Speaker 1: This podcast is intended for mature audiences. Listener discretion is advised.
Speaker 2: The bizarre case of Kelly Wilson's disappearance shocked all of
Speaker 2: East Texas when new indictments were handed down Friday. Prosecutor
Speaker 2: Scott Leifert says today he's confident about the evidence he
Speaker 2: has to go to trial with. And he says the
Speaker 2: evidence is more than circumstantial.
Speaker 3: Evidence in regard to Kelly Wilson came up in the
Speaker 3: course of the investigation that we were doing on the
Speaker 3: sexual abuse of the children that had been taken away
Speaker 3: from the different members of the Kerr family. We think
Speaker 3: that there may be more victims, but we don't have
Speaker 3: any concrete evidence. We don't have any particular missing people
Speaker 3: that we're looking for. That's part of the investigation that
Speaker 3: we've got to go into.
Speaker 1: Over a two-day period in late January 1994, A grand
Speaker 1: jury in Gilmer, Texas, indicted eight people for the kidnapping, rape,
Speaker 1: and murder of Kelly Day Wilson, a local teenager who'd
Speaker 1: been missing for more than two years. Among the indicted
Speaker 1: were five members of a local family, the Kers. Needless
Speaker 1: to say, the news shocked all of us in East Texas.
Speaker 1: Most bizarre of all were details found not in the
Speaker 1: indictments themselves, but in the affidavit for a search warrant
Speaker 1: executed on the Kerr family property in the woods outside
Speaker 1: of Gilmer. In the affidavit, investigators claimed that members of
Speaker 1: the Kerr family were leaders of a cult that forced
Speaker 1: their own children to participate in satanic rituals, including the
Speaker 1: sacrifice of babies. If the children ever told anyone the
Speaker 1: same thing or worse would happen to them. In cahoots
Speaker 1: with the Kerrs, allegedly, was none other than James York Brown,
Speaker 1: the Gilmer cop who'd been leading the search for Kelly
Speaker 1: since day one.
Speaker 4: Leifert charges that as the chief investigator in the Kelly
Speaker 4: Wilson case, Sergeant Brown had a unique position to suppress
Speaker 4: and destroy evidence.
Speaker 5: Well, just what is the connection between Kelly Wilson's disappearance,
Speaker 5: Sergeant James Brown, and the Kerr family?
Speaker 2: Until the arrest of Sergeant James Brown, no one could
Speaker 2: have believed what the indictment.
Speaker 1: Now, Sergeant Brown stood accused of three of the most
Speaker 1: heinous crimes imaginable. If convicted, he could face the death penalty.
Speaker 1: Folks in Gilmer didn't know what to believe.
Speaker 7: The town was divided between people who thought that Sergeant
Speaker 7: Brown was as innocent as Noah White and those who
Speaker 7: thought he was as guilty as Charles Manson.
Speaker 1: That's Philip Williams, the journalist from Gilmer. You heard from
Speaker 1: him earlier in the series. Less than a month after
Speaker 1: the felony indictments dropped against James Brown and the others,
Speaker 1: Texas Assistant Attorney General Shane Phelps was on a government
Speaker 1: plane flying straight to Gilmer. The first stop for Shane
Speaker 1: and his team from the AG's office? The Kerr family
Speaker 1: compound on Cherokee Trace, the narrow road that meanders through
Speaker 1: the forest outside of town.
Speaker 8: When I went up there, went out and visited the
Speaker 8: Kerr's property, I didn't know much about life or didn't
Speaker 8: know these other guys, Brooks Flagg and Steve Baggs. or
Speaker 8: these CPS workers, to the best of my ability, I
Speaker 8: kept an open mind. I mean, because stuff happens. I mean,
Speaker 8: there is some crazy stuff that goes on out there.
Speaker 8: As you look at the property, it's a long three-acre
Speaker 8: piece of property with a house on the left and
Speaker 8: a little shed on the right, closer to the road.
Speaker 8: And then as you go back, there's a little trail
Speaker 8: that goes back, and there's a wooded area, and there's
Speaker 8: a trail that goes around, and it just comes back.
Speaker 8: So it creates a circle, which they believed was... somehow
Speaker 8: satanic in nature. Was there a clearing in the middle
Speaker 8: of the circle, or was it all just forested? No,
Speaker 8: it was mostly forested, as I recall. I remember there
Speaker 8: was a tree cut down that they said had been desanctified.
Speaker 8: That was the tree that they would string people up
Speaker 8: on and eviscerate them and pass their organs around and
Speaker 8: sexually assault them. I mean, it was a wild story.
Speaker 1: And, according to the Lyford team, Sergeant Brown was right
Speaker 1: there in the middle of the action, They believed he
Speaker 1: helped the Kerrs kidnap and sacrifice Kelly Wilson.
Speaker 8: Their theory of the case was that somehow the way
Speaker 8: it ultimately developed was that James Brown knew her, may
Speaker 8: have been having an affair with her, that James Brown
Speaker 8: was seen by witnesses out at the Kerrs having coffee
Speaker 8: with Geneva all the time.
Speaker 1: Geneva Kerr was the family grandma.
Speaker 8: So their theory was that in a van with Wendell Kerr,
Speaker 8: I guess James Brown and other people involved kidnapped her
Speaker 8: in this van, brought her back to Cherokee Trace, the
Speaker 8: property that the Kerrs owned, and over the next 14
Speaker 8: days would keep her shackled in this little shed. And
Speaker 8: on a daily basis, they would take Kelly out of
Speaker 8: the shed and take her down to this circle and
Speaker 8: string her up on the tree, and they would, one
Speaker 8: after the other, violate her in every way possible. Ultimately,
Speaker 8: they would take her out there, everybody would rape her,
Speaker 8: they'd do these horrible things to her, bring her back,
Speaker 8: shackle her up, and rinse and repeat for 14 days.
