88. Vickie Barton - The Springboro Nurse
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Hey everybody, welcome back to our podcast. This is Murder With My Husband. I'm Peyton Morland. And I'm Garrett Morland. And he's the husband. I'm the husband. What did you guys think? We were really going to leave you alone on Thanksgiving with no episode? We'd never do that. We'd never do that. Every other podcast does that. We would never do that. Okay, Garrett, do you have your 10 seconds? I actually don't really have 10 seconds because we are recording this a week earlier than normal. So we haven't had our week yet. But...

This coming Thursday, Thanksgiving, is Peyton's birthday. Yeah, so it will have already passed, but I can foresee that it will be amazing. Peyton is turning 47 years old. 47. Can you guys believe that? She's had a lot of work done, so she looks good. No, I'm going to be 25 on the 25th, so it's going to be my golden birthday. Oh, it is your golden birthday. Yeah.

And Garrett told me he got me something, but it's a surprise and he won't tell me what it is yet. And when we get it, we're not going to say anything. I said it's going to be a puppy. It's not going to be a puppy. But you guys will all know. We'll show everybody. Oh, we will? Maybe. You and me both. Surprised, probably. All right. Let's get into the story. All right. So our case sources are cbsnews.com, wcpo.com, a Forensic Files episode, cleveland19.com, and cincinnati.com.

Our case this week begins in the small town of Springboro, Ohio. Jim and Vicki Barton are a local couple who are very liked and respected well around town. In order to get into this case, we need to go back and describe exactly who Vicki and Jim were.

Vicki grew up in Middletown, Ohio and had one passion, horses. Vicki's mother, Mary Jane Siebert, remembers the young life of her daughter well. She describes a vibrant young Vicki who would go out to the stables every single day to ride the horses.

But it wasn't long before Mary Jane discovered that Vicki wasn't only heading out to the barn for her love of horses, but also for her love of another young local teen, Jim Barton. All right. Jim, too, loved horses and the outdoors. And when the two of them began riding horses together, they also discovered their love for each other. And after five years of dating, Jim and Vicki were married in the year 1980.

Together, the newlyweds made their way to the small town of Springboro, where almost immediately Jim became a police officer. He worked hard at it, eventually working his way up to lieutenant in the local department. He had a great work ethic and took his job very seriously, which made him a great candidate to eventually become chief of police one day. Okay. Which really was where he was headed. His thorough work and professional demeanor led his coworkers to look up to him as a mentor and a friend. Okay.

Vicky was also successful in her own endeavors, eventually working as a nurse supervisor at the local hospital. Vicky, too, loved her work and was very compassionate for those she cared for, which made her respected and loved at the hospital. Both Jim and Vicky obviously become pillars of their community, serving those around him, him a police officer and her a nurse. It's pretty easy to see why everyone not only knew them, but loved them.

And really, Vicky loved her life. According to her friends, Darlene and Kathy, Vicky loved being a cop's wife. She loved that he was not only her protector, but their community's protector as well. And Jim didn't let their career stop them from their goal, which they had had since meeting.

And that was to own a farm. So in 1988, together, Jim and Vicki excitedly purchased their own horse farm just outside of Springboro. Did he want to work on the farm or just have it for horses? Just have it for horses for like maybe some cattle. Yeah. The thing we can do in their spare time. So they decided to call their farm Locust Knoll and

And although they knew it was a huge journey and project that they had just embarked on, this was their dream. Like they were excited. So over the next seven years, Jim and Vicki built a brand new home on the farm, added a barn and did everything else they needed to make a functioning farm. Do you know what type of horses they liked? I don't know. They didn't like, I mean, they didn't clarify. And I even looked up like the Facebook page for the case and there wasn't anything clarifying there either.

And life was really going well for the couple. It seemed like they had really conquered all of their dreams, were living a very good life together. But on April 11th, 1995, everything would change. Tragedy would strike the Barton family, their new farm, and dream life. It was a bright spring day when Jim woke up and got ready for work. He told Vicky that he loved her and kissed her goodbye, heading to the police station.

After a shorter shift, Jim finished up at his work and left the police station to head home for the day. But it was as he was pulling up to the farm that he noticed something strange. The garage and interior doors were open. And this was weird. Like this wasn't something they normally did. He cautiously gets out of his vehicle and heads inside expecting to find Vicky and ask her about why she had left the doors open. But he didn't.

