Bad Times at the Cozy Inn (Earl Marshall)
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Hi, I'm Ashley Flowers, creator and host of the number one true crime podcast, Crime Junkie. Every Monday, me and my best friend Britt break down a new case, but not in the way you've heard before, and not the cases you've heard before. You'll hear stories on Crime Junkie that haven't been told anywhere else. I'll tell you what you can do to help victims and their families get justice.

Join us for new episodes of Crime Junkie every Monday. Already waiting for you by searching for Crime Junkie wherever you listen to podcasts. The reason that I'm here is we're taking a look at all of the unsolved homicides in the case, excuse me, in the county. Earl Marshall up at Cozy Inn, you remember that one? Yep, got shot through his dorm door. I'm Scott Weinberger, investigative journalist and former deputy sheriff.

I'm Anastasia Nicolazzi, former New York City homicide prosecutor and host of Investigation Discovery's True Conviction. And this is Anatomy of Murder. Today we're talking about a cold case that has really haunted a small town for over 40 years. I spoke with Detective Sergeant Adam Mercer, who really has a legacy with the department he works for, the Nahuatl County Sheriff's Office.

Working for the public has really become the Mercer family business.

Today's story spans more than 40 years. Decades of suspicions, questions, after years of running down leads, chasing theories, all of that led nowhere and the case just set. But in 2015, Detective Sergeant Mercer was tasked with picking up the case of Earl Marshall. Adam decided to dust off the case files and begin to dig in. Now the term cold case, it's not going to be unfamiliar to any of you.

Every detective, everyone picking up a cold case has a different strategy, but they all start with the same thing. They have this canvas of all the work that has done before them, and they need to analyze it with those fresh eyes and not only look from the perspective of those that have worked on that case before them, but to see if there's any holes or any new paths for them to follow.

And even though they may have developed a list of potential suspects, nobody at the time was charged. And that's why it became a cold case. Just because a person was looked at at the time of the original crime and wasn't arrested doesn't mean they didn't do it. It just means that there may have not been enough evidence to prosecute.

So as we're looking at and talking about this case today, the real question is, is that suspect list still valid? Are the people they were looking at back then still a possibility? And could they still be responsible for the murder of Earl Marshall? Or it could be someone that was never even on their radar at all. Today, you won't just be hearing from Detective Sergeant Mercer. You remember Earl Marshall? Oh, Earl, yes, yes.

You'll also get to hear the raw interviews conducted by him with the witnesses. So as we're going through what happened to Earl now, as it's looked at today, make sure you all keep an ear out for anything that sounds suspicious to you. So before we get into the details of the actual murder, I think it's important to paint a picture of Earl Marshall, where he worked and where he lived. And it all circles around his restaurant.

The nickname of his restaurant was The Cozy. It wasn't very big, but The Cozy Inn surely became a staple in this small little town and was located right near the Hardy Dam. It's kind of a local attraction. There's a big pond nearby.

which was a big stop for sightseers and for campers. There's over 2,000 campsites around that dam and in the adjoining area. And in most days, there was Earl on either side of the bar, whether it was serving drinks or sipping a drink with a customer shooting the breeze. And you could almost shut your eyes and picture exactly what it was that went on day to day. If you'd been there to the cozy inn, you'd know there always would be a casual conversation with Earl Marshall.

This is an interview between investigators and several witnesses. What can you tell me about Earl, as far as a person, any enemies? He was a great guy. He was everybody's love. Just loved him to death. All the people that knew him loved the guy. Earl was a hugger. Earl was a real friendly guy. A good guy. Went there because it was just like one big happy family. Mm-hmm.

And when you're talking about a small town in a rural area, places like this are really, in a way, the social fabric of the community. Earl did own the cozy inn with two other people, his sister Sally and her husband Buddy, his brother-in-law. He was a co-owner of the restaurant. His house was directly next door, maybe 40 yards away. Earl lived alone and was recently divorced from his wife, Barb.

This is a recorded interview between Detective Sergeant Adam Mercer and Earl's ex-wife, Barb. Mm-hmm.

Just a few days after Thanksgiving in 1979, Earl Marshall was found dead inside his home in the morning. A guy by the name of Billy Simmons was a friend of Earl Marshall. Billy went over to say hi around 9.30 a.m., and he found Earl dead right behind his door. He found Earl laying on his back with a single gunshot wound to his head. But here's the thing.

