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Speaker 4: You are now listening to True Murder The most shocking
Speaker 4: killers in true crime history and the authors that have
Speaker 4: written about them Gaesy Bundy Dahmer The Nightstalker VTK Every
Speaker 4: week another fascinating author talking about the most shocking and
Speaker 4: infamous killers in true crime history. True Murder with your
Speaker 4: host journalist and author Dan Zupanski.
Speaker 5: Good Evening.
Speaker 6: South Dakota's Mathis family murders brought death and deception to
Speaker 6: the heartland. It was perhaps the most infamous murder case
Speaker 6: in state history. The Donna Mathis was shot twice in
Speaker 6: the head at point blank range inside the family's metal
Speaker 6: shed serving as their makeshift home. Two of her three children,
Speaker 6: ages two and four, were also shot in the head.
Speaker 6: The brutality of the killing shocked the state and set
Speaker 6: off a frenzy of law enforcement activity. Despite its intensity,
Speaker 6: the investigation never found the murderer or the murder weapon.
Speaker 6: Though charged with the crime, the husband was acquitted, leaving
Speaker 6: the door open for endless speculation about what really occurred
Speaker 6: on that late summer morning of September eighth, nineteen eighty one.
Speaker 6: With renewed insight from those involved, veterans. South Dakota journalist
Speaker 6: Noel Hamil explores this cold case of murder and mystery
Speaker 6: that still haunts the Mount Rushmore State. The book they
Speaker 6: were featuring this evening is South Dakota's Mathist Murders Horror
Speaker 6: in the Heartland, with my special guest, journalist and author
Speaker 6: Noel Hamil. Welcome to the program, and thank you very
Speaker 6: much for this interview.
Speaker 5: Noel Hamil, thank you for having me.
Speaker 6: Dan, thank you so much. First off, tell our audience
Speaker 6: your connection to this area and to this story.
Speaker 7: I practiced journalism in South Dakota most of my career.
Speaker 7: I was born and raised here, and although the crime
Speaker 7: happened forty years ago, it just haunted me all those
Speaker 7: years for two reasons. Primarily, one was never solved. As
Speaker 7: you mentioned, the husband has acquitted, there were no other
Speaker 7: suspects who were detained or arrested. And to the painous
Speaker 7: nature of the crime, two young children and a farm
Speaker 7: wife both shot in their sleep point bank in the range.
Speaker 7: And I just decided on retirement that I would take
Speaker 7: the time and research it and see if I could
Speaker 7: pull something together.
Speaker 6: Now, tell us about this little community, Mount Vernon, and
Speaker 6: also about the Mathis family itself and the circumstances they
Speaker 6: find themselves in that they're living. As we talked about
Speaker 6: in the introduction, in a makeshift home, what are the
Speaker 6: reasons for that, and just tell us a little bit
Speaker 6: about the family itself and its makeup.
Speaker 7: Well. The Mathis Farm is about eight miles north of
Speaker 7: Mount Vernon, which is a small farming community in South Dakota.
Speaker 7: Many many small farming communities. But in July of that year,
Speaker 7: their house separate an electrical fire. It had started in
Speaker 7: the basement. It was deemed suspicious, but no charges were
Speaker 7: ever brought. Two weeks later, the house again caught fire,
Speaker 7: this time maybe because of a lightning strike. The house
Speaker 7: was uninhabitable and so they decided the family decided to
Speaker 7: move into a metal machine shed actually a multipurpose shed
Speaker 7: just close to the home, and they moved their beds
Speaker 7: in there, and they decided to live there until a
Speaker 7: new house could be built. It was somewhat primitive. They
Speaker 7: didn't have plumbing or innure bathrooms, but they decided that
Speaker 7: they could live there until the new house was completed.
Speaker 7: So that's why they were in this makeshift home at
Speaker 7: the time of the murders.
Speaker 6: And you say that it was a typical farm family.
Speaker 6: They were church going and seemingly no enemies. But take
Speaker 6: us to September eighth, nineteen eighty one, and the deputy
Speaker 6: sheriff is a man named Doug Kirkus, and he gets
Speaker 6: a call at home at three fifty four am from
Speaker 6: somebody that he knows that he went to school with
Speaker 6: John Mathis. What does John Mathis essentially say to him
Speaker 6: and then tell us about what Sheriff Kirkus encounters when
Speaker 6: he arrives at the farm.
Speaker 7: Well, as you mentioned, they were actually classmates at Mount
Speaker 7: Vernon High School small school twenty seven. In the class
Speaker 7: they knew each other. Deputy Kurkus lived in Mount Vernon,
Speaker 7: and when the call came in from John Mathis, John
Speaker 7: Mathis said something to the effect Doug, come quick, somebody's
Speaker 7: shot my family. So Kirkus immediately addresses himself, goes out
Speaker 7: the door and drives at high speed to the Mathis place.
Speaker 7: What he finds there is, you know, a matthis farm.
Speaker 7: He's a little bit concerned because he doesn't know if
Speaker 7: if the murderer is still on site or is lurking
Speaker 7: behind the building. Maybe he is still in the machine. Shit.
Speaker 7: He doesn't know any of this, so he's very cautious,
Speaker 7: but he quickly discovers that he's not alone. He sees
Speaker 7: headlights approaching and it's actually John Mathis's father, who is
Speaker 7: also arriving at the place, and when he gets out
Speaker 7: of his vehicle, he sees that the elder Mathis is
Speaker 7: carrying a long gun, and so Debbie Kirkis gets out
Speaker 7: of his car and they approach the building together.
Speaker 6: Now what do they find the conditions of the Mathis family.
Speaker 7: Well, they open the door carefully again for the reasons
Speaker 7: that I've mentioned, and what they see is John Mathis
Speaker 7: kneeling at the bed of one of his children. They
Speaker 7: approach him and see that he's wounded. Kirkus sees that
Speaker 7: he has sustained a wound to his left arm, and
Speaker 7: they don't see anything else in the building. But Kirkus
Speaker 7: then looks at the beds containing Leadonna Mathis and Brian
Speaker 7: Mathis and Patrick Mathis, and he sees immediately that they've
Speaker 7: been that they've been shot, and he tries to engage
Speaker 7: John Mathis, but Mathis himself is injured and seems to
Speaker 7: be in some kind of shock. Kirkus administers a bandage
Speaker 7: to his wound, and by that time, of course, the
Speaker 7: other help is on the way.
