92. The River Valley Killer
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Hey everybody, welcome back to our podcast. This is Murder With My Husband. I'm Peyton Moreland. And I'm Garrett Moreland. And he's the husband. And I'm the husband. Well, if you are watching on YouTube, you know that we definitely look different because we are in a different studio because we are visiting family for the holidays. But it's the holidays and we are still here. Yeah, we are. We're here. We would never let you down. We would never leave you guys.

All right, you guys. So we did just want to remind everyone about our Patreon. There are bonus episodes on there. It's also just a great way to support the show. So you can just find us on there at patreon.com slash murderwithmyhusband. All right, Gary, you have your 10 seconds. So for my 10 seconds, I did see quite a bit of comments about The Witcher that I mentioned last time. So everyone was mentioning that. And so, I don't know. I'm on episode, sorry, season two, episode two.

So I haven't gotten that far yet, but it's pretty good so far. Payne doesn't even know what I'm talking about. No, I don't. He said it might be about witches, so maybe. Exactly. We actually were still kind of watching The Walking Dead. I know. We kind of like stopped a little bit. But I won't lie. I did star One Tree Hill because I've never seen it. And Garrett's kind of been tuning in with me on that. So we're all in on the drama. I won't admit that.

Also, like Peyton said, we are not at our studio right now. We're in California visiting some family for the holiday. So happy holidays, everybody. Yeah, happy holidays. We're excited. Yeah, we're actually super excited. I love this time of year. I know we do like this time of year. We didn't put any lights up on our house. No. We should have put a big Grinch up.

Yeah, but I did actually want to say I know this time of year can be lonely for some people. So if that's the case, we're here with you. We're listening with you. We're talking to you. And we just want to let you know that we're here and we love you guys. All right. So our case today was actually suggested by Wallace. So thank you, Wallace, for sending this in. Our case sources are Oxygen.com. It's actually like a snapped episode on this was really good. Findagrave.com and Legacy.com.

So every week on Murder With My Husband, I sit here and tell Garrett and you guys horrific and brutal stories of true crime. And oftentimes, these cases are the usual story. The husband who murdered his wife and faked grief. The boyfriend who showed all of the red flags until he finally killed his girlfriend. The friends who decided in their teenager brains that the only way to exact revenge would be murder.

All of these are stories with motive, if you will. Motive that really doesn't make sense, but at least we have the one answer we are all here for. Why do people do these awful things? But there are cases out there where the reason for murder isn't money or revenge or freedom or bitterness.

The thought much darker, scarier, and unnerving. Because if the motive for murder isn't personal, then that means someone is killing for fun or excitement or enjoyment, which we can't even fathom. There is no why with those. And if that's the case, then any of us could be the target.

it because if the victim of a crime is at random then we are all in danger of evil human beings and today we are going to discuss a case that entails just that random thoughtless murder that terrorized a city leaving everyone wondering who was next this is exactly why i hate it exactly so this

case takes place in Fort Smith, Arkansas, which is a sleepy town that sits alongside the Arkansas River, which I didn't even know there was an Arkansas River. Fort Smith is in the western part of Arkansas and actually borders Oklahoma with a population of under 90,000. Although it's the second largest town in Arkansas, it still has a small town fill, according to locals. And back in the 90s, everything I just mentioned was even more. Fort Smith was smaller, slower, and safer.

That was until April 10th, 1993. 89-year-old Lily Jones lives alone in her nice small house in Fort Smith. And yes, I did say 89 years old.

The day has turned to night. Sun has gone down as Lily gets ready for bed. Lily was actually legally blind at this point, but she was able to make it living on her own with help from friends and neighbors. They would come over. They would help her with groceries, all of that kind of stuff. So as Lily sits in her home, she hears a knock at her front door. So she makes her way to the door, but remember, she can't see much, and she is 89 years old. A man's voice comes from the outside of her door as she cracks it open, and he says that he needs to use her phone.

Lily firmly says no. She lives alone and she can't assess the situation very well. So she doesn't feel comfortable with letting a stranger into her home. And did she open the door? Yes, she cracked it. Okay. Did she have one of those chains on it? No, I don't think there was a chain. Okay. She just cracked it? But she just did crack it, tried to hear him and then was like, absolutely not. You're not coming in my home. Okay. And as Lily goes to close the door,

everything changes. The door busts open from the other side of her hands and she falls down. Whoever the unknown man was on the other side of the door was now in her home. Oh my gosh. The one of those chains. That's why I asked about those chains. Cause you can crack the door, you know, if someone tries to come in. Yeah. So Lily tries her best to fight the man off, but there wasn't much she could do. He was stronger and it's such an advantage on her as a blind old woman. Um,

And I will not go into much detail here, but Lily continues to be attacked in every way you can think of in her home, physically and sexually. And during the attack, she just stopped fighting and she actually went unconscious because he was hitting her. Oh, man.

