Southern Fried true crime covers cases that are not suitable for young listeners, and
there may also be some explicit language used. Listener discretion is advost. On
Thursday, June twenty fifth, nineteen ninety eight, Officer Chris Long was having
a normal hot summer night. He was patrolling Moody, Alabama in his police
car, and he was keeping an air to his radio, just like he
always did so. When Chris heard his colleague, officer Keith Turner, send
a radio transmission to central dispatch, he listened like he always would, but
it wasn't anything special. Keith was pulling over a vehicle for a routine traffic
stop. Automatically, Chris headed towards Keith's location. Later, Chris would testify
that this was out of habit. He said, anytime he stopped a car,
I backed him up, and vice versa. Even when Chris had Keith's
patrol car in sight, he didn't think anything was off. He heard a
few pops, but it was June twenty fifth, The Fourth of July holiday
was only a week away. People were always setting off firecrackers early, especially
in rural Alabama. But when Chris heard additional pops followed by screaming. His
stomach dropped as he realized it wasn't fireworks. Welcome to episode two O nine,
The Disgraced Hero and Fugitive Mario Sentobi Officer. Keith Ashley Turner was born
in November nineteen sixty eight to his parents Dot and Pat Turner in pel City,
Alabama. He had two brothers and a sister, and although Keith was
born in pel City, he primarily grew up in a town called Ragland.
Ragland is located in Saint Clair County, Alabama. It's about fifteen miles north
of pel City and fifty miles east of Birmingham. Ragland is your typical rural
small town. Its population sits at about two thousand plus or minus several hundred
people depending on the year. When I say this is the kind of place
where everybody knows everybody, I mean it. Everyone in Ragland is just about
on a first name basis. How could they not be. They're filling up
their cars at the same two gas stations, They're going to the same grocery
store, and when they want a night out, they're all headed to the
only restaurant in town, which, if you're wondering, serves barbecue. Keith's
family was from Ragland. His mother, Dot was a lifelong member of the
Ragland Methodist Church and attended Ragland High School. Keith's father, Pat, was
a military veteran. He had served in the U. S. Navy during
World War II as a machinist mate. Pat operated and maintained ships, and
it's likely his military status was a big part of the Turner family. In
fact, before Dot passed away in twenty twenty one at the age of ninety
four, she was a member of the local VFW Auxiliary. Keith was a
member of his mother's Methodist church, and in nineteen eighty seven, eighteen year
old Keith graduated from the same Ragland High School she did. On June twenty
seventh, nineteen ninety six, twenty eight year old Keith married a woman named
Brandy. She was about twenty years old at the time. A year later,
in the spring of nineteen ninety seven, Brandy gave birth to the couple's
first and only child, a little girl. According to Brandy, Keith was
a fantastic father. The Birmingham Post Herald reported that Brandy said he was a
wonderful man. He lived for her. The summer after Keith's daughter was born,
he hit another big milestone. He graduated from the University of Alabama's police
academy. Keith had wanted to be a law enforcement officer for quite some time.
I imagine this was an especially exciting accomplishment for him. Keith began his
police career with a southside police department near Gadsden, Alabama. In March of
nineteen ninety eight, he switched to a new position at the police department in
Moody, Alabama. Moody, like Ragland, is also located in Saint Clair
County, and while Moody is also a small rural town, it is slightly
bigger than Ragland. In the late nineteen nineties, approximately eight thousand people lived
there. In June of nineteen ninety eight, Keith was twenty nine years old
and thriving. He had a loving wife, a young daughter, a supportive
family. Plus. Keith had started his dream career, a dream career that,
as it turns out, he had a knack for. Moody Police Chief
Robert Clement said of Keith, I wish I had a dozen more just like
him. Others who knew Keith remarked on how kind and generous. He was.
A previous supervisor told the Birmingham Post Herald he was an outstanding young man.
He always had a smile on his face and was ready to help anyone.
On June twenty seventh, nineteen ninety eight, Heith's anniversary. He was
on duty in his marked Moody police vehicle. At ten thirty pm. He
pulled over a nineteen on Mercury Grand Marquis for a routine traffic stop. The
marque parked in a residential driveway. Before Keith exited his car, he radioed
Central Dispatch to let them know he had stopped this vehicle. As I mentioned
at the top of the episode, Officer Chris Long heard the transmission and made
his way towards Keith's location. Meanwhile, Keith walked toward the Marquee he pulled
over. Suddenly a man got out of the car. Keith called out,
Hey, what are y'all doing. The man leaned into the car's window and
said, give me my license. Then the man leaned down and reached through
the window, but when he straightened up he did not have his license.
Instead, he had a gun. Without warning, the man shot Keith three
times. The first bullet was stopped by Keith's bullet proof best the second hit
his hip, and the third was fired directly into the back of his head.
Twenty nine year old Officer Keith Turner died immediately. He did not even
have time to draw his weapon. When Officer Chris Long pulled up, the
two men responsible for Keith's murder ran. The man who was inside the car
went one way and the shooter went another. The two hit among the swampy
wooded areas in Saint Clair County. Almost immediately, a massive manhunt began.
No one had laid eyes on these men yet, but the authorities were damn
near positive they knew exactly who these fugitives were. Thirty two year old Mario
sent Toby and nineteen year old Jeremy Granbury. They had both escaped from a
Mississippi prison two days earlier. I'm going to pause now freshwort commercial break.
