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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. Gasey, Bundy, Dahmer, The Nightstalker BTK. 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
Speaker 2: host journalist and author Dan Zupanski.
Speaker 4: Good Evening. When Bill Payne and Billy Jean Hayworth began
Speaker 4: their romance, they unknowingly set in motion a diabolic plot
Speaker 4: that would end with them murdered in their own home,
Speaker 4: Hayworth holding their mercifully unharmed infant. Chris was a CI
Speaker 4: agent who was concerned about Janelle, seeing the cyberbullying she
Speaker 4: had endured and worried for her safety. Chris got in
Speaker 4: touch with Janelle's protective parents and her devoted boyfriend, warning
Speaker 4: them that Pain and Hayworth were a danger to Janelle.
Speaker 4: He got especially close with Janelle's mother, Barbara, who thought
Speaker 4: of Chris like a son, though she had never met him.
Speaker 4: Chris claimed that surveillance of Pain and Hayworth revealed that
Speaker 4: the two of them were planning on harming Janelle, that
Speaker 4: it was imminent and that something needed to be done immediately.
Speaker 4: Chris promised that he would have their back if they
Speaker 4: were to act to protect Janelle, and so they did.
Speaker 4: Janelle's father, Buddy, and her boyfriend Jamie broke into the
Speaker 4: home of Pain and Hayworth and murdered them in their
Speaker 4: own home, but the police investigation turned up though made
Speaker 4: this crime all the more terrifying. Janelle had been Ris
Speaker 4: yes the entire time, catfishing her family and her boyfriend
Speaker 4: to act in vengeance on her behalf. Using forensic linguistics
Speaker 4: and driving through the brambles that Chanelle laid to cover
Speaker 4: her tracks, police were able to put together a chilling
Speaker 4: portrait of a sociopath made all the more ruthless by
Speaker 4: the anonymity of her online life. Bizarre and unforgettable, Dennis
Speaker 4: Brooks examines the crime and trial from all angles, bringing
Speaker 4: his expertise as the lead prosecutor in the strange and
Speaker 4: disturbing case. The book that we're featuring this Eating is
Speaker 4: Too Pretty to Live. The catfishing Murders of East Tennessee
Speaker 4: with my special guest, journalist and author and prosecutor Dennis Brooks.
Speaker 4: Welcome to the program and thank you for a Greediness interview.
Speaker 4: Dennis Brooks, Thank you for having me. Thank you very much.
Speaker 4: Incredible tale. Can you tell us a little bit about
Speaker 4: your background, Dennis, and how you came to want to
Speaker 4: write this book and how you came in a position
Speaker 4: to be able to write this book.
Speaker 3: Well, I'm in my mid forties. I grew up in
Speaker 3: East Tennessee, in the the foothills of the mountains that
Speaker 3: border North Carolina, and I actually had an aspiration to
Speaker 3: be a writer when I was young, and actually got
Speaker 3: to be a sports writer for the local paper while
Speaker 3: I was in college, and somehow gravitated towards the law.
Speaker 3: I graduated from University of Tennessee back in ninety eight
Speaker 3: and got a job with the local DA's office here
Speaker 3: where I grew up, and I've been here ever since,
Speaker 3: and somehow I've stumbled into going back to being so
Speaker 3: of a part time writer as well. So it's been
Speaker 3: an interesting journey. And you know, over the time as
Speaker 3: a prosecutor, I guess I gained some kind of a
Speaker 3: niche in prosecuting the murders in the air, a lot
Speaker 3: of the bigger ones. And we had a very shocking
Speaker 3: double murder in Johnson County, which is on the very
Speaker 3: northeast tip of the state. It borders Virginia in North Carolina,
Speaker 3: and I was asked to assist in the case, and
Speaker 3: that began the most interesting journey I've had in my
Speaker 3: prosecuting career.
Speaker 4: Now, set the stage for our audience and tell us
Speaker 4: where this crime occurred and described the area for our audience,
Speaker 4: if you could, please.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it happened in Mountain City or just outside the
Speaker 3: city limits. There's actually a Tennessee prison basically across the
Speaker 3: road from the scene of the crime. But Mountain City
Speaker 3: is the county seat of Johnson County. It's got a
Speaker 3: very small population. There's basically three grocery stores. Johnson County's
Speaker 3: mostly mountainous and there's I forget twelve thousand to fifteen
Speaker 3: thousand people live in the county completely, you know, in total,
Speaker 3: and you know it's it's the kind of place where
Speaker 3: everybody knows everybody. There's not a lot of secrets. You
Speaker 3: run into everybody at the post office or the grocery store.
Speaker 3: It's you know, it's a very friendly collection of people.
Speaker 3: You know, a lot of god fearing type, you know,
Speaker 3: people as you would expect in the South. And you know,
Speaker 3: this of course happened just outside Mountain City.
Speaker 4: Now, tell us a little bit about Barbara and about Buddy.
Speaker 4: And first tell us about Buddy because he's a Vietnam
Speaker 4: that so tell us a little bit about Buddy and
Speaker 4: a little bit about his background.
Speaker 3: Yeah, but he had a family I can't remember if
Speaker 3: he grew up actually in Johnson Canty family around in there,
Speaker 3: and you know, he had gone off to join the
Speaker 3: Marines as a teenager and went to Vietnam and uh, yeah,
Speaker 3: we there. There was talk from the Potter family that
Speaker 3: he had been involved in CIA missions while there, and
Speaker 3: you know, there's no way to confirm or deny that
Speaker 3: kind of kind of thing. Uh, but he, you know,
Speaker 3: he came back to the States after his service, had
Speaker 3: a workplace type accident that disabled him physically. So he
Speaker 3: collected basically disability check for you know, the rest of
Speaker 3: his adult life. He had he had married Barbara very
Speaker 3: early in his adulthood and they you know, they were
Speaker 3: in their fifties by the time the crime occurred. So,
Speaker 3: you know, they'd been married for a good long while.
Speaker 3: Most of their married life had happened had occurred up
Speaker 3: in Pennsylvania on the outskirts of Philadelphia, and there they
Speaker 3: raised two children, Christie and Janelle, Janelle being the younger
Speaker 3: of the two. And then they later moved to Tennessee
Speaker 3: to Johnson County because Barbara's mother was ill and she
Speaker 3: was i think power of attorney for her mother, and
Speaker 3: so she moved to get closer to her.
Speaker 4: Now, tell us a little bit about Barbara, and does
Speaker 4: the mother die and then so there's a difference in
Speaker 4: obviously it's affects Barbara. So tell us a little bit
Speaker 4: about Barbara and just her some of her behavior.
Speaker 3: Well, you know, to look at Barbara, she didn't you know,
Speaker 3: she looks, you know, like anyone else. There's nothing, there's nothing,
Speaker 3: you know, particularly unusual about her. And you know, we
Speaker 3: were able to study her writings to a great extent
Speaker 3: in this case because when you put her in front
Speaker 3: of a computer and have her type of email, she
Speaker 3: will she will write a book. She's the type of
Speaker 3: person that it takes you know, five minutes for her
Speaker 3: to say goodbye. In an email. So, uh, we we
Speaker 3: were able to get to know her very well. She
Speaker 3: held herself out to be a good Christian woman, a
Speaker 3: very upstanding person. But you know from from studying, you know,
Speaker 3: not just this case, but you know years past, that
Speaker 3: she's the type of person who always there's a conflict
Speaker 3: going on, There's there's some kind of conspiracy going on,
Speaker 3: and and uh, you know, we've never had the benefit
Speaker 3: of any kind of psychological profile being done on her,
Speaker 3: but you know, there's obviously some abnormality about her. You know, basically,
Speaker 3: just to put it in a nutshell, if if a
Speaker 3: person had a conflict with her, she would automatically in
Speaker 3: her mind believe that person wanted to have her dead
Speaker 3: or wanted her to die or kill her. And that
Speaker 3: that goes back just to like a state issues concerning
Speaker 3: her mother and then continued on through this case. It
Speaker 3: was just she's got this conspiratorial mind where there's always
Speaker 3: something going on. It's very unusual now you talk about
Speaker 3: that and sort of this obviously disconnect from reality. So
Speaker 3: what was the relationship like between her buddy and his
Speaker 3: wife Barbara. Did he go along with that, did he
Speaker 3: tolerate it? Did he recognize it is mental illness. What
Speaker 3: was the dynamic of the relationship in that regard? They
Speaker 3: seemed to be two peas in a pod. They had
Speaker 3: very close relationship, very loyal to one another, there's no question.