So when Lily woke back up, she remembered what was happening. And instead of continuing to fight, she just decided to pretend to still be asleep. So she was like, I'm just going to close my eyes and get through this and not fight back anymore, not verbalize anything. I'm just going to sit here. She's 89 years old. 89.

It wasn't, you know, worth trying to physically fight him. She wasn't going to win. Yeah. And after the man had finished, he silently got up without saying anything, leaving Lily on the floor, presumably dead. She heard him leave, but she needed to be sure. So she didn't say anything. She just sat there and she was hurt.

But after some time, Lily slowly opened her eyes, crawled her way to her phone, and dialed 911. Fort Smith police immediately responded to the call, and they were more shocked when they arrived. This wasn't your usual crime. From the attack to the victim, this was unique.

Okay. Yeah.

The criminal needed someone who couldn't fight back, either a very young child or an elderly person or a different abled person. So the choice of elderly actually suggests issues with a mother or a grandmother. Now, these are just profiles, not factual evidence. And there are many people who have similar childhoods and never go on to kill. So please don't think that's what we are saying. This is just what police are profiling. And he also left her alive, right? And it didn't seem like he tried to kill her.

Right. Well, I mean, he beat her. He choked her. Oh, yes. I didn't get that part. Right. I didn't go into very much detail. But no, it was a brutal, brutal attack. And Lily actually feels like he thought she was dead when he left. OK, so that's what she says. So she thinks he was trying to kill her. Yes. Yes. OK. She just faked dead.

So despite the brutal physical attack, Lily survives, most likely due to her quick thinking of remaining still and faking dead. The attacker believed her to be dead and left. So semen was actually found at the scene, but this is the early 90s, and only one laboratory at this time in the whole United States actually had the ability to test DNA. So Peyton and I actually, well not really off topic, but we were just talking about how we'd love to get to a point

where we could help test DNA, backlogged DNA, whether that's rape kits or just unsolved cases. I think that that would be awesome. And I actually see that in our near future. Off topic, but I just thought I'd say that because you just brought it up. We were just talking about it because there is such a backlog. And it's like, if we have the ability to test now, why aren't we? Exactly. Well, we aren't because of the lack of resources. So hopefully we can help out with that.

But the only lab that actually was testing DNA at this point was the FBI lab. And I thought that was so interesting. I've never heard of like a timeline of there was only one lab that could test DNA in the United States. And on top of that, for this lab at this time, you actually had to send in a suspect's DNA with the sample DNA to compare it to. And it wasn't like today where you can just get the profile and enter it into CODIS. CODIS didn't exist.

Not to mention all of this took like at least a year. And so just the chance of even testing the semen was a long shot. No fingerprints were found at the crime scene either. And Lily could not obviously give a physical description other than the fact that the man had wore gloves. And so that's why there were no fingerprints at the scene. And also she said that the man seemed familiar, but she couldn't place it.

She's like, just the voice, the way he felt, it seemed familiar, but I can't exactly place where I feel like I know him from. And like you mentioned earlier, you said it's a small town. Right. But not a small town. But not a small town. It has the small town feel in the 90s, but it's not a small town. Yeah.

And the fact that he seemed familiar to Lily led police to believe that maybe the attacker lived nearby and she had come across him before or something. But this was a small town. Like, how could this even happen? How could a local, how could someone she knew do this?

So when word spreads that 89-year-old Lily Jones had been attacked and police believe it's a local, panic begins to spread through the town. But despite the hype, no further clues are found. With no fingerprints, physical identification, or evidence, like, police are really stuck. What are they going to do? They didn't have any of that? No, none of it. I mean, they couldn't have a physical identification from her.

Okay. And there was just no evidence left at the scene besides the semen that they can't text. There was no fingerprints though? No, he was wearing gloves. Oh, that's right. Yeah. So two months go by with no movement on the case, but the lead they would soon get was not the one they were hoping for. In June, 58-year-old Juanita Wofford raised worry at her local church when she didn't show up for Sunday Prayer Circle.

She was a regular, dedicated and consistent. Not to mention she had never married and lived alone. So Pastor J Wells immediately sent two people over to Juanita's house to make sure that everything was okay. I mean, she's not old per se, but she's getting older. She lives alone. Like he's a little worried. Yeah.

But when the two guys that he sent returned to the church with news that Juanita's door looked like it had been broken down, and when they went to walk in, a stench that was so bad kept them out, Pastor Wells decided to call authorities. Fort Smith police responds to the call, and when they come upon Juanita's home, they know the smell. It's a smell that every officer knows.

