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Speaker 2: You are now listening to True Murder, The most shocking
Speaker 2: killers in true crime history and the authors that have
Speaker 2: written about them Gaesy, Bundy, Dahmer, The Nightstalker DTK. Every
Speaker 2: week another fascinating author talking about the most shocking and
Speaker 2: infamous killers in true crime history. True Murder with your host,
Speaker 2: journalist and author Dan Zufanski.
Speaker 7: Good Evening. A young pregnant mother is killed and a
Speaker 7: small town demands justice, a conviction, someone to blame. When
Speaker 7: an unlikely suspect is convict, it raises a question, is
Speaker 7: this the culprit, a scapegoat or a martyr? This question
Speaker 7: prompted a mother and daughter to go beyond the official
Speaker 7: version to search for the truth. As they delve deeper
Speaker 7: into the story of this murder and conviction, they found
Speaker 7: themselves asking how many victims came out of this tragedy
Speaker 7: and how many perpetrators? Why did it feel like everyone
Speaker 7: involved had blood on their hands but the person convicted
Speaker 7: of this horrible crime. So crack a cole beer sleuths
Speaker 7: and follow along as we search for clues and question everything.
Speaker 7: The truth could be around any corner. In this Devil's Playground,
Speaker 7: No one is completely innocent. A great mystery awaits. Join
Speaker 7: us in our search for the killer. The book that
Speaker 7: we're featuring this evening is Devil's Playground. God's Country has
Speaker 7: Blood on its hands with my special guest journalists and
Speaker 7: author Nova West. Welcome to the program, and thank you
Speaker 7: very much for agreeing to this interview.
Speaker 8: Nova West, Thanks Dan, thanks for having me.
Speaker 7: Thank you so much. This is an incredible story. Devil's Playground.
Speaker 7: Take us back to August twelfth, twenty and sixteen, and
Speaker 7: Vonda Smith working at Laughlin Memorial Hospital. Where is this
Speaker 7: You've described us in the Appalachian area, appalach the God's Country.
Speaker 7: Tell us where this is and take us back to
Speaker 7: August twelfth, twenty sixteen.
Speaker 9: This is in Green County, Tennessee. That's in East Tennessee,
Speaker 9: and more specifically, it was in Greenville, and Vonda was
Speaker 9: at work that day. She'd worked at Laston Memorials for
Speaker 9: about twenty eight years, and incomes her grandson's mother, Jesse Morrison,
Speaker 9: to her place of work at the hospital, and she
Speaker 9: had her two young boys with her, one of whom
Speaker 9: had just had oral surgery that morning, and I suppose
Speaker 9: Jesse might have been overwhelmed with taking care of the boys,
Speaker 9: and she went into Lawsla Memorial and asked Vonda for
Speaker 9: help with the children. And that's kind of really how
Speaker 9: the story started. Wonda ended up leaving work early to
Speaker 9: help Jessie, and then they went grocery shopping, and from
Speaker 9: there they took the groceries back to Jesse's house. The
Speaker 9: boys were still with them, Jesse's sons, and after they
Speaker 9: dropped the groceries off at Jesse's place, the women went
Speaker 9: on to Vonda's house and there Vonda stayed with her
Speaker 9: husband and the two boys. She gave Jesse one thousand
Speaker 9: dollars cash to go pay some bills, and she lent
Speaker 9: her car to Jesse to do so. And so maybe
Speaker 9: at this point, it's about four thirty in the afternoon
Speaker 9: on August twelfth, twenty sixteen, and Jesse gets in Vonda's car,
Speaker 9: She's got the thousand dollars cash to go pay bills,
Speaker 9: and Vonda doesn't see her again after that, and fast
Speaker 9: forward to you know, two o'clock, I think the next morning,
Speaker 9: Vonda's got detectives and the Green County sheriff knocking on
Speaker 9: her door.
Speaker 7: Let's go back just a second. You talked about that
Speaker 7: they were together around four thirty, and then she borrows
Speaker 7: the car. Vonda gives her one thousand dollars to pay
Speaker 7: some bills, supposedly, but at six o'clock, Wanda notices that
Speaker 7: the car that she lent Jesse is back at Vonda's
Speaker 7: home in front, but she doesn't see the person that
Speaker 7: drops it off tell us about that.
Speaker 9: Yes, the car is returned. Vonda's cars returned to her
Speaker 9: home to her driveway. Wonda does not see who returned
Speaker 9: the car, and she just notices that the car has
Speaker 9: been returned. Presumably she maybe heard a car door or
Speaker 9: something like that to prompt her to look out her window,
Speaker 9: because she did ultimately look out the window see that
Speaker 9: her car was returned, and this is at six o'clock
Speaker 9: in the evening, and she says that she also saw
Speaker 9: a white van down in the road next to the car.
Speaker 9: She did not see who was in the van. She
Speaker 9: didn't see the driver. She says, she didn't see anybody,
Speaker 9: but her car had been returned and that there was
Speaker 9: this white van, So the car has been returned. She
Speaker 9: can't say by whom, And about thirty minutes later, after
Speaker 9: the car has been returned, so we're now at about
Speaker 9: six thirty in the evening, Vonda takes one of Jesse's
Speaker 9: boys and drives approximately thirty minutes to a neighboring town
Speaker 9: to a friend's house to pick up a family friend's
Speaker 9: little girl. And for all intensive purposes, we'll just call
Speaker 9: her a granddaughter. And this little girl's name is Jemma.
Speaker 9: And she picks up the little girl. The time is
Speaker 9: about seven pm now, and so she's got this other
Speaker 9: little girl with her, one of Jesse's sons. She gets
Speaker 9: the kids, she goes back home where her husband is
Speaker 9: still at with Jesse the other son. He had fallen asleep,
Speaker 9: and so she returns home maybe around eight a little
Speaker 9: after and she doesn't leave the house after that. She's
Speaker 9: in for the night with the kids and her husband.
Speaker 9: And meanwhile, so let's say she was at a friend's
Speaker 9: house at seven pm. She arrived at seven pm. Well
Speaker 9: across town back near close to Vonna's home on jed
Speaker 9: Neill Loop, there's a man walking his dog and this
Speaker 9: is the time is about seven point thirty. He discovers
Speaker 9: a dead body slightly down an embankment on very rural road,
Speaker 9: Jed Neil Loop and he returns home and he calls
Speaker 9: nine to one one.
Speaker 7: What is the go ahead?
Speaker 9: Well, so he calls nine one one and he reports
Speaker 9: that you know, he's seen he's found a dead body
Speaker 9: and dud neiloup and so you know, the officers come out,
Speaker 9: the detectives come out, and they've determined it to be
Speaker 9: a homicide. And that's really and obviously quite unfortunately the
Speaker 9: victim was Jesse Morrison. And and that's really how how
Speaker 9: it all got started.
Speaker 7: Now with this, you talked about Vonda Smith. The next day,
Speaker 7: round two am, she is contacted by the sheriff. You say,
Speaker 7: Buddy Randolph, tell us about this arrest and questioning and
Speaker 7: anything unusual about what you later found out about the
Speaker 7: circumstances of that.
Speaker 9: Okay, Well, the like I said, the detectives and the sheriff,
Speaker 9: and eventually the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation, which we call TBI,
Speaker 9: they arrived on the scene. So all this is going on,
Speaker 9: This is approximately two miles roughly from Vonda's house, and
Speaker 9: the family's unaware that Jesse's body has been found. And
Speaker 9: so this happened around you know, seven thirty eight o'clock,
Speaker 9: and time goes by. Like I said, Vonda was at
Speaker 9: home with her husband and the kids and they're you know,
Speaker 9: tucked in for the night, and then around two o'clock
Speaker 9: in the morning the next morning, she gets to knock
Speaker 9: at the door and it's the Green County sheriff at
Speaker 9: the time, Pat Hankins, with two of his deputies, and
Speaker 9: one of the deputies just so happened to be recording
Speaker 9: audio at the time, and so they come to Vonda's house.