Speaker 3: But he loved her and Janelle to a great extent.
Speaker 3: And you know, it was harder for us to analyze
Speaker 3: Buddy because he wasn't might use the computer, so we
Speaker 3: didn't have benefit of a lot of his writings so
Speaker 3: we could get inside his head. We just basically had
Speaker 3: a few audio taped or videotaped interviews of him to
Speaker 3: benefit from try to get some insight into him. But
Speaker 3: from all indications, he loved his family a great deal,
Speaker 3: at least those two.
Speaker 4: Was there any alcoholism involved with Barbara or Buddy? It
Speaker 4: was a heavy drinkers or social drinkers. What was that situation.
Speaker 3: I don't think they drank at all. I don't think
Speaker 3: they ever used drugs. Whatever was wrong, it wasn't because
Speaker 3: of those two reasons.
Speaker 4: Now, tell us a little bit about Christy, but more
Speaker 4: importantly Janelle. He said, Janelle's younger daughter. What was life
Speaker 4: like for Christy in terms of with this dynamic with
Speaker 4: Barbara being not in touch with reality and the disabled
Speaker 4: father and then tell us about Janelle and her disabilities.
Speaker 3: Well, Christie was maybe six eight years older than Janelle,
Speaker 3: and you know, we've you know, we were able to
Speaker 3: get to know Christie and find out she was a normal,
Speaker 3: functioning member of society. I think she described it. She
Speaker 3: had a decent enough childhood, but as she got older,
Speaker 3: I believe there was more and more conflicts between her
Speaker 3: and her mother in particular, and a lot of conflicts
Speaker 3: arose because of Janelle. Janelle grew up with an auditory
Speaker 3: processing problem. And you know, basically, as Christie described it,
Speaker 3: you know, if you if, if if I joke to
Speaker 3: you that, you know, Ham want to whip your tail outside,
Speaker 3: and I do it in a joking manner, if you
Speaker 3: said the same thing to Janelle, she wouldn't be able
Speaker 3: to process that tone. She would take those words literally.
Speaker 3: So she was basically born with that kind of deffect
Speaker 3: and that probably held back her education process and she
Speaker 3: she basically became a special ed student and actually got
Speaker 3: a high school diploma, but it was in a special
Speaker 3: education category. And to hear Christy tell it, you know,
Speaker 3: her her younger sister was coddled too, much by her parents.
Speaker 4: And.
Speaker 3: As she described it, learned she learned to take advantage
Speaker 3: of her parents and exploit that and learned to manipulate
Speaker 3: her And and that's something that we saw very evident
Speaker 3: in the evidence in this case is that, you know,
Speaker 3: while Janelle was possibly operating at a at a lower
Speaker 3: intellectual level, she had quite a remarkable ability to manipulate people.
Speaker 4: Did you see any psychologist. Was there any diagnosis of
Speaker 4: anything with Janelle other than her physical disabilities? Was there
Speaker 4: any diagnosis from a psychologist or a psychiatrist. No.
Speaker 3: And I do need to add that Janelle, after she
Speaker 3: got out of high school, she never had a job.
Speaker 3: She immediately started collecting a disability check as well. So
Speaker 3: at the time of our crimes, Janelle is thirty years old.
Speaker 3: She's never left the home, she's never left the care
Speaker 3: of her parents, and never worked had a real substantial,
Speaker 3: you know, romantic relationship to speak of now. And I
Speaker 3: was discussing this with a lawyer today because he was
Speaker 3: asking me that same question about what were the psychologists saying, Well,
Speaker 3: they really say anything in this case because and as
Speaker 3: we found out, one was actually hired at doctor Ingham
Speaker 3: out of Knoxville was hired on Janelle's behalf, and he
Speaker 3: testified at trial, but basically he just limited his findings
Speaker 3: to her IQ and described her as functioning at a
Speaker 3: fifth grade level. But when it came down to the
Speaker 3: ideas of you know, was she not guilty by reason
Speaker 3: of insanity or did she have diminished mental capacity? He
Speaker 3: couldn't make an opinion on that because she had denied
Speaker 3: being involved in the case at all, in the crime.
Speaker 3: And basically, when psychologists are faced with someone that's telling them,
Speaker 3: you know, I didn't do that, I wasn't involved, then
Speaker 3: they really can't render opinions on those topics. So we
Speaker 3: were without benefit of an actual diagnosis.
Speaker 4: Now, what was the We talked about a little bit
Speaker 4: about what had happened with Buddy, but what was his
Speaker 4: real state of health when we're talking about this time
Speaker 4: here in twenty and twelve.
Speaker 3: Well, he had a prescription of an oxygen machine. I
Speaker 3: don't think he had it on all the time, but
Speaker 3: you know, quite often he'd have to use that, And
Speaker 3: I think he had a walker prescribed to him. But
Speaker 3: you know, he was able to walk on his own,
Speaker 3: maybe not fast, not quickly, but he was able to
Speaker 3: get around. But it became very important in how he
Speaker 3: analyzed the case, the fact that he wasn't as mobile
Speaker 3: as the victims that we we had in our case.
Speaker 4: Now for audience too, can you just describe buddy and
Speaker 4: you know, sort of size wise and stature, and tell
Speaker 4: us again what Janelle looks like as well.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, but he's a pretty good sized guy. He's
Speaker 3: he's a bit portly, but you know, tall and you know,
Speaker 3: if he goes out in public, he always has the
Speaker 3: veteran's hat on. You know, he's very proud of his
Speaker 3: service to his country. And he he had guns glory.
Speaker 3: When they did a search warn on his house, I
Speaker 3: think they pulled up over one hundred guns or so
Speaker 3: in the home. And when he would mow the yard,
Speaker 3: he would have two guns on his on one on
Speaker 3: each hip in a belt when he's mowing the yard.
Speaker 3: So you know, we we have Carrie permits in Tennessee
Speaker 3: and he took full advantage of it. So if he
Speaker 3: went to the grocery store, he had a gun on. Uh.
Speaker 3: Janelle was a tallish type woman. She's probably close to
Speaker 3: six foot tall, a little bit lanky, gangly when she walked.
Speaker 3: She on her Facebook page she loved taking selfies of herself,
Speaker 3: and some of them didn't look so bad. Some of
Speaker 3: them looked, you know, not so great. But from from
Speaker 3: from what I could glean from how she carried on
Speaker 3: on Facebook, I took it she was very self conscious
Speaker 3: about her looks. She would, you know, not to jump
Speaker 3: into the head of the story, but when when she
Speaker 3: would pose as someone else on the internet talking about herself,
Speaker 3: she would always remark how pretty and sweet and kind
Speaker 3: Janelle was. And that was sort of an early telltale
Speaker 3: sign that you know, anybody saying those things are probably
Speaker 3: going to be Janelle Potter.
Speaker 4: Right now. We talked about what at least we've described
Speaker 4: how protective her parents were, and you talked about when
Speaker 4: she's thirty years old, still no significant relationship whatsoever. But
Speaker 4: tell us what, let's go back just a little bit.
Speaker 4: What is the characteristic of the relationship she has as
Speaker 4: well that she when she does meet someone, what is
Speaker 4: her reaction. You talked about this auditory issue where she
Speaker 4: would not hear the sort of tone and inflection will say,
Speaker 4: or the intention of what the person was saying correctly,
Speaker 4: but how did she take relationships when she would meet people?
