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 a vised In
the early nineteen eighties, Dana King was a little girl who liked horses in
the small town of Columbia, Kentucky. When a new family, the Wellnitzes,
moved nearby, Dana was intrigued. She was overjoyed when she learned that
the father of the family, Joe Wellnitz was a veterinarian and that he and
his wife, Beth were going to open their own vet clinic. Dana later
said they were kind, they were loving, and they were fun to be
around. She also remembered how Beth let her help wash their pony. Beth
had always been so kind to her. Over the years, Dana ended up
doing a lot of odd jobs for the Wellnuts family and their vet practice,
and when she grew up, Dana married a veterinarian. Many years later,
she and her husband would come to own what was once the Wellnutz family's veterinary
practice. Joe and Beth Wellness were long since gone. The well Nuts story
had ended in tragedy. Welcome to Episode two sixteen, the Wellnutz family murderers.
Beth Wellnitz was born Elizabeth N. Preston on May first, nineteen fifty
two, to Leonard and Mary Preston in Lexington, Cantucky. She had two
brothers. Beth's parents met at the University of Kentucky. Her mother was studying
to be an English teacher and her father was a college football player. By
nineteen forty three, Mary and Leonard were married. For the rest of their
lives. Beth's parents would be avid University Kentucky sports fans. During the Korean
War, Beth's father served in the Army. While her father was in the
military, the Preston family moved all over the world. They lived in Japan,
Germany, Philadelphia, Fort Knox, and Louisville. Then, around nineteen
sixty six, Leonard was seriously injured in the line of duty. At the
time, he was stationed in North Korea. Following that, Leonard retired from
the military, and when Beth was around six years old, the Preston family
settled down in Lexington, Kentucky. Beth's mother, Mary, taught her to
about the importance of academic excellence, tolerance, and compassion. She was a
teacher and a great role model. Pleus. Mary was an active volunteer.
She participated in local politics, co founded housing organizations, and helped out with
mills on wills. Meanwhile, Beth's father, Leonard, taught the kids the
importance of teamwork and determination. Leonard's military career also played a big part in
his children's lives. One of Beth's brothers, Lee, followed in his dad's
footsteps and joined the army. Lee even attended the prestigious West Point Military Academy
in New York. Tragically, in March of nineteen sixty nine, twenty four
year old Lee was killed in action in the Vietnam War. Lee's name is
engraved in the Vietnam Veterans War Memorial in Washington, d c. Beth lost
her other brother, William Power Preston, in nineteen eighty five. As an
adult, Beth was known for her kind heart, energetic nature, and selfless
generosity. She always said that if she ever won the lottery, she'd use
her winnings to help those in need. She would start a home for terminally
ill children. She'd use the money to assist the elderly. She'd buy her
friends and family homes and Cars, a woman who worked with Beth for many
years, Cindy Yates told the Lexington Herald Leader her philosophy was, if you've
got it, share it. In June of nineteen seventy, eighteen year old
Beth experienced two major milestones. First, she graduated from Henry Clay High School,
and on the twenty seventh of that same month, Beth got married.
His name was Sam Mullinix. He worked at IBM and took classes at the
University of Kentucky. That fall, Beth also began her bachelor's degree at UK.
Beth had two children from this marriage. Her son, Dennis, was
born in April nineteen seventy two. Then two years later came Margaret and Mullinichs.
She was born on March tenth, nineteen seventy four, in Good Samaritan,
Kentucky. Margaret would always go by Meg, but unfortunately Beth and Sam's
relationship didn't work. They divorced in the late seventies. Then Beth made her
way to Lexington, Kentucky. That's where she met a man named Joe.
Joseph Verle Wellness was born in October of nineteen forty two to parents Vile and
Dorothy. Joe grew up near Louisville, Kentucky, in the rural areas of
Jefferson County. He had a brother and a sister. Even as a child,
Joe had a passion for helping animals. It was natural that he grew
up to be a veterinarian. Joe graduated from Wagner High School in the nineteen
fifties. Then he attended Ohio's University of Cincinnati. In nineteen sixty five,
Joe moved to Alabama to earn his doctor a veterinarian medicine from Auburn University.
After that, he moved back home to Kentucky. Joe also served in the
Air Force during the Vietnam War. While enlisted, he helped care for the
U. S. Sentry dogs and assisted Vietnamese farmers. Once, he flew
into an area where enemy soldiers were nearby to treat some sick farm animals.
For his bravery, Joe was awarded the Bronze Star. On December thirtieth,
nineteen seventy one, twenty nine year old Joe married his first wife, Elizabeth
Weddington. Joe and his new wife began their lives in Versailles, Kentucky.
For about six years, he worked at a local veterinarian clinic, but ultimately
Joe and Elizabeth's marriage did not work out and they divorced in the early seventies.
In January of nineteen seventy six, thirty three year old Joe married a
woman named Sarah Houston. Sarah had a son from her previous marriage named Eric.
Joe adopted Eric at a very young age, but by December of nineteen
seventy eight, this marriage had also failed and Joe and Sarah divorced. Over
time, Joe's relationship with his adopted son Eric became estranged. After his divorce,
Joe moved to Lexington, Kentucky, where he worked as a veterinarian for
the Southland del Tour Clinic. This was when Joe Wellnut's crossed paths with a
young, blonde, single mother and English teacher named Beth Molinix. They fell
in love, and on June twenty second, nineteen seventy nine, thirty six
year old Joe married twenty seven year old Beth in Fayette, Kentucky. They
spent their honeymoon camping at Dale Hollow Lake. For the rest of their years
together, Joe and Beth would recreate the same honeymoon camping trip every year on
their anniversary. When Joe and Beth were married, Beth's son, Dennis was
seven years old, her daughter Meg was five. Both children came to love
and respect Joe as their father, and in the nineteen eighties, both Dennis
and Meg officially changed their last names to Wellnets. Dennis even took Joe's middle
name, Le as his middle name. Joe and Beth's relationship seemed meant to
be. They were madly in love. Even after years of marriage, they
acted like dough I teenagers. Their reverend, Jim Chaffin, was blown away
by their continuous passion for each other. He told a newspaper, I've never
met a couple their age who were so devoted. I'm going to pause now
for a short commercial break. In January of nineteen eighty one, the Wellnuts
family moved. They went one hundred miles south from Lexington to Columbia, Kentucky,
which probably felt like a big change for the family. Lexington is a
large, bustling city with a population of more than three hundred thousand. Colombia,
on the other hand, was a small rural town back in the eighties
and nineties, Columbia was populated by fewer than four thousand people, but that
was exactly why Joe and Beth wanted to move there. Their lifelong goal was
to open their own veterinary clinic in a carrying, close knit community. They
would work together, with Beth running the office. So they bought a farmhouse
with a big barn in Columbia. They renovated the barn, creating their clinic.
