Shownotes Transcript
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COVID-19 viruses like me change to fool your immune system and make you sick. But updated vaccines help protect you. Stay up to date on COVID-19 and flu vaccinations. Sponsored by Champions for Vaccine Education, Equity and Progress. Hi friends, how are you today? I hope you're having a wonderful day so far. If you're new here, hi, my name is Bailey Sarian and on Mondays I sit down and I talk about a true crime story that's been heavy on my...
Noggin. That's right, baby. And I do my makeup at the same time. If you're interested in true crime and you like makeup, I would highly suggest you subscribe or not. It's totally up to you. But either way, I'm here for you, baby. Okay, look, today's story is really kind of graphic. So viewers beware.
Just giving you a little heads up, okay? So today we have a little mini serial killer spree that took place in Maryland in the 1950s. And this story honestly kept me up. It didn't keep me up, but it made me sick to my stomach. Oh my God. I don't know why this story, it was...
Something about, well, it's awful. So maybe that's why, Bailey. Great, I answered my own question. Today's story will probably ruin transportation for you, road trips, getting in a car. Let's get into today's story.
So today's story takes place in the year 1957 with a 35-year-old woman named Margaret Harold. And Margaret lived in Anne Arundel County, Maryland. So Margaret was married and had two kids who were the ages 15 and 11. She also had a job at the nearby Fort Meade, the base.
where she worked as a business machine operator. And I was like, ooh, what's that? So I Googled it. And I guess she would monitor and maintain warehouse equipment and machinery. So...
Good for her. She was living like a pretty typical American suburban life. She had a nice, great husband. She had her kids. She had her business machine job. And it just, on the outer looks of it, she just looked like she's living this perfect life. But I guess like she felt like one thing was missing and that was her desire to have more children. She wanted a bigger family. Margaret sadly had suffered
several miscarriages in the last few years and even though her kids were older she really just wanted at least one more. So imagine how thrilled Margaret was when she found out that she was pregnant again. Now according to her family Margaret had decided to start going to like extra doctor's appointments and she was going to them because she wanted to make sure she was doing everything right
So this pregnancy went smoothly. So she was doing some different treatments, not really going into detail what kind of treatments, but
it was said she was going to numerous doctor appointments. So on the night of June 26, 1957, Margaret allegedly had a doctor's appointment in Baltimore and she was going to head there straight after work. So she told her husband that she was going to catch a ride with a fellow coworker friend, a fellow coworker friend. His name was Roy. Now, Roy...
Roy is a hard one for me to say. Roy, he was going to drive her to the bus station, drop her off, and then from there, she was gonna head straight to the doctors. So she tells her husband, "Don't worry, I'm just gonna be with Roy." That night, after clocking out, Margaret and her, and Roy, mind you, who happened to be a sergeant at Fort Meade where they both worked,
they head out together. The two are driving, heading to the bus stop, when suddenly they see a green Chrysler approach what seems to be like out of nowhere. And this person driving is like kind of driving aggressively, tailgating them,
flashing their brights at their car and getting to a point where the driver forces them off to the side of the road. So they pull over and the other car pulls over and a guy gets out of the car and is gestured at them
to roll down their window. It's like, "Roll down the fucking window." Now, that's when this man pulls out a gun and points it right at them. Now, whoever this guy was starts demanding that they give him all their cigarettes and all their money or he would kill them. And allegedly, they refuse to give him anything, or maybe they didn't have anything at all to give, but either way, they're like, "No, no, we're not giving you anything."
And this pisses off the gunman. I mean, he is so pissed off, so pissed off that he ends up shooting Margaret point blank right in the face. Now, Roy, who is in the car, rightfully freaks out, right? He just saw Margaret get shot in the face. So Roy ends up jumping out of the car and he just like books it. He runs into the rural,
area. You know, they're in this like area where there's empty fields around and trees and all that stuff. So he's just going, running as far away as possible. Now the gunman, the shooter, he did end up firing two shots at Roy, but missed and ended up losing him. And he was like, whatever. So after running and running, Roy ends up coming across like a cute little farmhouse and
So he knocks on the doors, or probably banging on the door, who knows? But he's like, "Hey, it's an emergency. Can I please use your phone to call the police?" So they let him do just that. So the police end up sending out two cars, one to pick up Sergeant Roy over at the farmhouse, and then the other car goes out to the crime scene where they find Margaret shot. I mean, it was like a brutal scene.