Billy didn't call 911 to report it. He called the co-owner of the cozy inn, Buddy. Buddy was the one who called 911. Now, we can obviously look at this two ways, right, Anastasia? You know, is that the norm when you walk in and you find your friend dead, shot in the head, that you don't call police right away? Could it be suspicious to you? Yeah. You find someone dead. To me, I would think the first person you would call would be police.

But even if you're going to call, I don't know, maybe call a parent if it's a child, a child if it's a parent, there's certain relationships I can understand. But here he called Buddy. So all I could think about, and of course it's pure speculation, is that is there something about the cozy inn that makes it important that the first call Billy wants to make is to the other owner of the inn?

Police would get a phone call and would arrive on scene. You know, we only had one detective at the time. So the state police came in and they had four or five detectives on scene as well as their crime lab to process it. And crime scene investigators would begin their work with Earl Marshall's body. He was dressed in nothing but a T-shirt and underwear. According to his wife, that was normal if he was asleep.

He's always slept in his underwear, but he would drop his pants by the side of the bed and, you know, and then pull them on if he had to get up or in the morning.

I mean, to me, just the way he's dressed means he was awoken. So he's responding to something. Is it a door knock? Is it a loud sound? Is somebody calling him from outside to get him to open the front door? Because he wasn't shot in his bed. He wasn't shot next to his bed because we know he died very quickly, almost instantly based on the wound. No reason to believe that he was anywhere but home in bed. What was it that got him to his front door?

I would say this was a fairly neat entry hole in the front of his face. With a little bit of blood around. And that's an important fact. The reason here is that when someone's shot in the head and they die instantly, the heart ceases to pump blood, preventing a large loss or pooling of blood around the body. There was no evidence of forced entry. And a canvas of the area would also help investigators to begin a potential timeline.

When they spoke to neighbors, there was a gunshot heard around 4, 4.30 a.m. At that time of night, with what he was wearing, a T-shirt and underwear, he was in bed. And something got his attention, and he came to the door. So once they look around inside, they now look right outside. The gun itself, I will tell you, was a high-powered rifle.

Now, if I hear that in Brooklyn, that's going to mean something very different to me if that gun is in Brooklyn versus in Michigan, because the time of year is going to factor into this too. Just keep in mind that this was right in the middle of not only deer hunting season in Michigan, but also rifle season. And so it is very common for someone to have access to that type of gun, but also to actually have that gun out and about because of the time of year that it is.

When investigators began to dig into their forensic investigation outside the front door, they found boot prints, which was more than 10 yards away in the carport. Here's also something really interesting. Once investigators began to examine the hole in the door, they were able to measure a potential trajectory. In this case, they were able to find a projectile

that was shot through the victim and landed in a wall behind him. And today we would use lasers to measure it out. But in 1979, the old method was taking a string, a long piece of string, and determining the path of the bullet where the weapon may have been discharged from. The one thing you're definitely going to be looking for is someone who's known as a very good shot. You think about the precision of a marksman,

the precision of a hunter. Based on the area, there's also likely quite a bit of military. I have actually the crime report in front of me. This was really a perfect shot, a precision shot, something that you just don't fire from the hip, something that you just aren't surprised in the carport and decide that you need to defend yourself. This is an absolute execution with a high-powered weapon.

And it really almost feels like a sniper type attack. I mean, they're out there waiting. The gun is focused and it's just a single gunshot that is able to precisely hit Earl Marshall in the head. But in this case, let me throw one other theory out there.

If the shooter was targeting the front door, knowing he was going to open the door, is it possible that he had an accomplice, somebody who can knock on the door and that person would be ready to take a breath and squeeze the trigger? That is something that I would have been looking at as part of this investigation that may really pay dividends down the road in this investigation.

Sure, because if you end up with someone, just like you said, Scott, that actually their role was to go to the door and knock on the door, under the law, in for a penny, in for a pound. They are as guilty under the law, so they have much more to lose and maybe much more reason to ultimately talk if their identity is found out. When you're at a crime scene in a rural setting, you would ask yourself, is there anybody local that I can think of who could have done this?