Police walked through the doorframe and discovered that the door had literally been kicked in. It was hanging from the hinges. Shards of woods were laying on the ground all around the door. That's how hard it had been kicked down. Like, the doors obliterated, basically. A trail of blood led from the living room back to Juanita's bedroom. And when I say a trail, I mean a dragging trail. Not like blood drops. I mean like a path.

a path of dragging blood leading from the living room to the bedroom. And also when I say blood, I mean like a lot of blood, like a large pool of blood that just like doesn't end, like a river of blood through the house.

The crime scene footage walkthrough of this house is graphic to say the least. I saw the pictures and I can literally say that out of all the cases that we have covered and the crime scene photos that I have researched, I have never seen the amount of blood from a crime scene that I saw at this house. Yes. It looked like a slaughterhouse. Like there was just blood everywhere. Holy crap.

A large piece of wood from the doorframe had been ripped off and was found in the living room with blood on it as if someone had been stabbed with it. And when police made their way to the bedroom, they discovered Juanita dead on her bed. I don't want, like, once again, I don't want to go into gruesome details. It's not something unless absolutely necessary that we do on this podcast out of respect for the victims. But you can easily find information online if needs be, if that's something you need to see.

Juanita was undressed and to put it frankly, the scene of the bedroom was so horrid that all of the detectives and authorities who were there that day can easily say that it was hands down one of the most graphic, violent and stomach turning homicide scenes they had ever seen. I guess I'm just trying to rack my brain on how or why, like or how it was so graphic.

Right. Was she stabbed a bunch? What exactly made it so graphic? I know we're not going to go into too much detail, but... Everything. Stabbed, choked, beaten. Her face was unrecognizable. She was obviously undressed. So completely different than the other murder. Or not even murder, than the other attack. Just...

It wasn't necessarily different because that one was also brutal. This is just like to the next level. Like it was 50% to now 100%. Like it's just elevated so, so much. Juanita not only had defense wounds on her hands, but there was actually some oddities found at the crime scene besides the amount of blood.

There were handprints above the bed in blood and someone had urinated on the wall and headborne at the crime scene. And what I mean urinated like on purpose all over the place, not just like relieving themselves. Like they had been on purpose and like sprayed everywhere. What a sight. Oh my gosh.

Urination at a homicide investigation is weird. And behavior analysis actually suggests two things for urination like this. The first is that urine can be a form of degradation on the crime scene itself, like a last attack on the victim, a last punch to the victim. Or two, it's a sexual preference.

that would suggest humiliation is a way for the attacker to get off. Yes. So I've actually heard of this, that urination can be used in sexual settings.

Obviously not in murder, right? But they're thinking this could be the case that this was a sexual preference here. It's one or the other. Got it. Another thing about the crime that was concluded after Juanita's autopsy was that there was necrophilia at play in this case, which would be another strange sexual component that is...

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According to criminal psychologists, necrophilia is a covert behavior that people don't widely publicize or would be as willing to share as other sexual behaviors, illegal or not.

Statistically, necrophiliacs showcase low self-esteem in which they can get over if the person that they are raping can't respond, fight back, or say no. It means that someone's not denying them. Someone's not putting them down. So in necrophilia then, do they have to be dead? Yes. Or can it be someone that's unconscious? Um...

So necrophilia itself, they have to be dead, but I think it would be the same. It would still... Like, it's kind of along the same lines, right? As being unconscious? Yes, but no, necrophilia means they are dead. They no longer have a heartbeat. Okay. So on the wall above the couch at the crime scene was an imprint of a shoe in blood that was parallel to the floor. So like, it's not just like...

It's like parallel to the floor, like someone's literally floating and standing sideways. Like almost like he put his shoe up there. Right. Like he stuck his shoe up there. Yes. So this position is obviously odd, and it wouldn't make sense unless maybe the attacker had needed...

The leverage while attacking. Oh my gosh. Like that's how crazy things had got. He was upside down. Like that's how violent and brutal this attack had got. So whoever had done this had come in this house and rioted like truly awful. And it was after taking in the brutality of the crime scene and Juanita's house that Fort Smith police concluded two things. Number one, they had a serial killer on their hands.

Yeah. Yeah.

And before we keep going, I assume there's no cameras anywhere. No, definitely not. It's the 90s. I think the only cameras were like maybe at the airports. Maybe. I feel like there's quite a bit. In the 90s? Well, how would I know? I was a baby. Yeah, true. But I do just want to clarify that Lily Jones, the first attack, she did survive.

But police think that he assumed she was dead, so that would constitute a serial killer. It just wasn't nearly as brutal, though. It wasn't nearly as brutal. It seems like it would be two different attackers. Right. Because one is extremely brutal. Yes. And the other one was brutal. Was still a violent attack. I mean, like you said, 50% to 100%. Right, right.