And sadly, she didn't make it. I mean, Margaret was dead, but then a little something something was added on top of that because not only was she dead, police had found her body completely naked and it appeared to be what they called disturbed sexually. It had appeared that the culprit had raped her dead body. This person waited until she was dead and then
I know. Different. That's different. Murder is awful. We can all agree. But then to rape a dead body? I mean, come on. We've got like a serious crazy on the loose. Okay. This one's different. Red
Red flag. Sergeant Roy was asked like, "Did you see the guy? Can you give us any type of description, if anything?" And he told police that the gunman had dark hair. He looked to be about 35-ish, thin, and looked disheveled. The word bushy was used at one point. Bushy, okay. So authorities are like, "Great, we have a description." Well, authorities have a description. And on top of that, there were apparently a ton of fingerprints left in Roy's car.
but police were still having a hard time with any leads. All they had was a shaky description of the dude, apparently he's bushy looking, and a rough idea of the gun that killed Margaret, a 38 caliber pistol. So the police are like, "Okay, great. Where do we go from here?" I don't know how they solved mysteries back before technology came into play. I don't.
It must have been real hard. So it's like they have the fingerprints, but they don't have anything to do with it. They're like, okay. This is a side note, but also there were allegations that Margaret was not going to a doctor's appointment that night. No, she was not. That instead Margaret and Roy were going to an area known as Lover's Lane. Now there were conflicting reports here. Some say that the car was actually parked on Lover's Lane and they were in the back seat.
doing their thing, when the gunman attacked and shot Margaret, which kind of makes sense because there were some articles that said Roy jumped out of the car window. He could have opened the door maybe, I don't know, which kind of makes more sense. And then he took off. There's other sources that say that they were driving when the man drove them off the road. So,
I don't know. Now this was considered like a really high profile case and was all over the newspapers, but finding straight forward information was really hard. There's so many conflicting reports.
Bizarre you think it would just be more clear because it was so high-profile Anyways, many were thinking was Margaret like was she really going to a doctor's appointment? Maybe there's like a little love affair going on Could this be a motive for a rage-filled murder? Which honestly seems a little bit more substantial than a guy asking for cigarettes and then like murdering someone over not having any that seems a little brash
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While searching the area for clues, authorities came across an abandoned cinder block building and they could see that the basement window was broken into. So investigators, they go inside and that's where they find a collection of violent pornography. I'm talking hardcore, where did you get this type of stuff. Also to make matters worse, taped all over the walls inside
were images of female corpses just all over the walls. It was just a different choice in wallpaper, I think that's safe to say. But what authorities did think was that whoever did this was most likely one sick person. That's what they came up with. I was like, okay.
All right. Among all the graphic images inside of this abandoned building, authorities find a somewhat quote unquote normal photo. It stood out because it was a normal photo. It was a yearbook photo of a woman named Wanda Tipton who had attended the University of Maryland. Now again, it was literally the only nonviolent photo in the whole damn place and it had a name attached to it.
So with no other leads, police are like, great, let's find her. Maybe she knows something. So they end up finding Wanda and well, they give her the description given to them by Roy and ask if she knows anyone who fits that description. Now, Wanda tells authorities that she has no idea who it could be. And she's like, I'm so sorry, but like, I'm really no help here. Okay. So maybe it was just a coincidence that her class photo ended up in this
"House of Horrors." Horrors? But I'm sure you and I, you know, like what a strange coincidence, Wanda. Now police have literally no other leads, no information. They got nothing. So the brutal murder of Margaret ends up going nowhere. The case was now officially cold.