Mario Giovanni Sentobi was born in nineteen sixty six to his mother, Tracy Wolfe
and his father John Arden sent Toby in Biloxi, Mississippi. His gravestone indicates
he was born on January twenty sixth, but according to an FBI wanted poster,
Mario's birthday is actually October twenty sixth. That same FBI wanted poster explained
that January twenty sixth was just an alias birthday Mario used, probably to help
avoid detection. When Mario was around four years old, his biological father left
his family. Mario's new stepfather was Richard O'Connor. When Tracy and Richard were
wed, Mario would have been approximately seventeen years old. By the time Mario
was grown, he had at least seven siblings. Some of them were full
siblings, while others were half siblings. Mario spent the bulk of his childhood
in and around two Mississippi cities, Biloxi and Long Beach. They're about seventeen
miles apart from each other on the Mississippi Gulf coast. In nineteen eighty four,
eighteen year old Mario graduated from Long Beach High School. He had played
football there. By the time he was about twenty years old, he still
lived in Long Beach. At nine to fifteen pm on Sunday, June first,
nineteen eighty six, Mario was involved in a gun related accident. He
was cleaning his twenty gage shotgun when it accidentally discharged. He was taken to
the hospital where he underwent emergency surgery. At the time, authorities told the
Sun Herald that the accident was under investigation. In fact, the Sun Herald
article that reported on this event used the words supposedly when referencing the incident.
It seemed people weren't sure that Mario was telling the truth. But as far
as I can tell, no additional news reports came about this incident. When
Mario was in his twenties, he became a firefighter. According to his obituary,
he was a valedictorian of his class at the State of Mississippi Fire Academy,
and as reported by The Sun Herald, twenty five year old Mario was
working for the Orange Grove Fire Department in Biloxi. By March of nineteen ninety
one, he appeared to be doing very well there. In fact, Mario
was sometimes chosen to be the fire departments and formal spokesman, and by that
I mean when local newspaper journalist needed a quote from a fireman on the ground,
they would go to Mario. For example, when a local grass burning
got out of control and spread to more than three hundred acres of land,
Mario told the Sun Herald it was the largest woods fire I'd ever been in.
Nobody would heart. I found several similar quotes from Mario published in the
Sun Herald. He was usually explaining what may have caused a recent fire and
giving an estimate of the damage. According to his obituary, in nineteen ninety
two, the twenty six year old was named Firefighter of the Year. Newspapers
reported that by August of nineteen ninety two, Mario had risen to the rank
of captain. He was also sometimes cited as being a training officer. Months
later, in December of nineteen ninety two, Mario completed a five week training
program at the State Fire Academy. The next year, in nineteen ninety three,
Mario was dubbed Fireman of the Year. I'm not sure if that's the
same as the Firefighter of the Year Mario received in nineteen ninety two. Sometime
between nineteen ninety two and ninety three, Mario also worked for the Dieberville Fire
Department, but in December of nineteen ninety three he had resigned from that position.
In addition to being a fireman, Mario was a lifeguard, a CPR
instructor, a rescue diver, and a rope rescue specialist. Mario received nine
Green Cross Awards for rescuing trapped and injured victims. On July twelfth of nineteen
ninety four, twenty eight year old Mario and another rescue professional, Norman Barnum,
were recognized for helping with the Amtrak train disaster near Mobil, Alabama.
You may have heard of it. It's sometimes called the Big Bayou Cannot Rail
accident. On September twenty second, nineteen ninety three, a towboat pulling along
heavy barges ran into a bridge. The collision knocked the bridge's train track out
of alignment, and eight minutes later, an Amtrak passenger train carrying two hundred
people was derailed. The train was traveling about seventy miles per hour. In
total, forty seven people died more than one hundred were injured. Mario was
a volunteer for the Long Beach Dive and Rescue Team, so he was helping
clean up the scene. Afterward, he repeatedly dove into the bayou to help
recover bodies and other items. Mario told The Sun Herald the devastation of the
crash was almost unbelievable. Norman, the other recognized man, had helped on
the surface. For their work on the accident, Mario and Norman were presented
a certificate of merit from the Mobile County Sheriff's Flotilla. But despite Mario's long
list of accomplishments as a rescue worker, he was not a good guy.
There's no other way to put it. He just wasn't. This was a
man who might have been a hero for some good portions of his life,
but by the end of this episode, you're going to understand that all of
Mario's good deep could never outweigh his bad ones, and it's time we talk
about those. At some point in the late nineteen eighties and early nineteen nineties,
Mario married a woman named Cheryl Lynn Stanley. There isn't much information available
about Cheryl's past, but she was likely a Mississippi native born around nineteen sixty
nine. She was in her late teens or early twenties at the time that
she had began a relationship with Mario. Cheryl and Mario had one son together,
named Dominic, and for a while the family of three lived together in
Gulfport Mississippi, which is just four miles to the east of Long Beach.
Cheryl worked as a teacher's aide at a local elementary school, and Mario,
of course, was a rescue worker. But soon the couple began having serious
problems. Mario was abusive. On at least one occasion, he admitted to
slapping Cheryl. Afterward, she got a restraining order against him, and by
September of nineteen ninety five, twenty six year old Cheryl and twenty nine year
old Mario were separated. Cheryl and her son Dominic lived in a Gulfport home
together and Mario was on his own. Mario and Cheryl's separation may have been
a shock to Mario's family. Later they would say they didn't believe Mario would
hurt his wife, but this separation probably wasn't a shock to Cheryl's family.