Speaker 8: Keep in mind that they had also developed a theory
Speaker 8: that there were numerous other victims Hitchhiking teenage girls just
Speaker 8: kept disappearing, and they would do all the same things
Speaker 8: to them. And babies. There was all this stuff in
Speaker 8: these interviews about trying to question these people who were
Speaker 8: related to Geneva, talking about how they were basically raised
Speaker 8: to breed babies so that they could do this. She
Speaker 8: was supposed to be kind of the head witch slash Satanist,
Speaker 8: I guess. Everybody was doing things for her, you know,
Speaker 8: sacrificing bodies and giving her gifts. I mean, it was
Speaker 8: an outlandish story. It was a really, really bad, you know,
Speaker 8: slasher flick. It was just outlandish. Anybody listening to their
Speaker 8: story would have said, that's just crazy. And of course,
Speaker 8: if you said that, you became part of the problem.
Speaker 8: But I remember walking out there and went out to
Speaker 8: the back and saw the the circle where all of
Speaker 8: this stuff is supposed to have gone on. And I
Speaker 8: was asking questions. I was asking questions of Brooks Flagg.
Speaker 1: Brooks Flagg, you might remember, was a police chaplain from Louisiana.
Speaker 1: According to his 2011 obituary, Flagg served in U.S. military
Speaker 1: intelligence as a cryptograph operator at the height of the
Speaker 1: Cold War, gathering intelligence on visits to communist East Germany. Later,
Speaker 1: he became a businessman, and founded a Christian retreat called
Speaker 1: The Shepherd's Rest. Somehow, along the way, Flagg came to
Speaker 1: view himself as an expert on satanic cults and ritual abuse,
Speaker 1: which I guess is how he crossed paths with Steve Baggs,
Speaker 1: a former Texas Department of Public Safety narcotics officer. Steve Baggs,
Speaker 1: also a self-styled expert on Satanists, hasn't responded to any
Speaker 1: of my requests for an interview. Neither has Scott Lyford,
Speaker 1: for that matter. Anyway, Back to the Kerr place.
Speaker 8: Apparently they had got DPS to do a flyover with
Speaker 8: infrared technology and they saw some hot spots and then
Speaker 8: they brought cadaver dogs out and they hit on two
Speaker 8: or three spots. And I remember one was at the
Speaker 8: base of a tree and I was standing there with
Speaker 8: Brick's flag and I said, well, did you dig it up? Well,
Speaker 8: they didn't go down very far, but they said yes
Speaker 8: and they found nothing. In fact, in any of the
Speaker 8: spots that were identified, they found nothing. I mean, nothing.
Speaker 8: And I'm thinking what you've described is, you know, ritual sacrifices,
Speaker 8: people being eviscerated, organs being passed around. There should be
Speaker 8: blood and semen and saliva and, you know, bits of
Speaker 8: flesh everywhere based on what you guys are relating here.
Speaker 8: And there's none of that. I'd asked a number of
Speaker 8: questions about were you able to recover anything that could
Speaker 8: be tested to corroborate this story. And And I will
Speaker 8: never forget this. I asked Brooks Flagg about that. Does
Speaker 8: it bother you that there's virtually no trace evidence of
Speaker 8: any of this occurring? And he was very smart, very confident.
Speaker 8: The fact, he said, that these are master Satanists and
Speaker 8: the fact that there is no evidence proves that they're
Speaker 8: master Satanists, proves that it happened. I was frankly pretty
Speaker 8: shocked by You just told me that you have no
Speaker 8: evidence and that proves that it happened. And at that point,
Speaker 8: I knew that this was all bullshit. There was nothing
Speaker 8: to it. We were just kind of trying to process
Speaker 8: all of this information. And we quickly realized after meeting
Speaker 8: with some of these officials and actually meeting these folks
Speaker 8: and seeing some of the things they were saying were
Speaker 8: happening out there and seeing that there really was no
Speaker 8: evidence of it, we thought, this is This is scary
Speaker 8: and dangerous. They had already indicted all of these people,
Speaker 8: six or seven, Kerr and their extended family. And the
Speaker 8: most shocking thing to me was that one of the
Speaker 8: people they indicted was James Brown, who was the sergeant.
Speaker 8: at the Gilmore Police Department who had been investigating Kelly
Speaker 8: Wilson's disappearance for two years at this time. And I
Speaker 8: was just stunned. I mean, come on, that's just not.
Speaker 8: It just makes no sense. Why not? There was nothing
Speaker 8: that pointed....
Speaker 1: In the last episode, we got into the claims against
Speaker 1: Sergeant Brown. When Shane Phelps heard the same allegations, well,
Speaker 1: he was having none of it. Shane had flown to
Speaker 1: Gilmer to assist the special prosecutor, Scott Lyford. Now he
Speaker 1: had a new mission. Stop the Lyford team to end
Speaker 1: what he considered a witch hunt and clear Sergeant Brown's name.
Speaker 1: The truth needed to come out. From Imperative Entertainment, I'm
Speaker 1: Wes Ferguson. This is Deviltown. This is Chapter 4, Witch Hunt.
Speaker 5: I remember vividly the first time I met James. I
Speaker 5: remember walking into the jail and And the first words
Speaker 5: out of his mouth, I mean, he was about to cry.
Speaker 5: He said, I didn't do this.
Speaker 1: David Moore is a longtime attorney in Longview, an East
Speaker 1: Texas city about 20 miles south of Gilmer.
Speaker 5: He looked stunned. He looked stunned. He looked scared. I
Speaker 5: don't think he was angry at that point. I think
Speaker 5: that that was sort of overridden by the fear that
Speaker 5: he had, that somebody could do this to him. You know,
Speaker 5: I think later through time that has obviously morphed into
Speaker 5: more anger than anything else. But in that moment, I
Speaker 5: saw fear.