But when he finally does get inside the house and notices that everything is in disarray and makes his way to the bedroom, it wasn't what he was expecting at all. 911, what is the emergency? My wife has just been killed, I think. Where is she? Lieutenant Barton. There was a pill over her head, and she's not breathing, and she's got her clothes off. I don't know what's going on, but give me some help out here quick. You're in dispatch right now.

- Oh, okay. - So Vicky, his wife was shot to death on their bedroom floor. - Oh, and he thought, but he said a pillow was over her head. - There was a pillow laying over her head, but she had also been shot. - So at that time he didn't know that she'd been shot yet. - I think he knew something was obviously wrong, but all he saw was a pillow over her head. - Okay. - Jim remained hopeful that EMTs could save Vicky, but looking at her and assessing the scene a little bit longer, it seemed like a lost cause.

So obviously captain George Hunter rushes out to the scene. This is Jim Barton, his friend and coworker. Like this is a local police officer. It's all hands on deck. And while police are on their way, Jim surveyed his way around the rest of the house gun drawn. He was obviously worried that whoever had done this could still be in the house, but he cleared the house. The killer or killers who had murdered his wife were gone. When

What the heck? Alright, so we have a small town. Mm-hmm.

And on top of that, we're in the middle of, I mean, it's not nowhere, but they have a farm. So they have some land. On the outskirts of town. Yes. And she was shot execution style. In the middle of the day. What the heck? That doesn't make sense. Yeah. So there was no murder weapon found at the scene, but they did determine that it was probably a .22 caliber that was used. And there were no fibers or fingerprints that they could collect. Like literally they dusted the walls, they dusted all of the bedroom, and there were no fingerprints. So whoever had done this had cleaned up. Hmm.

And this was the 90s. And so the Bartons did not have security cameras. So I'm sorry, Garrett, that's not going to be in this case. The Barton house appeared to have been burglarized with some valuable items missing. But Jim's guns and Vicky's jewelry were left behind, which I don't think is strange that someone wouldn't take jewelry because like how many people do you know that have that valuable of jewelry? You know what I'm saying? But was anything valuable taken? Yeah.

They said some things were, but they did think it was weird that his gun collection, which was pretty big. So they said it looked like it had been rifled through, like the guns were moved, but no guns were missing, which they're like, those are valuable. Like you can sell those. I'm already getting suspicious. And the only physical evidence left at the crime scene was on Vicky's body itself. Okay. Vicky had been sexually assaulted. Her shirt and bra had been pushed up over her breasts.

And on both of her breasts, police discovered bite marks, like one and one. - What? - Yeah, so police eager to collect the DNA off the bite mark actually find that the saliva left from the bite was enough for a DNA profile.

But when they compared it to everyone they could think of, there was no match. Especially in 1995, the DNA I'm sure they had was nothing compared to now. Yeah. And they did like they did test it against what they had, which was a database of known criminal offenders in the area and her husband, Jim, and their friends. And it didn't match anyone. Okay.

And so as police, you know, friends and coworkers of Jim are investigating the murder, they sit down with him to try to figure out if anyone would have wanted to hurt his wife, Vicki, or if she had anything going on in her personal life that they should look into. And this is obviously like devastation for not only Jim, but for all of the local police, one of their own had been murdered and they would do what they could to find justice.

- Jim told them that Vicky was the most likable person. No one he knows would have wanted to hurt her. And all of her friends said the same thing, but then Jim tells them he might have something that they could look into. - Huh. - Earlier that day, before Vicky had been murdered,

While Jim was at work, Vicky had actually called him and told him about a stranded motorist who had come by their farm with a gasoline can looking for fuel. Jim, a cop, was obviously alarmed by the situation and like asked her, okay, well, what did you do? And

Vicky told Jim that, you know, he seemed like a nice young man who just needed some gas. So she got it for him. Jim told her, okay, that was stupid. He could have hurt you. You know, you're lucky he did it. But now thinking back, had he actually come back and hurt her? Was the gas just a ruse to get close to the victim and kind of fill out the situation? Yeah.

Police obviously don't know, but this was definitely strange and seemed like something they needed to follow up on immediately. I mean, if the situation was weird enough that Vicky had thought to call Jim at work and tell him about it, it was obviously odd enough that police now kind of had a bad feeling about it and were like, hey, we need to follow up on this. When news broke that Vicky Barton had been murdered, it really rocked the small town.

