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Hey, everybody. Just going to take a quick break from the show and tell you a little bit more about one of our favorite things ever, Audible. Oh, audible.com or that app. The app is great, and I'm on the app constantly. Listening to Audible helps your imagination soar.
No.
There's more to imagine when you listen. And I'll tell you something that has set both Jimmy and I's imagination soaring. And that is the Lewis and Clark journals. We're both really into these right now. And as an Audible member, you can choose one title a month to keep from the entire catalog, including the latest bestsellers, the newest releases. New members can try Audible free for 30 days. Visit audible.com slash smalltownmurder or text
smalltownmurder to 500-500. That's audible.com slash smalltownmurder or text smalltownmurder to 500-500. Now back to the show. Music
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Hello, everybody, and welcome back to Small Town Murder Express. Yay and choo-choo! Oh, yay indeed, Jimmy. Yay indeed. My name is James Petrigallo. I'm here with my co-host. I am Jimmy Wissman. That's right. Thank you for joining us all aboard the murder train. Pulling away from the station here. Chugga-chugga. Here we go. We have a wild, of course, episode. There's a... Great.
Crazy murder with a bonus murder thrown in here. It's a lot of weird stuff. We'll get to that. Before we do, though, definitely head over to ShutUpAndGiveMeMurder.com. Get your tickets to live shows online.
All the live shows are for sale for 2024. Right now, a couple of them are sold out already. Even one in November sold out. It's moving so fast, and I can't thank you enough. Thank you, guys. Even in December, Boston and New York are selling fast. So get those. First ones up are April 5th, Sacramento, April 6th in San Francisco. So get those tickets right now and get the rest of them. ShutUpAndGiveMeMurder.com. In addition to that, if you can't make it to a live show, what if you're overseas? Right.
What if you can't make it? You're in another place. We got something for you. The 420 virtual live show coming at you. Tickets for sale February the 22nd. We're very excited for that. If you've seen a live show, it's like a regular live show except in your living room or your front porch or wherever the hell you want to be. We're going to have lots of smoking implements to make Jimmy's head explode. We will dress in costumes for this.
It's going to be a lot of fun. We can't wait. So check all that out. That's February 22nd. ShutUpAndGiveMeMurder.com is where you find all this stuff and more. You also certainly want Patreon. Patreon.com slash Crime and Sports is where you get all your bonus material. It's a whole other thing, man. That's a lot of show you get for the price of $5 a month, which honestly...
$5 isn't much. It's a cup of coffee at this point. Right. So let's do that. $5, you get a couple hundred bonus episodes immediately to binge on, and then new ones every other week. One crime and sports, one small-town murder, and you get all of it. You get it all.
You get it all this week for Crime and Sports. We're going to talk about some gangster shit. Hell yeah. We're going to talk about a gangster named Paul Sasso, who in the mid-70s owned a World Football League team. So imagine an organized crime guy running a professional sports team. That's wild stuff. I mean, he's like a total street guy, too. It's hilarious. It's a lot of fun. Then for Small Town Murder, we're going to talk about some real weird stuff. Natalia Grace, and was she a 25-year-old? No.
Psychopath or a nine-year-old disabled child? Which one is it? We'll find out. How does the father make tears pop from his eyes like that? We'll explore it all there this week on Patreon. Patreon.com slash Crime and Sports. Also, you definitely want to listen to our other shows, Crime in Sports, if you haven't listened to that. I don't know what you're... What are you doing? What are you doing with your life? What's your deal? It doesn't matter. If you think we're funny, it's just us making fun of a guy for...
couple hours it's fun stuff so check that out and then your stupid opinions oh honestly if you want to laugh we're telling you right now it's the funniest show you're gonna find so check that out every monday morning both of those that said i think it's time everyone yeah to sit back what do you say let's all clear the lungs i don't care where you are right now let's say you're a barista you're making somebody's coffee right now throw that hot coffee right in their face
Take the cinnamon. LeBron it in the air. LeBron it in the air. Climb up upon the counter and throw your hands to the sky and shout, Shut up and give me murder.
There we go. Let's go on a trip, everybody. Lebroning cinnamon is my favorite image right now. And then cinnamon in the air. Hot coffee to the face. Someone's... Cinnamon in the air. That's right. We're going all the way to New Mexico here. Oh, boy. Jimmy's... I think it's his least... What a nightmare. Top three least favorite states for Jimmy, I know.
It's probably number two. Number two? Might be one. Might be one? More than... I don't know. I've given their government about as much money as Texas in speeding tickets. In speeding tickets, yeah, yeah. It's both of those places. Both of those, yeah. I don't want to be in either. That's true. Well, we're going to Fort Sumner, New Mexico. It's over in... What?
Fort Sumner. Really? Yeah. Not Fort Sumter like the Civil War. That's what it is. Yeah, that's what you're thinking of. This is Fort Sumner. This is in eastern central New Mexico. No man's land. Middle of nowhere out there. East of Albuquerque? Oh, yeah. About two and a half hours to Albuquerque.
Oh, boy. This is a small town, man. Six hours and ten minutes to Silver City, New Mexico, because that was all the way in the southwest part of the state, our last episode in New Mexico. Episode 403, Three Suspects and a Moron, which was hilarious. I remember that one. That was fun. And a moron. And a moron. Population of this town, 1,364. Okay.
It is a small place in the middle of nowhere. Median income here, household income, is $35,556 a year, which is about half the national average. Not great. And then median home price, though, meets that. It's also low, $134,600. Yeah, but what are you getting for that? You get a trailer in the middle of nowhere because that's where everybody lives in here.
There's not a lot of... It's one of those places when you're driving and you go, people live here? People live here. Well, there's a lake near here, apparently. Oh. So it's like a recreation area there, too. You want to go in the middle of nowhere in New Mexico and gather around a lake? Well, here it is. Pull some three-eyed fish out of it? There it is. Yeah, no shit after plenty of testing there. So it is named after the former New Mexico Territory military governor, Edwin V. Jose Sumner.
Or Vozay Sumner. And U.S. Fort Sumner was a military fort charged with the internment of nearby Navajo and Mescalero Apache people nearby.
So that's what this was for, to intern the natives of the area. Yikes. This was from 1863 to 1868. And the federal government closed the fort in 1868 and sold its buildings to a guy named Lucian Maxwell, who was just a guy who owned a shitload of land in New Mexico. And so in the latter 1870s, Maxwell's son, Pete, became very good friends with Billy the Kid.
I was just going to say that's like the guy. This is the area he hung out in. Because he hung out West Texas and Eastern New Mexico right in this area is the whole Billy the Kid thing. That's where they would hide out when there was too much heat. They knew tons of people with ranches like this, like here. And that's what they would do. So Billy the Kid is buried in the old military cemetery in Fort Sumner. Is that right? Yes. This town's claim to fame and draw is Billy the Kid's grave is here. And it was his safety.
That's what it is. So let's find some reviews of this town. We've never been there. What the hell do we know about it here? I've seen Young Guns. That's about it. I have seen Young Guns. Is Emilio Estevez around? Can I find him? Where's Lou Diamond Phillips, damn it? I want to talk to him. Is there a forearm-stabbed Lou Diamond around?
Where is he? First review, five stars. This is a very small rural community, quite peaceful, and for the most part, a very nice little town. I would like to see it grow a little, at least have one or two things for the kids to do. No. Sorry. No. There's 1,300 people. What are they going to build for you? A Chuck E. Cheese? It's not going to happen.