Speaker 1: Sergeant Brown and his wife, Penny, had been married less
Speaker 1: than two months when he was arrested. She tried to
Speaker 1: visit him in jail.
Speaker 9: But that was not allowed.
Speaker 1: Penny's first glimpse of her new husband came a little
Speaker 1: later during a hearing at the Justice Center.
Speaker 9: They had a hearing with all the defendants. I was
Speaker 9: not able to talk to him, but I did see him.
Speaker 9: because I was in the back there with the other people.
Speaker 9: His face was just sunken in. He looked terrible. As
Speaker 9: you can imagine, I mean, he just, he looked like
Speaker 9: a different person.
Speaker 1: Unlike members of the Kerr family who'd been sitting in
Speaker 1: jail for months, Sergeant Brown spent six days in lockup
Speaker 1: before he was released on bond.
Speaker 9: The first time I saw him after release, The hearing
Speaker 9: was when he was released and I went and picked
Speaker 9: him up. He said, if you want to leave me,
Speaker 9: I understand. And I just remember telling him, no, I'm
Speaker 9: going to stand by your side and fight with you
Speaker 9: because you didn't do anything wrong.
Speaker 5: You're an innocent man.
Speaker 9: I felt like I was in a different world. It
Speaker 9: was shocking, you know, I was really elated that he
Speaker 9: had been released. But looking at him, I could tell
Speaker 9: he was a nervous wreck, you know, shaky and sad, concerned.
Speaker 9: But we drove to his parents' house.
Speaker 1: The drive would have taken about 45 minutes. When they
Speaker 1: got there, Sergeant Brown's son, Josh, from a previous marriage,
Speaker 1: was waiting.
Speaker 6: I was at my grandparents' house the day he got released.
Speaker 6: And my grandmother kept saying, I got a surprise for you.
Speaker 6: I got a surprise for you. I got a surprise
Speaker 6: for you. And I said, Dad's coming. I mean, I
Speaker 6: just felt it. I said, Dad's coming. He pulled in
Speaker 6: the driveway just like two, three minutes later. Pulled in
Speaker 6: the driveway and, yeah, man, I just, that's my dad.
Speaker 6: His blue Chevrolet three-quarter ton truck came driving in front
Speaker 6: of my grandparents house they had two big windows in
Speaker 6: front of their house and uh I saw it coming
Speaker 6: I heard I just knew dad was coming and uh
Speaker 6: he showed up and you know dad was there I
Speaker 6: absolutely ran out the door big hug you know I
Speaker 6: mean it really hadn't been long but you know I
Speaker 6: was worried you know kids worry people say they don't
Speaker 6: but You know, they do. You know, I mean, the
Speaker 6: reunion was, it came in, you know, just everybody just,
Speaker 6: my granddad was still alive and everybody just hugged. And
Speaker 6: then it was back to business as usual. We went fishing.
Speaker 6: Still remember that. You know, my grandparents had a couple
Speaker 6: of ponds and, you know, we kind of went and
Speaker 6: gave them hell.
Speaker 8: You know.
Speaker 1: Although Josh was visiting his grandparents when his dad was
Speaker 1: released from jail, his mom had actually moved Josh and
Speaker 1: his little brother to another area of the state. But
Speaker 1: even there, they couldn't escape news of his dad's legal jeopardy.
Speaker 6: You know, he shielded us from... I say shielded us,
Speaker 6: tried to shield us from what was going on. I mean,
Speaker 6: you know, and we would hear stuff on the radio.
Speaker 6: I can remember... Sitting in the car when I lived
Speaker 6: in West Texas, my mom had forgotten something in the
Speaker 6: house and got out of the car and went back in.
Speaker 6: She was taking us to school. And hearing an article
Speaker 6: about dad, she got back in the car and I said, Mom,
Speaker 6: they're talking about dad.
Speaker 1: It was a lot for a 10-year-old kid to process.
Speaker 6: You know, trying to figure out, you know, why he
Speaker 6: was arrested. And then thinking that there's no way this
Speaker 6: side of hell, that what he was arrested for is
Speaker 6: what he did, because he is such a good father.
Speaker 1: Sergeant Brown's wife thought he was innocent. His son thought
Speaker 1: he was innocent. But his lawyer, David Moore, thought he
Speaker 1: could prove it. Sergeant Brown had kept a meticulous journal
Speaker 1: of his whereabouts during the early weeks of the search
Speaker 1: for Kelly. If David could find out what specific day
Speaker 1: Kelly was supposed to have been sacrificed in the woods
Speaker 1: behind the Kerr house, there was a good chance Sergeant
Speaker 1: Brown's journal would offer up an alibi. There was just
Speaker 1: one problem with that plan. Scott Lyford couldn't even say
Speaker 1: when the murder happened.
Speaker 5: So I'm trying to get a timeline from Lyford about,
Speaker 5: you know, when supposedly she was killed because they allegedly
Speaker 5: killed kidnapped her, kept her for X number of days,
Speaker 5: raped her over that period of time, multiple times, did
Speaker 5: all these other satanic ritual deals, and then killed her
Speaker 5: in a ritualistic manner. And I was wanting to know when,
Speaker 5: you know, because I felt pretty confident that we, because
Speaker 5: James was supposedly there, raped her, on an occasion, and
Speaker 5: then also was there when she was killed. And I
Speaker 5: was feeling fairly confident that if I could get that date,
Speaker 5: that we already had probably 80% of his whereabouts covered.
Speaker 5: And I asked Lyford, I said, well, when was the killing?
Speaker 8: Well, I don't know. I said, what do you mean
Speaker 8: you don't know?
Speaker 5: I mean, you've indicted this guy for, her murder, and
Speaker 5: you can't tell me even when it was. I don't know.
Speaker 5: We're working on that.
Speaker 8: We'll get that to you.
