#535 - Murder Bones Mystery - Seiling, Oklahoma
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This week in Sealing, Oklahoma, when charred bones are found at the ex-husband's house of a missing woman, detectives have to unravel the mystery of whether he actually committed this horrific deed. Welcome to Small Town Murder. Hello, everybody, and welcome back to Small Town Murder. Yeah!

Oh, yay indeed, Jimmy. Yay indeed. My name is James Petrigallo. I'm here with my co-host. I'm Jimmy Wissman. Thank you, folks, so much for joining us today on another incredibly crazy episode of Small Town Murder. Like always, hope you've been enjoying them. We really, it's been wild lately, the...

crazy Alaska stuff. It just never stops. We're hitting Oklahoma, which is always nuts. Going to be some wild stuff today. Before we get to that, head over to shutupandgivememurder.com. Get your tickets for live shows. What are we? October 18th, Kansas City. Get your tickets there. There's still some tickets for that. And that's one of the only ones that there's really a lot of tickets for left. Everything else is

Either sold out or pretty damn close to it. So get in there and get your tickets for that. Also get your tickets for the October 30th virtual live show. Here we go. Halloween edition. It's going to be so much fun. A crazy murder. And all the pictures and jokes. And we're wearing costumes. You're not going to be able to believe it. A lot of fun. And it's available for two weeks after you purchase it, too. So you can watch it 20 times. You can watch it five days after it airs. Do whatever you want with it for two weeks. And then you've got to give it back.

So there you go. Have fun with all of that. Shut up and give me murder.com. Also, you want to listen to our other two shows, Crime in Sports and Your Stupid Opinions. If you haven't listened to Crime in Sports and you were wondering, I don't know about sports, there's an episode we did in the last couple weeks, a guy named Mark Walton. It's unbelievable. You don't need to like sports at all.

Please, give it a shot. We beg you. Honestly. If you don't like this episode, then you'll never like the show. And you probably hate us, too. You don't like it, I'll piss my pants. You'll understand what that means if you listen to the episode. So check that out and your stupid opinions. And also get Patreon. Patreon.com slash Crime and Sports is where you get all of the bonus material. And that's for Small Town Murder and Crime and Sports. Anybody $5 a month or above, you get all of it.

All of it. And it has hundreds of back bonus episodes immediately and then new ones every other week. This week for Crime and Sports, we're going to talk about the 1993 Florida State football scandal. Fine. They won the national championship and they were cheating all over the place. Monsters, yeah. Oh, yeah. And then STN here. Speaking of monsters.

What? What's that? Oh, yeah. I'm like, I thought you had something else to say. Speaking of monsters. Yeah. I'm just trying to participate. You were queuing. No, no, you were queuing. That was great. That was a terrific cue. I was like, oh, he's got more to say. Okay. Let him talk. For Small Town Murder, we are going to do Ted Bundy's psychological evaluation. Speaking of monsters from 1976. Thank you.

Imagine being a psychiatrist and having a month and a half just to study Ted Bundy. That'd be great. That is like being a bone guy studying the elephant man for a month and a half. That's amazing. So check that out. That is Shut Up and Give Me Murder. No, that's the website. We're talking about Patreon.com slash Crime and Sports. Quick disclaimer here. It's a comedy show, everybody. We're comedians.

And we're also telling a murder story. Those things are, you can't mix them. They can coexist. People, how do you mix that together? Well, very easily. The way it is is you don't be a complete jerk

fucking asshole about the whole thing. Exactly. It's really easy to do it. That's the thing. It's there. There's some things that are funny and some things that aren't nothing funny about an actual murder. Oh, someone's getting stabbed to death. That's not funny. It's tough going. Yeah. A guy going, Hmm, I think I can get away with this. If I, if I get on a tractor and drive away, that's ridiculous. And we're going to laugh at that. And if you don't, then I think, I don't know what you're doing. You're not a human being. You robots should tell the story then. So,

That's the way we go about it here. We don't make fun of the victims or the victim's family. Why is that, James? Because we're assholes. Yes, but? But we're not scumbags. See how that works? Super easy to do that. So that sounds good to you. You're going to hear a wild show. If you think true crime and comedy should never, ever mix, then I don't know. Maybe we're not sure for you. Maybe we are, though. I don't know. You never know. Give it a shot. Either way, no complaining later. That said, I think it's time, everybody, to sit back. Let's all clear the lungs and let's all shout out.

Shut up and give murder. Let's do this, everybody. Okay. Want to go on a trip, Jimmy? Let's do it. Yeah, I do. We're going to Oklahoma. We are. Very soon. Not so fast on that want to go on a trip, huh?

We're going to Northwestern, Oklahoma. Is that where you wanted to go? Is that where you were looking to go? Northwestern? What's up there, James? Not a lot. No, the panhandle is. The ceiling is up there. Yeah. Ceiling, Oklahoma. Yeah. Oh, yeah. It's just like the word ceiling except with an S and they pronounce it ceiling. So this is in Northwestern, Oklahoma. It's about an hour and 45 minutes to Oklahoma City.

where we'll be performing on October 19th, but that's sold out, so I don't know why I'm plugging it. Anyway, 35 minutes to Woodward, Oklahoma, which was our last Oklahoma episode, episode 482, Blaming My Imaginary Friend, which we should all do that. See what I mean? How do you not make fun of that? Someone kills someone, thinks they can get away with it by blaming an imaginary friend, and we're supposed to go, yeah, that's normal. This is the man that lives in my mouth, James. Let's cover that with a straight face. No problem.

This is in Dewey County and area code is 580. Motto is the crossroads of Northwest Oklahoma. Do they need one? I was going to say, well, the other motto I think answers that question. That is crossroads of what is really the other one. What are we looking at? There's not a lot here. So history, it developed this town as an agricultural center and became the largest town in Dewey County, despite the fact that the railroad did not come here.

Is that right? It went to Canton, which is like more than 25 miles away. So no one could even – it's a pretty good distance back in the day before cars and shit. So there was also no bridges crossing either of the Canadian rivers until 1906 either. So it was just this place that you couldn't get to or get out of and it had a lot of population somehow. Maybe that's why. People got stuck there.

That's why the population grew. Where are you going to go? Yeah, they had nowhere to go. So also a horse racing track was built in 1903. Got to get that. Which is before the bridges were even there. What do we need first? Schools, churches, gambling. That's what we need. So fast these horses go. Yeah. Let's see if my trifecta pays off first.

So the lands assigned to the Choctaw and Seminole tribes extended into the area that's now occupied by Dewey County. Under the Reconstruction Treaties of 1866, the Choctaw and Chickasaw ceded, quote unquote, their western domain to the United States. So this was known as the least district and part of the area became the Cheyenne and Arapaho Reservation here.

So many different tribes. So many in this area. Oh, yeah. This is the center of it all here. Yeah, this is. Good Lord. Dewey County was created in Oklahoma Territory in 1891 and was open to non-Indian settlement on April 19th, 1892.

So it was named as County D by an act of Congress and didn't receive its present name until like years later when they all voted on it. They just called it County D. County D. That's it. Lucky it wasn't like County D.134 or some even more specific name. Naming them like cell blocks ain't a –

appetizing thing. They were like giving out counties like you want names, you name them yourself. We're busy over here in Washington. We'll give you a letter and you figure it out. So the farms were heavy producers of cotton and broom corn and

Did we ever figure out what broom corn was? We talked about that, right? Yeah, I don't remember. Is it the shit that they make brooms out of? The whiskers? I don't remember. Or maybe it was a feed corn or some shit. Or is it because the corn has a sprout at the top that looks like a broom? Yeah, that's something like that. I'll bet that's something. And also cotton. There's also a cotton gin in a feed mill in the early years here. Wheat and rye became important, and then World War I happened.

And then they opened up a big flour mill here, the Fred Sander Flour Mill. And it's white rose special flour was the big product they made. Sure. So the milling company is listed in the National Register of Historic Places. After the war, agriculture went down. By 1920, a lot of people left.

And but they got their population up in by somehow they got their Western Oklahoma was Dust Bowl country. So the fact that their population rose from 1920 to 1930 is pretty fucking remarkable.

I mean, so many people must have because a lot of people came to this area to do wheat farming. Right. Because it was a big scam. They made companies were buying up lots of land and sending shit back east. Go. You can come and have five acres and plant it and go back home and just come back out and harvest it and make shit loads of money.

That's why the Dust Bowl happened, because we tore up all the fucking sod. And so, yeah, that's that's so maybe so many people came that there was still some more left over after they were fleeing from the Dust Bowl. I'm not sure how the fuck that works. There's only one review of this town. Here we go. And it's five stars. So is that right? It's going to have to stand as this place is perfect because we don't know any other opinion.

The town is honestly one of the most amazing places. I've witnessed firsthand what this town does for the people and how we can all come together in a time of need for friends and families. They don't explain what these things are that happen. They just say that. Five stars. Five stars. There was a tragedy. I mean, you're starting with there was a tragedy. When you start with I've witnessed firsthand what this town does for the people, I expect to hear an example.

Don't you? One of the things I saw was this. Holy shit. Yeah. They're alluding to there was a need for everyone to come together. That's not good. Yeah. What happened? I assume tornadoes. Had to be. It's fucking Oklahoma. So not surprising there. People in this town, 912. Oh. Not a big place. A lot of big ranches and shit here. The female male population, I've never seen anything like this before. It is 63.3% female.

Wow. Where have all the guys gone here? What's what is happening? Farming bitches or are they are they just the sixty three point three percent of the worst females possible have driven all the males. I don't know what's going on. How is there that many? Are they killing the men? What's what's happening? Two thirds are female. That's crazy.

Sounds great to me. I mean, yeah, it's great specs. 600 gals, 300 men. That's amazing. If you're trying to go to college or something and that was what you were looking at, like, oh, there's two to one chicks here. I'm going. I'm having a threesome every day. But for real, in a town, how the fuck does that happen? Not good. Yeah. I get, ha ha, it would be advantageous. But what are we talking about here?

What are they doing to the guys? I'm serious. This is crazy. And if you're shy, you're running. That's crazy. Oh, man. It doesn't matter. You're going to have women all over you. You're not going to be able to. It's going to be aggressive. Hey, listen, ladies, come on. Hey, listen, Farmer Fred here needs a fucking day, all right? Take it easy. Jesus Christ, my dick is raw. What are we doing? It's red raw. Red raw. Median age here is about 35 and a half. A lot of kids here, too. 10 to 14 is really high, that age group.

So figure that out. I don't know how the women got pregnant with only no guys in town, but they figured it out. A couple of guys are just pumping out the jizz. So family here, it's about 50-50 married. Same as kind of usual stats right along the line. Race here, 63.9% white, 0.0% black. So not one black person in the whole town. 0.5% Asian, 1.3% Native American, 18.9% Hispanic.

So the religion here, it is 87.4% religious here, which is really high. The only higher one we've seen was a few weeks ago in Utah, and that was expected. Right. But this...

This is less. Yeah. And they're mostly Baptist and Methodists here. Apparently Baptists are the Catholics of the tornado belt. Apparently. So great planes, 37.7 or other Christian faith. So I don't know what that means. There's something else that's not on the list of shit here.

I don't know. Snake handler, Pentecostal snake handlers. I don't even know. Pentecostal's on here, though, so I'm not even sure. The unemployment rate here is low. The median household income here is also low. It is $45,368 a year. Oh, no. Which is a good almost $25,000 less than the national average. The cost of living here, though, $100,000 is regular. Here it's $78,000. So it's pretty low, and housing is the real low thing.

Wow. Median home cost here, $123,800. That's magical. That is wild. But when you see what you get, it makes sense. You go, oh, that's not worth that money at all. It's outrageous. It's actually out of bounds if you think about it.

Well, there's some properties that are so shitty and cheap, and they seem to be balanced out with these ranches that have a lot of land that are more expensive. That'll make sense when I give you the real estate report here. And as a matter of fact, it is time. If we've convinced you, damn it, you need to see a twister. You haven't seen one in a while. We have for you the Sealing, Oklahoma real estate report. ♪ music playing ♪

All right. Average two bedroom rental here is about eight hundred ten dollars, which is below the national average here. There's a three bedroom, four bath, sixteen hundred seventy two square feet house. Now, it looks like a manufactured house from the outside, but it says it's not. It says it's a single family regular home. So, yeah, you know, built right into the ground and everything. The listing says views of open fields.

Which I could have fucking I could have told you that probably. I think that you could say that pretty much from anywhere in Oklahoma. You could put views of open fields. Yeah, you can see fucking Colorado from here. Just so you know. And there's no interior photos. So that's a great sign. And it says in the listing, the home has been converted to metal roof and siding.

So if it rains, you are never going to sleep. It's going to sound like... May as well sleep in a tent. Yeah. It's going to sound like the Luftwaffe is flying over. Like it's fucking... You're in London in 1943 or some shit. So it's crazy. That is 50 grand for that. 50 grand. So, I mean, for 50 grand, you have four, you know, four baths, three bedrooms, something. Here is a four bedroom, two bath, 2240 square foot trailer.

It's a big trailer. It's a big-ass trailer. Monstrous trailer, but it says it is a mobile home on the listing here. And it is really weird. There's no windows. What? It looks like one of those buildings that cheap schools like I went to throw up in a field when they run out of fucking... Or like when they're building a Taco Bell where they do job interviews before they're open. Yeah.

You know what I mean? One of those. Yeah, the superintendent's trailer who's building this place. That's what it is. It's real weird. There's a hatch in the ground outside, so I assume it's a tornado shelter in there. Tornado shelter, yeah. Something like that. Maybe a murder bunker, as Allison said. Is it bulged or is it just a door? It's just a door. Wow. $99,000 for that, though.

I kind of want it. You want a trailer in the middle of Oklahoma for what? Just for the bunker. I want to see what's down there. I want to see what's doing. You can get that in nice places, though. Plenty of people built nuclear bunkers and shit. You don't have to actually hunker down from tornadoes to do this.

Here's a four-bedroom, three-bath, 2,280 square feet. Looks like it hasn't been updated since, you know, Grandma was in her 50s, basically. It's been a while. It is on 17.46 acres. And they said this magnificent property offers the epitome of country living combined with modern comforts.

And it has a 60 by 120 foot barn, which is a fucking huge barn. Wow. That's a big ass barn. Uh, 200, 299,000 bucks for that. Yeah. That's a 6,000 square foot barn. Yeah. Huge barn, 17 and a half acres, 2,200 square feet for $299,000. That tells you how terrible it is to live here. Cause it's a goddamn deal right there. That's how bad it is to live here. It,

If anybody wanted to live here, that'd be a million dollars. That's the problem. So things to do here. All right. Here we go. Let's find it out. We have the Oklahoma Route 66 Museum is nearby. Oh, does it run through here? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Through this area. This is Clinton, Oklahoma, which is right next door here. It is the museum offers visitors a personal journey through the history of the nation's most revered highway.

For whatever reason, that thing is amazing. Why does it capture the imagination? I don't understand. I don't understand. It's just a fucking road. When you're on it, you're like, you're expecting to see things like, oh, this must be, it's just a shit road. It's not lined with like wax sculptures of people that have driven it. None of that shit, no. You don't have like movie stars handing out like.

Hey, look, here's a pamphlet on what happened here. Nothing is going on. Nothing. It doesn't make a lot of fucking sense whatsoever. But when you're on it, you're like, man, I wish there was more lanes. Let's get back to the 40 is what you're thinking. Sherwood loves to get around this dick. Yeah. Wow, the 40, not such a bad idea. So encounter the...

The iconic ideas, images, and myths of the Mother Road. Yeah, there's nothing there. Image, you just said ideas and myths. None of either of those things actually exist in reality. Nope, those are fake. It's a fucking road. That's what you're looking at. Learn about the dreams and the labor needed to make the road a reality. Yeah, it must have been hard to build, I assume. I'll bet the...

The idea of the 40 must have been crazy. Mind-blowing. Mind-blowing. If they got a two-lane road and they're losing their shit about it. They're going crazy over that shit. Then this next line is my favorite line of anything ever because I can't think of a more desirable thing to do than, quote, experience the Dust Bowl. Why the fuck would I want to experience the Dust Bowl? The most horrific time ever. Natural disaster we've ever had. Or man-made natural disaster we've ever had in history. Yeah.

When you're done with this, why don't you experience the Trail of Tears? I'd like to experience the Road of Syphilis, if that's possible. Can I experience that? Anything else you want to give me? Is there an Ebola experience I can go visit real quick? Can I ride the train to Auschwitz, too? Is that there? Jesus Christ. What the fuck?

Well, you can actually do shit like that. Can you do that? Not the train. Okay, good. Not like, oh yeah, no, not like that. I'm sure there's a train to where it goes. Oh yeah, that's a museum, Auschwitz. Stop it. Yeah, all the concentration camps are museums because if you take them down, people won't believe they existed. Good point. Because people think

you look at what the fucking people think now. People are crazy. You're not, you're not wrong. I'm just saying, yeah. How the fuck could you go there? Dude, at this point, I'm surprised that maybe it's required. It should be required. That's what it is. I think it is. Cause otherwise people should have to go. Well, go there and fucking look at it. Then you tell me what that is. Yeah. I've,

Maybe I just believe it too hard because I don't want to see it. That would make my stomach hurt. Yeah, it would be gross. I've seen pictures. I don't want to be anywhere near it. So experience the Dust Bowl as thousands streamed along the road away from drought and despair toward the land of promise, quote unquote. Oh, is that what it is?