But early on in the investigation in 1979, they did develop a potential suspect, a person with a criminal record, an ex-con in the area involved in several property crimes. And he did have a connection to our victim, Earl Marshall. His name was Jackie Simmons. And yes, he is a son to Billy Simmons, who found Earl deceased.

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Investigators were searching for who executed restaurant owner Earl Marshall at his home in the wee morning hours. Immediately after the investigation, they were already looking for witnesses. Even though the cozy inn was located in a very rural area, just about 100 yards away was a mobile home park. I'm going to say that's less than 100 yards away from this.

Hearing gunshots in this type of area would usually go unnoticed, the fact that it was deer season and deer hunting is so popular in this area. There were a lot of people that they were knocking on their doors, asking if they heard anything, and a couple did. And there was a small kind of a convenience store with a gas station.

Picture like you're looking down at a map. You'll have the Cozy Inn. Right next door is Earl Marshall's residence, and right nearby was a grocery store. He could see the grocery store right from our kitchen window. Coincidentally, the owner and her daughter lived upstairs in that apartment. And both of them vividly remembered hearing a gunshot. And they also remembered another clue.

Hi, come on in. Good morning. This is Detective Mercer's interview with that mother and daughter. What do you remember of this incident, of this shooting? It was late at night, and I heard a shot. So I went to the window right away, and I seen a red car. Okay. That's all. And then in the morning...

And there was Sally pounding on the ground. He's dead. He's dead. That's all I remember. I have the handwritten note in my hand from the detective who actually spoke to the mother and daughter. They told him, heard a shot, very close, just south of them. But here's the important part. It was a bright red vehicle with sloped windows, two door, and it left with no lights on.

Okay, so it's not a random vehicle. You think this was a vehicle involved in the shooting? Yeah, it was just the whole incident was weird. And the way they were taking off, it just wasn't right. The info on the car at the time didn't produce any new leads, but their attention soon turned to another person already familiar with law enforcement. The word was around here that it might have been one of the young men down the road. And his name was Jackie Simmons.

Jackie Simmons was a teen who was also an ex-con for property crimes and lived about a half mile down the road from where this happened at. So when they put those factors together, they very quickly focused on Jackie. So, Scott, does he make a good suspect to you? Or at least I should say the question is, what made him such a good suspect to law enforcement so early on?

I do think that's a great question, Anasiga, and I think it's a limited pool of possibilities. When you have someone in the area that is known to commit a crime, like a larceny and burglary, would that lead to murder? Not really likely, but given the fact that you really have no other leads, you're going to start somewhere. So we're taking his criminal background and the connective tissue between his father and our victim. I would want to talk to Mr. Simmons.

The training standards in the 60s, 70s, and 80s are not what they are now for frontline officers or detectives. And the focus seemed to be more like, who are the local small-time criminals? It must be one of them. It was suspected that maybe Earl heard some commotion at the restaurant, like someone breaking into it, and possibly went to encounter them and got shot.

You know, investigators back in 1979 did determine that Earl took the till home with him from the restaurant to his home. If he was the one that closed up, he always brought the cash box over and set it on the countertop in the kitchen and then went to bed. So is it possible that someone knew that and that robbery of that till, the theft of the money, could have been a motive? But there are some holes in that theory.

Well, the bar wasn't broken into, and the till was still sitting on the kitchen counter in the house out in the open, untouched. So the evidence tells us that this was not a burglary, a robbery, or a larceny. So why are we looking at thieves? And then there's the issue of the rifle. He had access to a rifle. I believe his dad owned it at the time. Does somebody who's looking to come in to commit larceny or burglary, would they carry a high-powered rifle with them?

And my answer is, I don't believe so. It almost doesn't make sense. Normally, when someone's going to commit a burglar, there's two ways that they do it. They want the homeowners to be home because you have your most expensive property with you, your rings, your watches, everything like that. So the only instruments they normally bring are what they can use to jimmy the window or get in. And sometimes they call them second-story burglars because they're actually going to the second story of your house, sneaking in upstairs when you're downstairs.

And then there's a second type of burglar who's afraid to come to your home, if you're home, and want to get in and get out, hoping you're not home. Think about how cumbersome it would be to carry a high-powered rifle, whether it's scoped or not. So often, they don't carry any weapon at all.

It's unlikely. And the type of criminal who would commit murder don't do burglaries by day and murder by night. There's different pieces that just aren't adding up. But the way it was approached back then in 1979 is they really didn't have a lot of options.