You've got to pool your money and do it together. I don't think that's going to happen. Three stars. Community is great. Treats one another like family. You see this a lot in reviews. They always misspell quiet. Very quite town. It's quite a town.
Downside is there isn't much to do because it's the middle of nowhere. So it's a tradeoff. One star, finally, higher cost of living than other areas that have more conveniences. Not really. 134 grand is your median home price.
It's pretty cheap. Too far away from shopping. Utilities are doubled to triple the amount in other towns. That might be possible because the farther out you are, the more expensive it is to get you electricity. It's just the way it is. That's life. Rural electricity is very expensive. And it's probably a
Private water company of some sort. Yeah. You're still paying for them to run the lines out there. Sure. You bet. You're going to pay for that forever here. It gets better here. The water is brown slash rust color often. So add having to buy bottled water to your expenses. Moved here during the pandemic and during school year. School was a joke.
What are you, from Canada? Fucking joke, man. Yeah, that's a Canadian thing. Canadians love to say something's a joke from your stupid opinions, we found out. And then when we noticed it, then tons of Canadians started commenting on it going, you know what? You're right. I never noticed it, but I always say that, and so does everyone around me. That's so weird. We do say that a lot. They also say things like smoked my elbow, if you hit your elbow on something. Oh, yeah, smoked it good. Yeah. Canada and the South, they'll say that, those two places.
In the South, you have to be careful. Someone will slap a sauce on it. That's the problem. We'll come at you with like a vinegar-based sauce. It's smoked. Come here. Come here. Hold on a minute. I've got to slap some sauce on while it's still hot.
So things to do in this town, the Billy the Kid Museum and Replica Grave. Okay. The real one's there. His tombstone was stolen years back. Is that right? Oh, yeah. Of course it was. It's something that you could take. So people are going to take it. I mean, make it so you can't? Man. Cement that motherfucker in the ground. You could do that. Yeah. Bury it like a basketball hoop in your driveway. Yeah.
Put a fucking U-Band coffee can down there. Anchor it. That's all. Anchor that bitch down. So they said, unless you're driving the shortest route between Santa Fe and Roswell, New Mexico, there's no reason you'd pass through Fort Sumner. Basically, unless you're coming here on purpose, the town is miles away from anywhere else, which made it a great hideout for 19th century outlaw like Billy the Kid.
Yeah. Today it makes the drive to Fort Sumner's Billy the Kid Museum seem like a real adventure. There are no casual visitors. You have to want to be here. You got to want it. That's a great motto for the town. Fort Sumner, New Mexico. You got to want it.
Like some 90s sports drink or something, you know? Is it in yet? You gotta want it. The museum has... I guess he was shot dead. Billy the Kid was killed just south of town, too. So this is the area he was killed in. By the coward Pat Garrity. That's right. That's right. They have an exhibit about Pancho Villa as well. They also have an old horse-drawn hearse that has nothing to do with anything. It's just...
what they used to have, and a stuffed eight-legged calf born on a nearby ranch in the 50s. You guys, that's not a good thing. No, but it's just stuff. They used to have the real one, but they said, quote, kids would pick the nose and the ears, so we took it off display. Gross. Yeah, so that's pretty funny. They have a thing, a large replica...
They have a tombstone where they have a steel Billy's tombstone contest and you have to run with this tombstone that you have to carry. It's an 80 pound tombstone.
They'll keep doing that until somebody dislocates a shoulder or fucking throws their back out and they get sued. Well, you have to jump over barriers and all this shit. It's like you're actually stealing the tombstone. And the woman with American gladiator shooting tennis. That would be amazing. That'd be a much better addition to this. A woman who finished seventh in the race said it's harder than I thought. Well, no shit.
Why would you think that would be easy? I have no idea. Let's talk about a murder, though. That's what we should do. Okay, here. Let's do this. We're not going back in time too far here. We're going back a very short amount of time, so let's discuss here. Let's talk about a guy first. Let's talk about A.J. Harden. H-A-R-D-E-N. A.J. Harden. He was born in Fort Sumner, New Mexico on April 2nd, 1938. Wow.
Holy. Oh, yeah. His parents are Carl and Ola. He had a twin named CJ. So they have CJ and AJ. Okay. Don't know what that's all about. KJ and BJ and PJ. KJ, BJ, PJ, RJ, JP. So he grew up in Fort Sumner. He went to school there. AJ worked in the logging industry in his early years in Alaska and Oregon. Oh.
Is that right? We're talking 50s, 60s, Alaska fucking lumbermen. That's rugged. Jesus, yeah. You've got to be a hardcore man right there to be doing that shit. He knows a guy missing an arm. Oh, he knows eight guys missing arms. He's kind of jealous of him because he feels like a pussy for having two arms. Yeah, there's a couple of one-handed chainsaw operators up there. You two-armed pussy, come on over here and help out. What?
With your two arms. You can hold the limb at the same time. Watch this. He was also in the U.S. Navy as well. He's born in, so he's probably right after Korea before Vietnam. Yeah, that's a nice time. That's a good sweet spot to be. But there was also, we always thought we were going to have nuclear war with the Russians at any minute, so it was also a stressful time for him. And Cuba too, right? Well, through Russia. Russia through Cuba. It was Russian missiles they brought down to Cuba. His twin died in 1960. Okay.
Oh, no. 22 years old. So CJ, no more CJ. They're dead. Jesus. He married a woman named Virginia Roberts in 1962, so 24 years old. This is the name of the town, Marriage Villa, California. Is that right? Yeah, because it's a town you can get married in, apparently. I don't know what...
I don't know if it was like for near a base or something. They had like a little wedding thing for all the soldiers to get married. A safe place where everybody could go. I don't know what it is. Back then they all got married young, so I guess it would make sense. So they traveled across the country while A.J. worked as a long-haul truck driver as well. What were those trucks like? No idea. In the 60s? Hard to remember.
Hard to drive, I'm sure. I would say, me or you would get in it and go, I don't know how to move this fucking thing. What is that? How many clutches is that? What is going on? Why are there four pedals? We'd be so confused if we got one of these trucks. Just grinding shit. Oh, yeah. Yeah. They're the ones that hop when you can't drive it right. Yeah. Not good. He worked for Furs Trucking for many years while living in New York.
while living in Fort Sumner. He owned and operated his own truck for many years as well. They lived along, too. They lived in Wellington, Texas for a long time while he was trucking. I think because it's a centralized location for trucking. It's probably pretty easy. It's probably close in that panhandle, isn't it?
I'm not sure. No, Wellington is near Dallas, I believe. Oh, it's way over there. Yeah, it's over there in the eastern part of the state. And he also lived in Dixon, Missouri for a few years. And then they ended up moving back. The couple moves back to Fort Sumner. And, you know, they have a couple of kids and all this type of stuff here. They said even when they moved back to Fort Sumner and he stopped driving trucks, he never retired. Instead, he and Virginia built a hamburger stand and set it up in Fort Sumner.
How many hamburgers can you move in a day? I mean, I'm just... In a place that's removed like that. All I can imagine is if there's like a factory maybe or some place that a lot of people work. Get off at lunch. Yeah. And if it's... Get a good lunch rush. I'm just picturing the banana stand from Arrested Development though. Like he's in there. There's always money in the hamburger stand. Just bored. Yeah. Hanging out. Yeah.
So they did that for years, and it worked out well, actually. So they were fine. They went to church, the church on the hill, which seems to be where everybody goes in Fort Sumner. 2012. All right. Two of his kids die in 2012, in the same year. Really?