Listen to the sounds of the big band era when the roar of the big trucks and the welcome home cries to returning soldiers dominated the road. Sit at the counter or a booth in the 1950s diner and feel the open road as America's families vacationed along the length of Route 66. You might just overhear the families chatter as they eat their lunch. So what are we, watching movies?

Was this a show? Right. Is this a voyeur thing? Stare at fucking actors as they eat their lunch and pretend to be from the 50s? What are we doing here? What's that? A strawberry shake, little Timmy? Come here. Let's have a cheeseburger together. Leave it to Beaver Fantasy Camp? What are we doing here? What is this? It's very strange. The museum also offers changing exhibits focusing on the Route 66 experience. And then there is the ceiling open rodeo, which always cracks me up. Anybody. Anybody.

Maybe you should. There should be tryouts for that. Yeah. We need tryouts, I think, to see if you can do this. Maybe touch a bull's nose and feel that snot before you want to get on top of that thing. You're going there to see someone get gored, right? That's why you're going there? Yeah. I want to see some asshole. Yeah. Some inexperienced. Bought a Luke Bryan CD. Yeah. Get on the back of this animal. Came in from Oklahoma City to do this shit.

Yeah, some dickhead has a Morgan Wallen ticket. Get on the bull, fucker. Let's do that.

Yeah, that's what it's going to be. Wow. Cowboy fans can enjoy a fun-filled weekend. They mean football fans or just fans of cowboys in general? I mean, cowboys are a bad thing, isn't it? Or Oklahoma State cowboys. Yeah, maybe that's that. Yeah, OSU. A fun-filled weekend of rodeo fun and activities for the first week of August. Sit back and watch the great cowgirls and cowboys compete in the bareback set. No comment. We don't even have to comment on that.

Picture, watch the cowgirls and cowboys get bareback, everybody. This is going to be great. Bring the whole family. Then it gets better. Saddle wrestling? Well, bareback saddle wrestling, that sounds like something now. And then if you're a little kinky, then there's team roping for you. Hell yeah. We can get bareback while we're roped up and do some saddle wrestling. Then there's ladies barrel racing where we stuff as many ladies as you can into a barrel and then race it.

And bull riding events. Of course, mutton busting, as we've talked about, has got to be a thing. The kid's calf scramble, wild cow milking, which sounds like... What? First of all, I didn't know there was wild cows. We made those, number one. Also, don't go grab that thing by the tits. This fucking thing's trying to buck you off. You're hanging on to its udders trying to get it off.

Don't get under that animal. Terrifying. They're a thousand pounds. They're huge. That's, that's wow. That's like trying to change a stranger's oil while they're driving. That's what that sounds like. Fuck you doing?

There's also a little princess competition because you have to have that. Who's pretty? Let's judge who's not. And, of course, a rodeo queen contest. Yeah. And, as always, the clowns are sure to tickle your funny bone. Yeah, they're hilarious, I'm sure.

So there we go. The good news for you, James, is they get fucking. I know. Just trampled. That's wonderful. I love it. Poor bastards. I can't believe they do it. We should put non-rodeo clowns in there. Just clowns. Oh, you want to be a clown so fucking bad? This is part of it. There you go. That's how you get to be in Cirque du Soleil. I want open rodeo clowning. That's what I want. Not open rodeo. Fuck. Fuck.

Crime rate in this town, property crime is about one-third below the national average. So not a lot of stealing going on. And then violent crime, murder, rape, robbery, and, of course, assault, the Mount Rushmore of crime is about one-third of the national average. It's about two-thirds low or under the national average. So safe place. It's in the middle of goddamn nowhere, and it's a lot of ranches. Lots of cows, yeah.

I don't even know what to do. Yeah, all the women, it's going to drive the crime rate down a little bit. So that said, let's talk about some murder. Here we go. Real fucked up, weird, twisted little case here.

Okay, let's talk about a guy first off. Leroy Dean Dennis. That's a cowboy right there. That's a cowboy name, yeah. Leroy, and he is too. Leroy Dennis? Leroy Dean Dennis, by the way. Dean really puts it a little more. Leroy Dean Dennis here. We named him that after his breakfast sausage. Probably. He was born in April 1948, so I don't even know if the breakfast sausage existed yet.

And James Dean didn't exist. I mean, I'm sure he was alive, but I don't know if he was a famous sausage-a-tear by then. Sausage-a-tear? Is that a word? Sausage-a? Sausage-a? Sausage-a.

Yeah, that's it right there. Hello, sir. This is a world-famous Suss EGA fucking Jimmy Dean. I'll tell you that pig was raised. So, yeah, he's born April 48. His family owned and operated a 1,500-acre ranch in Sealing. Hell, yeah. In Sealing. Awesome. They bought it about 1941. So they are, I mean, ranching people, boy. Let me tell you something. 1,500 acres? 1,500 acres. That's a shitload.

That's a lot of land. Yeah. Yeah. A lot. He's going to grow up in this area and pretty much just be a rancher when he grows up, when he, you know, as he's growing up and he doesn't really do a whole lot because there isn't really a lot to do, especially back then. He just ranches and then sleeps. There's really nothing going on. He's going to meet a young lady, luckily for him. I don't know how, not on the ranch, I don't think.

Her name is Janet Maria, and she is born in 1952. They're going to get together right away, and when she's, you know, they get together when she's about 20. They're going to get married in 1974 on Christmas Eve, which is, who the hell has a Christmas Eve wedding? Yeah.

That's pretty selfish. As I was going to say, you are fucking that holiday up for everybody. You're ruining everybody in your family's children's lives. Yeah. Oh, I guess we're not doing Christmas Eve like we normally do. And then the next day, you have to deal with that with people coming from out of town. Go fuck yourselves. Not opening that one gift on Christmas Eve. Thanks a lot. Selfish. Appreciate it. Selfish. I'm sure the judge who married them was like checking his watch like, I got dinner plans here.

I got to pretend to be Santa in a couple hours. I got to do this. Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ. You guys are all, okay, I guess I'll marry you then. So they marry, and they start to, for about four years or three years, there's no children. Then in 1978, they have a son named Tad. Oh, yeah. Talk a lot about Tad here. They end up buying a house in Oklahoma City. Really? Now, this is the crazy part. The ranch, I guess, as...

This guy's siblings, his Leroy siblings leave and his dad dies. His mom, Macell, M-A-C-E-L, Macell? Mackle? I don't fucking know. That's Macell, right? I think it's Macell. Macell, she lives, she stays in the house and lives there. He's going to end up being a weekend rancher.

That's a sweet gig. It's later on. He'll do this. He'll live in Oklahoma City during the week, and then he goes on the weekends to the ranch with his mom and does ranch work and then goes back to work on Monday.

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Puts a week's worth of feed down for these things? It's wild. Yeah, he must, or he's got people, I'm sure, 1,500 acres. You've got to have somebody hired, I'm sure, to work that area. That's a lot of land. Unless you've just got them out there, wild cattle or whatever, just kind of grazing. People trying to milk them. People running up trying to milk them.

So the house they get in Oklahoma City is at 8809 Sheringham Drive, and it's a five-bedroom, three-and-a-half bath, 2,376-square-foot house. So very comfortable family home. Yeah. Very comfortable. The current Zestimate on it is $246,000 in case you're looking. Not bad. So it's not for sale, but anyway. Leroy has some trouble.

A little bit of trouble here. You know, Leroy's a little rough around the edges, as you might imagine here. And he's got a little bit of issues. In 1979, about a year after Tad was born, he is going to be charged with grand larceny in April of 79, stemming from, and this is some rancher crime right here, the theft of $600 worth of fencing. What? Yeah, you don't hear that very often. What are you in for?

Chain link. Chain link. Stole it all, man. Jesus. Chain link, wood slat. It was all of it, man. It was all fencing from a neighbor of his, I guess, from a resident named Ray DeLong. And he ended up, I guess, got a one-year deferred sentence. And if he didn't get in any trouble, they'd dismiss it. And the charge was dismissed in 1980 because he didn't get in any more trouble. But all the residents of Sealing said this was not an isolated incident.

He's a fence stealing bastard, boy. So the way the world will end up working out is that people in Oklahoma City and people in Sealing have completely different versions of him.

In Oklahoma City, he is known as a great fucking guy. Just a top-notch neighbor, terrific guy. In ceiling, he's known as a fence-thieving scumbag. Nobody likes. He crimes on the weekend, man. Yeah, go to the city and crime. The people out here are going to notice it.

You know, what's wrong with you? He's thieving on the weekend. One of Dennis's former, this is Leroy Dennis here, one of his former Sunday school teachers, so guy who taught him Sunday school, said that Dennis one time, I guess some fertilizer disappeared from the feed store. Just was gone. Poof, gone. So at one point, Leroy Dennis showed up to pay for it.

And he said, what do you mean? Why are you paying for it? And the guy said, this Wendell Hedges is his name, said he never admitted to taking it, but he paid for it. He wouldn't admit that he stole it before he had the money to pay for it. So, but he just said, I just, I just want to pay for it. And they're like, but if you didn't take it, what the fuck are you paying for? And he's like, I didn't say I took it. I'm just an altruistic fucking guy. I just, I don't know.

I want to make things right in the world. That's it. I set things right in this planet. You know what I mean? I'll right other people's wrongs. I'm raising 14, 15 other people's kids right now because they ain't doing a good job. I don't give a shit. I'm a nice guy.

I'm on my way down to the JCPenney, and I'm going to just write all of the loss prevention wrongs in that place today. I've got a windfall of about $400 or $500. I'm going to grab one of them secret angel Christmas trees and just take the whole dang thing home with me. I'm going to clean it up. Rain Christmas presents upon the children from a helicopter. I've got so many Power Wheels bought. Oh, you don't even know, buddy. I've got it all. Hot Wheels tracks one of them ones, makes a belt. You know what I'm talking about.

The one white trash daddies beat their kids with. You know. You double it up, it makes a good whipping, I'll tell you something.

So the Dewey County undersheriff, Jerry Jones, not the owner of the Cowboys. No. That's his night job, his owner of the Cowboys. But during the day, he's Dewey County undersheriff. Well, if you could be a weekend rancher, why not? What's the difference? A weekend NFL team owner. He described Leroy Dennis as a man who worked alone on the ranch, raising cattle and building fences. So he's working alone. Alone. Alone two days a week on 1,500 acres.

He must be very productive over those two days. He's got to be. Oh, Mr. Christ, that's a busy man.

And he said, this sheriff also said, Dennis also received some money from the federal government as part of a conservation program to grow native grasses in lieu of crops. You know, so we don't have another dust bowl. It's that program from FDR days. It's that program. It says, hey. Subsidiary from polio, man. We will fucking pay you if you don't grow anything more on this and stop the dust from going. Let the sod grow back. Just plant some Bermuda and mow it.

That's it. The other guy, or this is Jerry Jones, said he stayed to himself. That's kind of unusual. Everybody knows everybody in these little places. He's not participating in the town bullshit, I guess. He doesn't go sit around at the diner and gossip. That'd be a fucking sweet gig, wouldn't it be? I mean, it's not bad. Just to grow grass and ride a John Deere out there all weekend? It's not bad. That'd be fun. Fucking throw a six-pack on there? Ten-deer cattle? No, that's a...

That's quite the life. Yeah. That's a party. There's a lot of subsidies that farmers get where you go. Is that right? I hear you guys. Yeah, I know it's hard to be a farmer, but man, that's a lot of, I don't get any of that. That sounds pretty rad. You're getting a lot of money for nothing. I get paid not to grow shit. Yeah. That's crazy. We have too much corn. I'll just pay you if you don't grow it. Great. Can you pay us if we don't make podcasts? Can you do that for us? There are a lot of them. We'll pay you to take a week off. Really, guys. Fine. Terrible.

Terrific. Done. Yeah. So residents said they were familiar with Leroy Dennis because him and his family had lived there forever. It's going on 50 years they've lived there. So the residents said they knew Dennis as a part time rancher in the late 70s since he would stay in Oklahoma City during the week and commute to ceiling on the weekends. Now, Oklahoma City neighbors, totally different deal. Not a scumbag weirdo who keeps to himself. He's a different guy in Oklahoma City.

Taking that ceiling subsidiary money and spreading it around Oklahoma City, heading on down to the strip clubs and handing it out and really just making some friends. An Oklahoma City neighbor said that Leroy Dennis would often take his three children to a park near their home. And he'd see them playing with his children all the time, being very friendly. He'd be friendly to neighbors and would even help neighbors with home repairs.

Yeah. You got a bad water heater? He'll help you put a new one in. You're fucking plumbing backed up? Call up old Leroy. He'll come over here and help you out. Your fridge overheating because it doesn't have a vent, James? I needed Leroy.

I had to sawzall a hole. In the drywall? Not in the drywall, in the wood. It's tongue and groove wood on that wall. Wow. So to sawzall tongue and groove wood is a real pain in the fucking ass, let me tell you, first of all. Get that shit started as a motherfucker. Oh, boy.

Yeah, I drilled holes to get a pilot going and did that. And yeah, our fridge was literally, our freezer was not working at all. It just shut down completely. It was overheated because it's stuffed into this fridge hole. Yeah.

And LG decided to stop putting vents on the front of the refrigerators because they didn't like the way they looked. So now they put them in the fucking back because everybody lets their fridge sit out in the middle of an open room so it can get ventilation. Everybody's fridge out there in the middle of an open room, not backed up against a fucking wall. LG, my fridge looks great from the front, but the side of my house has a fucking hole in it. Yeah, but I had to shakily and shittily sawzall a hole in tongue and groove fucking wood to fucking screw a goddamn vent on it now.

Thanks, LG. But it works. So I could have used Leroy is what Jimmy is telling you there. Ceiling residents knew him. They knew him a lot. But Oklahoma City, they know him a little bit less. You know, he comes later and, you know, kind of just is there on the week, during the week. So before he began the weekend ranching thing, he served as director of safety services for the Oklahoma County Red Cross in 1978. Wow.

Which seems like an important job in a place where tornadoes happen a lot. Right. You want to get the rescue efforts to be...

You've got to put somebody smart in charge of that. You can't just let your cousin do that or something. Organized. Yeah. And also taught first aid classes for the Council on Law Enforcement Education and Training, which is a statewide law enforcement organization. Awesome. So he's apparently into helping people. Red Cross and first aid classes. He was also a peace officer at one time in Carnes.

and had received his law enforcement commission from that organization. So he was sort of a cop, I guess. I mean, a peace officer is a cop. It's a cop, yeah. So I guess it's not like a regular, maybe an, I don't know, not on the force every day kind of a, because there's weird things like constable. What the fuck is that? That's kind of a cop. That's just the guy that tells you to get the fuck out of your house. Yeah, it's kind of a cop, right? That's all he does, right? Could he shoot you? Is that a thing?

I don't know if he's carrying. I don't know. It sounds like it's got a lot of, like, gravitas to it. Constable. Oh, shit. He's going to.

My friend's dad was that in Maricopa County and she didn't want to tell anybody because it came with a bad connotation of he evicts people. Oh, yeah, yeah. Yeah, I knew somebody who had a constable in their family as well in Arizona. Yeah, and I asked them what it was. I wonder if we know the same person. It was a guy. Oh, okay. So maybe not. Well, he might have a sister. I don't fucking know. He may have a sister. Either way, it's a guy with a constable. Who the fuck knows? So,

So they're going to have multiple kids. Tad, 78. Todd, yes, they named their kids Tad and Todd. No. Tad and Todd. I really love the Tad sound, really, a lot. You can't do that. Tad and Todd. If you have another one, name it Tad. I'll choke the fuck out of you. Jesus Christ. I will choke the life right out of you. They're like the Flanders kids.

I'm fucking on the Simpsons. They're Rod and Todd, and that's... Tad and Todd is worse than Rod and Todd, I think. I'd rather have Rod and Todd than Tad and Todd. So Tad and Todd, which sounds like an English snack. You want some Tad and Todd's? Yeah, sure. It's like a...

Like that shit, like the shit you scoop up with a stick? That's what it's a Tad and Todd. Like the chocolate you scoop up with a vanilla stick. What are those? Not a snack pack, though. Handy snacks. Yeah, but the ones that are chocolate they have now or they're like a cookie thing you dip into it. Yeah, that's a Tad and Todd. You want a Tad and Todd? Yeah.

And then they luckily don't have another son to continue this, to have Ted, Ted, and Todd. You can't go Ted. You'd have to go Ted, absolutely. They have Julie in 1986. What the fuck is that? Luckily they didn't give her a name rhyming with the rest of them. Now, Janet, this whole time, she is working as a nurse at John Marshall High School in Oklahoma City. Okay.

Okay. So she's doing her thing, nursing. School nurse. School nurse, yeah, at the high school. So, I mean, that's a...

We have a lot of people on our shows that are school nurses somehow. You notice that, by the way? A lot of people in our stories are really out of whack amount of school nurses. It's been around a lot. There's a rancher once in a while because it's small town murder, so there's rural shit. That makes sense. But school nursing is very specific to be. It's very strange. Now, they don't have the best marriage.

Everything seems okay from the outside, but Janet tells some of her friends at work, gossiping around the water cooler at the high school here, that he's pretty controlling of her. And she doesn't like that. And he didn't like for her hair to look nice. What? He didn't want her hair to look nice or for her to wear jewelry. So basically, don't look nice.