Investigators got a hold of that rifle through consent. It was sent to the crime lab and was excluded as being involved in this case. So the known rifle he had access to was ruled out.

You know, it's important when you always hear me talk about developing a timeline and investigation. A solid homicide investigator really needs to dig into these three words, you know, motive, means, and opportunity. Did your suspect have the means to commit the murder? And was there an opportunity for them to also commit the crime? If you can check all three of the boxes with a potential suspect, in most cases, that suspect or suspects would be at the top of your list.

With Jackie, the opportunity, he lived nearby, so I couldn't rule him out for opportunity. But means and motive, I can't find either. And there was just a blank when it came to motive. But here's another thing about Jackie Simmons. Jackie ended up committing suicide around 1984. So unfortunately, because of the strong beliefs in his involvement, the case kind of died when he died.

Because now, even if he's the person, there's no one ever that you can prosecute. So if he's the guy, the case, in a sense, dies with him. Yes. In this case, the family believes the suspect died in the 80s. So what is there left to do? You can't prosecute a dead suspect. Right.

and certainly for Earl Marshall's family, they still were of the belief that Jackie Simmons was likely involved. I thought it was kind of common knowledge that his boy, Billy Simmons, had a boy that was a bad apple. Yeah. He probably did it.

And I really think that just comes down to, Scott, it's, you know, if you're told something enough and you want to believe it enough, that you sometimes don't need much more than that before it almost becomes your truth. You know, I don't care if the case is in a small town or a large city.

Once word of somebody, a suspect, dying by suicide without any information of why, how it happened, you're quickly going to go to the point is, you know, maybe this was an issue of his potential guilt.

But I also think that it's also their heart talking because the unknown, I believe, is sometimes much more difficult to bear than at least having the belief that you have the answers. But just that answer that they so have needed to have because it's just harder to leave with a question mark. I couldn't figure out why he was interviewed and why he was polygraphed. When he was still alive, I went and spoke with him. I said, why did they question you?

He said, because I was an ex-con, just got out of prison recently, lived in the area, and was probably on their radar. I'm sure a lot of you who are listening are thinking to themselves, picture this in your mind. You have a victim opening the front door to their home, and they have a killer proned and ready to fire the fatal shot. If that's not personal, I don't know what is. It's not larceny, robbery. It's not rape murder.

So who is in his circle? Who would have a personal beef against Earl Marshall? If this person didn't have very many enemies, this is a retaliatory murder.

We often talk about possible motives in these murders. And, you know, there's two things that normally find its way into the conversation. For love or for money. Could it have been a business partner? I did have some qualms about Bud at first. I thought about that because Bud and I never got along. Or could it have been an ex-wife? I can't imagine who in the world it could possibly be.

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The ex-wife Barb was looked at. The ex-wife Barb's new boyfriend, first name of James, was looked at pretty extensively. This is what locals had to say about Barb and Jim. And this couple described the ex and her new boyfriend in less than favorable terms. Okay.

So the question I have for you, Anasig, is could Barbara and her boyfriend be the two people theorized to have killed them? Sure. I mean, again, it's the age-old story of the ex getting back at the other ex or the new boyfriend retaliating against the ex or a combination of the two. But...

Just because people have something not nice to say, that's certainly not going to get them where they need to go. Similar to Jackie Simmons, are there things rising to the surface that make investigators need to look deeper? I think yes, but I don't think it's much more than that.

When investigators interviewed Barb, she explained that the reasons for their divorce was because she was very unhappy with Earl working at the bar, and she also had an alibi. She was more than 40 miles away working on the day that Earl was killed. So it's still possible for investigators to see if her boyfriend could have done it. And is that likely? That's the question.

It's certainly possible she wants him dead and she has her boyfriend or just someone completely different go and do it. Well, we've all had those cases. I've certainly had them myself. But, you know, just like you said, Scott, while possible, is it likely? And I'm not seeing anything that's rising me to likely. The weeks and the months turned into years. And this was clearly, as we've always said, a cold case. In 1989, a tip came in.

And it wasn't in any direct evidence, but it was implicated someone pretty substantially. But you can tell they didn't give a lot of credit to this tip. And over the years, very little movement happens on the case. In 1999, a completely separate person comes forward implicating the same person. They did a few interviews. One of the people involved seemed not very credible. So we have to wait again. That was 1999.

