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Southern Fried true crime covers cases that
are not suitable for young listeners, and

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there may also be some explicit language
used. Listener discretion is a vised In

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the early nineteen eighties, Dana King
was a little girl who liked horses in

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the small town of Columbia, Kentucky. When a new family, the Wellnitzes,

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moved nearby, Dana was intrigued.
She was overjoyed when she learned that

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the father of the family, Joe
Wellnitz was a veterinarian and that he and

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his wife, Beth were going to
open their own vet clinic. Dana later

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said they were kind, they were
loving, and they were fun to be

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around. She also remembered how Beth
let her help wash their pony. Beth

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had always been so kind to her. Over the years, Dana ended up

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doing a lot of odd jobs for
the Wellnuts family and their vet practice,

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and when she grew up, Dana
married a veterinarian. Many years later,

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she and her husband would come to
own what was once the Wellnutz family's veterinary

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practice. Joe and Beth Wellness were
long since gone. The well Nuts story

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had ended in tragedy. Welcome to
Episode two sixteen, the Wellnutz family murderers.

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Beth Wellnitz was born Elizabeth N.
Preston on May first, nineteen fifty

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two, to Leonard and Mary Preston
in Lexington, Cantucky. She had two

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brothers. Beth's parents met at the
University of Kentucky. Her mother was studying

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to be an English teacher and her
father was a college football player. By

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nineteen forty three, Mary and Leonard
were married. For the rest of their

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lives. Beth's parents would be avid
University Kentucky sports fans. During the Korean

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War, Beth's father served in the
Army. While her father was in the

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military, the Preston family moved all
over the world. They lived in Japan,

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Germany, Philadelphia, Fort Knox,
and Louisville. Then, around nineteen

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sixty six, Leonard was seriously injured
in the line of duty. At the

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time, he was stationed in North
Korea. Following that, Leonard retired from

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the military, and when Beth was
around six years old, the Preston family

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settled down in Lexington, Kentucky.
Beth's mother, Mary, taught her to

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about the importance of academic excellence,
tolerance, and compassion. She was a

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teacher and a great role model.
Pleus. Mary was an active volunteer.

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She participated in local politics, co
founded housing organizations, and helped out with

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mills on wills. Meanwhile, Beth's
father, Leonard, taught the kids the

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importance of teamwork and determination. Leonard's
military career also played a big part in

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his children's lives. One of Beth's
brothers, Lee, followed in his dad's

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footsteps and joined the army. Lee
even attended the prestigious West Point Military Academy

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in New York. Tragically, in
March of nineteen sixty nine, twenty four

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year old Lee was killed in action
in the Vietnam War. Lee's name is

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engraved in the Vietnam Veterans War Memorial
in Washington, d c. Beth lost

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her other brother, William Power Preston, in nineteen eighty five. As an

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adult, Beth was known for her
kind heart, energetic nature, and selfless

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generosity. She always said that if
she ever won the lottery, she'd use

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her winnings to help those in need. She would start a home for terminally

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ill children. She'd use the money
to assist the elderly. She'd buy her

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friends and family homes and Cars,
a woman who worked with Beth for many

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years, Cindy Yates told the Lexington
Herald Leader her philosophy was, if you've

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got it, share it. In
June of nineteen seventy, eighteen year old

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Beth experienced two major milestones. First, she graduated from Henry Clay High School,

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and on the twenty seventh of that
same month, Beth got married.

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His name was Sam Mullinix. He
worked at IBM and took classes at the

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University of Kentucky. That fall,
Beth also began her bachelor's degree at UK.

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Beth had two children from this marriage. Her son, Dennis, was

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born in April nineteen seventy two.
Then two years later came Margaret and Mullinichs.

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She was born on March tenth,
nineteen seventy four, in Good Samaritan,

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Kentucky. Margaret would always go by
Meg, but unfortunately Beth and Sam's

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relationship didn't work. They divorced in
the late seventies. Then Beth made her

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way to Lexington, Kentucky. That's
where she met a man named Joe.

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Joseph Verle Wellness was born in October
of nineteen forty two to parents Vile and

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Dorothy. Joe grew up near Louisville, Kentucky, in the rural areas of

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Jefferson County. He had a brother
and a sister. Even as a child,

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Joe had a passion for helping animals. It was natural that he grew

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up to be a veterinarian. Joe
graduated from Wagner High School in the nineteen

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fifties. Then he attended Ohio's University
of Cincinnati. In nineteen sixty five,

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Joe moved to Alabama to earn his
doctor a veterinarian medicine from Auburn University.

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After that, he moved back home
to Kentucky. Joe also served in the

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Air Force during the Vietnam War.
While enlisted, he helped care for the

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U. S. Sentry dogs and
assisted Vietnamese farmers. Once, he flew

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into an area where enemy soldiers were
nearby to treat some sick farm animals.

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For his bravery, Joe was awarded
the Bronze Star. On December thirtieth,

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nineteen seventy one, twenty nine year
old Joe married his first wife, Elizabeth

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Weddington. Joe and his new wife
began their lives in Versailles, Kentucky.

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For about six years, he worked
at a local veterinarian clinic, but ultimately

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Joe and Elizabeth's marriage did not work
out and they divorced in the early seventies.

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In January of nineteen seventy six,
thirty three year old Joe married a

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woman named Sarah Houston. Sarah had
a son from her previous marriage named Eric.

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Joe adopted Eric at a very young
age, but by December of nineteen

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seventy eight, this marriage had also
failed and Joe and Sarah divorced. Over

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time, Joe's relationship with his adopted
son Eric became estranged. After his divorce,

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Joe moved to Lexington, Kentucky,
where he worked as a veterinarian for

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the Southland del Tour Clinic. This
was when Joe Wellnut's crossed paths with a

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young, blonde, single mother and
English teacher named Beth Molinix. They fell

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in love, and on June twenty
second, nineteen seventy nine, thirty six

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year old Joe married twenty seven year
old Beth in Fayette, Kentucky. They

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spent their honeymoon camping at Dale Hollow
Lake. For the rest of their years

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together, Joe and Beth would recreate
the same honeymoon camping trip every year on

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their anniversary. When Joe and Beth
were married, Beth's son, Dennis was

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seven years old, her daughter Meg
was five. Both children came to love

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and respect Joe as their father,
and in the nineteen eighties, both Dennis

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and Meg officially changed their last names
to Wellnets. Dennis even took Joe's middle

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name, Le as his middle name. Joe and Beth's relationship seemed meant to

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be. They were madly in love. Even after years of marriage, they

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acted like dough I teenagers. Their
reverend, Jim Chaffin, was blown away

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by their continuous passion for each other. He told a newspaper, I've never

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met a couple their age who were
so devoted. I'm going to pause now

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for a short commercial break. In
January of nineteen eighty one, the Wellnuts

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family moved. They went one hundred
miles south from Lexington to Columbia, Kentucky,

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which probably felt like a big change
for the family. Lexington is a

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large, bustling city with a population
of more than three hundred thousand. Colombia,

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on the other hand, was a
small rural town back in the eighties

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and nineties, Columbia was populated by
fewer than four thousand people, but that

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was exactly why Joe and Beth wanted
to move there. Their lifelong goal was

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to open their own veterinary clinic in
a carrying, close knit community. They

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would work together, with Beth running
the office. So they bought a farmhouse

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with a big barn in Columbia.
They renovated the barn, creating their clinic.

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As Joe would later say when speaking
to the Adair Progress newspaper, we

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feel our dream has come true.
Over the next twelve years, doctor Joe,

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his clinic, and his face family
became pillars of the Columbia community.

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Beth became the historian for the Kentucky
Veterinary Medical Association. Joe joined the Adair

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County Health Board. Their eldest Dennis, was considered a reliable, smart and

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hard worker, and Meg was very
involved at Adare County High School. She

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tutored other students, and she participated
in art and library clubs. The Wellnuts

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family were also members of the local
Presbyterian Church. They were extremely well liked.

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Joyce Malden, who lived with her
husband in a cabin on the Wellness's

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property told the Herald Leader, they're
the type of people everybody loved. They'd

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do anything for you. Joe,
who was lovingly referred to as Doc,

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was considered a caring veterinarian with a
big heart. He would frequently treat people's

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pets for free. When he had
to put an animal down, he grieved

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alongside its owner, and when a
wayward dog didn't have a home to go

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to, it wasn't unusual for Joe
to bring it over to the house with

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him. In October of ninety two, someone brought in a dog with two

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broken legs. Joe treated the poor
fella without payment, Then when no one

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could adopt the dog, Joe took
him home. The dog's name was Tequila,

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and Tequila stayed with the Wellnesses for
many months until he was well enough

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to move on. On a different
occasion, Joe took in a Border Collie

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that couldn't walk. That poor pup, whose name was Boose, had severe

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back issues. A specialist confirmed that
there was no way the dog was going

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to stand again, but Joe wasn't
dismayed. He put a diaper on Boose

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and let the dog live on his
property. Roger Smith a dentist and Joe's

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neighbor, told the local newspaper Joe
treated animals as a physician treated people.

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He couldn't stand to see them suffer. Joe's employees at the vet clinic also

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spoke highly of his dedication to animals. One employee, Dan Lawhorn, tease

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Joe that he could stand to be
a little meaner. He said, I

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told him one time, I thought
he was about too good to the animals

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and the people. At the beginning
of nineteen ninety three, the Wellnuts vet

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practice was thriving. Joe and Beth
were, by all accounts, very happily

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married. Twenty year old Dennis was
a student at Somerset Community College. He

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also worked at the movie warehouse in
Columbia, and eighteen year old mag had

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just started at Lexington Community College.
Everything really seemed picture perfect for the Wellnuts

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family, which is probably why the
morning of Friday, February twenty sixth,

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nineteen ninety three, came as such
a shock to quite literally everyone. At

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about eight o'clock that morning, two
employees arrived at the Wellnuts clinic. They

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both thought it was strange that Joe
and Beth hadn't come in yet, after

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all, their house was the stone's
throw away. It wasn't like they could

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be stuck in traffic. One of
the employees, Dan Lawhorn, noticed a

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bullet sized hole in the side door
of the building. Dan knew Joe would

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want to know about the damage,
so he walked over to Joe and Beth's

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house. The doors to the home
were unlocked, but that wasn't really strange.