Remember that the Bartons were well known and loved and to make matters worse, she was murdered in the middle of the day inside of her own home and her husband was a cop.

Everyone is beginning to feel on edge. Like she should have been the safest in town. Yeah. I'm confused. I don't have, I don't know. I don't have anything right now. Like going back to what we talked about in our last episode, which was something you talked about. Most people do not think that something like this could ever happen to them. Yeah. So when it does happen to their neighbor who, you know, lives in the same area as them as comparable to them, it can really shake somebody. They can be like,

well, if it happened to her now, I feel like it could happen to me. You know, especially in like a smaller town and I don't know, it's just, it's heavy. And this is different. Like the chances of it happening are so much lower. Right. As soon as you start shrinking down the amount of people in an area, the chances of it happening just get way lower. And I

And I mean, kind of like you're saying, like all of these people are thinking we moved out here to the country, like atmosphere to get away from the hustle and bustle to be safe. But here we are bad things happening right now. As the town is stirring, police are back at the station working on the case, still unable to track down the possible motorist whom they really wanted to talk to.

So they began working other theories while trying to track him down. The most obvious to them now that Jim had been excluded because of the DNA on the body was that maybe someone dangerous that Jim had arrested had come back for revenge. Had any of these criminals just been released from prison? They begin to check.

Police combed through Jim's case files in hopes of someone sticking out, but the search came out useless. Yeah, I was going to say, I don't know, for some reason I just feel like that's unlikely. Yeah, police had no leads. So days turned into weeks as Jim, family, and the community grieve the loss of Vicky. And the grief is only heightened when they remember that time was passing and justice wasn't any closer.

No new information was coming up. No leads, no suspects. And eventually one year trickled by with nothing. No one knew who had killed Vicki Barton. A police officer's wife had been murdered in her own home and police had nothing to show for it despite working every lead or theory they could think of.

Jim Barton had continued with his life over the last year. And Mary Ann, one of Vicki's really good friends, had actually reached out to Jim after the murder. She told him that if he needed a friend or a shoulder to cry on, she was there. And Jim took her up on that offer. Fifteen months after the murder of Vicki, her good friend Mary Ann and her husband Jim were married.

Okay. She swiped in. Swipe or no swiping. I'm trying not to be suspicious yet. I'm just, you know, it happens, I guess. Yeah. It is what it is. But within months of marriage, Marianne noticed some strange behavior from her new husband. He would spend hours alone in the basement distancing himself from her. And Marianne realized that although they were in love and married, Jim's wife had still been murdered.

And maybe it had affected him more than she realized. So only 17 months after the marriage, Jim and Marianne got divorced. All right, never mind. There goes my theory. Vicky's murder was looming over the city of Springboro. Its haunting shadows could be felt everywhere. And more time went by as everyone desperate for answers and justice also began looking for healing. Then...

Four years after the murder, police received their first big break in the case. Four years. How does it take so long? Four years. That is so long. It's so long. It's just so crazy that that can happen that much later. And it does happen a lot. Often. Yeah.

So this guy named Gary, Gary, Gary, not me, not you. This guy named Gary Henson was arrested on a drug charge. And during his interrogation, he confessed that he knew something about the cop's wife who had been murdered years earlier. Police are like WTF.

but they obviously remain quiet and let him finish. Like this came out of nowhere. And Gary tells them that his brother had been involved in the murder of Vicki Barton. He continues on that his half brother, William Phelps had told him about that day. William and his accomplice had gone to the farm with intentions of robbing the place.

When Vicky answered the door, William told his brother that his accomplice, who was high on drugs, actually took her into the bedroom and sexually assaulted her and then shot her. Why would he just say all this?

- Yeah, a little weird. I'm wondering if like maybe he said, "I have information, could you lessen my charge?" - Like we'll give you a deal or something. - Yeah, I mean, they obviously didn't include that, but I'm guessing maybe he was like, "Hey, if I have information, can I get a lesser charge?" So police once again are like WTF, but they run a background check on Gary's brother, William Phelps to see if the story held up. 'Cause you have to think at this point,

They've been investigating. They have nothing and no leads. And then all of a sudden this guy comes in and is like, here, I have your answer. So they're kind of like,

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So they run the background check and it does hold up and they discovered that William was in fact not at work four years earlier on the day that Vicky was murdered. So he doesn't have an alibi. There was only one issue with Gary's story and it was an issue that made it hard to prosecute.