Speaker 9: They're asking her some questions. When was the last time
Speaker 9: he saw Jesse. Vonda tells them, you know, I lent
Speaker 9: her my car at four point thirty. I haven't seen
Speaker 9: her since. So and then you know, they're pointing out
Speaker 9: to her, will your car has been returned? Obviously, she
Speaker 9: said yeah, but I didn't see.
Speaker 6: Who who returned it.
Speaker 9: And so inevitably they ask, you know, can we look
Speaker 9: in the car? Can we check your car? And she
Speaker 9: readily consents. She says absolutely sure, can you know? And
Speaker 9: she walks out with them to the vehicle, and I'm
Speaker 9: not sure what happened at that point. They did check
Speaker 9: the car for quote unquote stuff, and after that they
Speaker 9: felled it as evidence, and then it was towed a
Speaker 9: few hours later to TBI headquarters in Knoxville as evidence.
Speaker 9: And the reason it was it was feeled as evidence
Speaker 9: was because supposedly there was Jesse's There was blood found
Speaker 9: in the car, and it was Jesse's. But the mystery
Speaker 9: here is number one, how did the blood get in
Speaker 9: the vehicle?
Speaker 8: And number two.
Speaker 9: Something that confuses me. If the blood was in the
Speaker 9: vehicle at that time that the sheriff and the and
Speaker 9: the deputies searched it, I would have assumed that Vonda
Speaker 9: would have been arrested at that point. I mean, you know,
Speaker 9: there's there's blood in her vehicle. I'm not a lawyer,
Speaker 9: I you know, I don't know. I don't understand how
Speaker 9: that works. So maybe that wasn't you know, the process.
Speaker 9: But that has been a huge I called a wrench
Speaker 9: in the case. Is is the blood in the vehicle.
Speaker 9: Even the prosecutors could not explain how or when Jesse
Speaker 9: Morrison's blood came to be in Vonda's vehicle, So that
Speaker 9: remains a mystery to this day.
Speaker 7: That's right, and in your investigation, we will find out
Speaker 7: what you did find regarding that blood. And witnesses to
Speaker 7: that blood as well. Let's talk about how and when
Speaker 7: you became involved, and you call it your team, maybe
Speaker 7: explain who your team is. Tell us at what point
Speaker 7: you become involved in this incredible story and why.
Speaker 9: Well, it actually was quite a bit later. At the
Speaker 9: time this is happening on August twelfth, twenty sixteen, I
Speaker 9: was completely unaware of what was going on. I was
Speaker 9: actually incredibly pregnant and about to have a baby myself.
Speaker 9: So it wasn't until really the trial is when I
Speaker 9: got involved, and I had heard kind of snippets you
Speaker 9: could say, about what was going on, but I was
Speaker 9: still you know, I was a new mom. I wasn't
Speaker 9: really I was in my own little world. I wasn't
Speaker 9: really involved or paying attention too much. And the only
Speaker 9: reason I heard any snippets of what was going on
Speaker 9: is because Anna Smith is my husband's aunt, so that's how.
Speaker 6: I know her.
Speaker 9: And so the day of the trial rolls around, which
Speaker 9: only lasted for about four days in May twenty seventeen,
Speaker 9: and or excuse me, eighteen and so we gets a verdict.
Speaker 9: We were actually on vacation, My family and I were
Speaker 9: on vacation, and we got the verdict and she was
Speaker 9: found guilty, and we were stunned. The whole family was stunned.
Speaker 8: You know.
Speaker 6: It was we thought there was no way she could
Speaker 6: be convicted. It was we.
Speaker 9: Felt that it was obvious she didn't commit this crime,
Speaker 9: and so when she was sound guilty, it was just
Speaker 9: it was it was a blow. It was a really
Speaker 9: big blow, and the family was really upset, understandably, and
Speaker 9: everyone just we were just so caught off guard, but
Speaker 9: by the news that we just nobody knew what to do,
Speaker 9: you know, and and it was very emotional and confusing,
Speaker 9: and so I just thought to myself, you know, I've
Speaker 9: got I've got to do something here. I know that
Speaker 9: she didn't commit this crime, and I didn't know what
Speaker 9: to do, but I knew I had to do something.
Speaker 9: And literally that same day, maybe an hour later, I
Speaker 9: had my mom with me and I had my husband
Speaker 9: was and we were actually visiting my grandma's and you know,
Speaker 9: we cracked some cold beers and we got to work.
Speaker 9: We got on our phones, we started researching, calling family members,
Speaker 9: and at that point I took a huge interest in
Speaker 9: the case and I just started writing down everything I
Speaker 9: could get my hands on. All the details, all the rumors,
Speaker 9: like anything that had to do with this case. I
Speaker 9: wanted it, and it just kind of it grew from there.
Speaker 9: It was really like a grassroots, you know kind of investigation.
Speaker 9: I'm not a professional and just a normal person.
Speaker 8: I'm a mom, you know.
Speaker 9: I didn't know what I was doing, and I was
Speaker 9: just running in all kinds of directions. And fortunately I
Speaker 9: had my mom there with me, and she's she's I
Speaker 9: talk about her a lot in my book, and she's
Speaker 9: been with me from that very first day.
Speaker 6: And we just we got to work.
Speaker 9: We got to work.
Speaker 8: And one of our main goals.
Speaker 9: Early on, and I don't know if we knew it
Speaker 9: at the time, but certainly looking back, was to get
Speaker 9: attention on the case because I knew, even though I
Speaker 9: didn't know what I'm doing, I knew that if we
Speaker 9: got attention on this case, that was probably going to
Speaker 9: be Vonda Smith's best chance at you know, freedom someday
Speaker 9: if in fact she has been wrongly convicted. And so
Speaker 9: I started reaching out, you know, emailing, calling all kinds
Speaker 9: of people, podcasters, retired FBI agent, you know, anybody, anybody
Speaker 9: and everybody who would listen to me, and quite Fortunately,
Speaker 9: I ended up getting in touch with director and producer
Speaker 9: Joe Berlinger, and that came about. I googled top five
Speaker 9: true crime producers and he came up in the top five.
Speaker 9: At the time, I didn't know who he was, so
Speaker 9: I clicked on his little profile or what have you
Speaker 9: and read a little bit about him and his you know,
Speaker 9: his accomplishments and credentials, and I thought, okay, well, you know,
Speaker 9: he seems like a good guy to reach out to you,
Speaker 9: and he's got experience with true crime cases and things
Speaker 9: like that, and so I sent him an email, and
Speaker 9: sometime goes by and I get an email back from
Speaker 9: one of his producers, and that's how it really got
Speaker 9: off the ground. They were gracious enough to feature Vonda's
Speaker 9: case on their show Wrong Man, which is on the
Speaker 9: Stars Network.
Speaker 8: And so.
Speaker 6: I worked with them.
Speaker 9: For oh gosh, probably a year, not with Joe Berlinger directly,
Speaker 9: but with his team Radical Media, and I would email
Speaker 9: them everything I had, you know, whether it was facts, opinions,
Speaker 9: rumors I had heard about the case. I just gave
Speaker 9: them everything. And so they slowly, you know, formed a
Speaker 9: case and they were pretty interested in it. And yeah,
Speaker 9: so they came out and started filming and investigating. And
Speaker 9: now you know, fast forward to the day we did.
Speaker 9: We accomplished what we set out to do, and we
Speaker 9: did get national coverage for her case. In fact, the
Speaker 9: first episode of Vondus Smith's case just aired this past
Speaker 9: Sunday on Wrong Man, and you can catch the second
Speaker 9: episode next Sunday. I think it's the sixteenth, and that'll
Speaker 9: come out at nine pm Eastern Center time.