As Joe would later say when speaking to the Adair Progress newspaper, we
feel our dream has come true. Over the next twelve years, doctor Joe,
his clinic, and his face family became pillars of the Columbia community.
Beth became the historian for the Kentucky Veterinary Medical Association. Joe joined the Adair
County Health Board. Their eldest Dennis, was considered a reliable, smart and
hard worker, and Meg was very involved at Adare County High School. She
tutored other students, and she participated in art and library clubs. The Wellnuts
family were also members of the local Presbyterian Church. They were extremely well liked.
Joyce Malden, who lived with her husband in a cabin on the Wellness's
property told the Herald Leader, they're the type of people everybody loved. They'd
do anything for you. Joe, who was lovingly referred to as Doc,
was considered a caring veterinarian with a big heart. He would frequently treat people's
pets for free. When he had to put an animal down, he grieved
alongside its owner, and when a wayward dog didn't have a home to go
to, it wasn't unusual for Joe to bring it over to the house with
him. In October of ninety two, someone brought in a dog with two
broken legs. Joe treated the poor fella without payment, Then when no one
could adopt the dog, Joe took him home. The dog's name was Tequila,
and Tequila stayed with the Wellnesses for many months until he was well enough
to move on. On a different occasion, Joe took in a Border Collie
that couldn't walk. That poor pup, whose name was Boose, had severe
back issues. A specialist confirmed that there was no way the dog was going
to stand again, but Joe wasn't dismayed. He put a diaper on Boose
and let the dog live on his property. Roger Smith a dentist and Joe's
neighbor, told the local newspaper Joe treated animals as a physician treated people.
He couldn't stand to see them suffer. Joe's employees at the vet clinic also
spoke highly of his dedication to animals. One employee, Dan Lawhorn, tease
Joe that he could stand to be a little meaner. He said, I
told him one time, I thought he was about too good to the animals
and the people. At the beginning of nineteen ninety three, the Wellnuts vet
practice was thriving. Joe and Beth were, by all accounts, very happily
married. Twenty year old Dennis was a student at Somerset Community College. He
also worked at the movie warehouse in Columbia, and eighteen year old mag had
just started at Lexington Community College. Everything really seemed picture perfect for the Wellnuts
family, which is probably why the morning of Friday, February twenty sixth,
nineteen ninety three, came as such a shock to quite literally everyone. At
about eight o'clock that morning, two employees arrived at the Wellnuts clinic. They
both thought it was strange that Joe and Beth hadn't come in yet, after
all, their house was the stone's throw away. It wasn't like they could
be stuck in traffic. One of the employees, Dan Lawhorn, noticed a
bullet sized hole in the side door of the building. Dan knew Joe would
want to know about the damage, so he walked over to Joe and Beth's
house. The doors to the home were unlocked, but that wasn't really strange.
After all, this was small town Kentucky. Nobody locked their doors,
so Dan walked inside the Walnuts home to search for Joe. He found fifty
year old Joe Wellnets downstairs. He was wearing a T shirt and sweatpants and
lying face down in a pool of his own blood. A second employee had
accompanied Dan to the Wellnuts home. When Dan had gone downstairs, she walked
upstairs. That's where she found forty year old Beth Wellness dead in the main
bedroom, and then she found twenty year old Dennis dead in his bedroom.
The stunned employees called nine one one and waited for first responders. Captain Jeff
Hancock of the Kentucky State Police arrived at the scene. He had known Joe
and Beth pretty well. In later interviews with oxygen. Captain Hancock said,
I'll never forget walking in the house that morning and seeing what I saw.
It was just total shock. I knew what kind of people they were.
I knew how kind they were, and how compassionate they were with the work
they did. I couldn't believe it. All three members of the Wellnuts family
were dressed for bed, and all three had suffered multiple gunshot wounds to their
heads and torsos. The only remaining wellness was Meg. On the night her
family was massacred, he was out of the house one hundred miles away in
Lexington, where she attended community college. That specific Friday night, she had
been playing cards with her boyfriend Randy and another couple, Bill and Regina Meese.
Captain Hancock's heart broke for mag Her entire family had been annihilated in the
blink of an eye. He said. When Meg was told that her mom
and dad and brother were murdered, I felt really sorry for her. I
thought, how is she going to go on? How does she recover from
this? The funeral service for Joe, Beth and Dennis Wellnets was held four
days later, on Tuesday, March second, nineteen ninety three people gathered at
one pm in the Christ Church Cathedral for the service before interment. After the
service, all three members of the Wellnuts family were buried in the Lexington Cemetery.
Previously, his father and both of her brothers were buried in this same
cemetery. In twenty twenty, Beth's mother Mary would be laid to rest there
as well, after losing almost all of her immediate family. As police investigated
the crime scene for clues, they became increasingly baffled. There was no sign
of forced entry into the house, no busted locks, no broken windows,
no mysterious fingerprints, nothing. No one had rifled through the drawers, the
furniture hadn't been overturned. In fact, everything was clean and tidy, and
all valuables exactly where they should be. It didn't appear that this was a
robbery gone wrong. There wasn't even a sign of struggle. Whoever was responsible
seemed to have caught all three victims by surprise. Joe was the first,
and his body was positioned in such a way that officers believed he might have
been headed towards his gun, but he didn't make it there in time.