Speaker 4: What was her characteristic to that behavior.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah, of course I never had the benefit of
Speaker 3: experiencing that firsthand. But we had a lot of people
Speaker 3: that would tell us that she would come up to
Speaker 3: them in the grocery store and be overly friendly and
Speaker 3: want to hug them and take pictures with them. And
Speaker 3: you know, the people in John's County are pretty friendly,
Speaker 3: but they they they're like anybody else that seems a
Speaker 3: little odd from someone that you don't know. It's like
Speaker 3: she she really wanted to belong to groups of other
Speaker 3: people and be popular and be liked, but either either
Speaker 3: because of her own personality or things that she basically
Speaker 3: learned from Barbara Potter, h she she had a difficult
Speaker 3: time maintaining those relationships. She she wound up being befriended
Speaker 3: by Tracy Greenwell, who was the sister of one of
Speaker 3: our victims in our case, and years before the killings,
Speaker 3: Tracy had tried to uh she basically felt sorry for
Speaker 3: Janelle and thought, you know, she needed a friend and
Speaker 3: somebody to take her to the mall, and you know,
Speaker 3: just a good girlfriend. And and one thing that was
Speaker 3: really odd about it, she said that when she asked
Speaker 3: Janelle about going, you know, to go eat or that
Speaker 3: kind of thing. Tracy actually had to meet Janelle's parents
Speaker 3: so that they could get to know her and basically
Speaker 3: almost interview her to get permission to drive their daughter around,
Speaker 3: which is extremely unusual because that's an adult daughter, and
Speaker 3: you know, it's just two girls wanting to be friends.
Speaker 3: Having to go through an audition process of sorts with
Speaker 3: the parents, that's extremely unusual.
Speaker 4: Now, we talked about how protective her parents are and
Speaker 4: that she had no significant relationship. So let's introduce Jamie
Speaker 4: Kurd and how did she come in this protective cocoon
Speaker 4: that her parents had for her in her life? How
Speaker 4: on earth did she meet this Jamie Kurd under what circumstances?
Speaker 3: Well, it emanated from that friendship with Tracy Greenwell, by
Speaker 3: getting to know Tracy and hanging out with her, she
Speaker 3: was able to meet Bill Payne, who was Tracy's brother
Speaker 3: and one of the victims in our case. And by
Speaker 3: all intents and purposes, for a long time, Bill was
Speaker 3: friends with Janelle and at some point, of course, Janelle
Speaker 3: at the time of the crimes is thirty without any
Speaker 3: kind of significant relationship. But at the time of our crimes,
Speaker 3: also Jamie Kurd, who was Bill and Tracy's cousin. Jamie
Speaker 3: was thirty eight years old and everyone in the community
Speaker 3: told us he had never in his life had a girlfriend.
Speaker 3: He was a very socially backward awkward individual. He did
Speaker 3: get out of his house and have a job and work,
Speaker 3: but he was he was basically very I think Investigation
Speaker 3: Discovery called him the creepy cousin, and it might be
Speaker 3: a pretty good description. And they wound up introducing Janelle
Speaker 3: and Jamie together. They thought, well, this, this might be
Speaker 3: a good match because they both need someone in their life.
Speaker 3: And Janelle started to call Jamie. And the problem was Jamie,
Speaker 3: he's a little bit rough looking. And of course Barbara
Speaker 3: Potter is an upstanding member of society, has a very
Speaker 3: elevated view of herself, and she did not think Jamie
Speaker 3: was suitable as a boyfriend for Janelle. So Jamie and
Speaker 3: Janelle had to then conduct their relationship behind the scenes
Speaker 3: in secret.
Speaker 4: And really the focus of this book, or the central
Speaker 4: I guess issue in this book is something called catfishing,
Speaker 4: but we won't talk about that quite yet. But what
Speaker 4: you do describe in the book is something I guess
Speaker 4: a lot of us don't think of that live in
Speaker 4: urban areas. Is the importance of the Internet and Facebook.
Speaker 4: So tell us a little bit about Janelle and how
Speaker 4: important Facebook and the Internet was for her in her life.
Speaker 3: Well, it's it's, you know, the Internet sort of become
Speaker 3: the great equalizer. You know, you don't have to live
Speaker 3: in the municipality to make, you know, to make friendships,
Speaker 3: reformed bonds with people. Uh, the Internet can allow you
Speaker 3: to do that. So that was sort of you know,
Speaker 3: it seemed like Janelle's escape from her boring life was
Speaker 3: to get on the Internet and make friends with other people.
Speaker 3: And uh, she she spent a tremendous amount of time
Speaker 3: on the on the computer. It created a lot of
Speaker 3: conflict with other people because inevitably people would defriend her
Speaker 3: or you know, unfriended her because she would get out
Speaker 3: of line in the in the things she would say,
Speaker 3: and her parents would get upset. They actually had the
Speaker 3: nine to one one director there in Johnson County at
Speaker 3: one point had defriended her over you know, something she
Speaker 3: had said, and uh, Janelle's parents actually took her down
Speaker 3: the sheriff and basically wanted to do a report on
Speaker 3: the nine one one director defriending their daughter, and uh
Speaker 3: that that's obviously extremely strange behavior, but you know that
Speaker 3: that was her way of interacting with the world. Unfortunately
Speaker 3: she misused it great a great deal.
Speaker 4: But that demonstrates too of the one mind that the
Speaker 4: three of them were even at that time, which is
Speaker 4: will be important later in the story one it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, they were. They were just a team. They
Speaker 3: you know, no matter what outrageous thing Janelle would do
Speaker 3: or say, it never it never gets corrected by her parents.
Speaker 3: You know, there's no filter there between the three. You know,
Speaker 3: whatever outrageous thing one person does, it's accepted by the
Speaker 3: other two. And that's that's something that really struck me.
Speaker 4: Now, let's introduce some of the other central figures in US.
Speaker 4: Maybe we can introduce Lindsey and maybe we're going to
Speaker 4: introduce Tara and tell us a little bit about these
Speaker 4: young ladies.
Speaker 3: Well, well, what happens is is Janelle gets introduced to Jamie.
Speaker 3: They start this secret relationship and Bill Payne, the male
Speaker 3: victim who's the cousin of Jamie, he winds up meeting
Speaker 3: a female at work, a younger female named Billy Jean Hayworth,
Speaker 3: and they go get on the fast track to a
Speaker 3: serious relationship. Billy Jean's got some friends, Lindsey Thomas being
Speaker 3: one a very close friend of hers.
Speaker 4: Uh.
Speaker 3: There's a Tara Osborne who is also in the narrative
Speaker 3: in the book. She's actually the wife of Brad Osborne,
Speaker 3: who's a very close friend of Bill's. So what happens
Speaker 3: once Bill and Billy Jean start their serious relationship everyone
Speaker 3: in that circle becomes a target of Janelle Potter's delusions.
Speaker 4: In iire, what is the nature of these delusions? What
Speaker 4: exactly does he think these people, in trying to have
Speaker 4: a relationship are doing to her?
Speaker 3: Well, it was it was something that I you know,
Speaker 3: you always trying to figure out why does someone do
Speaker 3: what they do when when a serious crime happens, And
Speaker 3: I had I had concluded that they I believed it
Speaker 3: all emanated from Janelle wanting Bill Payne in some romantic fashion,
Speaker 3: and when he then turns to Billy Jean for that
Speaker 3: kind of relationship, they move in together and Billy jan
Speaker 3: becomes pregnant, then that then started this raging conduct that
Speaker 3: we observe in this case on Janille Potter's part, and
Speaker 3: that probably came out of a jealousy. You know, she's
Speaker 3: cooped up in the house. Parents won't take their thumb
Speaker 3: off of her. You know, she can't have a husband
Speaker 3: and a child and you know, a life of her own.
Speaker 3: And when she sees Billy Jean get that, you know,
Speaker 3: you can see through these emails that she did not
Speaker 3: like that. She was very jealous of it. And and
Speaker 3: so then Billy Jean and all of her friends, all
Speaker 3: those girls wind up in Janelle's sites.
Speaker 4: So what happens is is that they have issues on
Speaker 4: Facebook and just on social media in general, emailing each
Speaker 4: other in Facebook. What tell us some of the events
Speaker 4: that happened that, you know, to add to the delusion
Speaker 4: that Janelle is already having and will set in motion
Speaker 4: her decision to be coming off, you know, have an
Speaker 4: alter ego and interact online.