Speaker 7: I think now let's go back to this whole because
Speaker 7: in your investigation, like you say, you posted on your
Speaker 7: blog everything rumors, but also in your book you create
Speaker 7: all the explain all the connections between people, and you
Speaker 7: say that this is a smaller community, and a lot
Speaker 7: of the people that you have on your list for
Speaker 7: people to look at and consider, they're all connected. You
Speaker 7: say this is a small place. Let's first talk about Jesse,
Speaker 7: who's twenty one years old at this time. She's a
Speaker 7: mother of two young boys, and she's sixteen weeks pregnant
Speaker 7: at that time. As we explained about Vonda Smith, if
Speaker 7: people were wondering, why would Vonda Smith, why would have
Speaker 7: Jesse gone to Vonda Smith rather than her own mother,
Speaker 7: who is named Susan, so let's start putting some of
Speaker 7: those people together. Jesse and John and Susan and Vonda
Speaker 7: and Wyatt. Put some of those people together and tell
Speaker 7: us a little bit about each of them as you
Speaker 7: discover in this investigation.
Speaker 9: Okay, So Jesse and Vonda have a relationship. Their relationship
Speaker 9: began after Vonda discovered that she has a grandson, and
Speaker 9: that grandson was Jesse Morrison's firstborn Manning, and Jesse had
Speaker 9: previously and briefly dated Vonda's son Wyatt.
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Speaker 9: And together they had Manning. From what I understand why
Speaker 9: it didn't he wasn't aware, he wasn't made aware that
Speaker 9: Jesse was pregnant. I guess she waited until late in
Speaker 9: the pregnancy to tell him. And at that point, like
Speaker 9: I said, they dated briefly, so they were no longer together.
Speaker 9: So eventually Vonda finds out. I think she maybe saw
Speaker 9: a picture of the little boy Manning on Facebook, and
Speaker 9: that's kind of how that started. So Wonda reached out
Speaker 9: to Jesse, and that's how the relationship initially began. And
Speaker 9: Wonda's a really caring person. She's really loving during motherly
Speaker 9: you know, and so she definitely wanted to be part
Speaker 9: of her grandson's life, regardless of whether his own father
Speaker 9: was Vonda's son Wyatt. And so that's how that started.
Speaker 9: And now Jesse's own mother, whom I've named Susan in
Speaker 9: my book, I tried to change a lot of the
Speaker 9: names in my book just for privacy purposes for these people,
Speaker 9: and so I've called her Susan. So Jesse's mom Susan.
Speaker 9: From what I've heard, they didn't have the closest relationship,
Speaker 9: maybe not the best relationship. I'm not really sure on
Speaker 9: the details of that, but I can tell you that
Speaker 9: Jesse and Vonda were certainly close, you know. And Vonna
Speaker 9: really she took care of her, really, and she loved
Speaker 9: her like it was her own daughter. And she she
Speaker 9: did spend money on Jesse, and she did spend money
Speaker 9: on Jesse's children, regardless of them. You know, her her
Speaker 9: second son, Jesse's youngest son, wasn't even related blood related
Speaker 9: to Vonda, but that didn't matter to her. She, you know,
Speaker 9: she loved them all the same, and she did spend
Speaker 9: money on him, like I said, and took took care
Speaker 9: of him, bought diapers and clothes and things like that,
Speaker 9: and she even she even had she got internet at
Speaker 9: her house.
Speaker 8: Wonda did.
Speaker 9: She was trying to help Jesse, you know, better her life,
Speaker 9: and she got internet so that Jesse could go to
Speaker 9: her home with her laptop and do her online courses
Speaker 9: for college and things like that. And on that day,
Speaker 9: on August twelfth, for for reasons unknown, Jesse took the
Speaker 9: boys over to the Laughlin Memorial and you know, she
Speaker 9: went to Vonda for help. She did not go to
Speaker 9: her own mother, Susan. Why, I'm not sure, maybe we'll
Speaker 9: never know, but so she did. She did go to Vonda,
Speaker 9: and Wonda ultimately left work early.
Speaker 6: You know, and.
Speaker 9: To help her, and she helped her throughout the day
Speaker 9: and she even was watching the boys at at night
Speaker 9: when Jesse was supposed to have gone to hay Bills.
Speaker 9: And so that's why the kids were in her care.
Speaker 9: And it's interesting because during the trial and even now,
Speaker 9: you know, just people gossiping around town, they some believe
Speaker 9: that Vonda had become obsessed as a grandmother over her
Speaker 9: grandson Manning, and the whole motive rests on her obsession
Speaker 9: with him, basically, and they say that she just she
Speaker 9: snapped Vonda snapped, and that's why she killed Jessie is
Speaker 9: because she wanted to have control over Manning or maybe
Speaker 9: see him more often. But that doesn't make sense to
Speaker 9: me in my brain because if you really look at
Speaker 9: Jesse and Vonna's relationship, I mean, honestly, Vonda had Jesse's
Speaker 9: children all the time, you know, or at least really frequently.
Speaker 9: Jesse didn't seem very shy about, hey can you watch
Speaker 9: my kids? Hey can you help me out? You know,
Speaker 9: and Bonda of course was always happy to do so.
Speaker 9: So it doesn't really I don't in my mind. The
Speaker 9: motives didn't really make too much sense because it was
Speaker 9: Jesse that sought Vonda's help. She sought Vonda out that day.
Speaker 9: It wasn't the other way around, you know. And more
Speaker 9: to the point, she didn't go to her own mother,
Speaker 9: Susan for help.
Speaker 7: You also talk about and providing this book too, because
Speaker 7: the theory that they put at trial, the prosecution put
Speaker 7: a trial that she was obsessed, like you just mentioned,
Speaker 7: but also that you had investigated the possible timeline in
Speaker 7: the window of opportun tunity for Vonda to do what
Speaker 7: the prosecution theorized that she did. Now as you do
Speaker 7: in the book, tell us about that timeline and that
Speaker 7: window of opportunity, what she must have been able to
Speaker 7: do in this short period of time.
Speaker 9: Tell us, Well, the timeline itself is I've gone over
Speaker 9: it and over it and over again. It's it's almost
Speaker 9: impossible for Vonda to have committed this crime. In fact,
Speaker 9: she would have had been a time traveler. And I
Speaker 9: say that in my book. It's this is a dark subject,
Speaker 9: but it's almost laughable because and it gets a little confusing,
Speaker 9: So you have to bear with me. So jesse was
Speaker 9: at Vonda's at four point thirty.
Speaker 6: Okay, she leaves in Vonda's.
Speaker 9: Car, and that's the last time Vonda sees jesse Is
Speaker 9: at four thirty. Well, we know that jesse reappears sometime
Speaker 9: at her own home because she has a neighbor whom
Speaker 9: I've named Patrick in my book. She's got a neighbor, Patrick,
Speaker 9: who went over to her house. They were outside, he
Speaker 9: was asking her about something. He talked to her. Okay,
Speaker 9: at about five thirty. So jesse is at her own
Speaker 9: home around five thirty. She's got her neighbor talking to her,
Speaker 9: who was also, by the way, called as a witness
Speaker 9: during the trial. To testify to this, and after speaking
Speaker 9: with Jesse, Patrick goes back across the street to his
Speaker 9: own home, and a while later he sees Jesse leaves
Speaker 9: in a white van with two males. The time is
Speaker 9: five point thirty, so Jesse was last seen alive at
Speaker 9: five point thirty at her own home, getting into this
Speaker 9: white van by her neighbor Patrick, and then the next
Speaker 9: time she's found at seven point thirty. Her body is
Speaker 9: found at seven point thirty on Judnil Loop by the
Speaker 9: guy that's walking his dog. So there's a two hour
Speaker 9: window there of you know what happened. In the meantime,
Speaker 9: Vonda's car has been returned at six o'clock, so you
Speaker 9: have Jesse at her house. She gets in the white
Speaker 9: van and leaves around five thirty. Vonda's car is returned
Speaker 9: at six. Wonna leaves her house at six point thirty
Speaker 9: to go to the friend's house to get the little girl.
Speaker 6: She gets to.
Speaker 9: The friend's house at seven, and then Jesse's body is
Speaker 9: found at seven point thirty. So if I mean if
Speaker 9: the car returned at six, but Vonda didn't see who
Speaker 9: returned it, how was she supposed to kill Jesse? When
Speaker 9: was this going to happen.
