Deep Dive
Shownotes Transcript
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These last few episodes were jam-packed, so first let's recap the BB&T bank robbery saga. Larry Jones robs a bank over an hour from where he lives. To what? Take the cleaning crew hostage and make off with nothing? Oh, and for some reason, move his hostage's car. Then there's Jean Wiggins, a completely innocent victim. She was gunned down by the NCSBI agents who mistook her for her captor because she was black too.
The black community in Williamston was outraged, rightfully so, and the NAACP got involved to get her and her family some justice. But something about this whole bank robbery situation unsettled Tremaine Howell's parents, Larry and Denise Howell. The unsettling thing for me is that it was Tim Hines who was the deputy who got Sheriff Jerry Beach to come to the bank in the first place.
Yeah, sure, Jerry was hailed a fallen hero and memorialized throughout town, but who really shot him is still a very big question mark for the Howells and for me too. It was such odd timing for Jerry to die, right before he was scheduled to meet with the Howells about their son's case. Add on top of that, bank robbery suspect Larry Jones' death in prison on the brink of going to trial for Jerry's murder was also untimely.
His alleged suicide sealed all the official records in the case. His mother, Viola Jones, and his former attorney, Maynard Harold Jr., never loved that fact, and I don't like it either. And just when you were all holding out hope that Spanky would give you some answers, I explained that he, too, met an untimely and sudden death at a young age, just three years after his friends.
Lynette Brown, Spanky's adoptive mother, and her daughter, Brandy Bacote, shared their thoughts about what they think happened to Spanky and why. Oh, and in case you thought an overarching drug conspiracy corrupt law enforcement angle was behind us, well, Richard Smith, a former Williamston drug dealer, talked to me from prison and all but confirmed that what we've been thinking from the start about Doug, about the teens, about Jerry, about everything, might just be right.
And finally, there's Guy Spruill. Guy, Guy, Guy. Is he alive or is he dead? Does it surprise me that Ezekiel Brown's name has popped up again? Nope. Does it all make sense now why Ezekiel first spoke to me using the phone of one of Tremaine Howell's relatives? Yes. This is episode 14, The Next Move.
A quick note before we get started, this is the season finale, but if you're a pro-CounterClock listener, you know that there's still a bonus Q&A episode coming after this in a few weeks. So make sure you all email your burning questions about season six to counterclock at audiochuck.com. I'll go through your submissions and Ashley Flowers and I will be back to chat through them to try and answer as many questions as we can. Okay, now let's jump into the episode. ♪
According to Melissa Lee and the rest of Doug Wag's family, the only way they feel they can get answers about what really happened to him is to do what law enforcement should have done 33 years ago, look closely at Doug's body. Since July 1991, Doug has been buried in a small cemetery in Byhalia, Mississippi, a stone's throw from where he grew up in the suburbs of Memphis, Tennessee.
And it's a nice little cemetery. It's a beautiful little cemetery. And I was happy, you know, with him being there. When Doug was laid to rest, he was buried wearing gloves on his hands. Why? I'm not really sure. His siblings told me the gloves were just an aesthetic thing. His hands were still fully intact after being hit by the train. So it's not like the gloves were there to hide anything. And it's those gloves that Melissa believes might hold potential clues.
I mean, I feel like there may possibly be DNA. So I still think it's a possibility. I mean, I know they can pull DNA off of things, you know. I'm willing to go as far as I can take it, honest to God, because at this point, there's no way that I can stop. How do you just let this go? I get where she's coming from. I do. You can only believe something like that if you have a sense of determination and optimism that most people don't.
The likelihood that a perpetrator's DNA could have been beneath her brother's fingernails when he was buried and is now in those gloves is probably low. But then again, who am I to say it's not there at all? The only way to find out for sure would be to dig Doug up. In Doug's case, as you know, there's no evidence.
There's nothing. They have nothing. They have no clothing. They have nothing. An exhumation is a way to do further investigating. It's really the only thing, as far as I'm concerned, that is left to do to determine exactly what happened. I don't really know at this point what else that we can do in order to get answers, and I feel like we have to exhaust every single option that we have.