Speaker 3: Though when when Billy Jean came into Bill's life, I
Speaker 3: believe the the facts were that Janelle starts sending Facebook
Speaker 3: friend requests to Billy Jean and her friend Lindsey, and
Speaker 3: basically she's friends with everybody. They don't really know or
Speaker 3: what they accept the request, And as Lindsay described it,
Speaker 3: Janelle started tagging her her name to pictures that had
Speaker 3: nothing to do with her, and that sort of annoyed them.
Speaker 3: And then Janelle would start basically trash talking or saying
Speaker 3: bad things about some of the girls, and that caused
Speaker 3: a reaction from the others, as you would imagine. And
Speaker 3: you know, even though Johnson County people are friendly people,
Speaker 3: they're like anybody else. If you there's buttons you can
Speaker 3: push and you can get a reaction from it. So, uh, Billy,
Speaker 3: Jean and Lindsey both defriend Janelle. Other girls defriend her,
Speaker 3: and and I guess that comes as a personal affront
Speaker 3: to jen and adds to the conflict. You know, of course,
Speaker 3: if Lindsay then described that she was getting all these
Speaker 3: harassing phone calls from the Potter house and is basically
Speaker 3: someone calling and not saying anything, and you know, eventually
Speaker 3: Lindsey takes it upon herself to call back and try
Speaker 3: to tell them, you know, stop doing this. And you know,
Speaker 3: the Potters, every time they're accused of doing something, they
Speaker 3: automatically deny the allegation and want to act like someone
Speaker 3: else is spoofing their numbers or or hacking their emails.
Speaker 3: And you know, they never take responsibility for anything they
Speaker 3: ever do, so So I had the theory that once
Speaker 3: once someone fights back and tries to confront the Potters,
Speaker 3: then in their delusional state, the Potters see that as
Speaker 3: a sign of aggression from the other people. So Janelle's
Speaker 3: drawing this reaction and then being able to show it
Speaker 3: to her parents that that, you know, see, they don't
Speaker 3: like me, they hate me.
Speaker 4: Now, to add to this entire mix, and this is important,
Speaker 4: is that Buddy was a Vietnam VET. But it seems
Speaker 4: like there's some exaggeration to some of the things that
Speaker 4: he experienced in Vietnam and teller audience too, kind of
Speaker 4: the kinds of things, the kind of talk that he
Speaker 4: would often talk regarding Vietnam, and tell us a.
Speaker 3: Little bit about you. You know, he once went down
Speaker 3: to the sheriff's office and had conference with the sheriff
Speaker 3: and told him, you, I've killed people before, and I've
Speaker 3: worked for the CIA, and the CIA's about to reactivate me,
Speaker 3: and I just wanted to let you know as a courtesy.
Speaker 3: You know, here's a man that's you know, fifty or
Speaker 3: so years old and physically disabled walking into the sheriff's
Speaker 3: office and telling the sheriff, I'm about to be reactivated
Speaker 3: to the CIA. And you know, we saw in the
Speaker 3: emails a preoccupation on Barbara Potter's part that that Buddy
Speaker 3: get a CIAI D and pressing, you know, concerned that
Speaker 3: that that identifications apparently caught up in bureaucratic channels, and
Speaker 3: you know, they have a very high elevated view of themselves.
Speaker 3: And you know, at one point I was able to
Speaker 3: cross examine Barbara Potter on the stand and she admitted
Speaker 3: to me that Buddy had continued to work in the CIA.
Speaker 3: And it's it's just a bizarre state of mind they
Speaker 3: were in.
Speaker 4: So let's talk about now, you know, there's a segue here, Well,
Speaker 4: let's talk about this Chris person and who gets contacted
Speaker 4: first from this Chris person, and what is the correspondence like,
Speaker 4: who is this Chris uh pretending to be?
Speaker 3: Well, when I when I first got the case, I
Speaker 3: got into it several months after the crimes happened and
Speaker 3: the first people were charged, and I immediately was intrigued
Speaker 3: by these Chris em that were they were basically coming
Speaker 3: from Janelle's email account in her Facebook account, and they
Speaker 3: were written by, you know, someone who was purporting to
Speaker 3: be a CIA agent out in the field doing very
Speaker 3: important things for the country. But the the writing style
Speaker 3: was not of what I would expect to have a
Speaker 3: federal agent. He was, you know, it was obviously sort
Speaker 3: of similar to what Janelle Potter would write, right, And
Speaker 3: these these emails from Chris would basically started by the
Speaker 3: same time Billy Jean started a relationship with Bill, and
Speaker 3: they basically went out to two different people. Chris would
Speaker 3: write to Barbara, Janelle's mother. He wrote to her a lot.
Speaker 3: She would write back. You could you could tell from
Speaker 3: the emails Barbara held a great deal of affection towards Chris.
Speaker 3: He was like the son she had never had. And
Speaker 3: you know, the emails toward toward Jamie, Janelle's boyfriend, they
Speaker 3: were of a different tone. It was more like a
Speaker 3: hey man, let me give you some love advice for Janelle.
Speaker 3: And he basically became like the relationship advisor for Jamie
Speaker 3: in dealing with Janelle. So, to make a long story short,
Speaker 3: Janelle Potter, who was offering these Chris emails, she knew
Speaker 3: the delusions and the vulnerabilities of each of these two
Speaker 3: people and she exploited them through how she wrote to them,
Speaker 3: how she approached them and they bought it.
Speaker 4: Now you talked about one important thing that's a hook
Speaker 4: for Buddy and for Barbara is that this reactivition of
Speaker 4: a Buddy as a CI agent, an active CIA agent.
Speaker 4: And to that end, Barbara either asks or Chris suggests
Speaker 4: or offers tell us about this offer of through Chris
Speaker 4: to help Buddy, and what that correspondence entel.
Speaker 3: Well, Chris assured them that he was talking to his
Speaker 3: bosses and getting Buddy his IDs so he could go
Speaker 3: on missions. And Barber's responding that she wants that for him.
Speaker 3: That Buddy's excited and wants to teach Chris some things
Speaker 3: he knows, and he wants to go help Chris round
Speaker 3: up the bad guys and do good things. And they
Speaker 3: go through I don't know how many emails back and
Speaker 3: forth about that, and Chris always finding an excuse for
Speaker 3: the ID not to arrive. And there's all kinds of
Speaker 3: you know, Christy, the older sister of Janelle. There's a
Speaker 3: whole lot in early twenty eleven where we see Chris
Speaker 3: reporting on Christie's goings on and all the evil things
Speaker 3: they perceive her to be doing. And now those were
Speaker 3: quite disturbing, and they're included in my book too, just
Speaker 3: it gives a lot of insight into Barbara's paranoias and
Speaker 3: obsessions and delusions.
Speaker 4: Part of the undercover work that Chris is doing on
Speaker 4: behalf of the family tell us about what he says
Speaker 4: he's doing and in actuality, what he actually is doing
Speaker 4: with Will's family.
Speaker 3: As twenty eleven develops, you know, and the one thing
Speaker 3: that was just obviously apparent anything Chris wrote about, anything
Speaker 3: he cared about, was Janelle centric. You know, if someone
Speaker 3: was upsetting Janelle, he was upset. And he he winds
Speaker 3: up reporting in his emails to Barbara that he's been
Speaker 3: him and his guys have been conducting surveillance on the
Speaker 3: on Bill Payne's household and listening to their jail their
Speaker 3: phone calls, and reporting all the evil things going on
Speaker 3: in that house and the plots that they are hatching
Speaker 3: against Janelle. At different points he's reporting that they're planning
Speaker 3: some very harsh things towards Janelle, possibly even to kill her,
Speaker 3: and not to let her be out alone in public,
Speaker 3: to always have someone with her, and to always be
Speaker 3: carrying a gun. It was that serious. And every time
Speaker 3: he writes something like that, whatever he writes, Barbara Potter
Speaker 3: believes it.