Speaker 6: You know it didn't.
Speaker 9: So let's back up. Let's say four point thirty or
Speaker 9: four o'clock. They get to Jesse's with the groceries after
Speaker 9: they went grocery shopping. They're at Jesse's at four o'clock.
Speaker 9: Could Vonda have killed her then? Well no, because then
Speaker 9: we still have the neighbor Patrick that spoke to Jesse
Speaker 9: at five thirty. So if she was last seen at
Speaker 9: five thirty, and Vonda's car comes back at six, and
Speaker 9: Vona says she saw a white van at her house
Speaker 9: at six, and then you have the neighbor Patrick that
Speaker 9: said Jesse got into a white van at five point thirty,
Speaker 9: it just doesn't It doesn't add up, Like when when
Speaker 9: was Vonda supposed to do this? How did Jesse's blood get.
Speaker 6: In her car?
Speaker 9: When Vonda went to her friend's house at seven o'clock,
Speaker 9: the friend went to the car. She was standing out
Speaker 9: there talking to Vonda. They're right at the car. The
Speaker 9: little girl, Gemma got into the front passenger seat. There
Speaker 9: was no blood. Gemma has said there's no blood. There
Speaker 9: was no blood in the car. The friend Lilian also
Speaker 9: said there was no blood in the car at that time. Well,
Speaker 9: that was seven o'clock and Jesse's body was found at
Speaker 9: seven point thirty.
Speaker 8: How did the blood get in the car?
Speaker 9: Now, when Vonda goes back home with Gemma and then
Speaker 9: she's you know, for the night, like I said, with
Speaker 9: her husband and the kids.
Speaker 6: So let's say that was maybe.
Speaker 9: She got home around eight, you know, eight ten. Perhaps
Speaker 9: they're in for the night.
Speaker 8: That's it.
Speaker 9: She didn't go anywhere. So out here out in the country, okay,
Speaker 9: none of us really lock our cars, and some of
Speaker 9: us even just leave our keys in our cars. It's
Speaker 9: a common thing to do. And so I'm assuming that
Speaker 9: her car was not locked when she got home. She
Speaker 9: got home, she stayed at home. Her car was parked
Speaker 9: down away from the house, at the bottom.
Speaker 8: Of the driveway.
Speaker 9: They have a very steep driveway, so everyone typically parks
Speaker 9: down at the bottom. So you know, she's home at
Speaker 9: eight o'clock, her car's parked eight o'clock at night. The
Speaker 9: sheriff and the deputies don't get to her house to
Speaker 9: look into the car until two o'clock the next morning.
Speaker 6: So you have this.
Speaker 9: Window, this really large window of time, time of opportunity
Speaker 9: for anybody, anybody had anybody in East Tennessee had access
Speaker 9: to her car. So that brings us to the next question.
Speaker 9: If the blood was planted in Vana's carr, who did it,
Speaker 9: when did they do it, and why.
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Speaker 7: Join Honey dot com slash murder. Now, we were talking
Speaker 7: Nova about all of the things that don't add up
Speaker 7: in this in Vonda's guilty conviction at trial. The other
Speaker 7: thing that we didn't mention and is very very important,
Speaker 7: And you have to tell me about the official status
Speaker 7: of this because you write that it's not as an
Speaker 7: incident report with the police. So tell us about this.
Speaker 7: When Vonda believes that she should investigate the white van
Speaker 7: that she saw, she goes out, leaves her husband Don,
Speaker 7: goes out for a drive to the store. After her investigation,
Speaker 7: what does she find in her investigation and what happens
Speaker 7: in this incident in October twenty sixteen?
Speaker 9: Okay, so yeah, so we're in October twenty sixteen. It's
Speaker 9: been in proxy only two months since Jesse's murder, and
Speaker 9: Vonda decides.
Speaker 6: To play detective. Okay, she knows she saw the white
Speaker 6: van in.
Speaker 9: Her driveway when her car was returned, and she just thinks, okay, this,
Speaker 9: you know, I saw this white van, you know. And
Speaker 9: then she finds out that Jesse's been murdered, and so
Speaker 9: she thinks to herself, this white van is the key
Speaker 9: to this, you know, I'm going to find out what's
Speaker 9: going on here.
Speaker 6: This has something to do with Jesse's death. So she
Speaker 6: decides to go out.
Speaker 9: One day in October twenty sixteen on her own to
Speaker 9: find the white van, I guess, or she's driving around
Speaker 9: trying to find it or asking questions. And at the
Speaker 9: end of the day of her searching, and I'm not
Speaker 9: really sure if she had any leads or discovered any information.
Speaker 9: I don't know if she talked to anybody, but she
Speaker 9: spent the day, you know, tooling around trying to find
Speaker 9: this white van. And at the end of the day,
Speaker 9: she gets home to her husband and he asks, you know, hey,
Speaker 9: can you go to the store and get some snacks?
Speaker 9: He wanted snacks. Okay, So by this time it's dark,
Speaker 9: she goes back out. She goes to the store to
Speaker 9: get her husband some snacks, and she's on her way
Speaker 9: back and then she sees some lights flashing behind her,
Speaker 9: and she assumes it's the police.
Speaker 8: She's being pulled over.
Speaker 9: Maybe you know, she's got a tail light out or something,
Speaker 9: and so she pulls off to the side of the
Speaker 9: road and she proceeds to roll her window down, you know,
Speaker 9: in preparation for the officer to approach her, and she
Speaker 9: leans to the passenger seat to dig through her purse.
Speaker 9: She's gonna get her life since out and registration, you
Speaker 9: know how you do, And she's got those articles. And
Speaker 9: then she turns back to the open window, expecting to
Speaker 9: hand these things over to the officer that's pulled her over,
Speaker 9: and she gets punched in the face and turns out
Speaker 9: that she hadn't been pulled over by a police officer
Speaker 9: at all.
Speaker 6: She was.
Speaker 9: Pulled over by two men and a woman that she
Speaker 9: couldn't identify.
Speaker 8: The two men.
Speaker 9: Dragged her out of her car, proceeded to punch her
Speaker 9: and kick her, and one of them threatened her saying
Speaker 9: that you know, you need to keep your nose out
Speaker 9: of this stop running around looking for white vans, and
Speaker 9: if you don't, I'm going to hurt your grandson Manning.
Speaker 6: And at that point they.
Speaker 8: Picked her up.
Speaker 9: The two men put her in their truck or what
Speaker 9: have you, and she wakes up the next day in
Speaker 9: a ditch and there was when it happened. Her husband
Speaker 9: obviously was expecting her to return from the store with
Speaker 9: snacks and she never did, so he's calling the police.
Speaker 9: The police come out. They find her car easily enough.
Speaker 9: It was in park right where she left it when
Speaker 9: she had pulled off onto the side of the road,
Speaker 9: but still running. So they found the car, but they
Speaker 9: didn't find Vonda. So at this point, her husband is
Speaker 9: calling family members. You know, we don't know what's going on.
Speaker 9: Vonda's missing. Family comes out. Everybody's looking for that night,
Speaker 9: to no avail. No one can find Vonda. And then
Speaker 9: it wasn't until the next morning a passerby, some woman
Speaker 9: on her way to work, saw a body down in
Speaker 9: a ditch near a bridge, probably might have been a mile,
Speaker 9: maybe less than a mile from where her car was parked.
Speaker 9: And so this woman calls the police and family's alerted
Speaker 9: and it is Vonda.
Speaker 8: And she is alive.
Speaker 9: She's injured pretty badly, but she's alive, and she gets
Speaker 9: taken to Laughlin Memorial Hospital where she was employed, and
Speaker 9: so she's in there recovering and of course, a detective
Speaker 9: shows up. You know, he's wanting a statement, Detective Randolph,
Speaker 9: who was the same detective that accompanied the Green County
Speaker 9: sheriff to her home that night after Jesse was murdered.