Speaker 6: So what is the story that John Mathis relates to authorities.
Speaker 7: John Mathis tells Deputy Kirkus that he was awakened at
Speaker 7: some point during the by his youngest son, Patrick, who's
Speaker 7: two years old, and his son told his dad that
Speaker 7: he needed to go potty. And as I said, they
Speaker 7: don't have a bathroom, but they have a bucket over
Speaker 7: by the door, and so John Matthis helps his son
Speaker 7: relieve himself in this bucket, puts him back to bed,
Speaker 7: but decides since he's up, he'll go out and check
Speaker 7: his livestock. Is he raises hogs, and he wanted to
Speaker 7: check on some livestock, so he did that, and on
Speaker 7: his return to the metal building, he told Deputy Kirkus
Speaker 7: that the door burst open and this man rushes him
Speaker 7: rushes out of the building, wilding a gun. John Matthis
Speaker 7: says that he struggled with the man, tried to grab
Speaker 7: the gun, did not succeed, the gun goes off, shoots
Speaker 7: him in the arm, and he at some point passes
Speaker 7: out for twenty or thirty minutes or longer, and he
Speaker 7: relates this to the deputy and he said, when he
Speaker 7: woke up up, he went into the building and called
Speaker 7: Kurtains and the mask man was I don't I think
Speaker 7: it was a hood as I recall that may describe
Speaker 7: people's work.
Speaker 6: Now from that account, he's taken to the hospital for
Speaker 6: his wounds, yes, But from that account, you say, authorities
Speaker 6: began a extensive search of the property while people are
Speaker 6: also going to the hospital. Authorities are going to the
Speaker 6: hospital to question mathis so tell us about this search.
Speaker 7: Well, one of Kirkus's jobs, or one of the things
Speaker 7: that he did when he was alerted, is that he
Speaker 7: called dispatch, who in turn alerted Sheriff Lyle Swinson and
Speaker 7: also the Department of Criminal Investigation, which is based in Pier.
Speaker 7: But they they had other agents and so investigators from
Speaker 7: the DCI arrived on the scene that morning. Sheriff Swainson
Speaker 7: arrived and the investigat at the scene begins trying to
Speaker 7: find any clues they can who committed the murder and
Speaker 7: possibly a murder weapon, anything that investigators could do to
Speaker 7: try to shed some light on this case. So that
Speaker 7: happened right away that morning after John Mathis was taken
Speaker 7: to the Methodist Hospital in Mitchell so that his arm
Speaker 7: could be treated.
Speaker 6: Tell us about what is found at that crime scene
Speaker 6: in terms of in terms of bullets or spent cartridges,
Speaker 6: and also tell us what is written on the shed
Speaker 6: in gold spray paint. And by the way, the name
Speaker 6: a part of them what's written is misspelled.
Speaker 5: Tell us about this.
Speaker 7: Yeah, an oddity on the large doors to the machine
Speaker 7: shed which allows heavy equipment to be moved in and out,
Speaker 7: someone had spray painted in gold paint. Mathis sucks shit.
Speaker 7: I hate to say that to yourdience, but that's what
Speaker 7: it said. But they misspelled the Mathless name. They spelled
Speaker 7: it in a phus and so that was spray painted
Speaker 7: on the door and investigators saw that. They also found
Speaker 7: five spent twenty two caliber cartridges inside the building adjacent
Speaker 7: to the crime to where the murders occurred, between the
Speaker 7: beds near the beds, and then they not right away,
Speaker 7: but later on found a sixth cartridge outside the door.
Speaker 7: So in all they found six twenty two caliber cartridges
Speaker 7: at the seat.
Speaker 6: So they don't find anything in the first day of
Speaker 6: an investigation of searching the property. Despite this extensive search.
Speaker 6: So they decide to search further on this property, don't they.
Speaker 7: They expanded their search outside the building. This is a
Speaker 7: pretty typical farmstead. It had a number of outbuildings, nine
Speaker 7: I believe, and so they began to search each building
Speaker 7: and around each building for other clues. What they really
Speaker 7: want to find, of course, is a murder weapon. They
Speaker 7: conduct that search in coming days. One of the things
Speaker 7: that they had to do, since this was a hog operation,
Speaker 7: they had holding tanks for hog waste. They had to
Speaker 7: pump those out. They even had a large we call
Speaker 7: it a waste pit underneath the hog building that John
Speaker 7: Mathis had visited earlier that morning. They had to pump
Speaker 7: it out down to four feet and then they sent
Speaker 7: to personnel in wetsuits to try to see if there
Speaker 7: was a gun that had been thrown into this pit
Speaker 7: under this building. The search was extensive. They didn't find
Speaker 7: anything on the farmstead. They started looking at the road,
Speaker 7: ditches and land that immediately surrounded the farm.
Speaker 5: They walked.
Speaker 7: They had a lot of people involved. They rode horseback
Speaker 7: in the ditches out as thorough as they thought that
Speaker 7: they could be, but they found nothing.
Speaker 6: You talk about the two people the two detectives at
Speaker 6: the hospital questioning Mathis, and his story, as you write,
Speaker 6: seems to add detail and somewhat change. Tell us what
Speaker 6: he does say to Kirkus and Greeling at the hospital
Speaker 6: regarding again hearing a car and other details that he
Speaker 6: added to his story.