Her father later testified that for two years it had been painfully clear that Cheryl
feared her husband. Her father told the son Harold, the whole family is
still worried about her. It's rough. She has been plumb scared to death,
and the authorities would later confirm Mario's domestic violence as well. Police chief
George Payne of the Gulfport Police Department, said Mario was violent and abuse to
Cheryl repeatedly. Hain also indicated that both Cheryl and their son, Dominic,
were scared to death of Mario, and that Mario was known for using fear
and intimidation to control them. On the evening of Saturday, September sixteenth of
nineteen ninety five, Mario cut the phone lines to Cheryl and Dominic's home.
Then he kicked open her front door, violently pushing into the house. At
the time, Cheryl and little Dominic, who was between five and seven years
old, were watching television. I'm sure they were terrified to see Mario burst
in while wielding a gun. Mario used the gun to force Cheryl and Dominic
into his rented four probes of Dan and Mario told Cheryl that he would kill
their son if she didn't follow his orders exactly. For four days, Mario
held his estranged wife and son captive. He took them from Mississippi to Louisiana
to Texas, all the while Mario sexually assaulted Cheryl repeatedly while their son was
present. When they were near San Antonio, Mario wanted to force another man
to sexually assault Cheryl. She testified, we went to a truck stop,
but he couldn't find a man that was by himself. He got back in
the car and put the gun to his head. He said he just didn't
want to live anymore, and then he put the gun down. Eventually,
Cheryl commenced Mario that she would not divorce him, and she agreed to retract
her previous allegations of abuse. Honestly, what else was she supposed to do?
Stand her ground and die. With Cheryl's agreements in mind, Mario decided
to return to Mississippi. He needed to go to the city of Pearl anyway,
he had to make a court appearance to pay a one hundred dollars fine
and do six months of probation for an unrelated shoplifting charge. And now that
Mario felt he had his wife and son back under his thumb, he felt
comfortable showing up. Afterward, they would go back to their Gulfport home.
In his mind, things would return to normal. So Mario threw away his
gun at a convenience store, and on Tuesday, September nineteenth, nineteen ninety
five, he had Cheryl drop him off at the Pearl Courthouse. Cheryl took
the rental car to wash it, and then she and Dominic waited for Mario
in a wal Mart parking lot. It was near the courthouse. Later,
it would be pointed out by Mario's defense attorneys that Cheryl could have simply driven
away, obviously ignoring the amount of control Mario had over Cheryl. He had
terrorized her and her child for four days. She was terrified to defy Mario.
When Mario arrived at the Pearl Courthouse, someone had the wherewithal to realize
he was out on bond. He was facing charges of sexual assault and domestic
violence against his wife, and with a little more digging, they realized that
same wife and Mario's son had been reported missing. Thankfully, the court officials
and other authorities put things together, and as Cheryl and Dominic waited for Mario
to finish his court proceedings, two FBI agents approached them, and those FBI
agents told Cheryl that Mario had been arrested for kidnapping. I'm going to pause
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terms for details. The authorities had been on the lookout for Marios shortly after
he had abducted his wife and son on Saturday, September sixteenth, and that's
because Cheryl's father and her stepmom had gone to Cheryl's home on Sunday, September
seventeen. They saw that her front door was kicked in, the house was
unusually messy, and the phone wasn't working. Even the television had been left
on. Clearly something was wrong, so Cheryl's father reported his daughter and the
grandson missing, and due to Mario's history of domestic violence, he was the
police's number one suspect. When Mario was arrested four days later. He was
taken to golf court and held on a fifty thousand dollars bond. Two days
later, on September twenty first, Mario's bond was increased to one million.
Needless to say, he couldn't pay it, so he remained in jail.
Mario was indicted that November. His charges were kidnapping, aggravated assault, burglary,
and sexual battery, and one count of sexual battery related to an earlier
incident, and his trial began the next year, on October fourteenth, nineteen
ninety six. By this point, Cheryl had successfully divorced Mario. During the
trial, Mario's defense team argued that Cheryl had agreed to go on this quote
trip. They suggested that it was a family vacation, not a kidnapping.
Mario's defense attorneys said their marital issues were typical. They pointed to how,
despite their separation, Cheryl and Mario had recently interacted a church, the movie
theater, and restaurants. They had witnesses to prove as much. One of
Mario's acquaintances thought Mario and Cheryl were making up, but that same person also
testified that Mario had recently been suing, and then he had mentioned getting a
gun. The defense also cast out on the police investigation. The authorities had
let Cheryl drive her son home after Mario's arrest, That in and of itself
wasn't the problem. The problem was that Cheryl drove home in the same rental
car that Mario had kidnapped her in, and she had removed trash like fast
food wrappers from the car before turning it over to the police to be searched.
The defense was alleging that Cheryl may have tampered with evidence. By the
time the four vehicle was searched, detectives found blood on the passenger side seat
belt. Cheryl testified that this was because she was bleeding while sitting in that
seat. Mario had pistol whipped her in the head and there was a lot
of blood. She had had to wrap her head with a shirt to staunch
the bleeding. When those two FBI agents found Cheryl, she did have a
head injury. However, this seat belt blood was never proven to be Cheryl's.