Speaker 1: Not long after his troubling conversation with Lyford, David got
Speaker 1: another phone call. This one from Al McAllister, the Gilmer
Speaker 1: police chief. Al McAllister was a strong supporter of Brown.
Speaker 7: I can't go into any details right now other than
Speaker 7: to say that I'm happy he's out of jail. And
Speaker 7: I look forward to the time when our story can
Speaker 7: be completely told. And I think it's time for the
Speaker 7: man to show us what evidence he has.
Speaker 8: You mean the special prosecutor?
Speaker 7: I mean the special prosecutor. There have been many people
Speaker 7: who will tell you the most fantastic stories about Sergeant
Speaker 7: Brown that you've ever heard. And especially they've risen to
Speaker 7: the surface and come out of various places to make
Speaker 7: all manner of allegations against Sergeant Brown. So it certainly
Speaker 7: doesn't surprise me that somebody might say that.
Speaker 1: Remember, Sergeant Brown had not even been a suspect before.
Speaker 1: until he stuck his nose in the Lyford investigation. At
Speaker 1: that time, Lyford had threatened to ruin him if he
Speaker 1: didn't back down. And, next thing you know, Sergeant Brown
Speaker 1: is in jail. Now the Lyford team wanted Brown's investigative reports,
Speaker 1: and Chief Al McAllister didn't want to hand them over.
Speaker 5: They were threatening Al that if he didn't turn over
Speaker 5: James's investigative file to them, that they were going to
Speaker 5: haul Al in front of the grand jury and charge
Speaker 5: him with with something. And I was worried, Al was worried,
Speaker 5: James was worried, that if they were to get his
Speaker 5: file of all the things he was meticulous about, what
Speaker 5: he did when and where he was, that if they
Speaker 5: had that, then they would be able to tailor their story,
Speaker 5: their version, and work around whatever kind of alibis that
Speaker 5: James would have had.
Speaker 1: David filed a motion to block the Leifert team from
Speaker 1: getting access to Brown's file until they could actually figure
Speaker 1: out when the murder happened.
Speaker 5: To Judge Garrison's credit, he shut them down on that
Speaker 5: and told them not to turn that over. I think
Speaker 5: that was probably the first time they got any pushback
Speaker 5: from anybody. It was obvious something was rotten. You know,
Speaker 5: something didn't smell right.
Speaker 1: As for Shane Phelps, he'd flown back to the Attorney
Speaker 1: General's office in Austin, and he had a bunch of
Speaker 1: cassette tapes. Recordings of the Leifert team's interrogations with Wanda Kerr,
Speaker 1: Connie Martin, the common-law wife of Danny Kerr, and Raymond Smith,
Speaker 1: the little boy who'd connected the Kerr abuse to Kelly
Speaker 1: Wilson's disappearance. Shane was sitting at his desk when he
Speaker 1: hit play.
Speaker 8: And I got angrier and angrier. I mean, I think
Speaker 8: I started listening to it at one or two o'clock
Speaker 8: in the afternoon. I was there until almost midnight, listening
Speaker 8: to this. And I got to the point where I
Speaker 8: was throwing things around in my office. I was so angry. Really? Oh, yes.
Speaker 8: What'd you throw? Oh, God, what was it? Something on
Speaker 8: my desk. It was a paperweight. You threw a paperweight?
Speaker 8: I did. I was pissed off. I mean, it is
Speaker 8: so far afield of anything that any responsible person law
Speaker 8: enforcement officer, prosecutor would ever, ever do. It wasn't marginal.
Speaker 8: It wasn't a difference of opinion about how these things
Speaker 8: should be done. It was, in my mind, criminal. And
Speaker 8: there was no other evidence. I mean, when we, I
Speaker 8: listened to these audio interviews and their investigative methods were horrendous.
Speaker 8: They were practically non-existent. You know, they're supposed to have
Speaker 8: two investigators with investigative experience. No law enforcement officer worth
Speaker 8: a damn with any dedication to doing the job properly
Speaker 8: would ever have participated in these interviews.
Speaker 1: I've also been listening to the tapes. It's hard. The
Speaker 1: material is just really graphic and gross, and it goes
Speaker 1: on for hours on end. And yet, sometimes the interrogators
Speaker 1: actually seem to be enjoying themselves.
Speaker 6: All right, so.
Speaker 8: James is over there. He ought to be through taking
Speaker 8: his clothes off now. So we've got James without any clothes.
Speaker 8: We've got the stick in Kelly.
Speaker 10: What's the next thing that happens? Somebody else undress, or
Speaker 10: does James get on at this point, or what's the deal?
Speaker 5: I don't know why my.
Speaker 8: Mind works the way it does. That's beginning to worry me.
Speaker 1: If you couldn't hear that, either Bags or Flag, I
Speaker 1: think Flag said, I don't know why my mind works
Speaker 1: the way it does. That's beginning to worry me.
Speaker 8: Okay. He's completely nude, right?
Speaker 11: Naked.
Speaker 10: Skinny ass son of a bitch.
Speaker 4: Okay.
Speaker 10: Anyway.
Speaker 8: Is that on tape? Connie's still laughing the way your
Speaker 8: mind works.
Speaker 1: Skinny ass son of a bitch. Is that on tape?
Speaker 1: Connie is still laughing at the way your mind works.
Speaker 1: the interrogators definitely seem to have overactive imaginations.
Speaker 8: I'll never forget listening to Raymond's, the audio tape of
Speaker 8: Raymond's interview, when he's talking about all this bizarre stuff.
Speaker 8: And it's all, it was clearly being suggested. And what
Speaker 8: this was not coming out of the mind of these children,
Speaker 8: it was coming out of the Leifert team. And what
Speaker 8: they knew had to have happened if Satanists were involved.