Speaker 9: And so Randolph shows up at the hospital. He's wanting
Speaker 9: a statement, you know, official statement from her, and she
Speaker 9: did not give him one.
Speaker 8: She refused.
Speaker 9: She never reported the incident because she had been threatened.
Speaker 9: You know, she was warned to keep her mouth shut,
Speaker 9: and she took that warning very seriously.
Speaker 8: She is a mom.
Speaker 9: She was in mama bear mode. You could say she
Speaker 9: was trying her grandson safety was threatened and she was
Speaker 9: going to do everything in her power to keep him safe.
Speaker 9: So if that meant keeping her mouth shut about that
Speaker 9: incident what happened to her, then she wasn't going to
Speaker 9: report it, and she didn't.
Speaker 7: Could she identify, not officially, obviously she didn't make a statement,
Speaker 7: But in your book, does she identify any of the males?
Speaker 7: Did she recognize any of the males there that day?
Speaker 7: You say she couldn't recognize the female?
Speaker 9: She did, she later told her daughter in law. I
Speaker 9: don't know how much later it might have been, weeks,
Speaker 9: might have been months. She eventually confided in her daughter
Speaker 9: in law, and she said that one of the men
Speaker 9: that assaulted her that night was Jesse's boyfriend, John. And
Speaker 9: what's interesting about that is that John actually a colorful character.
Speaker 9: He was also involved in another incident later on, another
Speaker 9: violent incident with a woman he was dating at the time.
Speaker 9: This is, of course, after Jesse's death, and after the
Speaker 9: incident was Vonda, and the newspaper reported that he had
Speaker 9: been arrested because he fractured some woman's skull during an
Speaker 9: argument of sorts, but the charges were eventually dropped.
Speaker 7: Let's go back to the DNA that was found. We
Speaker 7: missed this part in that Jesse was about five foot
Speaker 7: eight to five nine, about one hundred and fifty pounds.
Speaker 7: And this is interesting when you say that they say
Speaker 7: that Vonda again single handily killed Jesse. But Vonda was
Speaker 7: four foot eleven, overweight, out of shape, two hundred pounds plus,
Speaker 7: fifty two years old, and Jesse was a young woman
Speaker 7: one hundred and fifty years old, and she fought and
Speaker 7: underneath her fingernails was DNA. Tell us how many DNA
Speaker 7: samples were found and if there were any other DNA
Speaker 7: samples found and on Jesse and.
Speaker 9: Where Yeah, yeah, you know. Here's the interesting thing about
Speaker 9: that at the crime scene. Vonda's DNA was not found
Speaker 9: anywhere at the crime scene and not on.
Speaker 6: The body either.
Speaker 9: Yet there were three different male DNA found under Jesse's fingernails,
Speaker 9: all of which are unidentified, and there were two possibly
Speaker 9: three male DNA found.
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Speaker 9: Dinner panties and I think maybe unknown female DNA somewhere
Speaker 9: on her body, but it's all been male DNA, male DNA,
Speaker 9: and the male DNA found underneath her fingernails suggests that
Speaker 9: she did fight her attacker or attackers, and so someone Okay,
Speaker 9: she had defensive wounds, she fought back, obviously she's got DNA.
Speaker 9: She might have scratched, you know them. So whoever the
Speaker 9: attacker attackers were, they would have had at least scratches
Speaker 9: on them, marks, bruising, something. There would have been something,
Speaker 9: and Vonda didn't have anything. There were no scrapes, scratches, bruises,
Speaker 9: not a thing, not a thing. And so it's very
Speaker 9: you know, something's gone wrong here, something's gone really really
Speaker 9: wrong with this case. Nothing makes sense. You know, You've
Speaker 9: got all this male DNA on the victim. Yet we've
Speaker 9: got a woman behind bars for life for this. And
Speaker 9: speaking of DNA, Jesse was, as you said, she was sixteen,
Speaker 9: approximately sixteen pregnant at the time of her death.
Speaker 8: And.
Speaker 9: For whatever reason, the DNA of the fetus was never tested,
Speaker 9: so it was never confirmed who the father was, which
Speaker 9: is in my mind a huge piece of the puzzle.
Speaker 9: You know, sure she we don't know, We have no
Speaker 9: idea who the father was.
Speaker 7: You also have the investigative team that was assembled also
Speaker 7: with Joe Berlinger and the team from Wrong Man, and
Speaker 7: they had a person named Ian and you got to
Speaker 7: eventually speak to him, and that's a very interesting exchange.
Speaker 7: And you wondered why Ian was looking at Wyatt, and
Speaker 7: you had an opportunity to get close to Wyatt by
Speaker 7: just by circumstance. Tell us a little bit about Whyat
Speaker 7: Vonda's son, the father of Manning, but also why I
Speaker 7: might have been looking at Wyatt and your conversation with
Speaker 7: this investigator Ian.
Speaker 9: Okay, Well, Wyatt is Vonda's son, and he's the guy
Speaker 9: that briefly dated Jesse and they had Manning together. And
Speaker 9: I did you know, when I was in the throes
Speaker 9: of this investigation and researching and blogging on my blog
Speaker 9: and all this, I had one big piece of the
Speaker 9: puzzle missing. And that was Whyat. I needed Wyatt. I needed,
Speaker 9: you know, I had lots of questions for him. And
Speaker 9: you know, the guy was kind of like a ghost,
Speaker 9: and as luck would have it, he ended up living
Speaker 9: not too far from me and we became friends. And
Speaker 9: he is my husband's cousin and we became friends and
Speaker 9: I got to know him. And even though my first
Speaker 9: instinct was too. When I met him, you know, ask
Speaker 9: him a million questions. I wanted to bring up the
Speaker 9: case immediately, and and because I was on the forefront
Speaker 9: of my mind, but I thought, you know, no, that's.
Speaker 8: A little crazy, probably pretty rude.
Speaker 9: And I should probably just you know, get to know
Speaker 9: this guy first. And and so that's what I did.
Speaker 9: And it turned out he was a really nice guy.
Speaker 9: He was he seemed to have a decent character. I
Speaker 9: realized that he had a past, you know, he had
Speaker 9: been involved with drugs in the past and and things
Speaker 9: like that, and I tried not to judge, and we
Speaker 9: just really we hit it off. We got along really well.
Speaker 9: He became my friend, and so over time our relationship
Speaker 9: grew and eventually we did start talking about the case
Speaker 9: and his mom, Bonda, and he he told me a
Speaker 9: lot of interesting, interesting information and he was pretty he
Speaker 9: was kind of an open book about it, and which
Speaker 9: is great. And so by the time Radical Media got
Speaker 9: involved and they came to town to film and investigate
Speaker 9: for their show Wrong Man, they brought with them a really,
Speaker 9: really awesome guy. I named him Ian in my book.
Speaker 9: No that's not his real name. He's an interrogator, and
Speaker 9: I have huge respect for him.
Speaker 8: I watched him on.
Speaker 9: The show, and I just think he's he's phenomenal at
Speaker 9: what he does. And so that was I never got
Speaker 9: to meet him personally, but it was exciting just to
Speaker 9: know that he was here and that he was working
Speaker 9: on it, working on the case.
Speaker 8: Until he.
Speaker 9: Got a hold of Wyatt. And Whyatt became why it
Speaker 9: became like Ian's guy. Ian became just he was kind
Speaker 9: of fixated on Whyatt as a potential suspect, and his
Speaker 9: reasons are his own. I can't speak for Ian. I'm
Speaker 9: not sure why he was so houned in on him,
Speaker 9: but I just thought there's you know, I felt like
Speaker 9: Ian was going down a rabbit hole like this is
Speaker 9: this is you're chasing after red Herring, so to speak,
Speaker 9: like this is this is not your guy I can
Speaker 9: see on paper looking at Wyatt, you know, maybe he's
Speaker 9: seems a little sketchy or seems like a good suspect,
Speaker 9: or he doesn't look good on paper. I'll say that,
Speaker 9: but he's he's a nice guy. He's a sensitive guy,
Speaker 9: and there's no way, just like with his mother, Vonda,
Speaker 9: there's no way.