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After all, this was small town
Kentucky. Nobody locked their doors,

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so Dan walked inside the Walnuts home
to search for Joe. He found fifty

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year old Joe Wellnets downstairs. He
was wearing a T shirt and sweatpants and

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lying face down in a pool of
his own blood. A second employee had

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accompanied Dan to the Wellnuts home.
When Dan had gone downstairs, she walked

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upstairs. That's where she found forty
year old Beth Wellness dead in the main

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bedroom, and then she found twenty
year old Dennis dead in his bedroom.

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The stunned employees called nine one one
and waited for first responders. Captain Jeff

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Hancock of the Kentucky State Police arrived
at the scene. He had known Joe

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and Beth pretty well. In later
interviews with oxygen. Captain Hancock said,

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I'll never forget walking in the house
that morning and seeing what I saw.

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It was just total shock. I
knew what kind of people they were.

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I knew how kind they were,
and how compassionate they were with the work

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they did. I couldn't believe it. All three members of the Wellnuts family

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were dressed for bed, and all
three had suffered multiple gunshot wounds to their

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heads and torsos. The only remaining
wellness was Meg. On the night her

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family was massacred, he was out
of the house one hundred miles away in

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Lexington, where she attended community college. That specific Friday night, she had

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been playing cards with her boyfriend Randy
and another couple, Bill and Regina Meese.

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Captain Hancock's heart broke for mag Her
entire family had been annihilated in the

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blink of an eye. He said. When Meg was told that her mom

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and dad and brother were murdered,
I felt really sorry for her. I

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thought, how is she going to
go on? How does she recover from

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this? The funeral service for Joe, Beth and Dennis Wellnets was held four

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days later, on Tuesday, March
second, nineteen ninety three people gathered at

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one pm in the Christ Church Cathedral
for the service before interment. After the

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service, all three members of the
Wellnuts family were buried in the Lexington Cemetery.

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Previously, his father and both of
her brothers were buried in this same

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cemetery. In twenty twenty, Beth's
mother Mary would be laid to rest there

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as well, after losing almost all
of her immediate family. As police investigated

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the crime scene for clues, they
became increasingly baffled. There was no sign

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of forced entry into the house,
no busted locks, no broken windows,

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no mysterious fingerprints, nothing. No
one had rifled through the drawers, the

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furniture hadn't been overturned. In fact, everything was clean and tidy, and

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all valuables exactly where they should be. It didn't appear that this was a

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robbery gone wrong. There wasn't even
a sign of struggle. Whoever was responsible

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seemed to have caught all three victims
by surprise. Joe was the first,

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and his body was positioned in such
a way that officers believed he might have

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been headed towards his gun, but
he didn't make it there in time.

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At first, authorities wondered if there
were multiple killers. They had found seventeen

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shell casings throughout the home. That's
nearly six bullets per victim, but ballistics

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testing later revealed that all seventeen casings
came from the same gun, so the

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multiple shooter theory was considered unlikely.
Early in the investigation, Beth's mother Mary

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told the police to look out for
a small fireproof safe. She said it

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held important papers, and indeed,
detective Roy Wheat had discovered keys labeled fire

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safe in the house, but the
safe itself was nowhere to be found.

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Usually it was located in the back
of Joe and Beth's closet. They could

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see a square endent in the carpet
where it should have been. So far,

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this was the only lead police had. If this was a robber,

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it was a very specific kind of
robbery, not a smash and grab,

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but a robbery that required a great
deal of planning. How else would someone

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have known where the fire safe was
hidden. It was in an upstairs bedroom

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closet. That's not exactly in plain
sight. You've got to know where you're

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going. Due to the brutality of
these killings, local investigators were nearly certain

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that this crime was personal in nature, that it wasn't random. No,

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they suspected that someone had a vendetta
against the wellnesses. Detective Roy Wheat told

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E O D O R A n T

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dot com. When investigating the murders, the authorities first looked at pet owners

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who were upset with Joe's veterinary practice, and they actually found a few.

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00:21:30,240 --> 00:21:33,880
Namely, there was one man who
wouldn't pay his bill, but that guy

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00:21:33,960 --> 00:21:38,960
was quickly cleared. The police also
spoke with a couple who used to rent

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the cabin on the wellness property.
The couple was supposed to complete some work

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00:21:44,640 --> 00:21:48,119
for Joe and Beth in exchange they
would get to stay in the cabin for

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00:21:48,200 --> 00:21:52,000
free, but they didn't do the
work, or at least they didn't do

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00:21:52,079 --> 00:21:56,559
enough work to satisfy Joe and Beth, and when Joe handed the couple an

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00:21:56,599 --> 00:22:00,519
eighteen hundred dollars bill, it didn't
go over well. But by February of

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00:22:00,599 --> 00:22:06,440
nineteen ninety three, that couple had
moved away. According to them, their

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00:22:06,480 --> 00:22:14,519
dispute with the Wellnuts family was fully
resolved and they had solid alibis. Then

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00:22:14,599 --> 00:22:21,079
investigators began looking at Joe's estranged son, Eric Wellnits. Joe had never removed

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00:22:21,200 --> 00:22:23,880
Eric from his will, so he
was set to receive about a quarter of

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00:22:23,880 --> 00:22:30,240
a million dollars after Joe's death.
When law enforcement reached out to Eric,

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he was genuinely shocked that he was
still included in his stepfather's will, which

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00:22:36,240 --> 00:22:41,079
made sense seeing as he and Joe
no longer spoke. Eric had cut ties

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00:22:41,119 --> 00:22:45,519
after Joe abandoned him. He felt
that Joe's new family with Beth had essentially

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00:22:45,559 --> 00:22:52,559
replaced him. Regardless, the killer
wasn't Eric. He had an airtight alibi

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00:22:52,640 --> 00:22:56,400
for the night of the murders.
He was sleeping at a friend's house,

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00:22:56,920 --> 00:23:00,039
and Eric, like Meg, was
all the way in Lexington, one hundred

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00:23:00,079 --> 00:23:07,920
miles away, a two hour drive
at best. Eric told Oxygen, there's

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00:23:07,960 --> 00:23:11,119
no way in the world, I
ever could have done anything like that.

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00:23:11,680 --> 00:23:15,759
Yes, I was angry as a
child, you know, having your dad

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00:23:15,799 --> 00:23:18,160
disappearing out of your life, kind
of in a snap of a finger.

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00:23:18,720 --> 00:23:22,720
It was hard and I was angry, but not that kind of anger where

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00:23:22,720 --> 00:23:30,440
I wished anything bad. Meg's college
boyfriend, Randy Appleton, was also considered

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00:23:30,440 --> 00:23:34,720
a suspect. The police were suspicious
of Randy because he was a gun enthusiast

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00:23:36,240 --> 00:23:40,799
and he didn't get along well with
Meg's mother, Beth, But none of

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00:23:40,799 --> 00:23:45,640
the shell casings found in the well
Nuts home matched Randy's gun collection, so

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00:23:45,799 --> 00:23:52,160
investigators kept looking. Meg herself was
also considered a suspect. She stood to

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00:23:52,200 --> 00:23:56,119
inherit a lot of money, so
she had to be a person of interest,

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00:23:56,880 --> 00:24:00,079
but Joe and Beth were in enough
debt that are actual internance was moot.

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00:24:00,599 --> 00:24:04,599
In fact, Meg wound up having
to sell the farmhouse and land to

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00:24:04,640 --> 00:24:10,279
pay off those debts, but the
insurance payout was going to be sizable,

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00:24:10,880 --> 00:24:15,440
somewhere in the range of five hundred
and thirty thousand. In today's money,

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00:24:15,480 --> 00:24:19,240
that would be more than one point
one million. As a brief sidebar,

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investigators also found that Meg had some
connections with the occult and Wicca nineteen ninety

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00:24:26,880 --> 00:24:32,440
three was about the height of the
Satanic Panic in America, and Meg was

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00:24:32,480 --> 00:24:37,640
definitely at the age of teens who
had become fascinated by Satanism. She kept

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00:24:37,640 --> 00:24:41,720
a black candle in her bedroom in
the Walnuts home, and she had written

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00:24:41,720 --> 00:24:48,440
a freshman term paper on the topic
of human sacrifice. Meg later claimed she

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00:24:48,519 --> 00:24:52,319
only went to one WICCA meeting.
However, she and her friends Bill and

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00:24:52,319 --> 00:25:00,720
Regina Mee did bond over their mutual
interest in Wicca magic and witchcraft. Perhaps

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00:25:00,759 --> 00:25:06,440
Meg was just exploring her religious beliefs. She was young, just entering college

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00:25:06,759 --> 00:25:12,160
figuring herself out. Court documents also
reported that Beth had a book about Wicca

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00:25:12,200 --> 00:25:17,160
on her night stand, so I
have to wonder if perhaps Beth, a

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00:25:17,200 --> 00:25:22,799
practicing Christian, was trying to understand
her daughter's new fascination with witchcraft. Of

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00:25:22,880 --> 00:25:27,720
course, none of this seemed very
relevant to the murderers, especially since both

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00:25:27,799 --> 00:25:33,640
Meg and Randy's time was accounted for
that evening. As I said before,

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00:25:33,680 --> 00:25:37,759
they were playing cards with two other
people, their friends, Bill and Regina

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00:25:37,839 --> 00:25:42,599
Mees. Detectives spoke to Bill MEAs, but they never had much contact with

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00:25:42,640 --> 00:25:48,799
Regina According to her later testimony,
Mees forbade her from talking to the authorities,

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00:25:49,400 --> 00:25:53,359
but he wasn't too worried about himself, and in late nineteen ninety three

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00:25:53,559 --> 00:25:59,319
he agreed to take a polygraph test
with the Lexington Police Department. It did

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00:25:59,319 --> 00:26:03,119
not go well. When he arrived
at the testing session, he was under

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00:26:03,119 --> 00:26:07,000
the impression he was only going to
be asked about a gun in his possession,

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00:26:07,680 --> 00:26:12,799
specifically a Browning high power pistol.
He said he had gotten it only

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00:26:12,839 --> 00:26:18,720
a few weeks before the murders from
a friend of a friend. Mees refused

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00:26:18,720 --> 00:26:22,680
to tell the police the identity of
the friend of a friend, saying this

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00:26:22,759 --> 00:26:26,279
person was a felon. They weren't
supposed to own a gun, and Mees

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00:26:26,400 --> 00:26:32,920
wasn't going to get them in trouble. During the polygraph test, the interviewer

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00:26:33,240 --> 00:26:37,680
suddenly changed tracks. He asked MEAs
not about the gun, but about the

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00:26:37,759 --> 00:26:42,720
murders of Joe Beth and Dennis Wellnitz. That's when Bill Meaes lost it.