At first, authorities wondered if there were multiple killers. They had found seventeen
shell casings throughout the home. That's nearly six bullets per victim, but ballistics
testing later revealed that all seventeen casings came from the same gun, so the
multiple shooter theory was considered unlikely. Early in the investigation, Beth's mother Mary
told the police to look out for a small fireproof safe. She said it
held important papers, and indeed, detective Roy Wheat had discovered keys labeled fire
safe in the house, but the safe itself was nowhere to be found.
Usually it was located in the back of Joe and Beth's closet. They could
see a square endent in the carpet where it should have been. So far,
this was the only lead police had. If this was a robber,
it was a very specific kind of robbery, not a smash and grab,
but a robbery that required a great deal of planning. How else would someone
have known where the fire safe was hidden. It was in an upstairs bedroom
closet. That's not exactly in plain sight. You've got to know where you're
going. Due to the brutality of these killings, local investigators were nearly certain
that this crime was personal in nature, that it wasn't random. No,
they suspected that someone had a vendetta against the wellnesses. Detective Roy Wheat told
the Lexington Herald Leader, I would have to say, in my almost nineteen
years, it's probably the worst situation I've had to deal with. I'm going
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dot com. When investigating the murders, the authorities first looked at pet owners
who were upset with Joe's veterinary practice, and they actually found a few.
Namely, there was one man who wouldn't pay his bill, but that guy
was quickly cleared. The police also spoke with a couple who used to rent
the cabin on the wellness property. The couple was supposed to complete some work
for Joe and Beth in exchange they would get to stay in the cabin for
free, but they didn't do the work, or at least they didn't do
enough work to satisfy Joe and Beth, and when Joe handed the couple an
eighteen hundred dollars bill, it didn't go over well. But by February of
nineteen ninety three, that couple had moved away. According to them, their
dispute with the Wellnuts family was fully resolved and they had solid alibis. Then
investigators began looking at Joe's estranged son, Eric Wellnits. Joe had never removed
Eric from his will, so he was set to receive about a quarter of
a million dollars after Joe's death. When law enforcement reached out to Eric,
he was genuinely shocked that he was still included in his stepfather's will, which
made sense seeing as he and Joe no longer spoke. Eric had cut ties
after Joe abandoned him. He felt that Joe's new family with Beth had essentially
replaced him. Regardless, the killer wasn't Eric. He had an airtight alibi
for the night of the murders. He was sleeping at a friend's house,
and Eric, like Meg, was all the way in Lexington, one hundred
miles away, a two hour drive at best. Eric told Oxygen, there's
no way in the world, I ever could have done anything like that.
Yes, I was angry as a child, you know, having your dad
disappearing out of your life, kind of in a snap of a finger.
It was hard and I was angry, but not that kind of anger where
I wished anything bad. Meg's college boyfriend, Randy Appleton, was also considered
a suspect. The police were suspicious of Randy because he was a gun enthusiast
and he didn't get along well with Meg's mother, Beth, But none of
the shell casings found in the well Nuts home matched Randy's gun collection, so
investigators kept looking. Meg herself was also considered a suspect. She stood to
inherit a lot of money, so she had to be a person of interest,
but Joe and Beth were in enough debt that are actual internance was moot.
In fact, Meg wound up having to sell the farmhouse and land to
pay off those debts, but the insurance payout was going to be sizable,
somewhere in the range of five hundred and thirty thousand. In today's money,
that would be more than one point one million. As a brief sidebar,
investigators also found that Meg had some connections with the occult and Wicca nineteen ninety
three was about the height of the Satanic Panic in America, and Meg was
definitely at the age of teens who had become fascinated by Satanism. She kept
a black candle in her bedroom in the Walnuts home, and she had written
a freshman term paper on the topic of human sacrifice. Meg later claimed she
only went to one WICCA meeting. However, she and her friends Bill and
Regina Mee did bond over their mutual interest in Wicca magic and witchcraft. Perhaps
Meg was just exploring her religious beliefs. She was young, just entering college
figuring herself out. Court documents also reported that Beth had a book about Wicca
on her night stand, so I have to wonder if perhaps Beth, a
practicing Christian, was trying to understand her daughter's new fascination with witchcraft. Of
course, none of this seemed very relevant to the murderers, especially since both
Meg and Randy's time was accounted for that evening. As I said before,
they were playing cards with two other people, their friends, Bill and Regina
Mees. Detectives spoke to Bill MEAs, but they never had much contact with
Regina According to her later testimony, Mees forbade her from talking to the authorities,
but he wasn't too worried about himself, and in late nineteen ninety three
he agreed to take a polygraph test with the Lexington Police Department. It did
not go well. When he arrived at the testing session, he was under
the impression he was only going to be asked about a gun in his possession,
specifically a Browning high power pistol. He said he had gotten it only
a few weeks before the murders from a friend of a friend. Mees refused
to tell the police the identity of the friend of a friend, saying this
person was a felon. They weren't supposed to own a gun, and Mees
wasn't going to get them in trouble. During the polygraph test, the interviewer
suddenly changed tracks. He asked MEAs not about the gun, but about the
murders of Joe Beth and Dennis Wellnitz. That's when Bill Meaes lost it.
He became so agitated that he had to be unhooked from the polygraph machine.
Early Captain Hancock later said it definitely raised red flags that he knows more than
he's telling us. But red flags are only that red flags. The police
didn't have any evidence, and Meece, who wasn't under arrest, was well
within his rights to leave. Local authorities were highly motivated to find the person
responsible for killing the Wellnesses, not just because the family was so well loved,
but also because residents of Columbia, Kentucky were freaking out. They didn't
feel safe and who could blame them. An entire family had been executed,
and no one had any clue as to why. Gun sells in the area
were rising. People started locking their doors. Cindy Yates, a longtime employee
of the Wellness Vet Clinic, tried to avoid going out at night following the
murders. She told the Lexington Harold, you can't walk past your window without
wondering who's out there looking at you. If I just knew who or why,
it would help a lot. Just not knowing is most of the fear.
As a result of this community wide panic, the rumor mill was cranking.
One local newspaper even published a front page story detailing the most common rumors.
A portion of the article was styled like mad libs, as in it
said the prime suspect or suspects are blank fill in your own names. This
seems in very poor taste for a newspaper to do after this kind of tragedy.