The authorities had intended to send samples to the state crime lab for testing,
but for unknown reasons, though samples were never sent. Also, the
shirt Cheryl had used to wrap her head was never found. Another issue with
the investigation was that they had not sent Cheryl to the hospital to complete a
rape test, and they didn't check Cheryl or Mario's clothing for seamen. The
defense team also had proved that when a Gulfport police officer had interviewed Cheryl immediately
after the kidnapping, she had said she had gone on the trip of her
own accord, and they pointed out how Cheryl wrote letters to Mario while he
was in jail. She had even signed them with a word love, but
this again was due to Cheryl's fear of Mario. While on the stand,
Cheryl test as to how terrified she was of Mario. She explained that she
had written him letters because she didn't know if he was getting out of jail.
She said, I didn't want him to be mad at me. He
will kill me. Cheryl testified to her story in detail, and officers explained
to the jury that they found wirecutters in Mario's personal vehicle, which was a
truck that had been abandoned in a casino parking lot. The prosecution claimed these
wirecutters were what Mario used to cut Cheryl's phone lines before he kidnapped her.
The prosecution also called to the stand Cheryl's seventeen year old neighbor he had seen
Mario peeking into the windows of Cheryl's home days before the kidnapping, and a
bank worker testified that Mario had stopped by the bank a day before the kidnapping.
He had seemed upset and had withdrawn five thousand dollars that's just under ten
thousand today, but when asked about how he and Cheryl were doing, Mario
said they were fine. Cheryl and Mario's elementary school age son, Dominic,
also testified. He verified that Mario had a gun on him, saying he
kept it in a pouch in a red car, and Dominic confirmed that his
father had beaten his mother in front of him. On Friday, October eighteenth,
nineteen ninety six, the jury convicted thirty year old Mario cent Toby of
aggravated assault and burglary. He was acquitted of all sexual battery charges. It's
likely the jury made that decision because Cheryl had not undergone a rape test and
the lack of testing for Mario seamen. Ultimately, Mario was sentenced to forty
years in prison, twenty years for kidnapping, ten years for aggravated assault,
and tend for burglary. The jury had considered life in prison, but they
couldn't make a unanimous decision on it, so it was off the table.
This wasn't an extremely high profile case. In fact, the authorities didn't disclose
any information about the case to news reporters until after Cheryl and Dominic were recovered.
That was a purposeful decision, meant to keep them safe. However,
for those who did follow the case, Mario's convictions were controversial. On the
one hand, Mario's family maintained that this whole situation was blown out of proportion.
Mario's stepfather, Richard O'Connor said to the Birmingham Post Harold, they went
on this vacation and didn't tell either parents, and the next thing I know,
the police are around here looking for Mario. Richard referenced how Mario took
Cheryl and Dominic to Texas beeches, and how Mario's original shoplifting charge was for
stealing his son a birthday present, which is strange if he had five thousand
dollars in the bank. But anyway, the authorities obviously thought this whole story
was bullshit. The police chief of Gulfport said to the Sun Herald, this
is a classic case of an abused woman where it appears the system failed her.
Additionally, I'm not sure how Mario's family is rationalizing Cheryl's broken door,
cut phone wires and bruised face. But it doesn't matter what I think the
jury thought. Mario was guilty and that was that or that should have been
that, because unfortunately this was only the beginning. I'm going to pause now
for a short commercial break. In nineteen ninety eight, thirty two year old
Mario Centobi was incarcerated in the Mississippi State Penitentiary. It's located in Parchment,
Mississippi, and is often referred to as Parchment Prison. That's where Mario met
nineteen year old Jeremy Granberry. Jeremy was serving six years. He would have
only served five years, but in November of nineteen ninety seven, Jeremy and
another inmate, twenty one year old Christopher Wally, attempted to escape from Parchment
Prison. The pair had just walked away while on work detail at a nearby
pig and chicken farm. They were caught by that afternoon and Jeremy was sentenced
to an additional year in prison. On Thursday, June twenty fifth, nineteen
ninety eight, Mario and Jeremy were to be transported from Parchment Prison to Laurel,
Mississippi, for court proceedings. These hearings were directly related to Jeremy's case,
so it made sense that he was going, but Mario was not supposed
to be going to these court hearings. He had asked Jeremy to put his
name on the witness list because this was the first step of Mario's plan.
So Mario and Jeremy climbed into a vehicle with Sheriff Maurice Hooks of Jones County
and Ray Butler. Ray was a former lawman and a friend of Sheriff Hooks.
Later on, Hooks would explain that he had brought his buddy Ray along
because he thought he was only transporting one inmate, Jeremy. Mario coming was
news to Sheriff Hooks. That's also the reason why Hooks arrived in an unsecured
vehicle. It was supposed to have a divider between the front seat, where
the officer sit, and the back seat where the inmates sit, but this
vehicle did not have that, and as you'll soon learn, this lack of
divider was going to make all the difference. And it's important to note here
that Mario and Jeremy's ankles were shackled, but their wrists were not. It's
unclear why the trip from Parchment to Laurel would take nearly four hours, so
a little over two hours in the group of four made a pit stop in
Richland, Mississippi. Sheriff Hooks let Mario and Jeremy use the restroom, and
he and Ray got some coffee. As Hooks went to get back into the
vehicle, all hell broke loose. Sheriff Hooks later testified, opened the front
door, got into the driver's seat, put my coffee into the holder,
and closed the door. Granberry reached over the seat, grabbed me by the
neck and pulled me into the seat backwards. Sin Toby went from my gun
and hit me with it on the head four or five times. Armed with
the sheriff Hooks's forty five caliber automatic pistol, Mario forced Hooks and Ray to
an old barn in an isolated area. He and Jeremy tied up the sheriff
and his friend to a post. Then they left them there. Mario and
Jeremy fled in Sheriff Hooks's vehicle. Sheriff Hooks and Ray Butler stayed tied up
in that barn for approximately twenty hours. They were found on Friday, June
twenty sixth by a couple visiting a nearby cemetery. The two men received treatment
for cuts, swollen limbs, and dehydration. They both made a full recovery.
