah.

So let me get back to the autopsy real quick. So as for toxicology, samples were sent off for testing, but those results we know take a while. They're still pending, you know, and we know how that goes. It could come back tomorrow, three months from now. Good luck. TBD, maybe we never hear about them again. But we have to hear about them again because those might be the real clencher. You see, investigators start to notice some patterns in the tips that are getting called in. And patterns might not even be the best word. Let's call them like themes.

And, Britt, we've been doing this for a while. We kind of know that the line between a lead and a rumor can be about as clear as mud. But where there's smoke, there is often fire. And there is one theme that is throwing up smoke signals left and right. And it's about the kid's supposed drug use. And I should be specific here. Kenneth's name is the one that seems to always be mentioned. Supposedly, he was known to heavily misuse drugs.

Have any of the families mentioned anything about this? No, they talked to all of them. Not a word about this. So it's just coming in on like tip lines. On the tip lines. But some of these tips get pretty specific, like names and whatnot. And one of the more specific rumors going around about Kenneth is that he owed like three grand to a local drug dealer named Terry Lee Harper or Tab as they call him. But Tab was said to be running out of patience with Kenneth.

Now, Tab and law enforcement go way back. But the thing is, Tab's never been suspected of anything like this. Like, dude's always been more of a high misdemeanor, low felony kind of guy. And this would be like a hell of a first murder, like zero to 100. Right.

But no one's ruling him out just because of that, especially because Tab himself has been going around taking credit for the murders. And listen, people bragging about murdering people when they didn't to look tough or cool or whatever, it might sound bananas, but it honestly doesn't even register for me anymore. Like, we've seen this so many times. Especially if he's, like, trying to muscle money out of people. Right, right, right. Like, kind of puff himself up. Right.

Right, so I'm not ready to zero in on him just based on that. But there is this other interesting little tidbit. So it turns out Tab was spotted at Caney Park that night that they were killed by multiple people. Uh, sounds like they need to talk to Tab. Well, here's the thing. Just as this Tab stuff is starting to gain momentum, there is a wrench thrown in this theory.

The tox results come back in early August, and according to reporting by Bill Moore, those kids were clean as a whistle. All three of them, they didn't have so much as a sip of beer in their system. Which makes a $3,000 drug debt seem a little far-fetched. Exactly.

And honestly, I think the results almost take the wind out of investigators' sails a little bit, or a lot a bit. Because on September 9th, when good old Sergeant Simons moseys past Detective Salinas' desk and starts kind of thumbing through the Lake Waco case file that's just sitting out because he can't help himself, he finds a document in there indicating that as of September 3rd,

the Lake Waco cases have been classified as quote-unquote officially inactive. September 3rd of what year? But we're still in 1982. Like, we're talking less than two months since these kids were killed. Yeah. And according to Carlton Stowers, it's a little more dramatic than just inactive. He writes that the case is all caps suspended. But regardless of the specific verbiage, the end result is the same. Viable leads will be checked out

but only viable leads that come to them and practically land in the lap of investigators who have a little time to spare.

And this is unacceptable to Simons, who takes it upon himself to call the chief of police at home. A bold move. I don't hate it. Oh. But... I mean, I've seen people get demoted for less. Yeah, it's dangerous. Rank and file. Know your place is very much alive and well in many departments even today. So forget 1982. But Simons is a bold guy and...

Sometimes it takes those kind of people to shake things up and get done sometimes. So when Chief Larry Scott picks up, Simons is like, yo, Chief, like, all due respect, but this Lake Waco situation is f***ed. And I kind of wonder if Simons is surprised by the response because he doesn't get chewed out or told to know his place. The chief doesn't even argue with him because the chief...

has no idea what he's talking about. What? This guy is blindsided. The investigation into some of the worst murders to hit Waco in modern times has been closed by his investigators after an investigation that didn't even hit the two-month mark and nobody bothered. No one told him. No one asked him. Nothing. In that moment, he agrees with Simons. This situation is fucked.

And the people he has working this case are the wrong people because they're not working it. And in that moment, that's when Simons is like, you know what, chief?

I volunteer as tribute. Of course he does. And Chief Scott probably has to take a beat to think about this proposal because according to Hall, these two men have something of a love-hate relationship. To be honest, love-hate relationships are kind of like Simons' jam. But Simons pipes back up. He tells the chief, listen, I will have this case solved in a week.

One week. Okay. And that's all the chief needs to hear. The case is his. But, like, he knows that's not real, right? Like, who the hell would promise to solve, like, any case, let alone this case, in a week? I know. I don't think he's necessarily buying it. But at the end of the day, Simons is right on the only point that matters. To put a case that rocked the city on a shelf and basically label it, we quit after such a short time, it's indefensible. Mm-hmm.