A couple of years go by and in January of 1959, a family of four known as the Jacksons, it included dad, his name was Carol, mom Mildred, a five-year-old named Susan, and a baby named Janet. They're driving home one night from visiting Mildred's family and they just end up disappearing. They just disappear.
poof, vanished. Now this was odd because the Jackson family only lived a few miles away from the family home. So it should have been just a really quick drive. I mean, what could have happened in such a short amount of time? It was actually one of their relatives who was also driving home later from that same gathering who saw the Jackson's car on the side of the road, but they noticed that nobody was around. It was just their empty car. And it just kind of
I mean, you wanna talk about suspish. Just ladies like that, shit is something's not right. So this family member said that they got like a really bad feeling about this. So they contacted the police. Police end up coming out to the area. They searched the vehicle and the area around it, but they can't find a thing. The car is empty. There were no signs of a struggle, no evidence, no fingerprints, no blood.
The Jackson family was just gone. Police end up bringing out as many people as they can and they do a search of the area, looking for again, any clues, any evidence, something, but find absolutely again, nothing. But what they do learn is that the Jackson family was known as
an upstanding church-going family. They did not smoke or drink. Mildred was president of the local missionary society. And as far as the authorities could tell, they had no known enemies. So it just, again, it wasn't making sense. And the police were just baffled at this point. They're not really the best at solving mysteries, as we can probably tell.
So they don't know what to do. It's not until two months go by when two men stumble upon a decomposing corpse in a shallow grave. Sadly, it was the body of Carol Jackson, the dad. Now his hands were tied behind his back and he had been shot in the back of the head.
And just like with Margaret, the bullet was from a 38 caliber pistol. Now near his body, they found his broken eyeglasses as well as a pair of plastic gun grips, which are grips you put on the handle of a gun to make it easier to hold. So it makes it feel more comfortable for the shooter. So police find two of these nearby. But again, this is the 60s and they just don't have the technology available to like run DNA
or, you know, link it to somebody. Instead, they're like, "Okay, evidence! Bag it!" And that's really all they can do with it. And this part is the worst. When investigators finally moved Carol's body, like pulled it out of the shallow grave, that's when they found that he had been tossed into the ditch on top of the little body of his 18-month-old baby, Janet. I know, I'm so sorry.
It does get worse. They later figured out that the baby had been alive when the killer shot her dad. And most likely she had suffocated under the weight of his body. Ah, what do you even say after that, huh? They said Janet died of blows to the head, exposure, and suffocation. Either the killer had hit her in the head, thrown her father's dead body over her, or that the dad was holding his baby when he was killed.
I know, pause. So grossly, terribly, tragically sad. And this is a side note. It's this that really gets my noggin going about true crime. It's like, how does a person do this to another person?
That's what I'm always trying to understand. And there's never like one solid answer, right? It's just like how, why, what, eh, why, what, who, what? Like how does someone do that? Murder this, these innocent people and then like go to bed at night? Huh? Huh? I don't get it. Why? Huh? I just am trying to understand the humans and I'm surprised every week.
when I do these stories. I'm laughing because it's just uncomfortable. You get it. Back to the story. Authorities are thinking, well, okay, when you find half of a family dead, then it's most likely that the other half is probably dead too. It took about two weeks, but the bodies of Mildred and poor five-year-old Susan were found in a town nearby called Gambrills, which is not far from the Fort Meade base where Margaret, the first victim, worked slash was.
So like, beep bop boop. You know, some people are putting some pieces together.
"This is getting a little weird." Same gun, same location, I don't know. Mildred and Susan's bodies were also found in a shallow grave where it appeared they had died from basically choking on their own blood. Mildred, she had been severely beaten on the right side of her face and head. Now at first I was like, "Oh, sad." But this was important because it told police that the killer was left-handed.
Makes you think, right? I didn't even think of that. Like, oh, finally they get something, geez. And they noted that Mildred's knees, her knees were extremely bruised. There were stockings tied around her neck. I'm sorry, a stocking tied around her neck. Investigators think that between the stockings and the bruises on her knees, that she was most likely forced to perform orals.
You know what I'm saying? I know. Like he used the stocking as, is leverage the right word? I'm not sure. Use your imagination. But this whole story just made me so sick. It's just, God. Her head was like so beaten up that it forced the blood into her lungs, which was the cause of her death. Yeah. It's just, it's so, ugh.
I have no words. It's just sad that Mildred's last moments on this earth was like being forced to give orals. Ugh. Whoever this killer was belongs.