I guess sometimes Gallow's humor takes over in even the worst of cases.
But the rumors were so prolific that Ronnie Moran, a state Police trooper and
spokesman, told reporters the community is upset, is concerned, frightened. Everyone
has their own suspect. It spawned a lot of rumors and that's all they
are rumors. So yeah, the police wanted a perp and fast, not
only because they knew the Wellness family and wanted to serve justice, but also
because this unexplained crime was wreaking havoc on their community. The Lexington, Columbia
and University of Kentucky authorities joined forces to solve this crime. They assigned three
investigators to the case. In total, hundreds of hours were spent tracking down
leads, and the authorities followed up on many, many tips from the public.
At first, it seemed like this case was going to be solved quickly.
Less than a month after the murders in March of nineteen ninety three,
one police spokesperson told the Lexington Herald that they were pursuing promising leads. Not
long after, Detective Roy Wheat told reporters it does look good as far as
an arrest being made. I don't have a doubt in my mind that sooner
or later we're going to get the break we need to break it wide open.
But investigators didn't get their break until almost ten years later. I'm going
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teledoc heealth dot com. That's te la doc health dot com. Years passed
without any new developments in the Wellness triple homicide case, so as much as
people can move on from a tragedy of this caliber, they did. Meg
transferred to the University of Kentucky to study English. A year after the death
of her family. In February nineteen ninety four, Meg sued the Mutual Life
Insurance Company of New York. Joe's insurance policies were supposed to go to Beth,
but Beth was gone. After Beth, Joe's money was supposed to go
to her mother, Mary Powers Preston. Missus Preston was directed to use the
money to care for Meg and Dennis. Joe wrote in his will that he
had the greatest love and affection for Dennis and Meg. So since Meg was
the sole survivor, she was to get all of Joe's insurance money. This
is where that five hundred thirty thousand dollars sum I mentioned earlier comes from.
Meg filed for the insurance money in December nineteen ninety three, but the insurance
company refused to pay, and for a pretty good reason. Meg was still
a suspect in her family's murders. However, as she hadn't been charged with
anything, the insurance company was forced to give Meg the check. She also
provided a legal document in which she denied that there is any substantial credible evidence
indicating that she caused her family member's deaths. After Meg sued the insurance company,
Eric Wellnuts Joseph stranged son, also sued. He wanted a portion of
the insurance payout too. Ultimately, Meg agreed to split the insurance money with
Eric. She received about three hundred thousand, but it's unclear how much money
Eric actually received. Interestingly, when Eric and Meg organized the split, they
both agreed that neither could sue the other if it was found out that they
were involved in the murders. In nineteen ninety five, Meg married her college
sweetheart Randy Appleton. Meg and Randy had one son together in nineteen ninety seven,
but that same year they divorced. Then Meg would go on to marry
her second husband, Justin Manly. Jump to October of two thousand and two,
five years later, Detective Sergeant Dennis Spinningfield was following up on the Wellnuts
case, which by then was a cold case, a very cold case.
No one knew if it would ever be solved, but Sergeant Benningfield had hope,
and his hope grew when he found out that Bill and Regina Meaes had
had a nasty breakup in November nineteen ninety nine. Meaes and Regina were separated.
The next month, Regina alleged that MEAs had sexually assaulted her on Christmas
Eve. Later, a grand jury ruled that Meaes had not sexually assaulted his
wife, but Regina continuously maintained that he had. By the end of the
year two thousand, they were officially divorced, and Benningfield saw this as an
opportunity. He approached Regina to discuss the deaths of Joe Beth and Dennis Wellness.
Before her husband had stopped her from going to the police now she was
free and clear. He wanted to know if perhaps Regina had some insight as
to what really happened that night, and she knew exactly what happened nine years
ago on that cold February night. Regina explained that her ex husband Bill MEAs
and Meg Wellness had orchestrated the entire thing, and to prove it, Regina
provided the authorities with a small fire safe, the same fire safe that had
been stolen from the Wellnuts home that night. When Regina handed it over to
the police, they found a hair inside of it. Lab testing indicated it
was very similar to Joe Wellness's hair. William Harry Meaes was born in October
of nineteen seventy two. He would go by the nickname Bill all his life.
I've been referring to him as niece since that is the name he is
most widely recognized by today. When Mees was a newborn, his mother jan
left his abusive father. Then before he turned one year old, she abandoned
him. At that point, his grandmother on his mother's side took him in.
She lived in Florida and legally adopted him, but when he was twelve,
years old, his grandmother passed away. Then Mees was forced to move
in with his biological mother, and that's how he ended up in Lexington,
Kentucky, where she lived. Jan pretended to be Mysa's sister for fifteen years.
She kept him out of school and discouraged him from talking to other people.
Later on, Jan would testify that she was diagnosed with several mental illnesses.
She frequently heard voices that told her to kill people. She believed that
mes also heard similar voices, but he denied it. But even if he
didn't have her same mental health issues, his childhood was certainly a recipe for
making a sociopath. Eric Wellness, Joe's estranged son, happened to go to
junior high school with Mees, and he recalled how Mees had once stabbed him
in the thigh with a pencil. Eric also remembered that Mees would often discuss
killing. When Eric said that he was going to share Mesa's fascination with murder
with some adults, Mees threatened to hurt him. In the late nineteen eighties,
Mees attended Henry Clay High School in Lexington. He didn't graduate. Later
on, he would earn his ged and enroll in Lexington Community College. Afterward,
he attended the University of Kentucky, and in August of nineteen ninety one,
eighteen year old Mees married Regina. They had three children together. Mees
was a pathological liar. He'd later say as much in court. He lied
so much and so often that it's tricky to know what is true about his
life and what's not. For example, he told numerous people, including Regina,
that he was an ex Navy seal. He claimed he had been involved
in black ops, the CIA, and a failed attempt to kill a Rocky
terrorist, Saddam Hussein, but there is no known record verifying that information.