So nearly two months in, Simons is officially given his chance. Chief Scott assigns Officer Dennis Bayard to work the case alongside him just to give him some backup, extra eyes, extra hands, whatever. And Michael Hall says that the two start digging into the files the next day. And that's when Simons comes across a lead that seemed to gain no real traction.

It's from another kid at the Methodist home named Lisa, who pointed her finger directly at a very unlikely culprit. The holiday season is here, and it's the perfect time for family gatherings and celebrating with plenty of delicious food.

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Trade-in and additional terms apply. See Verizon.com for details. Apple Intelligence available now. Lisa suggested the person responsible for the murders was a young man named Munir Deeb. Munir is in his early 20s and owns the convenience store right across the street from the Methodist home. It's actually a store that Simons himself has been in before. He's seen this guy. He knows that Munir and his family immigrated from Jordan and...

He's not a big guy. He's not even a scary guy. He walks with a limp that the kids often make fun of, and he seems to be desperate for friends. So he lets the Methodist home kids use his store like a hangout, even though they often aren't kind. They even take advantage of him. And apparently, Kenneth, in particular, was mean a lot. And the two had a pretty openly hostile relationship.

And listen, I want to make the lines very clear. Whatever Kenneth did, it absolutely does not excuse murder. This is not victim blaming. But I also don't like the idea of glossing over some pretty ugly behavior. Some of it was harmless, like he would roar his motorcycle engine as he sped through the store parking lot.

Some of it was a little more pointed, like he would hold up the one-finger salute at Mounir. And some of it was downright racist and cruel, like mocking his limp and calling him either Ahab or Abdul, depending on the reporting. And to be clear, Ahab nor Abdul appear anywhere in his name.

And it seems like the root of Kenneth's disdain for Mounir boiled down to Mounir's unrequited love for Kenneth's best friend at the Methodist home, this girl named Gail Kelly.

Kenneth thought Mounir was creepy and encouraged Gail to stay away from him. But according to kids at the Methodist home, Mounir was like completely infatuated with her, like so infatuated that he supposedly offered her a job at his store, which it seems like she took, just like he wanted her to be there a lot.

So Simons and Bayer visit Gail at the apartment she's living in now for this in-person interview. And when they go see her, he's struck by something, something that he had heard before but couldn't really appreciate the significance of until Gail was right in front of him. Gail looks a lot like Jill. Now, when he asked her if anyone's ever told her that her and Jill look alike, she's like, yeah, people would actually assume they were related.

Stowers writes in Careless Whisperers that despite doing their best not to clue Gale in on their suspicions about Muneer, she picks up on it. And she asks them if Muneer is a suspect. And Simon's kind of deflects, saying that they'd heard that Muneer and Kenneth didn't really like each other, which Gale confirms. But still, she says, like, she doesn't think he's capable of anything like this.

But when Simons asks her if she'd heard Munir talk about the murders at all, she says, yeah, for a while he kept bringing them up to her. And one time when she said that she hoped their deaths were fast, Munir said that he had heard that Kenneth had suffered. And he didn't exactly seem upset at the idea. Gail obviously was upset for obvious reasons. And she's like, listen, I don't want to hear that. And since then, she said Munir hadn't said anything.

And that's pretty much all she could give them at the time. But, you know, they did the cop thing. Here's my card if you think of anything. Like, give me a call. And around 1 a.m. the next morning, Gail actually calls him. And she's got something wild to tell him. As soon as Simons picks up the line, he can tell that Gail is upset.

Hall writes that she just keeps saying over and over, he did it, he did it. And when she eventually takes a deep breath or two, she starts telling him how Munir had taken her and her friend to the movies that very night. And after the movie, Munir said to her, I did it. I killed them.

Now, I don't know if they looked upset or horrified or whatever, but like immediately he says he's joking, though at that point it's a little late for that. Like Gail says she doesn't think it was a joke. Like she by that point really believed that he was involved.

So as far as Simons is concerned, hearing this, like, it is now all systems go on Mr. Munir Deeb. Simons had given himself a week to close this case, and here he is. On day, like, two or three, it's all coming together. Simons is being Simons. He's like, I'm ready to move forward with an arrest now. But the other guys at his department, like Lieutenant Horton and Sergeant Bob Fortune, they tell Simons he's jumping the gun in a major way. Even Bayer has his doubts.

But there's only one guy's opinion that really matters, and that's Chief Scott.