William Phelps had actually taken his own life just three months after Vicki Barton's murder. So he's not around to interview or prosecute anymore, if this is true, right? Friends say that during those three months after the murder, he had been acting paranoid and was actually sleeping with a gun under his pillow and that he actually put traps outside of his window so if someone came up, it would make noise and alert him. So friends are like,

William's whole persona had changed in the time after the murder until the suicide. And William was the one who did it or his friend did it. So William was the one who did it. Gary is his brother. But Gary said that William told him he also had an accomplice. So we do have a missing. And William was saying his friend was the one who killed her.

Yes, that his friend was high on drugs. At least that's what he told Gary. Okay, I'm just trying to connect some dots. If he was scared because maybe he thought his friend was going to kill him, you know, just anything. Well, there's many possibilities, right? His friends are like, well, he was a different person and it really just seemed like he couldn't take whatever was on his mind anymore. And the other issue is William had never revealed to anybody or to Gary who the supposed accomplice was.

And despite these missing pieces, police decide to go ahead and exhume William Phelps' body to obtain DNA to compare to the saliva from Vicky's bite mark. Could they close this case without putting anyone in prison for the crime? I think that's like the question that's running through their heads.

Either way, it was no use. William Phelps' DNA did not match the DNA collected from the crime scene, and neither did Gary's, whom they ran just in case he was like maybe the accomplice or something and was trying to just pin it on his brother. Also, according to records, Gary was actually in prison at the time of the murder, so it was very unlikely that he was the accomplice, but...

We've seen that prison doesn't always stop people from being the murderer. So despite the major clues, police felt like this route was just another dead end because they couldn't close this case with a secondhand confession and no DNA. Gary actually knew that Vicky had been bitten and that William had pretended to need gas earlier that day, which none of that was released to the public. So they really do believe Gary. Wow. But they need more.

- They need more. Even if they did have the right person, they need more proof and they need the accomplice because there's no one to put in jail. And once again, years go by turning Vicky's murder into a cold case. They think they have the person, but they don't have the evidence.

As most people moved on, or at least tried to, the tragedy still stuck around. It was attached to the police department like a leech. All of them would remember that murder of a fellow police officer's wife that remains unsolved.

With this looming over them exactly eight years after the murder, the cold case unit decides to reopen the devastating case to get some fresh eyes, a new outlook on the case. As they begin going over the case files, combing through everything that had happened this far, they're kind of hashing out the notes from interviews and the notes from the day at the crime scene.

And it was while reading those that one officer noticed something strange, something that no one had seemed to pick up on before. Captain George Hunter had reported, this is all in writing, that at the crime scene, just minutes after finding his wife dead,

Jim Barton had turned to his friend and said they killed her man those murdering bastards They killed her they as in he like knew who they were Wow you caught on to that look at you come to that so at the time He just sounded like a grieving husband to his like friends who are probably a little on edge of everything going on But these new eyes looking back and why wouldn't he have said anything?

- Right? - I don't know, I'm sure you're gonna get to it. I'm just, what the heck? - So you basically did it for me, but Jim had used the word they instead of someone or he or she.

And he had used a plural pronoun to describe the assailant. Now at this time, why or how would have Jim known that there were possibly two killers? A stretch? Maybe. But these new officers decide to move forward looking at the case closer to Jim than anyone had before. They had just immediately excluded him because number one, he,

he was a police officer that was friends with everyone. And number two, the DNA didn't match. So they were like, okay, no, we don't have to look at him anymore. So the cold case unit moves onto the 911 call made by Jim that afternoon. The one I showed you a piece of earlier, which...

With all the information gathered so far, they re-listen to the tape. And one moment on the tape, one comment made by Jim on the recording, haunts them. I'm checking the rest of the house. All my stuff laying out in here. Oh, man. I got a call. I got a what? What did he say?

Did Jim just say during the 911 call that he had to call for help or that he had to call Phelps? As in William Phelps. Yeah, I couldn't even understand it. The closest thing to a suspect that they had in this case. Ah!

Four years earlier, William Phelps' brother had pointed the finger at him. Basically, as close to a probable story as police had heard at this point. Concluding that William Phelps really probably had been involved in Vicki Barton's murder.