And police conclude, number two, whoever is attacking the elderly women in Fort Smith is completely sick in the head. This is a violent, gruesome, carefree attacks that are just purely evil. Police are unsure how to proceed with the known monster lurking among them. And when police are comparing the two crimes, it's obvious that the killer is escalating, right? You just said that.

he has to one-up his own crime to receive the same hit that he had before. And we actually, like...

have been like taught this by experts is that sometimes when someone is killing for fun, it's not for those motives that we were talking about earlier. They're doing it because they get a sense of adrenaline or a dopamine release like drug users would. And so when they kill, they then have to keep one upping themselves, upping the dosage, right? To try to get the same feeling, which is such a dangerous slope to be on. Which is exactly why true crime to me just, it,

I don't know. I can't comprehend it. Well, I don't think any of us can comprehend it, but it's just crazy. Right. Like it makes me, I get, I don't get, but the ones that have motive, right. There was, well, that's what I was talking about. It answers the why. Right. This one, there's no why. Like you said, it's just because they're crazy. Like, I don't know how. Right. And, and I think this is where we come in with the fascination. So to me, um,

Right. And anyone who's probably listening to this, we're fascinated for the why. We're trying to figure out the why. And you are like annoyed. You're annoyed with the why. You're like, I don't want to do this. I don't want to hear it. Right. So police actually inform Juanita's family about the murder, which she's an older woman and they have to call her family and say, hey, she was murdered.

In a very gruesome way, it's awful. And the town was even more on edge now because police are like, hey, yeah, we have a serial killer like running loose in the town. So why was someone hurting such helpless, kind victims?

Lily and Juanita were both loving women who were passionate about religion and had many people who cared for them. So with police eager to catch this monster, they begin dissecting each crime scene. At both, there were shoe prints found outside of a window on the homes

and cigarette butts under the windows as well. So this showed police that the perp most likely stood outside each victim's home and stared in through the window for some time, watching them, figuring out the layout of the home. So this was definitely pre-planned. They also searched the railroad tracks that were behind Juanita's home. And these tracks run through the town. And maybe police are like, maybe it was how the attacker had come across Juanita.

So near the edge of Juanita's yard by the tracks, police discover a blue baseball cap with the words, no beer, no work.

and they feel like maybe it's a good clue. Like, why is there a random hat in her backyard near the railroad tracks? So besides DNA evidence, though, which is great, by the way, now, but not so good then, they really have nothing else to go on besides this hat. So police lay out the geography of the attacks and they discover a convenient route between both houses that literally follows the railroad tracks.

So they find out that if you follow the tracks from Juanita's home, it was a nice secluded, like covered by trees route that would literally pass by Lily's home. Is it passed by anyone else's home? Yes. There's multiple homes in between, but you can literally follow the tracks to both homes. Got it. And because of this supposed route that the suspect might have used, police decided to talk to neighbors like in between these routes and find out if anyone had seen anything. This is the best thing they have to link the two victims.

So based on the state of Juanita's house, the suspect would have left with blood all over him. There was absolutely no way that he left that house clean. So how had no one seen anything? Like where, like how had people not seen this person leave this house? Yeah.

But, I mean, it sounds like the railroad, it's in the backyard, correct? Right. So, I mean, how many people are really just... Out in their backyards. Yeah, just staring and going. And, like we said, it was a secluded railroad. So it's not like you... It's just, like, out in the open. It wasn't, like, a big, huge street that someone was walking down. Right. Right. Right.

So local residents are afraid at this point. There are absolutely no leads and it feels like any of the elderly women could be next. Like police have said there's a serial attacker. Yeah. So neighbors begin fearing other neighbors. Like no one knew who it could be. Oh my gosh. And fear spreads as everyone knows it's possibly not the last time they will see this killer. And so they're like, well, is it them? Is it them? Like they start suspecting everyone because police have said they think it's a local person. Yeah.

And as people begin talking more and more about this serial killer, everyone begins referring to them as the River Valley Killer. His crimes were so horrific and terrorizing that they had now given him an infamous name, the River Valley Killer.

And because of the terror, authorities begin patrolling on foot at night to keep watch. So they literally are like posting guards at night to keep watch. Anyone who was out after dark could be interviewed and questioned. They didn't know what else to do. Like they had nowhere else, like no other leads to go on. And it was during this time that tips from the community began pouring in. And around July, one specific tip sounds promising to police.

Someone had seen a suspicious person walking around the train tracks at night. And that person was a man named Anthony Barnes. Police actually knew Anthony. He had been in trouble multiple times from getting in violent fights.

He carried a knife around town just looking for a fight. Honestly, police felt like it was a good lead because they really had nothing else. Anthony's cousin was brought in to be like talked to. And he told police that Anthony had actually wanted to leave town right after Juanita's murder.