During his interview with me, Martin County Sheriff's Office Chief Deputy Drew Robinson confirmed that the agency does not have any physical evidence in Doug's case. Unfortunately, in this case, though, you guys don't have any physical evidence related to this. That is correct. There is no physical evidence related to this particular incident.
Everyone in Doug's immediate family is on board with an exhumation. It's their collective next move. The only problem is, if law enforcement isn't at the center of an exhumation, whatever potential evidence might be found wouldn't be of any real value. Bottom line, Martin County Sheriff's Office needs to be in lockstep with the Wag family if Doug's remains are exhumed and reexamined with new forensic technology.
I at least need to know that everything that is possible to be done can be done before somebody washes their hands of the case. That's all I'm asking for, and that's what they're there to do. And right now, though Melissa is optimistic, she also has her doubts about MCSO. I wholeheartedly believed that if I found anything, that they would use it to further the investigation.
But I'm not getting that vibe now. I know Drew has said before, well, you know, well, there's no evidence. There is evidence. His body is evidence. So the question is, will MCSO get on board with an exhumation and truly work Doug's case to see if there's any potential physical evidence still with his remains? And the answer is possibly.
Drew Robinson told me that in his career, he has never had to deal with the process of conducting an exhumation, let alone one several states away. But that doesn't mean he won't try. He says he's willing to work with me and the family to come up with a plan to get all the agencies that would need to be involved on the same page. He's even looped in the district attorney in Martin County to get his approval for everything.
For my part, I've provided Drew and the DA with a list of entities they need to contact in Mississippi to get the ball rolling on this. According to Drew, digging Doug's body up will take some time to coordinate, and that's due to the complicated nature of an exhumation. But the plan would be that if any evidence is found with his remains or in his gloves, that that evidence would immediately be sent to the North Carolina State Crime Lab for testing. It would go into a queue.
To make this endeavor even easier for MCSO, Melissa intends to privately fund Doug's exhumation as well as any costs associated with processing the gloves. In the summer of 2023, she filed an application to create a nonprofit that could receive donations to raise this money. The charity got approved later that fall, and we chatted shortly after her official IRS letter arrived in the mail. There you have it. Yeah.
It says Douglas Wagg Jr. Foundation, then it has the address and the EIN number.
"Dear applicant, we are pleased to tell you we determined you're exempt from federal income tax under Internal Revenue Code IRC Section 501 . The words on the page were just a bunch of government boring stuff. But as Melissa read, I could see that it wasn't about the words. It was the fact that she now had accomplished something in her brother's honor. There was so much pride beaming from her face.
Please keep for your records. So, yeah, it's pretty cool. I'm going to frame this. I'm going to frame this. Yeah, you should. Yeah, you should. It says to make sure I carry it around, so I guess I'm going to carry around a framed picture with me. If you'd like to donate to the Douglas Wagg Jr. Foundation, the information is in our show notes and in the blog post for this episode.
In addition to hopefully funding her brother's exhumation, Melissa plans to use any money that's given to the foundation to provide financial resources to other families with missing or murdered loved ones who can't afford to pay for flyers, t-shirts, funeral expenses, and more. She's still in the beginning stages of planning what the future looks like for her brother's foundation, but the whole point of it was to be able to provide other families with an opportunity she and her family never had.
to be proactive from the start of an investigation and be able to do things to put pressure on law enforcement if they're not investigating a death with every tool in their arsenal. My brother was a human being, and I know and I have learned enough during all of this that I know that any death such as my brother's should have been treated as a homicide until they knew different. What is it going to take?
Who did my brother have to be for them to do their job? This is their job. You know, this is what they get paid to do. So it would be really nice for somebody within the Sheriff's Department to say, you know, we really want to know what happened to your brother in this little small town at 2:30 in the morning. You know, how did he get on these train tracks? That's what would be really wonderful if somebody would say, we care enough and we want to find out more.
Melissa's fervor for justice and desire to make a tangible impact is inspiring, and it inspired me throughout my reporting. The fact that you're looking into Doug's case, you're trying to bring closure for the family, you're trying to get answers, that means a lot. You know, that means the world to us. And the fact that you're the only one that's done that is a big deal. You know, I don't know that you'll...