Yep, bye, down there. Luckily, question mark, none of that happened to Susan. Police found that she had died from severe head trauma, most likely from the butt of a gun. And unlike her sister, she wasn't buried alive. I'm trying to find a bright side. There is no bright side in this story. Okay, so once again, conflicting reports here. But what we do know is that police found a button
a button that was missing from Mildred's dress in the same abandoned cinderblock building where they found all that
sadistic wallpaper. Now it was found less than a quarter mile from their graves. It's believed that the killer must have forced them into his vehicle, drove them to this location, attacked them and then killed them there. It also was apparent to authorities that whoever this killer was, was someone who was very familiar with the area. Like this person knew the roads, felt comfortable with their surroundings and just knew where to find
hot new abandoned locations. I've been adding a lot of side notes in today's story, but let me just add one more annoying side note here because I was like, why didn't police just park outside of this abandoned building? Now I'm no investigator, but I mean, it seems like whoever's doing this is going to this location. So I don't know, maybe it's a good idea to just have someone like sit out there and just wait. Cause I'm sure whoever's doing it is gonna show back up, right? Maybe they did, but from my research, I couldn't say, you know?
Come on. Even though the police, they have the gun grips, the bodies, the house.
a button. They still had no leads, which sounds insane, but they got nothing. So once again, time goes by. A year and a half goes by, and there's a lot of frustration coming from the public. People are like, hello, what the hell is going on? Don't you have evidence? Is there evidence? How do you have no suspects? How have you not caught the person? I mean, people...
are feeling uneasy and unsafe for a good reason. I mean, some psycho was just driving around killing at random and police seem to be doing nothing. So authorities are feeling a lot of pressure from the people and they're starting to get a bit desperate. They're like, what do we do? What do you do? I don't know, what do you, you know? So they actually end up hiring a well-known psychic to help solve the case. I mean, they had no other option, so sure.
Psychic might help, I don't know. So the psychic's name was Peter Herkos and he actually came highly recommended. I guess Peter had helped in the Manson family murders and also the Boston Strangler case. And he was just known as like an all-around popular entertainer who would perform his psychic abilities before a live studio audience.
The crowd goes wild. People love psychics. Now, sometimes his predictions were correct, but they were not always correct. For example, he claimed that Hitler was still alive and thriving, living his life in Argentina. So, turns out he was wrong. Pros and cons, pros and cons. But the police in the Jackson case were like, hey, it's worth a shot.
Bring him in. So psychic Peter comes out to the area and goes all around town with investigators. And he's doing something called, quote, trapping brainwaves, his words, and also charging a lot of money per day to take his time. At one point, Peter identifies a suspect through some intense vibrations he's feeling. Now these vibrations were telling him to pay attention to a specific person.
a local garbage collector with the last name Tarman. Now Peter's like, oh man, this is it. This is the guy. I'm feeling it. It's heavy. This garbage man is the killer. It's so bizarre because police just go...
right up to the guy, arrest him, drag him downtown. They get a search warrant for his house. They're looking for the gun that killed Carol Jackson. They even go as far as questioning him and his wife for hours, making them both take lie detector tests and hoping they'll break with no evidence other than vibrations. Like, come on.
That, huh? Oh, okay. This poor man. After hours of this, someone reports to police that they saw Mr. Tarman pacing back and forth at his work saying to himself, "What have I done? What have I done?" And just repeating it over and over again. So police take this as like, wow, the brain waves, psychic guy,
He really pulled it off. I think this is for sure the man. So this man, he is arrested and gets sent to a mental hospital to stay there until they get some kind of confession. I don't know. Mind you, there was no real confession and no evidence found in his house. This is my personal opinion. I think they just needed to prove to the people like, hey, we got a guy. This is it.
This poor man. Now, a week later, investigators receive a handwritten letter signed by Anonymous. Oh, what's this? So, okay, they get this letter and inside was a tip that did not come from the spirit world. Great. And the letter tells them to look into a man by the name of Melvin Rees Jr. Huh? What's that? So who's this Melvin guy? First of all, what's the name? Melvin? Great name.