Which is very interesting. And there's a tradition. How old were they? I'm not sure. I think about 20-ish is what I can find here. Right around Cancel J's age? Right around there. Yeah. Old C.J. Cancel J. Carnage J there.
So they have a tradition in this family, too, where they seem to name daughters after mothers, too. Okay. Because he has a sister named Ola, which is his mother's name. Right. And they have... He's got a daughter named Candy, and then she'll have a daughter named Candy. So this goes on. So two of their kids die, Shane and Candy, both of their kids. I don't know if they were... Shit. Same car together or what the hell happened, but...
Um, now 2016 comes around March 16th, 2016. AJ's wife, Virginia dies. Damn it. Yeah. So now he's lost two kids, a twin brother and a wife.
He has seen so much death. So much death. And I mean, if he wasn't such a damn lumberjack, I'm sure he'd be very sad. And in that job, he's probably seen a shitload of death. That's what I mean. And he was in the military. Yeah. Just surrounded by them. Trucking. Back then, truckers would fucking die a lot. It was terrible.
The roads were not the same as they are now. I mean, it's and the roads aren't terrific now in a lot of places. But back then it was I mean, Christ almighty, it was dangerous to be a trucker. Super fucking dangerous. There's no warning systems for like weather now are so much better. They wouldn't know if a snowstorm was coming. A tornado is coming through. Yeah, that's it. You pull over. That'd be your only option. So his daughter Candy died in 2012. She had a drug problem for a long time.
That was the issue. And he had been he and his wife until she died were raising their children when they were kids. Raising Candy's kids before she died, even because she had a lot of drug problems. So it was to the point where they had to take her kids in. So they had to take young Candy. And she's got a brother as well.
So they were there. Now, AJ is diagnosed with cancer in 2016. Hey, why not? Why not? Let's throw that in there. The amount of tragedy this man has faced. Why the fuck not? Hey, your wife's dead and you're sad? I got some good news and bad news.
Good news is you ain't going to have to face it much longer. Yeah, good news is. Bad news is this is bad. So he's diagnosed with cancer in 2016. Do we know what kind? We don't know exactly what kind of cancer. So Candy Jo Webb is his granddaughter.
She's born about 1993. So now by 2019, he's still alive, AJ, fighting his cancer. And Candy Jo, she's been in a relationship for years with a guy named Sean Perkins. But by 2019, they break up. And so she moves in with her grandfather to take care of him. Okay.
And she lives in the home. She does the cooking and the cleaning and, you know, makes reminds him to take medication, takes him to doctor's appointments, all that kind of shit here. And eventually Harden, AJ will will his house to to candy to candy as well. I mean, number one, there's not a lot of family left. Yeah.
Yeah. And number two, you know, she's the one. She's earning it. Let's be honest here. She's doing it. Yeah. If you wipe somebody's ass, you get their house, I feel like. That's how it works. Right? You definitely get something. Your name's in the will. You better get something here. I think an ass wiping is a house-worthy activity. I think so. Yeah. You're not going to need it. To wipe your grandpa's ass? Yeah. Right. Right.
I'm sorry. You're not wrong. I'm just picturing myself trying to take care of my grandfather. Let's see that will, Grandpa. I'm laughing at him a lot as I'm doing this. What's in it for me, Grandpa? This is really fucked up, Jer Bear. Man. So Candy Joe's friend said, quote, she did mention his health and how it was declining. Candy didn't know how much longer she was going to have with him.
So that's so sad. Now, 2020 pops up because this was 2019. Now, 2020 comes around. Oh, boy. And as if we remember 2020, people went inside, and especially people who are 80-plus years old with cancer weren't going out mingling a whole lot because it wasn't really safe. So they kind of stay inside. AJ isn't really seen for a while, but a lot of old people aren't seen for a while. Everybody kind of lost track of people in 2020. Yeah.
Yeah. There was a lot of domestic murders in 2020 where people would have the body in their house for like six fucking months because just nobody had asked. Yeah. Nobody asked. Yeah. They're not doing what they normally do and no one expects them to be anywhere. And yeah, that's how it went. So people start asking about AJ. You know, how is he? How's he doing? All that candy starts telling people that he's fine, but she had to put him in a home.
In a retirement home, a nursing home type of deal. He's too sick for her to take care of him. And she put him in a home and he doesn't want to be bothered, basically. He wants to die with dignity in this home. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. So that's how it is. People think, oh, AJ's not sad. He's in a home now. That's just how it is. Then October 15th, 2020 comes around.
Okay, now this is the 1900 block of Shenandoah Drive in Fort Sumner. Shenandoah. Shenandoah. There's a guy named Chad Abeda, and he's lived at this address for about five months. And he had noticed back, there's a ditch. They have like a big area to dump shit in the back with a bunch of shit that people have dumped. And there's a ditch in the back that has a bunch of shit. And he noticed back there, there is a tool chest, like a big tool.
You know, like a back of a pickup tool chest. Yeah. Like Dillsboro, Indiana tool chest. Hell yeah. That episode. Goes in a truck bed. Those are great. Yeah, big old toolbox. And they're expensive, too. Oh, boy, yeah. He sees that back there, makes a note of it because he said, it looks like it's in good condition, too. It might fit in my truck. Yeah, it's sitting back here with a bunch of garbage. Somebody dumped it. Yeah.
He didn't check it out at all. He just looked at it and went, oh, look at that. And then a relative of his was over dumping some stuff, and a relative said, hey, what's up with that toolbox back there? Mm-hmm.
The thing's in good shape. I'm actually looking for one of those. You maybe want to sell it to me or whatever. So they he goes, yeah, sure. I don't care. Let's check it out. I don't know if there's anything in it. It might be gross or who knows. So he pops it open. And when he pops it open, he was met with a incredibly foul odor. The way he put it, overwhelmingly foul. Oh, no. So immediately they see a skull.
Yeah. So they decide, let's go ahead and call the cops on this one here. Yeah. And the police show up and they find inside the toolbox is a body, a full body wrapped in blankets. But the head was sticking out of the top of the blanket. So that's how fucked up they saw. Skull is what they saw. And, you know, this is in October. So it's been summer for a while.
In New Mexico. In New Mexico. Yes. They said based on the composition or the decomposition of the body, they say this body's been dead for some time. They don't know if it's been here for some time, but it's definitely been dead for some time. There is duct tape here. Hmm. Duct tape around the mouth and wrists of this body once they unfurl it from the blankets. Yeah. That's not good. Yeah. And they...
they said at the time they said there was black duct tape around his mouth and a leg and wrists and they also said that they couldn't even figure out it was so badly decomposed at first they couldn't even figure out a gender on this body no less anything else an age a fucking any kind of identification then there they couldn't but the doctor noted there was facial hair and male clothing and then when they took the clothes off they found in a shirt pocket a
an appointment card, a doctor's appointment card detailing a July doctor's appointment for A.J. Harden. That's easy. There you go. He's wearing old man clothes and has his doctor's fucking appointment card, has his reminder card, took it off his fridge and popped it in his front pocket there. Old man clothes with a mustache and the chemo doctor's appointment. Pretty easy to figure it out. He's wearing a lumberjackers flannel. Does that mean it's ring a bell at all?
So they said they go to the people, they go to that chat a beta guy and they're like, any ideas here? You ever see anybody fucking around your backyard? And they said that they were renting the home with the trash pit and they saw a white pickup haul a trailer to the pit a few weeks earlier. And they said the trailer was left behind with a flat tire. So there's been a trailer sitting out there with a flat tire.