Is what he wants. Don't dress up. Don't look attractive because I have a very insecure is what that says to me. Yeah. Don't look attractive. No. You put your hair in a fucking bun or whatever. Don't look like you're. Yeah. You got you want to look like the before picture in a high school dating bet movie. You know what I mean. You want to look like that before the popular girl redoes her makeup and she comes back down the stairs then. Yeah.

You know, she's getting made fun of in number nine. Yes, exactly. Yeah. You want her like classroom shot before she does goes to the party. Sandra Bullock in that doily dress. Yeah, that's what you're looking for. They take her hair down, take the glasses off. Oh, she's hot. Wow. Oh, wow. Wow. Oh, my goodness. Incredible. Jesus, I must have superpowers. I can still tell if a chick's hot, even if she has glasses on her hair up. Isn't that weird?

Sometimes she's hot. Can you? Yeah, sometimes that's hotter. I love glasses. That's hot shit. I like that. Oh, boy. That's cute. So July 25th, 1990, Leroy and Janet divorce.

So their divorce is final. 16 years, huh? Yep, 16 years, three kids, and it's over. It's a valiant effort. They gave it a shot. I mean, Christ, the guy's been weekend ranching for Christ's sake. So they tried. She hung in there a long time, especially if he's being a controlling dildo. So Leroy is going to live in Sealing at the ranch with his mom, and then he is going to take the kids on the weekends or whatever. So a lot of times he'll end up staying at the house there with them because—

because it's a commute. It's an hour 45 away. Yeah. So that's weird. That's got to be strange. For the weekend? Jesus. Yeah. So Janet here, she ends up getting custody of the three children and stays with them in the Oklahoma City house.

In the divorce decree, we have the decree and what it entails here. Fuck, I hate those two words. That's a tough one. Well, you'd really hate it if this was the decree. Janet is awarded custody of the three children, which, I mean, that's to be expected. Also awarded her, though, ownership of their Oklahoma City house. Yeah. So she gets that. A car.

And 50% of the 1,500-acre ranch that's been in his family since the 40s. No. That, I don't understand. That's crazy. How do you get half? She got the whole house. Yeah. And that's an inherited thing. Like, you can't take my dad's ranch now. This is crazy. You can take the shit we've built, but you can't take the shit my fucking mom and dad did. That's insane. That's incredibly unfair. That's wild. Because you're supposed to put everything together, split it down the middle. Yeah. But they...

They put it all together, split it down the 60-30 line and gave him 30. That's not okay. Well, they gave her all her stuff and then they gave her half of his stuff. So they split his stuff 50-50, but she got to keep all her stuff. So it's very weird. It's fucked up. It's kind of fucked up. And hey, I'm all for an equitable whatever the fuck, but this is a little much here. There's winners and losers in life, sure. But this is super losing. Especially later on when we find out where some of this money came from. It's kind of interesting because...

She was just as much. We'll find out. Okay. So the judge also, if that's not enough, the judge isn't finished yet. Plenty. No, no, no, it's not. Also all ordered him to pay her $30,000. $30,000 in 1990 money is a lot different than 30,000. Now would still be like, Oh my God. It's a lot of money. It's a lot of money. 30,000 in 1990 is like 90,000 now.

Someone tells you you owe her 100 grand, too. You're going to go, what the fuck? They gave her everything and made him buy back 750 acres, basically. Jesus Christ. But she still gets to keep it. Really?

Yes. No, I mean, she gave him everything. Then they said, give her 30 grand and we'll give you 750 of that 1500. Yeah. Yeah. Then you can have that back. Yeah. What the fuck is this? Now, he never pays it, though. No, he doesn't pay, which I don't know if he had it or not. That's a big chunk of change to just bust out. Yeah. Now, Friday, December 7th, 1990. So this is a few months after the divorce. Yeah. Janet here. She has a normal day. She's got a boyfriend now, by the way.

The smiles in her life. Yeah, she picked back up in about five months and has a boyfriend and everything, and she's got a social life and her kids. So she's getting her feet back under here with her generous financial settlement would help.

That'll help keep you upright. Jesus. So she had dinner on Friday. It's a Friday night, December 7th. She had dinner with her kids and they decorated the house for Christmas. Yep. Fucking fun. This is the first week of Christmas. This is my favorite.

That's my favorite thing. I love it so much when we start getting the big tubs out of the basement with all the shit in it. Yeah, yeah. Or looking at where the hell does this go and where these lights go. I love that shit so much. Every year I'm amazed at the ornaments that I put on the tree. Oh, yeah, I remember this. Yeah, look at that ornament. 2007, look at this. There's a date right on it.

Oh, fuck. I love Christmas. I love when the house... Last year, we were on the road, and I came home, and Sarah had decorated the whole house. Oh, it was already done. Came home to this, like...

Fucking Christmas Wonderland. I was like, oh, my God. Talk about feeling like you're walking into your house and then have it be Christmas. It's like twice as warm and nice. Fuck, yeah. It was fucking great. So they're decorating. Tad had a wrestling match at school the following morning. So Saturday morning, old Tad said, you know about the early wake-ups to go to Athletica. Boy, is that a nightmare.

So Janet is known for never missing a wrestling match or any kind of school event, partially because also she works there. So she knows everybody. So they all, Tad, Todd, and Julie. God, Tad and Todd. Tad, Todd, Julie. They all went to bed around 9.30 p.m. on a Friday night.

Which, that's, they got her early morning. Yeah. So, at this time, Janet was still up and doing whatever she was doing. I'm sure trying to take a breath after having a whole goddamn day decorating shit and then also having to get up in the morning. Because Julie's a kid at this. Julie's like four years old, five years old. Yeah. She's going to watch this stinky singlet. Twelve and seven. Yeah. Jesus Christ. These kids are... She needs a breath and a glass of wine probably at the end of this night. So...

The next morning, Tad is woken up by his alarm clock, gets him up ready for wrestling. He gets up. He gets dressed. He runs downstairs. He's jacked for his wrestling match here. He goes down to his mother's room because he can hear her alarm going off. He's like, oh, alarm's not working. Better go wake mom up. So he gets down to wake his mother up and sees she's not in bed.

She's not even there. Now, normally in this case, we'd go, and there she is with a knife in her forehead and a bunch of her organs are missing. But no. Some of them were on the ceiling. It's the opposite. The bed is not only is she not in the bed, the pillows are placed under the blankets like the bed is made. You know what I mean? Like, yeah, pulled up and everything. So he also noticed that some of his mother's toiletries were missing from her vanity, which at 12 years old...

I had no idea what my mother was doing in the bathroom. None. Did you have any clue what product she was using? No. No idea. The only thing I knew about the bathroom regimen is that sometimes I'd go to brush my teeth and there'd be nylons. Yes. And you'd go, oh, God. Jesus Christ. God damn it. The water's so brown. You'd have to go to the kitchen sink now. Yeah. I've been there myself, Jimmy Weston. I'll tell you that right now. Absolutely awful.

Could you hang these over the shower curtain rod already, or is it not that time yet? What is this spaghetti in here? I hate it. How long does this have to soak for?

What are you doing in these? I hate this so much. Are you doing male-female cowboy bareback in these? What's happening? This is gross. Awful. So, yeah, I don't know how a 12-year-old would know what toiletries his mother has or what ones are missing. But he knew some were missing. Would have never known. If you said, if the cop said, your mom's missing, what's normally in her bathroom? I would have went, uh, she probably has some toothpaste, I bet. I don't know. What the fuck do I know? What?

I have no idea. Yeah. So that Tad was like, okay, that's weird. Why is there stuff missing? So then he goes looking for her in the house and he gets to the garage and checks in there and the car's gone. So she's got a 1990 or 1989 Chevy Blazer that's gone. Okay. So brand new-ish Blazer and that's not even there. So he said, oh, shit. But at the time he's like, oh, you know what? She probably –

I don't think we went to the grocery store yesterday. She probably forgot to get snacks for the wrestling match. Okay. Yeah. So she's probably getting snacks for the, for the wrestling meet. Cause she's brought to bring the other two kids. And so, yeah, she's probably getting snacks and then, you know, she'll be back and pick us up. And okay. So he sits there and waits for her to get home. And Tad said, I sat there and waited for a little while, but she never came back gone. So Tad waited about a half hour. Um,

And then he called his dad up in ceiling at the ranch and said, fucking mom's gone. I got up. Her bed's made. Her toiletries are gone. Her her car's gone. What the hell, man? Like she's I got a wrestling meet. What do I do here? So Leroy tells Tad, I'll come to Oklahoma City later this morning. If you know if she doesn't turn up, obviously, if she shows up, give me a call. But if not, I'll be there a little later this morning. I need to build a fence on the ranch quick.

This guy builds up so much fencing involved in this guy. He is just Mr. Fence builder. So the Leroy called his family friends in Oklahoma City, some friends of his that he's known for a while and asked them, hey, would you go to

We'd sit with my kids for a little while because Tad's the oldest and he's 12. So, you know, go wrestling meet. So there's these two. Go hang out with my kids for a little while until I get there or until my ex-wife comes home, whichever comes first. There you go. So by the time night comes, she's still not there.

So if you're sitting from like 6.30 in the morning and now it's dark and you still have your singlet on waiting to go to the match. It's a long time to get orange slices. Something's up, yeah. So Tad's father and Leroy, who's Janet's ex-husband, they end up talking to each other and saying, we better call the police here. She's not, I don't know what's going on here, but she's missing. So they decide it was actually Leroy's idea. We should definitely call the police. So they called the police department and

And the police department, the Oklahoma City Police Department, told them that I'm sure she'll be back sometime over the weekend. They said this is very common when people disappear. Because they said, did she just disappear? And they said, well, she took her car. And my son says she took a bunch of her toiletries. So they're like, well...

She went somewhere is what that is. That's, you know, so wait and she'll be back over the weekend. I'm sure. If not, give us a ring-a-ling on Monday. Maybe, you know, we got a lot going on. We got like a softball charity game this weekend. We got to do. Let's give her around 72 to figure it out. Yeah. So then Monday comes around and she never gets, she's not back yet. Whole weekend goes by of no Janet. And this is not like her at all. She's a pretty reliable mother of three at this point. So very strange. And the police take her home.

disappearance more seriously at this point. They're talking to everybody that talked to her the day before or the day she left to figure out where she might have gone. Did she say anything to you? So they travel out to ceiling or I'm sorry, they travel to her house to interview Leroy. Leroy stayed with the kids the whole weekend in the house. Yeah.

Because what else are you going to do? Yeah. In case she came back, you're going to take. Yeah. So Leroy said the last time the children had seen their mother was Friday night. He said she was wearing jeans, a red top and a gold necklace. That's what Tad had told him. And he also claimed that he and his ex were on good terms. Yes, we got a divorce, but they said it's, you know, we're still on good terms. It's fine. Yeah.

He said he'd been on. They said, well, where were you at this time? You know, just to make sure we got to clear everybody. And he said, well, I was on my ranch at the time of the disappearance. And his mother said, yes, he was home with me. So there's an alibi for home. So the police, they searched the home just a simple once over to see if he's like hiding, you know, a human woman somewhere.

Look for little spots of blood. Corpses, things like that. Behind a curtain or something. Suspicious things. No evidence of foul play. There's no blood. There's no body. There's no anything like that. Janice just fucking vanished. Also, her purse is gone, too. So purse, car, toiletries,

What do you want? That's an overnight. Yeah. And she's got a boyfriend, too. So they're wondering, we got to talk to her, maybe. Or him. Or him. So the undersheriff, old Jerry Jones, said it almost appeared that she just left. Just, boom, ran away from her life. It's really weird. Tina Bloomer, who is Janet's cousin, Tina Bloomer, that's a rough name,

said quote we knew something we knew something was wrong we knew something had happened to her we just didn't know what it was they said they were full of anxiety because she would never do this and she'd never run away so they said where the hell could she be because they look at her calendar and she's got a full slate of plans for this week tons of shit to do so like what is going on here she why did she make all these plans if she's going to skip out this makes no sense

So one police detective said she just vanished. She had plans to go to a close friend's birthday party and she was going to take her son to a wrestling match that day. So her plan was wake up, take Tad to wrestling. When he's done, go to her friend's birthday party.

She had a bunch of shit to do that day. They said there's no trace of her. There's no sign of struggle in her house. There's no blood anywhere. There's nothing out of place. It just looks like someone intentionally took their purse and toiletries, got in their car and fucking left. Very interesting. They said she had a paid for house.

Her house is paid off, by the way. A paid for house and a car in a very nice area and plenty of money in the bank. So they're like, this makes no sense. Right. Why would you run away from that? People with, especially like people who seem to be happy being a mother and a parent. Yeah. She's happy with her family. The divorce is over with. So it's not like she's fighting with her ex-husband anymore. Yeah.

She doesn't have anything to run away for. She's got a paid off house and money in the bank. People work their fucking balls off their whole life for this life. That's what I mean. So they're like, this doesn't make any sense at all. The cop also said her friends and neighbors described her as a good mother and conscientious. And so they didn't know exactly what to do. They did say that she is five feet, seven inches tall and weighs 157 pounds with brown hair, brown eyes and wore dark rimmed glasses.

So that's what we're looking for here, if anybody's looking for. So the police are going to talk to more family to try to figure out if somebody knows something about it. What did she say? Just a hint of somewhere she could have gone. So they speak to her father, Arthur, who said it was very unlikely that she would abandon her children.

That doesn't make sense. I mean, she knew that they would call. It's not like they're two years old. If she did leave, she knew they'd call her father and their father would come. So it's not like or her parents or somebody. But they're not just sitting there, putting their thumbs, wondering to leave in the middle of the night while your kids are sleeping. Isn't like fascinating. Yeah. So they said he said, though, that the cops got real interested when he started talking about she has a new boyfriend. They were like, really? We'd love to talk to him. This guy said he never liked Leroy, by the way.

and uh and he was happy no the father never liked leroy the ex-husband doesn't like him uh and said that he was happy his daughter got a new boyfriend and moved on from from that one and the boyfriend's name is jim umbenhauer umbenhauer u-m-b-e-n-h-o-w-e-r umbenhauer so jim umbenhauer they've been dating and uh

So the police start digging into Janet's life. They're interviewing all of her work friends. And all of them said that prior to the divorce, Janet had complained about Leroy being controlling, telling her how to do her hair, telling her what to wear, telling her not to look sexy, shit like that.

So they said she'd been much happier with Jim Umbenhauer. They said she'd been doing great here. So they said, let's go talk to Jim and find out what he's got going on. Let's hear it. Jim's got some suspicious shit going on. Let's just say that. What's his deal? Wow. First of all, he said, yes, I frequently spend the night at her house, and I recently gave her a ring. So they gave her a ring a couple weeks ago.

So I guess an engagement ring or a promise ring or something. Some kind of something. We're hooked up. There's something significant. 1950s class ring. Some bullshit he gave her. Who knows? Right.

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You can have peace of mind knowing that Alexa always provides kid-friendly responses. And the Amazon Parent Dashboard allows you to view and manage the content your kids access. Shop the device now at Amazon.com slash Echo Kids. So he said he had been to his Arthur, Janet's dad's house recently where he got a key to Janet's home. This is after she's disappeared. Real? This isn't before. Yeah. So they're like, okay, since you – since she's been gone –

You went and got a key to her house. Why did you need a key to her home? And he said, well, he went to search the home for do his own sweep of the home here. He waited for Leroy and the children to leave and then went in the house. So the police are like, well, that doesn't really seem like a thing you would do. Yeah, that's weird. Why would it seems like you do that if you needed to get evidence out of the house? You'd say, can I get a key? I'm going to go there when no one's there because that's what I need to search. It sounds really suspicious. Yeah.

So they're like, okay, now what's up with Umbenhauer? He's an active member of the military.

Like, OK. And the detective, Craig Gravel, said Jim wanting to get into the house after Janet went missing was very strange. We didn't know what he was searching for, but this was bizarre behavior. Yeah. Very bizarre behavior. You want to stay the fuck away from that place. Especially if it's a girlfriend. You know what I mean? Yeah. You're not married. I need to get in there. Why? What the fuck? To search. I don't like that. What are you looking for, chief?

So afterward, they get together, Umben Hauer and the police, and he agrees to come in for questioning the following day. Once they hear all this, they're like, we got to have a – we talked to you in your living room, but we need to have like an interrogation room serious talk. And it's a new relationship, Jay. Yes. This isn't like a five-year relationship. Exactly.

There's no patterns of behavior to look at. Yeah. We don't know that like, oh, well, they've gotten along or whatever. There's no pattern of behavior here. So we have no idea. So he he does that. He agrees to come in. But before he comes in the following day, that very day, they find Janet's car.

Where? It is in the parking lot of the airport. Will Rogers Airport, the Oklahoma City airport. It's in the parking lot. So the investigators come to the scene to look at it. They found the trunk was filled with toys. Oh. Like she just bought a bunch of Christmas presents for the kids. So it's filled with toys. So they're like, okay, why would she have bought a bunch of Christmas presents for her kids and then leave her car?

toy filled car at the airport without any warning. So they said, that's very strange. But they thought if she's, if she's coming back by Christmas, maybe that would make sense. But otherwise, you know, I don't know what the hell she's doing. Runs to the airport.