After Mario and Jeremy stole the sheriff's car, they stopped at a Walmart
twenty five miles to the north in Livingston, Mississippi. They walked inside while
still wearing their prison uniforms. The uniforms consisted of white shirts with ms DOC
for Mississippi Department of Corrections printed on the back and dark pants. And Walmart,
the two men purchased black T shirts, a compass, water purification tablets,
and other items. Mario and Jeremy also found fai plastic sheriff's badges and
Hooks's car. Hooks would give these out to children. Mario and Jeremy pinned
them to their shirts, probably in the hopes that they might fool someone into
thinking they were supposed to be in this marked law enforcement vehicle. With new
clothes, fake badges, and some provisions, the two escapees were prepared to
go on the run, just like they had planned all along. Seven hours
later, Mario and Jeremy were near Tuscaloosa, Alabama, and it just so
happened that forty seven year old Captain Cecil Lancaster of the Tuscaloosa Police Department was
coming home late. He had been held up by a meeting at work.
Lancaster saw Hooks's marked patrol car drive by on I three fifty nine, and
although Lancaster had no idea that two fugitives were on the loose, he noticed
that something was off about the car. First off, he saw that the
sheriff's car was missing its rear bumper. As luck would have it, this
was not actually related to Mario or Jeremy's fugitive status. The bumper had been
dislodged during a previous accident Sheriff Hooks had been involved in. Still, it
gave Captain Lancaster pause. Then he also noticed that the car had no tags.
Plus, the two people inside the car didn't acknowledge him as they passed
by. As a precaution, Lancaster pulled the sheriff's car over. As Captain
Lancaster walked toward the driver's side of the car, he got a good look
at Jeremy Grandberry. Jeremy was in the driver's seat, so he was easy
to see, but Lancaster was unable to see Mario in the front passenger seat.
Before Lancaster made it all the way to the driver's side, Mario leaned
back behind the front seat. Although Lancaster didn't have a clear vision of Mario,
he could see that someone was pointing a gun at him. According to
later testimony, the first time Marrio tried to shoot Lancaster, the gun only
clicked. There was no shell on the gun's chamber, so Mario cocked the
gun and fired again. He shot through the back window on the driver's side
and hit Lancaster twice. The first shot struck Lancaster's gun clip on his police
belt, and the second hit him in the torso. Lancaster suffered two broken
ribs and the bullet's exit wound was near his tailbone. He was a very
lucky man. After being hit, Lancaster fell to the ground. That's when
he saw the Sheriff's vehicle begin to move forward. He realized they were going
to try and run him over. He testified, I saw the reverse light
come on, and that shocked me back to reality. I pulled out my
gun and fired a shot into the rear window in the high left side.
A second shot shattered the back window. Jeremy and Mario decided it wasn't worth
it to run over Lancaster and fled the scene. As they sped off,
Lancaster kept fire, but they were gone Soon after. A fellow police officer
saw that Captain Lancaster was hurt. On the Interstate. That officer, Sergeant
Jeffrey Elmore, used his shirt and a piece of cardboard to slow Lancaster's bleeding.
Other concerned bystanders had also stopped to help. Eventually, Captain Lancaster would
make it to a hospital. He was reported as being in fair condition the
day after the shooting, but he did have to undergo surgery due to his
injuries. Following their run in with Lancaster, Mario and Jeremy abandoned Sheriff Hooks's
patrol car in the backyard of a mobile home in South Tuscaloosa after nearly killing
Captain Lancaster. They probably realized that marked car was drawing unnecessary attention. That's
when they stole the nineteen eighty one Mercury Grandmarquis I'm mentioned in the opening.
By this point, the local authorities were aware that Mario and Jeremy were on
the run. The two fugitives were considered armed and dangerous, and law enforcement
officers were going door to door to check on locals and advise them to stay
inside. On Saturday, June twenty seventh, Jeremy and Mario stopped for food
near Leeds, Alabama. Jeremy stopped at a McDonald's while Mario went to a
Taco Bell. Security footage was later recovered showing Mario making his Taco Bell order.
Later that day, Officer Keith Turner pulled over Jeremy and Mario for a
routine traffic stop. After Mario murdered Officer Keith Turner in cold blood, Jeremy
turned their stolen car into a driveway, and per later testimony, Jeremy looked
at Mario and said, well, this is it, and Mario responded,
you can give up if you want to, man, I ain't going back
to Parchment. Then Mario got out of the car shortly after Jeremy did too.