Speaker 6: And so.
Speaker 9: Ian was he was going after Wyatt on this excuse me,
Speaker 9: And eventually I contacted Ian myself. I called him and
Speaker 9: we had a short exchange, a brief exchange over the phone,
Speaker 9: and I just wanted to call and tell him that,
Speaker 9: you know, I don't think I don't think Wyatt's your guy.
Speaker 6: Didn't and at the time, sorry at the time.
Speaker 9: That I had called Ian, like I said, we just
Speaker 9: spoke briefly, and basically I had called just to defend
Speaker 9: Wyatt to this interrogator.
Speaker 6: At the time.
Speaker 9: It was a brief phone call because this guy was
Speaker 9: at a restaurant. It was something and it was noisy
Speaker 9: in the background, you know, And so he said, I'd
Speaker 9: like to talk to you about this later. But of
Speaker 9: course later never came. We never ended up. He never
Speaker 9: he never ended up calling me back to to discuss
Speaker 9: any further.
Speaker 7: Didn't be in to say though, claimed that Vonda went
Speaker 7: asked who returned the car that Vonda and claimed that
Speaker 7: Vanda said it was Wyatt.
Speaker 9: Excuse me. Yes, So that was that was an interesting,
Speaker 9: an interesting.
Speaker 6: Thing that happened.
Speaker 9: And I think that's actually going to be on the
Speaker 9: second episode of Wrong Man, and I think they're going
Speaker 9: to go over that happened. And I'm I'm excited to
Speaker 9: watch that myself, to see, you know, what really happened.
Speaker 9: Ian goes to speak with Vonda at the at the print,
Speaker 9: she's in prison in Memphis, and during their conversation, Ian's
Speaker 9: trying to figure out who returned Vonda's car, who returned
Speaker 9: the car. He's maybe convinced that she knows something she's
Speaker 9: not telling or she saw who returned it, and so
Speaker 9: he's asking her, you know, you have to tell me.
Speaker 9: You have to tell me who returned to the car.
Speaker 9: You have to tell me who returned the car.
Speaker 6: Who did you see? Who was it?
Speaker 9: Blah blah blah, And supposedly, Wonda basically cracks okay under
Speaker 9: pressure and says it was Wyatt, her son. She says
Speaker 9: her son was the one to return the car, which is,
Speaker 9: you know, Wonda dropped a bomb. If that's true, you know,
Speaker 9: that's like what you know, that's a huge that's a huge.
Speaker 6: Bomb right there.
Speaker 9: And so I'm hearing the second hand from family members
Speaker 9: who told me Ian came to their house with this
Speaker 9: recording of Wonda admitting that it was her son, Wyatt,
Speaker 9: that returned her car, and I didn't hear the recording
Speaker 9: for myself. So I'm unsure of this, and I've got
Speaker 9: a couple of different stories from family members who can't
Speaker 9: quite remember exactly what they heard, which is really important.
Speaker 9: That's really the key here, Okay, because during an interrogation,
Speaker 9: and I'm no expert here, but you you can word things,
Speaker 9: you can phrase things certain ways just to get people's reaction.
Speaker 9: Maybe it's not the truth, but you'll get their physical reaction.
Speaker 9: And I think that's what Ian was asking. So with
Speaker 9: the conversation that Ian and Vonda had, him asking her
Speaker 9: who returned the car, it basically boils down to her
Speaker 9: what actually came out of her mouth. Did she say, yes,
Speaker 9: it was Whyt that returned my car as a complete sentence,
Speaker 9: or did she just say did Ian say who returned
Speaker 9: your car and she says it was Wyatt? Because if
Speaker 9: she just says it was Wyat, well, then that could
Speaker 9: easily his audio recording could have easily been spliced and edited.
Speaker 9: She could have been saying it was Wyat, answering it
Speaker 9: was Wyatt to a completely different question, you see what
Speaker 9: I'm saying. So if that was the case, if she
Speaker 9: didn't actually answer that it was Wyatt that returned her car,
Speaker 9: then it could have been Ian's intention to make it
Speaker 9: appear as though she was saying, whyatt returned my car?
Speaker 9: And the reason for doing that is a simple psychological trick.
Speaker 9: So he has this recording now that supposedly sounds as
Speaker 9: the So Wonda is saying, why ittt.
Speaker 8: Return to my car?
Speaker 9: He comes back, and he plays it for the whole
Speaker 9: family to hear why it included. And so even though
Speaker 9: maybe Ian knows that's not true, it's not what Vonda said,
Speaker 9: He's wanting to play it for the family to get
Speaker 9: their reaction, their physical reaction, because physical reactions sometimes can
Speaker 9: tell you more, give you a little bit more of
Speaker 9: the truth than you know what people are telling you.
Speaker 7: It's inconsistent with Wanda's pledge not to She's attacked, she's
Speaker 7: left for dead in the ditch, she is framed for
Speaker 7: murder and person close to her, the mother of her
Speaker 7: grandson and a person close to her. And then when
Speaker 7: it comes time to Joe Berlinger and this wrong man
Speaker 7: a TV, nothing for her to gain from this whatsoever.
Speaker 7: And still, if she's protecting her family and she's made
Speaker 7: that statement, she's going to do what it takes to
Speaker 7: protect her family. This I think is is consistent with
Speaker 7: protecting her family, since why it had nothing to it?
Speaker 7: She could say why it had something to do whyatt
Speaker 7: returned the car, because certainly there's more to this story
Speaker 7: than Wanda killing Jesse. And the motive is incredibly shaky.
Speaker 7: I mean, there is no foundation, there is no murder
Speaker 7: weapon there is and again the motive is definitely lacking.
Speaker 7: The timeline, the window of opportunity, the ability for Vonda
Speaker 7: physically to be able to do this, her composure before
Speaker 7: the murder or before the death that entire day afterwards.
Speaker 7: It is totally inconsistent with anything to make any sense
Speaker 7: why she was arrested and convicted and the convicted so easily,
Speaker 7: and certainly the appeal was denied as well, so at
Speaker 7: least on certain grounds that appeal was denied. You provide
Speaker 7: an interesting array of possibilities. But one was that and
Speaker 7: I have to ask you about this, is that JT.
Speaker 7: John's father, and please explain this. There was a partial
Speaker 7: DNA sample that was inconclusive because of explain this to us.
Speaker 9: Oh yeah, okay, so I'll do my best with that.
Speaker 9: It is a little confusing. So Jesse was found and
Speaker 9: there were two DNA samples in her panties, and so
Speaker 9: there were semen samples, one registered as her boyfriend John's,
Speaker 9: and the other one registered as a partial. That means
Speaker 9: there wasn't enough of the sample to register one hundred
Speaker 9: percent as this person one of that person. You know,
Speaker 9: it wasn't definitive So because it was only a partial sample,
Speaker 9: they got partial DNA. Well, that DNA came back initially
Speaker 9: as John's father's JT. Well, excuse me, I'm recovering from
Speaker 9: the flu. But they couldn't definitively say that it was
Speaker 9: his because it was again a partial and it was
Speaker 9: explained that.
Speaker 6: You have John and JT.
Speaker 9: And because their father and son, their DNA is so
Speaker 9: similar that they were basically saying, well, this second partial DNA,
Speaker 9: you know, maybe maybe it's not JT. It's you know,
Speaker 9: it's maybe it's more likely his son John's. So but
Speaker 9: I thought that was interesting nonetheless, that it would possibly
Speaker 9: register as his.
Speaker 8: Father's as JT's.
Speaker 9: So why, you know, why would why would the father's
Speaker 9: DNA register on Jesse at all in the first place.
Speaker 8: So it's just a lot of a lot.
Speaker 9: Of questions, a lot of questions, and that's something that
Speaker 9: my Mom and I have struggled with with this case.
Speaker 9: You have a question and you go searching for answers,
Speaker 9: and you come up with more questions. There are, certainly
Speaker 9: in this case, there are more questions than answers.