In fact, the only official record we do have is a court document explaining
that Meaes received an other than honorable discharge from the Navy. He had tested
positive for cocaine, but Meaes insisted he had never done cocaine, though he
did admit to struggling with alcoholism. Bill MEAs met Meg Willnitz while they were
attending Lexington Community College and the University of Kentucky. It doesn't appear that Meaes
received his degree from either school. If he did, he never pursued a
career. Instead, he had a series of jobs at various points in time.
He was a landscaper, a pest control specialist, a cab driver,
and a bank courier. That is until his ex wife, Regina started talking
to the authora in the early two thousands. Not long after that, Mill
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sequence of events is put together from what Regina and the police investigation revealed about
the Wellness murders. Around November of nineteen ninety two, Meg's parents were traveling
to Africa. The running joke among her buddies became how much she would inherit
if her parents died on this trip. Around this same time, Meis,
who was interested in Wicca magic and the occult. Just like Meg, wanted
to start a commune. He had a business plan for it. The name
would be black Watch Enterprises. In Meg's later recanted statements, she said this
commune was a David Koresh kind of situation. Meg and Mes hatched a plan.
They decided that Meeces would kill her parents. Then Meg would inherit their
money, which she estimated to be about one million dollars, and she would
pay Nis ten percent of that million one hundred thousand, which would be about
two hundred and fourteen thousand today. And also MEAs would be free to use
the wellness land to start his David Koresh like commune. Meg said in a
later recanted statement, it was really kind of a game at first. Heads
up, I'll continue flagging whatever information comes from Meg and Mice's recanted statements,
we'll get into the he says. She said of it all in a moment.
But just know that Meg would first admit to everything. Then she claimed
she had no idea about any of this. She said, MEAs did all
of it on his own. Meanwhile, Mees would also admit to everything.
Then he claimed that he was innocent, that he wasn't even in the same
city on the night of the murders. I want to be extra clear here
they are lying. They are both lying. A jury later confirmed they were
lying. The courts affirmed that they're lying, and quite frankly, common sense
says they are lying. But the information can and will get a little jumbled
due to their ongoing lies. I'll do my best to organize it for you.
For months, Mees and Meg plotted the massacre of the Walnuts family.
Two weeks before the murders happened, Meg bought a rounding high power nine milimeters
pistol. She wasn't twenty one years old yet, so she had to use
her fake ID for the purchase. Normally she just used it to buy booze.
Then Meis, who was actually with Meg when she bought the gun,
bought the gun from her. He used his five hundred dollars tax refund to
pay her. Afterward. Mees also bought hollow point bullets and human silhouette targets.
He used both items to familiarize himself with his new pistol at a firing
range. Remember how I said that the Wellness family appeared near picture perfect before
they were murdered. Perhaps the only visible issue in the family was something so
common that it probably seemed kind of innocent. At first, Beth wasn't so
sure about her daughter's friend group. She didn't like Meg's current boyfriend, Randy,
and Beth certainly wasn't a fan of Meg's married friend Meis. Beth actually
knew that Meg had slept with Meece while he was married and while Meg was
still in a relationship with Randy. As you can imagine, that didn't sit
well with Beth. It's unclear if Misa's then wife, Regina or Randy knew
about the sexual relationship. They might have been in an open or polyamorous relationship
where it could have been an illicit affair. We don't really know any more
details. What we do know is that Beth was not a fan. On
Wednesday, February twenty fourth, nineteen ninety three, Meg brought Randy, Meis,
and another unnamed person who was likely Regina, Mysa's wife, to her
parents' home. Meg wanted to show her mom that Mes wasn't some evil character,
or at least that's what Meg said she was doing. Really, she
was giving mee an opportunity to case the house. The next day, on
Thursday, Myes returned to the Wellnuts home. He went up to the door.
Then, for reasons unknown, he left. He either chickened out or
something must have gone wrong, though it's unclear what because MEAs hadn't changed his
mind. He waited that night until one thirty am the next morning, and
then he went up to his bedroom to speak to his wife. He told
her that he and Meg were going to get coffee, and at about two
thirty am, Meg filled up a vehicle with gas at a BP station.
Then she and Meice drove from his home in Lexington to the Wellnuts family home
in Columbia. When they arrived, Meg gave Mees a key to her family's
home. Then she waited in the car while mee slaughtered them. Later,
during one of his confessions, Meece would claim that Regina was waiting in the
car with Meg, but as I mentioned, he canted those and Regina told
multiple sources that she was woken up when mys and Meg returned to their home
in Lexington, which meant she hadn't gone with them. Ultimately, law enforcement
did not believe that Regina had anything to do with the murders. In several
recorded video statements, Mes explained exactly what happened in the Wellnuts family home.
He recanted these statements later, of course, but the jury was allowed to
watch the video statements during his trial. First, Mees went downstairs. He
was looking for Beth, who he thought slept in a bedroom down there.
That's where she had been sleeping that Wednesday when Meees came to visit. She
had recently had back surgery, so she was probably avoiding stairs for a while.
But instead of Beth, Mees ran right into Joe and quickly fired at
him. Joe kept coming towards him, but Meaes continued firing. When Joe
fell to the floor, Meaes headed upstairs. He found Beth standing next to
her in Joe's bed. He shot and killed her. Then he went down
the hall to Dennis's room. The door was locked and me struggled for a
moment, but once he was inside, he found Dennis sitting on his bed.
He yelled at him to get on the floor and reloaded his gun.
Dennis complied and got down on his stomach on the floor. When Mees was
done reloading, he shot Dennis in the back. Then he picked up his
discarded magazine. He put it in his pocket as a final precaution. MEAs
went through the well Nut's home room by room to ensure everyone was dead.