He fled across a baseball field and hid in a swampy wooded area,
and immediately after Mario did the same in a slightly different direction. When Officer
Chris Long arrived on the scene, he fired at Mario. Mario fell to
the ground as if he had been shot, so Chris thought he had made
contact. This was further reinforced when Mario began crawling towards the woods. Later
investigators would realize that Mario had not been shot. There was no blood on
the ground where he had fallen. Mario was either trying to mislead Officer Long
or he was avoiding more gunfire. But thinking that Mario was somewhat incapacitated,
Chris turned his attention toward Keith. He felt around Keith's chest, searching for
a wound. It was ten thirty p m. And dark. Chris couldn't
see that Keith had been shot in the head. But then Chris shined his
light on Keith and saw the blood. His neck and collar were covered in
it. Officer Keith Turner was killed in the line of duty on his two
year wedding anniversary. His funeral was held three days later at one pm on
Tuesday, June thirtieth, at the Ragland Methodist Church. He was laid to
rest in the Garden of Memory Cemetery in Ragland, Alabama. His father was
also buried there, and his mother was laid to rest there too, at
the age of ninety four in twenty twenty one. At the time of Keith's
death, his mother had seen him a few days earlier. She told the
Birmingham Post Herald the last thing he said to me was I love you.
There couldn't have been a better way to say goodbye. The year after his
death, in May of nineteen ninety nine, Keith was posthumously rewarded the Medal
of Valor and a stone memorial was dedicated to his memory. The Moody Police
Chief, Robert Clement, said of Keith, he had tremendous potential. He
was a fine, fine man. It was just our bad luck that those
predators happened to come through our town. I'm going to pause now for a
short commercial break. Following Officer Keith Turner's murder, a huge manhunt for Mario
and Jeremy began. Detectives primarily focused on a ten square mile area in Saint
Clair County. The Cross Baptist Church became the headquarters for all search activities.
Roadblocks were put up, helicopters circled the air. Hundreds of federal, state,
and local officers were put on the case, and numerous law enforcement agencies
help. Some of them were the FBI, that Alabama Bureau of Investigation,
the Alabama State Troopers, multiple county sheriff's departments, and multiple city police departments,
including the Moody Police Department where Officer Keith Turner was employed. Jeremy was
captured at two pm on Sunday, June twenty eighth. It was less than
one day since he had ran. Bloodhounds had found him hiding in a sewage
ditch not far from where he had initially fled the scene. He was charged
with capital murder for Officer Keith Turner an attempted murder for Captain Cecil Lancaster.
As the police apprehended him, locals watched, They clapped and cheered. The
authorities, high fived, and honked their horns. Many onlookers heard Jeremy screaming
that he was not responsible for killing Officer Keith Turner. He was held at
the Saint Clair County Jail. Even though Jeremy was quickly recovered, Mario escaped
the authority for several days. He survived by stealing vegetables from people's gardens and
breaking into homes for food. He would take items from the back of people's
refrigerators and the hopes that they might not notice he had been there. Law
enforcement officers were optimistic that the hot weather might exhaust Mario. It was about
ninety degrees most days. Alabama State Trooper William Rogers told the Birmingham Post Harold,
we think the heat will work in our favor. That's why we want
to keep continuous pressure on him. On a hot day, it's hard to
keep moving. But the heat didn't seem to FaZe Mario because on Monday,
June twenty ninth, law enforcement had no clue where he was. Jeremy did
not provide them with any helpful information, and the leeds coming in from locals
were largely incorrect. Still, the police were pretty sure Mario remained in this
area. As a precaution, residents were encouraged to lock their doors and stay
inside. A special agent for the Federal Bureau of Alcohol tobacco and firearms.
Told the Birmingham Post Herald, he is very cunning. He's desperate to do
anything to not be incarcerated. He's on the extreme violent end of the criminal
subculture. And a different officer told the Birmingham Post Harald, now's not a
good time to take a walk in the woods or go pick berries. June
turned into July and Mario sent Toby was still nowhere to be found. A
local fireworks company called Crazy Bill Fireworks shut down business to help with the investigation.
They urged everyone in the area to not shoot off any fireworks. They
didn't want the sound or sights to interfere with the investigation. On July fourth,
Mario escaped the authorities search perimeter, undetected due to rain and dense fog.
He went to a Moody, Alabama gas station. There he carjacked a
man named Daniel Alexander at about nine thirty PM. Daniel wasn't even from Alabama.
He was from Arkansas visiting relatives, but he had the misfortune of being
in Mario's path. Mario forced Daniel to drive him to mobile Detectives later revealed
that they believed Mario was on his way to Cheryl and Dominic's home in Gulfport.
Fortunately, the authorities had seen that coming. They had already put Cheryl
and Dominic in protective custody. As they crossed the state lines from Alabama to
Mississippi, Mario and Daniel stopped at the Mississippi Welcome Center. Mario must have
been driving at this point, because Daniel was pretending to be asleep. When
Mario went inside the welcome center, Daniel quickly drove the car away. He
called the police immediately and told them Mario's location. That Daniel had escaped,
Mario knew right away that his location was compromised, so he hitched a ride
with a van full of tourists to the distance between himself and the Mississippi Welcome
Center. The van documents later confirmed to the authorities that Mario was indeed headed
to see his wife and child. Fifteen year old veteran Lieutenant Obie Wells was
at the Ocean Spring Sheriff's Department building when he received a call. The caller
informed Wells that escaped fugitive Marios and Toby might be traveling in a van on
iten, So Wells set out to find the van and Mario. Through sheer
luck, he spotted them right away. He started telling the van and radioed
for backup. Once Wells felt comfortable that he had support, he pulled the
van over near Pascagoula, Mississippi. Mario got out of the van right away.
He wouldn't listen to the lieutenants or the other officer's commands, and he
was still armed with Sheriff Hooks's gun. But when Mario realized he was outnumbered
by officers with no place to go, he finally surrendered. He emptied his
clip from his gun, held out his arms, and positioned himself spread eagle
in the van. Throughout his capture, Mario did not say a word,
and at about seven twenty am on July fifth, nineteen ninety eight, thirty
two year old Mario Sentobi was arrested after eleven days of being on the run.