Speaker 4: Now tell us, could we skipped over a little bit
Speaker 4: why Jamie Kurr is not really welcomed into the family,
Speaker 4: But we're going to have to explain how he still
Speaker 4: has some involvement with this. So, I know you talk
Speaker 4: about in the book this incredible secret relationship with the
Speaker 4: thirty year old and him not having a relationship before
Speaker 4: he buys her a phone so that they can communicate
Speaker 4: because he can't certainly can't even call the home. So
Speaker 4: tell us about what Chris tells Jamie while he's telling Barbara,
Speaker 4: who communicates obviously with Buddy. So tell us what the
Speaker 4: narrative is for him her boyfriend.
Speaker 3: Well, Jamie had been welcomed into the Potter home at
Speaker 3: some point because he was sort of handy working on computers,
Speaker 3: and you know, they would have computer problems and want
Speaker 3: Jamie to come over and fix it. And at some
Speaker 3: point he grew out of favor with Janelle's parents and
Speaker 3: he wasn't welcomed there anymore, and they quit talking to him.
Speaker 3: And he buys Janelle a cell phone that and throws
Speaker 3: it out in a bush at her property with instructions
Speaker 3: for he to go retrieve it and then they can
Speaker 3: text when her parents aren't watching, and she has to
Speaker 3: hide the cell phone from her mother. At what happens is,
Speaker 3: you know, as Chris is writing emails for Barbara reporting
Speaker 3: on the evil things that Bill Payne and Billy Jeing
Speaker 3: Hayworth are doing. The victims in the case, they he
Speaker 3: they they you could you can tell each of them
Speaker 3: want to, you know, basically put an end to the
Speaker 3: harassment in the in the fret, and Barbara wants basically
Speaker 3: Chris uh to go along with Buddy and take care
Speaker 3: of the problem as it were, And obviously that can't
Speaker 3: happen because Chris isn't real. But as we developed our case,
Speaker 3: we we realize that if he's going to hunt down
Speaker 3: to younger people who are more mobile, but he needs help,
Speaker 3: he needs somebody to basically man the door. So as
Speaker 3: Barbara is wanting Chris to be the second person, Chris
Speaker 3: obviously knows he can't do that. So Janelle is Chris
Speaker 3: is writing to Jamie at the same time and in
Speaker 3: trying to soothe the wounds between him and Barbara, her mother,
Speaker 3: and at the same time, Chris is writing emails back
Speaker 3: to Barbara suggesting Jamie as the person who could help
Speaker 3: Buddy in this mission. And it takes some time for
Speaker 3: Barbara to warm up to that idea, but that's how
Speaker 3: the emails progress. She winds up then writing to Jamie.
Speaker 3: You can see the manipulation in her writings towards Jamie,
Speaker 3: trying to lure him into a possible conspiracy.
Speaker 4: Now, what is it before we get to the actual
Speaker 4: murder itself? What exactly could possibly Chris say that Billy,
Speaker 4: Jean and Bill were planning to do? And why?
Speaker 3: Well, and there's so many things going on in this
Speaker 3: case is so layered. There's one thing I've not mentioned
Speaker 3: that was going on at the time. There were some
Speaker 3: cases going on where Janelle was cars with harassment, like
Speaker 3: against Lindsey, against Tara we've described before, and that was
Speaker 3: very stressful for Janelle because in the in Barbara Potter's mind,
Speaker 3: if Janelle goes to jail, she'll die because she's got
Speaker 3: health ailments and they won't be able to take care
Speaker 3: of her there and she'll surely die. And so that
Speaker 3: stuff is playing out at the same time. And I
Speaker 3: think I've forgotten your question. It's just such a layered case.
Speaker 4: Well, what exactly you know, I mean, he was saying
Speaker 4: many things, Chris was saying many things about the threat
Speaker 4: of Bill and Billy Jean. But what specifically did he
Speaker 4: say that just sort of the straw that broke the
Speaker 4: camel's back and then got these people that were already
Speaker 4: getting ready or readying themselves. What exactly specifically did he
Speaker 4: say that? Okay, that was it. That's it.
Speaker 3: I don't think there was a specific thing that was
Speaker 3: ever said. But they were always allusions to lots going
Speaker 3: on against Janelle, and in at times he would say
Speaker 3: they want to kill her, or they they want to
Speaker 3: hurt her, you know, to a great deal. And so
Speaker 3: early in this that that was understood by Janelle's parents
Speaker 3: far a lot, far longer than when the actual crime
Speaker 3: took place. And and really the I think the reason
Speaker 3: that it took some time for the crime to happen
Speaker 3: was they were just trying to get everything together at
Speaker 3: the right time.
Speaker 4: Well, tell us about the faithful event and just what
Speaker 4: happens just beforehand. Tell us about that we create the scene.
Speaker 3: Well, you know, by we we wound up getting the
Speaker 3: cooperation of Jamie Kurt. He was really the one that
Speaker 3: sort of broke the case he he was the one
Speaker 3: that gave the initial statement after filling a polygraph that
Speaker 3: you know, open the door to the authority has been
Speaker 3: able to make charges on him and Buddy and get
Speaker 3: the search warrants that we needed to get into those emails,
Speaker 3: all that content that we wound up analyzing what happens.
Speaker 3: Jamie wounds up telling us that he had gone over
Speaker 3: to work on the computer at the potterhouse the night
Speaker 3: before the killings, and Buddy had said that I need
Speaker 3: you to go do something for me. Will you do
Speaker 3: that for me? And he goes, yeah, Sure. Well, through
Speaker 3: the night, like three in the morning, four in the morning,
Speaker 3: there's all this texting activity between Janelle and she's writing
Speaker 3: as herself in these and Janie and she's basically getting
Speaker 3: proughting him to call her dad. And then once he
Speaker 3: calls her dad, she's reporting on him leaving the residents.
Speaker 3: And what Jamie says is that you know, she called
Speaker 3: and said, you know, Dad wants you to do that
Speaker 3: thing for him. Will you call him? And so he
Speaker 3: does and Buddy comes and picks him up in the
Speaker 3: truck and they drive down to the pain residence. They
Speaker 3: park at a church parking lot, that's basically a field away,
Speaker 3: and Buddy sits and waits and watches, and he waits
Speaker 3: until Bill's father leaves for work. You see the lights
Speaker 3: coming off of his truck pulling out, and they basically
Speaker 3: walk across the field and when they get to the residence,
Speaker 3: Bill hands Jamie a gun. Jamie tells him you that
Speaker 3: I can't kill a person, and Bud says, you won't
Speaker 3: have to. I just want you to guard that door.
Speaker 3: They enter the door and this is still dark in
Speaker 3: the morning. People are getting ready to go to work.
Speaker 3: Bill was getting ready to go to work. Billy Jean
Speaker 3: was making a bottle for her seven month old baby, Tyler,
Speaker 3: and they were still in their sleeping clothes and Buddy
Speaker 3: very quickly shoots Bill in the face right below his
Speaker 3: left eye. It kills him. Bill also sustained a big
Speaker 3: cut to his throat, to the front of his throat,
Speaker 3: and Billy Jean escapes that room. She can't exit because
Speaker 3: Jamie Kurr is covering the door, and so she goes
Speaker 3: into another room, which is basically the baby's nursery. She's
Speaker 3: holding her baby in her arms and gets a gunshot
Speaker 3: wound from Buddy to the right side of her head,
Speaker 3: it exits the other side, and each single shot killed
Speaker 3: the victims almost immediately, and then they left the residence.
Speaker 4: Who discovers the bodies and tell us about the state
Speaker 4: of the infant.
Speaker 3: Well hours later. There's a Roy Stevens who's a family
Speaker 3: friend of the Pains, who basically was getting his mail
Speaker 3: at the pain residence and they would stick it up
Speaker 3: on the fireplace mantel, and he came to check his mail.
Speaker 3: When he arrived, he saw that Bill's vehicle was still there,
Speaker 3: which was unusual because he should have been at work
Speaker 3: at that time, he knew, But the house was quiet,
Speaker 3: and you know, he expected if Bill wasn't at work,
Speaker 3: he'd be there and Billy Jean would be there and
Speaker 3: the baby would be present, and there would be noise,
Speaker 3: there'd be some commotion. There wasn't any. It was still,
Speaker 3: and so he went into the first bedroom. He saw
Speaker 3: Bill's body laying there on the bed, face up, and
Speaker 3: ran out to get the attention of his wife to
Speaker 3: call nine to one one, and he ran back in
Speaker 3: wondering where Billy Jean was. He finds her in the
Speaker 3: other bedroom and in her arms is Tyler, who is
Speaker 3: still alive, but as they described it, he he wasn't
Speaker 3: making any sounds. He was probably too exhausted from the
Speaker 3: crying that you know, probably he had endured for the
Speaker 3: last four or five hours.