Yeah. When you got plans tomorrow. Yeah. Lots of plans. That's the totally. Yeah. With your kid, with your friends. It makes so little fucking sense. Turn around flight that you're going to make all your plans tomorrow. Yeah. You're running up to the counter with cash in your hand. Go. What flight's leaving now? You know, like, well, how far can I get with this? Yeah. Looking like a terrorist. So there's they don't know what's going on. So they said before police could leave the scene.

This is they're at the fucking airport. This is disturbing at the airport. They pop the trunk toys are looking at it. They're standing around it going. What the fuck? They fingerprint there. You know, all the forensic shit they're doing that they have in 1991. And in the middle of all of this, before they wrap up the scene, here comes Jim Umben Hauer driving up to them in the parking lot. Yeah. Yeah.

That's not so, you know, why are you going to every place that she was like, this is weird shit. So they, the detectives said they were shocked with the only way they could put it was shocked. This is crazy. They said no one understood a, how he knew where the fuck the car was. Right. Because this hadn't been announced to the media or anything yet. They went out there and found the car. Like there was no, wouldn't no one else would know it for another day that they found the car when it was in the newspaper. This is 1991. Yeah.

It's not like there's an Internet where people are posting shit or anything like that. An airport employee posted it or something. So no one understood that. This is wild. He claimed that he'd been simply driving around parking lots looking for her car when he happened to come upon it at the same exact time the police did.

I just left Chili's. It wasn't there. So I figured airport. Let's try there. Well, you know, he already searched the house. He did his own search on the house. So why not do his own one man police force thing? Why not? That's a wild claim.

Yeah, to drive around. I've been driving all of Oklahoma City. And then I just got to the airport while you're here. Malls, strip malls, fucking grocery stores, whatever I could come across. I got me a Rand McNally and I just drew a grid and I'm driving it. What the fuck, man? So the police were like, I don't think so. They were not surprised or they weren't convinced that his presence was a coincidence, that they all found the car at the same fucking time. Yeah.

So they said, by the way, Jim, why the fuck did you go to your girlfriend's house there after she disappeared to look through? It seems like once she's not there, you have no reason to be there. And he claimed he was simply interested. I love that he always says, I was simply doing this. Simply. He said, I was simply interested in retrieving some old love letters that I'd written her in order to keep their relationship private.

Yeah, I don't want you guys reading all the things I said I was going to do to her. Wow, I don't want her hearing all the things that makes my dick real hard. Like, real hard. You know, like, it gets hard normal, but she knows the shit that makes it like, oh boy, glass cutting implement. I want you to hear me saying things about pinching it between my lips. You know, all that kind of thing. Yeah.

How me and one of my high school buddies did some explorations and, you know, wasn't exactly what I mean, but some stuff stuck. I told her how I found out I'm not gay. Not gay, but, you know, she could still stick things in my butt if she wants. I'm not saying – it's all in the letters, and I was trying to cover it up, see? See, now you got me to tell you what I didn't want you to know. You might as well just take them now. Damn, you boys are good. Oh, God.

He said Janet had always requested that they would keep their relationship and all their private stuff private. So he was just trying to honor what she wanted, which is a missing woman. And you went to get all the correspondence they've had. This is crazy. And you show up written to her. You show up the same time as the cops. Like this is very suspicious. You couldn't look any more suspicious than this guy looks right now.

And then they said, well, you're going to have to. Did you get the love letters? And he said, yeah. And they go, thank you very much. Hand them over. But he's had them. So who knows which if he's given them all the letters, but he hands them a box of letters. So Leroy then goes on the news and Jerry Jones saw him on the news with Leroy pleading for any information that could help with the case. Please find my ex-wife. And, you know, my kids are sad. What the fuck here? Tired of watching them all the time. I'm a weekend guy.

I had to pay 30 grand so that she could do this. Yeah. I gave her a whole house for this type of thing. So Leroy lived on a – because he lived on a farm that was in his jurisdiction, Jones offered to help with the investigation in any way he could. So this Jerry Jones said, well, you know, I'll help out.

So he Jerry Jones also told the police that there were rumors floating around town here that Leroy, who was not well liked by his neighbors, he's the one responsible. So a town of less than a thousand people. The rumor mill is swirling. They don't even know the other guy, so they can't blame him. They don't even know he exists. So they only have one person to blame. And it's Leroy. We don't like him.

So then they find something that's very interesting. Then they – because up until now, they've heard that the divorce was all amicable and everything like that. But then they hear otherwise. They talk to some more of her friends and coworkers and they find out that the divorce was not amicable, that Leroy would go to her house and argue with her in front of her children.

Which, I mean, you've done that about 700 times. I went to pick them up and there was an argument. I think that's what this is. Yeah, maybe. You went there for an hour 45 just to argue probably. I go, you know what? I'm hankering. Hanking for good arguments. Hold on. I'm going to go stop at the store. God damn, I miss her. Grab me some bugles for the road. Yeah.

It's too damn quiet around here. I'm going to head back over to my ex-wife's house. Hey, Mom, you want to argue about something? No? Shit. Well, all right. I'm heading to Lisa's. I'm getting the hell out of here now. You just, a little Freudian slip there. I'm tired of it being so nice around here. I'm going to have to go argue with this bitch for a while. I'm going to do this shit.

So, yeah, they they've been arguing and they also said that Leroy was adamant about getting full custody of the children, which contradicted Leroy's claims that he was fine with Janice Janet having full custody. So one of the detectives said in a heated divorce, you never know what someone's capable of. But in Leroy's case, he didn't have custody of his children. And now his ex-wife, who he still loves, has another man in the house. So that's a good recipe for murder.

Boy, that's a stretch. Well, that is really. They got divorced. She got the kids, which is like 97% of cases. Yeah. And then she moved on, which is like 94% of cases. So he must have killed her. That's a lot. We know for sure that's what he did. That's positive. Yeah, that's a good recipe for murder. It's a little dash of this and a teaspoon of that.

Half pound of spite. Bring it to a boil. Half pound of spite, three pinches of hate, and you got yourself a stew. That's the recipe out there, folks, if you're looking for it. It's got a little bit of regret aftertaste. Oh, yeah. You get that as a – you dip your regret bread in it. You mop it all up with regret bread. Yeah, sop it up with regret bread.

So now the police, they really want to talk to Leroy because they're suspicious of him. They ask him to come in and take a polygraph. Yeah. And he does. Sure. He said sure thing. His story is he went to the store that day to buy a bunch of grain. He was grain shopping. Yeah. In Sealing. In Sealing. And then he came home and spent the rest of the night in the house of his mother.

So it was me and my mom with all of our grains. That's what we did here. That's a great story. Now, the results of the lie detector, and this is very common, are inconclusive, which happens all the time. That's when you get someone who's nervous because they've never been hooked up to a fucking lie detector before and all their shit's jumpy and it happens a lot.

I'm afraid for this thing to come up saying I'm lying when I'm not. Yeah, there's plenty of stuff. Whenever they'll ask, like, so the basic questions, too, if you watch the lie detector thing. So, you know, where do you work? Your address is this. Is your name Jerry? You're wearing a blue shirt. Yes, I am. Okay. Did you cut your wife's throat and then dismember her and put it on? Whoa, that'll make anybody's heart rate go up. Jesus Christ. Just as the mention of it. Yeah. Oh, God. So...

They asked him if he would take another test because they couldn't figure it out that time. And he said, listen, I have heart problems. I'm not sitting through that shit again. You got your goddamn test like you asked me to. I took it. And now you can go fuck yourselves. How does that sound? Yeah.

Take that test and figure it out. I can't say I wouldn't be on that thing, too. Yeah, if he's got heart problems, I'm on his side, man. This is my ex-wife. Y'all can find her all you want and tell me when you do, because I'll be over here. But I don't fucking know. I'm not going to take 20 lie detector tests over it. And if you don't, I'd like my shit back anyway. So then they find another witness.

They find a witness who says that they saw Leroy outside the house in Oklahoma City on the afternoon of December 7th, which is that she disappeared the middle of the night between the 7th and the 8th there. The witness said that they saw his vehicle parked outside the residence that evening around 7 p.m.,

Now, December 7th, the Friday night where they were having a Christmas decorating party. She hasn't been at 930. So two hours before they went to bed, he's out front. Yeah. And another witness said that she started helping Leroy pack Janet's clothing into boxes the Monday after she disappeared.

So she left Friday. They were like, where'd she go? They just called the cops and they were saying, you know, maybe she'll come back over the weekend. By Monday, this witness said Leroy was packing her shit up, basically.

Maybe he was like, well, you abandoned it, my house now. Maybe he was doing that. Maybe he was doing like a possessions nine-tenths of the law. I live here. I don't know what he was trying to pull. They packed up her things. This woman helped him. They packed up her things during the entire week and put them in a closet before putting the boxes in the attic. So she comes home, her shit is going to be in the attic.

Up there. It's cold. Yeah, there it is. So that's weird. Definitely fucking weird. She has to move back in. I mean, wow. You know what? She deserves to have to do that. If she left these kids all day, she just came home with like trinkets from Disney World. I'd be like, listen, you asshole. You have to move back in. She's got a bunch of drink umbrellas from her trip to the Bahamas. I don't want to fucking talk to you right now.

The souvenir cup, the whale bone. Here's a question. What is more suspicious behavior? Right. Getting the key and searching the house and then showing up at

At the site where the cops find the woman's car where you had no idea where it was. No one else on earth did. Or packing her shit up three days after she leaves and putting it in the attic. Which is more... I can't tell which is more suspicious. They got to look at each other and go, these motherfuckers do this together? Yes, right? That's what I said. Are these two... Are they hanging out together or what? Like, what the hell is going on here? You know what? She is a bitch. You're right. Fuck her. Like...

Did he hire a man to date her and then murder her with him? That's what I mean. What is the story? This is crazy. So this was well in advance of, you know, knowing where she was or anything like that. So then a neighbor says a large fire was seen.

OK, this is a neighbor said on the morning of Friday, February 7th. So that is 12 hours before the Christmas decorations go up between 7 and 8 a.m. One of Leroy's neighbors and ceiling observed a large fire with black smoke and flames jumping 30 to 40 feet above the tree line.

So I am. Wow. He is burning some shit. And they said that this is about a half mile away from them and they could see the flames coming up above the tree and all this type of shit here. So she also said that she had seen other fires burning on his property in the past, but this was the biggest one she'd seen. Not like she's staring at his property the whole time. So that's kind of a so what thing? Because that happened the day before. So who gives a shit?

So then the cops are suspicious of Leroy. They really are. They think he has the financial motive. They're like, the boyfriend has no motive, is their point. Not that you need a motive. The boyfriend might just like to kill women. Maybe that's why. You know, there's plenty of motive-less shit, but they're looking at logic right now. Occam's razor. Husband's got to owes her all this money and all this shit. He'd be the one that wants her dead, so...

They both, Tad and a neighbor, both tell the cops that Leroy wanted custody of the children. Tad also said that Leroy wanted custody of all the children, especially him, so they could all live in sealing on the ranch. He wanted to raise the kids on the ranch like he was raised.

One of the neighbors in Oklahoma City said that Leroy was very adamant about getting custody of all the children and wanted them all. Need all of them. Dad, Todd, take them both. Collecting them all. That's right. Also, there was people talking about his financial status because they found out that he owed his wife $30,000 from their divorce settlement and was pursuing a bankruptcy action because of that.

And also he had told Tad that he would not be able to make his child support payments for about two months. He told that I'm be about a little short for about two months. This shit ruined him. So, yeah, I did. Well, it did. I mean, the whole house, the money, everything. So that's interesting. So they're like, that's a lot of motive.

He wants the kids. If he gets the kids and she's gone, his financial problems are solved and everything's back to what he wants. So they're like, that's a lot. He wakes up and can't breathe. He falls asleep and has nightmares. This poor bastard. That's a miserable life. God damn it.

So the cops are really going Leroy or Jim. Leroy or Jim, man. I mean, they both seem super guilty. Right. But they don't know each other. There's no way they have no connection with each other whatsoever. They look into it. Finkle and Einhorn. Absolutely. Yeah, totally. So maybe Jim Ubenhauer is just Leroy in disguise. We don't know.

So they said, let's get Jim Ubenhauer in here, have him take a polygraph and see how that turns out. So they go to the they take him to the station here to take a polygraph test. They do a six hour interview with him and results are in. He fails the polygraph. Oh, so we got an inconclusive and a failed, which is not helping anything. You're like, now we I'm even more confused. Great.

So they learned that from this, though, they learned that Ubenhauer had been living with a different woman at the time of his relationship with Janet and was not being truthful, not truthful at all to her or to either one of these women, which that gives him a shitload of motive right there, too.

Right. Yeah. And he claimed he'd been planning to break up with this new woman and started relationship with Janet. He's been telling Janet, oh, I'm going to break up with her. Don't you worry. They're not married. Even this. He's not married to this woman, so he can leave anytime he wants. But instead, he's there. So despite their suspicions, though.

Because the cops at that point, when they found out about all of this, he failed the test. Then he found out about the other woman and he's been lying to Janet. They went, so we should arrest him now, right? Literally, they're like, he failed the polygraph, blew the box. He fucking, he's been lying about to us about everything. And he's lying to everybody.

Let's go ahead and slap the cuffs on him. But they said, no, we don't have enough evidence. All the only evidence we have is some motive and he's a liar. But Leroy has motive and he's a liar, too. So he said he was fine with not having the kids, which we know is bullshit. So what do we do here? So they don't take him into custody. Then soon after that, they get another call from Leroy.

The cops get a call from Leroy telling them, hey, some of Jim Ubenhauer's belongings are in Janet's house. So I don't know what to do with this shit, basically. Like, I'm not keep I'm going to throw it out or what do I do with this shit? Do you guys want it as evidence? I don't know. So they said, oh, we'll take it all. Let's go over here. So they rush over to the house to do another search of the property for clues. They find a box of men's toiletries in the bathroom that belong to Ubenhauer.

umben how or whatever it is in the bottom of the box was an unlabeled vhs tape

Which they confiscate and take back to the station. Don't play that. Don't play that. I'm labeled. That's just porn, man. By the way, I just heard the story. My cousin told me a hilarious story about when he was a teenager. Him and his friend were looking over these old tapes that the guy's mother's boyfriend had. Just tapes to see what was on them because some of them were movies or whatever like that. And one of them was this guy fucking the kid's mother. And he's like...

He goes, I've never seen a person turn a fucking tape off faster. He dove at the VCR. Oh, God. Click. His mom? It was his mom's boyfriend banging his mom was on the videotape. And it was like right in the middle of it. Like, you turn it on, and she's like, oh, like doggy style, getting railed. Like...

You turn it on and you see where mom's boyfriend's been watching. Yeah, it is profile of mom getting railed. And he's like, I've never seen anyone dive so fast.

I would break the TV. If you couldn't hit stop, just kick the TV over. Oh, God. Rip the plug out of the wall. Jesus Christ, no. If my fucking breaker box was there, I'd just shut the power down. Out of my life, I'll burn this house down. Oh, my God. You would need acid to pour in my eyes after that. There's not enough.

How do you erase that from your fucking brain? My stepfather used to record the Playboy channel. Well, that's great. That's what you want to discover. And the Spice channel. Everything on fucking direct TV. It's like, dude, this shit is direct. You can watch this anytime you want. And he recorded it on tapes labeled vacation. So I'm trying to watch a vacation. But that's a score as a teenager. It's not your mom. Mom.

Dude, I'd shoot myself in the face. They were hoping for porn. That's what they were hoping for. Because this was like the late 80s because my cousin's older than me. This was like the late 80s. So you had a porn tape. That was like gold. So that's what they were hoping for. And they pop in and it's porn, but it ain't the porn they wanted to see.

Yeah, seeing what your family beats off to is fucked up. No one wants that shit. But seeing your family beat off to how they fuck your family, I don't want that at all. This poor guy had to see his mom's tits dangling down, rocking back and forth. Oh, yeah. It's not good.

Really giving it extra for the camera, too. You know what I mean? She's a star. Yeah, you don't want that. She's done this before. Oh, yeah. I'm uncomfortable with it, but she's done. So police ask, they ask him, they're trying to find out, they watch the tape, and what they find on the tape, it is sexual in nature. It's not like a produced thing.

Like, you know, amateur. Yeah. Yeah. It's not like a produced from a company thing. It's like a tape of a tape of a tape of somebody's shit where there is a woman. It's a sexualized thing. There's a naked woman being restrained and burned in it.

Like, burned with things. Yeah, it's some S&M shit. So they're like, huh, whose tape is this? They asked Jim if it's his, and he said, no, not mine. And by the way, we find out later it is 100% his tape. Yes. He says, no, I don't know what you're talking about. And they said, well, did you and Janet, like, engage in whatever? He said, we've never watched pornography together.

Like, yeah, this isn't probably what she would watch. No, I doubt it. You know what I mean? That's why I hide it in under the ax body spray. Yeah, that's why it's under my fucking degree under there. So still the police said, come on in and take a second polygraph. Why don't you since you failed the first one? He said that he loved her. He claimed he's not involved in her disappearance. And this time he passes the test.

What is going on? Which is – this is the most confusing fucking case ever, isn't it? You don't know what's going on. He passes the test, which a lot of people, to pass a test, they take medication. That's easily a way to pass a test. Sure. Yeah, anti-anxiety shit. So it keeps your shit from spiking and all that. It keeps you real even. But who knows? You know what I mean? Yeah.