Speaker 7: Well, he did say that when he went outside after
Speaker 7: he had helped his son, he did say that he
Speaker 7: thought he heard an engine running, but he couldn't determine
Speaker 7: where it was. And he also said that his dog
Speaker 7: was barking, and so he wanted to put his dog
Speaker 7: away as well, but he wasn't. I guess those are
Speaker 7: the two things that he mentioned. I guess because he he,
Speaker 7: you know, again to support the narrative that there was
Speaker 7: this this hooded man that committed these murders, but they
Speaker 7: be The revelation from a law enforcement perspective at the
Speaker 7: hospital was that they found a unspent bullet in John
Speaker 7: Matthis's pocket and he told investigators that, yeah, his son
Speaker 7: had found that lying in the ground and he brought
Speaker 7: it to his dad, and so that's where that bullet
Speaker 7: had come from. And so yet another you know, bullet
Speaker 7: added the mystery of bullets and cartridges at the murdercy.
Speaker 6: Now, how do police proceed with this investigation regarding this
Speaker 6: mass man? How serious do investigators take this assertion that
Speaker 6: this mass man? And do they look at any other
Speaker 6: potential suspects.
Speaker 7: Well, initially they didn't have any reason to be skeptical
Speaker 7: of John Mathis's story. After all, I mean, here's a man.
Speaker 7: Those were his family in the metal building. He's the
Speaker 7: one that reported the crime. He said, get out of
Speaker 7: here quick. Somebody shot in my family. And so they do.
Speaker 7: I guess the first inkling that the law enforcement had
Speaker 7: suspicions was that when they investigated the area in front
Speaker 7: of the building where this struggle took place between John
Speaker 7: Mathis and the hooded man, and where John Mathis said
Speaker 7: he was shot, investigators were not able to find any
Speaker 7: evidence of a struggle. They didn't find any tracks there,
Speaker 7: they didn't find any blood there. And if he was
Speaker 7: shot and lying there on the ground for twenty or
Speaker 7: thirty or more minutes, they thought, well there ought to
Speaker 7: be some evidence of that. There ought to be some
Speaker 7: bloodstains on the ground. They were not able to find
Speaker 7: any and so, and that was very early on. And
Speaker 7: so with that in mind, they became suspicious yes of
Speaker 7: John Mathis.
Speaker 6: Can you tell me that Svenson believes that he takes
Speaker 6: a call from a psychic door the Allison tell us
Speaker 6: about this strange part of the story.
Speaker 7: Dorothy Allison was a psychic from New Jersey who claimed
Speaker 7: to have helped law enforcement solved a number of crimes.
Speaker 7: Perhaps the most famous one was the Patty Hirst crime.
Speaker 7: So the psychic said that she would be glad to help,
Speaker 7: and Swinson was interested. This came a little bit later on,
Speaker 7: after they were unable to turn up anything on the
Speaker 7: place she offered to help. She had enough information about
Speaker 7: the crime that Swinson thought that maybe she would be valuable,
Speaker 7: but the state didn't want to have any part of that.
Speaker 7: The state figured that if a psychic was brought in
Speaker 7: on the prosecution side that they would be laughed out
Speaker 7: of town. They just didn't want any thing to do
Speaker 7: with the psychic, and Swinson never pushed that. But it
Speaker 7: was an interesting sidelight to the cakes because they were
Speaker 7: having no success in solving the case. They couldn't find
Speaker 7: any suspects other than the husband, They couldn't find the
Speaker 7: murder weapon, and so they were I don't want to
Speaker 7: stay desperate, but they were looking for help wherever they
Speaker 7: could find it.
Speaker 6: You talk about the attorney General, Mark meyer Henry, Yes,
Speaker 6: he believed at this point a few weeks in that
Speaker 6: despite distalled investigation, somewhat that he had enough evidence to
Speaker 6: impanel a grand jury. And so he would hear a
Speaker 6: testimony from witnesses connected to the case. Who did he
Speaker 6: get to assist him and how do they proceed?
Speaker 7: They had a team five or six people involved in
Speaker 7: the state prosecution. Meyer Henry was the state's attorney general
Speaker 7: at that time, highly regarded experienced. He looked at the
Speaker 7: investigation that had been conducted by the DCI and the
Speaker 7: Sheriff's office and determined that they did have enough evidence
Speaker 7: to ask for a grand jury being paneled, which it was.
Speaker 7: They presented their evidence to the grand jury, and very
Speaker 7: short of the grand jury indicted John Mathis. So you know,
Speaker 7: they the I would say that meyer Henry, in consultation
Speaker 7: with the investigators, determined that they're just there. Weren't any
Speaker 7: other suspects. John Mathis was the only suspect that made
Speaker 7: any sense, and so they were going to They asked
Speaker 7: for an indictment and they got it.
Speaker 6: Now there's a new judge Thomas and Hurst, and then
Speaker 6: but Mathis is given bond. But a couple of the
Speaker 6: conditions are very interesting. As we were reading the story
Speaker 6: that he was to not contact a neighbor named Kim Tatum,
Speaker 6: which happened to be the family babysitter, and also the
Speaker 6: donna's parents, the girl ACKs, who were taking care of
Speaker 6: their infant son Matthiss infant son Dwayne during the time
Speaker 6: of these murders and during that home renovation. So tell
Speaker 6: us about Kim Tatum and what she has to say.
Speaker 7: Kim Tatum was the neighbor girl who from age thirteen
Speaker 7: or fourteen had been coming over. They lived directly across
Speaker 7: the road from the Matthis place, within walking distance, and
Speaker 7: she had been retained by John Matthis to help with
Speaker 7: chores on the farm since she was thirteen years old.
Speaker 7: The reason that he was ordered not to have any
Speaker 7: contact with her or her family was because he had
Speaker 7: an interest in Kim Tatum that went beyond just an
Speaker 7: employer employee relationship. He was kind of smitten by Kim
Speaker 7: Tatum even though she was young, and so he was
Speaker 7: One of the conditions was that he couldn't have any
Speaker 7: contact with her or her family, the girlocks Lodonna's parents
Speaker 7: who were taken care of the month old Dwayne. He
Speaker 7: was also forbidden to talk to them during this during
Speaker 7: this time as well. So those were two conditions that
Speaker 7: the court imposed, by the way you mentioned and Hurst
Speaker 7: he was the second judge. Judge bog was the judge
Speaker 7: who ordered the grand jury. And after that indictment, why
Speaker 7: John Mathis asked that he recuse himself, which he can
Speaker 7: do because he didn't think that he could. Mathis didn't
Speaker 7: think that he could get a fair trial in Mitchell
Speaker 7: and wanted a new judge, which was granted.