Speaker 8: So we know this is the practice. If you're not
Speaker 8: giving us, you know, validating our theory, then... you're not
Speaker 8: being truthful. So I was listening to the Raymond audio
Speaker 8: tape and there was nothing about James Brown. And I'm
Speaker 8: about to turn it off. I was in my office
Speaker 8: in Austin and I was about to turn it off,
Speaker 8: reaching for the off switch when, because they had ended
Speaker 8: the interview, when they came back on and said, Raymond,
Speaker 8: do you have something else to tell us? And he said, yes,
Speaker 8: Sergeant Brown was there. And then they just turned it off.
Speaker 8: To thank you Raymond? Yeah. They didn't follow through. They
Speaker 8: didn't say, well, how do you know he was there?
Speaker 8: Were you there when he was there? How many times
Speaker 8: was he there? How was he dressed? What did he do?
Speaker 8: Had you ever seen him before? No questions like that.
Speaker 8: And we have no idea how much time elapsed between
Speaker 8: when they stopped recording and when they started up again.
Speaker 5: No.
Speaker 8: And I guarantee you that there was stuff going on
Speaker 8: at that point. Between them. There would be no reason
Speaker 8: to have any conversation with this kid that wasn't recorded.
Speaker 8: And yeah, so that lapse in time, however long it was,
Speaker 8: was very suspicious.
Speaker 1: The Attorney General's office did not give me the recordings
Speaker 1: of Raymond. I assumed to protect his privacy. As I
Speaker 1: mentioned before, Raymond has given us permission to use his name.
Speaker 8: And the same thing with Connie. I mean, it was no, no,
Speaker 8: no until it was yes. Keep me in mind that
Speaker 8: a couple of important things about Connie and Rhonda both
Speaker 8: of them borderline intellectual functioning, low IQ, and they were
Speaker 8: being threatened with life sentences. They'd been ultimately indicted for
Speaker 8: death penalty cases. So if you listen to these, they
Speaker 8: repeatedly say, no, I don't know what you're talking about,
Speaker 8: it didn't happen. We're going to keep going until you
Speaker 8: tell us what we want to hear, is basically their
Speaker 8: investigative strategy. you will eventually tell us what we want
Speaker 8: to hear, which is what happened.
Speaker 10: Why don't we go back and let's go through this
Speaker 10: whole thing and don't leave anything out this time.
Speaker 8: You want to try that? Once you get it out,
Speaker 8: it's over with.
Speaker 10: The reason we have to keep going again and again
Speaker 10: and again is because you keep leaving so much stuff out.
Speaker 11: In the middle, you know?
Speaker 8: And you've already told... Listening to the tapes, I can
Speaker 8: see what Shane means. But what about all the physical
Speaker 8: evidence we've heard about?
Speaker 1: The human bone the Leifert team found in that same
Speaker 1: field where Connie said they'd buried women and children. What
Speaker 1: about the shed where Bags and Flag found the torture devices?
Speaker 1: These two were among the most salacious details of the case.
Speaker 1: But was it actually true?
Speaker 10: And one of the things they make you do is
Speaker 10: kill people and drink the blood and eat the body parts.
Speaker 10: And most of the time they keep all their little
Speaker 10: bodies in one location.
Speaker 8: But they like to go back and get the.
Speaker 10: Bones and the skulls and the teeth.
Speaker 8: And do things with those.
Speaker 10: It's real likely that those bodies are back there somewhere.
Speaker 10: Did you ever see anyone, anyone, pick up one of
Speaker 10: those bodies or body parts and walk off from that
Speaker 10: circle back in the woods?
Speaker 8: In an interview with Connie Martin, they had gotten her
Speaker 8: to say that they would bury these hitchhiking teenage girls
Speaker 8: that they murdered and raped and ate their organs. I mean,
Speaker 8: just crazy stuff like that. But that they would save
Speaker 8: the bones and they would bury them and Black plastic,
Speaker 8: I think it was. Is it a bag or is
Speaker 8: it just black plastic?
Speaker 5: It was a black bag.
Speaker 11: Okay.
Speaker 8: He puts the black bag down in there. Then what
Speaker 8: does he do? Does he put anything else in the hole?
Speaker 11: The bones.
Speaker 8: Okay. The bones are in the bag or he puts
Speaker 8: the bag in and then puts the bones on top
Speaker 8: of it?
Speaker 3: No, the bones are in the bag.
Speaker 8: They're in the bag. He puts the black bag with
Speaker 8: the bones in it into the hole. And so they
Speaker 8: identified where they said they buried it and they went
Speaker 8: out there with a back of a... Where did they
Speaker 8: say they had buried it? It was just in some
Speaker 8: field somewhere there in Upshur County. Part of a... I
Speaker 8: kind of got the impression it was a farm. Because
Speaker 8: there was a house nearby. But it was just an
Speaker 8: open field. And so when we went up there and
Speaker 8: visited with them, we actually went out to that field.
Speaker 8: And they were pointing out that they had found a
Speaker 8: bone and some bits of black plastic. They said it
Speaker 8: was wrapped in plastic. I don't think it was, but
Speaker 8: They got to the point where they looked at it
Speaker 8: and they discovered it because they dug up a good
Speaker 8: part of the field, not maybe a quarter of it.
Speaker 8: But they showed me where they found the bone. And
Speaker 8: then that was right at the edge of where they
Speaker 8: had been digging. And I said, well, why did you stop?
Speaker 8: I mean, if you have this story that you now
Speaker 8: believe is corroborated, that more than one person has been
Speaker 8: murdered and their bones are buried in this field, and
Speaker 8: you find a bone that you think corroborates your story,
Speaker 8: why the hell did you stop digging? This whole field
Speaker 8: should be dug up. They didn't really have a satisfactory answer.
Speaker 1: Remember, this is the same bone I mentioned in the
Speaker 1: last episode, the one that appeared to belong to a
Speaker 1: human female of Kelly's age. It seemed like one of
Speaker 1: the most crucial pieces of physical evidence the Leifert team
Speaker 1: had discovered in months of investigating.