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He became so agitated that he had
to be unhooked from the polygraph machine.

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00:26:48,319 --> 00:26:56,240
Early Captain Hancock later said it definitely
raised red flags that he knows more than

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00:26:56,279 --> 00:27:03,240
he's telling us. But red flags
are only that red flags. The police

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00:27:03,279 --> 00:27:07,960
didn't have any evidence, and Meece, who wasn't under arrest, was well

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00:27:07,960 --> 00:27:12,519
within his rights to leave. Local
authorities were highly motivated to find the person

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00:27:12,599 --> 00:27:18,160
responsible for killing the Wellnesses, not
just because the family was so well loved,

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00:27:18,599 --> 00:27:23,759
but also because residents of Columbia,
Kentucky were freaking out. They didn't

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00:27:23,759 --> 00:27:29,839
feel safe and who could blame them. An entire family had been executed,

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00:27:30,240 --> 00:27:34,079
and no one had any clue as
to why. Gun sells in the area

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00:27:34,160 --> 00:27:41,200
were rising. People started locking their
doors. Cindy Yates, a longtime employee

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00:27:41,200 --> 00:27:45,640
of the Wellness Vet Clinic, tried
to avoid going out at night following the

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00:27:45,720 --> 00:27:51,440
murders. She told the Lexington Harold, you can't walk past your window without

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00:27:51,480 --> 00:27:55,440
wondering who's out there looking at you. If I just knew who or why,

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00:27:55,759 --> 00:27:59,519
it would help a lot. Just
not knowing is most of the fear.

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00:28:00,119 --> 00:28:04,519
As a result of this community wide
panic, the rumor mill was cranking.

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00:28:06,240 --> 00:28:11,079
One local newspaper even published a front
page story detailing the most common rumors.

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00:28:11,759 --> 00:28:17,799
A portion of the article was styled
like mad libs, as in it

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00:28:17,960 --> 00:28:25,400
said the prime suspect or suspects are
blank fill in your own names. This

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00:28:25,519 --> 00:28:29,880
seems in very poor taste for a
newspaper to do after this kind of tragedy.

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00:28:30,039 --> 00:28:34,640
I guess sometimes Gallow's humor takes over
in even the worst of cases.

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00:28:37,240 --> 00:28:41,000
But the rumors were so prolific that
Ronnie Moran, a state Police trooper and

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00:28:41,079 --> 00:28:48,960
spokesman, told reporters the community is
upset, is concerned, frightened. Everyone

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00:28:48,039 --> 00:28:52,880
has their own suspect. It spawned
a lot of rumors and that's all they

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00:28:52,920 --> 00:29:00,480
are rumors. So yeah, the
police wanted a perp and fast, not

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00:29:00,519 --> 00:29:06,160
only because they knew the Wellness family
and wanted to serve justice, but also

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00:29:06,200 --> 00:29:12,079
because this unexplained crime was wreaking havoc
on their community. The Lexington, Columbia

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00:29:12,160 --> 00:29:18,559
and University of Kentucky authorities joined forces
to solve this crime. They assigned three

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00:29:18,559 --> 00:29:25,519
investigators to the case. In total, hundreds of hours were spent tracking down

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00:29:25,599 --> 00:29:30,079
leads, and the authorities followed up
on many, many tips from the public.

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00:29:30,680 --> 00:29:33,599
At first, it seemed like this
case was going to be solved quickly.

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00:29:34,440 --> 00:29:37,720
Less than a month after the murders
in March of nineteen ninety three,

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00:29:38,359 --> 00:29:45,200
one police spokesperson told the Lexington Herald
that they were pursuing promising leads. Not

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00:29:45,319 --> 00:29:51,359
long after, Detective Roy Wheat told
reporters it does look good as far as

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00:29:51,359 --> 00:29:55,240
an arrest being made. I don't
have a doubt in my mind that sooner

334
00:29:55,319 --> 00:29:57,960
or later we're going to get the
break we need to break it wide open.

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00:30:00,799 --> 00:30:07,480
But investigators didn't get their break until
almost ten years later. I'm going

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00:30:07,519 --> 00:30:14,440
to pause now to a word from
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teledoc heealth dot com. That's te
la doc health dot com. Years passed

367
00:32:29,759 --> 00:32:34,680
without any new developments in the Wellness
triple homicide case, so as much as

368
00:32:34,680 --> 00:32:38,640
people can move on from a tragedy
of this caliber, they did. Meg

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00:32:38,720 --> 00:32:45,160
transferred to the University of Kentucky to
study English. A year after the death

370
00:32:45,200 --> 00:32:51,480
of her family. In February nineteen
ninety four, Meg sued the Mutual Life

371
00:32:51,519 --> 00:32:55,880
Insurance Company of New York. Joe's
insurance policies were supposed to go to Beth,

372
00:32:57,440 --> 00:33:00,680
but Beth was gone. After Beth, Joe's money was supposed to go

373
00:33:00,720 --> 00:33:07,880
to her mother, Mary Powers Preston. Missus Preston was directed to use the

374
00:33:07,960 --> 00:33:12,519
money to care for Meg and Dennis. Joe wrote in his will that he

375
00:33:12,599 --> 00:33:17,160
had the greatest love and affection for
Dennis and Meg. So since Meg was

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00:33:17,200 --> 00:33:22,720
the sole survivor, she was to
get all of Joe's insurance money. This

377
00:33:22,880 --> 00:33:27,440
is where that five hundred thirty thousand
dollars sum I mentioned earlier comes from.

378
00:33:28,319 --> 00:33:32,160
Meg filed for the insurance money in
December nineteen ninety three, but the insurance

379
00:33:32,200 --> 00:33:37,519
company refused to pay, and for
a pretty good reason. Meg was still

380
00:33:37,519 --> 00:33:44,200
a suspect in her family's murders.
However, as she hadn't been charged with

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00:33:44,279 --> 00:33:49,680
anything, the insurance company was forced
to give Meg the check. She also

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00:33:49,720 --> 00:33:54,279
provided a legal document in which she
denied that there is any substantial credible evidence

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00:33:54,359 --> 00:34:00,960
indicating that she caused her family member's
deaths. After Meg sued the insurance company,

384
00:34:01,359 --> 00:34:07,000
Eric Wellnuts Joseph stranged son, also
sued. He wanted a portion of

385
00:34:07,039 --> 00:34:13,440
the insurance payout too. Ultimately,
Meg agreed to split the insurance money with

386
00:34:13,639 --> 00:34:17,360
Eric. She received about three hundred
thousand, but it's unclear how much money

387
00:34:17,480 --> 00:34:24,559
Eric actually received. Interestingly, when
Eric and Meg organized the split, they

388
00:34:24,599 --> 00:34:29,679
both agreed that neither could sue the
other if it was found out that they

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00:34:29,679 --> 00:34:35,559
were involved in the murders. In
nineteen ninety five, Meg married her college

390
00:34:35,639 --> 00:34:42,440
sweetheart Randy Appleton. Meg and Randy
had one son together in nineteen ninety seven,

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00:34:43,280 --> 00:34:46,679
but that same year they divorced.
Then Meg would go on to marry

392
00:34:46,679 --> 00:34:52,719
her second husband, Justin Manly.
Jump to October of two thousand and two,

393
00:34:52,760 --> 00:34:59,599
five years later, Detective Sergeant Dennis
Spinningfield was following up on the Wellnuts

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00:34:59,639 --> 00:35:02,760
case, which by then was a
cold case, a very cold case.

395
00:35:04,400 --> 00:35:08,119
No one knew if it would ever
be solved, but Sergeant Benningfield had hope,

396
00:35:08,519 --> 00:35:13,719
and his hope grew when he found
out that Bill and Regina Meaes had

397
00:35:13,719 --> 00:35:20,360
had a nasty breakup in November nineteen
ninety nine. Meaes and Regina were separated.

398
00:35:20,960 --> 00:35:25,039
The next month, Regina alleged that
MEAs had sexually assaulted her on Christmas

399
00:35:25,039 --> 00:35:30,519
Eve. Later, a grand jury
ruled that Meaes had not sexually assaulted his

400
00:35:30,599 --> 00:35:37,320
wife, but Regina continuously maintained that
he had. By the end of the

401
00:35:37,360 --> 00:35:42,800
year two thousand, they were officially
divorced, and Benningfield saw this as an

402
00:35:42,800 --> 00:35:49,480
opportunity. He approached Regina to discuss
the deaths of Joe Beth and Dennis Wellness.

403
00:35:50,199 --> 00:35:53,679
Before her husband had stopped her from
going to the police now she was

404
00:35:53,719 --> 00:35:59,800
free and clear. He wanted to
know if perhaps Regina had some insight as

405
00:35:59,800 --> 00:36:04,800
to what really happened that night,
and she knew exactly what happened nine years

406
00:36:04,840 --> 00:36:10,480
ago on that cold February night.
Regina explained that her ex husband Bill MEAs

407
00:36:10,639 --> 00:36:17,000
and Meg Wellness had orchestrated the entire
thing, and to prove it, Regina

408
00:36:17,039 --> 00:36:22,320
provided the authorities with a small fire
safe, the same fire safe that had

409
00:36:22,360 --> 00:36:28,119
been stolen from the Wellnuts home that
night. When Regina handed it over to

410
00:36:28,159 --> 00:36:31,800
the police, they found a hair
inside of it. Lab testing indicated it

411
00:36:31,840 --> 00:36:37,800
was very similar to Joe Wellness's hair. William Harry Meaes was born in October

412
00:36:37,840 --> 00:36:43,159
of nineteen seventy two. He would
go by the nickname Bill all his life.