Speaker 7: Certainly you talk to a person named Christy, You communicate
Speaker 7: with a person named Christy, which is girlfriend of John,
Speaker 7: and you're not shy about stating what you believed and
Speaker 7: she was again I thought quite reasonable in responding to
Speaker 7: your claims and your questions if John and JT had
Speaker 7: something to do with this, John being the you know,
Speaker 7: the father of the sixteen month, sixteen month a pardon me,
Speaker 7: sixteen week baby that Jesse was about to have, and
Speaker 7: you do the background on his behavior and similar things
Speaker 7: where he's not taken responsibility. What is your idea about methamphetamines, drugs,
Speaker 7: Judd Neil Loop the place where she was found, and
Speaker 7: John and JT, and you mention Benjamin and Bradley owners
Speaker 7: of White Vans as well. We can't go anywhere into
Speaker 7: all of the like you describe rabbit holes and areas
Speaker 7: of investigation that you've gone into, but give us a
Speaker 7: little bit of the scenario that you could come up with.
Speaker 7: Involving the people I just mentioned, and this murder.
Speaker 9: Well, there's a lot of scenarios and there's a lot
Speaker 9: of theories, and you know, maybe there's some of the
Speaker 9: theories might be a little bit out there, but that's
Speaker 9: kind of what it takes for this case. And so
Speaker 9: one of the people initially that my mom and I
Speaker 9: were looking at was John. You know, he was the
Speaker 9: one that was dating Jesse at the time of her death.
Speaker 9: She was supposedly sixteen weeks pregnant with his child at
Speaker 9: the time, which of course we can not confirm because
Speaker 9: the DNA testing had not been done on the fetus.
Speaker 9: And they were living together, and I guess John's father,
Speaker 9: JT was also living with them. So you've got Jesse
Speaker 9: and her two young boys, and you've got boyfriend John
Speaker 9: and John's father JT. And they're all living together, and
Speaker 9: this trailer i'm crossing her park. From what I know,
Speaker 9: Jesse was not involved with the drug scene here. That's
Speaker 9: in East Tennessee, and it is a major drug scene.
Speaker 9: Mess there's mess pills, you know, opioids, and I've been
Speaker 9: told she wasn't she.
Speaker 8: Didn't do drugs.
Speaker 9: However, her circle of friends or people around her. Yeah,
Speaker 9: they were a or into drugs. And JT. John's father,
Speaker 9: he he definitely he definitely was. He definitely is and
Speaker 9: he has a criminal record and it does involve drugs
Speaker 9: and there are rumors that he deals drugs or adult
Speaker 9: drugs at least at the time. And so you have
Speaker 9: you have that going on. And then JT has another
Speaker 9: son who is John's younger brother. I call him Benjamin.
Speaker 9: Benjamin is or was at the time into the drug scene,
Speaker 9: and he owned a white van. And then we have
Speaker 9: a guy called Bradley, and Bradley is JT's friend, and
Speaker 9: Bradley also owns a white van. So we have two
Speaker 9: white vans and they pretty much stick throughout my story.
Speaker 9: There's I talk a lot about the white vans and
Speaker 9: the blood and Wanda's car, and those are the two.
Speaker 9: They're kind of like wrenches in any theory that I
Speaker 9: can come up with, because if you're there's so many
Speaker 9: people that can be involved with this.
Speaker 6: And I say that.
Speaker 9: Because you have to look at Jesse's circle, her circle
Speaker 9: of friends, her family, people that she's she's dated, people
Speaker 9: that she was living with, you know, And so I
Speaker 9: have lots of I like to call them players. I
Speaker 9: don't call them suspects, but just people that might even
Speaker 9: know what happened to her or they know someone that
Speaker 9: might know what happened to her. So I have this,
Speaker 9: you know, array of people, these players that I talk
Speaker 9: about in my book, and I used them to you know,
Speaker 9: I plugged them. I basically plugged them in to different
Speaker 9: theories about what could have happened to Jesse and you
Speaker 9: know the whole who done it? And we always come
Speaker 9: back to the white vans and the blood in the car.
Speaker 9: And all I know is that Bradley and Benjamin both
Speaker 9: owned white vans at the time.
Speaker 7: Right, what about the You write about the one thousand
Speaker 7: dollars that Vonda gave Jesse to pay bills that day,
Speaker 7: but you write in the book that those bills were
Speaker 7: not paid, and you also write about one thousand dollars
Speaker 7: car title explain that.
Speaker 9: Okay, so Vonda gave Jesse one thousand dollars cash that
Speaker 9: day to go pay bills. And a lot of skeptics
Speaker 9: wonder did Vonda even give her that money?
Speaker 8: And the truth.
Speaker 6: Is is that she did.
Speaker 9: Because fast forward to after Vonda being arrested, she had
Speaker 9: a conversation with her husband, and he was asking her
Speaker 9: about the title to the car, which at that point
Speaker 9: was with tbi okay as evidence. So he was calling
Speaker 9: and asking about the title to the vehicle, and Vonda
Speaker 9: confessed basically to him, to her husband that she had
Speaker 9: sold the title to the vehicle for one thousand dollars
Speaker 9: and that was the cash that she had given Jesse
Speaker 9: on that day to go to pay bills. And my knowledge,
Speaker 9: the bills hadn't been paid. But now I've learned otherwise
Speaker 9: watching the first episode about Wonda Smith's case, I'm wrong man.
Speaker 9: You know, obviously they're professional, professional detectives and and investigators,
Speaker 9: so they can talk to people that I can't. And
Speaker 9: so it's been discovered that the rent Jesse was going
Speaker 9: to pay with the thousand dollars that Vonda gave her.
Speaker 9: I guess it was back to rent, or so Vonda
Speaker 9: believed at the time. It turns out, which was revealed
Speaker 9: on Wrong Man, that rent was already paid for August.
Speaker 9: It had already been paid, and it wasn't due again
Speaker 9: until September. So I thought that was pretty interesting even
Speaker 9: for me to find out, because you know, it's something
Speaker 9: that I hadn't known, and so now I'm wondering, you know,
Speaker 9: of course, well what really happened.
Speaker 6: Did Jesse.
Speaker 9: Tell Vonda, you know, oh, I need to pay my
Speaker 9: rent is late, and can I have this money to
Speaker 9: pay rent? Knowing full well that rent wasn't due yet.
Speaker 9: And if that's the case, why did Jessee lie to Vonda?
Speaker 9: And where did the money go? The money was when
Speaker 9: Jesse's body was found, the cash was long gone and
Speaker 9: there were no real records of where Jesse paid anything
Speaker 9: with the money. So obviously the money that becomes a
Speaker 9: pretty strong motive, especially out here. Sure, you know, people
Speaker 9: out here have been murdered for much less because it is, unfortunately,
Speaker 9: it is a drug ridden area. And so one thousand dollars.
Speaker 7: Yeah, it seemed for me just that and not to judge,
Speaker 7: and certainly I'm not I have less facts than you
Speaker 7: have or anyone has, but it just seemed like it
Speaker 7: looked like from the testimony of her jumping in that
Speaker 7: van at five point thirty while her kids read Wonda's
Speaker 7: that she goes to Vonda's at work and has her
Speaker 7: leave work again, she couldn't go to her mother that
Speaker 7: there's something was afoot that she didn't want to reveal
Speaker 7: with to tell the truth to some people, and Vonda
Speaker 7: was the person that she could go to for the car,
Speaker 7: to take care of the kids, and for the money.
Speaker 7: But going into that van at five point thirty, which
Speaker 7: was not any plan that she expressed to Vonda whatsoever.
Speaker 7: With these guys in the white vans, and like you say,
Speaker 7: this community certainly pretty well caught up in crystal meth
Speaker 7: and other serious hard drugs. One thousand dollars, she may
Speaker 7: have just began to do drugs. There certainly seems to
Speaker 7: be something about the thousand dollars and these guys that
Speaker 7: you would jump in a van when you have all
Speaker 7: these other obligations. It just seems to be consistent with
Speaker 7: not a drug deal gone bad. That's a horrible cliche,
Speaker 7: but something involved money and possibly people that are involved
Speaker 7: with serious drugs.