Speaker 8: The bone. that they said that they sent off to
Speaker 8: a forensic anthropologist that they found in this field and
Speaker 8: said that it was a female juvenile tibia. Pretty specific
Speaker 8: for that. So they figured that that corroborated. I mean,
Speaker 8: every step of the way, they saw things or perceived
Speaker 8: things that would support their belief, and so they'd keep going.
Speaker 8: And they would totally ignore, I mean, just enormous evidence
Speaker 8: that none of this happened, which was very frustrating to hear.
Speaker 8: I'll give you an example of the bone that they
Speaker 8: found when I kind of took over the case. I
Speaker 8: had that bone transferred to a laboratory, and it came
Speaker 8: back as a pig bone.
Speaker 1: For real, a pig bone. I was like 14 at
Speaker 1: the time, and I still remember being stunned by that revelation.
Speaker 8: Yeah, it was, it wasn't even close. I don't know
Speaker 8: what forensic anthropologist they got to look at it, but
Speaker 8: come on. And I'm pretty sure you can't just look
Speaker 8: at it and say that it's a 14-year-old juvenile tibia
Speaker 8: from a female. Maybe there is that technology, but I
Speaker 8: don't think so. Certainly not at that time. Another example
Speaker 8: is that they had talked to these kids, and they
Speaker 8: got the wildest stories out of these kids. That there
Speaker 8: was a dungeon where they were taken, and all these
Speaker 8: children were repeatedly raped. I mean, just by one adult
Speaker 8: after another. And the kids, at least some of them,
Speaker 8: had said it was in this place they called the dungeon.
Speaker 8: There was a storm shelter or something in the back.
Speaker 8: They said, well, this looks like the dungeon. So they
Speaker 8: start looking around, and they see some stains on the walls. Well,
Speaker 8: they do one of these, I guess they get somebody
Speaker 8: in to do one of these presumptive tests. They are
Speaker 8: not confirmatory. And with tests like that, oftentimes there are
Speaker 8: false positives. Well, these tested according to them. Now, I
Speaker 8: never saw the results, but tested... presumptively for human blood.
Speaker 8: They sent it off to the laboratory and it came
Speaker 8: back as not human blood. But when they heard presumptively
Speaker 8: for human blood, these kids are telling the truth. All
Speaker 8: that stuff happened there. Of course, there was nothing ever
Speaker 8: recovered from there that you would expect to be recovered
Speaker 8: from a dungeon where there had been serial raping of children.
Speaker 1: Is that the one that was supposed to be like
Speaker 1: a penis-shaped elevator or something like that?
Speaker 8: Yes. A kid tells me about a penis-shaped elevator. I'm
Speaker 8: probably going to have some misgivings about whether this child
Speaker 8: is telling me the truth. It didn't stop them at all.
Speaker 8: They didn't slow down at all. Anything that they encountered
Speaker 8: that in their brains corroborated their story, they just kept going.
Speaker 8: If they talked to somebody who said, I don't know
Speaker 8: what you're talking about, Then instead of, well, maybe there's
Speaker 8: a problem here, it was, this person is too afraid
Speaker 8: to talk to us. Because as they came to believe,
Speaker 8: everybody was involved.
Speaker 1: Remember that shed, the one behind the Kerr house where
Speaker 1: Kelly was supposed to be kept for two weeks?
Speaker 4: Investigators descended on the Kerr family home today to catalog
Speaker 4: every item. The Kerr home is where they believe Gilmer
Speaker 4: High School senior Kelly Wilson was allegedly raped, held against
Speaker 4: her will for nine days, and then stabbed to death.
Speaker 4: Investigators concentrated on several sheds behind the house. Region 56
Speaker 4: News has learned prosecutors suspect Wilson was killed in one
Speaker 4: of those sheds. Blood was allegedly found on the walls.
Speaker 8: They found a search warrant at a couple of searches
Speaker 8: in the shed. and you would expect to find her hair,
Speaker 8: maybe even bits of flesh, blood, certainly, because she had
Speaker 8: been tortured, semen, saliva, you know, trace evidence. I mean,
Speaker 8: if I brought in a forensic CSI person to come
Speaker 8: in here, they could find evidence that Wes Ferguson was
Speaker 8: in this office just from this interview, and they found nothing.
Speaker 1: With one exception.
Speaker 8: They did find something that they just process in their
Speaker 8: minds as being corroborative. They found a bag. I've got
Speaker 8: one of these in my pickup truck. I've got it
Speaker 8: in a weekend pickup truck. And I've got a bunch
Speaker 8: of bungee cords in it because sometimes I'll put stuff
Speaker 8: in the back to take to the dump and I
Speaker 8: need to... So they found this bag that had things
Speaker 8: like bungee cords and things like that in it. Yeah,
Speaker 8: in their mind, those were the implements of torture.
Speaker 11: Shackles in there where you could... you know, like handcuffed
Speaker 11: somebody to the wall and there were cat-of-nine-tail whips in
Speaker 11: there and all kinds of satanic stuff.
Speaker 8: And that's all they perceived it as. And it supported
Speaker 8: their theory. They found some Halloween masks in somebody's house.
Speaker 8: And that, you know, like what was a mask of
Speaker 8: a devil that you can buy at any of these
Speaker 8: Halloween stores. And that played into.
Speaker 1: Their By this point, the way Shane tells it, the
Speaker 1: members of the Lifer team were so wrapped up in
Speaker 1: a conspiracy of their own making, they were afraid of
Speaker 1: their own shadows. And yet they pressed on, building their
Speaker 1: case against James Brown and the Kers. The two CPS workers,
Speaker 1: Ann Gore and Debbie Minshew, had been among the first
Speaker 1: people to uncover evidence of incest and multi-generational abuse in
Speaker 1: the Kerr family. And while it doesn't sound like Gore
Speaker 1: and Minshew had a lick of law enforcement credentials or training,
Speaker 1: Scott Lyford had welcomed them onto his team. They even
Speaker 1: participated in the interrogations of Connie Martin.