Terrible guy, great name. Melvin. So Melvin Rees Jr. was born in 1928. Literally nobody knows what like his birthday is, what's his sign, nothing. There's not much about his upbringing because there's actually some allegations allegedly maybe that he was adopted secretly from the UK to the UK.
and brought to the US. It's never been confirmed, but that's like the rumors, all of the rumors I could find. What we do know is that by the time he was at least a year old, he was on the 1930s census in Hyattsville, Maryland, and his parents were listed as Melvin Sr. and Virginia Rees. But no birth certificate, like no birth date. I don't know, mystery man. Maybe he's an alien. Maybe he's literally the devil.
I'm gonna be onto something, Bailey. Melvin ended up really falling in love from a young age with music and he showed a lot of talent as well. Later on, classmates would recall Melvin being a very talented musician
that he had some serious skill with the saxophone, the piano, and also the clarinet. Later, he would go to college at the University of Maryland, but dropped out pretty quickly, and his reason was to pursue his career as a jazz musician. Follow your dreams, they say, and he was like, I'm going to do that. Now, sometimes he'd play in a jazz trio or with an orchestra, smaller venues, solo birthday parties. Wherever he was hired, he was going to
But he loved this or he would say he loved this because it gave him the opportunity to follow his passion and be able to travel all around, go to these different places that he would never go. And then also as a side hustle, he taught one-on-one music lessons just to bring some extra income. Now little Melvin over here considered himself an existential philosopher. He would be like, "Yeah, man, life, existence,
Humans. And like most existential philosophers, he did all of his big thinking while under the influence of some kind of substance. It's when people do their best thinking or something like that. Turns out one of Melvin's favorite substances was meth.
So that's great. I mean, allegedly he loved meth. So at one point Melvin had a roommate named Glenn Moser who either they met while at college or before, I'm not sure, but they were friends and they lived together for a while. And it would later be discovered that Glenn was the one who wrote the anonymous letter. He knew some shit.
He knew some shit. Now, according to Glenn, he would say that he and Melvin, they would stay up like super late and have these super deep thought provoking conversations. But one thing that really stuck out to Glenn was when Melvin like randomly brought up this, this is a direct quote. Melvin said, quote, murder was just another part of the human experience.
And that it was something he so badly wanted to partake in. I'd be like, yeah, we're not living together. Sorry, bud. But apparently Glenn was like, all right. But it wasn't just that. Melvin would go on to say that he wanted to experience every feeling you could in life. From love all the way to death. And not just his own death. He wanted to experience taking a life. This is what he's telling Glenn. I know. It was like Melvin was in this eat, pray, kill phase.
Glenn said that Melvin felt kind of empowered to do this too, not just because of meth, no nay nay, but also because one of his favorite big
big daddy existential philosophers, Friedrich Nietzsche, had really spearheaded the idea that there is no such thing as good or evil and that like we can all kind of determine good or evil ourselves. And honestly, that's like the most simplest way I could put it. I know some of you are gonna be like, well, that's not what he, keeping it simple. Glenn said that Melvin really held onto this idea and ran with it. He's like, there are no evil people
"There is no good, just be." Okay, Mellie, it wasn't just that Melvin was like a drug user with a questionable sense of morality. I mean, there were some more concrete reasons too, which I feel like Glen would have led with this one, but it was towards the bottom of the page. Glen recalled this one time where Melvin got arrested for trying to force a woman into his car. So he was indeed actually arrested for this, but the charges ended up getting dropped.
I don't know why. And then, oh my God, I'm so sorry. I am filled with a lot of side comments today, but this was another one. And like, not to stereotype men, but like, this is such a dude thing. Glenn never asked any follow-up questions about this. Like you and I, we'd be like, what do you mean you were arrested for trying to get a woman in your, what?
"What are you talking about? Huh? What were you wearing? What time was it? When? Where? How?" Like, we would ask some follow-up questions. Well, Glenn, Glenn was like, "Mm, okay." Like, never talked about it again. Well, until now, 'cause he started putting the pieces together. But again, men never want details and it drives me nuts. Ask questions, goddammit. Get some answers. I'm sorry, I don't wanna piss off the men. Okay, Glenn, fine, that's okay.
But here's a bigger one. On the night that the Jackson murders took place, Melvin apparently had left the house around six o'clock that evening. Now he told Glenn that he was just going to his regular gig. He had this music gig every Sunday night at a local restaurant. But for some reason that night, he didn't make it. The next time anyone saw Melvin was the next morning at his parents' house. Hmm.