So Simon takes it straight to the top. He makes a beeline for this dude's office, fills him in on what he's learned so far about Muneer. And when he tells him that Muneer might be about to run, to like flee the state, who knows, possibly the country altogether, that's when Chief Scott gives him the green light to just go get this guy. Wait, is this fleeing stuff, is that for real? To be completely fair, I don't have a solid answer.

I know what I think the answer is, but I don't know. Got it. Anyway, with the chief's green light, Simons has Munir arrested. And by the time he's talking to him, Simons has already developed a theory. Munir had to have had help. Physically, he just does not think he could overpower all three teenagers alone.

So Simons and Sergeant Fortune start going in on this kid, asking him what he knows about the murders. And right away, he swears up and down he knows nothing. He had nothing to do with them. And eventually, Simons changes tactics. If he's not going to connect himself to the crime, then Simons needs to see if he'll connect himself to this name that he's kind of heard a few times by this point, Chili. Now, apparently, this Chili

Chili guy is kind of rough. He hangs out at Munir's store. But, like, all he has is clearly Chili's a nickname, right? Right. So it seems like he kind of goes off book, and he just straight up asks Munir if he knows this guy. And Munir doesn't deny it, like, at all. He's like, well, listen, I own this centrally located convenience store that brings in a whole bunch of different people. And, yeah, one of them is this guy that everyone else calls Chili. And Simon's just like, oh, yeah, like, that's what I thought you'd say. Like...

cough up the guy's real name. But I don't even think Munir knows it. But what's connecting Chili to all of this? I feel like he's kind of like popping up out of nowhere. Literally nothing. Yeah. The only thing that we've got is that he hangs out at the store. But really what it is, is like it's just this, he's heard the name and he has this gut feeling. Another gut feeling by Simon's. But the line between follow your gut and...

and trust your gut at all costs. Like, I feel like it's starting to blur and like not in a great way. I would hang on. So at this point, Simons and Fortune step out of the interview room for this quick break. And I said earlier, I think Simons went off book because I don't think Fortune knew he was going to ask about Chili because if he had, I think they could have saved some time because Fortune's like, hey, Simons,

I actually know this chilly guy. What? His real name is David Spence, and he is kind of a frequent flyer. And actually, he'd just recently been arrested for something pretty gnarly. Him and this guy named Gilbert Melendez were arrested together for cutting a teenage boy on the leg and then sexually assaulting him. Okay, I take it all back. Maybe the gut isn't totally off. It's gotten him this far, right?

And if he keeps leaning into it, he's pretty sure he's got a theory about all of this. He thinks that Gail was the real target of this attack, but Jill got killed instead because it was a case of mistaken identity. Wait, do they look that similar that Munir would mix them up? Well, he wouldn't, but Simons is thinking that he hired David because Gail rejected him and...

I mean, I assume it's like a if I can't have her, no one can thing. But then David mixed them up. And listen, right about now is when I was starting to question Simon's gut. Like, again, it's gotten him this far. But like really mistaken identity. Like you killed two more people just because they're there. It's kind of like a bit of a stretch. I know. But like just when you like start questioning it, there's always more. According to Hull, Simon's

Simons and Bayer discover that just weeks before the murders, Munir had taken out a $20,000 accident insurance policy on Gayle, listing himself as her common-law husband and beneficiary. How the f-

Do you explain that away? Like, I don't, you almost can't. Does this accident policy, like, pay out on murder? Like, I know they're all different, but, like, does it have to be a true accident? I don't know. So I don't know exactly. That actually never gets, like, totally, like, filtered out. But for Simon's, like, that's two in the weeds. Like, big picture here. This looks bad for Mounir.

But it is great for Simons, who is sure that he just unraveled the conspiracy that had confounded everyone who came before him in the 50-something whole days they worked on it.

But even though this is suspicious, not everyone is sold on this. When Lieutenant Horton finds out that Simons has Munir in custody, he straight up tells both him and Bayer, in a room full of detectives, that they just went and messed up the entire case for everyone. But Simons is undeterred. And with Munir in custody, his family realizes that he needs an attorney like ASAP.

And in the riskiest of gambits, this attorney that they hire demands that his clients sit for a polygraph. And he's cool with investigators arranging it like pick your very best favorite polygrapher, like go to town, let the chips fall where they may. A new role always get a good lawyer. Well, I don't know. This guy might have been just that because as scary as this tactic was,

And, you know, it breaks our other rule, never take a polygraph. But in this case, it plays in Munir's favor. He passes a three-hour polygraph. And just like that, the victory Simon's thought was within his grasp just evaporates. Munir is released from custody. Simon's is humiliated. And after 17 years with the force...