I talked about it in the beginning of the podcast as something that haunts that community.

And Earl's death really has become a thing of folklore in the area. That people talked about the ghost of Earl Marshall for years because his death was never avenged. It was never solved. They talked about that at the Cozy Inn, that drinks would fall off the bar at random time when no one's hand would be near there. How the house itself had murmurings that they believed Earl's ghost would walk through. Now, both his home and the Cozy Inn are no longer there.

They have been demolished over the years. But the folklore, the haunting of this case to the community, lives on. So years later, Detective Mercer gets assigned the case. And he doesn't miss a beat. Hey, Detective Adam Mercer calling on the 1979 murder of Earl Mercer. What do you remember about this homicide? He digs up old witnesses, and if they are deceased, he finds their next of kin.

And he didn't just rely on his own instincts and experience. He ended up reaching out to the FBI, which has become a very good tool for local law enforcement. You know, they don't take on the case, but they do an assessment of the information. They do a brief breeze through on case files. I reached out to the FBI's behavioral analysis unit.

And they reviewed this case twice and offered suggestions and strategy. And I always love hearing where the behavioral units come out on all this because sometimes they come out with these things that when you hear it, like, oh, yeah, that makes perfect sense, but you might not have heard it before. But some of the findings that they really came down to was this.

is that they decided that based on all the facts and the elements and the evidence that they had up to that point, that a ruse was likely used to get Earl's attention, to get him to the door. And they decided that the motive was likely... As a personal grievance homicide. So now based on what the FBI said, does that now really rule out Jackie Simmons? What may cause you to kill may not be the same as me.

And one day, when Adam Mercer is sitting combing through the files yet again, something jumps out at him. This is too good to be true.

a person who had been overlooked for all those years. Is that why this case is unsolved? And guess what? He owned a red car, just like the one that was seen fleeing the scene of the crime. And it was all tied to the restaurant. Picture me sitting there with my eyes wide open. Holy cow, this guy looks like a pretty strong suspect. Want to connect with more family and friends and their native language is in English?

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That's rosettastone.com slash N-A-T-O-M-Y. Hi, I'm Ashley Flowers, creator and host of the number one true crime podcast, Crime Junkie. Every Monday, me and my best friend Britt break down a new case, but not in the way you've heard before and not the cases you've heard before. You'll hear stories on Crime Junkie that haven't been told anywhere else. I'll tell you what you can do to help victims and their families get justice.

Join us for new episodes of Crime Junkie every Monday. Already waiting for you by searching for Crime Junkie wherever you listen to podcasts. Detective Sergeant Mercer has his sights on a new suspect, one that may have been overlooked three decades ago. His leading theory right now was this was Kermit.

A retaliatory murder. Somebody with a personal grievance against our victim, Earl Marshall. You know, could it be a scorned lover, a spiteful business partner, or could it in this case with Earl be an enraged bar patron? You have to go back to the Cozy Inn. What type of place was the restaurant?

Okay.

It's not the rowdy bar that you have bar fights every night. It's not the type of place that police are used to getting calls from and there are disgruntled patrons who end up fighting outside drunk in the middle of the night. It is just your normal low-key restaurant that people got together to eat, have a few drinks, swap stories, and then they left either with family, friends, or on their own. It is not the type of place...

that bar fights were necessarily common. So when they did happen, they were noticed. A few times where he told people to get out of there. There were a lot of crazy people around there that used to come in. I used to get very upset a lot of times with some of the people that came into the bar. There was a case at one point where prior to the murder, Earl had someone thrown out. When I first read through the file, there was someone...

That is something that the investigators had to really look at. Is it possible that somebody would take that action and that action alone of just being kicked out of the bar and turn that into a motive for murder? That's a good question. So let's turn to who this new suspect is.

He's someone who, first of all, and very importantly to Adam Mercer, is someone who is still alive. If a person who did it is no longer alive, you can never present the case in court. He's a patron who was kicked out of the bar just a few nights before Earl was killed. He owns the same red car as was described by people that saw a car fleeing into the night.