Speaker 4: Right now, how do what do Buddy and Jamie do
Speaker 4: preceding this? What's their be what do they do?
Speaker 3: Well? The police obviously start looking for suspects, and you know,
Speaker 3: from all indications in the community, the only people that
Speaker 3: had a beef with the mister Payne miss Hayworth was
Speaker 3: the Potters and possibly Jamie Kurd as well, and so
Speaker 3: they very quickly tried to interview them. They interviewed all
Speaker 3: three of the Potters at once in their living room
Speaker 3: and we had an hour long conversation where they basically
Speaker 3: he denied any involvement, any participation in the crimes. But
Speaker 3: what was striking during that hour was that it was
Speaker 3: full of invective towards the victims. And I detailed that
Speaker 3: in the book, and that was very significant, I think
Speaker 3: to the jury that you know, just twenty four hours
Speaker 3: after these tragic crime happens, the Potters are trashing the
Speaker 3: victims as much as they can with the cops, and
Speaker 3: Jamie Kird gave a statement denied involvement, but they asked
Speaker 3: him to come back in for polygraph. He bombed the
Speaker 3: polygraph and he started he you know from watching the tape,
Speaker 3: it was obviously he was cornered and was very vulnerable,
Speaker 3: and the police were able to get out of him
Speaker 3: that Buddy Potter had done and he had been there,
Speaker 3: and that then prompted them to be able to get
Speaker 3: an interview again with Buddy Potters. They arrested him for
Speaker 3: a first gree murder and after a little bit of
Speaker 3: work on him and divulging to him that they had
Speaker 3: a audio tape conversation between him and Jamie Kurr, his
Speaker 3: defenses broke down and he admitted to doing the crime,
Speaker 3: and he very tearfully recounted the reasons why, which is
Speaker 3: basically to protect his family, that Janelle Potter her life
Speaker 3: was in danger and he put an end to that.
Speaker 4: Now, it sounds like it might be an open shut here,
Speaker 4: but that's not what happens exactly, because it's not easy
Speaker 4: to prosecute these women, Janelle and Barbara. So you explain
Speaker 4: in your book in great detail how you go about
Speaker 4: doing that and the breaks that you need to be
Speaker 4: able to do that. You talk about Jamie Curtis as well.
Speaker 4: That retracts his confession fairly soon, but you say it
Speaker 4: was still valuable to get information from him at that
Speaker 4: point because there is a point where you basically not
Speaker 4: too much, was there.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, you can't just go out and get
Speaker 3: email content from people just because you want it. You
Speaker 3: gotta have probable calls. You've got expensive judge that you've
Speaker 3: got probable calls the reason to get it. And the
Speaker 3: Jamie Courage statement gave them that because he he wound
Speaker 3: up in one big question he gave after after the
Speaker 3: end of his statement, everything sort of settling down, he
Speaker 3: just pops up this crazy question, is the CIA here?
Speaker 3: Because you know, basically in being catfished by the Chris emails. Uh,
Speaker 3: Chris had always told him the CIA had his back,
Speaker 3: and Barbara had written to Jamie that the CIA's got
Speaker 3: our back. And basically what happens and when when he
Speaker 3: asked that question that investigators had no idea that there
Speaker 3: was anything about the CIA involved in this case, and
Speaker 3: they were taking aback and didn't really pursue the questioning.
Speaker 3: But he we able to We were able to then
Speaker 3: get the emails and we saw exactly what he was
Speaker 3: talking about, which was these Chris emails. So not only
Speaker 3: did you get to warrant and get the emails and
Speaker 3: the Facebook posts, but what I thought was really fascinating,
Speaker 3: again very vivid imagery. Here was the tell us about
Speaker 3: the bags of garbage and what was in the bags
Speaker 3: of garbage and the job somebody had to do with that. Yeah,
Speaker 3: during that hour long conversation in the living or living
Speaker 3: room where the Potters are denying involvement and acting like
Speaker 3: they have no idea who might have done this to
Speaker 3: the victims, during that time, they full well knew there
Speaker 3: were multiple bags of garbage in the back of Buddy's
Speaker 3: truck in the garage that contained shredded documents. And it
Speaker 3: was the job of one lady down at the tv
Speaker 3: our Crime Lab in Nashville to piece those things together,
Speaker 3: and she was able to piece enough of them together
Speaker 3: to see what it was was these correspondence messages between
Speaker 3: Barbara Engine and Chris. And Yeah, that was very significant,
Speaker 3: I think to the jury, the fact that they're denying
Speaker 3: any involvement, any knowledge, and yet they've got these destroyed
Speaker 3: documents in the back of the truck. That's you know,
Speaker 3: they just hadn't gotten to the dump quick enough.
Speaker 4: So tell us how they they proceed in trying to
Speaker 4: get information that will be significant in the prosecution of
Speaker 4: Barbara and Janelle. Well, we had the tell our audience
Speaker 4: if if if Buddy, if Buddy is protective of his wife,
Speaker 4: and it's Jimmy protective of Janelle.
Speaker 3: Yeah, neither one of them would say a thing against
Speaker 3: those women, neither one of them. And so the only
Speaker 3: route going after them was to actually just use the
Speaker 3: words they had used through their email accounts. Uh. The
Speaker 3: trick to it, though, and what seemed insurmountable at first, was,
Speaker 3: you know, you got to prove who wrote what, and
Speaker 3: there the IP addresses on the on the emails are
Speaker 3: both coming back to the Potter residence. There's basically one
Speaker 3: computer there. So you've got two people typing, and you've
Speaker 3: got to attribute this statement to this person, that statement
Speaker 3: to the other person. And that was complicated by the
Speaker 3: fact that somebody is masking their identity as this Chris character.
Speaker 3: And you know, this isn't a case that I'm used
Speaker 3: to doing. I'm used to doing more straightforward murder cases,
Speaker 3: and I just I got on Google one night and
Speaker 3: just trying to search for some experts. When I was
Speaker 3: reading it, I had the common sense perspective that, you know,
Speaker 3: I think Janelle's writing this stuff on her email account
Speaker 3: as Chris. But you know, I can't get up in
Speaker 3: front of the jury and just start spouting my opinion.
Speaker 3: And I was afraid that the cops couldn't do the same.
Speaker 3: So I found a field of forensic scientists that's called
Speaker 3: forensic linguistics, and made contact with a doctor, Robert Leonard
Speaker 3: at a Hostra university who was a expert in the field,
Speaker 3: and he started guiding us through how to go about
Speaker 3: proving the authorship of these emails. And that was a
Speaker 3: laborious task, to say the least.
Speaker 4: Now you make a decision or your office makes a
Speaker 4: decision and in conjunction with you, to how to prosecute
Speaker 4: these people once there's enough information and evidence. So how
Speaker 4: do you do this? Who gets separated? And what's the
Speaker 4: strategy behind that or the reasons they hind that.
Speaker 3: I could say, well, we you know, we had to
Speaker 3: attribute the emails to each each woman and then categorize
Speaker 3: and condense them to where a jury could could swallow them,
Speaker 3: you know, so to speak, and you know, along the way,
Speaker 3: we're having to analyze it in the in the terms
Speaker 3: of the criminal responsibility for the conduct of another statute.
Speaker 3: And basically this the thing kind of challenge we had
Speaker 3: was the know what California prosecutors had many years ago,
Speaker 3: as Charles Manson, they had to go after him for
Speaker 3: murders of people that you know, he didn't commit those murders.
Speaker 3: He wasn't present, There was no proof he was present,
Speaker 3: but he had directed others to do that on his behalf.