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A few things here to replace some stuff, and that's what we're doing. Replacing some worn-out stuff with some high-quality essentials at a very affordable price from Quince. And that's what we've done. And they have all the seasonal must-haves. We got some cool stuff. Jimmy, those linen pants. Oh, they're so comfortable. They are? Oh, boy.
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So they they were asking themselves, the police said, was this the trailer? Did somebody use this to dump the body? Because people dump shit back there all the time. It might have been just somebody dumping something. They said from the minute we saw the trailer, it just looked like anything else. But at the same time, it was still out of place for us.
Just to leave a big trailer back there, that's not garbage. Yeah, that's strange. Well, flat tire. Done with it now. There's a tire and a trike. Throw it in the garbage. That doesn't equate bad trailer. Exactly. So the renters told police one of the people who knew about the trash pit and had used it before was Aaron Harden.
who is A.J. Harden's grandson, Candy Joe Webb's brother. Brother, yeah. Okay, he'll come up a lot later. So the owner of the property they get down to, and her name is Brenda Moyer, and they interview her. She tells police she rented the home to her son, Sean Perkins. Sean Perkins is Candy Joe Webb's ex-boyfriend. Yeah, heir of the Perkins fortune. Heir of the Perkins pancake family.
Bread bowl family restaurant. God, that place sucks.
You know it sucks because when I went there and they asked, how was it? And I went, not very good. And they just went, she just kind of shrugged like, yeah, it's about right. Like they weren't like, oh no. They were just like, yeah, what do you expect? It's Perkins. I can't hear the name Perkins and not think of that trash heap. It's such a trash heap. Kendrick, every person named Perkins, I think of that place. I go, oh, you poor bastard. Oh my God. So many fucking Perkins. They tried to sell that restaurant as feasible to us. They're not.
They're still doing it. It still exists. There's a Perkins five miles from me. I don't know why. People go. That's crazy. Why are you coming here exactly? It's got to be in front. That's a documentary I want to make. Why are you at Perkins, it's called. And you just go around and ask people. And I bet it would go from...
This documentary about pancakes and shit to like this dark place of like, we'll follow somebody because they're sad and that's why they're there. And it'll be like an episode of hoarders. You can do a tick talk about it. James, a whole fucking page. Nope. Nope. Not doing that. Just take your phone to the entrance of that parking. That's it. Just watch the sadness. Why are you here? Sadness cam. I call it just sadness.
So she said that they lived there for a long time. They lived there for a couple of years while they were dating, Candy Jo and Sean. Brenda Moyer said the ditch behind the area was always used for dumping large objects, but she had never seen a tool chest there.
She said that Harden was Webb's grandfather, and it was her understanding that A.J. Harden was in a nursing home at this point. Right. So, yeah. So they're like, all right, this is interesting. We have a lot of things going on here. We think it's A.J. Harden. His granddaughter lived here. She has access to the property. So does her brother, his grandson. So they're like, we obviously... A lot of people to talk to. Yeah, we obviously have to talk to Candy because who knows? I mean...
They say that that's him, but at the time, they don't know if it's him. Yeah, she could load him in the car and take him to the nursing home and say, there he is right there. There he is. So they try to talk to her and figure it out. And they talk to Sean Perkins, and he says, quote, Candy texted me asking me if it would be a bad idea for AJ to go to a home.
I told her that's between you and him. None of my fucking business if you want to wipe your grandfather's ass or not. What the hell are you asking me for? It's not my pig, not my farm. It's between you and his asshole at this point. I don't know. So I texted her one day asking her, did you send AJ to a home? And she told me, yes, I did.
So they talked to Candy Jo and she says that the residents on Shenandoah with the trash pit. Yes, she did live there for nearly two years, but she hasn't been on the property since June.
So it's been a while. I don't know. She told the cops that she took AJ, took Grandpa to a nursing home in Wellington, Texas, where he used to live. That's nice. About six months ago. And they said, oh, okay, great. Well, we just need to contact him. And if he's alive, then don't worry about it. We'll clear it off. They said, which home did you send him to? And she said...
Damn it. What's the name of that place? She said, you know what? I don't I'm going to have to look it up. I don't remember where I said what the name of the place I sent him to. Going to have to look it up. I'm not sure. They said, well, have you talked to your grandfather since he's been there? And she said, oh, yeah, I talked to him in September over the phone. So it's been, you know, in the last month. So they question her a little more.
about this and she said yeah yeah no he's in hospice care there by the way I think Wellington is western Texas I think you're right by the way it's gotta be I'm picturing a map with Wellington on it I think it's over there it's gotta be near New Mexico I believe it's there I just think it is I can see it on a map it just popped in my head this image of Wellington on a map I think it's in the western part of Texas so she again she goes yeah I know he's there but I don't remember exactly where
So the Jerry Hernandez, who is the New Mexico State Police Sergeant, he said, so the fact that she doesn't remember where she dropped him off, that's a big red flag. Big red flag. Yeah. Yeah. I would say. He's acting like he just had an epiphany and he came up with that. Yeah. It's like that's weird, isn't it? Like immediately be like, wait a second. You took your grandfather to a place, which means you must have gone on the Internet research places. Yeah. Yeah.
You don't remember the name of it. You Googled it for the directions because you don't just know where that shit is. Then you dropped them off and you stood under a sign that said this on it. You looked for the sign as you drove down the road. Yeah. You know where you sent your grandpa. Within the last six months, this happened.
Yeah. I wouldn't forget that. Very early onset dementia she has. It's like in her 20s. That's dangerous. That's very dangerous. So she also tells police, Candy does, that she has a no trespass order against her brother Aaron, who she told the cops is nothing but trouble.
Nothing but trouble. And the one police officer said she was worried about him taking advantage of AJ and maybe maybe even her. She was very protective of AJ. He was that parental figure that she never really got. All right. So October 19th, 2020 comes around and they talk to Perkins again, the ex-boyfriend.
And he said, yeah, I moved away. I don't even live near there. I live in Artesia there. I moved like a year ago. I had a six-year relationship with Candy. And I haven't been to the Shenandoah Drive residence since May. So it's been a long time since I rock and rolled. I don't know what the fuck to tell you. I haven't been there. So they said, yeah, exactly.
So when they asked who A.J. Harden was, Perkins said, oh, well, that's Candy's grandfather, and he used to give Candy money all the time. Yeah. He said that A.J. apparently lived in a nursing home in Texas for the last few months, but he said that the way he understood it from Candy was that he didn't want others to know where he was located.
He wanted to be just left alone in this nursing home. AJ? AJ. Because that's what people want. They want to go to a nursing home and not have any visitors or, you know, have any caring or love from any sort of family members or friends. And, you know, during a time...
Like that, one of the most dangerous places to be was locked up in a nursing home. Oh, God, yeah. You could just spread it and kill all of them at once. Oh, boy. So that's what he's saying. So he's saying that he wanted to be left alone. Now, October 20th, 2020, a New Mexico state police investigator spoke with a DeBaca County sheriff's lieutenant who,
who noted that on a September 3rd call for service, he spoke with Aaron Harden, AJ's grandson. He said, I got a call September 3rd. Aaron indicated he was concerned because he had not recently spoken to his grandfather and that Candy wouldn't tell him where his grandfather was.