Then he returned to the main bedroom to steal the fire safe. Meg had
told Mees that she thought there was one thousand dollars cash in there. Back
in nineteen ninety three, the medical examiner suggested that the Wellnuts family probably died
around four o'clock in the morning, which fits the time period after MEAs and
Meg left to Lexington. They returned to his house at about seven o'clock in
the morning. When they arrived, Meg was upset. She told Regina that
Dennis was not supposed to be there. Afterwards, Meaes told Regina she wasn't
allowed to talk to the police or let them into the house. He also
refused to divulge the gruesome details of the murders with her right away. He
told Regina that he wanted to give her plausible deniability, But when they all
went to the Wellnuts home to pack up the dead family's belongings, Meaes couldn't
help himself. He began pointing out where his victim's bodies had been. As
it turns out, investigators were always pretty certain that Bill Meaese was involved with
the Wellnut's murderers. The polygraph incident was pretty damning, so in March of
nineteen ninety four, they assigned an undercover police officer to watch and try to
ensnare Mees. The officer and Felice of the Kentucky State Police posed as an
employee for True Green chem Lawn, where Meis worked. Mees was supposed to
train her to be a salesperson. Officer Felice rode around with him for approximately
three weeks as a trainee officer. Felice tried to gain his trust and then
lure Meese into another murder for higher scheme. She fed me a fake story
about her horribly abusive husband. She planted the seed so that Mees would offer
to kill him for her. During those conversations where Felice was befriending and tricking
Meese, his behavior was concerning. He had a black and white human silhouette
target outside of his work cubicle. There were twenty six bullet holes in the
target's upper body. When discussing this silhouette, Mes said to Officer Felice,
by the way, what did that little trick on the wall? Was this?
And he pulled out a nine millimeter six hour from his briefcase. When
they were back at his apartment, Mees pulled out the gun and dry fired
it at her face twice. That Officer Felice kept her cool in the moment
is remarkable enough. The fact that she kept going back was incredibly brave.
Me spragged her about his ability to lie with a straight face and not feel
bad about it at all. Me said lying was so simple that reality was
a mild inconvenience. At one point, Officer Felice casually brought up the Wellnuts
family murders, and Mes responded that Meg Wellnitts had had her family wasted.
When Felice asked what kind of look did they have on their faces, Mees
responded shocked mostly. Mice also provided Felise with detailed instructions for how to go
about killing her abusive husband, starting with how to acquire a murder weapon.
He said, you don't buy it in your name, so it can't be
traced back to you. After the deed was done. Meaes suggested that Felice
throw the gun in a dumpster outside of a fast food restaurant. He also
suggested she put the clothes she had been wearing in the same trash bag.
As we know, Meg used a fake ID to buy the murder weapon and
then Mees bought it from her without registering it, and according to Regina's talks
with the police and Mesa's recanted video confessions, he and Meg disposed of their
clothes and the murder weapon and a McDonald's dumpster. Mees told the undercover officer
that this was the optimal solution. One white plastic bag looks like every other
white plastic bag, and a dumpster. He also suggested that she use one
hundred and twenty four grain hollow points to kill her husband. He said they
were the most effective at getting the job done, which was the exact ammunition
he used to kill the well Nuts family. He also told her it doesn't
matter what people think. What matters is what people can prove. Honestly,
it seemed like everything was going according to law enforcement's plan. Mees seemed on
the brink of agreeing to kill Felice's fake abusive husband, or he was until
he hit on Officer Catherine Felice when she rejected his sexual advances. He reported
her to the Lexington Police. What a petulant, vindictive, little asshole,
he alerted them that she was trying to hire someone to kill her husband,
but at least Officer Felice's cover was not blown, and the authorities continued to
surveil Meese from Afar. Unfortunately, he made the pass at the officer before
he decided to offer up his hipman services, so investigators could not arrest him
for that as planned, and did not have enough concrete evidence about the wellness
murders. All they had was what he bragged about. He could easily say
he made that up to impress her. Their next encounter with Mes did not
happen until eight years later, in the fall of two thousand and two.
That October, a woman named Georgia Rose was standing outside her daughter's home.
She was extremely upset. Meys, who was walking his dog, stopped to
ask her what was wrong. Georgia explained that her boyfriend was acting like a
jerk, so Mes offered to take care of the boyfriend. Georgia was immediately
schewed out and called a friend who was a police officer. That officer was
Detective Sergeant Dennis Benningfield. This was the catalyst that caused Benningfield to look into
Mysa's relationship with Regina after all, happily married men don't offer to commit capital
murder for women they just met. In addition to reaching out to Regina,
the authorities also enlisted Georgia. She became an undercover agent for the authorities at
law enforcement's request. Georgia continued to contact MEAs about killing her boyfriend, and
eventually she and Mees settled on a price of two thousand dollars for the hit.
MEAs would receive a five hundred dollars down payment before the kill, and
he would get the rest after. To prove the job was done, he
was supposed to take a polaroid photo of the boyfriend's dead body, then Georgia
would leave the rest of Mesa's cash payment and a toolbox on his back porch.
So on November third, two thousand and two, Mees hopped into Georgia's
car outside of a CVS pharmacy. He said to her, on a practical
level, I need the money and you need a problem solved. Then Georgia
handed him the five hundred dollars and Bill Mease was immediately arrested by the Kentucky
State Police. The sting operation had been a success. During Mysa's trial in
June of two thousand and three. His defense tried to convince the jury that
this was all a misunderstanding. He wasn't going to murder a guy for Georgia,
he was scamming her. As soon as he received the money, he
was going to run. But recorded conversations between Mes and Georgia revealed otherwise.
Meaes had repeatedly bragged about faking polygraph test results to Georgia. He told her
all about his experience killing people, and he even explained the need for a
clean weapon and the element of surprise. Clearly Mees had an mo because these
were very similar to the tactics he used to annihilate the Wellnuts family. On
Thursday, February twenty eighth, two thousand and three, Bill MEAs was arrested
for the Wellnuts family murders. Ten years and one day after the initial slayings.
He had been sitting in jail awaiting trial for agreeing to kill George's boyfriend.
Meg, on the other hand, now lived in Chicago. I'm going
to pause now for a short commercial break. As soon as Regina told detectives
about how Meice and Meg had plotted the deaths of the Wellnuts family investigators had
tried to contact Meg, but she continuously ducked their calls. When they did
finally get a hold of her, Meg was adamant that she needed to speak
with her lawyer before talking to them. So when twenty eight year old Meg
was arrested on February twenty eighth, two thousand and three, she was very
surprised, and I can see why she had almost completely moved on. She
was probably pretty certain that she had gotten away with murder. By then,
exactly ten years later, she had studied ceramics both at Transylvania University and the
University of Kentucky, and she had run a bar at Chicago's Upper south Side.