The cousin even brought in clothes that he had found that belonged to Anthony that were covered in blood. What? When Anthony came in to be interviewed and confronted with this, he claimed that the blood on those clothes was actually from him in a previous fight. It wasn't from Juanita's murder. It was from another fight he'd gotten. But they can test it, right? Well, so he volunteered his DNA and he agreed to let Lily Jones, the survivor, fill his face and see if she could identify him that way.

which is interesting because normally you would do like a lineup, right? But she can't do a lineup. So they're like, if you feel him, which so traumatizing, like you actually have to touch him, maybe you could recognize him. So Lily actually agrees. And she concludes that Anthony was not the man who attacked her. And when the DNA finally came back, it didn't match the DNA collected the scenes. Now I do have to say, cause I said that like DNA is hard to test. This wasn't, this was just a blood test.

So they were just testing basically to see if this blood was maybe the same type or had like the same things in it. And it didn't. So they were like, we don't think that this is the same guy. And when they find this out, police back off. It was not Anthony who had done these attacks despite his menacing record.

The next tip that comes in is from a young man named Jonathan Keith Coles. And he actually tells police that he had some information about a 19-year-old friend of his that might help the investigation. His friend told him that he had broken into Ms. Wofford's home and used a piece of the trim from the doorframe to stab her.

Police immediately bring in the friend whose name is Joe Gibbs. Why would a friend just tell another friend that? Right, right. And also, this is true. Like a piece from the doorframe had been used to stab, right? And so they're like, how would someone know this? I forgot about that. Right. So they bring him in and his name is Joe Gibbs. And when confronted with the information, Joe is adamant that his friend Jonathan is lying, that he had never said this or had done this.

Detectives used Joe's semen to test against the semen from the crime scene. Apparently, there's like, once again, it's not like 100% sure, but it's similarities. And it didn't match. And evidence doesn't lie. So they just let Joe go. They're like, physical evidence is stronger than any witness who says, you know, we have some circumstances. Your DNA doesn't match? Yes. Your DNA doesn't match.

So by January of 1994, police were still out searching after these dead ends. They had made their way through all of the tips that had come in, but people and the victims still deserve answers. Whoever this monster is needs to be taken off the street.

So police begin going back through their notes. They had to have missed something. They had to have the answer somewhere. And it was while doing this that they became suspicious of a man named Danny Bennett. Danny's home actually laid right in the middle of the two victims, right on the tracks. And it just seems like Danny's name kept coming up in the investigation after officers had noted that they kept running into him on the railroad tracks in the middle of the night.

Oh, no.

Danny had abused both of his sisters sexually and physically when they were younger and had really not been a good husband to his ex-wife. They also explained that after Juanita's murder, Danny had asked them to get rid of a pair of shoes for him, but they refused. That he had also hurt his arm.

around the time of Juanita's murder. And he'd also actually asked them to get rid of a knife as well, but they were like, no, we want nothing to do with this. They told police that he was interested in older women and they believe that he really had something to do with these attacks. Then police decide to show them the hack.

that they had found on the railroad tracks. So like maybe if this is Danny's, his sisters can identify it. And when they do, Danny's sisters confirm, yep, that is Danny's hat that was found on the tracks in Juanita's backyard. Okay.

So after police hear all of this, they really believe like they have their suspect, right? Although they can't find him, the things they were learning from other people were helping. They decided to bring in Danny's ex-wife and she told them that Danny had actually abused her the whole time they had been together. And at one point he had attached jumper cables to her breasts and shocked her while urinating on her. No freaking way. Yeah. Police are shocked.

No one knew about the urination. Was this never reported? No, she didn't report it. But no one had reported about the urination at Juanita's murder. And now all of a sudden, Danny's ex-wife was like, yeah, he urinated on me at one point. And they're like, okay.

They need to find Danny Bennett. Oh my God. This has to be the person. This is insane. So finally in the middle of January, police locate Danny and they bring him in for questioning, confronting him with everything they knew. He denies, denies, denies. But police had a lot of circumstantial evidence. Danny filled a polygraph and police decided to search his house. In Danny's house, they find a small dagger-like knife. But the bigger thing they find is...

Strange to say the least. In Danny's home, he had been collecting his own urine in two liter bottles all over the house. Like bottles full of urine just everywhere.

Everywhere in his house. Oh my gosh. Yeah. It's pretty easy to say that police are confident with Danny. No way. They now just need a confession or DNA comparison. So police decide to re-interview Danny once again for the second time. Maybe they can find something else out. And unexpectedly, during this taped interview, Danny Bennett tells police, fine, it was me.

I attacked Lily Jones. He explains everything, a full detailed confession that matches her exact description of that night. He said he went up to the door and knocked. She answered. And when she wouldn't let him in, he forced his way in and attacked her. After this, he then confesses to Juanita's murder, describing the scene and even saying...

at some point that he had put his foot on the wall to hold her down and he had actually stepped in blood before that so he noticed that it left a print on the wall. - It makes sense but why would he just confess? - Right, and this detail of the footprint being perpendicular above the couch was never on the news. - It's an open and shut case, right? - Right, police are like, we have our guy, he knew this detail, no one knew about this, this is obvious. So Danny Bennett was arrested and charged with the attacks.