Speaker 6: We talk about this grand jury that's impaneled. They learn
Speaker 6: a lot of information and of course as a reader,
Speaker 6: we learned a lot of information about John Mathis, his
Speaker 6: father Vern and his mother Pearl. He was born in
Speaker 6: nineteen fifty one, and he had two siblings, Verne Junior
Speaker 6: and Norma, Gena's sister. And they talk about how LaDonna
Speaker 6: Gerlak and John Mathis met. So tell us a little
Speaker 6: bit about what's found out about how they met and
Speaker 6: when they were soon married.
Speaker 7: Well, it's pretty common in small rural communities, you know,
Speaker 7: to have dances or other public events and John matthis
Speaker 7: this met Madonna, who was out of high school working
Speaker 7: at a bank. Smart girl, attractive. He met her, and
Speaker 7: the courtship ensued, and the families were fine with it.
Speaker 7: The girl ocks thought that he was an up and
Speaker 7: coming young man. He was. The family was successful, and
Speaker 7: so there was no reason to not endorse that marriage.
Speaker 7: From the Mathis standpoint, he was looking for a mate,
Speaker 7: somebody could help him with the farming operation. Somebody was smart,
Speaker 7: and LaDonna Mathis build a bill. So yeah, they met
Speaker 7: and were married.
Speaker 6: In terms of anything particular about his personality, you talked
Speaker 6: about that, from all accounts, he was just a hard worker.
Speaker 6: They had his best friend talk about how they were
Speaker 6: both very, very interested in farming.
Speaker 5: Only he didn't play any.
Speaker 6: Extra extracurricular activities in school whatsoever. He joined a National
Speaker 6: Guard after he graduated, and he was considered by everybody
Speaker 6: as quiet, not a fighter, and didn't use drugs or alcohol.
Speaker 7: Yeah, he was some people might even call him introverted.
Speaker 7: His father, by all accounts, Vern wasn't authoritarian type of dad,
Speaker 7: and John Mathis grew up in a household where hard
Speaker 7: work was expected, actually insisted upon. If John Mathis went
Speaker 7: to a dancer or some other activity and got home light.
Speaker 7: His dad would make sure that he was up all
Speaker 7: the earlier the next day. Hard work, by all accounts,
Speaker 7: was what John Mathis was about. He didn't have he
Speaker 7: didn't have hobbies. He would worked till one two o'clock
Speaker 7: in the morning, his neighbors said, and his family said.
Speaker 7: So that's the profile that emerged of John Mathis Madonna.
Speaker 7: It was a good partnership because Madonna was the business
Speaker 7: at the operation. She worked in a bank. She was
Speaker 7: good with figures. She tried to if John wanted to
Speaker 7: buy a piece of expensive equipment or something of land nature,
Speaker 7: she would make sure that they looked hard on it
Speaker 7: and maybe didn't make that purchase. And so she was
Speaker 7: sort of the business end of the operation and John
Speaker 7: Mathis was the worker. But he was also fairly creative
Speaker 7: and he could fix things, he could renovate things. He
Speaker 7: ran a good operation.
Speaker 6: Now with this grand jury, there's enough information to inform
Speaker 6: the prosecutor and that they have enough information enough evidence
Speaker 6: pardon me to go to trial. And so that trial
Speaker 6: is delayed a couple of times, but it's set for
Speaker 6: April nineteen eighty two. So tell us who the adversarial
Speaker 6: team is. You talked about the prosecutor meyer Henry. Who
Speaker 6: is the defense team set for this historic South Dakota trial.
Speaker 7: The more interesting aspects of this case is that Mark
Speaker 7: meyer Henry, who'd been elected Attorney General in South Dakota,
Speaker 7: was from Gregory, South Dakota, another small community, farming community.
Speaker 7: The lead defense attorney, Rick Johnson, was also from Gregory,
Speaker 7: and he and Mark meyer Henry were in the same
Speaker 7: high school. They played football together. Johnson was a couple
Speaker 7: of years ahead of Mark meyer Henry, but they were
Speaker 7: clatt They were in the same school, and they were
Speaker 7: actually grew to be good friends. They were both attorneys.
Speaker 7: They went to the same law school, the University of
Speaker 7: South Dakota, and they were good friends. So when Mathis
Speaker 7: needed defense help, he called the Johnson offer, and Rick
Speaker 7: Johnson and his associate Wally Ecklund, another branch boy from
Speaker 7: that area, took on the Mathis defense And so, yeah,
Speaker 7: one of the and they were and their wives were
Speaker 7: good friends. It was one of those little quirks of
Speaker 7: eight that happens. You have a high profile murder case
Speaker 7: which had been moved from Mitchell Davison County to Yate
Speaker 7: and not a change of venue because Johnson and Exlin
Speaker 7: contended that the pre trial publicity was such that he
Speaker 7: that Mathis couldn't get a fair trial in Davison County,
Speaker 7: and Judge Anherst granted that change of venue. But the
Speaker 7: case involved I would say at that time that the
Speaker 7: Johnson Law firm was one of the top two or
Speaker 7: three defense firms in the entire state. So it did
Speaker 7: pit the best defense attorneys against someone who was perceived
Speaker 7: as an excellent attorney general.
Speaker 6: And this was a death penalty case if they tried,
Speaker 6: if they dared to do that. And what was the
Speaker 6: press reaction to this case.
Speaker 7: Well, it was the press state wide was all over
Speaker 7: this case. It's a very high profile case because of
Speaker 7: the nature of the case. Farm wife and two children
Speaker 7: murdered in their sleep. The accused was the husband. The
Speaker 7: nature of the case was one thing. You had the
Speaker 7: principals in the case being the Attorney General's office versus
Speaker 7: one of the leading defense law firms in the case.