413
00:36:44,199 --> 00:36:46,400
I've been referring to him as niece
since that is the name he is

414
00:36:46,480 --> 00:36:52,119
most widely recognized by today. When
Mees was a newborn, his mother jan

415
00:36:52,559 --> 00:36:58,800
left his abusive father. Then before
he turned one year old, she abandoned

416
00:36:58,840 --> 00:37:02,360
him. At that point, his
grandmother on his mother's side took him in.

417
00:37:04,239 --> 00:37:08,079
She lived in Florida and legally adopted
him, but when he was twelve,

418
00:37:08,159 --> 00:37:13,280
years old, his grandmother passed away. Then Mees was forced to move

419
00:37:13,320 --> 00:37:16,960
in with his biological mother, and
that's how he ended up in Lexington,

420
00:37:17,039 --> 00:37:23,480
Kentucky, where she lived. Jan
pretended to be Mysa's sister for fifteen years.

421
00:37:23,960 --> 00:37:28,920
She kept him out of school and
discouraged him from talking to other people.

422
00:37:29,800 --> 00:37:35,159
Later on, Jan would testify that
she was diagnosed with several mental illnesses.

423
00:37:35,840 --> 00:37:40,000
She frequently heard voices that told her
to kill people. She believed that

424
00:37:40,000 --> 00:37:45,519
mes also heard similar voices, but
he denied it. But even if he

425
00:37:45,559 --> 00:37:51,880
didn't have her same mental health issues, his childhood was certainly a recipe for

426
00:37:52,000 --> 00:37:58,119
making a sociopath. Eric Wellness,
Joe's estranged son, happened to go to

427
00:37:58,159 --> 00:38:01,360
junior high school with Mees, and
he recalled how Mees had once stabbed him

428
00:38:01,360 --> 00:38:07,599
in the thigh with a pencil.
Eric also remembered that Mees would often discuss

429
00:38:07,719 --> 00:38:12,400
killing. When Eric said that he
was going to share Mesa's fascination with murder

430
00:38:12,559 --> 00:38:16,760
with some adults, Mees threatened to
hurt him. In the late nineteen eighties,

431
00:38:17,000 --> 00:38:22,599
Mees attended Henry Clay High School in
Lexington. He didn't graduate. Later

432
00:38:22,639 --> 00:38:30,159
on, he would earn his ged
and enroll in Lexington Community College. Afterward,

433
00:38:30,559 --> 00:38:34,800
he attended the University of Kentucky,
and in August of nineteen ninety one,

434
00:38:35,280 --> 00:38:40,480
eighteen year old Mees married Regina.
They had three children together. Mees

435
00:38:40,760 --> 00:38:45,639
was a pathological liar. He'd later
say as much in court. He lied

436
00:38:45,760 --> 00:38:50,639
so much and so often that it's
tricky to know what is true about his

437
00:38:50,800 --> 00:38:55,920
life and what's not. For example, he told numerous people, including Regina,

438
00:38:57,320 --> 00:39:00,760
that he was an ex Navy seal. He claimed he had been involved

439
00:39:00,760 --> 00:39:05,000
in black ops, the CIA,
and a failed attempt to kill a Rocky

440
00:39:05,119 --> 00:39:09,920
terrorist, Saddam Hussein, but there
is no known record verifying that information.

441
00:39:10,719 --> 00:39:15,639
In fact, the only official record
we do have is a court document explaining

442
00:39:15,679 --> 00:39:22,280
that Meaes received an other than honorable
discharge from the Navy. He had tested

443
00:39:22,320 --> 00:39:27,559
positive for cocaine, but Meaes insisted
he had never done cocaine, though he

444
00:39:27,599 --> 00:39:34,519
did admit to struggling with alcoholism.
Bill MEAs met Meg Willnitz while they were

445
00:39:34,559 --> 00:39:40,239
attending Lexington Community College and the University
of Kentucky. It doesn't appear that Meaes

446
00:39:40,320 --> 00:39:45,559
received his degree from either school.
If he did, he never pursued a

447
00:39:45,599 --> 00:39:50,159
career. Instead, he had a
series of jobs at various points in time.

448
00:39:50,239 --> 00:39:52,840
He was a landscaper, a pest
control specialist, a cab driver,

449
00:39:53,039 --> 00:39:59,480
and a bank courier. That is
until his ex wife, Regina started talking

450
00:39:59,480 --> 00:40:05,320
to the authora in the early two
thousands. Not long after that, Mill

451
00:40:05,440 --> 00:40:09,599
Meese was just another jail inmate.
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452
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sequence of events is put together from
what Regina and the police investigation revealed about

484
00:42:49,840 --> 00:42:55,159
the Wellness murders. Around November of
nineteen ninety two, Meg's parents were traveling

485
00:42:55,199 --> 00:43:00,719
to Africa. The running joke among
her buddies became how much she would inherit

486
00:43:00,760 --> 00:43:06,440
if her parents died on this trip. Around this same time, Meis,

487
00:43:06,719 --> 00:43:10,519
who was interested in Wicca magic and
the occult. Just like Meg, wanted

488
00:43:10,559 --> 00:43:15,760
to start a commune. He had
a business plan for it. The name

489
00:43:15,760 --> 00:43:21,920
would be black Watch Enterprises. In
Meg's later recanted statements, she said this

490
00:43:22,079 --> 00:43:28,320
commune was a David Koresh kind of
situation. Meg and Mes hatched a plan.

491
00:43:29,119 --> 00:43:34,039
They decided that Meeces would kill her
parents. Then Meg would inherit their

492
00:43:34,079 --> 00:43:38,199
money, which she estimated to be
about one million dollars, and she would

493
00:43:38,239 --> 00:43:43,920
pay Nis ten percent of that million
one hundred thousand, which would be about

494
00:43:43,920 --> 00:43:47,880
two hundred and fourteen thousand today.
And also MEAs would be free to use

495
00:43:47,920 --> 00:43:53,840
the wellness land to start his David
Koresh like commune. Meg said in a

496
00:43:53,880 --> 00:43:59,639
later recanted statement, it was really
kind of a game at first. Heads

497
00:43:59,719 --> 00:44:05,920
up, I'll continue flagging whatever information
comes from Meg and Mice's recanted statements,

498
00:44:06,360 --> 00:44:08,039
we'll get into the he says.
She said of it all in a moment.

499
00:44:08,599 --> 00:44:14,360
But just know that Meg would first
admit to everything. Then she claimed

500
00:44:14,440 --> 00:44:16,840
she had no idea about any of
this. She said, MEAs did all

501
00:44:16,840 --> 00:44:22,599
of it on his own. Meanwhile, Mees would also admit to everything.

502
00:44:22,199 --> 00:44:25,960
Then he claimed that he was innocent, that he wasn't even in the same

503
00:44:27,079 --> 00:44:30,320
city on the night of the murders. I want to be extra clear here

504
00:44:30,920 --> 00:44:36,159
they are lying. They are both
lying. A jury later confirmed they were

505
00:44:36,199 --> 00:44:39,719
lying. The courts affirmed that they're
lying, and quite frankly, common sense

506
00:44:39,840 --> 00:44:45,400
says they are lying. But the
information can and will get a little jumbled

507
00:44:45,760 --> 00:44:50,119
due to their ongoing lies. I'll
do my best to organize it for you.

508
00:44:51,599 --> 00:44:54,880
For months, Mees and Meg plotted
the massacre of the Walnuts family.

509
00:44:55,960 --> 00:45:00,639
Two weeks before the murders happened,
Meg bought a rounding high power nine milimeters

510
00:45:00,679 --> 00:45:06,199
pistol. She wasn't twenty one years
old yet, so she had to use

511
00:45:06,239 --> 00:45:10,800
her fake ID for the purchase.
Normally she just used it to buy booze.

512
00:45:10,960 --> 00:45:15,320
Then Meis, who was actually with
Meg when she bought the gun,

513
00:45:15,920 --> 00:45:20,920
bought the gun from her. He
used his five hundred dollars tax refund to

514
00:45:20,960 --> 00:45:27,079
pay her. Afterward. Mees also
bought hollow point bullets and human silhouette targets.

515
00:45:27,679 --> 00:45:31,119
He used both items to familiarize himself
with his new pistol at a firing

516
00:45:31,199 --> 00:45:37,599
range. Remember how I said that
the Wellness family appeared near picture perfect before

517
00:45:37,639 --> 00:45:43,800
they were murdered. Perhaps the only
visible issue in the family was something so

518
00:45:43,960 --> 00:45:50,480
common that it probably seemed kind of
innocent. At first, Beth wasn't so

519
00:45:50,519 --> 00:45:53,960
sure about her daughter's friend group.
She didn't like Meg's current boyfriend, Randy,

520
00:45:54,480 --> 00:46:00,519
and Beth certainly wasn't a fan of
Meg's married friend Meis. Beth actually

521
00:46:00,599 --> 00:46:06,519
knew that Meg had slept with Meece
while he was married and while Meg was

522
00:46:06,519 --> 00:46:10,679
still in a relationship with Randy.
As you can imagine, that didn't sit

523
00:46:10,719 --> 00:46:16,119
well with Beth. It's unclear if
Misa's then wife, Regina or Randy knew

524
00:46:16,159 --> 00:46:22,440
about the sexual relationship. They might
have been in an open or polyamorous relationship

525
00:46:23,000 --> 00:46:27,519
where it could have been an illicit
affair. We don't really know any more

526
00:46:27,559 --> 00:46:32,639
details. What we do know is
that Beth was not a fan. On

527
00:46:32,719 --> 00:46:37,760
Wednesday, February twenty fourth, nineteen
ninety three, Meg brought Randy, Meis,

528
00:46:38,079 --> 00:46:44,360
and another unnamed person who was likely
Regina, Mysa's wife, to her

529
00:46:44,400 --> 00:46:50,159
parents' home. Meg wanted to show
her mom that Mes wasn't some evil character,

530
00:46:51,000 --> 00:46:53,880
or at least that's what Meg said
she was doing. Really, she

531
00:46:53,960 --> 00:47:00,280
was giving mee an opportunity to case
the house. The next day, on

532
00:47:00,360 --> 00:47:04,880
Thursday, Myes returned to the Wellnuts
home. He went up to the door.