Speaker 8: Why is it upsetting you? Why are you shaking?
Speaker 5: Because I'm scared.
Speaker 8: Why?
Speaker 6: Why?
Speaker 5: Where do the tears come and fall?
Speaker 8: What else have you not told? I want the truth.
Speaker 8: What else? What else?
Speaker 10: Look at me, Connie. What else?
Speaker 8: That they burn her up.
Speaker 9: What else?
Speaker 8: Who burned her?
Speaker 5: Danny and Wendell and James and Ava. Well, you weren't there.
Speaker 7: You were in the house, weren't you?
Speaker 5: I want the truth, Connie.
Speaker 6: They burn her up.
Speaker 8: And what did they make you do?
Speaker 1: As the scope of their investigation widened, everyone became a suspect.
Speaker 1: The team could trust no one. If you remember, they
Speaker 1: were operating out of a secret headquarters in the forests
Speaker 1: outside of town.
Speaker 8: They had basically created a bunker out in the middle
Speaker 8: of the woods, somewhere, that they didn't want anybody to
Speaker 8: know about because by this time, in their brains, everybody
Speaker 8: was involved. Everybody was suspect. They couldn't trust anybody. The sheriff,
Speaker 8: the chief of police, anybody who had any skepticism about
Speaker 8: what they were saying happened. It's like the whole town
Speaker 8: was a conspiracy den of devil worshipers. It was weird. Yes,
Speaker 8: that's truly what they believed. But it became painfully obvious
Speaker 8: after coming back to Austin, after that first visit, that
Speaker 8: we now had... inexperienced team that was so far into
Speaker 8: this and so far over their head that really bad
Speaker 8: things were going to happen if something didn't stop it.
Speaker 8: And so the decision was made to basically fire Scott Leifert,
Speaker 8: take over the case. So I flew up to Gilmer
Speaker 8: and met with Scott in the Golden Corral up there.
Speaker 8: It was a very bizarre experience, very Twilight Zone-ish. I
Speaker 8: don't know why I had that sense, but I sat
Speaker 8: down with Scott, and I told him, Scott, we're taking
Speaker 8: over the case. Kind of an interesting thing about that
Speaker 8: is that I really had no authority to do that.
Speaker 8: There is a great deal of ignorance out there about
Speaker 8: what the Attorney General's Office can and cannot do in
Speaker 8: criminal law. And the fact is that the Attorney General's Office, again,
Speaker 8: has very limited jurisdiction. We only ever gain, at least
Speaker 8: when I was doing it, only ever came into a
Speaker 8: jurisdiction with the permission of a local prosecutor. We only
Speaker 8: ever prosecuted as either deputized assistants or pro tem attorneys
Speaker 8: when the district attorney or county attorney had accused themselves.
Speaker 8: But with respect to the ability to go in and
Speaker 8: fire somebody, keep in mind that Scott Leifert was appointed
Speaker 8: by the district judge, so he was the district attorney
Speaker 8: for that case. And fortunately, he was ignorant enough about
Speaker 8: the process that he didn't know I couldn't do it.
Speaker 8: Scott Leifert could have said, I don't care what you think.
Speaker 8: I am the appointed prosecutor pro tem. And one of
Speaker 8: the shortcomings of our system is that there is no
Speaker 8: oversight for prosecutors. So I really didn't have any authority
Speaker 8: to do it, but I knew that most people don't
Speaker 8: know that. So I just told them he was fired.
Speaker 8: I mean, I didn't put it in exactly that way.
Speaker 8: I said, we're taking over the case. I left it
Speaker 8: open that, look, if you want to remain involved, we're
Speaker 8: happy to. have your help. And I think at that point,
Speaker 8: there was some sincerity in that offer because I didn't
Speaker 8: have a full understanding at this point of just how
Speaker 8: wrong this whole thing had gone.
Speaker 5: I remember, you know, my first meeting with Shane.
Speaker 1: This is James Brown's attorney, David Moore, again.
Speaker 5: And I remember him telling me that there's some things
Speaker 5: that we're aware of that you don't even know. And
Speaker 5: he said, I promise you, your client's going to get
Speaker 5: a fair shake on this deal. He said, if you'll,
Speaker 5: you know, he didn't say exactly like this, but essentially
Speaker 5: if I would be cooperative with them. And I was,
Speaker 5: you know, feeling anything but. cooperative with the prosecution at
Speaker 5: that point in time because I knew that there were
Speaker 5: shady things that were happening. And ultimately he did what
Speaker 5: he said he was going to do.
Speaker 8: And that was look at it objectively.
Speaker 1: Shane also provided Sgt. Brown's attorney with the recordings of
Speaker 1: the interrogations.
Speaker 5: I remember when I got the tapes, I got them
Speaker 5: from when the AG got involved. And Shane Phelps turned
Speaker 5: them over to me and I just remember listening to
Speaker 5: them and just being so angry at what they were
Speaker 5: doing so angry I could not believe when I actually
Speaker 5: got the recordings how unprofessional how insidious the investigation really
Speaker 5: was the it's just it was crazy It was crazy.
Speaker 5: You need to listen to them because there's times when
Speaker 5: they're trying to get from Connie the.
Speaker 5: And it's just almost comical in hindsight, but they're trying
Speaker 5: to get her to say that there's a police officer
Speaker 5: out there. And it's very suspicious the way that happens
Speaker 5: because they'll have the tape recorder running and then she'll
Speaker 5: get lost and... and can't provide them detail. And there's
Speaker 5: times where, I believe it's Lyford says, well, we'll come
Speaker 5: back to that. There's times when I think Lyford testified
Speaker 5: that they wanted to make sure everything was recorded so
Speaker 5: nobody could accuse them of, you know, planting things in
Speaker 5: the witnesses' heads or suggesting answers to them. And then,
Speaker 5: you know, I'll be darned if they don't say, well,
Speaker 5: let's go off of... you know, sort of go off camera,
Speaker 5: so to speak. And then you come back, and then
Speaker 5: Connie spits out James Brown's name. I mean, she couldn't
Speaker 5: before they took the break.