So this is the brother that she said is nothing but trouble and got a trespass order against. This guy had called the cops two months ago and said, I can't find grandpa, basically. Also, Aaron Harden said that, yes, Candy did file a no trespass order against me in August as well. So they bring Candy back in. OK, let's let's figure this out here. You said you had to go check on. They let her go for like days, by the way, to check to find the name of the retirement home.
Did you find it yet? You'd be like, I'll take you back home. You go in and look around and tell us in, what, five fucking minutes? You should be able to figure it out quick. Here's the thing. Find the check that you wrote to them because they don't just care for people on spec. You don't even have a brochure sitting around? A little pamphlet, a little threefold? None of that. Shows a bocce ball court or some shit? Yeah, show how they exercise it.
So a few days, they talk to Candy. It's a few days later. And they're like, so what up with the name of this facility? Yeah. And she said that one of her grandmother's sisters checked him out of the facility. So one of her great aunts checked Grandpa out of the facility. Maybe he's having like a hot affair with his dead wife's sister. Yeah. Let's rub our cancers together. Yeah.
Who is she, fucking Casey Anthony? Just making it up as she goes? What is this? And they said, well, what is the name of the place? And she said, oh, I have that, though. Yeah, it is the Shady Oaks Retirement Estate. What? Okay, now, check it out. The cop says, immediately after hanging up with Candy, I looked up Shady Oaks. I could not find a Shady Oaks anywhere. So, again, it was another red flag for us. Yeah, your red flags are like...
giant hunks of evidence sitting in the middle of the room and they're like, it's a bit of a red flag, right? No, that is a fucking arrestable fucking piece of evidence is what that is.
Shady Oaks is like from a movie or something. No, you know what it's from? You know exactly what it's from? Because I knew it immediately. The place in the Golden Girls that Sophia did not want to be sent back to is called Shady Pines. There it is. That's exactly what it was. I fucking, because I was like, wasn't Sophia's Shady Pines? Looked it up. Yes, it fucking was. Because that was what Bea Arthur would always say. Ma, you want to go back to Shady Pines? And she'd be like, no, Dorothy, I don't.
That was the threat. I knew it was from something. Yep. And I saw the look on your face and I'm like, oh, don't spoil it. Because I know. That's so funny. It's fucking. She literally saw some Golden Girls reruns on Lifetime and was like, what's the name of that place? And then fucked it up.
And that ruined the reference. Either that or she was like, well, I can't. He might have watched the Golden Girls. I can't say Shady Pines. What's another tree? Oaks are good. And that sounds retirement home-ish. That's why on a sitcom they called it Shady Pines because it sounds like a retirement home. Ah, so good. Wow. That is the worst.
The worst lie ever is what that is. That is terrible. I hope when that detective looked up Shady Oak's retirement, it came up Dorothy. Yeah, came up with a picture of Sophia in her purse. Estelle Getty standing there. And Dorothy's threats. Finger at her. Ma, you want to go back to Shady Pines?
Ah, it's so funny. So he couldn't find any evidence of a Shady Oaks anywhere, which I'm surprised nobody named their place Shady Oaks. It sounds like it's a good name. Yeah. It's almost like she said there's got to be one named Shady Oaks, right? Probably. And also a number for AJ provided by Candy indicated that it just rang. This number rang and then said the customer hasn't set up their voicemail yet. So there was no way to contact him. She's like, well, here's his number. You can call him.
So then October 21st, 2020, New Mexico State Police investigator contacts the state social security office and learned that Hardin's retirement address was at a lake house on Tamarack Lake or Tamarack Lane in Fort Sumner. And the bank account originated from a bank in Wellington.
So the state police officials on October 22nd, this is two days after she tells them it's Shady Oaks. Here's his number. Have a good one. Two days later, they want to talk to Candy Jo again, who then said she needed to contact her attorney first and I'll call you back. And then she never called them back or would never answer her phone again. She stopped. She stopped answering the phone. She just fucking ghosted him. So.
Find me if you dare. That's interesting. Where is she? First of all, check Shady Oaks. She might be there. The amount of misinformation she's given them, though, and then she stops talking to them. That is what an investigator would call a red flag. A little bit of a red flag. That investigator would find a butcher knife covered to the hilt in blood sitting on a living room table and be like, bit of a red flag, right? What do you think? With a corpse next to it.
And a bloody person standing there going, I didn't stab him. I don't know what happened. It's a bit of a red flag, you think? What do you think? A guy admitting it to him would be like a small red flag. Yeah. He's like, I'm going to keep an open mind here. I don't want to get too locked into a story. You don't want to get too locked into a theory of a case. I've had false confessions before and it bit me right in the ass. So now I don't even call them confessions anymore. I just call them self-inflicted red flags. That's all it is.
Self-red flags, I say. So the candy is saying like if you she was saying as part of her thing is my brother's the one who's trouble. So you should talk to him anyway, because I just stuck him in shady pines and he's fine. Shady oaks, whatever the shady, shady, shady. So police get in contact with Aaron Aaron, the brother. And he said that I thought Grandpa died.
Oh, because he said he couldn't get a hold of him as of September 3rd. That's the only time they talked to him is when he called them and they didn't even know where AJ was missing. Now, when they finally contact Aaron after AJ has been missing, he says, I thought he had died peacefully. That's what I heard. I thought he was dead.
So, yeah, I don't understand it. So they were like, well, we hear that you and him had some trouble and all that shit. And the Aaron said, quote, me and him are on good terms, the best of terms we've always been on. We've never had no problems.
He never had no problems, goddammit. Aaron believed that his sister took out a no trespass order against him because he discovered that Candy Jo had been writing checks from the account that Aaron shared with his grandfather. So Aaron figured it out. Aaron saw in the bank account and confronted her about it. She found a legal way to keep him away. And yeah, she got a no trespass order. So now he's not even allowed to call to say, hey, what's up with those checks? Right.
He said that he hadn't seen his grandfather since August and that, you know, that Candy had filed the restraining order in early September. So he does say, I saw Grandpa in August, but then since early September, I haven't been allowed to contact them. He said that he does own a tool chest like the one described by police. Oh. Yeah. And they said, well, where is it? And he said, I left it at my grandfather's lake house a long time ago.
And so they run right up to the Tamarack Lane lake house and couldn't find any tool chest there. No toolbox at all. No toolbox. So like, that's a problem. Next, they talked to Garrett Bean, B-E-E-N-E, Bean. Garrett Bean, double R, double T. He, state police go to talk to him and they learn that Candy Jo had stayed with her boyfriend, Garrett Bean, her new boyfriend for a while. So police talked to Garrett and,
Bean tells them that when he asked Candy Jo where her grandfather was, she told him that Grandpa passed. She just said he died in his sleep a few months earlier. Yeah. She said that. Yeah. They said, oh, my God. Well, what did you do? And she said, I contacted the Fort Sumner Fire Department to come fucking get him. What else am I going to do? So the investigators check that out. They find no emergency service medical service record for that address at all.
Okay, here's the problem. If you're going to fucking lie, you can't lie about the most easily checkable things. These are records they have easy access to. They barely have to make a phone call to get these records. Super fucking easy. And there's a tape of it.
Yeah. Forget just like paperwork showing that it will fall. They'll have your recording. Right. They'll have your voice. It's 2020 for Christ's sake. This isn't. Especially when you're reporting a fucking body. Yeah. It's all digital now. It'll even sound good. It'll be great. Yeah. It's amazing. So you can really hear. It's not like old times where it's all muffled. It's all muffled. It's terrific. And you lie about that and lie about the name of a nursing home, which is extremely checkable.