533
00:47:05,840 --> 00:47:09,280
Then, for reasons unknown, he
left. He either chickened out or

534
00:47:09,320 --> 00:47:15,119
something must have gone wrong, though
it's unclear what because MEAs hadn't changed his

535
00:47:15,239 --> 00:47:20,840
mind. He waited that night until
one thirty am the next morning, and

536
00:47:20,880 --> 00:47:24,639
then he went up to his bedroom
to speak to his wife. He told

537
00:47:24,639 --> 00:47:29,559
her that he and Meg were going
to get coffee, and at about two

538
00:47:29,599 --> 00:47:32,559
thirty am, Meg filled up a
vehicle with gas at a BP station.

539
00:47:34,559 --> 00:47:38,280
Then she and Meice drove from his
home in Lexington to the Wellnuts family home

540
00:47:38,320 --> 00:47:45,679
in Columbia. When they arrived,
Meg gave Mees a key to her family's

541
00:47:45,719 --> 00:47:52,840
home. Then she waited in the
car while mee slaughtered them. Later,

542
00:47:52,960 --> 00:47:55,920
during one of his confessions, Meece
would claim that Regina was waiting in the

543
00:47:55,960 --> 00:48:01,159
car with Meg, but as I
mentioned, he canted those and Regina told

544
00:48:01,280 --> 00:48:06,719
multiple sources that she was woken up
when mys and Meg returned to their home

545
00:48:06,760 --> 00:48:12,480
in Lexington, which meant she hadn't
gone with them. Ultimately, law enforcement

546
00:48:12,559 --> 00:48:16,840
did not believe that Regina had anything
to do with the murders. In several

547
00:48:16,880 --> 00:48:22,239
recorded video statements, Mes explained exactly
what happened in the Wellnuts family home.

548
00:48:23,239 --> 00:48:28,000
He recanted these statements later, of
course, but the jury was allowed to

549
00:48:28,000 --> 00:48:34,119
watch the video statements during his trial. First, Mees went downstairs. He

550
00:48:34,239 --> 00:48:37,440
was looking for Beth, who he
thought slept in a bedroom down there.

551
00:48:37,039 --> 00:48:40,960
That's where she had been sleeping that
Wednesday when Meees came to visit. She

552
00:48:42,039 --> 00:48:45,440
had recently had back surgery, so
she was probably avoiding stairs for a while.

553
00:48:46,480 --> 00:48:51,840
But instead of Beth, Mees ran
right into Joe and quickly fired at

554
00:48:51,880 --> 00:48:57,679
him. Joe kept coming towards him, but Meaes continued firing. When Joe

555
00:48:57,679 --> 00:49:02,079
fell to the floor, Meaes headed
upstairs. He found Beth standing next to

556
00:49:02,079 --> 00:49:07,880
her in Joe's bed. He shot
and killed her. Then he went down

557
00:49:07,920 --> 00:49:13,079
the hall to Dennis's room. The
door was locked and me struggled for a

558
00:49:13,119 --> 00:49:16,159
moment, but once he was inside, he found Dennis sitting on his bed.

559
00:49:16,960 --> 00:49:21,400
He yelled at him to get on
the floor and reloaded his gun.

560
00:49:22,320 --> 00:49:27,039
Dennis complied and got down on his
stomach on the floor. When Mees was

561
00:49:27,079 --> 00:49:30,000
done reloading, he shot Dennis in
the back. Then he picked up his

562
00:49:30,039 --> 00:49:36,360
discarded magazine. He put it in
his pocket as a final precaution. MEAs

563
00:49:36,440 --> 00:49:39,719
went through the well Nut's home room
by room to ensure everyone was dead.

564
00:49:40,480 --> 00:49:45,559
Then he returned to the main bedroom
to steal the fire safe. Meg had

565
00:49:45,559 --> 00:49:49,519
told Mees that she thought there was
one thousand dollars cash in there. Back

566
00:49:49,559 --> 00:49:53,760
in nineteen ninety three, the medical
examiner suggested that the Wellnuts family probably died

567
00:49:53,960 --> 00:49:59,159
around four o'clock in the morning,
which fits the time period after MEAs and

568
00:49:59,199 --> 00:50:04,119
Meg left to Lexington. They returned
to his house at about seven o'clock in

569
00:50:04,159 --> 00:50:09,320
the morning. When they arrived,
Meg was upset. She told Regina that

570
00:50:09,360 --> 00:50:15,079
Dennis was not supposed to be there. Afterwards, Meaes told Regina she wasn't

571
00:50:15,079 --> 00:50:20,159
allowed to talk to the police or
let them into the house. He also

572
00:50:20,280 --> 00:50:23,679
refused to divulge the gruesome details of
the murders with her right away. He

573
00:50:23,760 --> 00:50:30,440
told Regina that he wanted to give
her plausible deniability, But when they all

574
00:50:30,480 --> 00:50:35,519
went to the Wellnuts home to pack
up the dead family's belongings, Meaes couldn't

575
00:50:35,559 --> 00:50:40,199
help himself. He began pointing out
where his victim's bodies had been. As

576
00:50:40,239 --> 00:50:45,960
it turns out, investigators were always
pretty certain that Bill Meaese was involved with

577
00:50:45,000 --> 00:50:51,880
the Wellnut's murderers. The polygraph incident
was pretty damning, so in March of

578
00:50:51,960 --> 00:50:57,320
nineteen ninety four, they assigned an
undercover police officer to watch and try to

579
00:50:57,400 --> 00:51:02,239
ensnare Mees. The officer and Felice
of the Kentucky State Police posed as an

580
00:51:02,239 --> 00:51:07,199
employee for True Green chem Lawn,
where Meis worked. Mees was supposed to

581
00:51:07,239 --> 00:51:13,880
train her to be a salesperson.
Officer Felice rode around with him for approximately

582
00:51:13,920 --> 00:51:19,320
three weeks as a trainee officer.
Felice tried to gain his trust and then

583
00:51:19,360 --> 00:51:23,199
lure Meese into another murder for higher
scheme. She fed me a fake story

584
00:51:23,239 --> 00:51:29,360
about her horribly abusive husband. She
planted the seed so that Mees would offer

585
00:51:29,400 --> 00:51:35,039
to kill him for her. During
those conversations where Felice was befriending and tricking

586
00:51:35,079 --> 00:51:39,880
Meese, his behavior was concerning.
He had a black and white human silhouette

587
00:51:39,880 --> 00:51:45,400
target outside of his work cubicle.
There were twenty six bullet holes in the

588
00:51:45,400 --> 00:51:50,800
target's upper body. When discussing this
silhouette, Mes said to Officer Felice,

589
00:51:51,280 --> 00:51:53,480
by the way, what did that
little trick on the wall? Was this?

590
00:51:54,159 --> 00:52:00,840
And he pulled out a nine millimeter
six hour from his briefcase. When

591
00:52:00,840 --> 00:52:05,119
they were back at his apartment,
Mees pulled out the gun and dry fired

592
00:52:05,119 --> 00:52:09,559
it at her face twice. That
Officer Felice kept her cool in the moment

593
00:52:09,840 --> 00:52:15,280
is remarkable enough. The fact that
she kept going back was incredibly brave.

594
00:52:15,920 --> 00:52:21,400
Me spragged her about his ability to
lie with a straight face and not feel

595
00:52:21,440 --> 00:52:25,719
bad about it at all. Me
said lying was so simple that reality was

596
00:52:25,719 --> 00:52:32,360
a mild inconvenience. At one point, Officer Felice casually brought up the Wellnuts

597
00:52:32,440 --> 00:52:38,239
family murders, and Mes responded that
Meg Wellnitts had had her family wasted.

598
00:52:39,199 --> 00:52:44,719
When Felice asked what kind of look
did they have on their faces, Mees

599
00:52:44,840 --> 00:52:52,280
responded shocked mostly. Mice also provided
Felise with detailed instructions for how to go

600
00:52:52,320 --> 00:52:55,639
about killing her abusive husband, starting
with how to acquire a murder weapon.

601
00:52:57,239 --> 00:53:00,599
He said, you don't buy it
in your name, so it can't be

602
00:53:00,639 --> 00:53:05,800
traced back to you. After the
deed was done. Meaes suggested that Felice

603
00:53:05,800 --> 00:53:09,119
throw the gun in a dumpster outside
of a fast food restaurant. He also

604
00:53:09,280 --> 00:53:13,960
suggested she put the clothes she had
been wearing in the same trash bag.