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About a year later in 1995, a long year of the community and families waiting for justice, just months before Danny is set to appear in court, something happens that turns this case on its head. You've got to be kidding me. I mean, no way. The police get a call that an elderly woman, 74-year-old Ruth Henderson, had been found dead in her home. But this wasn't your typical older person death.

They tell detectives they need to get out to the scene now. When detectives arrive, the first thing they notice is the doorframe of the front door kicked in and demolished. Pools of blood lay random throughout the house, and when they make their way to the bedroom, Ruth's body was on the bed, like indicative of a sexual assault. She had been stabbed. She had too many stab wounds to count. The scene looked almost identical to Juanita's.

The only thing missing was the urine. Detectives just look at each other in horror. Like, what the heck is going on right now? It's just a couple of months. Right. In just a couple of months, the River Valley killer was set to appear in courts. Or was he? So my guess is that there was another person with him. Right. So that's literally police. They're like, who had done this? Is this a copycat? Did he have, like...

an accomplice, like what's going on? Police immediately called the jail just to make sure like Danny Bennett is still locked up. They're like, well, maybe he got out. Like maybe we don't know something, but he was, he was in jail. So what do they do now? After closing the crime scene and notifying Ruth's family about the murder, police decide to sit down and look at the situation they are in.

They conclude that the only thing they can do is re-examine Danny's case while simultaneously working Ruth's homicide. They needed to be 110% sure that Danny Bennett had attacked Lily and killed Juanita. I guess I'm confused, though, because they found his hat there. Right. I mean, I know he confessed, but he could have lied. Right. But they found his hat there. Did they test any DNA? I can't remember. They didn't test any DNA. Okay.

And well, because number one, it's hard. And also number two, urination DNA like degrades really fast. So by the time they had found him, there was nothing to test against for that. It would take years. And so they hadn't done that yet. And it's while reviewing Danny's case that one detective notices an inconsistency.

Police had really sealed the coffin when Danny Bennett had confessed to the bloody shoe print had ended up on the wall, right? Like how it had ended up there. Because there was no way anybody but the killer would know that detail. But when re-listening and re-reading the transcripts of all the interviews with Danny, a detective had noticed that in one of the first interviews, Danny is asked how he made the bloody shoe print on the wall above the couch in one of the first interviews. Okay.

And Danny responded, what shoe print? And then the cop went on to explain there was a shoe print above the couch. Like, how did that happen? And he's like, I had nothing to do with this.

And then only till later in his final interview confessed to leaving the bloody shoe print on the wall above the couch. Stunning those detectives. Like, how did he know about this? But a detective had told him about it earlier. So their strongest piece of evidence against Danny Bennett had just crumbled like in a matter of minutes.

Couple that with the fact that the River Valley killer might have just struck again. This is not good. This does not look good. So doubt really begins to set in, not just with the police department, but with the prosecution as well. Who would want to prosecute this case now? The DNA results finally come back in the case after some time, but they're inconclusive. They really had no direct evidence of his guilt, especially now that this confession appears to be false.

We know false confessions happen all the time, and for some reason people who make false confessions don't always try to fix them either, the reasons for which could be all over the place. But the problem with this is that, number one, someone innocent could be sitting in prison for something they didn't do, whether they confess to it or not. And number two, the real criminal is still out there hurting other people, and police have stopped their effort to find them if they believe the real criminal is behind bars.

So the detectives decide to write an explanation letter to the judge and ask for the charges to be dropped against Danny Bennett. That there was now doubt in this case and they wouldn't feel comfortable moving forward with it. And luckily the judge accepts and they drop the charges.

So now police really could relook at everything and try to get it right this time. Even if that means they end up rearresting Danny in the end because he was actually the right one. They just want to make sure. Like they want to start from scratch. They want to make sure. It just seems like there's no way he's the right one. If while he was in jail, the exact same thing happened. It just seems like it's not possible. Right. Right.

So when Danny was released, the public was outraged. And it didn't help that years started to go by without any clues in any of the attacks. So they released Danny, they keep working the cases, and they find nothing. And eventually, five years go by without any more clues or any more attacks in the area. Locals are hoping that the perpetrator had moved on, and police are hoping for some new evidence.

But in May of 2000, another horrific attack hits the river valley. Holy crap. So now it's been seven years since the first killing. I'm sorry, since the first attack. Yes, correct. From 93 to 2000. But this attack was a young 16-year-old girl who was in her home alone when a man who is a friend of the family knocked on the door. She let him in and he made his way to the kitchen and came back with a knife.