Yeah, businesses. Extremely checking. Paperwork for sure. She had four days to come up with the name of a retirement home and never pick one in four days. Just put it off. Think about that. Procrastination.
Didn't just like go to the library and look something up so it wouldn't be on her phone or, you know. Yeah. Making somebody disappear and then not having a solid story about it. When all stories conflict with each other, that's a problem. Unbelievable. That is a huge problem. Not one story. She has several.
Tons of bad stories. Way too many. Garrett Bean said when he found out that there was no emergency medical service record and all this stuff, he said, quote, I realized this was a lot more serious than I could have imagined. And I felt dumb at that point. Well, no shit. Yeah. You're sleeping with a problem, sir. There's a huge problem here.
So when they asked him, did you help Candy Joe dump a body? He said, fuck no. I didn't help her dump a body. Are you crazy? No. And they said, well, all right, cool. We'll just give us a DNA present, a DNA sample. And, you know, so we can clear you. Use a DNA present. A DNA present. Wrap it up.
I was going to say, see if there's DNA present. Yeah. Yeah. We will not accept it without a bow, sir. Sir. Sir. This is, um, what are you just give me it in the bag you bought it in? No, you got to get, give me a box or something. Box of a bow. This is happy birthday wrapping. My birthday is not for eight months. It's Christmas kid. This is bullshit. So they said, yeah, just give a DNA sample and then we can clear you out of the way. And he said, I'd like a lawyer. Why? Um,
So but he does meet he does he actually gets a lawyer and then meets with police like he wasn't he didn't never call them back again. He actually gets a lawyer and then comes back. I heard of people going to jail that didn't do a shit. That's what I mean, which is there's no harm in getting a lawyer.
It really is. It costs a lot of money, but okay. It makes you, quote, look guilty, but it also makes you look like you're not going to end up in fucking prison for nothing for fucking 40 years. It makes you look, quote, unquote, guilty, but it also makes the police do their fucking job right. I'd rather look guilty in my living room.
Yeah, I've been innocent in a prison. Then look innocent and have the Innocence Project trying to help me and shit. And have podcasters going, we should really get this guy out. I don't think he did it. I'd much rather look guilty in my living room. Yeah. Happy. So yeah, she...
Wow. She said that he said now he talks to them with the lawyer and he said, OK, I talked to Candy since my last time I talked to you. So I talked to you, got on the horn with Candy here. Now she changed her story. So now he's concerned that he's definitely been lied to now. So now he's ready to talk about whatever he's got to the cops. He says that, OK, when I talk to her.
She said she changed her story. Now she says it was a mercy killing. She had to do it for him. He said that Candy Joe told him that AJ asked her to kill him. Please, it's too much. I can't take it anymore. I'm sad. I'm lonely. I'm in pain. So she gave him Xanax and Ambien until his heart stopped. Just kept pumping it in until his heart stopped.
I mean, so if you fall asleep with the Ambien, that's probably not a horrible way to go. Yeah. Bean said he didn't believe her, though. Yeah. And he said he told her, you just killed your grandfather because you wanted his fucking house, dude. You're sick. Yeah. Because he had willed it to her. Right. So then...
Garrett Bean says, quote, she told me that he asked her to do it. She'd given him Xanax and Ambien and he passed in his sleep. And once he had a lawyer, he consented to the DNA test. He just wanted to see if that was a smart thing to do or if they were going to now frame him or say he didn't know. So the lawyer said, no, no, give the DNA and so you can clear yourself here. He provided his cell phone for evidence to show that there's no communications and no, I'm, you know, yeah. Oh yeah. Hold on a minute. I'll get the back brace so we can lift up the toolbox and dump your grandfather easier. Uh,
So the follow-up interviews with the people who live at the house where the body was found, Brenda Moyer and Abeda there, they said that Candy Joe recently hauled items to the ditch behind the Shenandoah residence and had requested permission from Brenda Moyer on August 23rd to use the ditch to dump trash.
Yes. And the here's another thing here. Bean tells police Garrett being the boyfriend says he thinks he was talking to Webb as she was disposing of grandpa's body. That is fucked up. Yep. He said it was mid-August.
A couple months before a body was discovered, he said that this is the reason. Now, he doesn't know what they know, but he said he talks about a trailer with a flat tire, which is there. So they're like, he's telling the fucking truth. This is what Bean said. Quote, while she was disposing of trash, she had FaceTimed me because the tire had blown out on the trailer. I told her to wait for me and I'll help you, but she was very adamant about just getting it done right then.
So she couldn't figure it out, so she just left the trailer and fucking went.
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That on FaceTime. So that is wild. How much imagine like mob guys FaceTiming people while they're dumping bodies like she's not good at this.
So now Candy's wanted, obviously. Yeah. They want to talk to her. They still haven't talked to her since she said, I'm getting a lawyer and I'll get right back to you. Okay. Still hasn't talked to her since then. Now there's an arrest warrant issued for her alleging first degree murder, tampering with evidence and fraud as well. Uh-oh. So this doesn't go on very long because she's not like a master criminal, obviously. Yeah.
In four days, she couldn't come up with the name of a retirement home that existed. Just that existed. That's the only thing she had to do. In existence. Yeah. Then she could have went with, oh, no, did they have him checked in under the wrong name? She could have drug that out for a while, but...
Not existing. So she is very Casey Anthony. They do find her. Where do you think they find her? I'll give you one guess. Where'd she go? Texas? No. One more. Arizona. Nope. Florida, of course. Jacksonville, Florida. She went, where can I blend in, is what she said. She went to Jacksonville? Jacksonville. Where can I blend in? Ah, Florida. Florida.
Where Casey Anthony runs wild and free. Did she go get a job at Universal? So she's in Jacksonville just like on vacation? Does she know people there? She's on the fucking lam. I don't know. She probably took her grandfather's money and she's on the lam there. And chose Jacksonville. Jacksonville is where she picked. That's what I mean. She was like, where will I blend in? Yeah.
Jacksonville. Wow. So they arrest her and they have to extradite her, obviously. Police say Candy wanted this lake house. So that was the thing. They said after Mr. Harden died, she concealed him in a tool chest. Webb drove to the tool chest. Webb drove the tool chest where she discarded the body. They sit her down and she fucking spills it.
I mean, what are you going to do with this? Casey Anthony's still lying. So I don't know. You could do that. You can have the balls to make a documentary about how fucked over you are. That's what you could do. It's so painful for me to live now. People look at me because you killed your baby. You fucking idiot. Yes, of course. They look at you like that.
driving around with your steering wheel in the shot that is the most horrific steering wheel I've ever seen in my life. Fuck me. You're on story 15 now. I don't want to hear it anymore. She's like picking at the steering wheel or something. The thing is so gross. Everybody, yeah, she's picking at it. You know just on the floor there's a pile of foam stuff. Just flakes of steering wheel.
So she says this, and I don't know if she says this just to get on the show because she does get on the show, but she says, not this show. You'll know what I'm talking about. Quote, I snapped after I saw him dead. Get out of here. She actually used the word.
She's like, I really want to be on Oxygen. I just want to be on that show. I watch it all the time. It's my favorite. That'll be if I can. Is this being recorded, everybody? Because they'll play this in the preview. It'll be awesome. It'll be in the trailer. It'll be in the trailer for it. I know it will. Of every episode. I'm going to get a 12 episode. Quote, I snapped after I saw him dead. That would 100% a murderer's voice. That's it.