605
00:53:15,199 --> 00:53:19,639
As we know, Meg used a
fake ID to buy the murder weapon and

606
00:53:19,679 --> 00:53:23,679
then Mees bought it from her without
registering it, and according to Regina's talks

607
00:53:23,719 --> 00:53:30,480
with the police and Mesa's recanted video
confessions, he and Meg disposed of their

608
00:53:30,480 --> 00:53:36,480
clothes and the murder weapon and a
McDonald's dumpster. Mees told the undercover officer

609
00:53:36,800 --> 00:53:40,559
that this was the optimal solution.
One white plastic bag looks like every other

610
00:53:40,559 --> 00:53:46,400
white plastic bag, and a dumpster. He also suggested that she use one

611
00:53:46,440 --> 00:53:51,480
hundred and twenty four grain hollow points
to kill her husband. He said they

612
00:53:51,519 --> 00:53:55,000
were the most effective at getting the
job done, which was the exact ammunition

613
00:53:55,079 --> 00:54:00,920
he used to kill the well Nuts
family. He also told her it doesn't

614
00:54:00,920 --> 00:54:06,880
matter what people think. What matters
is what people can prove. Honestly,

615
00:54:07,239 --> 00:54:12,159
it seemed like everything was going according
to law enforcement's plan. Mees seemed on

616
00:54:12,199 --> 00:54:16,960
the brink of agreeing to kill Felice's
fake abusive husband, or he was until

617
00:54:16,960 --> 00:54:23,280
he hit on Officer Catherine Felice when
she rejected his sexual advances. He reported

618
00:54:23,280 --> 00:54:29,400
her to the Lexington Police. What
a petulant, vindictive, little asshole,

619
00:54:30,400 --> 00:54:34,119
he alerted them that she was trying
to hire someone to kill her husband,

620
00:54:35,280 --> 00:54:39,480
but at least Officer Felice's cover was
not blown, and the authorities continued to

621
00:54:39,519 --> 00:54:45,800
surveil Meese from Afar. Unfortunately,
he made the pass at the officer before

622
00:54:45,840 --> 00:54:51,280
he decided to offer up his hipman
services, so investigators could not arrest him

623
00:54:51,320 --> 00:54:54,679
for that as planned, and did
not have enough concrete evidence about the wellness

624
00:54:54,760 --> 00:55:00,079
murders. All they had was what
he bragged about. He could easily say

625
00:55:00,119 --> 00:55:06,480
he made that up to impress her. Their next encounter with Mes did not

626
00:55:06,679 --> 00:55:09,880
happen until eight years later, in
the fall of two thousand and two.

627
00:55:10,199 --> 00:55:15,239
That October, a woman named Georgia
Rose was standing outside her daughter's home.

628
00:55:15,800 --> 00:55:22,719
She was extremely upset. Meys,
who was walking his dog, stopped to

629
00:55:22,760 --> 00:55:27,719
ask her what was wrong. Georgia
explained that her boyfriend was acting like a

630
00:55:27,800 --> 00:55:34,280
jerk, so Mes offered to take
care of the boyfriend. Georgia was immediately

631
00:55:34,320 --> 00:55:39,559
schewed out and called a friend who
was a police officer. That officer was

632
00:55:39,599 --> 00:55:46,119
Detective Sergeant Dennis Benningfield. This was
the catalyst that caused Benningfield to look into

633
00:55:46,119 --> 00:55:52,039
Mysa's relationship with Regina after all,
happily married men don't offer to commit capital

634
00:55:52,119 --> 00:55:58,400
murder for women they just met.
In addition to reaching out to Regina,

635
00:55:58,840 --> 00:56:05,360
the authorities also enlisted Georgia. She
became an undercover agent for the authorities at

636
00:56:05,480 --> 00:56:10,280
law enforcement's request. Georgia continued to
contact MEAs about killing her boyfriend, and

637
00:56:10,360 --> 00:56:15,159
eventually she and Mees settled on a
price of two thousand dollars for the hit.

638
00:56:16,360 --> 00:56:21,760
MEAs would receive a five hundred dollars
down payment before the kill, and

639
00:56:21,840 --> 00:56:24,880
he would get the rest after.
To prove the job was done, he

640
00:56:24,960 --> 00:56:30,400
was supposed to take a polaroid photo
of the boyfriend's dead body, then Georgia

641
00:56:30,440 --> 00:56:34,360
would leave the rest of Mesa's cash
payment and a toolbox on his back porch.

642
00:56:36,000 --> 00:56:39,119
So on November third, two thousand
and two, Mees hopped into Georgia's

643
00:56:39,119 --> 00:56:44,920
car outside of a CVS pharmacy.
He said to her, on a practical

644
00:56:45,000 --> 00:56:49,360
level, I need the money and
you need a problem solved. Then Georgia

645
00:56:49,880 --> 00:56:54,360
handed him the five hundred dollars and
Bill Mease was immediately arrested by the Kentucky

646
00:56:54,400 --> 00:57:00,840
State Police. The sting operation had
been a success. During Mysa's trial in

647
00:57:00,960 --> 00:57:05,960
June of two thousand and three.
His defense tried to convince the jury that

648
00:57:06,039 --> 00:57:09,119
this was all a misunderstanding. He
wasn't going to murder a guy for Georgia,

649
00:57:09,519 --> 00:57:14,079
he was scamming her. As soon
as he received the money, he

650
00:57:14,119 --> 00:57:19,760
was going to run. But recorded
conversations between Mes and Georgia revealed otherwise.

651
00:57:20,920 --> 00:57:25,440
Meaes had repeatedly bragged about faking polygraph
test results to Georgia. He told her

652
00:57:25,480 --> 00:57:30,880
all about his experience killing people,
and he even explained the need for a

653
00:57:30,920 --> 00:57:37,119
clean weapon and the element of surprise. Clearly Mees had an mo because these

654
00:57:37,159 --> 00:57:44,440
were very similar to the tactics he
used to annihilate the Wellnuts family. On

655
00:57:44,519 --> 00:57:49,039
Thursday, February twenty eighth, two
thousand and three, Bill MEAs was arrested

656
00:57:49,119 --> 00:57:53,960
for the Wellnuts family murders. Ten
years and one day after the initial slayings.

657
00:57:54,400 --> 00:57:59,920
He had been sitting in jail awaiting
trial for agreeing to kill George's boyfriend.

658
00:58:00,039 --> 00:58:06,679
Meg, on the other hand,
now lived in Chicago. I'm going

659
00:58:06,719 --> 00:58:12,360
to pause now for a short commercial
break. As soon as Regina told detectives

660
00:58:12,400 --> 00:58:16,280
about how Meice and Meg had plotted
the deaths of the Wellnuts family investigators had

661
00:58:16,320 --> 00:58:22,920
tried to contact Meg, but she
continuously ducked their calls. When they did

662
00:58:22,960 --> 00:58:25,559
finally get a hold of her,
Meg was adamant that she needed to speak

663
00:58:25,599 --> 00:58:30,159
with her lawyer before talking to them. So when twenty eight year old Meg

664
00:58:30,519 --> 00:58:35,400
was arrested on February twenty eighth,
two thousand and three, she was very

665
00:58:35,400 --> 00:58:40,360
surprised, and I can see why
she had almost completely moved on. She

666
00:58:40,519 --> 00:58:45,400
was probably pretty certain that she had
gotten away with murder. By then,

667
00:58:46,000 --> 00:58:52,519
exactly ten years later, she had
studied ceramics both at Transylvania University and the

668
00:58:52,639 --> 00:58:58,800
University of Kentucky, and she had
run a bar at Chicago's Upper south Side.

669
00:58:59,119 --> 00:59:02,480
She had been divorced twice, and
she was a mom. The only

670
00:59:02,519 --> 00:59:07,679
recorded instance where we know Meg even
thought about murdering her entire family was in

671
00:59:07,719 --> 00:59:13,280
the year two thousand. At that
time, Meaes had sent Meg a letter

672
00:59:13,320 --> 00:59:19,400
through her grandmother. He wanted money
for quote services rendered so long ago.

673
00:59:19,840 --> 00:59:23,920
In a statement Meg gave officials which
she later recanted, she said he sent

674
00:59:23,960 --> 00:59:28,360
me a letter saying his life had
been ruined and that he had read some

675
00:59:28,440 --> 00:59:31,599
book about the witness Protection program and
that if I didn't give him enough money

676
00:59:31,599 --> 00:59:35,320
to start a lawn care service,
that he was going to go to the

677
00:59:35,320 --> 00:59:38,559
police and confess as a hit man
and get put in the witness protection program

678
00:59:38,559 --> 00:59:45,679
in Hawaii. Loll at Mees's thinking
he'd be put in witness protection much less

679
00:59:45,719 --> 00:59:50,599
sent to Hawaii. Meg told her
then husband, Justin Manly, about this

680
00:59:50,760 --> 00:59:53,880
letter, but she didn't explain that
she knew exactly what MEAs was writing about.

681
00:59:54,519 --> 00:59:59,519
Instead, she chalked it up to
some crazy guy reaching out. She

682
00:59:59,599 --> 01:00:02,519
pointed out out how Mee had once
told her he was in the CIA and

683
01:00:02,559 --> 01:00:07,800
that he killed people. Then Meg
shredded the letter and threw it in the

684
01:00:07,800 --> 01:00:12,199
trash. Later it would be revealed
that she was concerned the letter could be

685
01:00:12,320 --> 01:00:19,599
used against her as evidence the remaining
Wellnet's family members in Columbia community were flabbergasted

686
01:00:19,639 --> 01:00:24,559
to learn that Meg had masterminded her
parents and brother's deaths. Captain Hancock told

687
01:00:24,599 --> 01:00:29,639
Oxygen, it's very disturbing to know
that this sweet little girl that I remember

688
01:00:30,000 --> 01:00:32,000
has been the one that actually played
such a big role in this murder.

689
01:00:32,480 --> 01:00:38,239
Meg orchestrated one of the most horrendous
crimes that you could ever imagine and Cindy

690
01:00:38,320 --> 01:00:43,119
Yates, who worked for the wellnets
Vack Clinic for many years, told The

691
01:00:43,119 --> 01:00:46,079
Herald Leader, I was hoping it
would be a stranger. It hurts to

692
01:00:46,119 --> 01:00:51,039
know if they did do this,
that someone could be that cold hearted to

693
01:00:51,079 --> 01:00:57,000
their own family. When Mees and
Meg were charged and indicted, Meg faced

694
01:00:57,039 --> 01:01:00,599
three counts of complicity to commit murder
and one count of complicity to commit robbery

695
01:01:00,639 --> 01:01:06,920
and burglary. Mees faced three counts
of murder, three counts of complicity to

696
01:01:06,960 --> 01:01:10,239
commit murder, one count of first
degree robbery, one count of first degree

697
01:01:10,280 --> 01:01:16,360
burglary, and one count of complicity
to commit robbery and burglary. Right away,

698
01:01:16,559 --> 01:01:21,880
the Commonwealth's attorney, Brian Wright,
confirmed that he would be seeking the

699
01:01:21,920 --> 01:01:25,760
death penalty for both MEAs and Meg. He said to the Lexington Herald Leader,

700
01:01:27,159 --> 01:01:30,360
it's certainly a capital case and deserving
of capital treatment and the prosecution.