Speaker 7: That was another part of it. But I think just
Speaker 7: the singular nature of the crime itself. You know, South
Speaker 7: Dakota has had a fair number of high profile murder
Speaker 7: cases going back to eighteen seventy seven, while Bill Hiccock
Speaker 7: and Yanketon, but now Yanketon was the site of easily
Speaker 7: the most famous murder case since then.
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Speaker 6: the smartest way to hire Now, Noel, we were set
Speaker 6: for this trial, and the adversarial teams that were set
Speaker 6: very very talented and not going to take anything personal.
Speaker 6: That these people were in this battle for serious It's
Speaker 6: not usual. But John Mathis and his team decided that
Speaker 6: he should testify. So tell us how they open up
Speaker 6: this trial. The earliest argument, what basically the prosecution the
Speaker 6: center of their case, and what the defense says is
Speaker 6: the center of their case, and how this trial proceeds.
Speaker 7: The prosecution had determined that John Mathis committed the murder.
Speaker 7: They looked around at the evidence. They couldn't find any
Speaker 7: reason to believe that there was a mass man. They
Speaker 7: couldn't find any evidence of a struggle. They decided that
Speaker 7: the wound of John Mathis must have been self inflicted.
Speaker 7: They brought in experts in the trial that blood sample experts,
Speaker 7: ballistic test Berks, and they decided that really mainly by
Speaker 7: the process of elimination. I know Mark meyer Hener said,
Speaker 7: sometimes the case is, you know, you you look at
Speaker 7: what's not there, and that controls the charges that you bring.
Speaker 7: And they decided that there just there wasn't any other
Speaker 7: suspects and that John Mathis had had made up this story.
Speaker 7: Their case was and I can get to that later,
Speaker 7: but there was it was circumstantial case, which doesn't mean
Speaker 7: that it isn't a good case. It just means that
Speaker 7: didn't have the evidence maybe that they wanted. The defense,
Speaker 7: on the other hand, said that no, John Mathis was
Speaker 7: was a loving father. It happened as he said it.
Speaker 7: And by the way, the prosecution did a slip shot investigation.
Speaker 7: They didn't consider other suspects. There's other possible is that
Speaker 7: they didn't investigate and they brought in their own battery
Speaker 7: of experts to try to counter with the prosecution. It
Speaker 7: was unusual, I guess, to have John Mathis testify, and
Speaker 7: he did testify. The defense thought it was important that
Speaker 7: he tell his story. He told the same story at
Speaker 7: trial as he did during the investigation. Although the prosecution
Speaker 7: was quick to point out that there were some differences
Speaker 7: in the testimony that he gave during the r injury
Speaker 7: compared to what he gave a trial, but basically he
Speaker 7: told the same story at trial, and despite prosecutor meyer
Speaker 7: Henry's best efforts, they weren't able to break him down
Speaker 7: a trial and his testimony pretty much stood under a
Speaker 7: withering attack by meyer Henry. There was one case where
Speaker 7: meyer Henry point blank, you know, asked him about his
Speaker 7: relationship with Kim Tatum, because that was the primary moment
Speaker 7: that they had settled on, and that was one of
Speaker 7: the areas where his story did very a little bit.
Speaker 7: You know. Initially he said during grand jury that he
Speaker 7: only touched her once, and by the time the testimonia
Speaker 7: trial occurred, he had to acknowledge that there was more
Speaker 7: to it than that. Although it was described as a
Speaker 7: quasi sexual relationship, there was never any sexual intercourse.
Speaker 6: What I found most interesting, despite what you said there,
Speaker 6: is that Kim Tatum said some very interesting things that
Speaker 6: she attributed to John regarding his regret over being married
Speaker 6: before he met her.
Speaker 5: Tell us what she claimed he had said.
Speaker 7: Well, Kim Tatum acknowledged that they had had this ongoing
Speaker 7: I'll just call it a touchy feely relationship, and she
Speaker 7: always said that she didn't get anything out of it,
Speaker 7: but he must have because he kept doing it and
Speaker 7: he would she would tell him to stop, and he
Speaker 7: would stop. But at some point he said to her
Speaker 7: that he had wished that he had met her Kim
Speaker 7: before his current wife LDN And the prosecution seized on that,
Speaker 7: of course, as a key motivational factor. Meyer Henry was
Speaker 7: heard to say that, yeah, he flipped out. He wanted
Speaker 7: to start his life over, and Kim Tatum was it.
Speaker 7: But there was never any testimony, either prior to trial
Speaker 7: or at trial, that Kim Tatum fell toward him as
Speaker 7: he did toward her.
Speaker 6: You talk about a trial, the defense made the claim
Speaker 6: they talked about the Shody investigation. They also, again has
Speaker 6: seemed routine now I've heard it many times before where
Speaker 6: they say, well, you didn't pursue any other we think
Speaker 6: are tangible.
Speaker 5: To other suspects.
Speaker 6: So but the thing is that they did say was
Speaker 6: that the police did not check any engine a vehicle
Speaker 6: at the farm that night to see that anybody had left,
Speaker 6: meaning Mathis had left, and it must have been connecting
Speaker 6: to the disposal of that gun of that murder weapon.
Speaker 6: So tell us what they contend that trial regarding this.
Speaker 7: Well, at trial, one of the charges that they made
Speaker 7: against the prosecution was that it was a slipshot investigation.
Speaker 7: For example, they didn't check the engine in John Mathis's
Speaker 7: pickup to see if he'd driven it. Now, this came
Speaker 7: later and the investigators acknowledged that they didn't check it
Speaker 7: because if they had, and say that they were able
Speaker 7: to discover that he had driven, if the engine was warm,
Speaker 7: that would be an indicator that he had left the place,
Speaker 7: maybe to dispose of the murder web. But they did
Speaker 7: not check his engine. It was later, not the first
Speaker 7: day of investigation, that a neighbor came by and said,
Speaker 7: you know, it's kind of strange. John Mathis always backs
Speaker 7: his pickup into that garage, and I noticed that it
Speaker 7: was driven in this time. And of course the investigators
Speaker 7: wondered about that. But when asked about it, Lyles Swinson
Speaker 7: and other investigators said, look, the morning the investigation, we
Speaker 7: had no reason to think John Mathis was a suspect.