I don't know that you'll ever really realize, you know, how much that means to us and how much that means to my parents just to have somebody care enough to look. Since the beginning of my investigation, I felt a longing to make sure the people in this story whose voices have been lost aren't forgotten forever. I'm talking specifically about Tremaine Howell, Nikki Wilson, and Joyce Jean Wilson, the three teenagers whose lives abruptly ended in August 1992.
I've been to Williamston several times while producing this podcast, and every time I drove through town, I thought of them. I thought of Jerry Beach, too, but he's likely got a lot of people thinking about him every time they see something named after him. A bridge, a bronze plaque at the sheriff's office. I found myself thinking a lot about what Tremaine and the girls' last moments on Earth must have been like. How terrified they must have been beneath the overpass bridge next to the boat ramp.
I've paced the Roanoke River's grassy shoreline, staring at the silent, swirling current. And so this exact area where I'm walking is actually where Tremaine's body and Joyce's body were found floating. So the last time I was there, I got an idea, one that I immediately took to the Williamstontown manager, Eric Pearson.
I wrote Eric an email explaining that I wanted to have a commemorative bench installed at the Roanoke River boat landing in Tremaine, Nikki, and Joyce Jean's memory. There are few places to sit and actually look at the river, which is kind of odd since it's technically a park. My desire was for people to be able to go there and not only remember the teenagers' lives, but sit and think about all the details that don't add up about how they died. To think about how they got in the river and ask the same questions I've been asking.
After emailing back and forth with Eric for a few weeks, I submitted my bench proposal to the North Carolina Department of Wildlife, which I learned actually owns the land by the river, and it was approved. A few days after Christmas 2023, the bench was installed at the Roanoke River. Where are you thinking? Thinking right there in the grass I think will be best.
Right as the crew unloading the bench set it down, Denise Howell arrived. I'd only ever spoken with her remotely, so it was great to see her face-to-face. It's so nice to finally meet you. I'm so glad we got to meet what we just got here. Thank you so much, Delia. You're the backbone of this. Yes, thank you. When's the last time that you've been down here?
I can't remember. It just makes me think about Tremaine and the girls, too, and I didn't really think anybody, you know, thought that much of it again. When you see Tremaine's name etched in here, like, for you, what does that mean as his mother? It means a lot. You know, at least you're acknowledging him. What do you hope people experience when they come here and sit on this bench? They will remember the three of them and think about...
How, well, not the whole town, some people here are crooked. Another reason I wanted to put a physical reminder of the teenager's case in Williamston was because near the end of my investigation, after I'd done nearly 40 interviews and Melissa and I had given flyers to dozens of local businesses, a strange thing happened. Something that confirmed a nagging suspicion I'd had from the very first day I stepped foot in Williamston.
Someone was keeping close tabs on what we were up to. I wanted to give you a call because I just got off the phone with Denise Howell, Tremaine Howell's mom. And she goes pretty regularly to the laundromat, the Rogers Laundromat there in town, which is one of the locations you took Doug's flyer to, right? Well, she called me and she told me that somebody has taken down Doug's flyer.
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Whenever Denise Howell calls me, I pick up. On a weekday while I was cleaning my house and chasing my toddler from room to room, her name popped up on my phone. We exchanged our usual greetings, and then Denise told me why she was calling. I guess for a month and a half, I noticed a picture at the laundromat called Doug. It was about, like, after five. I went to the local laundromat. I didn't see it there, but, you know...
So you went by the laundromat there in town where Doug Wag's flyer had been up for a while and then just one day it was gone. And you said the other flyers and information sheets that had been up there, they're still there.
Why did you get bothered by that? Like, what did you think was going on? That's the first thing that came to me.
Yeah, no, I think that's a really good observation. I would venture to think almost the same thing because it's odd that all the other stuff has been undisturbed, but yet his flyer's the only one missing. So let me, I'm going to get on the phone with Melissa, his sister, and talk with her, kind of let her know this is going on and see what she has to say. After my call with Denise, I wasted no time dialing Melissa.