701
01:01:31,760 --> 01:01:36,519
On Wednesday, March twelfth, two
thousand and three, both Meg and Meese

702
01:01:36,519 --> 01:01:42,039
pleaded not guilty. By the way, yes, Kentucky is a commonwealth along

703
01:01:42,079 --> 01:01:46,039
with three other states, Massachusetts,
Pennsylvania, and Virginia. The distinction is

704
01:01:46,039 --> 01:01:51,159
a name alone. The commonwealths are
just like any other state in their politics

705
01:01:51,199 --> 01:01:53,719
and laws, and there is no
difference in their relationship to the nation as

706
01:01:53,760 --> 01:01:59,199
a whole. That's a little inside
baseball for you, because sometimes I slip

707
01:01:59,280 --> 01:02:05,880
up when discussing Virginia or Kentucky cases
and say commonwealth's attorney without explaining anyway.

708
01:02:06,639 --> 01:02:08,880
On Tuesday, June third, two
thousand and three, Bill Meaese was convicted

709
01:02:09,159 --> 01:02:14,400
for conspiring to commit murder in Fayette
County. That would be due to the

710
01:02:14,440 --> 01:02:19,960
sting with Georgia Rose. The jury
recommended twelve years in prison. In July,

711
01:02:20,400 --> 01:02:23,599
the judge accepted that sentence. That
same year, while Meg was in

712
01:02:23,679 --> 01:02:29,800
jail awaiting her death penalty trial,
her ex husband Randy Appleton, sought custody

713
01:02:29,840 --> 01:02:34,679
of their six year old son.
Meg said of the situation, Randy is

714
01:02:34,800 --> 01:02:38,719
just not responsible enough to have a
child. He's very erratic. She told

715
01:02:38,760 --> 01:02:44,639
a judge that she provided a more
stable environment for their son than Randy.

716
01:02:44,760 --> 01:02:49,599
She wanted her son to go to
her friend Tracy Harris and grandmother Mary Preston

717
01:02:50,000 --> 01:02:53,159
until she got out. Yeah,
a jailed mother is so very stable,

718
01:02:53,880 --> 01:02:59,039
not that it really matters, But
Randy Appleton was a tenured college professor.

719
01:02:59,440 --> 01:03:02,519
He had a c record not sitting
in jail waiting on a death penalty trial

720
01:03:02,679 --> 01:03:07,199
like his ex wife. Plus,
in two thousand and one, Meg had

721
01:03:07,199 --> 01:03:13,440
been arrested for endangering their son.
Randy said she lived in squalor. Social

722
01:03:13,440 --> 01:03:16,760
workers also confirmed this. They filed
a report that her house had garbage and

723
01:03:16,800 --> 01:03:22,599
trash on the floor and dry raw
sewage in the basement. You won't be

724
01:03:22,679 --> 01:03:27,960
surprised to hear that. Randy won
custody on the day that Meg's trial was

725
01:03:28,000 --> 01:03:31,000
set to begin in January two thousand
and five, she pleaded guilty to all

726
01:03:31,079 --> 01:03:36,480
charges. In exchange for avoiding the
death penalty. Meg was sentenced to life

727
01:03:36,480 --> 01:03:40,639
in prison without the possibility of parole
for twenty five years. She also agreed

728
01:03:40,639 --> 01:03:49,199
to confess, and she promised to
testify against Billmice at his trial. William

729
01:03:49,239 --> 01:03:53,079
Wellness, Joe's brother and Meg's uncle, told the press to hear she pled

730
01:03:53,119 --> 01:04:00,000
guilty, it's bittersweet they're solved,
But what a tragedy. It's just destroyed

731
01:04:00,199 --> 01:04:04,119
so much. But in July of
two thousand and six, Meg recanted the

732
01:04:04,159 --> 01:04:09,960
confessions she had made as part of
her plea bargain. According to her,

733
01:04:10,480 --> 01:04:14,280
she had made everything up based on
the information she knew about the crime.

734
01:04:15,320 --> 01:04:18,159
Meg claimed that she had been desperate
to avoid the death penalty, and also

735
01:04:18,800 --> 01:04:24,119
she said she was on and off
various drugs while in jail, some prescribed

736
01:04:24,159 --> 01:04:28,119
and some not. Meg later said
I would have told you I was married

737
01:04:28,119 --> 01:04:32,440
to Hitler in that statement. Now, Meg asserted that she had zero clue

738
01:04:32,480 --> 01:04:36,280
that Meies was going to murder her
entire family. None of this was her

739
01:04:36,280 --> 01:04:42,079
fault. She even blamed her lawyers
for ineffective counsel and a related appeal,

740
01:04:43,039 --> 01:04:45,679
But in March of two thousand and
eight, a judge upheld her conviction and

741
01:04:45,760 --> 01:04:50,760
sentencing. That judge did not address
any of Meg's arguments about her desperation,

742
01:04:51,280 --> 01:04:57,079
drug usage, or problems with her
lawyers. Instead, he simply cited that

743
01:04:57,119 --> 01:05:01,719
Meg had missed the three year of
pill deadline before days. Meanwhile, Mes's

744
01:05:01,760 --> 01:05:06,000
first trial began in November two thousand
and four, but the trial ended early

745
01:05:06,280 --> 01:05:13,119
when he pled guilty during the jury
selection process. He also accepted a plea

746
01:05:13,199 --> 01:05:16,440
deal in exchange for a sentence of
life in prison without parole for at least

747
01:05:16,480 --> 01:05:21,199
twenty five years. He received a
total of forty years on the other charges

748
01:05:23,079 --> 01:05:27,840
as a part of the plea deal, Mes also provided recorded video statements regarding

749
01:05:27,880 --> 01:05:32,800
his involvement in the Wellness family murders. By the next month, in December

750
01:05:32,840 --> 01:05:38,000
two thousand and four, Mees claimed
that he entered into the plea bargain under

751
01:05:38,039 --> 01:05:42,639
false pretenses. Turns out he didn't
want to plead guilty at all. He

752
01:05:42,679 --> 01:05:45,679
didn't like one of his current court
appointed lawyers, so he pled guilty to

753
01:05:45,719 --> 01:05:50,039
try to get a new one.
But he had already given those video recorded

754
01:05:50,039 --> 01:05:56,039
statements, and by this point Meg
had also provided her own recorded statements.

755
01:05:56,239 --> 01:06:00,559
And I cannot emphasize this enough.
Both MEAs and Meg's statement months aligned damn

756
01:06:00,559 --> 01:06:05,639
near perfectly. Now. According to
Mes, those recorded video statements were a

757
01:06:05,679 --> 01:06:10,639
lie, just a ruse to get
the plea deal going so he could immediately

758
01:06:10,679 --> 01:06:15,679
reneg on it. He said he'd
used the information that his lawyers provided to

759
01:06:15,760 --> 01:06:20,079
create the whole story. He even
told the press there still exists nothing to

760
01:06:20,119 --> 01:06:25,159
this case. When the smoke clears
and the mirrors are taken away, there's

761
01:06:25,239 --> 01:06:29,559
no fire, only a lot of
hot air. Unfortunately some of it my

762
01:06:29,679 --> 01:06:32,920
own. I still maintain my innocence. But this is chess. It ain't

763
01:06:33,000 --> 01:06:38,760
checkers ough I hate this guy.
He thinks he's so cute with his hip

764
01:06:38,800 --> 01:06:43,360
man bullshit and chess not checkers.
It may have taken ten years to get

765
01:06:43,400 --> 01:06:46,239
him, but it's not because investigators
didn't know where to look. It just

766
01:06:46,320 --> 01:06:50,039
took that long to get Regina to
turn so I guess he had some right

767
01:06:50,119 --> 01:06:56,159
to be smarmy, but I still
hate him anyway. A few months later,

768
01:06:56,320 --> 01:07:00,280
Mysa's motion to set aside his plea
deal was accepted, and he got

769
01:07:00,320 --> 01:07:03,320
new lawyers just like he wanted.
Since he had switched his plea deal,

770
01:07:03,639 --> 01:07:09,880
the judge ordered a competency evaluation in
February two thousand and five. Bill Meaes

771
01:07:10,039 --> 01:07:14,079
was ruled competent later that year,
and in the fall of two thousand and

772
01:07:14,159 --> 01:07:19,760
six his trial began. I'm going
to pause now for a final commercial break.

773
01:07:27,679 --> 01:07:31,320
His trial took four weeks. In
that time, the Commonwealth asserted that

774
01:07:31,360 --> 01:07:35,440
Mees was the triggerman in his ameg's
plot to kill the Walnuts family for money.

775
01:07:36,239 --> 01:07:43,000
Brandy Appleton testified that Meaese told him
he was an assassin. Regina Mysa's

776
01:07:43,000 --> 01:07:47,280
ex wife, testified to the experiences
I've already told you about, and Meg

777
01:07:47,400 --> 01:07:53,599
also testified at this point, she
had already pled guilty and recanted. She

778
01:07:53,719 --> 01:08:00,760
said everything was Mysa's fault. Additionally, Badass undercover agent Officer Caine and Felice

779
01:08:00,039 --> 01:08:04,960
testified about her experience under cover with
Mees trying to convince him to kill her

780
01:08:05,039 --> 01:08:13,000
fake abusive boyfriend, and the jury
was allowed to hear Mysa's video recorded confessions,

781
01:08:13,280 --> 01:08:16,800
even though he had since recanted.
Mysa's defense team had a hell of

782
01:08:16,840 --> 01:08:21,560
an uphill battle. They tried to
prove that Mes and Meg were studying for

783
01:08:21,600 --> 01:08:28,600
their community college English test on the
night of the murders. Bill Meaes testified

784
01:08:28,640 --> 01:08:31,119
on his own behalf. He said
on the stand, I have a lot

785
01:08:31,159 --> 01:08:36,359
of experience making up false stories.
I've lied a lot in my life.