He had, you know, begun stabbing her and assaulting her sexually. As she tries her best to fight back, something happens. Her parents come home in the middle of the attack. They walk into their kitchen and see the man on top of their daughter stabbing her to death.

They pull him off. 911 is called. Their young daughter needs an ambulance fast. Meanwhile, the dad is wrestling with the attacker, fighting him. And the dad eventually, he was carrying a pistol. He tries to fire at the attacker twice, but he misses both shots.

And so he eventually just begins hitting the attacker with the butt of the gun. Yep. And in the middle of doing so, police walk in like they've made it to the house. So when police arrive, actually both the daughter and the attacker needed to be rushed to the hospital. That's how bad the dad could be. I don't blame him. Yeah. All power to him. So after the chaos is somewhat settled, the dad tells police that the man who had stabbed his daughter in the head multiple times. In the head?

head? Right. He broke the knife in her head, stabbed her in her chest, broke the knife even more, and then just began beating her. Oh my god.

So she was like, not okay. Yeah. He was trying to kill her. Like, you don't stab someone in the head and just think they're going to live, right? We've talked about this before, how it's when you stab someone that many times, it's some sort of rage. Like, it's just. Personal rage. Beyond comprehension. Right. So he had stabbed her in the head multiple times. And the dad says this was their neighbor, Charles Ray Vine. Oh, my God.

And he had no idea why any of this happened. He said, I like our neighbor. Like he's helped me clean my car, clean my garage. Like he's been at my house multiple times. I have no idea what has happened. While local police are walking through the scene, they can't help but feel the eerie similarity between the house and the other brutal houses that they had been walking through for basically the past seven years. Yeah.

But this victim was 16. I mean, she had been drugged. There was blood everywhere. This is so far off base. Like every other woman had been over 50 and now they have a 16 year old girl. So why couldn't police shake the feeling that these cases were somehow connected? Yeah.

the detectives decide to make their way to the hospital to collect Charles' DNA to compare to the other cases. Luckily for them, DNA had progressed so much in the past seven years, so what does it hurt to try? Like, they're like, we might as well. We have nothing to lose. So while waiting for the testing results to come back, police begin learning all they can about Charles Ray Vine because either way, he had still just attempted to murder a 16-year-old girl. Yeah.

Charles had grown up in the valley and was raised in a mortuary that his dad ran. So a morgue. Okay. He was raised in a morgue. Which, nothing wrong with that. Nothing wrong with that, except for the fact that the last cases had necrophilia. I just remembered that as I was saying, there's nothing wrong with that. Wrong with a morgue. Yeah. Which there isn't, but I'm just saying. Yes. So Charles had been married and had two sons, but he was divorced now. He was a low-key country guy. He had a lot of friends.

He had a good reputation. He was known around town. Like even police knew who he was.

But Charles' close friends actually tell police that the only time Charles would get a little scary is if he was drunk, that he would kind of pick fights, he would turn aggressive. And when the DNA comes back, it's true. Yep. Charles Ray Vine was the River Valley killer. His DNA matching every single crime scene. So what... Why 16-year-old? So now my question is...

That I mean, not that as much, but Danny, like where does Danny come into play? Right. And police are thinking the same thing. Like, how could they have been so far off? And they ask they actually ask Charles. They're like, so who's Danny? And he's like, who? Oh, and they're like, no, Danny. Like, who's Danny? Like, did he help you? And they're like, he's like, I don't even know who that is. Yeah. So they're like, OK, well, they don't even know each other.

So obviously this is conclusive evidence. Like DNA evidence doesn't lie. They have their killer. Charles is arrested and charged with murder and attempted murder. He actually couldn't be charged with Lily Jones's attack because of the one strange thing called the statue of limitations that I still don't understand to this day, but whatever. Despite this, the prosecution decides to pursue the death penalty and police begin interviewing him. But Charles,

Charles and his attorney are like not talking. They're like, we're not going to interview. You already have the DNA evidence. We're just going to go to trial. And police are like, yeah, but we would like to know what happened for closure for the family and everything. They're like, well, fine. Then let's talk about a plea deal. Obviously, that's what they're going to say. And so they decide to go for a plea deal that would entail him confessing to every detail in order to avoid the death penalty. And the state agrees. They're like, we would rather get answers. Like, we'll figure this out. Right. Pretty good deal.

But as soon as the interview starts, it's recorded. Like I watched pieces of it. Charles just started saying, I don't remember. They'd be like, well, were you drunk? I don't remember. Well, how did you break in? I don't remember.