Speaker 7: He's the dad, he's the husband. We didn't think that
Speaker 7: he had driven someplace because he had called in the crime.
Speaker 7: So that was the prosecution's explanation for not checking the
Speaker 7: engine that morning. The defense also accused the state of
Speaker 7: not pursuing other suspects. They said that it might have
Speaker 7: been drug related, might have been a drug drug related killing,
Speaker 7: a crime. They said that the blood sample testing, the
Speaker 7: ballistic tests were not properly conducted, and they supported that
Speaker 7: because they had their own witnesses that contradicted the blood
Speaker 7: sample outcomes that were conducted by the prosecution's labs. So
Speaker 7: all these things were used by the defense to paint
Speaker 7: a picture that the prosecution's case was sloply conducted.
Speaker 6: When John Mathis was asked on the stand, I think
Speaker 6: this is very profound. When he was asked questions like
Speaker 6: why would this masks man who was capable of shooting
Speaker 6: your wife in the head twice, your son in the
Speaker 6: head twice and your other son, why they did not
Speaker 6: kill you? Why did they leave you as a witness.
Speaker 6: How did he answer tough questions like that?
Speaker 7: You know, John Mathis was described by the defense as
Speaker 7: a person of low intelligence. They brought in psychiatrists, they
Speaker 7: brought an experts and said, you know, his IQ was
Speaker 7: somewhere in the eighties. He's not a smart guy. And
Speaker 7: yet his answers to the prosecution's questions what he was
Speaker 7: on the stand were striking to answer your question about
Speaker 7: what he said. When meyer Henry asked him, you know
Speaker 7: about aren't you worried about the murder of coming back?
Speaker 7: Why would he leave you alive and kill your family?
Speaker 7: And Matthis said, I wished he would have I wished
Speaker 7: he would have shot me. That was his answer, and
Speaker 7: meyer Henry said, well, why is that? And Mathis said,
Speaker 7: so I could be with my family.
Speaker 6: Now.
Speaker 7: That pretty much stopped the prosecution questioner. I think in
Speaker 7: his tracks, at least momentarily.
Speaker 6: There were other instances where he again said the right thing,
Speaker 6: and his very talented attorney elicited those kinds of responses
Speaker 6: from him. So he he obviously because its acquittal, he
Speaker 6: really did do a good performance that the jurors seemed
Speaker 6: to believe. But you say that one of the main
Speaker 6: things that was a hurdle or an obstacle was the notion. Again,
Speaker 6: it's hard to believe that in nineteen eighty two people
Speaker 6: had a hard time believing that a father would kill
Speaker 6: his kids, didn't he.
Speaker 7: Mark meyer Henry said very end that the reason that
Speaker 7: the state lost that case was because the jurors could
Speaker 7: not come to grips with the idea that a man
Speaker 7: could shoot his sons much less while they were sleeping.
Speaker 7: It wasn't a case where he was in anger. It wasn't,
Speaker 7: you know, if the kids had done something awful, they
Speaker 7: were misbehaved children. The jurors just couldn't believe that a
Speaker 7: dad could shoot his kids that way. Mark Meyer, Henry,
Speaker 7: who I interviewed four months before he died, said that
Speaker 7: after trial. He said it during the anniversary updates of
Speaker 7: the trial, and he said it four months before he passed.
Speaker 7: He thought he knew the jury in yankedon. He thought
Speaker 7: that he could get a conviction, but he said I
Speaker 7: misjudged the jury. He said, they just they couldn't sign
Speaker 7: on to that sort of a crime.
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Speaker 6: Details for a second for these messages. Now we get
Speaker 6: to the we talked about it, but the trial, the conclusion,
Speaker 6: the verdict, with all these juror jurors, and you talk
Speaker 6: about and you write, you identify these jurors, and there
Speaker 6: is follow up interviews, especially with the jury foreman, and
Speaker 6: what he had to say was very, very interesting, So
Speaker 6: we can talk about that. But suffice to say is
Speaker 6: that he is acquitted. What is the press reaction and
Speaker 6: what is the community reaction to this not guilty verdict.
Speaker 7: The community reaction, I think was one of skepticism, maybe
Speaker 7: even disbelief. I think the community at large, and I'm
Speaker 7: not just talking about it was most now from Mount
Speaker 7: Vernon and the region around Mitchell. But the next day
Speaker 7: wide people assumed that John Mathis would be convicted, and
Speaker 7: even his attorney said after the trial at different times
Speaker 7: that it was just so unfair for the people of
Speaker 7: South Dakota to continue to harbor the belief that John
Speaker 7: Mathis was was was Guildy, he was acquitted, and Rick
Speaker 7: Johnsin said more than once he said, you know, it's
Speaker 7: just not right now. John Mathis himself, I think one
Speaker 7: of the titles was not not guilty, but not free.
Speaker 7: And the media had done some retrospective stories about how
Speaker 7: he was coping with with the with life afterward, and
Speaker 7: and by most accounts he he was in many cases
Speaker 7: shown he he never was, you know, extroverted or part
Speaker 7: of the community. But this pushed him even further into
Speaker 7: the background. So I think that he lived a lonely
Speaker 7: life following that, by all accounts, and I got that
Speaker 7: from interviews that I read. You mentioned the jury foreman Hantomichael.
Speaker 7: He was one of the last holdouts of a guilty
Speaker 7: and he and another juror finally came to the conclusion
Speaker 7: that the evidence just wasn't compelling, It wasn't enough to convict.
Speaker 6: What about the bullet found by jurors on the first
Speaker 6: day of deliberation.