She said, I really didn't mean to do it. And I know it looks so malicious and just horrible. He's my papa. Lady. I didn't want him to die. Was I relieved? I won't lie. Yeah. She was taking care of him. And that's that is actually the only honest thing she's fucking said, because people don't want to admit it. But when they care for an elderly relative for years, they obviously don't want them to die. But.
Deep down in a spot, they might not tell anyone, but their spouse. They're fucking relieved that for a multitude of reasons. Right. They obviously weren't doing well. And this was also our whole life. So, yeah, there's that. And we're just prolonging the inevitable. This is fucked up. That's a horrible thing. She said, quote, I'm sorry. It was an accident. Everything afterwards. That's fucked up what I did. Yeah.
Yep. You got that right. She said what? That's fucked up what I did. But it was an accident. That is so funny. Why? I don't know. Also, too, he's an 83-year-old guy with aggressive, I don't know, aggressive, but he's had cancer for the last three years. Would they have even done an autopsy to him if he died in his sleep? Or would they have said, he's had cancer, probably natural causes? Yeah.
I mean, honestly, she could have just called the fire department and said he died in his sleep and then went, oh, my God, he must have taken some pills. Yeah. I don't know anything about it. I mean, there's been – it's happened so many times that people with terminal diseases have taken overdoses of their own medication. Yeah, that's what I mean, on purpose. Yeah, I don't know that they – how could they tell if it was on purpose or not? That's what I mean. How could they tell if she did it to him or if he did it to himself? And there would be no evidence to do that. There would be people that are suspicious, but again –
Not guilty in your living room or this or this or sitting in a detective's interrogation office saying everything I did, I was fucked up what I did. She just because she put it off. That's all it was. She didn't want to. She just didn't want to deal with it for a while. If she just dealt with it the first day, she's lazy. That's the problem. Terrible. She's really lazy.
He said his back was hurting him. I had a few Xanax and muscle relaxers and I gave them to him, but it wasn't. I didn't drug him. I didn't give him that many. She said when she checked in on her grandfather after that, he wasn't breathing. So the cop says this quote. When I asked Candy, why did she tape AJ's mouth and wrists?
Why would you duct tape a poor old man who died by accident when you were trying to help her? Tell her a question. And she told me because she didn't want to look at his face when she was moving him. And taping his hands was just the easiest way to move him so his arms wouldn't flop all over the place. Yeah, that's a good point. But she was also wrapped in a blanket. So where were his arms flopping around? What are you talking about? You packaged him like an Amazon return. Yeah, like a poorly put together Amazon return.
So 2021 here, her brother, who is at this age 38 or at this point, 38, Aaron is arrested by the New Mexico State Police, saying that him and a man named Casey Cortez, a 31 year old, are arrested for homicide. Who they kill. Not of AJ of somebody else.
What? Yes. On February 8th, 2021, the Investigation Bureau was contacted to investigate the death of a man pronounced dead at Plain Regional Medical Center in Clovis. State police said during the investigation they learned that in the early morning hours of February 5th, Cortez and Aaron Harden went to Gutierrez's house in Fort Sumner. Michael Gutierrez is the victim here, age 26.
He grew up in Fort Sumner. He went to school there, graduated high school there, went to junior college for a while. He started working in the oil fields, and he did monitoring of oil rigs. That was his job. He worked for Madryn Oil Services, Cavalos Cajun Oil Services, and Closed Loop Services. And everybody called him Ocean, Michael, apparently. So-
Here's what happened. Harden and Cortez confronted Gutierrez for allegedly stealing a shitload of methamphetamine from a friend of theirs. Why are you friends with meth dealers? New Mexico, come to New Mexico. We kill our grandpas and steal meth from our friends. That's right, New Mexico. Come on down to New Mexico. You gotta want it. You gotta want it. New Mexico, you gotta want it.
So Harden and Cortez kidnapped Gutierrez, took him to the residence of their friend, whom he allegedly stole the methamphetamine from. And while they were there, Cortez began attacking Gutierrez, pistol whipping him with a handgun. Oh,
Harden then grabbed a garden hose and started beating Gutierrez with that. Gutierrez tried to defend himself, so Harden tackled him to the ground, then got up, grabbed a hammer, and continued to beat Gutierrez with a fucking hammer about the head and face. Holy... Gutierrez, somehow, severely beaten, makes it back to his house somehow. Yeah.
He then admits himself to a local hospital in Santa Rosa on February 7th, 2021. So that's two days later. He was treated for his injuries and released. But then Monday, his mother noticed his speech was slurred and his skin was pale.
Yeah. He's having a stroke. So they took him back to the hospital and he was pronounced dead from his injuries within a couple of days. Internal bleeding or whatever. Yeah. Fucking scrambled his eggs. I mean, that's horrible. So the, uh, police searched the home. They found a garden hose and multiple hammers, some with blood on them. Um, they arrest Cortez and Harden who both refused to speak with police and immediately asked for attorneys. That means they're hardened criminals. Right. No pun intended. Uh,
Um, the guy who owned the home told police Gutierrez stole meth from him. And then Harden and Cortez brought him, brought Gutierrez to the house where they tortured him. And Harden, Aaron Harden considered in a way to figure out to get the meth back. He considered severing one of the guy's toes as a, what is his deal? Start cutting toes off till we get to the point where you tell me where the meth is.
Oh, my. This family's fucked up. Make more, man. Dude. Yeah, that's what I mean. Get some disgusting things and put it in your disgusting whatever you do and make your shit. Barrel, bathtub, toilet, whatever you're doing. Whatever you're doing, man. So an arrest warrant is issued for them, obviously, and they are arrested. They're booked on murder in the second degree, kidnapping, conspiracy to commit kidnapping, and an assault with intent to commit a violent felony. Right. Lots of shit. They haven't gone to trial yet.
Twenty twenty two. Back to Candy here. Yeah. She's like, oh, wow. Cool. We're both in prison now. Excellent. So she is considering a plea agreement. The special prosecutor said the agreement calls for Webb to plead guilty of charges of second degree murder, tampering with evidence and fraud. If she agrees to the deal, she'll face a maximum sentence of 21 years in prison.
So she ends up deciding to do it, and she does. She takes that deal because, honestly, what else are you going to get? That's a great deal for her. Right. They don't need to make that deal with her. They have her admitting everything. No.
All sorts of evidence. She said everything I did was fucked up. Did it for money, which is bad. Oh, boy. So in arguing for the maximum sentence, the prosecutor alleged cruelty in the slaying of her grandfather and in the mishandling of his body by placing it and dumping it in a trash pit. That doesn't sound real nice to do to your beloved grandpa. So when your relatives die, let's say your grandparents die, because my grandmother died a couple years ago. We cared what happened to her body. Yeah.
We didn't say, I don't know, just throw it in a field somewhere. We took it and buried it, put it in a wall or whatever the fuck we did with it there at the cemetery, put it in a fucking wall. And we had a thing and we all sat there and we talked about it. That's what you do with people you love. Yeah. Just because that person's dead doesn't mean that the vehicle they were in isn't valuable also. It's not a pet rabbit. You know what I mean? It's a fucking grandparent. Yeah.
So, I mean, anyway, they also said that the lying to everyone that knows him, lying to her family, lying to law enforcement showed a big lack of remorse. Also, her attempt to escape to Florida. She obviously didn't feel too fucking bad about it. And the lack of ability to describe exactly what happened, saying, if you and not that many, what are you talking about? Some vague retirement homes from sitcoms. Because I've taken a few.