Glenn said after the news got out about the Jackson murder, he just had like this bad gut feeling because they were still living together at this time when the news broke about the Jackson murder. So he just has this bad feeling. And instead of just beating around the bush, Glenn's like, you know, I'm just going to go up to him and ask. So Glenn confronted Melvin and asked him point blank, like,
Did you have anything to do with this? And according to Glenn, Melvin, he didn't say yes, but he didn't say no either. He was just like, I don't know. What are you talking about?
and like ended it on that. Now I guess for good reason, this really freaked Glenn out. And that's when he wrote the letter. He wrote the letter that he suspected Melvin had killed not only the Jacksons, but most likely, maybe he was responsible for the cold case in Maryland, the murder of Margaret Harold. Okay, Glenn, 'cause these police aren't doing a goddamn anything, right? So Glenn, okay.
Thank you. Glenn would go on to say, because, you know, police were like, why didn't you come to us sooner? Later down the line. And he's like, well, I wasn't really thinking about it at the time. But after the Jackson murder happened and was in the news, he was starting to think twice and connect in some dots. And then to add the cherry on top of this whole situation, Glenn confirmed that Melvin was indeed left-handed. Dun, dun, dun.
Right? Oh, oh, oh, let me tell you, 'cause this part pissed me off. Coming real close. For some odd reason, this handwritten letter with all these details did not give authorities enough reason to go and arrest Melvin or at least even bring him in for questioning.
Yeah, I know. But somehow the psychic's vibrations were enough to arrest the garbage collector. Get your act together. Oh my God, these people are a hot mess, these police officers. I don't know if it's the police officers, probably. It just sounds like they don't know, like what? Anyways, police, they, okay, they do take the letter into consideration and they look into Melvin's background. And that is when they discovered that he actually attended the University of Maryland University
And Melvin had dated a woman by the name Wanda Tipton. Wanda, Wanda, Wanda. You remember Wanda? Remember how Maryland police had asked her back in 1957? You remember. You remember 1957? You remember. Police had questioned her about the yearbook photo that was found in the abandoned shack with all the porn. And she was like, I have no idea. Well, yeah.
This is why, Wanda. This is why. They were a couple. They dated. Now, to be fair, she had nothing to do with the murders or anything. And I don't know. It's irritating because I want to be mad at her because she could have probably, I don't know, maybe prevented some murders. But also we can't really blame her because maybe she was scared. Maybe she truly didn't know who they were talking about. Maybe she didn't want to get in trouble or something. Either way, they dated.
And it seemed like maybe Melvin was not over Wanda. Like maybe he was perhaps still heartbroken over her. And that's why he like held on to the photo. Who really knows? But again, if Wanda could have remembered, it would have been a little helpful to say the least. So now Margaret's case is no longer cold. I mean, it's back open.
And it's steaming, red hot. And police are like, okay, we have a serial killer on our hands. Now, smartly enough, smartly enough? Sure. They pass it off to the FBI. So it's now in the hands of the feds. Thank God, because I don't think these police officers could have handled it. Okay. Well, great. They got a name. They probably got the guy is how they're feeling. But now they had another major dilemma.
they could not locate Melvin. He was just gone with the wind, poof. He was no longer living with Glenn. And again, they had no leads. They had no idea where he was. Nobody knew where he was. They're like, "What do we do now?" Okay, well, once again, Glenn comes in to save the day.
Now, it was said that Glenn was actually having a hard time with this because he felt really bad that he was ratting out his friend. I mean, he knew it was for the greater good, but like, damn, he didn't want to be like the only witness to come forward. Glenn, once again, he comes forward because he and Melvin were actually still in touch. And he recently received a letter from Melvin that said he was currently living in West Memphis, Arkansas, working at a music store.
Again, like Melvin at this point had no idea that Glenn was talking with police or anything. So he felt like it was like a safe space to share this information with Glenn in the letter and that the two were still quote unquote friends. That's how he was getting this information. So Glenn goes to police and tells them, gives them the letter.