So they said the police, though, say, I bet it was because he was sick the first test. And this time he's telling the truth. OK. Even though what he's done is everything he's done is highly suspicious. And he's lied at every turn, as a matter of fact. They go, it's got to be Leroy, though. We think it's Leroy. So because we have a past polygraph, we're going to go ahead and clear Jim here, even though that past polygraph comes with a lot of asterisks attached to it. Sure does. Yeah.

This is almost two months after Janet's disappeared. She's gone almost two months. This is early February of 1991. Remember that neighbor who said they saw the fire on his property the morning before the disappearance? Yeah, at 7 a.m. Well, now that they think about it,

And now that they now that they check back on their calendars, they'd realize they actually saw it the morning after Janet was reported to have vanished. It wasn't the day before. Yeah. So months later, my memory is much better than it was the next literally three days ago. Now I get it more. And rather than the cops chalking that up to, well, I mean, people's memories suck. The one detective said this was huge.

Big, big moves. I mean, big, big in terms of being able to put more on him, I guess, but not big in terms of actually knowing what's going on and knowing what happened. So they go back and they said, we are going to search Leroy's ranch fucking hardcore this time. Before we looked around, who knows? Now we're going to focus and just zero in on his shit, man, because it's 1500 acres. So it is a lot to search.

And think about all the nooks and crannies and places in a 1,500-acre farm. So I have 12 acres, and there's a shitload out there. It'd be hard to search all of that. It's crazy. It'd be crazy. So I can't imagine having 1,500 acres. That would be amazing. That'd be wild. So it's like your own town. It's fucking crazy. So they go there. This time, they're really...

looking around hard. Now, January 14th, so this is, I'm sorry, it wasn't early February, it was mid-January, that lady said she saw the fires, which made them go look harder. Investigators are combing a burned out bushy area of the ranch that's way away, quarter mile away from the house, for Christ's sake. Sure, yeah. And amid the overgrowth here,

They find what look like pieces of bones that had been burnt and left lying in the charred grass. Like this whole area got burned, including some bones. So they bring in an anthropologist, because once you find bones, you've got to bring in the people who do that. You can't just have fucking regular detectives shoveling bones out of the ground. You can't break them, fuck them all up. An oral B toothbrush pushing on it, going, this looks like a thot.

You'll fuck it all up. So the anthropologists said they believe they found pieces of a human skull, but they're not sure. Human bone fragments, what they believe are human bone fragments, were found in three separate piles of burned cedar trees on the ranch. Three separate piles near these burned cedar trees.

The remains were found in a secluded, heavily wooded area on the 1500 acre ranch here. They said, we found four burned areas. Two of them had bones in them. That's what Jerry Jones said. They said, we think these may be the missing woman's bones.

The bones were found to be compatible with a woman of a larger stature, not a 5'200 pound woman, you know, just a taller, larger woman from 35 to 50 years of age who had delivered children. Oh. So that's how much kids fuck your body up is they'll be able to tell the damage they've done to your bones after they've been burned and broken apart.

So that means they've got a pelvis then. Yes, or pieces of it anyway, because they don't have anything whole there. They found four teeth here, okay? And along with the bones, they find a piece of necklace or a gold chain, a piece of a gold chain about five inches long that was found in the burn piles. And there was evidence presented also that Janet owned a necklace like that that she always wore. And that's, remember, Tad said she was wearing this, this, and this last time I saw her.

So the medical examiners here said the medical examiner and a Norman anthropologist named Clyde Snow are trying to identify the remains and determine a cause of death. They said it's time consuming and tedious and we've been at it since Saturday. And this was like Wednesday. They said we must we've made a tentative identification and now we're trying to determine the cause of death. They also said the bones haven't been out there very long.

Not ears or anything like that, obviously. From this, they figure out, based on dental records of the four teeth, that these are the remains of Janet. Really? So we found Janet. She's in four separate piles of bones at this point. On a 1,500-acre parcel of ceiling that her ex-husband owns. Owns. And it's deep in the woods, too. Deep in the Oklahoma holler.

Yeah. No, no. He could say that's so deep back there that I wouldn't have seen anybody going back there. That's true. But also, you know where to go where there's private spots in your 1500 acre ranch. It doesn't look good for Leroy here. 1500 acres. You haven't seen a giant fucking fire four times. That's what I'm seeing. Four big ones here.

So now Leroy, they're not they didn't arrest Leroy yet, but they're obviously her remains are found in your property. Not looking good here for Leroy. So he is a suspect. And he said his lawyer told police that he's available if police want to arrest him, talk to him, do whatever. Here he is. He's not going anywhere. So that's his attorney, Irvin Box. This is attorney attorney. So Box said he denies being involved in the death of his ex-wife if she is, in fact, dead.

Even though they've, well, if not, she's minus four teeth. So he doesn't know if she's dead or alive. He doesn't have any knowledge about that. But he said that he also has no knowledge of why burned human bones would be on his ranch. He said, I don't fucking know. I didn't see anything.

So they go ahead and arrest Leroy here. May as well. They're going to go ahead and take him in once the bones are found. It's so weird because the other guy looks so guilty. He looks so guilty. Super guilty. This guy's bones are here, so it's really not good. And he jerks off to weird shit. And he jerks off to exactly what that would be. Yeah. A bound, burned woman. I mean, that's... That's interesting. That's interesting. So you can take what people jerk off to and...

You might be able to... I don't want to kink shame, but it certainly... No, no, no, no. Unless you kill somebody, then it's all on the table at that point. If you don't hurt anybody and you just like to jerk off to people tied up, good for you. But if we find a tied up dead person in your house, that shit means something. Now we're going to talk about it. Tied up, burned dead person, even worse so. Even fucking worse. So the day he's arrested, the children were picked up at school and placed in the care of the State Department of Human Services.

And the lawyer said that Leroy will contest the taking of his children as well. He said the children should be staying with family, if not me, if I'm not out. This is ridiculous. So as soon as they get to a juvenile facility where they have all these three kids, Tad makes an escape. He fucking takes off. Tad ain't having it.

Tad is 12 and he ain't having it. I don't know if he's late for a wrestling match or some shit, but he is fucking gone and they don't find him till the next day. Wow. He's got a way far. Like 24 hours of running away. Good for you, Tad. Run, Tad. Run.

So the kids are then at a juvenile court hearing. A judge gave the maternal great aunt Mary Bloomer temporary custody pending the outcome of the criminal proceedings against Leroy because if he's found innocent, they'll give him back to him, obviously. I mean, O.J. got his kids given back to him when he was found not guilty, which is crazy. Think about that. So they're wondering how the fuck did he do it?

They were never they're not able to figure out how she died, but they think they know what happened. This is the police narrative because you have to have some kind of narrative to arrest somebody. Fascinating theories, though. They said they believe Leroy snuck into the house, into Janet's house that night and quietly abducted her. How the fuck do you quietly abduct your ex-wife?

If she even saw him on the property, there'd be yelling like there's no way that three kids are going to sleep through that. That'd be so hard to quietly abduct her.

Unless they have like ether or something. I don't know how you would quietly abduct your ex-wife. It's not his weekend to have the kids, so he's got no reason to be in the house because he does the dad in the home weekend thing. That's weird. But it's not his weekend. It's not his weekend. So it makes no sense. And I don't know how he would quietly. I just don't know how you would. Especially she's not a small woman. 5'7", 160 pounds is a formidable sized person.

To just pick up and take them away quietly. You know what I mean? She weighed eight, 97 pounds. I'd say, Oh, maybe wrapped her up. But you know, this, this doesn't, he's not a gigantic guy, so it doesn't make sense. But they say that he took her then to a house that he owned nearby. This is their theory. Quietly abducted her, took her to a holding ground, not to ceiling, took her to a holding area where he has nearby. Okay. Left her there.

Then went back to her house, left his car there at her house, drove her car to the airport, abandoned it, then got a taxi back to Janet's house to get his car to go pick her up at the holding area and take her to ceiling to burn and kill her. So he restrained her solid enough to be able to leave the house burn.

plenty of trust that she'll be there when he gets back. Totally. And by the way, neither that house nor her house have any signs of struggle, blood, cleanup. I mean, if there's bones, you got to get through a lot to get to those. So there'd be blood somewhere, right? Somewhere. I mean, if he killed her in the house...

That'd be the only way. Otherwise, he'd have to somehow incapacitate her completely to where neighbors wouldn't hear her scream in Oklahoma City. It's not like it's the ranch where no one's there. And when there's nothing happening there, that shit is dead ass quiet. Dead. I've never seen it always. I've never seen a town that looks abandoned before. It looks outside of Cleveland. It looked abandoned. Cleveland is abandoned. That's why. That's the difference. There's boards on windows in Cleveland. We were on a street with just a hotel. Yeah.

In Cleveland, we were on a street with just a hotel and like 18 husks of what used to be office buildings that aren't anymore. Yeah.

Cleveland Pass. Yeah, it's boarded up. Oklahoma City. I'm walking down the street. There's statues. There's traffic signals going. And nobody there. Nobody. Nobody there. No reason for any of this shit to be here. So strange. It's a weird town. So that's their theory. He snuck in while the kids are sleeping, mind you. Didn't wake them up. Abducted her.

dropped her off, you wait for me while I go back, get your car, take it to the airport, abandon it, take a taxi all the way back to the house here, and then come meet you, pick you up, take you to the ranch, kill you, burn you. That is a lot. That's a lot. They said then he used his car to drive back to her other house where he retrieved Janet, who may still have been alive at this point, and took her to his farm in Sealing where he killed her, likely with a blow to the back of her head, and then burned the body. That's what they think.

Now, you're going to present that in court. That's what's crazy. We'll talk about it. But there's the forensic anthropologist guy who's going to piece the skull together and say that he thinks he found the cause of death, which makes this story make no sense. That's the problem.

If they thought she was strangled to death or suffocated to death, then we could see it. Me, personally, I could see it because then he could have killed her in the house originally. He could have killed her in the car. He could have killed her in his other house. He could have killed her in any of those three locations, and it would still make sense. But if you've strangled someone to death, you then don't have to bash their skull in before you burn them. It doesn't make any sense. So that makes no sense.

She was alive until she got to the ranch. Unless he bashed her head in any location and then drove a leaking body. Because if you collapse a skull, the skin's got an abrasion. There's blood somewhere. It's everywhere. And there's no blood in any of the places where, if that happened, there would have been blood or signs of a cleanup of blood. Right. Something. There's none of that shit. Anything.

It's very odd here. So the reaction here from Tad, Tad is blown away by he's 12. So he's like a, you know, 12, you're, you know, you're not a dumb idiot kid. You're no,

No. You know what the Zults are doing. Yeah. No shit. He said, dad said, it was unimaginable. It was hard to realize that my dad had been charged with my mom's murder because I loved my dad. And in my mind at that point, I did not think that that was possible. But in actuality, it was reality. And you start to realize that she's never coming home. Yeah. At that point, he was still hoping mom would just come home one day. Hmm.

At 12, you don't know. Maybe mom had something to do. I don't know what adults are doing. So he then said that he remembers being at his father's ranch and he and his brother playing with those bones. No. Playing with his mother's burned bones. No. He said that his dad claimed they belonged to a possum. No.

I'd rather see a video of my mom getting plowed. No. What? You can't play with your mom's bones. Oh, my God. I told Jimmy and he just had like a broken paws for about three seconds. I can't imagine. I don't know what to do there. Oh, my God. The poor kid. He said he claimed they belonged to a possum.

And they said ultimately the bones were that of her. There was also some animal bones in there, so maybe some of them were a possum. He said, I don't think I'll get over finding it. I don't think I'll ever get over it. Finding out that that man took his kids out there and played with their mother's bones, the investigator said. That is just beyond fathomable to me. Truly. Now we have a quote, too, where he's like, yeah, we took them out there and we played around with the bones. That's so fucked up.

It's fucking crazy. Imagine that. He's like picking a piece up and drilling his brother with it, like throwing it at him. Fucking calling him gay slurs and shit. Hey, what's up? Touch it. Touch it. Put it on your tongue. Oh, my God. Crazy. Yeah, I think that's possible. Let's try to put them back together. So neighbors, Oklahoma City neighbors say they're not buying it for a fucking second.

Yeah. They have a totally different view of him. No, they said that he's a devoted father and a good neighbor. And it's different. One of the neighbors said, in my opinion, he was much more of a parent than Janet Dennis was.

They said, yeah, the thing is that this was a woman who said this as well. Wow. A woman neighbor based her opinion on her observations of both of them having outings with the kids. And she said he was a better fucking parent than she was. She said he was he was not real outgoing and he was a little strange. But strangers strangeness doesn't make a murderer.

You're allowed to be strange. Yeah. His neighbors and ceiling, though, portrayed him as different. Stealing asshole. Yeah. Well, one said they think the divorce might have pushed him over the edge. This guy, this is fucking hilarious. This man asked to not be identified for a reason, obviously. He doesn't want his wife to know that he fucking hates her. He said, quote, I ain't saying it's right or wrong, which is number one. Yes, you are.

I ain't saying it's right or wrong right away. It's like Vince McMahon in that documentary going, I mean, even if it was rape, the statute of limitations was over. So, huh? Part is that's not what you...

Take two, motherfucker. Take two. That's not what you meant to say. Don't say that. Don't say that. So he said, I ain't saying it's right or wrong, but I could see it could drive a man to that. My wife took half my ranch. I'm off that bitch. And then he said, no, don't put my name next to that shit. That's crazy. What's your name, sir? None of your goddamn business. Guy who doesn't want to be in court someday with this shit getting pushed back at him.

So, sealing residents who asked not to be identified said they feared retribution from Dennis. Oh. And this guy fears from his wife probably, too. The prosecutors are speculating on an ongoing battle over the custody of the children and all that. Other sealing residents who live near the ranch characterize Dennis as a man who, and this...

Quote says a lot. You got people, a lot of people in this town who don't own a 1500 acre ranch. Yeah. And they think of these people as like, oh, the rich boy, you can get away with anything. Cause they said they thought, quote, he was above the law cause he was a hometown boy.

Uh-huh. And, like, made it real, like, stinking. So... Yeah. Another neighbor said he believed if Dennis had been... If Leroy had been prosecuted for all the suspected thefts that were investigated by the sheriff's department, quote, this slaying might not have happened. Oh, God.

How? How would that stop him from killing his wife? Would he be in prison forever for stealing fencing? I don't think so. If we got him for all the barbed wire, then he would have never done this. I would have been over with, man. Even though there's consequences for his actions. Yeah, then he would have said, oh, I shouldn't kill her. I went to jail for just stealing fucking horseshoes or hooves or whatever the fuck they are. So how did he make the fire that hot?

Yeah. How do you make a fire that because we've seen that hot. We've seen a lot of people try to burn people where it does not work out very well. It's very hard to fire. Yeah. It's not just the size of the fire. It's the it's the heat that has to be in there. And it has to be for a long period of time. Sustained. Yeah.

So an investigator with the Oklahoma City Fire Marshal's office said that burning piles of cedar could produce sufficient heat to burn human bones to the degree these bones were found, but it would require more than one burning. He said you could do it, but you have to do it a few times. He also said that if an accelerant was used in the burning, the smoke produced would have been black smoke, which is what that neighbor said they saw earlier.

We don't know what date. Burn the petroleum off, sure. Then he also noted, though, that they found no evidence of accelerants near the burn piles or around or anywhere having to do with the burn piles. Really? Yeah, you would have, too. So they said that's interesting. He also said that the absence of such evidence does not completely indicate that no accelerants had been used because the dissipation factor of the fuel and length of time that had passed before the area was tested could affect that.

I feel like you find traces of gas probably or gasoline sticks around. So the judge now is trying to decide where to place the kids permanently here because this is going to be a long we're in for a long siege with this trial here.

So they said that they're going to review the home environment and background of two maternal great aunts and a paternal aunt who said they would be willing to care for the children. So there's a lot of three people in this family who will take them. So they have to figure out who's the best one to take them here. His attorney, Leroy's attorney, Irvin Bach, said the kids are all in tears. The children are traumatized. They're hurting very much. They were snatched out of school by the police and are aware of the investigation. Well, no shit. Yeah.

Dad's in jail and it's in every newspaper that your mom's bones are found in his yard. That's not good. And all three of them are old enough to have conversations and they understand mommy's not coming home. Those words are really easy to understand. And Tad especially knows not only is mommy not coming home, I played with mommy's bones.

He said this. This is his quote about this, and this is what he'll say in court later. Quote, he showed us some bones, but he said they were animal bones. He said he killed a possum and burned it out there. We saw the bones lying on the ground, and me and my brother threw them at each other.

They did. They did. Yep. That's why when I was saying that, I was like, oh, no, that quote's coming up. Shit. The Oklahoma District Attorney here, Oklahoma County District Attorney Robert Macy, said he was disgusted by hearing that from the child. No kidding. He said that it was, quote, the ultimate act of vengeance against her. It's almost beyond my comprehension that a man would do this to his own children. Well, we've heard worse, so it shouldn't be beyond your comprehension. You're a prosecutor. If we've heard worse, you've heard way worse, I hope.

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I don't think that's near as scarring as raping them. And I'm sure you've heard of children being raped, sir. And then killed. Yeah, right. That happens all the time.

Two big ones. Then he has if first degree murder wasn't a big enough problem for him legally, he gets another very large legal problem looming here. That is OK. He admits in court to mismanaging four hundred fifty two thousand four hundred thirty dollars and twenty one cents that belong to an elderly woman. He's known since childhood and was supposed to be helping with her money.