Speaker 3: And in Tennessee, like a lot of states, probably has
Speaker 3: a criminal responsibility statue where you're guilty of my crime
Speaker 3: if you directed, solicited, aided, or attempted to aid me
Speaker 3: in doing the crime, and you intended for the crime
Speaker 3: to happen. So we had to pen the women under
Speaker 3: one of those four options. And we believed that the
Speaker 3: when you looked at the you know, the the wide
Speaker 3: swath of emails, it appeared they were directing the men
Speaker 3: to do their bidding and eliminate these victims. But also
Speaker 3: as we developed our theory coming closer to trial, it
Speaker 3: was obvious to me that they were attempting to aid
Speaker 3: Buddy Potter in the killings because they they had to
Speaker 3: realize that Buddy couldn't do that himself. If he enters
Speaker 3: the home and shoots one person, the other younger person's
Speaker 3: gonna be able to slip out the door and get
Speaker 3: away into darkness. And so he had to have that
Speaker 3: second person, and in recruiting Jamie Kirr to be that
Speaker 3: second person, they inevitably attempted to aid Buddy in committing
Speaker 3: the crimes. So we had to take those words, even
Speaker 3: though we know they're probably still back at the Potter
Speaker 3: house when the crimes happened. We use those words to
Speaker 3: show they were responsible for the crimes. And as I
Speaker 3: told the jury in closing argument, you know, if I
Speaker 3: asked them to, you know, just close your eyes and
Speaker 3: imagine this crime happening without Janelle Potter being involved. And
Speaker 3: do the same thing for Barbara Potter. Close your eyes
Speaker 3: and imagine. And if you can't imagine these crimes happening
Speaker 3: without these women being involved, and you knew in your
Speaker 3: heart what the verdict needs to be, and luckily that's
Speaker 3: what the verdict was. Was guilty.
Speaker 4: What was the verdict for Buddy? What was his sentence?
Speaker 4: What did he receive?
Speaker 3: Well, Buddy was found guilty to count's first degree murder
Speaker 3: in a separate trial. That was the first trial we had.
Speaker 3: It was just him and he got two life sentences
Speaker 3: for that and he's in prison over it. And then
Speaker 3: the second subsequent trial occurred, this last May made twenty fifteen,
Speaker 3: and that involved Barbara and Janelle and they both got
Speaker 3: too guilty verdicts for first degree murder and also received
Speaker 3: life sentences, and Jamie Curdiner in cooperating with us, he
Speaker 3: was able to get a reduced sentence of twenty five
Speaker 3: years with some possibility parole.
Speaker 4: Right. One of Buddy's defense was that he was too
Speaker 4: weak as a result of using oxygen. That didn't really
Speaker 4: fly with the jury obviously.
Speaker 3: Yeah, And that defence was in context of trying to
Speaker 3: knock out his confession as it were that he was
Speaker 3: deprid of his oxygen during the interview with the tb
Speaker 3: I and thus wasn't in his right mind and said
Speaker 3: something he didn't mean, so that that didn't fly at all.
Speaker 4: Uh. There was a casey Sears for Jamie kurd and Cameron,
Speaker 4: a Hydra for for Janelle. So these were not inadequate lawyers.
Speaker 4: These were decent lawyers that these guys had at this trial, weren't.
Speaker 3: They Yeah, everybody had fine lawyers. Mister Hyder used to
Speaker 3: be a renowned assistant Attorney General in Nashville. You know,
Speaker 3: mister Sears represented mister mister Kurd very well. Randy Fallon's
Speaker 3: old trial lawyer from Florida that moved up to Johnson
Speaker 3: County years ago. And you know, he's shown his skills
Speaker 3: in the courtroom to me, and he wound up representing
Speaker 3: Buddy in his trial as well as Barbara and in
Speaker 3: her trial.
Speaker 4: What was the most dramatic point in any of the
Speaker 4: trials regarding these four men characters.
Speaker 3: Well, it really didn't happen here. And during a trial
Speaker 3: when we had a pre trial motion on Buddy's case,
Speaker 3: they tried to knock out his confession on the theory
Speaker 3: that he was without his oxygen and he was tired.
Speaker 3: It was an odd hour of the night. And when
Speaker 3: they did that, they put Barbara Potter on the stand.
Speaker 3: And Barbara and Janelle at the time were not charged.
Speaker 3: In unbeknownst to them, I was working up a strategy
Speaker 3: in case to present to the grand jury against them
Speaker 3: using doctor Lennard's work, and so she takes the stand,
Speaker 3: and she's never really been interrogated after the hour long
Speaker 3: interview in the living room the day after the killings. So,
Speaker 3: you know, I had the opportunity to then question someone
Speaker 3: that I was planning on charging the first degree murder,
Speaker 3: and that was highly unusual. That was first time I
Speaker 3: ever experienced that, And I went through a lot of
Speaker 3: detail in the book recounting that event in getting a
Speaker 3: very important admission from her during that that I was
Speaker 3: able to use a trial against her.
Speaker 4: How beneficial was Buddy's reluctance and basically their reluctance to
Speaker 4: a lawyer up immediately and be questioned with a lawyer,
Speaker 4: How beneficial was that for you?
Speaker 3: Well, and it's one point I made in the book
Speaker 3: was that you know a lot of defendants are willing
Speaker 3: to make statements to the police, and they think as
Speaker 3: long as they don't say you know, I did it,
Speaker 3: that they're okay. But you know, a skilled prosecutor can
Speaker 3: find value in just about anything that's said out of
Speaker 3: the males of someone who's guilty, even when they're not
Speaker 3: admitting something. And you know, so we had an our
Speaker 3: long interview there in the living room, the Potters that
Speaker 3: all three Potters were involved during and I found that
Speaker 3: to be significant for the jury. And then of course
Speaker 3: when he when he goes into the when he goes
Speaker 3: in for his interrogation with with the TVI agents, Buddy,
Speaker 3: you can tell he was very sure of himself. He
Speaker 3: even though they had just arrested him first degree murder,
Speaker 3: you could tell he was pretty cocky and he didn't
Speaker 3: think they had any evidence on him. And it took
Speaker 3: them disclosing some of the evidence they had for him
Speaker 3: to basically his defenses to wear down and get to
Speaker 3: where he would confess. And you nowhere in that that
Speaker 3: he asked for an attorney until the very end and
Speaker 3: that end of the questioning, but it was too late
Speaker 3: at that point.
Speaker 4: Was there any indication that Buddy and Barbara were ever
Speaker 4: convinced that they're precious Janelle had hudwinked them and or
Speaker 4: were they still in believing in their daughter.
Speaker 3: Well, you know, once they're charged, I don't get the
Speaker 3: benefit of talking to them, or you know, I have
Speaker 3: to read the tea leaves and I don't know. That's
Speaker 3: probably something I'll wonder about the rest of my life.
Speaker 3: Did Buddy Potter ever realize he was hoaxed by his
Speaker 3: daughter that she really wasn't in danger. I don't know,
Speaker 3: I don't know, I don't know what he thinks about.
Speaker 3: But you know, he had he had the opportunity to
Speaker 3: testify in the women's trials after his conviction. You know,
Speaker 3: his case was on a peal at the time. But
Speaker 3: you know, he had the fifth moment right to not testify.
Speaker 3: But you know, he from from the indications that got
Speaker 3: from the defense attorneys, he elected, he didn't want to testify.
Speaker 3: So yeah, I never got to hear that from him.
Speaker 4: What was Janelle's demeanor throughout this and trial?
Speaker 3: Through the trial, she she cried often, She would look
Speaker 3: down a lot often. She she was just sort of
Speaker 3: pitiful the whole way through it. You know, you didn't
Speaker 3: get angry reactions from her. You know, the one reaction
Speaker 3: I saw from her that I observed one time during
Speaker 3: an opening statement, I showed pictures that her and Jamie
Speaker 3: had taken in secret, Jamie kissing her on the cheek
Speaker 3: and her smiling as she takes a selfie. And you know,
Speaker 3: I put that up on the wall for everyone to see.
Speaker 3: You could see Janelle sort of, you know, cringeing like
Speaker 3: like it's going to get her in trouble with her
Speaker 3: mother almost And it's just very unusual people to be
Speaker 3: prosecuting the first grade murder. Usually we've got some pretty
Speaker 3: ugly characters sitting over there charged, and these these people
Speaker 3: didn't look like central casting for murdered cases.