Speaker 7: Oh yes, well, one of the defense's positions was that
Speaker 7: twenty two caliber rifles were everywhere, and bullet cartridges and
Speaker 7: bullets can be found everywhere because every farm and every
Speaker 7: branch has one to shoot garments with. The defense used
Speaker 7: that as a way of explanation for the bullet found
Speaker 7: in his pocket at the hospital and other cartridges. The
Speaker 7: cartridges that were found by jurors was on the first
Speaker 7: day of liberation. They had gone out to eat dinner.
Speaker 7: They were coming back to the jury room and they
Speaker 7: spotted two spent twenty two cartridges on the sidewalk. It
Speaker 7: was reported that one was found, and it was reported
Speaker 7: that two were found. But the fact is that the
Speaker 7: jurors spotted these two cartridges and they were just shocked,
Speaker 7: and as Hana Michael and a couple of the other
Speaker 7: jurors said later, my gosh, I guess the defense was correct.
Speaker 7: I mean, these cartridges are everywhere. They're even on the
Speaker 7: sidewalk on our way back to the deliberation room. And
Speaker 7: keep in mind this was after the trial was over.
Speaker 7: I mean, this is after all the summations were concluded.
Speaker 7: This was during the deliberation process. And they did say
Speaker 7: in interviews following that those cartridges were something that they
Speaker 7: considered before they came in with the ecquittal. The cartridges,
Speaker 7: I'll just say this, by all, by most everybody's accounts
Speaker 7: were planned. Somebody planted those to be seen by the jurors,
Speaker 7: and Rick Johnson was incensed that anybody would imply or
Speaker 7: accuse the defense team of doing it. He said, we
Speaker 7: didn't have anything to do with it. I don't know
Speaker 7: how it happened, but most observers, including the state person
Speaker 7: who later became a judge, said yeah, they were plants
Speaker 7: because the bullets had been removed from the cartridges. They
Speaker 7: were never fired. The bullets had been removed, and then
Speaker 7: the casings were planted alongside one.
Speaker 6: You write that this story didn't go away, This most
Speaker 6: notorious South Dakota murder trial and case didn't go away,
Speaker 6: and you write about times that it came back up
Speaker 6: and there was interesting interviews with former players. Can you
Speaker 6: tell us a little bit about some of those developments
Speaker 6: that you found.
Speaker 7: Well, one of the things that came up, or continued
Speaker 7: to come up with regard to this case was what
Speaker 7: possible scenario would there be for the murder of these people?
Speaker 7: And one of the stories that kept coming up was
Speaker 7: drug related and this is what the defense tried to
Speaker 7: plan in the minds of the jurors during the trial,
Speaker 7: was that the Mathis family was killed because there was
Speaker 7: one story out there that there'd been a drug party
Speaker 7: and Mathis had reported it. Law enforcement broke it up,
Speaker 7: and people that were in the drug business in the
Speaker 7: Mitchell area were incensed, and so they ordered the hit.
Speaker 7: Gary Hanemichael years later contended that he knew what really
Speaker 7: happened and the real cause of the Mathis murders, and
Speaker 7: he was quoted as saying, it's much bigger than just
Speaker 7: the trial and what happened. But when he was asked
Speaker 7: to elaborate, he would not do it. And he didn't
Speaker 7: talk to you know, law enforcement about his theory either,
Speaker 7: which remains a huge mystery in my mind. In fact,
Speaker 7: even though he had passed by the time I wrote
Speaker 7: the book, I did call his wife and asked her
Speaker 7: if she had ever discussed this theory with him, or
Speaker 7: if he discussed it with her, and she said no,
Speaker 7: he'd never discussed it with her. He just didn't think
Speaker 7: that John Mathis was smart enough to pull off the crime. So,
Speaker 7: you know, the jury foreman had this theory or speculations,
Speaker 7: and we'll never know what they were.
Speaker 6: You include the infant that was kept at the girlas
Speaker 6: the Mathis infant was named Dwayne. Thirty years later, a
Speaker 6: story services and finally he comes forward to defend his father,
Speaker 6: tell us what he had to say.
Speaker 7: Dwayne Mathis was eight months old. He was staying with
Speaker 7: Adonna's parents at the time of the murders. He was
Speaker 7: raised by John Mathis at the farm. One of the newspapers,
Speaker 7: I believe in this case it was the Mental Daily
Speaker 7: Republic had done an anniversary story and John and Dwayne
Speaker 7: Mathis had read the story and he took it upon
Speaker 7: himself to call the newspaper and say, look, my dad
Speaker 7: isn't being fairly treated by the coverage. And the newspaper said, well,
Speaker 7: come on and we'll talk about it, and so he did.
Speaker 7: He went to the newspaper office. He provided identification and
Speaker 7: he said, you know, most of the carriage is very
Speaker 7: one sided. If my dad was this monster that the
Speaker 7: press makes him out to be, I wouldn't be here today.
Speaker 7: My dad raised me and he never you know, he
Speaker 7: was not a severe taskmaster. He never beat me down
Speaker 7: or anything you might discipline me, but he raised me.
Speaker 7: And Dwayne said that I wouldn't be here today if
Speaker 7: he was the person that he's been made out to
Speaker 7: be in the press. I interviewed Dwayne Mathis for the book,
Speaker 7: and he said essentially the same thing. He still lives
Speaker 7: in the new farmhouse that was built following those fires,
Speaker 7: and he told me that when he goes into the
Speaker 7: metal building, he doesn't think about what occurred there. He says,
Speaker 7: I was only I don't remember any of that. None
Speaker 7: of that has anything to do with me. And he lives,
Speaker 7: he lives where the murders took place.
Speaker 6: Very very interesting. Near the end of your book, you
Speaker 6: talk about the fire style nursing home where Verne matthis
Speaker 6: senior resides, and a nurse's aide one day, as a
Speaker 6: conversation with him, what does she claim he had to say?
Speaker 6: And as a result of what she claimed he had
Speaker 6: to say, what do police do?