What did he do with that? This is, again, 1990 fucking 400. It's like a million dollars. More than that, it's like two million, three million dollars now. It's crazy. So probably about three, two and a half maybe. Anyway, he agreed in court.

in a Oklahoma County District Court civil action to return $425,430.21 in certificates and deposits. I think I transposed those. I think it was the 452. And I wrote it down wrong. U.S. savings bonds, certificates of deposit, U.S. savings bonds, and money from a checking account that belonged to this elderly lady, Amber Dewar, D-U-E-R.

She's in her 80s. She was born in like 1910, and her name is Amber. I've never heard that before. That's the first one probably. I thought you had to be. It's got to be the first Amber, right? Amber is at the same time as Crystal was being born, like 1981, right? Amber, Crystal, Jennifer, all of those were being born. I guess Amber was named after the color, right? I would think so. The first one?

I guess. Amber waves of grain. I mean, right, right. The ones later were certainly named after, I don't know, uh,

That's a very, very kindly girl. Yeah. Someone who gives great blowjobs maybe posing. I remember this one gal. Oh boy, I'm going to name my first born daughter after her. But the first one was named after like the color of a light at the top of a fucking pole for a, for a sea ship. Yeah. Or honey or because honey is that's. Oh, honey is amber also. Yeah. So there's a lot of amber shit. Also they say beer is amber. Yeah.

Yeah, Amber Bach, sure. So there's a lot of different Amber connotations here. Yeah. So her attorney, Amber Dewar's attorney, Kenneth Turner, said that I think I know a guy by that name, which is interesting. Yeah. Said that that Leroy had been given power of attorney to administer the 83 year old woman's personal finances. Right.

You scumbag. What a dude. Wow. When Dennis was arrested, then this Turner guy was hired to provide an accounting of her money. Certificates of deposit originally in Amber's name had been changed, listing Dennis's three children and mother as beneficiaries now.

Hmm. And with Dennis as a trustee, with Leroy as a trustee. Wow. This guy, this lawyer said on the face, it doesn't look too good. It's obvious to me that it is her money and he didn't deny that either. So on August 30th or August 3rd, 1990, that's eight days after his divorce is final, by the way, a check for $65,379.26. Hmm.

made payable to Amber Doerr from the First National Bank and Sealing was endorsed by Dennis, a copy of the return check shows. That same day, Dennis went to Oklahoma City where he bought a $65,000 certificate of deposit in his son Todd's name. Why did he do that?

to launder $65,000 out of this lady's account. The certificate deposit, the deposit listed Leroy Dennis as the trustee.

And this lawyer says, that's a pretty strange coincidence, don't you think? 65 grand, same day? Come on. The attorney, Irvin Box, here, that's, as we know, Leroy's attorney, he said, quote, he sure, meaning he, Leroy, sure had a funny way of holding it in her best interest. The arrangement he had with Amber Doerr is different from anything else I've seen in the past.

This is weird. Why would you just get... He's not a financial guy. No. He knows first aid and fences. That's what he knows. Fencing and first aid. Anything outside of that, I don't know what this guy does. Growing grass instead of crops. Yeah.

So, um, doer inherited half of this or $193,715 of her late sister's estate. The sister, Mabel Gerard, 86 died in March of 88. The remainder was put into a trust fund for doors, medical needs. Yeah. She needs some shit. So Gerard's will specified that Dennis, that Leroy Dennis be named trustee. That's how he became the trustee, an 86 year old woman, uh,

had it in her will that he's going to be the trustee of this to handle this for her sister. Doerr's stepson, Daryl Doerr and Gerard, that's the other one there, had appointed Dennis to manage her finances. While the attorneys were negotiating a settlement in the civil case, Oklahoma police detectives now, Oklahoma City detectives,

began probing in with $33,800 in interest checks derived from $407,000. Leroy and Janet Dennis, the two of them as a couple, once had it as certificates of deposit in their bank account.

So she was in on this shit, by the way. Yeah, no kidding. She knew exactly what the fuck was going on here. Not to speak ill of the dead here, but they were both stealing from an old lady. There's no way around it. That's how she got what she got out of this divorce was because she was like, I'll blow up this whole thing. Exactly. And he wasn't hiding it from her because he put it in their joint bank account. So we know he wasn't hiding it from her. She had to have known.

Then that bank account. OK. Police detectives believe Leroy designated that the interest checks be placed in trust funds for his children in an attempt to, quote, hide the money. The checks were never deposited, the detectives say.

So Oklahoma City homicide detective John Maddox said the children's grandfather, Arthur Olson, remember him? You're right. Who doesn't like Leroy. Not a fan. Was listed as a trustee on those funds. Oh, what the shit? I don't like Leroy. He's a bad guy. Don't listen to anything Leroy says. It's all a lie. Yep. Olson, Arthur there, the dad, told police he never endorsed any of the 116 checks cashed in banks throughout the state beginning in March 1989. Leroy Dennis' name has surfaced as a possible suspect in the apparent forgeries.

Yeah, this is, I think, a couple living above their means together with three kids trying to have some fun. The interest checks began in March 1989 as the couple appealed a U.S. bankruptcy court judgment that ordered them to return the money.

As a couple, the Dennis couple returned the $407,000 because the Western savings and loan already had been placed in receivership. In April 1987, three months before the couple was ordered to repay the money, records show they bought the house in Oklahoma City. They paid the realtor, Daryl Doerr, people they know, $105,000 in cash for the home.

They paid fucking cash back then for a house. Is he related to Amber? And is he paying that man whatever this lady is to him money? Yeah, he's using him as a real estate agent. So police said at the time the family was living primarily on Janet Dennis' salary as a school nurse. They couldn't afford to buy a $105,000 cash house. Sure. Absolutely not. So...

They're finding that this whole thing was getting shady and maybe everyone was keeping some secrets here. Yeah. So do they have the evidence is the problem. Oklahoma County District Attorney Robert Macy has likened the case to another Oklahoma County murder in which the prosecutors accused Gary Lee Rawlings of killing his wife and dumping her body from an airplane into the Gulf of Mexico. Wow.

That sounds awesome. We're doing a Patreon about that. I've never heard of that before. Except Scarface. That's genius. Gary Lee Rawlings is getting a Patreon episode at some point. That is unbelievable. It's fucking wild. So no corpse was ever found. It was probably eaten by sharks in the Gulf of Mexico. But they found out when they looked at the flight manifest. Yeah. Oh, you're a little light on the way back.

But a jury convicted Rawlings of the murder, even though they never found the body. He was sentenced to life in prison over that. They said, like the Rawlings murder, the case against Leroy Dennis is all circumstantial evidence, according to Irvin Box here. Except we got a body.

Yeah, Irvin Box pointed to the first the fact that Janet Dennis's car was found parked at Will Rogers Airport. But detectives say there are no records to show Janet Dennis boarded a flight out of Oklahoma City the night she disappeared. Airport records show her car was parked for five or fifty one point two hours. OK.

Oh, I'm sorry. Parked five 1.2 hours before a flight was scheduled to leave Oklahoma City. Okay. So they're saying it was parked before a flight was scheduled to leave five and a half hours before a flight was scheduled. Any flight was scheduled to leave Oklahoma City. The car showed up in the middle of the night. At midnight. Yeah. And no flights were taken off till six in the morning. So yeah, they said it took, this is Irving Box, the defense attorney. If he took the car out of there, how did he get back to her house to get this vehicle and transport the body to the ceiling? Right.

It's a great question, but look, anything's possible. Anything's possible. They also are perplexed about where she was killed. They said prosecutors believe she was abducted and killed far from the house, but they don't even have a theory as to where. Even prosecutors admit they may never know the exact location where she was killed, how she was killed, or anything like that.

They said there was fucked. It's way fucked. They said there's no sign of blood or struggle in any of the homes in any of the places. They said Irving Box, the defense attorney, said he knows of no evidence to show Janet Dennis was forced to leave the house. They said all they can show is she lived in Oklahoma County and her body ended up in Dewey County. It's pretty reasonable to assume some crime was committed in Dewey County. So he said it should be in Dewey County, not in Oklahoma County.

is where we should try this. At minimum, the desecration of a human corpse happened in Dewey County. Yeah. Well, they're saying there's no blood. There's no proof anywhere else that they killed her, that he killed her there, so it must be here. Their own theory is that he crushed her skull. Well, where the fuck did that happen? You got to, you know. Yeah, and this is months later we find the body, and blood can go away outdoors pretty easily. Oh, yeah. Rain, all that shit. He said, the defense attorney said, I haven't seen anything that,

That shows my client did it. Now, there are bones in his yard. That's not good. I don't have anybody's bones in my yard. You know what I mean? Don't dare say that. You don't know. Well, I have deer bones out there, I'm sure. But my ex-wife's bones are nowhere near my yard. They're still in her body because she's still alive. She's still got all of them. She's got every one of them. Against my wishes. Yeah, I didn't say I was in favor of it, but no, I'm kidding.

She's fine. Police are centering their case around the fact that the woman's bones were discovered on the property. And the homicide detective said that's one thing that Leroy can't get around is that the bones are on his property. Prosecutor said the case may be prosecuted in the county where the abduction that led to the killing may have occurred.

Now, the defense, though, files a request to change the venue in the case. A judge is a judge is going to decide where the fuck it's going to be. The prosecutor said, we have adequate evidence to proceed and we believe venue lies in Oklahoma County. But they said, no, the defense attorney said, not only do I disagree with that, I'd also like you to set a bond for my client so he can assist in his defense so he can get out of jail.

They said over the last month, though, the investigators have found more than 5000 bone fragments in four separate burn piles at the ranch. When they went through it with a real pair of tweezers, that's what they're finding. The forensic experts in Oklahoma City have pieced them together in the shape of a skeleton.

They made a puzzle out of this. Terrible puzzle. Yeah. The investigator who did this said this is a jigsaw puzzle. No shit. No kidding. The undersheriff, Jerry Jones, said he searched through pastures and up and down valleys on Dennis's property for two months looking for evidence before finding the first pile of bones. He said, I got lucky, I guess. The last spot to be checked was near the house.

The bones were found about a quarter mile southeast of the house where he lives. Another question that's still unanswered is the cause of death. Because the juries like to hear a story. Yeah. They like to hear at least how the person died.

They don't necessarily like it, but they are in favor of getting one because it helps tremendously. It helps complete the picture. You know what I mean? If you're saying – because all the time prosecutors say it's like a puzzle. If you have a few missing pieces of the puzzle, you still see what the picture is. It's the old – every prosecutor says that. Brilliant.

You know, at some point it's too much. It's also very frustrating when you have all the pieces except a couple. Yeah. That sucks. You have like the, this case has all the border pieces, but nothing in the middle that shows what the picture actually is. It's just the border of it. It's all they have.

So they said, that's interesting. Examiners have found a wound in the woman's arm and an indentation in the back of the skull, but are unsure what caused the injuries. And the one, the investigator said, we may never be able to prove the true cause of death.

Now, while they searched the ceiling ranch, they found, this doesn't matter, but 16 rifles, several dozen arrows, and 11 bows. It's a 1,500-acre ranch. You're going to have all those things on there. Everyone would. So they said, while a lot of these questions appear unanswered, investigators are able to conclude that blood found inside the garage of Dennis Sealing's ranch house was animal blood.

Damn it. So that's not going to help at all. Yeah. They found blood and they were like, ah, finally, this is where he did it. Fuck. They said there are probably this is the defense attorney. There are probably more unknowns at this stage than any other case I've ever had. I would agree with you.

This is 535 for us, and this is crazy. I don't like this at all. He said, the unknowns will hurt us. There's no way of defending the unknowns, which is true. The unknowns could become a positive for the prosecutor because you can just paint all of these pictures of how it could have happened. Oh, man. So anyway, he says he has an alibi for this time. He was getting grained and hanging out with his mom.

His mom says that her son was with her at the ranch that night, and she said that he was there until the next morning when his son, Tad, called to inform him of the disappearance. And the mom says, I don't think he's done anything. I don't know how he could if he was here with me. It's been a mystery to me. We'll probably never know, and he'll probably have to suffer for it. She is a fatalistic old lady, man. No kidding.

He believes that Janet Dennis went to a bar on December 7th and, quote, met up with some foul play. So she says that the kids went to sleep and Janet said, I'm going to go get me a couple of drinks, went out and found somebody who did this horrible thing to her and then knew to burn her bones and place them at her ex-husband's house. Right.

which is a stretch. Um, she said also that she's never, she never saw any fires on a ranch property. I don't think she's that with it at this point. It seems like that's why she stays with her son. Yes, exactly. Police said at least four piles of brush were burned on the property about the time of the disappearance. And she said, we never seen no fire built, no fire. So I don't know what the fuck you're talking about. Um,

neighbors said we saw all sorts of fires all the time. Fires all the time? Yeah. Wow. They said that while they were searching the house, Leroy's mom, Maisel, quilted and puttered around the kitchen. She just kept making her quilt as they were searching the house, which is fucking hilarious. She said, I didn't even know those bones were down there or even down there. I think someone planted them there to make him look bad.

Four piles, Ma? Four piles here. Yep. So again, too, the defense here, the defense attorney is saying, what about Umbenhauer? What about that guy? He could have easily killed her. He knows where this ranch is. He knows about everything. He could have easily killed her, done his weird fantasy shit, jerked off all over the place, and then fucking dumped the bones out here. We don't know. He had two months to do it. He was searching places that he shouldn't have been in. So the prosecutor said, though,

That, yes, the man was in Oklahoma City that night. True. He was in the place. But he passed a lie detector test. So, you know, it's OK. And then he said he's he's currently on military duty in Saudi Arabia. They said we're trying to identify anybody who might have been involved in the crime. But right now we have no evidence to indicate there was a second party. He was he was in Oklahoma City the night of the killing, though. I don't know where the fuck where he is now has to do with what he did.

If you get subpoenaed in a murder trial, I assume that they'll let you go off duty for that. That seems important. I'll bet the military will fly you back. I would hope so. You know what I mean? Leroy now wants the charges dropped. He said, you got to drop these charges. This is fucking ridiculous. Yeah.

He asked a federal judge to dismiss a first-degree murder charge because the medical examiner has not determined even a cause of death. Yeah, you can't call something murder if you don't even have murder on the tip. She could have tripped, hit her head, and fell into a fire for all you know. You have no fucking idea. So the attorney for Leroy said pathologists have not connected a skull fracture found in the examination of the remains to any trauma that caused her death.

He said he's going to argue that an opinion issued in May in another murder case requires a prosecutor to produce an exact cause of death. He said precedent had been set just a few months ago, and we're going to talk about it. He says, I feel we have something for the judge to look at. The medical examiner didn't have any conclusive results. Now, the assistant district attorney, Fern Smith, she sounds like a partier, old Fern Smith. I bet she is, too, just a...

She's on the table swinging her shirt over her head after fucking a shot and a half. Or she's just so much of a party. She just sits and drinks gin. And that's still fun. That's still her thing. She's still a party that way. So she said she fears that a dismissal of the charge would send a message that anyone can get away with murder if they destroy the body.

No, it sends a message that you got to figure more shit out. Yeah, you got to get your shit together more and have... You can't just charge people with murder willy-nilly. It's like, oh, we have to be able to charge them with murder without having all the evidence. We have to be. Without that, what do we do?

So the previous case they're going to ask about concerned a deal here by a defendant named Robert Paul Thornburg to the murder of eight-year-old George Seton Arthborough Thornburg. So his son described in detail how he killed the Oklahoma City boy. The medical examiner was unable to determine the cause of death. The court reversed his conviction. He was convicted of it, and they reversed it later, saying they never had a cause of death. So that's the precedent now that we're talking about. Yeah.

So the defense attorney contends that the evidence in this case doesn't prove the woman's death was even a criminal act. You can't even prove she died on purpose. He's not wrong. He's not. I mean, you want to get improper disposal of remains. It'd be hard to deal with. I mean, other than that.

So the judge also wants and the defense attorney wants bail. He's trying to get bail for his client. He said the lengthy separation from his kids is ridiculous. He said being away from them has been traumatic. I took them to jail to visit him recently and they cried. He cried and I cried. Can you imagine? I don't want my attorney crying. You need to be harder than this.

You need to be hardcore. I need you to not have a soul, man. Yes, exactly. That's exactly what I need. I need your eyes to be coal black like the devil. I need you to call us pussies for this. Yep. Get it together, you bunch of pussies. I'm trying to get you out of prison, pussy. That's what I want to hear. Oh, sorry. Sniffle and wipe my eyes. You're right. You're right.

So as far as changing the venue here, the district attorney told the judge they have absolutely no evidence to show where the injury was inflicted. There is not one scintilla of evidence that Janet Dennis was kidnapped or harmed in Oklahoma County. I'm sorry, the defense attorney said that. He's trying to move it to Dewey County based on the discovery of the bone fragments. He believes Leroy would get a fairer trial in the sticks.

Which is hilarious because even if they didn't know who he was, you don't want your trial in the sticks. The reason why Ted Bundy...

ran away from the Aspen fucking jail there, not to jump out the window but through the ceiling, was because he asked for a change of venue. The judge gave him one to Colorado Springs, which is basically an automatic fucking death penalty rubber stamp. They just rubber stamp everything. Yep, guilty death penalty, whereas in the city you at least have a chance that people might – if you think who –

Just think who who probably has more of an open mind. I'm not saying good, bad, anything. Who do you think is more open minded? It's probably not people in a 900 person fucking town. You're not just my, you know, whatever. I think it's in Mobile. Yeah. No shit. So the attorney said jurors in western Oklahoma take a longer look at the evidence. They're not so indoctrinated to big city crime.