And bingo baby, they got a location on his ass. So on June 24th, 1960s, authorities tracked down 32 year old Melvin in, you guessed it, West Memphis. So they quickly arrest him and take his ass back to Maryland. And the same day the police
go down to where Melvin was staying, which was like just a few miles from where both of the murders had taken place. Some reports say that he was staying at his parents' home. Others say it was his home, but either way, they were searching where he was currently residing. So authorities, they search his home, hoping that Melvin had left something murdery there, you know? And well...
Wouldn't you know it, there was an attic. And nothing good seems to happen in attics. But this attic was a jackpot, for the police at least, not for any of us. You see up, up in there, up all up in there, there was like this secret room or a compartment in there. So I guess like there was a piece of
like wall or just something blocking this little cubby. But when they moved it, it was a small crawl space. And in this crawl space, that's where investigators found an accordion case. Now, Melvin wasn't known for playing accordion, first of all, so hmm. But they end up opening the case and inside, that's where they found a 38 revolver with traces of blood on it. Oh, you think that would be enough, right? Like bingo.
It is enough. But on top of that, they found tons of photographs of naked or barely clothed women. And on these photos were drawings of ties on the hands and gags in their mouth, like Melvin was like doodling on them. And then on top of that, they come across a little diary of sorts. And this was all in Melvin's handwriting.
And this diary had detailed everything that he had done to Mildred and Susan Jackson. These guys, man, they just can't help themselves, right? They gotta tell and keep something. I mean, good, because we can solve the mysteries. So keep being dumb, but they're just so dumb. So in this diary, there's writing,
There's clip art, newspaper clippings that were cut out, and there were the newspaper clippings about the Jackson murders, where once again, he had drawn like a gag over the photo of Mildred from the paper. Underneath his little doodles, Melvin wrote, quote, "Drove to a selected area, killed the husband and baby, period. Now the mother and daughter were all mine, period."
Then tied and gagged her, led her to a place of execution, and then hung her. I was her master. End quote. Ew, bro. Right? Something ain't right with this one. Something ain't right with this one. Ew.
Ew. Great Melvin, thanks for the evidence. Salt. So now that Melvin had been located and arrested, there was just like one little pesky thing Virginia investigators had to do. Such an inconvenience for them. They needed to release that poor innocent garbage man. Yeah, they still had him locked up in a mental hospital. They're like, oh yeah, we should probably do that. Jeez Louise. So they let this poor man out. I hope they gave him like a gift basket or something. Like,
"Sorry about that, but you better believe this innocent man, he sued the shit out of them and good for him. I hope he got a gift basket and a ton of money." Ruining this guy's, could you, they left him in there for way too long. Shame on you, all of you. I was rooting for you. Melvin was definitely going to trial. It turned into a really big media frenzy. And you know how the media gives every serial killer some kind of name? They gave him the nickname,
The Sex Beast. Yeah. Just, when I heard The Sex Beast, I was like, oh, they gave him like a hot stripper name. But in my opinion, again, not needed or in any way, shape or form. In my opinion, I feel like the media could have done better with this title. Make it sound not so hot. Like maybe Sadistic Beast? I don't know. No one's coming to me for answers, but that's just what I was thinking. Because when I think of Sex Beast, I think of Sign Me Up.
You know, glad we all agree. Anyways, doesn't matter. Melvin, guilty, arrested, going to trial, okay? So Melvin, he pleaded with the court that he was not okay and that he was quote unquote insane. And he was begging like, "Please send me to the mental hospital. Anything but the death sentence, please."
Please, Daddy. You know, he just does not want the death sentence or to go to prison. Maybe don't murder anybody, Bozo. So, okay, to be fair, a psychiatrist evaluated him and came to the conclusion that he was not psychotic and could stand trial. So he did. And at trial, more information starts coming out about the night of the Jackson murder and Bozo.
Boy, oh boy, it's not looking good for Melly over here. Apparently, it wasn't just the Jacksons that got run off the road that night. At about 9:00 PM on January 11th, some maniac drove another family of four, also two parents and two kids. Some maniac drove
So they pull over side of the road and they said that the driver, it was the dad, said that a disheveled looking man got out and started like walking towards their vehicle. But I mean, luckily for this family, the dad who was driving was like, eh,
"Something ain't right here." And he just floors it. He floors it, takes off, drives over a ditch, doesn't give a crap about his car. You know, he just gives the hell away. And it's like, dude, wow, how things could have been very different for them, you know? Wow. Melvin also attacked another couple in August of 1958.