Now, we're not giving you his name for the very big reason. He has never been officially charged. It's still an open case. This is an identified suspect who is alive, who has not been ruled out. Boy, if he did it, there's a chance that we can solve this. So, Scott, when you've looked through the case materials yourself in the interviews, and we do have not only the name but the information in front of us,

Do you think investigators are closing in on the suspect, the person who may actually be responsible for Earl Marshall's death? I think they're getting warmer. That's for sure. You know, in my experience...

I've seen people kill for less. So just the theory of somebody having a beef with Earl and coming back to take it out on him, sure, it's possible. And trying to get a prosecutor to then take that very circumstantial case and develop enough for an arrest warrant, I mean, how much of a leap do you think this is to at least...

get a potential warrant to go to a grand jury? It's not the circumstantial nature that stops me because I love those cases. I think they're, as I've said before, much stronger and easier for juries to understand than ones with direct evidence sometimes. But

It is a huge leaf and it's not the motive. I buy into the motive completely. You know, I have seen where someone kills someone over looking at them wrong way because they stepped on their sneaker and didn't say sorry or didn't seem apologetic. These are ridiculous things, but it really comes down to the anger level and sometimes a feeling of embarrassment or a loss of pride, which is exactly what you would have here. And that is a motivator that we see all the time, unfortunately, in these cases.

But I'm not seeing much else. I love him for the fact that, and again, I'm not giving that much away to say him, but I'm loving him for the fact that he has a very similar, if not this same car as was described. So that's a great piece of evidence, but it's a piece in something that I'm needing a lot more. I don't have enough yet to charge, at least based on what we know so far.

Every family member living, friend, associate, previous tipster that may have mentioned this person, we went and interviewed all of them to try to build a case. If it was up to me, there would be an arrest warrant and an arrest made. From the eyes of the prosecutor, they don't believe the case is necessarily that strong yet, and they're the ones who get to make the decision. And to this day, that murder warrant still has yet to be signed. But you know what?

Things can change. Relationships change. And I want to go back to one thing that we mentioned early on in the podcast about the potential of two suspects in this case. Now, this is a possible theory that I'm talking about. It's not Sergeant Mercer's theory, but it's a possible theory that I'm talking about going through some of the files.

Is it possible, as we mentioned, that somebody did the knocking on Earl Marshall's door that morning to get him to come to the front door because the shooter would have had to have been in position to take that perfect shot? And if that theory is true, could the relationship between the shooter and his accomplice changed in the last three decades? And the answer is yes.

Is it two or is it one? You know, all it would take is picking up a pebble in the driveway or maybe something bigger like a rock and knocking it on the window. A skilled marksman could easily have it set up that they know all they need to do is knock or ring the bell if he had one and then to quickly get back into position knowing that, you know, maybe it would take him a little while to rouse himself from sleep and get to the door.

Because the one thing about killers is they don't want to get caught. So whether it is two or it was one, that answer is still a mystery too. I've exhausted my ideas and tasks on this case. So it's a matter of sitting back and waiting. And like I told you earlier, I believe I was called to this profession. And also I think if this case is meant to be solved, then it will be solved.

But as Adam Mercer has said, he wants to rule this person in or out. He wants to build a case, the case, against the person or people responsible for Earl Marshall's death. He doesn't care if it's this person who is looking at the main suspect or someone he's never even heard of until this day. He just wants to make sure he gets it right. And it's important to him to get it done.

I believe hope is realistic. And for the family of Earl Marshall and everybody who has been involved in this case, the last 42 years, this case is solved on his behalf.

Another mystery is that recently a cross memorial was set up nearby and no one has any idea who put it up. Adam Mercer doesn't think it's the killer taunting him, but it means that there's someone still out there also thinking about this case. And Adam Mercer would love to talk to you.

You know, we throw it out to our listeners, to you, because as Scott said, this case, we don't know the end yet. We don't know where the road will finally lead. But we'd love to hear your thoughts on social media. And certainly if anyone has information or knows where there could be any information, Adam Mercer would welcome your tips and leads. Tune in next week for another new episode of Anatomy of Murder.

So, what do you think, Chuck? Do you approve? No.

Hi, I'm Ashley Flowers, creator and host of the number one true crime podcast, Crime Junkie. Every Monday, me and my best friend Britt break down a new case, but not in the way you've heard before and not the cases you've heard before. You'll hear stories on Crime Junkie that haven't been told anywhere else. I'll tell you what you can do to help victims and their families get justice.

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