And this is not keeping up his end of the deal. Yeah, so the deal's off. Right. And so police are like, listen, if you don't start giving us the answers, we will not keep up our end of the deal. So finally, after much back and forth with his attorney, Charles starts giving up the information. That he knew what he was going to do when he made his way to everyone's house.

and that even with Lily, the first victim, he had known her his whole life because she went to church with his parents. That's insane. He knew Juanita because his friend lived next door, but he didn't remember urinating on the wall. So this is a big deal. So he goes into much further detail, which we're not going to cover because we don't need to hear every single gruesome detail of the case. We've already discussed what happened. But he does say they're like, okay, and what about the urine at Juanita's house? And he's like, what?

And they're like, the urine. Now I know. It just clicked in my head. No way. And he's like, I don't know what you're talking about. I didn't urinate on the wall. You gotta be kidding me. And they're like, okay. So police are like, had Danny Bennett entered the house before police had gotten there? Because it had been days. She had been sitting there for days and urinated on the wall and left his hat by the tracks. Yeah.

We will never know. Danny's like, nope, absolutely. I had nothing to do with this. And he's embarrassed. Right. And the DNA, it degrades. So there's no chance for us to test it. But how would he have known all those details? Yeah.

about the crime scene that's why he confessed he probably was just like yeah my dna is there i have to confess right and and and his whole everyone who knew him was like oh he likes older women and he has this thing with urination yep and then the behavior analysis were like oh well urination is a form of humiliation like so he wouldn't want to confess to it but he would have known that she had been stabbed with the wood so police are like

This has to be how he was so connected to the case. He came upon it and he's a little twisted in the head and he went in there and he checked out that crime scene. Oh my gosh. Right. But we'll never know. Yeah. But that's what everyone's assuming, including me. Police interview past girlfriends of Charles and all of them claim that during sex, Charles would demand that they would lay there and not move, not talk, just...

lay there almost like they were dead and like we were talking about earlier he did grow up around dead people at the morgue which kind of makes you wonder when he figured out that he liked having sex with dead people like at what point

did this happen and how many corpses had gone through his house, right? And when police confirmed with this, he's like, nope, not talking. He's like, I'm not talking about this. They were like, when was the first time you had sex with a dead body? He's like, I'm not talking about it. So obviously it was before these attacks.

Charles Ray Van was sentenced to three life sentences without the possibility of parole. And police knew for certain that they had caught the River Valley killer, that he would no longer terrorize this community like he had been. In September of 2019, Charles died in prison at the age of 56. Oh, it's pretty young. Right. He just died.

Juanita was very kind and would talk to anybody. She loved garage sales and her family says if you met her, you would never forget her. That's how kind she was. Lily Jones actually lived to be 100 years old. Oh my gosh. Yes, she lived a long life after her attack.

The 16-year-old victim, who we won't name, has really struggled since her attack, her family says, but has made her way through school. She has, you know, lived a life after this. And Ruth was kind to everyone and took care of a lot of people. Everyone had amazing things to say about her. And that is the story of the River Valley Killer. Holy crap. Not only was that story crazy, the whole Danny part. I mean, which we'll never know, but...

But it's kind of assumed in the community that that's what happened. Especially... So he got out. Right. He got out. He got out. Yeah. He's living life. Mm-hmm.

What's crazy, though, too, is he was sexually and physically abusive. Right. So that's what I'm saying is, like, I think if a normal person were to stumble upon the scene that was as gruesome and graphic as Juanita's, number one, they wouldn't probably recover, and number two, they would alert authorities. And he just didn't care. Allegedly. Allegedly, yes. Allegedly. Allegedly. I can't say it was him. Yeah, there's no... He's never been charged. Like, there's nothing there. But allegedly, he walked in and...

Maybe used his sexual preference. Yes. And urinated all over the place. Because, I mean, they found pee bottles everywhere. Right. And he had urinated on past girlfriends and wives and such. Unless he was selling them to pass drug tests. Right. Then I don't know why those would be there. Right. I don't either. And also the thing about Danny is that, remember he told a friend...

That was how he even came on police raid. Yeah, why did he do that? He told a friend that he like busted the door down. Oh, he was probably just trying to brag. Right. I think because he liked what had happened at that crime scene. Like when he went there, he liked it. That's exactly what happened. And so he tried to take credit for it. And it was obvious that the door had been busted down. That's probably what happened. So it makes sense how he would know that, right? There's so many things.

Interesting. I guess we'll never know, but crazy. And I'm actually super grateful that they caught the real killer because Danny would have 100% gone to prison for this. And when police asked Charles about why a 16-year-old, like he had only been with older women, why a 16-year-old, he had no answer. And if he hadn't have attacked her, he probably would have never got caught. Yeah, probably. Until DNA testing, like probably until this year, you know what I mean? But he would have already been dead. Yep.

So it's just crazy. It's a crazy story. All right, you guys, we just want to wish you guys a happy holidays. We hope all of you have an amazing week and we will see you next week with another episode. I love it. And I hate it. Goodbye.