Speaker 9: And that's kind of what I lean leaned toward myself.
Speaker 8: You know.
Speaker 9: It's, you know, left to your imagination, you can come
Speaker 9: up with all kinds of theories, and that's basically what
Speaker 9: I've done, and I've just laid them out for the readers,
Speaker 9: just offering, you know, different different theories and opinions on things.
Speaker 6: And I think it does.
Speaker 9: It probably does boil down to the money and drugs.
Speaker 6: And I'm not.
Speaker 9: Sure if she was involved in that scene or how
Speaker 9: she could have been involved in that scene. But what
Speaker 9: is interesting also is that her her boys were at
Speaker 9: Vonda's house. She left them there for Vonda and her
Speaker 9: husband to babysit. Well, she supposedly went to go pay
Speaker 9: these bills. But so she is at her home when
Speaker 9: this white band shows up, and she had been you know,
Speaker 9: talking to her neighbor Patrick, So someone knew that she
Speaker 9: didn't have her boys with her that day. She didn't
Speaker 9: have the boys with her at that moment, and that
Speaker 9: perplexes me too. Who knew that she didn't have her
Speaker 9: children with her.
Speaker 7: At the other there is the other interesting aspect which
Speaker 7: again goes against this what I said looks like at
Speaker 7: the outside or the just from Afar looks like. But
Speaker 7: again it's very you know, again because of drugs, because
Speaker 7: of hard drugs. Then we make a connection that must
Speaker 7: be murder. There is also the idea that each one
Speaker 7: of these children that Jesse had with these men, and
Speaker 7: she was only twenty one, so she had this again,
Speaker 7: a third child from a third different person that she
Speaker 7: didn't want those men necessarily to be part of the
Speaker 7: children's life, which might have been okay for these people
Speaker 7: that were the fathers, but lots of times the family
Speaker 7: and in this particular case, family members that were cut
Speaker 7: off from access to these grandchildren as well, with John
Speaker 7: anticipating that sort of thing from him, his lack of
Speaker 7: responsibility and in relationships. We still have to come around
Speaker 7: to JT connected to John and John witnessed by Wonda,
Speaker 7: and then after that she would not say anything towards
Speaker 7: those people that attacked her, and also just the DNA
Speaker 7: and the witness Wanda, and so there's a lot that
Speaker 7: makes it look like it may be just a much simpler,
Speaker 7: less complicated, more typical reason.
Speaker 6: For murder, right exactly.
Speaker 9: It's it's definitely it's difficult to basically to decide, you know,
Speaker 9: what happened here. Is it something simple because there's so
Speaker 9: many there's so many unknowns, and there's so many things
Speaker 9: that are just downright suspicious, you know, there's not another
Speaker 9: way to say it. It's just there's so many things
Speaker 9: that are suspicious about this case. So, you know, and
Speaker 9: I talked about, you know, an active imagination, you know,
Speaker 9: is it something simple or is it something more complex?
Speaker 9: Is it something worse? Was it was it planned? Was
Speaker 9: this all planned? Was did someone plan to murder Jack
Speaker 9: see that day? Was it always the intention to have
Speaker 9: Vonda take the fall for this? And then if you
Speaker 9: start thinking about, well maybe the blood was planted in
Speaker 9: the car, it just makes it worse, you know, so
Speaker 9: you're it ranges from you know, this is a cover
Speaker 9: up somehow, some way, for some reason, or you know,
Speaker 9: to something more simpler like just well, she had a
Speaker 9: thousand dollars cash. Someone saw it on her or she
Speaker 9: mentioned it. Maybe they were already high and decided they
Speaker 9: wanted that money, and then that's the.
Speaker 8: End of Jesse.
Speaker 9: So it's it is really difficult. It's been a challenge
Speaker 9: to figure out what happened, just because of just because
Speaker 9: of the details of the case, the lack of details,
Speaker 9: and basically everything seeming so suspicious, not to mention the
Speaker 9: people themselves, some of the people she was living with
Speaker 9: or friends with, or you know, it just branches out
Speaker 9: and it's you know, and to me, and I'm sorry
Speaker 9: to say, I hate to sound so judgmental, but they
Speaker 9: all seem suspicious to me in their own way, and
Speaker 9: the majority of them do have criminal records. They are
Speaker 9: known drug users, and you know, so it's when you
Speaker 9: when you have a cast of characters like that, it's
Speaker 9: very difficult discerning who's an actual bad guy, you know
Speaker 9: what I mean?
Speaker 7: Certainly, I know that you are continuing with your investigation.
Speaker 7: This is in the end for you. This book. You
Speaker 7: talked about, the Wrong Man movie, Wrong Man series. Tell
Speaker 7: us a little bit more about the Wrong Man series
Speaker 7: when it airs again. Tell us about where they might
Speaker 7: look for Devil's Playground. Tell us a little bit about
Speaker 7: how they could contact you and find you online.
Speaker 9: Okay, well, Wrong Man has, like I said, that's on
Speaker 9: the Stars Network. They've already aired episode one of Vonda
Speaker 9: Smith's case. I think they titled it titled it the
Speaker 9: Case against Grandma, which is a little comical. So that
Speaker 9: that's already aired, so you can catch that now currently
Speaker 9: on Wrong Man Season two and episode two of Vonda
Speaker 9: Smith's Case will be airing this Sunday on the sixteenth,
Speaker 9: and I think that's going to air at nine pm
Speaker 9: Eastern Standard time, and that's the second episode. It will
Speaker 9: be the final episode, so we're all looking forward to that.
Speaker 9: I know those guys put in a lot of hard
Speaker 9: work and we definitely appreciate everything that they've done. And
Speaker 9: my book about the case, Devil's Playground, my publisher, Stephen
Speaker 9: Booth and his wife Leah Booth, are awesome of genius
Speaker 9: book publishing. You can find that for on You can
Speaker 9: pre order it now actually on Amazon, and it will
Speaker 9: be available officially released on Friday, Valentine's Day. So that's
Speaker 9: pretty cool. And if you want to get in touch
Speaker 9: with me, if I me on Twitter, my handles Nova
Speaker 9: West Underscore author pretty.
Speaker 6: Easy to find.
Speaker 9: And yeah, I just you know, I welcome everybody.
Speaker 6: To to buy the book. Would be great.
Speaker 9: You know, books say they are great, But more importantly,
Speaker 9: you know, we don't want to lose sight of what
Speaker 9: I'm doing here with the investigation, with the book, and
Speaker 9: that really is to get attention on Vona Smith's case.
Speaker 9: She I feel has been wrongly convicted. And that's one problem.
Speaker 9: The second problem is that if in fact she has
Speaker 9: been wrongly convicted and she is innocent of this crime,
Speaker 9: well then Jesse Morrison and her unborn baby don't have justice.
Speaker 9: The killer is still out there, or killers, and we
Speaker 9: need to find them. And so I do invite everybody
Speaker 9: to join us, join the investigation. You know, watch wrong Man,
Speaker 9: watch the show, read the book.
Speaker 8: We need help, We need your help.
Speaker 9: We basically are asking I'm asking you to become a
Speaker 9: slut and help me figure this thing out.
Speaker 6: Help me help my mom.
Speaker 9: You know, the two of us have been working on
Speaker 9: this for almost two years now, and we definitely could
Speaker 9: use the help.
Speaker 7: Absolutely, it's a very honorable endeavor. Certainly, thank you very
Speaker 7: much for coming on and talking about Devil's playground. God's
Speaker 7: country has blood on its hands. Nova West, Thank you
Speaker 7: very much, Nova West. You have a great evening. Hope
Speaker 7: to talk to you again soon.
Speaker 8: Thank you, Dan, thank you very much, thank you.
Speaker 2: Good night.