She had been divorced twice, and she was a mom. The only
recorded instance where we know Meg even thought about murdering her entire family was in
the year two thousand. At that time, Meaes had sent Meg a letter
through her grandmother. He wanted money for quote services rendered so long ago.
In a statement Meg gave officials which she later recanted, she said he sent
me a letter saying his life had been ruined and that he had read some
book about the witness Protection program and that if I didn't give him enough money
to start a lawn care service, that he was going to go to the
police and confess as a hit man and get put in the witness protection program
in Hawaii. Loll at Mees's thinking he'd be put in witness protection much less
sent to Hawaii. Meg told her then husband, Justin Manly, about this
letter, but she didn't explain that she knew exactly what MEAs was writing about.
Instead, she chalked it up to some crazy guy reaching out. She
pointed out out how Mee had once told her he was in the CIA and
that he killed people. Then Meg shredded the letter and threw it in the
trash. Later it would be revealed that she was concerned the letter could be
used against her as evidence the remaining Wellnet's family members in Columbia community were flabbergasted
to learn that Meg had masterminded her parents and brother's deaths. Captain Hancock told
Oxygen, it's very disturbing to know that this sweet little girl that I remember
has been the one that actually played such a big role in this murder.
Meg orchestrated one of the most horrendous crimes that you could ever imagine and Cindy
Yates, who worked for the wellnets Vack Clinic for many years, told The
Herald Leader, I was hoping it would be a stranger. It hurts to
know if they did do this, that someone could be that cold hearted to
their own family. When Mees and Meg were charged and indicted, Meg faced
three counts of complicity to commit murder and one count of complicity to commit robbery
and burglary. Mees faced three counts of murder, three counts of complicity to
commit murder, one count of first degree robbery, one count of first degree
burglary, and one count of complicity to commit robbery and burglary. Right away,
the Commonwealth's attorney, Brian Wright, confirmed that he would be seeking the
death penalty for both MEAs and Meg. He said to the Lexington Herald Leader,
it's certainly a capital case and deserving of capital treatment and the prosecution.
On Wednesday, March twelfth, two thousand and three, both Meg and Meese
pleaded not guilty. By the way, yes, Kentucky is a commonwealth along
with three other states, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, and Virginia. The distinction is
a name alone. The commonwealths are just like any other state in their politics
and laws, and there is no difference in their relationship to the nation as
a whole. That's a little inside baseball for you, because sometimes I slip
up when discussing Virginia or Kentucky cases and say commonwealth's attorney without explaining anyway.
On Tuesday, June third, two thousand and three, Bill Meaese was convicted
for conspiring to commit murder in Fayette County. That would be due to the
sting with Georgia Rose. The jury recommended twelve years in prison. In July,
the judge accepted that sentence. That same year, while Meg was in
jail awaiting her death penalty trial, her ex husband Randy Appleton, sought custody
of their six year old son. Meg said of the situation, Randy is
just not responsible enough to have a child. He's very erratic. She told
a judge that she provided a more stable environment for their son than Randy.
She wanted her son to go to her friend Tracy Harris and grandmother Mary Preston
until she got out. Yeah, a jailed mother is so very stable,
not that it really matters, But Randy Appleton was a tenured college professor.
He had a c record not sitting in jail waiting on a death penalty trial
like his ex wife. Plus, in two thousand and one, Meg had
been arrested for endangering their son. Randy said she lived in squalor. Social
workers also confirmed this. They filed a report that her house had garbage and
trash on the floor and dry raw sewage in the basement. You won't be
surprised to hear that. Randy won custody on the day that Meg's trial was
set to begin in January two thousand and five, she pleaded guilty to all
charges. In exchange for avoiding the death penalty. Meg was sentenced to life
in prison without the possibility of parole for twenty five years. She also agreed
to confess, and she promised to testify against Billmice at his trial. William
Wellness, Joe's brother and Meg's uncle, told the press to hear she pled
guilty, it's bittersweet they're solved, But what a tragedy. It's just destroyed
so much. But in July of two thousand and six, Meg recanted the
confessions she had made as part of her plea bargain. According to her,
she had made everything up based on the information she knew about the crime.
Meg claimed that she had been desperate to avoid the death penalty, and also
she said she was on and off various drugs while in jail, some prescribed
and some not. Meg later said I would have told you I was married
to Hitler in that statement. Now, Meg asserted that she had zero clue
that Meies was going to murder her entire family. None of this was her
fault. She even blamed her lawyers for ineffective counsel and a related appeal,
But in March of two thousand and eight, a judge upheld her conviction and
sentencing. That judge did not address any of Meg's arguments about her desperation,
drug usage, or problems with her lawyers. Instead, he simply cited that
Meg had missed the three year of pill deadline before days. Meanwhile, Mes's
first trial began in November two thousand and four, but the trial ended early
when he pled guilty during the jury selection process. He also accepted a plea
deal in exchange for a sentence of life in prison without parole for at least
twenty five years. He received a total of forty years on the other charges
as a part of the plea deal, Mes also provided recorded video statements regarding
his involvement in the Wellness family murders. By the next month, in December
two thousand and four, Mees claimed that he entered into the plea bargain under
false pretenses. Turns out he didn't want to plead guilty at all. He
didn't like one of his current court appointed lawyers, so he pled guilty to
try to get a new one. But he had already given those video recorded
statements, and by this point Meg had also provided her own recorded statements.
And I cannot emphasize this enough. Both MEAs and Meg's statement months aligned damn
near perfectly. Now. According to Mes, those recorded video statements were a
lie, just a ruse to get the plea deal going so he could immediately
reneg on it. He said he'd used the information that his lawyers provided to
create the whole story. He even told the press there still exists nothing to
this case. When the smoke clears and the mirrors are taken away, there's
no fire, only a lot of hot air. Unfortunately some of it my
own. I still maintain my innocence. But this is chess. It ain't
checkers ough I hate this guy. He thinks he's so cute with his hip
man bullshit and chess not checkers. It may have taken ten years to get
him, but it's not because investigators didn't know where to look. It just
took that long to get Regina to turn so I guess he had some right
to be smarmy, but I still hate him anyway. A few months later,
Mysa's motion to set aside his plea deal was accepted, and he got
new lawyers just like he wanted. Since he had switched his plea deal,
the judge ordered a competency evaluation in February two thousand and five. Bill Meaes
was ruled competent later that year, and in the fall of two thousand and
six his trial began. I'm going to pause now for a final commercial break.