Speaker 8: Tell me everybody that was at the house when you
Speaker 8: got home.
Speaker 5: James Brown.
Speaker 6: Yes. Okay.
Speaker 5: Like they would, if Connie couldn't get her story right
Speaker 5: for that evening, and they went back and forth with
Speaker 5: her multiple times, Lyford would make comments like, come on, Connie,
Speaker 5: you know the answer. Tonight's cigarette hangs in the balance.
Speaker 8: We're not dumb, girl. We're not dumb. And you make
Speaker 8: it hard on us and hard on yourself. And you
Speaker 8: know what else you do?
Speaker 3: You could have had a cigarette 15 minutes ago if
Speaker 3: you had just said, oh, yeah, they use a metal detector.
Speaker 2: I didn't think about that at the time.
Speaker 8: Well, you cost yourself 15 minutes worth of cigarettes. Connie,
Speaker 8: look at it.
Speaker 5: You know, they'd take her out and let her smoke
Speaker 5: cigarettes and, you know, get her food and stuff like that.
Speaker 8: And Connie's IQ.
Speaker 5: I can't remember exactly what it was, but it was
Speaker 5: sub-average IQ.
Speaker 2: Their local reporter, Phillip Williams, described it as having the.
Speaker 5: IQ of a fern. Well, she had a little more
Speaker 5: going on than a fern, but not a whole lot.
Speaker 5: She was subsequently, I think, tested, and I don't remember
Speaker 5: what the exact score was, but it was well below 100.
Speaker 8: And so.
Speaker 5: I feel like Connie and Wanda were taken advantage of
Speaker 5: by Lieford as much. There's one point on the tapes
Speaker 5: where Lieford, they send Connie back to her cell and
Speaker 5: Lieford makes a comment. Connie's having a hard time figuring
Speaker 5: out this carrot.
Speaker 8: And stick thing.
Speaker 5: I'm not kidding you. I mean, you're rolling your eyes
Speaker 5: at me and looking in disbelief, but you're going to
Speaker 5: hear those types of things. And when I was hearing
Speaker 5: those things, I remember one point slamming my coffee cup
Speaker 5: and getting coffee everywhere because I was so pissed off
Speaker 5: that they could do something like that to somebody. And
Speaker 5: it's a damn good thing for the courage, honestly, that
Speaker 5: James Brown got indicted.
Speaker 8: Yeah.
Speaker 5: Seriously.
Speaker 6: Did you expound on that?
Speaker 5: Because the Kers were poor.
Speaker 8: People.
Speaker 5: The Kers, some of them, may or may not have
Speaker 5: been guilty of the sexual allegations that were against them.
Speaker 5: They were not very sympathetic defendants. James, on the other hand,
Speaker 5: And I think that them indicting him drew attention to
Speaker 5: the case, which ultimately served the Kers well.
Speaker 1: If not for the indictment of James Brown, the case
Speaker 1: might have carried on with no scrutiny from the outside world,
Speaker 1: no national media or intervention by the Attorney General's office.
Speaker 1: The Kers would have been screwed.
Speaker 5: The woods behind the Curse House, and I went out
Speaker 5: there and looked at it, I mean, there's neighbors all
Speaker 5: around it, you know, and you would think there's people
Speaker 5: back there in robes and carrying torches, and neighbors would
Speaker 5: see stuff like that because they're all right there close by.
Speaker 5: The kids talk about a penis-shaped elevator, taking a penis-shaped
Speaker 5: elevator down into dungeons, and that they didn't just kill Kelly,
Speaker 5: that they were sacrificing other babies, and it was just
Speaker 5: crazy shit. I don't know how else to say it,
Speaker 5: just crazy shit. And they were a whole hog into it. And,
Speaker 5: you know, unfortunately, there wasn't anybody there to tap the brakes.
Speaker 5: You know, the first time that happened, you know, I
Speaker 5: think James tried to do that. I think James tried
Speaker 5: to do that. I think he paid price for it.
Speaker 1: Shane Phelps knew what he had to do.
Speaker 8: It wasn't until getting their files and going through everything
Speaker 8: with my team at the EAG's office, investigators and prosecutors,
Speaker 8: that we realized, I mean, there was no evidence to
Speaker 8: support these indictments. I mean, I can't emphasize it enough.
Speaker 8: These were indictments that could lead to the death penalty,
Speaker 8: which is scary. So we had this summit at the
Speaker 8: Attorney General's office where we invited them all up. We
Speaker 8: had their files, at least most of them. And I.
Speaker 8: I remember I was at the front of the table
Speaker 8: talking about it, went through some of the evidence and said, look,
Speaker 8: we have to dismiss these cases.
Speaker 1: Would James Brown and the Kerrs walk free? And what
Speaker 1: about Raymond, the little boy who told CPS workers that
Speaker 1: Kelly Wilson had been murdered by the Kerr family?
Speaker 9: From seven years old, my head's been full of devil worshipping, killers, cannibalism,
Speaker 9: sexual misconduct.
Speaker 1: Raymond tells all. In the next chapter of Deviltown. Deviltown
Speaker 1: is a production of Imperative Entertainment. It was written and
Speaker 1: created by me, Wes Ferguson. Executive producer is Jason Hoke.
Speaker 1: Audio engineering and editing by Shane Freeman and Jason Hoke.
Speaker 1: Original score is by Robert Ellis. Recording by Austin Sissler
Speaker 1: at Eastside Studios. If you like the show, leave a
Speaker 1: review and don't forget to tell your friends. Thanks for listening.