He was charged with capital murder for Officer Keith Turner's death an attempted murder
for officer Cecil Lancaster. The Moody Police Department, where officer Keith Turner had
worked, was disappointed that they were not the ones to catch Mario. Their
police chief, Robert Clements, told the Birmingham Post, Harold, that will
be a regret for every member of the Moody Police Department forever. He destroyed
one of us, and we wanted to get him. Although Mario's case was
not high profile back when he was first tried in nineteen ninety six, it
certainly was now, and for good reason. This manhunt involved at least one
thousand hours of overtime for authorities. In total, about six hundred law enforcement
officers were involved, and more than one hundred and thirty agencies had played a
part in Mario's search and capture. By the end of it all, catching
Mario had cost taxpayers a modest estimate of one million dollars. It would be
almost two million today plus. Coverage of the case was especially popular when three
different people filed three separate lawsuits against Sheriff Maurice Hooks and other Jones County officials.
Keith's widow, Brandy Turner, the officer who was almost killed, Captain
Cecil Lancaster, and the carjacked man Daniel Alexander all wanted ten million dollars each,
thirty million dollars from a county with less than seventy thousand in population.
Brandy, Lancaster, and Daniel felt that it was an oversight by Jones County
that Mario and Jeremy had escaped in the first place. One lawsuit specifically cited
that missing divider that should have barricaded Mario and Jeremy from sheriff Hooks. Eventually,
all three settled their lawsuits for undisclosed amounts of money. Following his arrest,
officers questioned Mario for four hours in a Pascagoula jail. He confessed.
By July eighth, Mario was transferred to the Edawa County Jail. They couldn't
hold him in the Saint Clair County jail because they were worried for his safety.
Mario had killed a police officer in cold blood. In a small town,
there was worry about vigilantes. At the time that Mario arrived at the
Ediwa County jail, Officer Keith Turner's widow, Brandy, was also at the
same jail. She was trying to get more information about her husband's murder.
She had no idea Mario was going to be there, but once she saw
her husband's killer, she asked to speak with him. According to court documents,
Brandy was escorted to Mario's cell. Then Mario asked the present officers to
leave. They did, leaving Brandy and Mario alone for a private conversation.
For days, Brandy did not tell authorities what Mario said to her during this
time, but eventually she revealed the following Brandy asked Mario, why did you
murder my husband? And Mario had responded that he did not murder Keith,
he merely shot him. He told Brandy that he had to I'm going to
pause now for a final commercial break. You might have thought I was about
to wrap up, that we were almost at the finish line. That's probably
what every person following Mario's case had thought too, But Mario wasn't done yet,
and in October nineteen ninety eight, three months after being taken into custody,
Mario successfully escaped jail again. This time, Mario escaped by charming forty
four year old Donna Hawkins. Donna was a prison guard at the Ottawa County
Jail, and while Donna and Mario would not have been able to interact in
person, they did communicate via written letters. Other jail workers suggested they also
could have spoken via the prison's speaker system. Donna had left Mario's maximum security
cell and cell block unlocked, so on Thursday October eighth, between eight and
ten pm, Mario walked out the front door of the jail. He had
fashioned a silhouette of a person in his prison bed using sheets, pillows,
and hair clippings, so no one realized Mario was gone until breakfast the next
morning. By that time, Mario had disappeared. He had arranged for a
former inmate who was out on bond to help him find a ride out.
That inmate, twenty eight year old Brent Andre Paris, was later charged with
hindering prosecution. As Mario fled once more, the authorities posted wanted flowers all
over the southeastern United States. They focused primarily on service stations and rest areas
along major highways. On Tuesday, October thirteenth, five days after Mario escaped,
Alabama Governor Bob James offered a ten thousand dollars reward almost sixteen thousand dollars
today for any information leading to his capture or conviction. After the reward was
put out, the number of calls about Mario's sightings increased. They had to
install more phones at the command and center just to take them all in.
By October fourteenth, the authorities had issued an unlawful flight warrant for Mario.
Investigators suspected Mario would continue to try to make his way back to his ex
wife Cheryl and his son Dominic, but honestly they had no idea where he
was, not until Mario contacted a woman named Phronsie Owens. Phronsie was a
longtime friend of Donna Hawkins, the jailer who had let Mario escape. Mario
wanted Phronsie to deliver Donna some letters he had written to her, but instead
of delivering the letters to Donna, Phronsie delivered them to the police. As
a direct result, Mario was caught at eight forty five am on October twenty
first, nineteen ninety eight. It had been thirteen days since he had escaped.
He was apprehended at a Sitgo convenience store in northern Atlanta, Georgia.
He was sitting in the passenger seat of a red Ford pickup. The driver
of the pickup was a twenty four year old truck driver. That truck driver
was out of the vehicle and on the phone when the officer surrounded Mario.
Apparently, the truck driver had been letting Mario stay at his apartment, but
he did not know who Mario was, so he didn't face charges. Once
again, Mario surrendered peacefully. He had to. There were seven law enforcement
officers with guns pointed at him. Mario was carrying a stolen three fifty seven
caliber revolver in his backpack, but he couldn't get to it in time.
According to present officers, Mario appeared incredibly surprised when they found him. He
later confirmed that he had no idea they were on to him. Jailor Donna
Hawkins had been arrested on Friday, October ninth, the day after Mario escaped.