And now Jim Barton, her husband, had possibly just named Phelps in his 911 call that he made after finding her body. So when detectives discovered this, they knew that they had to tread lightly. They knew that this wasn't concrete evidence. But had they been looking at this all wrong? Had the DNA not matched Jim because he had hired someone else to do it instead?

When they bring Jim in to ask him about it and what he had said on the phone, he claimed that he said he needed to call for help. He's like, no, no, no. What do you mean?

Go back a second. What do you mean when you said, did the DNA not match Jim because he hired someone else to do it? So originally they're thinking that whoever this DNA was on the bite mark was the murderer, right? Uh-huh. So they're like, okay, well, obviously Jim had nothing to do with it because it's not his DNA. But did the DNA not match him because instead of doing it himself, he had hired someone else. So he still did have a part in the murder. Right.

Oh, got it. Okay. So, okay. Maybe Jim set this whole thing. I thought you were saying he used different DNA when he went and got DNA tested. No, no, no, no, no. Got it. I'm just saying that he would have had maybe hired someone else to do it so that the DNA wouldn't match him. And then it would be easy for him to be excluded. Okay. So Jim is like, no, no, no, no. I said for help. I said, I need to call for help.

But detectives are like, but you had called for help. You were literally on the phone with help. Like who else did you need to call for help in that moment besides 911? But either way, the audio recording wasn't clear enough. Police couldn't concretely prove that he had said Phelps over for help like they believe. So...

They asked Dr. Robert Fox, a faculty member of Ohio State University and an expert on acoustic phonics to help determine exactly what Jim had said. That's crazy. I never even thought about that. Right. So had he said Phelps or had he said for help? And in order to eliminate any bias, Dr. Fox wasn't told which one police wanted the answer to be. Okay. Or what the like,

911 call even pertain to what they were looking for. Dr. Fox broke down the 911 call into waveforms and looked for vowels. Okay, this part is just crazy. He looked for vowels, which are considered soft sounds and a thing called fricatives, which are hard sounds and fricatives would be like the F sound as in fine.

The fricative would not be there if it was for help. The H would be there. And that's where he will determine the difference between the two. So he's literally going to read the audio like a book, looking at the waveforms to tell us what he said, which how freaking cool is that? - That's so cool.

So he used a computer program to perform the analysis of individual letters in the recording. We're amazing. Humans are amazing. Well, Dr. Fox is amazing. Dr. Fox is amazing. I couldn't do that. But still, like the fact that humans come up with the things we do. Yeah, that's so cool. So he isolated a number of different hard Fs that were through the phone call. So whether it was Jim was saying fine or freaking out or whatever, he isolates it and reads it. And, you know, there's a clear pattern of the Fs. Oh, and then he pointed out several Hs as well.

and compared all of them. So he gets what Jim's voice sound when it says, and what Jim's voice sounds like when it says H. And here is the result between Jim's Fs and Jim's H sound during this call. - Give me some help. Give me some help. Call self. Call self. I gotta call self, man. - So he totally said felt. - You can hear the difference between the H and the F. - He totally, yup, uh-huh. - So you can clearly hear the difference between the two of those, and so could police.

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But unexpectedly, Dr. Fox also told police that after breaking down the call, he determined that while on the phone, Jim Barton could be here walking around and moving things in the background of the audio. So he's like, hey, I don't know if you guys need to hear this, but

- When I was breaking down the call, I noticed that while on the phone, Jim is pacing and moving and he's actually moving things in the background of the audio. I could hear it once I broke everything down. And police can't help but wonder, was he moving things around the crime scene?

a crime scene that he is a trained evidence technician in. Even we know that you should not ever touch a single thing at a crime scene and a trained cop would definitely know that. So why can you hear him doing such a thing? Despite this evidence, Jim Barton claimed his innocence. He's like, I don't care what you think you like heard. It's just not true. I had nothing to do with it.