Speaker 7: A nurse's aid in fire steel nursing home decides to
Speaker 7: check on Verne Mathis senior before her Shif's hands, he'd
Speaker 7: not been well and so I think her shift ended,
Speaker 7: maybe at eleven o'clock, and she goes down to check
Speaker 7: on him, and while she checks on him, he says
Speaker 7: something to the effect that he has done something terrible,
Speaker 7: and she doesn't know what he's talking about, but he
Speaker 7: says he's done something terrible and he you know, is
Speaker 7: having trouble dealing with it. So she reports this to
Speaker 7: her dad when she gets home from her shift. Now
Speaker 7: her dad remembers the Mathis trial. This young aide I
Speaker 7: think she's maybe nineteen or twenty at the time. She
Speaker 7: doesn't know anything about it, but she reports to her dad.
Speaker 7: Her dad immediately contacts law enforcement. Now keep in mind
Speaker 7: Burne Matthews Senior by this time is quite elderly and
Speaker 7: has had health issues. But law enforcement goes over there
Speaker 7: to interview him twice. The first time is you know,
Speaker 7: I mean nothing really is Bllian that they think is
Speaker 7: too informational. Then two other law enforcement people interview him
Speaker 7: and they asked him about the weapon, which is of
Speaker 7: course one of the big mysteries of the crime, and
Speaker 7: he you know where the weapon is, mister Mathis, and
Speaker 7: he says something to the effect, well wherever you find
Speaker 7: And he's asked if he had anything to do with
Speaker 7: the planning of the murders and he said absolutely not.
Speaker 7: The episode is interesting because it suggests that the elder
Speaker 7: Mathis perhaps knew more than came out during the trial,
Speaker 7: but when he's interviewed by law enforcement, there isn't anything
Speaker 7: forthcoming that law enforcement would decide to say reactivit case.
Speaker 7: But it was it was an interesting episode. And of
Speaker 7: course he's passed on by now. And it was absolutely
Speaker 7: shocked this nurse's aid and she was really affected by You.
Speaker 6: Also include right at the end here when we talk
Speaker 6: about Dorothy Allison and the Spenson was interested in enough
Speaker 6: to call her and take her information very serious. She
Speaker 6: had helped out, she had claimed in fourteen cases, she
Speaker 6: had been provided crucial information. You provide right at the
Speaker 6: very end. The conversation that Swinson had with this Dorothy
Speaker 6: Allison and just her perceptions, her psychic perceptions were very
Speaker 6: very interesting.
Speaker 5: Tell us about that.
Speaker 7: Well, Dorothy Allison did claim to have been instrumental in
Speaker 7: solving a number of cases, including the Patty Hirst case.
Speaker 7: And Swinson was intrigued by her because keep in mind
Speaker 7: the law enforcement that look, they couldn't find the murder weapon.
Speaker 7: The motive that they had described to Kim Tatum was
Speaker 7: not the strongest motive. There was no insurance motive because
Speaker 7: I believed the insurance was sixty thousand dollars and the
Speaker 7: prosecution decided that wasn't enough to be a real motive.
Speaker 7: So Swinson was thinking that this psychic might be of help,
Speaker 7: and she told him by telephone. She said she smelled smoke,
Speaker 7: and he knew that the house had burned. She gave
Speaker 7: him some numbers that he determined where the license plate
Speaker 7: numbers off of John Mathis's pickup. Now could she had
Speaker 7: believe that information other places? This case got widespread coverage.
Speaker 7: I don't know the answer to that, but he was,
Speaker 7: he was intrigued by it. But he also knew that
Speaker 7: Meyer Henry and the state were not They wanted to
Speaker 7: distance themselves from a psyche, they said, and believed that
Speaker 7: if they if there was even a hint of the
Speaker 7: state relying upon a psychic, that the press would be
Speaker 7: all over it. And so that never transpired. But I
Speaker 7: think Swinson was tempted. He liked you know, he was.
Speaker 7: He was grasping his straws in some respects, and he
Speaker 7: placed some credence in what the psychic said.
Speaker 5: Yes, absolutely, an incredible case.
Speaker 6: You talk about just in the end as well, that
Speaker 6: about the fate of John Mathis in that community.
Speaker 7: Well, you know, it's kind of a I mean, in
Speaker 7: many ways, I said, any John math this farm for
Speaker 7: years thereafter and then his son said that they lost
Speaker 7: the farm in the nineteen eighties. John Mathis continued to
Speaker 7: work for I believe, a neighbor in their farming operation.
Speaker 7: He never remarried. He retired. To my knowledge, to this day,
Speaker 7: he still lives in mitchell As I said earlier, his
Speaker 7: son lives on the farm. The case, while unsolved, is
Speaker 7: definitely inactive. Many years after that case, Mark maher Henry
Speaker 7: was contacted and asked if the case ought to be reopened,
Speaker 7: and reinvestigator says no, He said that'd be a waste
Speaker 7: of taxpayer's money. We thought we had the right person,
Speaker 7: the right case, and it didn't happen. So again, nobody
Speaker 7: was ever punished for that, for those murders, and that's
Speaker 7: one of the intriguing aspects of the case.
Speaker 6: Absolutely al, thank you so much, Noel Hamill for coming
Speaker 6: on and talking about South Dakota's mathis murders, horror in
Speaker 6: the heartland. I know this is a History Press release
Speaker 6: and I want to thank you so much. This was
Speaker 6: just recently released. Can you tell us just when was
Speaker 6: released and about History Press?
Speaker 7: Okay, so it was released April twenty fifth this year,
Speaker 7: so it's a little over a month it's as I'm
Speaker 7: told by History Press, which is part of Arcadia Publishing.
Speaker 7: They focus on histories and regional stories. I'm told that
Speaker 7: it's available online through Arcadia Press, but also through Amazon
Speaker 7: and your major bookstore outlets, or in local bookstores here
Speaker 7: in Rampid City. So that's what I can tell you
Speaker 7: about the book.
Speaker 6: I want to thank you so much, Noel Hammil. South
Speaker 6: Dakota's mathis murders or in the Heartland. It's been fascinating.
Speaker 6: Thank you so much. You have a great evening. Noel Hamil,
Speaker 6: good night.
Speaker 7: Thank you for having me.
Speaker 5: Good Night.