It's the opposite. They're shocked by crime, so they fucking convict everybody. In the city, people go, this happens all the time. They're not blown away by it. Yeah. I've heard of this before. I've seen it. Yeah. This isn't whatever. He said they look hard at the things and are not ready to convict just because Bob Macy charges someone. That's the thing. It's an interesting way to look at it. Indoctrinated versus, that's not the word. It's just experienced, man. It's not indoctrinated. Exactly.

And I happen to think what he's trying to do, in my opinion, he wants Macy, the Oklahoma City prosecutor, to have to prosecute the case in the sticks so he can say these city people coming out here and accusing us fine country folk of shit. That's what I feel like he's trying to pull, the defense attorney.

That's what it seems like. So Oklahoma City homicide detective Ken Wilkie, he said during this hearing that police have obtained evidence placing Leroy Dennis at his ex-wife's house two to three days before she disappeared, which is that's in other words, we don't have any evidence is what that says to me. If you were there three days before a murder, that doesn't mean shit.

I'm sure I've been somewhere three days before a murder happened there. You know what I mean? My brother-in-law, ex-brother-in-law was on top of the World Trade Center on September 10th, James. Oh, God. Yeah, terrible. What a terrorist piece of shit he is. Well, I'm telling you. This cop told the judge that he found out the couple had an argument that sent her son running into his room.

Again, not abnormal for X people to argue and having the kids not want to hear it anymore. Divorce people? Yeah. That happens. When questioned by the defense attorney, the cop on the stand admitted that police have no direct evidence that shows he abducted or killed his wife in Oklahoma County. He said, you're saying all this. What's your direct evidence? He goes, oh, we don't have any at all. But this is all. What the fuck?

fuck are they going to do? Some good speculation. He also said that they have her car, they just talked about her car being found, but these prosecutors contends the circumstantial evidence is huge in this case and sufficient. He cites the argument between the Dennis's the day before their death and

And the last sighting of Janet Dennis, which was in Oklahoma County. So she'd stay in Oklahoma County. He said if you examine the relationship between the two of them, you can see where she would not have voluntarily left her house. It only takes common sense and logic to determine where the homicide occurred. Okay. But common sense and logic also says that if to get her to leave, you're saying he took her. Right.

Because there's no crime scene there. But you're also saying that he had to have killed her there because that's when we can prosecute it. But even though there's no evidence of that, even though my contention is he killed her with a blow to the skull, that would have certainly spent a lot of blood flying everywhere.

But I'm also saying that he kidnapped her here and took her, even though I said she wouldn't leave voluntarily and he'd had to incapacitate her. It makes a lot of things. There's the logic of the prosecution as a juror. I'd have a hard time with because you have to tell me you think A, B and C happen. You can't tell me I think A happened and B happened. But if C happened, then A couldn't have happened. Like and then have me just pick one. That's not how it's working. Yeah.

A judge ruled that the murder case against him, against Leroy, should be prosecuted in Oklahoma County. So he's going to be in Oklahoma City, although the police admit they have no evidence and they don't know that that's where the crime was committed. In the ruling, he said there is sufficient evidence to show both Dewey County and Oklahoma County have jurisdiction. And as far as I'm concerned, the case will stay in Oklahoma County. That's that trial comes up now.

Oh, my God. Death penalty on the table. They're pushing for the death penalty. It's like, wow, pushing for that here. They don't even know what happened. And they're like, we will put a motherfucker to death for this is crazy. In the openings here, the prosecutor said that, you know, at that point, he says that.

She may have been burned alive, he tells the jury. They have no idea what happened to her. They're telling the jury that it must have been the most brutal thing possible. I'm sure he knocked her out and burned her alive, which is crazy. So the prosecutor also told the jury that the Dennis children were allowed by Leroy to play amongst their mother's bones in the burn piles, which is all true and that should be in there.

Finally, Leroy, they said that Leroy complained that the prosecutor improperly made references to the odor of burning flesh. He not only said he could have burned her alive. He said, you know what? It smells like burning flesh. He made like this whole fucking world he set up of flesh is burning. Wow. It smells awful.

It's disgusting. I don't know what human flesh smells like burning, but it's fucking gross. He says it takes a special kind of person who can stand and watch a human being being burned. But it takes a more special man who can do that to the woman who gave birth to his three children. Most men, that's probably the only person they could do that to. Yeah. You know what I mean? Would be your ex-wife or something like that. Yeah. When he said that about, I don't know, man. Yeah. It's like, interesting.

Interesting way to see that. I don't think guys see it like that. Oh, that's the mother of my children. No. Once they're out, they're out and they have nothing to do with her. This bitch has done horrible things to me. I could see her on fire and not feel a goddamn thing about it. I don't see a kid halfway in her vagina right now, so fuck her is what people think. Yeah, my kids are clear of these flames. They're fine. Oh, shit. He then said that Leroy Dennis caved in Janet's head. We don't know if he burned her alive or not.

He doesn't know if they caved her head in either. That's the other thing. They don't know. So they bring in Clyde Snow, the anthropologist, and he's a nationally recognized anthropologist. He's a known cat here. He testified that he reconstructed Janet Dennis's remains from bones found in a mound of ashes located on the ranch. He held before the jury a charred skull. That's fucked up.

Interesting prop here or whatever piece of evidence. He showed the jurors an indentation in the center back portion of the skull where a blow apparently had been struck before the woman died or could be the cause of death. He testified that he found signs of bleeding. He said that it indicated that she had been struck before she was burned.

So although the skull had been burned twice, the spot where the blow was struck did not burn, indicating she'd been hit hard enough to bleed severely before her body was burned. So again, how did he get her out of the house without leaving any trace of evidence behind? You know, lead a woman out to a 1,500-acre farm where she knows what's going to happen. That's what I mean. Like, how did this happen exactly? Yeah.

So they said, though, they still haven't been able to establish it as a cause of death. Then Tad testifies about the bones. They said he's 13 years old and sobbing in court about this, which I don't blame this poor, poor, poor fucking Tad and all of them. Tad, Todd, Julie. Oh, this is horrible for them. Your mother's gone and your dad is here. This is terrible. He said he was helping his brother look on their family farm for animal bones for a show and tell project.

And they tossed bones, which they later learned were their mother's remains. Oh, my God.

He said he took Todd and Julie to the ranch two days after their mother disappeared. They said Leroy took them home. He stayed the weekend at the house and then went back to the ranch on Monday. He said that Leroy had told the boys that he killed a possum and burned it on the property. Tad, while on the stand, begins crying again during his appearance when he identified a photograph of his mother wearing her favorite necklace. Yeah.

And so he cried as any kid would. And he said she wore it all the time. Police say parts of that chain were found at the burn site. He said we threw some on some of the bone. And he said on the on the stand, we threw some of the bones around playing with them. They were pretty much laying on top of the ashes. He also told the judge that Leroy admitted burning the bones, but claimed they were possum bones.

When asked after the day of court, they talked to Irving Box here, the attorney for Leroy, about how'd today go. He said, the boy's testimony was not a positive thing for us. No, it wasn't. That's all of it right there. That's the whole case. Without the kids playing with the bones, you got no fucking case here whatsoever. So the surprise, now this prosecution brings out what the defense are calling a surprise witness. Oh.

Okay. This is a young lady, Denise Lynn Thomas, who's 16 years old, and she said that she saw Leroy Dennis poking through a toolbox at the back of his pickup truck from about 3 p.m. on December 7, 1990, and the truck was parked outside the house of the ex-wife, and the teenager testified she saw the truck three times that day parked in the same driveway. So come and go. She said that...

that Leroy was wearing a tan one-piece overall outfit. Strangest outfit. It's got to be coveralls. And that she saw him take something out of his truck.

She said she didn't see him again that day, but she noticed his truck parked at the house later that evening at 4, 7, and 8.30 p.m. How did the kids not know their father's truck was outside in the driveway all day long? Yeah, they didn't go to bed until 9.30. And we're doing Christmas decorations, so they're out, they're doing shit around windows. And I'm like, oh, Dad's here. No one notices that. Yeah, right. That's a good point. They're decorating shit around the windows. Fucking crazy. Yeah.

Yeah. That's crazy. An earlier witness testified that Leroy Dennis regularly stayed at the house when he was in Oklahoma City as a house sitter, quote unquote. This she says she knows when it was because, quote, I remember because I had a school musical and that was the only rehearsal that required me to leave the house that day. And so they said that he said she also said she never saw his face again.

That's not good. That's not a positive identification then. But I saw his structure as he was getting into the truck. That's not a positive ID. She said she's been his neighbor for at least six years before this. The defense attorney tried to have the testimony suppressed.

But they the prosecutors said no. And the judge let her let him have it. The prosecutor said we've been aware of a witness, this girl, but we didn't know exactly what she saw. Her mother had been interviewed and she, the young lady, spoke up that she had seen him in Oklahoma City. The prosecutor, the defense accused the prosecutors of blindsiding us with this testimony.

And the prosecutor said they've known about it since January 14th. Or I'm sorry, the defense said they've known about it since January 14th for months and failed to give us proper notice. But here's someone that should completely wipe him out anyway. A grain operator. Oh, okay.

In Vici, which is where he said he was buying grain, testifies in court under oath that he saw Leroy picking up a load of grain at about 2 p.m. on December 8th, 1990. Just like fucking he said he was. Couldn't be at the house. That apparently contradicted the 16-year-old girl's testimony because she saw him at 3 p.m. at the residence. This is 150 miles away. Hmm.

So not possible is what that is. Impossible. You're not getting 150 miles in an hour. No. Not happening. And you'd have so much fucking grain. She'd say, I just saw all this grain. It was crazy. He didn't have room for a toolbox in the back of the truck. It was all grain. It's all grain. He had no tools. It's just piles of grain.

So the defense here, even though the judge ordered Dennis held for trial, the defense attorney said the prosecutors have showed no big surprises so far. They said, as a matter of fact, in the course of their case, we probably picked up more ammunition for a defense than we expected. Sure. Which, I mean, one witness puts him there and that witness is completely washed away. Mm-hmm.

It's crazy. So they say, what about the boyfriend? That's the defense. How about Jim? Yeah. How about Jim? They said that he was at the top of the list of suspects. What the fuck here? And that's what the, even the detective testified to that. He was eliminated after, as a suspect after police learned or didn't learn, they were told that he was at Fort Sill when Janet disappeared during a cross examination of this defect detective though,

He admits that detectives were unable to interview his lieutenant, who was the one responsible for his alibi. No, he's the one person could could solidify his alibi and they couldn't fucking. They were unable to interview him. So, in other words, you don't have an alibi then. Right. If the prosecutors in a murder trial couldn't get to you. All we've got is you saying you were somewhere else.

Yep, another soldier, which he said so too. Everybody's saying that. Another soldier, identified as Pam Milton, told detectives she couldn't remember whether Jim was at Fort Still that night or not. He has oogats of an alibi, this guy. Mm-hmm.

So Jim testifies and he said he didn't do anything wrong and he testifies that he gave her a ring shortly before she disappeared and that he loved her and all that and all of his lies come out and everything. Now in closings, but they actually make it so a lot of those lies don't get brought up in court. Okay.

So now in closings, the prosecution said Leroy Dennis did everything in his power to silence Janet Dennis. But she managed to talk to you through the soft grandfatherly tones of Dr. Clyde Snow. She spoke loudly in this trial. And what she said is Leroy Dennis is the man who killed her.

Okay. Prosecutors repeated Todd's tale about how his younger brother and him played with the bones on the ranch, found out they were their mother. And he says the one thing that just screams out is how he was able to walk right up to that bone pile. This man is totally evil. That's evil. Pretty fucked up. That's way fucked up.

The district attorney here said that he was disgusted by what that child's testimony revealed. He said it was the ultimate act of vengeance upon upon her. It's almost beyond my comprehension that a man would do that to his own children.

He also urged the jurors in closing arguments to put him on death row as well. Not only do we need him to be convicted, he needs to die. He said it takes a special kind of person who can stand and watch a human being burn, but it takes a more special man who can do that to the woman who gave birth to his three children.

Also says the most damaging evidence against Leroy Dennis is that we found the body on his farm along with the testimony of his children that he told them the bones belonged to a possum. We don't have to prove cause of death. We've done that circumstantially. OK, the defense in their closing asked the jurors to be skeptical of circumstantial evidence, especially when it's that's all there is.

Yeah. He said, and please consider Jim Umbenhauer as a suspect in the death because he is. If you look at loose ends, he's got just as many of them as our guys. Absolutely. So if one gets death row and the other gets nothing, that's a little weird.

So the verdict comes in here, and before the verdict comes in, as the judge releases the jury to do deliberations, he advises the jurors to, quote, bring your toothbrushes in case you have to be sequestered once you begin deliberations. So the jurors, by the way, took the charred bones into the jury room to deliberate with them. We'll go ahead and take Janet with us here.

So after a relatively short deliberation, they find him guilty of first degree murder. Unbelievable. Wow, that's wild. So, yeah, reactions here. The defense attorney said, well, we'll ask the jury not to take Leroy's life.

That's where we're at now. Yeah. That's all we got to do. The prosecutor said he wasn't surprised at the quickness of the verdict, which, dude, yeah, you were. Shut the fuck up. You were blown away. He said, I called him a cold-blooded murderer. I told him everything that he did. And, you know, of course they're going to find him that because I'm that good, is what he said. I am a winner. Sentencing comes around.

Defense attorney said he vowed to fight like hell to keep his client off death row. Doesn't want him. The one thing, though, that makes a difference is not the attorney. Tad gets on the stand and he's crying. He couldn't look more like a little kid who doesn't want to lose his parents. He comes in holding a red baseball cap in his hands. He's probably got an Oklahoma Sooners cap on.

He takes it off to go to court and holds it while he sobs. And he told the jurors that if they could please spare his father, please don't kill my father. He said it would make life a lot easier for him, my brother, and my little sister, and then sobbed uncontrollably. Really?

Yeah. I mean, if you're a juror, Jesus Christ, man, that's brutal. I'm shocked. Who put him up to that? The defense attorney. And he wanted to do it. And they said, do you want your dad to die? And he said, no. Get up there and tell him about it. So the verdict all comes in. Verdict comes in. You, sir, may fuck off life without parole. Is that right?

Life without, not the death penalty. So there's a juror here named Richard Herndon who they talked to, and he said, we decided we didn't want this man out on the streets again. The enormity of the crime deserved the death penalty, but Tad was the deciding factor, they said. They said Tad convinced at least three jurors to vote against the death penalty. The first vote was 9-3 for the death penalty. Really? Really.

He said, but unable to persuade the three who were against the death penalty, the jurors eventually were unanimous on their sentence because they were like, I'm not taking another person away from that kid. It wasn't I feel bad for him. It was I'm not taking more people from that kid. How the fuck can you do that? Very nice, yeah. So they took three hours to reach this verdict, and this juror said that the other jurors found the evidence overwhelming, even though it was circumstantial. There was no doubt that he was the only one with a motive to kill her. You're going on motive? Motive.

That is not evidence, my friend. Motive is not even part of what the prosecution has to show. That's literally all they have is motive. He said that the prosecutor said he hoped the jury would have given a death sentence, but he wasn't disappointed. He said it's a complex case and we can't kill everybody. You know what I mean? No, he didn't say that. He said it's a – in Oklahoma, people are like, yeah, that's about right for a prosecutor.

He said, it's a complex case. We couldn't prove the cause of death or how he did it. So under the circumstances, the jury did a remarkable job. And Leroy Dennis's family members said they were relieved they weren't going to he wasn't going to be put to death. So 1994, he has his automatic appeal for life without. And that gets tossed the fuck out. Nothing there. 1999 is his other appeal. This is his get all your shit together appeal here.

He appeals first the neighbor testimony. He said about this high school girl lived across the street. It's they said, although the state had endorsed Mrs. Ms. Thomas as a witness, the prosecutor maintained that he had only discovered the true value of her testimony over the lunch hour that day.

And decided to call her without telling the defense. So during a conversation with Ms. Thomas, the prosecutor learned that she had last seen him not on June 3rd or 4th, as her mother had reported, but on June 7th, the day of the disappearance. No other witnesses. That's in Oklahoma City. No other witnesses testified to seeing Leroy in Oklahoma City anywhere on that day.

As a matter of fact, conversely, multiple people testified that he was in Sealing that day or other towns far away from Oklahoma City. So they said that his counsel objected to the testimony on the basis of unfair surprise. He said, Judge, I know we're coming to the end of Friday, but say we've got to work Saturday and Sunday to do this would be unfair to us. Before she's even put on, we would ask to have a continuance in regard to that based on her testimony.

Find out who she is, what she's going to say, shit like that. In spite of the complaint of unfairness, the court offered a continuance only until Monday morning at 9 o'clock. The counsel for Leroy then requested a recess so that he and his co-counsel could interview her. Counsel stated that once they had interviewed her, he might have an announcement to make in court.

After the recess, the counsel announced that he and his co-counsel had interviewed Ms. Thomas during the recess. He stated that Ms. Thomas told him that she had provided the purportedly new information to the police department 14 months prior to trial. Remember when I told you that earlier? That's when they knew it. This prosecutor tried to say, I just heard about it at lunch. Over the lunch break. Yeah. So on this basis, the counsel requested that her testimony be disallowed because it's obviously not OK, but the court overruled the objection.