His trial took four weeks. In that time, the Commonwealth asserted that
Mees was the triggerman in his ameg's plot to kill the Walnuts family for money.
Brandy Appleton testified that Meaese told him he was an assassin. Regina Mysa's
ex wife, testified to the experiences I've already told you about, and Meg
also testified at this point, she had already pled guilty and recanted. She
said everything was Mysa's fault. Additionally, Badass undercover agent Officer Caine and Felice
testified about her experience under cover with Mees trying to convince him to kill her
fake abusive boyfriend, and the jury was allowed to hear Mysa's video recorded confessions,
even though he had since recanted. Mysa's defense team had a hell of
an uphill battle. They tried to prove that Mes and Meg were studying for
their community college English test on the night of the murders. Bill Meaes testified
on his own behalf. He said on the stand, I have a lot
of experience making up false stories. I've lied a lot in my life.
The defense attorneys also argued that Mees couldn't have killed the Wellnuts family. Meaes
hadn't received a dime from Meg for the murders. If you'll recall, the
Wellnuts family inheritance, which Mees was supposed to get a cut of, was
lost to overwhelming debt. Meg even had to sell the land on which Meaes
was supposed to build his commune. So his lawyer argued, if Meg didn't
pay Mees, why hadn't he killed her too, to which the prosecution responded
Meg being alive was the only possibility of him ever getting his money. Plus,
if Meg was murdered, Meece would certainly be a suspect. The defense
also claimed that Regina was just bad mouthing MEAs because she was angry about their
terrible marriage, but the Commonwealth's attorney pointed out that the authorities had approached Regina,
not the other way around. On Friday, September fifteenth, two thousand
and six, after deliberating for less than two hours, the jury convicted thirty
three year old William Harry MEAs of three counts of murder, robbery, and
burglary. Days later, the jury recommended that MEAs be sentenced to death plus
two consecutive twenty year terms totaling forty years, and October the judge agreed.
The judge stated publicly that he had no doubt that Meaes had killed the Wellnuts
family. MEAs, of course, later complained that he did not get a
fair trial. He likened the court system to Nazi Germany, Communist China and
Soviet Russia. Right, you were so persecuted, Mees appealed to the Kentucky
Supreme Court in twenty eleven. He had a myriad of complaints, some of
which included that he was upset that his recanted video statements were allowed. He
also didn't like that Officer Felice was allowed to tell the jury about their conversations,
and he thought that Regina shouldn't have been allowed to testify because she was
his ex wife. We think spouses aren't supposed to be able to testify against
each other. Actually the law is they cannot be compelled to testify against each
other. Regina testified willingly. The court also determined that everything Mees shared with
Regina was knowledge found by other means too. Ultimately, the Kentucky Supreme Court
affirmed Bill Mees's conviction and sentence. Today, fifty one year old William Harry
Meaes is on death row at the Kentucky State Penitentiary. His execution date has
not been set. He's awaiting death because of his own hubris. He never
should have fought his plea bargain. I said before that his childhood was like
a how to for raising a sociopath. Maybe he just couldn't help himself.
It was a self fulfilling prophecy. On February twelfth, twenty fourteen, just
shy of twenty one years since she had her whole family butchered, thirty nine
year old Meg wellnets Appleton was found dead in her jail cell at about seven
o'clock in the morning. She was at the Prison for Female offenders in Peewee
Valley. Her death was ruled a suicide. Initially, reports said that the
state police were investigating it, but since then no other details have been released.
Meg was buried next to her family in the Lexington Cemetery. Beth's mother,
Mary outlived almost all of her close family, dying at age one hundred.
Can you imagine living to be one hundred years old with your closest loved
ones all dead and buried. Mary Preston was buried in the same cemetery as
her family in twenty twenty. Her husband, three brothers, three children,
and grandchildren all died before her. It was almost two decades without them.
Mary only had her great grandson, Mag's son left, but she did have
some nieces, nephews and other extended family who lovingly helped care for her in
those long years without her close family. In a case like this, with
so many interesting twists and turns. The misery and devastation of those left behind
can be forgotten as we get caught up in the story. But the remaining
family, as well as close friends and the rest of the tight community never
forgot. The murderers left a painful scar on every one's heart. Knowing what
good people Joe and Beth were, it's hard to imagine they raised such a
selfish, cold and hateful person like Meg, someone who didn't place much value
on human life. You see videos with her and her horse on her family's
property, and she looked so normal and happy. How could she do it?
It makes you think about that nature versus nurture debate. To obliterate your
parents for money is so sadistic. Meg might have felt some guilt for her
brother Dennis, but it didn't seem to face her long as the young woman
went on with her life for another decade. After she got her money,
she went to school, got married, had a child of her own.
But then justice finally caught up with her and she didn't last eight years in
prison. But I can't stop thinking about the suffering of the wellnesses. That
night, Joe taken by surprise, with no time to try and save his
family. Then Beth hiding in her bedroom she had surely heard the gunshots as
she stood trembling, waiting for her death. And poor Dennis maybe trying to
lie quietly and hope the gunman thought he wasn't home since he wasn't supposed to
be there. It's a nightmare come true. The shock and fear, then
the dread and pain, and they knew who Bill Meese was, so you
have to wonder if they understood that it was Meg who had wanted them dead
mercifully, they seemed to die quickly, hopefully before they were fully aware that
someone they loved had betrayed them so callously. Southern Fried True Crime is hosted
and produce used by me Erica Kelly. Today's episode was researched and written by
me and 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 Koly Horner. Today's episode was edited and mixed by Brandon
schock Snider of Southern Gothic and Erica Kelly. Today's case was suggested by Dana
Schmidt. If you have any suggestions, please go to my website, Southern
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