Speaker 4: So what would you say, has A And I guess
Speaker 4: it's for those that have listened to this this episode
Speaker 4: would be interested in reading this entire book. But I
Speaker 4: know you can't really make a encapsulate what happened, But what,
Speaker 4: if anything, what was the something that you got from
Speaker 4: this in terms of a profound sort of takeaway from
Speaker 4: all of this?
Speaker 3: Well, and this is something I told somebody else the
Speaker 3: other day. And this might sound weird. I mean, you
Speaker 3: don't know about the case, but you know, we've got
Speaker 3: a crime that's perpetrated by a man who puts a
Speaker 3: gun up to a woman's head as she's holding her
Speaker 3: baby and takes her life. And you you can't imagine
Speaker 3: anything where callous are awful than that. But when you
Speaker 3: really unpeel the layers of what brought this case about,
Speaker 3: and it may sound weird to people, but you know
Speaker 3: the different characters that perpetrated the crime, you can almost
Speaker 3: feel some empathy toward and I know that sounds weird,
Speaker 3: but you know, you've you've got somebody pulling the trigger
Speaker 3: who's been hoaxed, you know, and you've you've got a
Speaker 3: daughter who's putting all this stuff into motion, and you
Speaker 3: know she's been neglected from real parenting her whole life,
Speaker 3: and you know they've sort of caused her to be
Speaker 3: the way she is, so you you feel some sympathy
Speaker 3: for her that you know she never had a life.
Speaker 3: And this is what manifested itself. And you look at
Speaker 3: Jamie Kurt and you know he he's standing there at
Speaker 3: the door as his cousin's being murdered. Probably that you know,
Speaker 3: his cousin is probably as good to him as anybody
Speaker 3: ever had been. And uh, but you look at how
Speaker 3: he was hoaxed into getting to where he was, and
Speaker 3: you know it's it's really odd for for his callous
Speaker 3: a crime. This is if you analyze the case, you
Speaker 3: can you know ultimately that everybody's where they need to be.
Speaker 3: You know, don't don't don't get me wrong, you know,
Speaker 3: we we put people in prison over it, but you know,
Speaker 3: this is unlike many cases that you know, you can
Speaker 3: you can have some tiny twinge of empathy on some
Speaker 3: levels for some of them. It doesn't make what they
Speaker 3: did right, but it makes it very intriguing to study,
Speaker 3: and you know, just as an example of human nature.
Speaker 4: Oh absolutely, It's just it's a bizarre case. Uh what
Speaker 4: was the fate or what is the fate of the
Speaker 4: young infant Tyler?
Speaker 3: Well, he he was, you know, basically became cared for
Speaker 3: by Billy Jean's family and he's in there care and
Speaker 3: growing up without parents. But he's you know, I understand
Speaker 3: he's got a lot of love in the home for him.
Speaker 3: So you know, it's ty is tragic.
Speaker 4: Is Tracy Greenwall involved in that as well too as
Speaker 4: contact with the obviously.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I'm not sure, you know, it's it's I'm not
Speaker 3: sure the extent of that, but you know, obviously, you know,
Speaker 3: Babley Tyler's got a lot of people that care for him.
Speaker 3: Bill had an older son that from a different mother
Speaker 3: that also survives this, and you know, obviously they're going
Speaker 3: to be affected the rest of their lives by it.
Speaker 4: You talked about the initial interest in this story, especially
Speaker 4: with the cat fishing, and it's just again, very unique
Speaker 4: story overall. How much attention did this story get?
Speaker 3: He got a lot of attention in East Tennessee because
Speaker 3: just you know the fact that a home was invaded
Speaker 3: and two lives taken out. It became in local lore
Speaker 3: called called the Facebook murder cases because it was commonly
Speaker 3: known that Janelle had been defriended by this victim. So,
Speaker 3: you know, a myth sort of arose that it all
Speaker 3: happened because she got defriended. But I tried to dispel
Speaker 3: that during a trial as well as in the book,
Speaker 3: because that happened many many many months before the crimes.
Speaker 3: It was almost up on the eve of trial where
Speaker 3: I finally it dawned on me what I was prosecuting.
Speaker 3: It was a catfishing case. You know, my wife had
Speaker 3: watched a movie called Catfish and TV show and basically
Speaker 3: what happens with that phenomenon Someone assumes a fake online
Speaker 3: identity and basically builds a romantic type relationship with another
Speaker 3: person they never meet, but the other person sort of
Speaker 3: falls for that myth. In making that identity, you can
Speaker 3: sort of create yourself however you want. You can be exciting, successful,
Speaker 3: pretty whatever. And basically that's what we had. In this case,
Speaker 3: we had Janelle sitting there at home, living a boring lifestyle,
Speaker 3: but being able to assume this identity of Chris and
Speaker 3: talk about the exciting things that Chris is doing and
Speaker 3: lure people in to that myth and then use it
Speaker 3: for nefarious purposes. Obviously, the question I have, too, is.
Speaker 4: Where did the title come from? Too pretty to live? Yeah,
Speaker 4: it may sound a little odd, but I was sort
Speaker 4: of fixated on those words because as you analyze the
Speaker 4: Potter women, the conflict that would arise with other people
Speaker 4: in their lives, they always attributed it to their being
Speaker 4: too pretty for the other people. You know, if Barbara
Speaker 4: couldn't find a church to blome too, she would say, well,
Speaker 4: the women there just think I'm too pretty. And Janelle
Speaker 4: inherited that outlook and in her writing she would disparage
Speaker 4: other people's looks and then say, well, they don't like
Speaker 4: me because I'm too pretty. And that was actually something
Speaker 4: that came out of her mouth during that hour long
Speaker 4: interview the day after the killing. She actually told the
Speaker 4: cops that these people are harassing her because she was
Speaker 4: too pretty, And it was just something that was absurd
Speaker 4: and stoock out and felt like a good title to me,
Speaker 4: absolutely very appropriate. I want to thank you very much
Speaker 4: for coming on and talking about Too Pretty to Live. Now.
Speaker 4: I know this is another fine example of a Diversion release,
Speaker 4: so Diversion Books. So tell us a little bit about
Speaker 4: this release with Diversion and if people were interested in
Speaker 4: this case more so? Do you do Facebook? Do you
Speaker 4: have an email? Do you have a website? Tell us
Speaker 4: a little bit about how people may contact you and
Speaker 4: where they can get this book.
Speaker 3: Well, I'm a prosecutor first and an author a distance second.
Speaker 3: So I've been learning about this world after we've written
Speaker 3: a book, and you know, I've been lucky enough to
Speaker 3: get it published by Diversion. It's it's available online from
Speaker 3: all the online retailers on Amazon. I think the last
Speaker 3: I checked, it was actually ranked twentieth in true crime
Speaker 3: overall and first in hoaxes interceptions. And I'm right there
Speaker 3: with Marshall Clark, you know, writing about OJ Simpson.
Speaker 4: So fantastic, And it's been.
Speaker 3: Featured on Investigation Discovery recently. The shows that on that
Speaker 3: network is called Too Pretty to Live. Also, I believe
Speaker 3: it re airs this weekend and we'll keep reairing. So
Speaker 3: you just have to check the listings. But you know,
Speaker 3: I'm also on Facebook. You look up Dennis Brooks and
Speaker 3: I'm the ugly guy from Tennessee. And I've been introducing
Speaker 3: myself to different Facebook true crime groups that exist that
Speaker 3: my agent's been directing me to and enjoying interacting with
Speaker 3: people I normally don't get to interact with. So it's
Speaker 3: been interesting this little turn in my career.
Speaker 4: Absolutely, it's a fantastic book, Dennis, and I want to
Speaker 4: thank you very much for number one, writing the book
Speaker 4: and coming on and talking about this great book, Too
Speaker 4: Pretty to Live, the cat fishing Murders of East Tennessee.
Speaker 4: Thank you very much, Dennis, have a great evening and
Speaker 4: the best of luck with this book.
Speaker 3: Thank you so much.
Speaker 4: Have a good night.