Uh, council did not renew his request for a continuance. Ms. Thomas took the stand. Council again requested that the record indicate his strenuous objections to her testimony. She testified. She knew him. She was familiar with the truck and that she had seen him in his vehicle, at least a

side view of him. Yeah, right. On December 9th or December 7th at about 3 o'clock p.m. She said what all the testimony that she gave on cross-examination. The other defense attorney brought up that her mother in prior statements said that you had seen him on the 3rd or the 4th, not the 7th.

So what the fuck? And also, you said you didn't see his face that day. Right. You don't know who the fuck you saw. It's crazy. So also, they look into, did she really have a play going on? Because she said that's how she knew what day it was. Right, right, right. Well, Leroy presented new evidence, which had not been presented to the state courts. The most important piece of evidence was an affidavit from Ms. Thomas' music teacher. So?

Say what? In the affidavit, the teacher stated that the school play Ms. Thomas referred to was performed on December 13th, 1990. There were 10 rehearsals for the play, and the last rehearsal was on the date the play was presented just before it started, unlike what she said. Attached to the affidavit was a purported cover sheet from the play program reflecting the December 13th date.

Let's see. Leroy also presented an affidavit from a private investigator who interviewed Denise Thomas. That's the young girl there. The investigator obtained information from Ms. Thomas that the playing question was Scrooge and that the rehearsal she referred to in her trial testimony occurred one hour before the actual production. The district court supplemented the record with the music teacher's affidavit but discounted the private investigator's affidavit because it was based on hearsay. They were like, well, we like the stuff that's good for the prosecutor, so...

It denied Leroy an evidentiary hearing on the ineffectiveness issue, finding that he had failed to develop factual – okay. So the district court also rejected his claims saying that his counsel failed to show prejudice from his counsel's alleged ineffectiveness. Now, also, that's what he's saying is ineffective assistance of counsel based on letting her testimony in. So it's my lawyer's fault.

He argues here that counsel should have accepted the trial court's offer of a continuance to investigate the testimony of Denise Thomas, should have investigated her testimony, and should have filed a motion to compel the prosecution to give the defense a list of witnesses with a summary of their anticipated testimony, which I thought was standard procedure here.

Also, it was one of the reasons why you're convicted.

So he can't prove that, though. They say a fair assessment of attorney performance requires that every effort be made to eliminate the distorting effects of hindsight, to reconstruct the circumstances of counsel's challenged conduct, and to evaluate the conduct from counsel's perspective at the time. So they said if it falls into a range of normal there, there's nothing we can fucking do about it at that point.

So his counsel maintained he didn't file a motion because the state maintained an open file policy. Even if the counsel had requested such a summary, it would have been unlikely to have been prevented the harm here. According to the state, the testimony was not available until the very day in which she testified. And then he also talks about improper prosecutorial comments, including the odor of burned flesh and he may have burned her alive and all these –

All these things. They say that while personal attacks are clearly prohibited, no relief is warranted in the present case because the remarks complained of were not personal attacks on defense counsel. The comment at issue is not limited in application to defense counsel, but it could be applied to the prosecution as well. Pellett's argument is without merit. So he is shit out of luck. Oh, my God. In the can. Now, 2001. Mm-hmm.

Tad writes an article for the Daily Oklahoman. Is that right? He's got to be, what, 20 maybe now? Got to be, right? 20, 21, something like that. And this is by Tad Dennis, and it's called Parole Board Provides Checks and Balances.

Okay.

the board has the authority to recommend to the governor that this individual be pardoned. The act of receiving clemency rests solely with the signature of the governor after a favorable and majority vote of the parole board. Any parole commuted sentence reprieve or pardon recommended by the parole board must be sent to the governor for a final review for his signature or denial. Anyone convicted of a crime and seeking clemency through parole, uh,

commuted sentence, reprieve or pardon is subjected to multiple hearings and investigative process in order to determine the validity of the request and whether the clemency is appropriate.

This is – Tad knows a lot about this apparently. He said,

So,

Some people have been sentenced to prison for a crime they didn't commit. Courts and juries do make mistakes and convict innocent people. Those convictions are held throughout the appellate process. This is just one reason for the existence of the board. The governor is responsible for prison overcrowding. When he refuses to sign a parole, sentence commutation, or reprieve for political reasons, because all of them have to go, I'm the toughest on crime. I'll run him over with my car. I won't even have a trial.

I'll run him out in front of the courthouse. Him and his goddamn defense attorney. Run them both down. Everybody votes for him.

He says it compounds the problem of prison overcrowding and adds to the need for more prison bed space. Well, then they just build more prisons and claim they're creating jobs at that point. I created all these jobs in this county. They're all prison jobs. Great. Good job. Good work, idiots. So they said programs such as parole, special supervised release, et cetera, wouldn't be needed to deal with prison overcrowding if the pardon and parole board would use what the law already allows and the governor would sign –

approved request for clemency. And then it says, Dennis writes from Alva. His father, Leroy Dean Dennis, is serving a term of life without parole for the 1990 murder of the writer's mother. Dennis believes his father is innocent of the crime. That's the important part. He's saying he did it. He doesn't think his dad did it. No, he thinks he's innocent. I don't know if he wants him to be innocent.

Now, okay, that's the story, but there's one other thing I can't find if it is or not, and I pray and I hope that this is not Tad, okay? Yeah. The Detroit Free Press in, what is this, like 2011, 2016, something like that here? Oh, God. An off-duty Warren, this is from the Detroit Free Press, off-duty Warren firefighter, Tad Dennis-

downed at least 10 drinks at a day-long golf outing last September 11th, then was served 88 ounces of beer at Clinton Township Restaurant before he stumbled outside and got back behind the wheel of his Ford Escape. Fourteen minutes later, Dennis' SUV plowed at high speed head-on into a car driven by a Sterling Heights teenager on a residential side street.

17 year old Diana Pod, uh, pause Durka was dead from this. What the fuck? The complaint details the teens last minutes alive as she lifted her head from the dashboard of a wrecked car and told a witness using a fire extinguisher to put out the flames around her quote, help me. He hit me. Help me. He hit me. My legs, my legs, please help me. I can't feel my legs. Jesus Christ.

Holy shit. Oh, my. So, yes, they're suing. And Dennis of Sterling Heights is already facing criminal charges of second-degree murder and operating while intoxicated and causing death. I'm hoping this isn't him. I'm really at it. The alcohol level was 0.21%. I haven't seen he move to Michigan. I haven't seen anything. But...

If not, I really feel bad for Tad Dennis because he's got some asshole using his name for fucking horrible reasons here. And he was driving like 80 miles an hour, more than twice the speed limit. I hope that's just not him. I hope it's not him.

And he ended up being sentenced to 11 to 30 years in prison. So I hope it's not, Tad. Good Christ. Really fucking do. But either way, that is sealing Oklahoma, everybody. What happened to- Fucking bonkers. Dad, is he still in prison? Still, life without. He's still there. Oh my God. Still there. I can't find him dead, so he must be still in there. Yep. I found his background thing where I found it was definitely him because it had his murder charges on it.

But it doesn't say he's deceased on there. So there you go. That's fucked up. I don't know what happened here. I don't know if he did this or not. I really don't. Well, here's something. The bones are there. Yeah, if you're going by the Scott Peterson thing, she's dead where he was. You know what I mean? That's not good. It's not good. And especially the bones are on his property. But the other one, though, Scott Peterson didn't quite have –

This Jim Umber Brower or whatever is way more of a suspect than those burglars in a fucking van. Amber didn't have VHS tapes of her mom getting railed. That's the other problem. Yeah. Jesus Christ. So there you go.

If you like the show, give us five stars on whatever app you're listening on. It really helps a lot. How about that? There was an Amber in this, too, wasn't there? Yeah, there was. Two Ambers in these creepy fucking stories. Fucking Amber. So do that. Get on whatever app you're listening on, please. Also, shut up and give me murder.com. Tickets for live shows, October 18th, Kansas City. You are on deck. Oklahoma City is the next night, but that's sold out.

Can't get to that one unless people are selling tickets or something. So get in there. Also, October 30th, be there for the virtual live show. There we go.

There we go. Be where, you may ask. Any fucking where you feel like being. Yeah. Anywhere. Your house. Anywhere. Doesn't matter. You can watch it. Live show. Just like a regular live show. The screen. Us. Things. Pictures. Jokes. Murder story. Except we're going to be wearing costumes, too, because it's fucking Halloween. We're going to have a blast. You can watch it two weeks afterwards. You can have it. Do whatever you want with it for two weeks. So enjoy that. And that is Shut Up and Give Me Murder, Duck.

This week is no different. For this week, 1993 Florida State football scandal for crime and sports.

They were cheating like crazy and getting all sorts of money and shoes and shit, and they won a national championship. Then for small town murder, I can't wait for this one. It's going to be great. In 1976, Utah State Prison Diagnostic Psychological Evaluation of Ted Bundy. Amazing. Amazing.

We get to hear what Ted Bundy thinks about little pictures of shit. Like, here's a picture with a guy outside of a house with that. What do you think Ted Bundy interprets that as? We'll find out. Can't wait. That is patreon.com slash crime in sports. Check that out and listen to our other shows. Listen to crime in sports. Listen to your stupid opinions as well.

And, Jimmy, I think what I need right now, hit me with the names of the most wonderful goddamn people in the world who keep this show going week after week and keep the lights on here in the studios. Hit me with them right now. Does the executive producer or Joseph...

Armstrong, Elena Zemel, Peyton Meadows, Thomas Lamar, and Kelly Story. And Alexis Snap, happy birthday, Alexis. Thank you. Happy birthday. Yeah. Other producers this week are Janice Hill, Chance Plofter, Platter, maybe Plotter.

Those are very different words. P-L-A-F-T-E-R. That's what his last name is. He P's from laughter. Yeah. Katie Namuth. Ariel Rose Walmsley. Patty Raines. Diana Carfire. Is that right? Rachel Brawner. Josh would know the last name. Wyatt Mitchell. Pam would know the last name. Josie Tucker. Nan would know the last name. Jordan Turcote. Christina Sabol. Holly Beher. Beher. Beher.

Jake Everett, Heidi Summerfield, Jennifer Fletcher, Anna Wenzel, Cassidy Spencer, Sean Riazzi, Christine Peterson. This show also brought to you by the letter K. Jessica Harden, Catherine Bell, Carla with no last name, Jack Elliott, Christine Kiefer, Chihula, Chihuahua Bear. I like the paint. Oh, okay. What's a Chihuahua? Is that a...

You're asking me. Is that a place? I don't know. I don't know. I thought you were trying to say Chalupa. I have no idea. Moving along.

Katie with no last name. Ellen McCormick, Dylan Myers, Laura McLaughlin, Kristen Wallace, Lily with no last name, Audrey, Adri, Adri, Jaquinot, Jaquinot? Jaquinot? Jaquinot. Jackie, no? It's like an astronaut, but not. It looks like Jaquinot. All right. Ashley McCabe, Stephanie Settle, Zachary Kratzass, Courtney Shepard, Brent...

What is this? Brian Stimson. Jenny Lust. That sounds like a porn star. Larry Johnson. Probably not, but I'd love it. I'm sure it's Grandma Ma. CeCe Martin. Give that money back to your children, you deadbeat dad. Courtney Krueger. Stop giving us money. Take care of your kids first. Only Larry Johnson. The rest of you, give us money.

Yeah, Julie with no last name, AJ Merle, Chris with no last name, Lindley, Lindley Martin, Gail Tina, Shayla O'Keefe, Emma Schweiger, Destiny Neeson, Ben and Linnea Walker, Nikki Gagon, Gagon, Gagon, Gagon, Gagon. Do you remember? That was in Dirty Dancing. Her fingers to his chest. Gagon.

Hanson, Rachel Kazanas. Is that a second time Kazanas? Maybe. No, that's Kratzass. It's two Kazanas and Kratzass. Wow. Thank you, all the cats in your ass people. We appreciate it. Tracy B. Max with no last name. Crystal Alquist. Stephanie Chappelle. Dr. Lars Hawkins. Ann Karmick.

Carmich, Denise Eblen, Jenny O'Malley, Amanda Cabral, Lucas Burr, Barry McCockiner. Sure, that's your name. You son of a bitch. Michael Swink, Heather Helms. Fair picture. You can watch my children. Beth Foster, Mike Hunt, another guy who's got a really fascinating name that's a pain in the ass when he goes missing in stores. Cheryl Teal Dagonais. Yes.

Dagon, Dagon, not going to work. Catherine Kerr, Brooke Hanson, Kit McLeod. Oh, Kit Cloud Kicker, Jennifer Harriman, Harriman, Jonathan Yoder, Bill Dickens sheets. Probably not. Aaron would know last name. Stephanie Martin, L Henderson, Carly Jack B, Michelle Shaw, Barrett Chamberlain, Tiffany Rector.

Barely knew her. Angie L. Jen Trujillo. I thought that was coming. Barely knew I was going to say it. Mary Carr. Scott Kaminer. James Mitchell. Vape God. Michael with no last name. Jonathan Wilson. Martha with no last name. Leah Callis. Somebody made their name Vape God. Think about that. It's hilarious. Can you believe it? Vape God. They are one of those ring blowers. Oh, God.

Casey with no last name. Vape God. Vape God. I'm going to be the first one to die of whatever this shit gives me. Whatever strange disease they come up with next from this crazy shit. Broccoli Lung. Lena with no last name. Andrea with no last name. Carrie Keeler. Anthony Pickling. Picking. All right. Picking.

Peking. All right, Peking. A and B. This show brought to you by the letters A and B. Linda Fannin, Carl Whitaker, Bill T., Lisa Norris, Chuck's daughter, Sherry wouldn't know the last name, Carlos Montoya, Jens, Jens, what is that? That's a fucking European name, right? Jens? Yeah, Jens. Jens Eilestead? Kelly R. There's a Heil in there, so you know it's European. Yeah.

We wouldn't approve of that shit. No heiling in America anymore. We don't do that. Chris Avera, Rachel Stenzel, Dwayne Wolf, JMC, Ari Woodyard, Sarah with no last name, Hill Dolly, Will Walton, Greg Lemke, Gabriella with no last name, Sierra Bretnaker, Jamie LaRose, Oscar and Isidro Guerrero. All right.

Chloe Alexander, Mikkel Beckberry, Leona G, Nicole Gordon, Tracy Connor, Kat with no last name, Deidre Marsh. Oh, what is this? It's got to be Christy. It can't be Kiesty. Delp, Mike with no last name, Tyler Jones, Eva fucking Milnikova, Milnikova, Milnikova.

Big country. Jeff S., Samantha Farrell, Pharrell maybe. Ryan Reeves gave us money? It appears so. Wow. Thanks. Borderland Kennels, EPTX. Sharon Kuziak. Paula Cruz, Ashley Flynn, Aidan Murphy, Maria Bonair, Tammy Jo, Savannah DeVito,

Dave Hughes, Lily, Lily, Lily Nygaard. Dave with no last name. Stephanie Bonner, Jason Wolfe, Heather Buchanan, Jeff Kirk, Lindsay Golden, Megan Hartman, Brittany Blackwell, Melissa Henry, Ashley with no last name, Dent with no last name, Jacob K. M. Kostruskis.

Oh, aggressive. Yeah. Paula Jackson. Lauren Pippin. Probably somebody related. Somebody. Clearly. Tracy Poets. Someone who's fucking Michael Jordan's kid. Oh, Tracy, you're terrific. Tristan M. Climate change related anxiety. Boy, don't I know it. And Angela with no last name. Sarah O'Brien. Jenny Miller. Blake Perry. Patty with no last name. Jessica Smedley. Captain Whisker Dick. All right. Whiskey Dick. Not Whisker Dick. Whisker Dick.

Very skinny. Very skinny dick. Very hairy. Very hairy. Skinny dick. Christopher Giun. Gail Tana. Mikey with no last name. Kezia with no last name. Natalie Myers. Connie Smith. Quinlan with no last name. Veronica Love. Jill Sellers. Kelly Marriott. Uh,

Christine C. Mello, Sarah Nielsen, Diana Crowder, Viviana Hernandez, Dominic Chester, and all of our patrons. Of course, you're amazing. Thank you. Thank you, everybody, so much. From the bottom of our hearts, we cannot thank you enough. And just thanks for all you do for us. If you want to follow us on social media, head over to ShutUpAndGiveMeMurder.com. Drop down menu has links to everything. Keep coming back and hanging out with us week after week. And until next week, everybody, it's been our pleasure.

Bye.

In the Pacific Ocean, halfway between Peru and New Zealand, lies a tiny volcanic island. It's a little-known British territory called Pitcairn, and it harboured a deep, dark scandal. There wouldn't be a girl on Pitcairn once they reached the age of 10 that would still have heard it. It just happens to all of us.

I'm journalist Luke Jones and for almost two years I've been investigating a shocking story that has left deep scars on generations of women and girls from Pitcairn. When there's nobody watching, nobody going to report it, people will get away with what they can get away with. In the Pitcairn Trials I'll be uncovering a story of abuse and the fight for justice that has brought a unique, lonely Pacific island to the brink of extinction.

Listen to the Pitcairn Trials exclusively on Wondery Plus. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts or Spotify.