And he agrees to take a polygraph test in which he fails. So why? Especially if he's a cop, he probably knows that polygraphs aren't admissible in court. Yes. Look at me using big words. Look at you. I can like know what I'm doing. But you know what I'm saying? Yeah. Why would he do that? I don't know. I don't know the reason I also thought about that because I feel like any...

especially if he's guilty, he should know not to take it because if he fails it, they're going to hold it against him. They're not going to use it in court, but they're going to hold it against him. Do you think they would have been able to figure all this out 10 years ago or whenever it was with the technology they had? Or do you think they had to be in this time period? Oh, I think it definitely had to be in this time period. I'm not sure exactly when this, you know, they were able to break down sounds and recordings.

but in order for it, like he had to use a special program. You know what I mean? And we just know that everything advances so far. I do think that the possibility of it being Jim was, was overlooked originally just because of the situation. Yes. And then when news of Jim's possible involvement in his own wife's murder hits the press, it was obviously a shock for everyone in town. Like no one had even thought of this as a possibility, but bigger than that shock is,

was the testimony of a local waitress who came forward after she heard that William Phelps might be linked to the crime with Jim Barton. She told police that before the murder, she was waitressing at a restaurant and Jim Barton and William Phelps came in together and sat down and ate.

And this was news because Jim Barton had told police that he didn't know who William Phelps was. So how could he have said his name on the 911 call? But this waitress believes that she had seen them together before. So that contradicts the story.

And when police re-interviewed Gary, William's brother, they just wanted to know if there was anything that they had missed. And this is when Gary tells them that his brother had explained to him that the murder was an accident, like he had originally said. And they're like, yeah, yeah, you said that the first time it was only supposed to be a burglary. And he's like, yeah, it was only supposed to, you know, they were only supposed to burglarize the house in order to scare the wife, not murder her.

And that made police wonder, well, why would Jim Barton want to scare his wife? Makes no sense. What was the purpose of that? And then they pieced it together, at least what they thought. An answer. It seemed so silly, so small, that it's almost hard to believe.

Jim Barton had been campaigning to be the next chief of police. Everyone knew this. It was a huge goal of his. He had been wanting this forever. The only problem in order to run for chief of police, one would have to live in the Springboro city limits.

Jim and Vicky's farm, the farm that they had worked for and dreamed of since the beginning of their relationship, was on the outskirts of town. It's rumored that Jim could not legally run for chief of police if his full-time residence was not in city limits.

So police are like, had Jim hired William Phelps to burglarize his home, scaring his wife enough in order to convince her to abandon their dream farm and move closer to the city so that he could run for chief of police? No, that's insane. Like that, if that is why, that sucks. Yeah, but that's the theory they've come up with. I don't feel...

I don't know. I don't know how I feel. Right? Like, what? Why would you do that, dude? Yeah. So if this is true, then he came home that day and found her dead only to realize while on the phone with 911 that he needed to call Phelps because something had obviously gone wrong. Like his original plan wasn't what it was supposed to be. Had his ploy to rank up at work killed his own wife.

This really was the only logical theory that pieced together everything that had happened in this case so far for police. 10 years after his wife's murder, Jim Barton was arrested as an accomplice to his wife's murder. And investigators believe that William Phelps knocked on Vicki's door that day, pretending to need gas just to make sure that she was home alone and everything was going to go well, which is what Gary said. The incident had concerned Vicki just enough that she innocently called her husband at work and told him about it.

Later that day, William Phelps returned back to the Barton home with an accomplice intending to fulfill the plan of just scaring Vicki and burglarizing the house.

But that accomplice had sexually assaulted Vicky and then killed her during the attack. This is all according to Gary. When Jim Barton came home, he was expecting his wife to tell him about the robbery, but instead he found her murdered. He called 911 to report the crime only to incriminate himself on the call after being stunned about the situation and maybe mumbling Phelps name.

William Phelps went on to take his own life, likely after, you know, because of what happened. And Jim Barton actually moved into Springboro city limits shortly after the murder. But ironically, he was passed over for the promotion of chief of police three times. Wow.

Jim Barton was offered a plea bargain if he would identify William Phelps' accomplice, but he didn't take it. He's like, I don't know who the accomplice is because I didn't have any part in this. Oh, so he's still denying it. No, he's like, I will not take your plea bargain. I am innocent.

And he actually ended up being convicted of complicity to commit manslaughter and was sentenced to a minimum of 15 years in prison. Where he is today. Well, so this was a while ago, right? So this obviously feels very open and shut. Like if they really found the motive and Gary knew so much about the crime, it seems to make sense. Like Gary can't come forward and be like, oh, she was bitten. Oh, and he stopped for gas earlier. Like obviously William Phelps had something to do with the crime or Gary or someone tied to that.