After this, he just up and quits. Wait, what? Why? I mean, like, I think clearly this guy has an ego, let's be honest. But part of the reason he quits is, like, I think he is still 100% sold on his own theory. And if Waco PD isn't going to let him get the justice he promised Jill, he's going to figure out how to do it another way. And, of course, the guy's got a plan.

It's a plan that, you know, would potentially be described as harebrained in a movie. But it would have some unlikely hero declaring like, this just might work. So remember David Spence and his friend Gilbert Melendez. They're facing some serious charges that have nothing to do with Lake Waco. Both of them are being held in McLennan County Jail while they're awaiting trial for that.

Obviously, right now, Simons is newly unemployed and he's going to play the long game. So what does he do? He takes an entry-level job in the county jail because he's going to cozy up to David and try and get a confession out of him. What? I know. There's a first for everything. And listen, Simons has charisma and he starts throwing a little kindness David's way. And before long, David actually likes him.

They talk for hours upon hours about everything under the sun, including the murders that Simons wants to take him down on. And this is the thing. There's like no game here. He knows it. Halls writes that during an especially difficult period, David's girlfriend is about to abandon him. And he says to Simons basically like, you're my only friend and you're trying to kill me. Like, what?

Dark times for David because we're in 1980s Texas. The phrase trying to kill me is not a metaphor here. Simons literally is trying to get him killed. He wants to put David on death row and David knows it. But this isn't to say that Simons puts all his eggs in one basket because try as he might to wrangle a confession out of David, David does not budge on Lake Waco. He swears he wasn't involved and he's not going to say he was.

But no worries, Simons deploys that trademark charisma to develop other relationships as well. Relationships with other inmates. So when one of the inmates he's been working, Kevin Michael, suddenly approaches him in January of 83, saying that he heard David confess with his own two ears, Simons is sure that all of his hard work finally has paid off.

The informant also delivers up a new co-defendant on a silver platter, David's co-defendant in a sexual assault case, Gilbert Melendez. Now, obviously, Simons isn't on the force anymore, so he can't just phone up the police chief at home. So instead, he calls the new DA. It's this guy named Vic Feazell, who's young and brash and eager to make a name for himself.

And he gets Fizell's assistant and is like, hey, Vic's assistant, you're never going to believe this, but I've got David Spence dead to rights on the Lake Waco case. Like the guys confess to every inmate that crosses his path. Because by the way, it's not just Kevin this time. Like before long, informants were coming out of the woodwork to turn on David. Of course.

Now, Feazell is interested enough that he puts together a task force on the case in March of 1983. I mean, it's not like Wake-O-Pedia has done much since Simons resigned, so why not make Simons part of the new team? And now that one of the informants is pointing the finger at Gilbert, Simons has some serious leverage all of a sudden, right? Divide and conquer. First, he goes to Gilbert and is like,

So listen, I got some good news and I got some bad news. Bad news first, I'm about to put you on death row. But now the good news, if you're a really good boy and help me put David on death row, no harm, no foul. You can go on your merry way. I'll go on mine. Capisce?

So, like, he gets immunity? I don't know. Like, it's hard to pin down exactly what was and wasn't offered. And, like, what Simons was authorized to offer, right? Yeah, exactly. But eventually, Simons has him scared enough of the death penalty to agree to cooperate just to avoid that. And so he folds. He says he was there. So was David.

Now, there's a minor hiccup when Simons takes Gilbert out to both parks. He takes him to Caney Park and Spiegelville Park. And Gilbert can't tell Simons who did what or when or where. Like, he seems all dazed and confused. But as far as Simons is concerned, like, okay, no big thing. Gilbert said that him and David were drinking. They were getting high. So he kind of just, like, writes off the gaps in memory to that. But then Gilbert recants. Ooh.

Now, not knowing the specifics of the case, plus this, plus how we got here, I'm like, yeah, this was a false confession. But Simons doesn't want that. Instead, he finds a new way at Gilbert, since Gilbert was his way at David, who was his way at Munir.

Simon starts looking at Gilbert's brother, Tony, who is actively wanted in Corpus Christi on robbery and sexual assault charges. He picks up Tony, brings him in. I think he's hoping that he'll be able to pin Gilbert down. Maybe Gilbert had confessed to Tony or something or who knows. But then somewhere along the way, Simon seems to get another one of his famous hunches. And he starts to suspect that Tony could have been part of Lake Waco, too.

So now he has one more suspect. But also like one less confession. Still no confession. And no physical evidence tying any of these men to the crime. Until Assistant District Attorney Ned Butler finds the clencher. So one day, this guy is looking over the Lake Waco autopsy photos when he has this like eureka moment.