She was released on bond a few months later. By the end of
it all, Donna was sentenced to eighteen months in prison for helping Mario.
According to her defense attorney, Donna, who was married, had not engaged
in a romantic relationship with Mario. Nope, she had supposedly just made an
honest mistake. At the very most, Mario had tricked her. But this
theory falls a little flat when you consider it was Mario's continued correspondence with Donna
that led to his second capture. This whole ordeal brought a huge amount of
criticism to the Ottawa County Jail's security measures. A sheriff told local papers that
there was nothing wrong with the jail security, but he suggested that they might
start implementing psychological screenings before hiring guards, you think. Following Mario's second capture,
he was held at the Federal Correctional Institution and Talladega after a stop in
Gadston. This was a maximum security prison. They later transferred him to Saint
Clair Correctional Facility. Due to rampant publicity, Mario and Jeremy's trials were both
moved from Saint Clair County to Elmore County, and although the two men were
to be tried separately, their trials happened to be in the same building at
the same time. This was because Mario and Jeremy were extreme flight risks.
The court was trying to mitigate their security costs. After all, Mario had
two escapes under his belt and by this time Jeremy had three. In April
of nineteen ninety nine, while awaiting this trial, Jeremy had broken a window
of the Saint Clair County jail. He was trying to escape again. The
authorities suspected he was going to use bedsheets to climb to the ground. On
Monday May tenth, nineteen ninety nine, both Mario and Jeremy's trials for the
capital murder of Officer Keith Turner began. Both men faced the death penalty.
Barely a week later, both men were convicted. There really was no question
about their guilt. Jeremy's only defense was that he was not the mastermind of
this operation, just a follower, and both Sheriff Hooks and Mario's account of
the situation corroborated that, and likely for that reason, the jury voted seven
to five that twenty year old Jeremy Granbury should be sentenced to life without parole,
not death. Today Jeremy is about forty five years old and incarcerated in
the Saint Clair Correctional Facility. He will never receive parole and he has never
appealed. Mario, on the other hand, was facing the death penalty.
He was obviously the shooter in Keith's murder, and against the advice of his
lawyers, Mario testified in his own defense. On the stand, Mario admitted
to killing Officer Keith Turner. He said that he wanted to tell the jury
he wasn't a terrorist, mad dog killer. He explained, if I had
that in me, then the body count would be big. So on Friday
May fourteenth, nineteen ninety nine, the jury deliberated for less than two hours
before convicting thirty three year old Mario cent Toby of capital murder. That Sunday,
he was sentenced to death less than a month later, on Thursday,
June third, nineteen ninety nine, officials searched Mario and they found he had
a makeshift plastic handcuff key hidden in his mouth. He was planning to escape.
Yet again, he wouldn't spit out the key until the authorities shocked him
with an electric belt he was wearing. Jeremy and Mario still faced charges in
the attempted murder of Captain Cecil Lane and Castor in the year two thousand.
Twenty one year old Jeremy Granberry pled guilty. He was sentenced to three consecutive
life terms in addition to his previous sentence. Mario went through the motions of
a jury trial, but the result was the same. He was sentenced to
three consecutive life terms. The prosecutors were not willing to drop this case against
Mario because they feared his death sentence might be overturned in the appills process,
and Mario did appeal once in August of two thousand and one, but by
November it had been denied and a five to zero decision. He soon dropped
all efforts for remaining appills. On April twenty eighth, two thousand and five,
thirty nine year old Mario sent Toby ate his final meals. For lunch,
he had chili and rice, okra and corn tomato soup, cornbread,
gingerbread cake, and fruit punch. For asus snack, he ate pizza,
a poor Boy and a Philly cheesteak sandwich and three sodas. And for dinner
he ate barbecued chicken egg noodles with butter, turnip greens, candied sweet potatoes,
and a strawberry soda. At four ten pm, he was served communion
by a Catholic priest from Birmingham. He said in an affidavit he preferred death
over life in prison and that he was ready to die. He also denounced
a Montgomery attorney who filed an unsolicited appeal on his behalf, claiming that he
was mentally ill. The only kind of mental condition I may be suffering from
is depression, which is just a condition of being on death row. The
crimes I have committed have also caused me to have some depression. At six
pm that day, he was executed by lethal injection. Multiple Moody police officers
were present to witness his death. Mario Giovanni, sin Toby, killer and
escape artist, smiled slightly and gave a thumbs up before he was executed that
night for the nineteen ninety eight murder of Moody police officer Keith Turner. He
said nothing. He didn't acknowledge his mother or brother sitting in a witness room
to his right, or the relatives and co workers of Turner in a separate
witness room straight ahead. Though he had been divorced for ten years, sin
Toby still wore his wedding ring. He was pronounced dead at six twenty two
pm. Any of those hoping for an apology did not get one. I
never saw any remorse. Patrick Turner said he did not even apologize to his
own mama for what he put her through. He didn't care. It was
an ignominious, shameful ending for a man who had once been held a hero
for his work in the Amtrak train disaster. Southern Fried True Crime is hosted
and produced by me Erica Kelly. Today's episode was researched and written by Andrea
Marshbank. As usual, any editorial comments and opinions are my own. Southern
Fred's original music is by Rob Harrison of Gamma Radio and the original graphic artist
by Kully Horner. Today's episode was edited and mixed by Brandon sheck Snyder of
Southern Gothic and Erica Kelly. If you have any case suggestions, please go
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