And sadly, he actually did rape the wife, but Melvin said that he let her live because she was a, quote, good woman, end quote.
who didn't scream or fight him off. So he was like, all right, I'll let you go. I just want to take a piss right on this guy's face, but he would probably like it. So with all of this evidence and on top of that witness testimonies, Melvin was very quickly found guilty of the murder and rape of Margaret Harold and the murders of the Jackson family. And...
he was sentenced to death. If anyone deserves it, it's definitely this dude. But I guess after his sentencing, Melvin truly went out of his mind. His lawyer said that he couldn't even talk anymore, okay? He couldn't even talk. And when he did talk, he would just alternate between laughing hysterically and then sobbing uncontrollably. My guess is, you know, murder. That'll probably do it for you. Melvin's lawyer asked if
the judge could like see him again and make sure that he was still competent. And this happened after Melvin's sentencing, which is like really rare, but I mean, it happened. And I guess, apparently, allegedly, Melvin showed up to court barefoot, bearded, disheveled looking, and attempted several times to take his clothes off in front of the judge, whether it was a tactic or it was real. And I mean-
look, in order to be a killer and slash or a rapist, you gotta have some loose screws, right? So like, you know, it could totally be valid. But in the end, Melvin's death sentence, luckily for him, it was turned into life in prison.
only because the Supreme Court suspended all death sentences in 1972. So he was saved by that bill. Instead, Melvin ended up in the U.S. Medical Center for Federal Prisoners in Springfield, Missouri, where he would later die in 1995 at the age of 66. But before he died, investigators started looking at other cold cases that were happening or happened around the same time and area that Melvin was doing his thing.
So they actually came across an unsolved case of four teenage girls who were found murdered near the University of Maryland.
Hmm, interesting. Now, these murders happened during the same time Melvin attended the college. Now, they didn't have any physical evidence or anything linking him to this, but it got people thinking, like, maybe that's why he dropped out of college so quickly. And it seemed random to everybody else, but...
You know, maybe that's why he dropped out. Again, there was no evidence actually like linking him and proving he was connected to these murders, but the timeline and his confession, which I'm gonna tell you about right now, kind of sealed the deal because Melvin loved to talk and he had something to say. So he's in prison and he gets a visit by a reporter. The reporter asked, "Did you have anything to do with these four murders?" And he's like,
Look, I had killed only two out of the four. And it's not fair because the whole cause of me killing wasn't because I was born this way, but rather something much larger at play. He's telling the reporter, I'm actually not to blame. Who do we blame? Melvin was like, meth. Ah, yes, of course. Makes total sense. Meth did it.
You're free to go, Melvin. Our apologies for this silly mistake. But that was his excuse. He did all the murders and whatnot because of meth and not because of who he is as a person. Well, that's the end of our story when it comes to Melvin Rees Jr. There's really not much to say other than he was obviously a very sick man who definitely deserved to be executed.
in prison. Preferably the death sentence, but unfortunately that didn't work out. I don't know, man. This story was just like, mm-mm, mm-mm-mm. Now it's believed by many that Melvin actually had more than nine victims, but...
They cannot, they being the police, they can't confirm or link him to the murders. But I believe it because usually when someone is a murderer, we've learned here on Murder, Mystery, and Makeup, that they never really just start murdering. It's like they work their way up to it. So I bet you a million bucks he probably had a handful of victims that he like murdered.
Right. You know what I'm saying? And then he wasn't satisfied with that anymore. And that's when he probably upgraded to murdering. And then he got ballsy and started just being sloppy and pulling people over and stuff. Like he did not give a fuck. And it's just embarrassing that it took the police so long to catch him. I mean, I'm glad they did, but like, you know, they had that poor garbage man locked up forever.
Anyways, I know today's story was gross. They're all gross. And I think that's it. I hope you have a good rest of your day. You make good choices, please. So I'll see you guys real soon. Okay, you can go now. Goodbye.