But I have some news. After 11 years in prison, Jim Barton's conviction was overturned. No way. And I mean, if you think about it, neither him nor William Phelps committed the actual crime. Yet that is what he was put away on. And this mystery accomplice who did it is still in the wind. No one knows who he is or what. Like the biggest part of this case is missing still. Yeah.

So Jim is basically granted a new trial for his possible role in the murder of his wife. The state basically admitting that they honestly probably didn't have enough to prove he was directly involved in the first place if he's granted a brand new trial. And Jim was actually living in Springboro, like in his Springboro home after posting $350,000 bond to wait for his new trial. Holy crap. But during this time, he actually ends up entering an Alford plea.

And do you know what an Alford plea is? No idea. So an Alford plea is a plea agreement that he can enter that allows him to maintain his innocence while recognizing that there is enough evidence to convict him. So you have a normal plea where you enter and you plead guilty and you say, yes, I did it. Now give me my deal for entering a guilty plea. But an Alford plea means that someone gets up and says, I'm still claiming I'm innocent, but

I don't think I'm going to have a chance to win. So I'm going to take a plea deal. So it basically is a way for someone to say, I'm innocent, but I'm not going to go to trial. I'm just going to take a deal.

Is it just better for his record or? Most of the time. I mean, I get it. I'm just wondering, like, is it better for the record as well? I think it's just for people who are like, no, I absolutely. Almost like an ego thing at that point? Yes. Like I absolutely refuse to say that I did something I didn't do. So they take an Alford plea. And it comes out later, like during this whole time, that Jim wouldn't have had to actually live in city limits to be police chief. No way.

Yeah, so it really was a rumor. Like people, the media were saying this was true, but then they went back and looked and legally it wasn't true. But you think he would have known that if he was running?

- Right, yes. So I think he could have ran for it, but it would have probably been better if he did live in the city. So his chances might've been better. Like people are more likely to elect someone who lives in city limits, but it wasn't legally required. Like he still could have legally ran. So really the only motive that the state had found that like even made sense of this case was not even solid. It wasn't even really true.

So is it possible that William Phelps and an accomplice had attacked Vicky, maybe even attending, like intending only burglary, but actually ended up killing her. And then William told his brother, Gary about the crime, describing the bites and then threw Jim into the mix to make himself look better. But like, Oh, we were doing this because we were hired to not because we wanted to. I

I mean, I think he had something to do with it just because of the phone call. I mean, you can't. He said felt. What do you, how do you, how do you prove that? Like, how do you get around that? I don't know. I guess we will never know. That's insane. It is reported though, that Vicki Barton's family is more on board that Jim had nothing to do with it than that he did. Interesting. So her own family doesn't believe that he was involved. Interesting.

And I'm obviously not going to speak on it because the state did accept his Alford plea. So he, he legally is recorded to have having a part. That's what the books say. So that's what I'm going to go with.

But what really happened to Vicky? I don't think we have enough physical evidence to know for sure. But what I do know is that once again, someone was taken unjustly from this world. We will remember Vicky for her legacy of helping those in her life for being passionate and kind. And this is the case of Vicky Barton. That's insane. It's like solved. I mean, it's not. I mean.

I feel like it's hard when, you know, someone overturns a case because then you're like, you're so sure, right? When I was researching, I was so sure. And then when I found out it was overturned and I heard all of this other evidence. It's like, well, technically the justice system said. We didn't have enough to put away, but then he entered a plea. So then he did get convicted. You know what I mean? It's just hard. Dude, he was on the call and he said felt. I know. I know.

But did he say Phelps or did he say for help? I mean, the expert says he said Phelps. It's hard because you know how you can like convince yourself to hear different words. Right. So like if I listen to it again and go, oh, he said help, I'd probably hear help. Yes. They say Phelps, I'd hear Phelps. So.

It's just so hard. I, I, these cases, I mean, ultimately this is about Vicky, which is the most important part, but these cases are so frustrating because you want to be for sure in something, which I think before anyone gets ever put away, it should be a hundred percent, no doubt, but it's just so confusing. Yeah. Oh, that's horrible.

All right, you guys. So that is our case for this week. We are looking forward to see you guys next week. It should be December, I think. I think so. So we will be in Christmas time. Should we decorate our set for Christmas? Maybe we should. All right, you guys. We'll see you next week with another episode. I love it. And I hate it. Goodbye.