Denise had seen Doug's flyer there, like, every time she went to go do laundry at the laundromat. And she always remembered, like, looking at it. And then just literally a couple days ago, she's like, it was gone. And she's like, it's the only one that's been taken down. All the other flyers are still there. Interesting. Maybe somebody took it down who's, I don't know, bothered by the fact that it's there. I don't know. I just want to get your thoughts. Yeah, yeah.
Yeah, because you put it up there like a couple of months ago, like at least five months ago. You said that when you asked the owner of the laundromat if you could put it up, he was like, yeah, no problem. Go for it. Yeah. Yeah. He had no issue with it at all.
What's really wild is that when the store owner hung Doug's flyer up, he put it inside the laundromat's front window, facing out. It wasn't stuck to the outside of the building where it could have blown off or been damaged. It was secured to a piece of wood sitting behind a thick glass window. When it went up, Melissa took a photo of it. Go check the image out for yourself in the blog post for this episode, or in the app if that's where you're listening.
You can clearly see that someone would have had to intentionally reach around a wooden board, undo two clothespins, and take down the flyer. It seemed clear to me that whoever took it meant to. Somebody's rattled by it. Maybe this is a good thing.
Yeah, to me, I think it kind of speaks to this unspoken feeling that we've always had, which is there might be people there in Williamston and Martin County who are connected to what happened to your brother or know about it that are still around and are still trying to suppress violence.
about his death and any other suspicious deaths. I mean... Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. I mean, I can't think of any other reason why it would be taken down, just that individual flyer. And why there? The exciting thing, if there is such a thing, is that exactly that, is that there are still people there who somebody's rattled by it to want to take it down.
I don't know if any of the other flyers we gave out have gone missing from Williamston, but there's nothing on them that casts blame or suspicion on anyone. They literally just have two photos of Doug above the date, time, and location of his death, along with the phone number for the sheriff's office. There's still people out there 32 years later. There's probably a lot more that they don't want to find to be found out. You know, what are they willing to do for it not to come out?
Early on in my investigation, Andy Holliman predicted something like this would happen. Back when Melissa and I took a field trip to the railroad tracks in Williamston with Andy and Douglas III, Andy mentioned that he felt pretty sure the person or persons who knew what happened to Doug were likely still in town. The only way to keep a secret is never tell anybody. If he ever told anybody else, they told somebody else, and somebody knows something.
And maybe this is just a thing to make somebody open up now that it's been all these years and, you know, maybe get nervous about it. And, you know, maybe it will spark some conversation. I hope it will. A few seconds later, Andy stopped walking and turned directly toward Douglas III. Before we walk off and I forget to tell you, I want you to understand one thing. I never forgot your dad. Never. And I never will. So...
Don't think that he was just some forgotten thing. You know, there are people who remember and who would love to see justice done. It was a really powerful moment. Douglas paused to absorb what Andy said, and it seemed like for the first time in his life, he had a reason to hope. From where we began it and where Melissa has started this whole thing, I mean, we've come quite a ways, I feel like, from not knowing anything to...
You know, at least having more of a, you know, maybe not a full picture, but a better picture than what we certainly had to begin with. I had never seen a photo of Douglas before I met him. And now that I have, as well as studied the face of his father throughout this investigation, it's remarkable how much he looks like his dad. It's jarring, even to his own family members. It just amazes me how much they look alike.
Because it's my brother living, and it is. It's my brother living on, and it's like, holy crap. Because, you know, he never knew my brother. He never knew his dad. He was still in the womb. And how can you come out, look just like my brother, and have the same mannerisms as my brother does? In October 2023, Douglas' wife, Helen, with whom he already shares a daughter, gave birth to a son.
The couple named him Isaac Arthur, Arthur being his father and grandfather's middle name. Every time there's a new addition to the Wag family, there's a lot of happy tears mixed in with a few sad ones. And that's because there will always be one person not there to celebrate. Here's Angel and Mike, Doug's oldest siblings. That's the hardest, the hardest for me. I have grandchildren, and he has grandchildren.
I can't imagine him knowing that he was going to be a dad. And like, as he was going through that, and what was going through his mind, I think about that part. And that is really hard for me because I know what it's like to have a son and I know now grandchildren and he would have been a granddad. And I think about that all the time. And, and it hurts me to know that, that he will never be able to do that.