Remember those tiny bruises Dr. Gilliland had noticed on Jill that like she didn't know. I think all these are here. Worth mentioning. Yeah. Well, Ned thinks that there are a whole lot more than just tiny little bruises. He is coming off the heels of winning his first death penalty case thanks in large part to the developing field of forensic odontology. Oh, like teeth marks. Yes. And he now knows a bite mark when he sees one.

And he knows just the expert to call to confirm this. So he calls up a forensic odontologist, Homer Campbell. He gets him all the information, the pictures, and Homer's like, you are spot on, my dude. These are bite marks. Like, congratulations. So Ned has him compare the teeth marks with a dental mold of David's teeth. And wouldn't you know it, they're a match.

So with a confession from Gilbert, even a recanted one, and David's teeth marks on Jill, he is full speed ahead. And in this like...

this layout of how everything happened, is Munir still the mastermind of it all? Like, are we still talking a case of, like, mistaken identity? It was supposed to be Gail, but it was Jill? Yes. I mean, you don't have to provide a motive in court. Like, you know, but if they want to take this to court, like, a why helps, and that's their why. Right. And on November 21st, 1983, a grand jury indicts Munir, David, Gilbert, and Gilbert's younger brother, Tony, on capital murder charges.

In April of 1984, the judge decides that David will go to trial first, specifically on the capital murder charges pertaining to Jill's death. The trial starts on June 18th, and the closer the trial date comes, the more and more important it seems like the bite mark evidence could be. Because Gilbert's sticking to his recantation, and Tony has denied any involvement from the start. But just days before David's first trial starts,

That changes, and Tony flips. He agrees to plead guilty to two counts of murder and claims he, David, and Gilbert killed the teens in Caney Park before transporting them to Spiegelville Park, just like Simons had always suspected. And in exchange for Tony's cooperation, he will get the relatively lighter sentence of life without parole.

So up against some jailhouse informants, a cooperating co-defendant, and a forensic odontologist, to boot, David is convicted for the murder of Jill Montgomery after roughly a two-week trial. And within days, he gets sentenced to death, which is right about the time when Gilbert decides to start cooperating again, and he takes the same deal as his younger brother.

Muneer's first trial, also for Jill's murder, starts on February 21st of 1985. And it goes about the same as David's had, with a new piece of evidence, though. Shortly after David's first trial, Simons had been walking around Caney Park with an investigator from the DA's office. And they walked around the spot that Tony said the kids were murdered in, like in his confession.

And apparently laying on the ground under some leaves was a gold bracelet that looked a heck of a lot like one that Jill had. And so to Simons, it's more proof of the men's guilt. How so? I think because it backed up of the Tony's version of events. Because it was in that location? Yeah, I mean, it proves at least to Simons and the prosecution that he's telling the truth, I think.

But just as an aside here, I don't know if the family ever bought the idea fully that it was her bracelet. Because I guess it did look like the one she owned, but it was like ultra clean. Like, because if you think about it at this point, it would have had to been sitting on the elements for two years.

And what are the odds of just finding it when the whole area had been thoroughly searched? Like it's just under a couple of leaves. So I don't know. But whatever story they told around it, the jury believed it. And Munir's trial ends in a guilty verdict and a death sentence. Do they actually have anything concrete proving Munir hired them? The confessions of two of his co-defendants with the testimony of some like

Informant sprinkled in? Question mark? Okay. Question mark. Now at David's second trial, this one is for the murders of Kenneth Franks. He gets another guilty verdict as well as another death sentence. And to the chagrin of many skeptics at the Waco Police Department, Truman Simons becomes a true hometown hero.

After David's first trial, the jurors even request to, like, meet him in the flesh. And who is Fizel to deny them the experience of a lifetime? He takes them into the jury room and he says, quote, And they do. They really, really do. Along with just about every other citizen of the state.

I mean, Simons goes on to be celebrated wherever he goes, in every last corner of the state, even going on to win a Peace Officer of the Year award. But before even receiving that award, questions start to arise about whether that title was actually deserved, whether the case was actually solved, or if Simons was so dead set on proving his gut right

that he and some of Waco's most influential people railroaded four innocent men. I'm going to tell you the other side of the story next week, unless you're in the Crime Junkie fan club. Fan club members get to listen to part two right now. You can find part two in the Crime Junkie app available in the Apple App Store and Google Play.

You can find all the source material for this episode on our website, CrimeJunkiePodcast.com. And you can follow us on Instagram at Crime Junkie Podcast. We'll be back next week with a brand new episode. Crime Junkie is an Audiochuck production. So what do you think, Chuck? Do you approve?

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