786
01:08:36,439 --> 01:08:42,479
The defense attorneys also argued that Mees
couldn't have killed the Wellnuts family. Meaes

787
01:08:42,560 --> 01:08:45,680
hadn't received a dime from Meg for
the murders. If you'll recall, the

788
01:08:45,720 --> 01:08:49,800
Wellnuts family inheritance, which Mees was
supposed to get a cut of, was

789
01:08:49,880 --> 01:08:55,600
lost to overwhelming debt. Meg even
had to sell the land on which Meaes

790
01:08:55,800 --> 01:09:00,439
was supposed to build his commune.
So his lawyer argued, if Meg didn't

791
01:09:00,439 --> 01:09:04,640
pay Mees, why hadn't he killed
her too, to which the prosecution responded

792
01:09:05,079 --> 01:09:10,920
Meg being alive was the only possibility
of him ever getting his money. Plus,

793
01:09:10,960 --> 01:09:15,840
if Meg was murdered, Meece would
certainly be a suspect. The defense

794
01:09:15,880 --> 01:09:19,560
also claimed that Regina was just bad
mouthing MEAs because she was angry about their

795
01:09:19,680 --> 01:09:26,239
terrible marriage, but the Commonwealth's attorney
pointed out that the authorities had approached Regina,

796
01:09:26,600 --> 01:09:30,760
not the other way around. On
Friday, September fifteenth, two thousand

797
01:09:30,800 --> 01:09:35,199
and six, after deliberating for less
than two hours, the jury convicted thirty

798
01:09:35,199 --> 01:09:40,039
three year old William Harry MEAs of
three counts of murder, robbery, and

799
01:09:40,079 --> 01:09:45,279
burglary. Days later, the jury
recommended that MEAs be sentenced to death plus

800
01:09:45,279 --> 01:09:50,880
two consecutive twenty year terms totaling forty
years, and October the judge agreed.

801
01:09:53,000 --> 01:09:57,239
The judge stated publicly that he had
no doubt that Meaes had killed the Wellnuts

802
01:09:57,279 --> 01:10:01,640
family. MEAs, of course,
later complained that he did not get a

803
01:10:01,680 --> 01:10:06,960
fair trial. He likened the court
system to Nazi Germany, Communist China and

804
01:10:08,000 --> 01:10:14,159
Soviet Russia. Right, you were
so persecuted, Mees appealed to the Kentucky

805
01:10:14,199 --> 01:10:17,560
Supreme Court in twenty eleven. He
had a myriad of complaints, some of

806
01:10:17,600 --> 01:10:23,119
which included that he was upset that
his recanted video statements were allowed. He

807
01:10:23,199 --> 01:10:28,600
also didn't like that Officer Felice was
allowed to tell the jury about their conversations,

808
01:10:29,840 --> 01:10:32,479
and he thought that Regina shouldn't have
been allowed to testify because she was

809
01:10:32,520 --> 01:10:38,039
his ex wife. We think spouses
aren't supposed to be able to testify against

810
01:10:38,119 --> 01:10:42,720
each other. Actually the law is
they cannot be compelled to testify against each

811
01:10:42,720 --> 01:10:48,880
other. Regina testified willingly. The
court also determined that everything Mees shared with

812
01:10:48,960 --> 01:10:55,560
Regina was knowledge found by other means
too. Ultimately, the Kentucky Supreme Court

813
01:10:55,800 --> 01:11:01,159
affirmed Bill Mees's conviction and sentence.
Today, fifty one year old William Harry

814
01:11:01,239 --> 01:11:06,479
Meaes is on death row at the
Kentucky State Penitentiary. His execution date has

815
01:11:06,520 --> 01:11:12,960
not been set. He's awaiting death
because of his own hubris. He never

816
01:11:12,960 --> 01:11:16,640
should have fought his plea bargain.
I said before that his childhood was like

817
01:11:16,680 --> 01:11:21,000
a how to for raising a sociopath. Maybe he just couldn't help himself.

818
01:11:21,600 --> 01:11:29,399
It was a self fulfilling prophecy.
On February twelfth, twenty fourteen, just

819
01:11:29,600 --> 01:11:33,640
shy of twenty one years since she
had her whole family butchered, thirty nine

820
01:11:33,680 --> 01:11:39,159
year old Meg wellnets Appleton was found
dead in her jail cell at about seven

821
01:11:39,159 --> 01:11:43,720
o'clock in the morning. She was
at the Prison for Female offenders in Peewee

822
01:11:43,840 --> 01:11:48,680
Valley. Her death was ruled a
suicide. Initially, reports said that the

823
01:11:48,720 --> 01:11:54,640
state police were investigating it, but
since then no other details have been released.

824
01:11:55,640 --> 01:12:00,760
Meg was buried next to her family
in the Lexington Cemetery. Beth's mother,

825
01:12:00,880 --> 01:12:05,560
Mary outlived almost all of her close
family, dying at age one hundred.

826
01:12:06,159 --> 01:12:11,119
Can you imagine living to be one
hundred years old with your closest loved

827
01:12:11,159 --> 01:12:15,520
ones all dead and buried. Mary
Preston was buried in the same cemetery as

828
01:12:15,520 --> 01:12:20,680
her family in twenty twenty. Her
husband, three brothers, three children,

829
01:12:20,800 --> 01:12:27,319
and grandchildren all died before her.
It was almost two decades without them.

830
01:12:28,359 --> 01:12:31,920
Mary only had her great grandson,
Mag's son left, but she did have

831
01:12:31,960 --> 01:12:38,399
some nieces, nephews and other extended
family who lovingly helped care for her in

832
01:12:38,439 --> 01:12:44,720
those long years without her close family. In a case like this, with

833
01:12:44,840 --> 01:12:49,279
so many interesting twists and turns.
The misery and devastation of those left behind

834
01:12:49,800 --> 01:12:55,840
can be forgotten as we get caught
up in the story. But the remaining

835
01:12:55,880 --> 01:13:00,439
family, as well as close friends
and the rest of the tight community never

836
01:13:00,479 --> 01:13:06,119
forgot. The murderers left a painful
scar on every one's heart. Knowing what

837
01:13:06,239 --> 01:13:12,119
good people Joe and Beth were,
it's hard to imagine they raised such a

838
01:13:12,159 --> 01:13:17,079
selfish, cold and hateful person like
Meg, someone who didn't place much value

839
01:13:17,159 --> 01:13:24,039
on human life. You see videos
with her and her horse on her family's

840
01:13:24,079 --> 01:13:30,159
property, and she looked so normal
and happy. How could she do it?

841
01:13:30,159 --> 01:13:34,279
It makes you think about that nature
versus nurture debate. To obliterate your

842
01:13:34,319 --> 01:13:40,159
parents for money is so sadistic.
Meg might have felt some guilt for her

843
01:13:40,199 --> 01:13:44,079
brother Dennis, but it didn't seem
to face her long as the young woman

844
01:13:44,119 --> 01:13:48,039
went on with her life for another
decade. After she got her money,

845
01:13:48,439 --> 01:13:53,239
she went to school, got married, had a child of her own.

846
01:13:54,680 --> 01:13:59,199
But then justice finally caught up with
her and she didn't last eight years in

847
01:13:59,239 --> 01:14:03,359
prison. But I can't stop thinking
about the suffering of the wellnesses. That

848
01:14:03,520 --> 01:14:09,479
night, Joe taken by surprise,
with no time to try and save his

849
01:14:09,520 --> 01:14:15,960
family. Then Beth hiding in her
bedroom she had surely heard the gunshots as

850
01:14:15,000 --> 01:14:20,439
she stood trembling, waiting for her
death. And poor Dennis maybe trying to

851
01:14:20,479 --> 01:14:26,800
lie quietly and hope the gunman thought
he wasn't home since he wasn't supposed to

852
01:14:26,840 --> 01:14:32,399
be there. It's a nightmare come
true. The shock and fear, then

853
01:14:32,439 --> 01:14:38,800
the dread and pain, and they
knew who Bill Meese was, so you

854
01:14:38,920 --> 01:14:43,479
have to wonder if they understood that
it was Meg who had wanted them dead

855
01:14:44,800 --> 01:14:49,439
mercifully, they seemed to die quickly, hopefully before they were fully aware that

856
01:14:49,520 --> 01:14:59,600
someone they loved had betrayed them so
callously. Southern Fried True Crime is hosted

857
01:14:59,640 --> 01:15:03,079
and produce used by me Erica Kelly. Today's episode was researched and written by

858
01:15:03,119 --> 01:15:09,279
me and Andrea Marshbank. As usual, any editorial comments and opinions are my

859
01:15:09,399 --> 01:15:13,479
own. Southern Fred's original music is
by Rob Harrison of Gamma Radio and the

860
01:15:13,520 --> 01:15:17,199
original graphic artist by Koly Horner.
Today's episode was edited and mixed by Brandon

861
01:15:17,239 --> 01:15:23,600
schock Snider of Southern Gothic and Erica
Kelly. Today's case was suggested by Dana

862
01:15:23,680 --> 01:15:27,199
Schmidt. If you have any suggestions, please go to my website, Southern

863
01:15:27,239 --> 01:15:32,039
Fred Truecrime dot com and click on
the listener suggestion tab or email SFTC Research

864
01:15:32,359 --> 01:15:35,560
at gmail dot com. This is
the best way for me to get those

865
01:15:35,560 --> 01:15:40,680
little known cases you'll always send me. Please remember that I do not accept

866
01:15:40,680 --> 01:15:44,880
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867
01:15:45,239 --> 01:15:48,880
Southern Fried True Crime Fans Discussion Group, where we swap recipes, worship Dolly

868
01:15:48,920 --> 01:15:53,319
Parton, and share memes. We
do, of course discuss true crime,

869
01:15:53,359 --> 01:15:56,359
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870
01:15:56,359 --> 01:15:59,880
a Southern lifestyle group. Our group
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871
01:16:00,000 --> 01:16:00,880
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872
01:16:00,920 --> 01:16:03,600
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873
01:16:04,000 --> 01:16:08,680
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876
01:16:18,319 --> 01:16:19,079
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