I wish I could call on my brother and say, hey, buddy, you know, you want to go fishing? You want to go hunting? You want to do this? You want to do that? I wish I could go back in time. I wish it was different, you know. I wish we could go back in time and rewrite the script. For Melissa and Jessica, Doug's youngest sisters, this journey to find answers about what happened to him has, in a strange way, made them feel closer to their brother now than they ever did when he was alive.
There's not a day that's gone by since he's been dead that I haven't thought about him. And I think it would have been really cool to get to know him as an adult. At that point, I just don't know if we would ever stop talking. But I think I would just say I love you and just give him the biggest hug. I don't know. And tell him I've missed him. What a cool grandfather he would have been if he had the chance.
I told her the other day that I picture him, like, playing a guitar in a worship band at my church and, like, you know, being totally reformed and having this really cool testimony that, you know, is going to be told and it's going to help somebody else. Shirley Chamberlain, Doug's mother, will never get over losing her firstborn son. No matter how many children you had, I had five, and...
You miss each one separately as they go on their ways. They're all different and you miss them all in different ways. Her single greatest fear before I came along was that she would die without answers to even the most basic questions about what happened to Doug. But now, that's changed. She at least understands the full context of what was going on in Martin County when Doug died. She no longer thinks it was something Doug did that led to his demise.
He didn't make all the best decisions, but I think that he was a really good person. He was a wonderful son. He was never confrontational with anybody. He was a gentle, kind soul, and he just got caught up in some bad things, and, you know, bad things happen to good people. Obviously, they had no feelings for his family or friends or no compassion at all, just bad
basic humanity. There was none. I don't even know what I would say if I came to face to face with them. Just that you have taken so much from us. You've taken our son, you know, our grandson doesn't have a father. I mean, it's just been, it's just been horrible when you think of all the things that could have been and should have been and would have been, but aren't. It's this lack in all their lives that drives the family to keep pushing forward.
We've had our suspicions about who was involved and who wasn't involved for a very long time. And there's not anybody that you can tell about the case that doesn't have those same suspicions.
because of the way everything happened. The comments of the sheriff, how the case was handled, how the case wasn't handled. These are things that we already knew, but we didn't know, if that makes sense. You know, we already had the suspicion of it kind of had to have been this way based on how everything went, but we just didn't have anything tangible yet.
to be able to, you know, it was just a thought process. So it's interesting that, you know, the corruption and, you know, cops, you know, dealing with drug dealers and all of that, like we've always kind of known that had to have been what happened. Why else would a man that was ran over by a train on the train tracks and killed and hit like a body hit, not in a car, why else would the sheriff say, oh, he's a piece of...
We're just going to let him, like, he doesn't mean anything to anybody. Whatever. You know, there had to have been something there. So if you're out there listening and you know about the something Melissa is talking about, I want you to know this. Justice is not some far off distant thing. Somebody's going to talk. Somebody knows something. Someone is going to say something. It's a train.
Tell the truth. Let it out. Give us peace. Let my brother rest in peace. A powerful, billowing, loud train that's wheels may turn slowly, but will never stop moving forward, closer and closer towards Martin County. He can get away with it. He'll answer for it. He'll pay for it. Just like I'll pay for my sins. Sins, sins, sins.
Thank you for listening to this season of CounterClock. If you haven't already, make sure to visit the website for the show where you can find pictures and documents that I mentioned throughout the episodes. Just go to counterclockpodcast.com. On November 17th, 2023, 10 months after I interviewed Doug Wagg Sr. for this season, he passed away at the age of 82. He was buried next to Doug, his eldest child, in Bahalia, Mississippi.
In lieu of Flowers, his widow asked folks to donate to the Douglas Wagg Jr. Foundation that Melissa set up. Like I mentioned at the top of the episode, don't forget, Ashley Flowers and I will be back in a few weeks with a bonus Q&A episode. So make sure you send your burning questions about the Season 6 investigation to counterclock at audiochuck.com. Only submissions received at this email address will be reviewed.
Counter Clock is an AudioChuck production. The executive producer is Ashley Flowers, and all research, writing, and reporting was done by me, your host, Delia D'Ambra. So, what do you think, Chuck? Do you approve?
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