A few muscle relaxers before? Guess who's talking still? Yeah. A few didn't mean enough to stop your heart probably, right? No, I took three. A few. That's a lot. Yeah. So her defense attorney, though, Thomas Benavidez, he said that her conduct while in jail for the past year has shown...
How much she's trying to improve herself. So we should really just push this whole thing aside. He said, quote, she's been in jail for a year and nine months. She's had a lot of time to think about what she did. She's been seeking help. They said that while in jail, Webb has taken life skills and parenting classes to be able to be a better mother to her six year old daughter.
She's got a kid. Yeah, the kid wasn't around. I'm sure the kid's been put in a home or taken away or something. With her father. Hopefully with her father, yeah, or something. So she even helped a fellow inmate who was having breathing difficulty. Oh, wow. Wow. Gave her a bunch of Xanax and sat on a pillow on her face. Dumped the body in the cafeteria. That's how it worked.
So they said while in jail, it has made her a, quote, changed woman. Oh, boy. She is good now. Let's just say that. Already a year. They said that, you know what? She's done her improvement in the last year and nine months has been so rapid. You should just give her probation. Okay. Probation you should give her.
That is shooting your shot. Wow, that's ballsy. That is fucking balls. And that her year and nine months in jail should be sufficient time to be incarcerated. That's good, I think, right?
Wow. Tommy Harden, who is Webb's uncle, AJ's son, it's like Webb's dad's brother, Candy's dad's brother, told the court, quote, doing time is wasted time, but AJ was loved by his family, was having a difficult time due to age and cancer, but...
Still, this is, you know, I'd like her to be put away. She, Candy Jo, reads a letter to the court that expresses remorse for her crimes and other things, too. Now, the prosecutor reads a letter to the court from Webb to her boyfriend, who
At one point, we're talking about all this where she describes herself as a, quote, psychopath, incapable of remorse and indicated she was considering suicide as well. Holy. Because she doesn't she'll never be able to have any remorse. And that's bad. Yeah. I found out. I found out I'm Ted Bundy. I don't like it.
I need probation. And they're like, just put her on probation. She'll be good. She's got a kid. Let her deal with the kid. We really want that kid to be around her a lot. You know what I mean? It's good for her. She admitted to psychopathy. That child's in danger. Wow. And having no remorse at all. Wow. Incapable of remorse. The judge said that he considered three factors in passing down the sentence he's about to give. First, he said, was retribution and punishment. Sure.
And he would go on by – he said he would go by existing legislation taking into account the crime and the mistreatment of her grandfather's body. Second, he said, was deterrence. So the message the sentence would send to the community about the crime. You can't just kill grandpa so you can get his house a couple years earlier. That's not okay. Just because someone's old doesn't mean their life isn't worth anything. Right.
Right. But sentencing also, that's the thing. Should sentencing go on the life that you took? Like if you kill a baby, that baby could add 90 years. You should get a lot of time. Whereas if you kill someone that's like 96, how much longer could they have possibly had? Should you get more time than they would have had? I don't know. It's a question for the ages.
But you're killing a vulnerable person, which makes you even scarier. Yeah. So I don't know to take somebody's last couple of days, weeks, months, years. That's that seems way worse to me. Well, it's vulnerable to a person who's vulnerable. That's why it's awful. So he said third was rehabilitation. He talks to Candy Joe and he says, you have been working hard to become a better person. I think you are remorseful. I think you have shown you can be rehabilitated. You, ma'am.
may fuck off 18 years in prison. So you can do it. You can finish rehabilitating in there. You show you can be rehabilitated. We're going to go ahead and put it to the test. We're going to give it a shot. We're going to give it a shot. This is 15 years in prison for second degree murder, plus three years for tampering with evidence and mishandling the body and three years of probation for fraud. So that will that will happen once she gets out. So even if she does 18 years, she still has three years of having to go see somebody that
That's good. And keep him in the mix. The maximum sentence was 21 years, but he wanted there to be a time when she has to go see somebody. Yeah. So he also gives her time credit served for 659 days spent in jail while this happened, while this proceeded through the court system. Just under two years? Just under two years. So that, everybody, is Fort Sumner, New Mexico, where this fucking family is –
I mean, this is a mess. Everybody's dead. Everybody's dead or in jail for killing them. Yeah. And she was right about her brother. He is a fucking problem. It's the only thing that she told that's the truth. He murdered a man over meth. Think about how- Over somebody else's meth. Someone else's meth. How did you take this guy's meth? Let me beat you with a hammer? What are you, fucking insane? This is a fucked up family, man. And we don't even know how many pills she gave that man. Yeah. Think about the people who were left, like the uncle. Yeah.
Yeah. His dad's dead. Everybody's fucking dead or has killed them. I feel terrible for these people. Anybody who's still alive in this family, they're...
especially if you're in that area. Now everyone knows about it. There's only 1,300 people here. New Mexico, you got to want it. You killed two people in two years just in this family. That's nuts, so you got to want it. So there you go, everybody. That is Fort Sumner, New Mexico. Do you get it? I hope you did want it. Do you see why? I don't like it. What the problem is with this place? So if you like that show, tell everyone about it. Get on whatever app you're on. Give us five stars. It really helps the show a lot. Also,
Check out our social media. Join that. We're at Small Town Murder on Instagram, Small Town Pod on Facebook. Join those. Join the groups. Hang out. Share the show. It really, really helps out a lot. So thank you for doing that. We really, really do appreciate that. Thank you again. Patreon.com slash Crime and Sports is where you get all the bonus material. You want more? We got so much more. Oh, yeah.
Anybody, $5 a month or above, you immediately get over 200 back episodes of bonus stuff that's not available and never has been available anywhere else but Patreon. Get that immediately. You get two new episodes every other week, one crime and sports, one small-town murder. You get it all. You get it all. That's right, Jimmy. And for crime and sports this week, we have Paul Sassa we're going to talk about, who was an organized – he's a fucking gangster. He's a mob guy who owned a football team in the 70s, which is insane. Right.
Hilarious. And then for Small Town Murder, we're going to talk about the weirdness of the whole Natalia Grace situation.
that whole thing. What happened? Is she older than she says she was? Is she not? Is her mom a psycho? How does her dad cry like that? What the fuck's going on? What's going on? We'll talk all about that. That is patreon.com slash crime and sports. Plus, at the end of the regular show, you will get a shout out where Jimmy will fuck your name up royally while trying to get it correct. So check all of that out. You also want to go to shutupandgivememurder.com
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She struck him with her motor vehicle. She had been under the influence and then she left him there.
In January 2022, local woman Karen Reed was implicated in the mysterious death of her boyfriend, Boston police officer John O'Keefe. It was alleged that after an innocent night out for drinks with friends, Karen and John got into a lover's quarrel en route to the next location. What happens next depends on who you ask.
Was it a crime of passion? If you believe the prosecution, it's because the evidence was so compelling. This was clearly an intentional act. And his cause of death was blunt force trauma with hypothermia. Or a corrupt police cover-up. If you believe the defense theory, however, this was all a cover-up to prevent one of their own from going down. Everyone had an opinion.
And after the 10-week trial, the jury could not come to a unanimous decision. To end in a mistrial, it's just a confirmation of just how complicated this case is. Law and Crime presents the most in-depth analysis to date of the sensational case in Karen. You can listen to Karen exclusively with Wondery Plus. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify.