Speaker 1: When you make decisions for your company, you look for
Speaker 1: the no brainers, and if you have a lot of
Speaker 1: mailing to do, stamps dot com is the ultimate no brainer.
Speaker 1: Mail checks, invoices, documents, and everything you need to keep
Speaker 1: your business running. Get rates up to eighty nine percent
Speaker 1: off usps and ups, and with a mobile app, you
Speaker 1: can take care of mailing on the go. Make the
Speaker 1: same no brainer decisions is over one million other businesses
Speaker 1: with stamps dot Com. Sign up at stamps dot com
Speaker 1: with Code Program for a special offer. That's Stamps dot
Speaker 1: Com Code Program.
Speaker 2: Lucky Land Casino, asking people what's the weirdest place you've
Speaker 2: gotten lucky?
Speaker 3: Lucky?
Speaker 4: In line at the deli, I guess.
Speaker 5: Ah, in my dentist's office more than months. Actually do
Speaker 5: I have to say?
Speaker 3: Yes?
Speaker 5: You do? In the car before my kid's PTA meeting?
Speaker 2: Really?
Speaker 6: Yes?
Speaker 2: Excuse me? What's the weirdest place you've gotten lucky?
Speaker 4: I never win?
Speaker 2: And tell Well, there you have it.
Speaker 5: You could get lucky anywhere playing at lucky landslots dot
Speaker 5: com play for free right now?
Speaker 2: Are you feeling lucky?
Speaker 4: No necessary for long eighteen plus terms conditions plus set say.
Speaker 5: Hello Hello, it is Ryan and I was on a
Speaker 5: flight the other day playing one of my favorite social
Speaker 5: spin slot games on chumbacasino dot com. I looked over
Speaker 5: at the person sitting next to me, and you know
Speaker 5: what they were doing. They were also playing Chumba Casino. Coincidence,
Speaker 5: I think not everybody's loving having fun with it. Chumba
Speaker 5: Casino's home to hundreds at casino style games. You can
Speaker 5: play for free anytime, anywhere, even at thirty thousand feet.
Speaker 5: So sign up now at Chumbuck Casino dot com to
Speaker 5: claim you're free. Welcome bonus, that's Chumbuck Casino dot com
Speaker 5: and live the Chumba Laine.
Speaker 4: For Necessary DVD, whereby I lost in terms of conditions
Speaker 4: eighteen plus.
Speaker 3: With the Lucky Land Slots, you can get lucky just
Speaker 3: about anywhere.
Speaker 2: It's your captain speaking. We've got clear runway and the
Speaker 2: weather's fine, but we're just gonna circle up here a
Speaker 2: while and get lucky. No, no, nothing like that. It's
Speaker 2: just these cash prizes add up quick, So I suggest
Speaker 2: you sit back, keep your trade table up right, and
Speaker 2: start getting lucky.
Speaker 4: Play for free at Lucky Landslots dot com. Are you
Speaker 4: feeling lucky? No purchase necessary void. We're prohibited by Law
Speaker 4: eighteen plus terms and conditions.
Speaker 3: Supply say website for details.
Speaker 6: You are now listening to True Murder, the most shocking
Speaker 6: killers in true crime history and the authors that have
Speaker 6: written about them Gaesy Bundy, Dahmer, The Nightstalker BTK Every
Speaker 6: week another fascinating author talking about the most shocking and
Speaker 6: infamous killers in true crime history. True Murder with your
Speaker 6: host journalist and author Dan Zupanski, Good Evening. One morning
Speaker 6: in July nineteen seventy four, Anita Andrews, the owner and
Speaker 6: bartender at Fagiani's Cocktail Lounge in Napa, California, was found
Speaker 6: dead in her bar, raped, beaten, and stabbed to death
Speaker 6: in a bloody frenzy. She had last been seen alive
Speaker 6: the night before, talking to a drifter who sat at
Speaker 6: the end of the bar playing cards and flirting with her,
Speaker 6: but the stranger, along with Anita's Cadillac, had disappeared. Unable
Speaker 6: to locate a suspect, police investigators sadly watched a case
Speaker 6: who grow cold over the years. Meanwhile, a month after
Speaker 6: Anita's murder, young Michele Wallace was driving down a road
Speaker 6: in the mountains near Crested Butte Colorado, when she gave
Speaker 6: two stranded motorists, Chuck Matthews and a man named Roy,
Speaker 6: a ride. Dropping Matthews off at a bar, she agreed
Speaker 6: to take Roy to his truck. She was never seen
Speaker 6: alive again, nor could a massive search of the mountains
Speaker 6: locate her remains. The trail leading to her killer also
Speaker 6: ran into dead ends. Fourteen years later, Charlotte Sourowin engaged
Speaker 6: to be married a smooth talking man at a laundromat
Speaker 6: in Livingston Parish, Louisiana. The next evening, her body was
Speaker 6: found in the woods. She had been raped, tortured, and
Speaker 6: her throats slashed. The police suspected her fiancee, Vince Lejeune,
Speaker 6: though he proclaimed his innocence to anyone who would listen. Meanwhile,
Speaker 6: the man from the laundromat couldn't be located. The three
Speaker 6: murders would remain unsolved, eating at the hearts, minds, and
Speaker 6: lives of the women's families, friends, and communities. Then, in
Speaker 6: the early nineteen nineties, a rookie Gunnison County Sheriff's investigator
Speaker 6: named Cathy Young began looking into the Wallace case and
Speaker 6: identified a suspect named Roy Mellinson, a serial rapist from Texas.
Speaker 7: Smooth Talker is the story of Melonson, his depredations, and
Speaker 7: the intrepid police work they went into bringing him to justice.
Speaker 7: The book that were featuring this evening is Smooth Talker
Speaker 7: with my special guest, journalist and author and publishers Steve Jackson.
Speaker 7: Welcome back to the program, and thank you for a
Speaker 7: greeing his interview. Steve Jackson, Thanks David.
Speaker 3: It's always a pleasure to be on this show.
Speaker 7: It's always our pleasure and my pleasure, so thank you
Speaker 7: very much, Steve. I won't ask the question how you
Speaker 7: came to write this because that will give a little
Speaker 7: bit too much away, and the audience will know what
Speaker 7: I mean a little bit later on. So let's just
Speaker 7: get right to July nineteen seventy four. Tell us a
Speaker 7: little bit about Napa Valley, California, and hopefully I didn't
Speaker 7: mispronounce in the introduction thag Yianni's cocktail bar, Muriel and
Speaker 7: Anita and the bar has been in the family. Tell
Speaker 7: us a little bit about Napa Valley, California, and the
Speaker 7: bar the Anita and Muria alone. It's been in the
Speaker 7: family for a while. Tell us set the stage, please.
Speaker 3: For sure. Back then, anybody who's familiar with the Napa
Speaker 3: Valley now knows it's quite built up and it's wine
Speaker 3: tourists sort of destination, very touristy, lots and lots of people.
Speaker 3: But back in nineteen seventy four it sort of still
Speaker 3: vineyards are going, all the famous ones or American vineyards
Speaker 3: are starting to go there. But it's still a pretty
Speaker 3: quiet town and county. Lots of farms, rolling hills, not
Speaker 3: a lot of strangers, you know, it's sort of everybody
Speaker 3: knows everybody, though, you know, there's always a few drifters.
Speaker 3: But anyway, Fagianni's or for Johnny's, I've heard it pronounced
Speaker 3: a couple of different ways is a bar in downtown
Speaker 3: Napa at this time in nineteen seventy four. It was
Speaker 3: founded by an Italian immigrant named Nick Fagiani, who came
Speaker 3: over originally to work with in the vineyards, but bought
Speaker 3: this place and started a sort of a family bar lounge,
Speaker 3: you know, kind of a working man's bar. Pretty much
Speaker 3: raised is his two daughters there, Muriel and Anita, and
Speaker 3: you know, for a while there it was quite like
Speaker 3: I said, working man bring your family in how your
Speaker 3: kids can run around the pool table, that sort of
Speaker 3: thing that dogs are walking in and out. Pretty laid
Speaker 3: back place, in that sort of a setting. And the girls.
Speaker 3: Two girls grew up there. But by nineteen seventy four,
Speaker 3: this part of Napa was really pretty run down. It
Speaker 3: was kind of a lot of CD bars and a
Speaker 3: couple of CD hotels. The hotel right across the street
Speaker 3: from Fajanni's Cocktail Lounge was sort of a stepping stone
Speaker 3: out of the local psychiatric hospital. And you know, so
Speaker 3: it wasn't the nicest part of town. But about five
Speaker 3: years earlier, in nineteen sixty nine, Nick Svajiani had died
Speaker 3: and left the bar to his They were trying to
Speaker 3: sell it. Would have liked to have sell it, but
Speaker 3: they kept it open. And they only kept it open
Speaker 3: because otherwise they would have lost the liquor license, which
Speaker 3: was about the only thing it had going for it.
Speaker 3: So that's the scene. Anita Andrews, the younger of the
Speaker 3: two former County Beauty queen, she's now fifty one. In
Speaker 3: nineteen seventy four, she does most of the bartending at night.
Speaker 3: There's never a ton of people in there. There's always
Speaker 3: you know, on this particular night, there's three locals who
Speaker 3: are in there, kind of carrousing around town. A couple
Speaker 3: their workmen, and there's a guy kind of sitting at
Speaker 3: the end of the bar flirting with Anita, kind of
Speaker 3: flipping some cards around. It's doing those sorts of things,
Speaker 3: but not a whole lot of other people. A couple
Speaker 3: of people drift in and out.
Speaker 7: Now one of these gentlemen is David Loos, and he's
Speaker 7: gone to the washroom and his buddies, like you say,
Speaker 7: they're out carousing, and just describe this altercation and why
Speaker 7: this altercation occurs and what David Loose does.
Speaker 3: Well, Like I said, the three guys workmen, construction workers,
Speaker 3: including David Loose is one of them. They've been kind
Speaker 3: of they've had a couple of beers already. They're kind
Speaker 3: of doing a bar crawl around town and are headed
Speaker 3: for yet another bar from here and just kind of
Speaker 3: stop by for a couple of beers. But this guy
Speaker 3: on the other end of the bar, they can tell
Speaker 3: he's purposefully kind of trying to shield, has his back
Speaker 3: to him and when they kind of try to get
Speaker 3: a look at him, the shield the space from him
Speaker 3: and and he just sits funny, just kind of strikes
Speaker 3: him wrong some ways, and a little bit protective. Everybody
Speaker 3: in this town is Anita Andrews. And so anyway, you know,
Speaker 3: one of the guys that David goes off to the bathroom,
Speaker 3: one of his friends. Besides, he does like this guy's
Speaker 3: attitude and actually starts yelling at him in the bar, saying,
Speaker 3: you know, hey, what's the matter with you? What are
Speaker 3: you trying to hide there? Which you know, he he
Speaker 3: seemed to have pegged it. But David comes out of
Speaker 3: the bathroom and here's his friend yelling at this guy.
Speaker 3: So he's kind of like, well, let's let's leave and
Speaker 3: move on to the next bar. And Anita kind of,
Speaker 3: you know, once these guys out they've had too much
Speaker 3: to drink, doesn't want to fight there at the bar.
Speaker 3: She I don't think she sees anything wrong with this
Speaker 3: guy sitting at the bar trying that he's going to
Speaker 3: finish his drink and have his cigarette move along himself.
Speaker 3: So but she doesn't want any fights, of course, so
Speaker 3: she kind of hustles the three guys out of the bar,
Speaker 3: and as they're leaving, David LuSE goes up to the
Speaker 3: guy and shakes his hand, and basically he's playing peacemaker.
Speaker 3: He says, you know, you know, we didn't mean anything
Speaker 3: by it, and have a good night, mister. And this
Speaker 3: guy doesn't say much of anything, but the three the
Speaker 3: three Carousers leave the bar, and the lathe in the
Speaker 3: bar or Anita and the guy sitting at the bar.
Speaker 7: Now, what you also set the stage too, is that
Speaker 7: there's a not only are people other people in the
Speaker 7: little community of thirty four thousand and fifty miles north
Speaker 7: of San Francisco kind of protective Anita and her sister,
Speaker 7: but also that there's a police night, a night patrol,
Speaker 7: a nightly patrolled by police. And if they were to
Speaker 7: see the Padillac on the door, and they don't see
Speaker 7: Anita's tan colored Cadillac, then they would be doing further investigation.
Speaker 7: So it's sort of an unofficial thing that even the
Speaker 7: police are protective of her. So now we're talking about
Speaker 7: the next day. Now Anita works at the Napa State
Speaker 7: Hospital for the criminally insane. I don't know if that's ironic,
Speaker 7: but the next day they call her mother, Muriel, and
Speaker 7: they're looking for So take it from there. What happens
Speaker 7: after that.
Speaker 3: Well, they actually call Anita's mother. Mariel is her sister.
Speaker 3: The mother calls Mauriel and says, you know, your sister
Speaker 3: didn't show up her work today, and which is really unusual.
Speaker 3: Anita's very punctual, never misses work at the hospital. They
Speaker 3: really don't really like having the bar open, and neither
Speaker 3: one of them likes the neighborhood and are kind of
Speaker 3: scared of the neighborhood. So the mother calls Maryel and says, well,
Speaker 3: go check on Anita, see what she's doing. Maybe she's
Speaker 3: sick at home or something. So Mariel gets in her car.
Speaker 3: She drives over to Anita's apartment and there's no one
Speaker 3: there and the Cadillac's not there. So she decides, well,
Speaker 3: I'll go down to the bar see if she went
Speaker 3: down there. Maybe she forgot something or whatever and went
Speaker 3: down there. And so she goes down and she arrives
Speaker 3: there and she notices that there's no padlock on the
Speaker 3: front door, but there's the Cadillac isn't around either, so
Speaker 3: unusual that, like, like I said, this is not a
Speaker 3: nice part of town. And they went to extra efforts
Speaker 3: to put a big padlock on the doors to protect
Speaker 3: the place, so that's that's missing. But yet there's no
Speaker 3: sign of Anita outside as far as her cadillac. So
Speaker 3: maryel thinks that's curious. As she goes toward the bar.
Speaker 7: Now continue with that, what does she what does she do?
Speaker 7: Does she call anybody to get some help or does
Speaker 7: she just venture into this bar herself?
Speaker 3: No, she she goes into the bar. It's you know,
Speaker 3: once again, it's this is daytime now, and and so
Speaker 3: this is a place that she was passically raised as
Speaker 3: a kid, so she doesn't really have any trepidation about
Speaker 3: going into the bar. She thinks it's unusual that it's unlocked,
Speaker 3: and so she goes in and you know, just uh
Speaker 3: notices that the place is pretty clean, wh her sister
Speaker 3: was pretty uh dedicated to the place just being kept spotless.
Speaker 3: But she does notice that there's an ash tray on
Speaker 3: the bar still, and so she goes and then she
Speaker 3: notices that the storeroom doors away from the bar at
Speaker 3: the back of the bar are closed, and that's unusual
Speaker 3: because they typically left just left them open and didn't
Speaker 3: go to the effort of closing those. So she went
Speaker 3: back there, still thinking this is curious. I'm sure she
Speaker 3: called out for her sister, but there's no answer. So
Speaker 3: she walks back to the storeroom and gets to the
Speaker 3: storeroom and there it looks like just the savage attack
Speaker 3: of some sort. There's there's blood on the wall, There's
Speaker 3: there's blood on boxes, there's blood coming down off of
Speaker 3: stacks of beer bottles, and they're laying on the floor
Speaker 3: partly undressed, as her sister, Anita, who's been murdered.
Speaker 7: Okay, so police arrive. Uh, they got to gather some evidence.
Speaker 7: So let's let's tell our audience what they do find
Speaker 7: in terms of evidence, what's missing, and just tell us
Speaker 7: what they find at this crime scene and the condition
Speaker 7: of Anita as well, what is what has happened to her?
Speaker 3: Well, they come in this is this is the days
Speaker 3: before a lot of like crime scene investigators. But they
Speaker 3: do have a The NAPA Police Department can can't afford
Speaker 3: a criminologist of its own, so they had a guy
Speaker 3: over in Berkeley near San Francisco who was actually associated
Speaker 3: with the Diversity of cal Berkeley there and and they
Speaker 3: call him over to look at this crime scene. You know,
Speaker 3: they just don't have these sorts of things you know,
Speaker 3: they're the kind of murder you'd have a NAPA would
Speaker 3: be somebody get mad at somebody else at the bar,
Speaker 3: something like that. But just this this savage attack on uh,
Speaker 3: you know, a woman who never heard anybody or or
Speaker 3: anything else. So they called in the criminologists and he
Speaker 3: went through there and he for that age. It was
Speaker 3: an amazing uh criminalist, crime scene investigator. I mean, he
Speaker 3: he went over that place, picked up there. There's the
Speaker 3: ash tray that was on the bar. There was a
Speaker 3: single cigarette butt in it, and he took that, you know,
Speaker 3: he took photographs. One of one of the interesting things
Speaker 3: that he noticed right away was that all the barstools
Speaker 3: along the bar under the bar had been very neatly
Speaker 3: lined up almost you know, sort of uh you just
Speaker 3: to line them up like that, you you really want
Speaker 3: your your chairs in a row. But the very last one,
Speaker 3: the one over by the ash tray, was still pulled
Speaker 3: out from the bar, as if Anita had not gotten
Speaker 3: around to putting it in its proper order or taking
Speaker 3: the ashtray off. So he finds that he finds a
Speaker 3: screwdriver and the sink. The sinks are clean, pretty much clean,
Speaker 3: but though some of the water will later test for
Speaker 3: some blood. And he finds a screwdriver. It's a little
Speaker 3: bit bent, that kind of a narrow screwdriver laying next
Speaker 3: to the sink. It's obviously been washed off because it's
Speaker 3: even had a chance to believe, a small rough spot
Speaker 3: on the steel sink. And there's a toweling on the floor.
Speaker 3: So he gathers all these things. They takes, you know,
Speaker 3: Anita has taken for an autopsy. They find glass in
Speaker 3: her hair and a cut to her scalp, indicating she'd
Speaker 3: been struck by a bottle and this criminalist had picked
Speaker 3: up shards of that glass and took it with them.
Speaker 3: They found another number of beer bottles that have been
Speaker 3: around that day, so they've gathered all those up so
Speaker 3: they be fingerprinted. But Anita, as far as her condition,
Speaker 3: she'd been stabbed thirteen times with the screwdriver, mostly in
Speaker 3: the chest. But just she had put up quite a battle.
Speaker 3: I mean that room that photos from that room have
Speaker 3: to have blood splattered from one one into the other.
Speaker 3: It was just she fought hard and but whoever was
Speaker 3: after was just in a furious rage and he ends
Speaker 3: up stabbing her thirteen times. Attempted to specially assault her.
Speaker 3: Was not completely clear if he managed to do that,
Speaker 3: but it certainly just robed her and tried and so
Speaker 3: that that's and then and had also strangled and beat
Speaker 3: her or broke their nose was broken. She suffered a
Speaker 3: number of contusions, bruises, and lacerations in addition to the
Speaker 3: stab wos.
Speaker 7: There was also she had no watch, ring or jewelry.
Speaker 7: There was no purse found, no credit cards, no car keys,
Speaker 7: and there was some bloody footprints, wasn't there?
Speaker 3: Left right, there's a bloody footprint leading to the storeroom
Speaker 3: from the bar and the stairs that went upstairs to
Speaker 3: the office where her purse and the cash from the
Speaker 3: cash box and other things were all missing, along with
Speaker 3: the jewelry that united and there was one bloody footprint
Speaker 3: over by the door as the killer left the bar.
Speaker 7: Now we're gonna I'm gonna ask you how police proceed Usually,
Speaker 7: of course, police look at the suspect closest to the
Speaker 7: most familiar, the ex boyfriend, the current boyfriend, the ex husband,
Speaker 7: the disgruntled employee, something like that. But we're also going
Speaker 7: to we've got to make sure that people understand there
Speaker 7: were no computers at this time in nineteen seventy four.
Speaker 7: So before we talk about what happened a month later
Speaker 7: in terms of the credit card, let's talk about detective
Speaker 7: John Bailey and Robert Jarecki and what how do they proceed,
Speaker 7: who do they look at, how does their investigation move forward?
Speaker 3: Well, it's you know, it's it's one of those good
Speaker 3: old fashioned gum shoe detectives where they hit the streets.
Speaker 3: They you know, they started canvassing the neighborhood looking to
Speaker 3: see if there's anybody had acted strangers there. Differently, they
Speaker 3: actually got a suspect of some guy who had checked
Speaker 3: into the hospital across the street and then checked out
Speaker 3: that morning, checked in the day before, then checked out
Speaker 3: that morning, kind of in a hurry. So they're doing
Speaker 3: that sort of thing, just did anybody see anything, did
Speaker 3: anybody hear anything? And they're also you know, they're talking
Speaker 3: to the ex husband, they're talking to the daughters, they're
Speaker 3: talking to friends and as as well as and and
Speaker 3: they developed you know, there was a boyfriend, sort of
Speaker 3: on again, off again boyfriend who had been she was
Speaker 3: done with him, supposedly because he'd run up a big
Speaker 3: telephone bill and I think he was just he worked
Speaker 3: for the carnival and was gone a lot, so she
Speaker 3: told others, including her daughter, that she was sort of
Speaker 3: done with this skuy. But so they're doing that kind
Speaker 3: of good old fashioned, you know, trying to run down
Speaker 3: every lead that they can. And then during this during
Speaker 3: actually that first morning, David Luce, the guy we talked
Speaker 3: about from the confrontation the night before, had actually heard
Speaker 3: what happened and came over to the bar and described
Speaker 3: him and his three friends being there and that there
Speaker 3: was this stranger sitting at the end of the bar
Speaker 3: talking to Anita, and he was the last one left
Speaker 3: in there. They actually, David Luth and his friends were
Speaker 3: suspected for a little bit or on the suspect list
Speaker 3: because you know, they're admitting that they may have been
Speaker 3: the last ones to see an need except for the
Speaker 3: stranger that nobody can see and has heard of or
Speaker 3: anything else. So they even had to be cleared, but
Speaker 3: it was quickly apparent that they had gone on to
Speaker 3: this other restaurants and that sort of thing. So anyway,
Speaker 3: that is where we're at is they are just you know,
Speaker 3: they're looking for old people in the area who have
Speaker 3: done raped before or maybe delons or robbers because Anita
Speaker 3: was robbed and maybe she resisted the robbery. So they're
Speaker 3: running through those sorts of things.
Speaker 7: Now, tell us about the break that they do get finally,
Speaker 7: because it does take a little while. It might have
Speaker 7: been a little bit quicker. But what happens thirty days
Speaker 7: later in terms of the credit card hit sixty miles
Speaker 7: northwest of Napa, So well, tell us a little bit both.
Speaker 3: Yeah, well, you're right, there's no computers at this time,
Speaker 3: so they kind of had to wait for Yeah. I
Speaker 3: mean they could eventually get asked for credit card companies
Speaker 3: to you know, report any sort of transactions, but those
Speaker 3: would take you know, in this case, it took thirty
Speaker 3: days that On the night of the murder, the Tan Cadillac,
Speaker 3: a man driving a Tan Cadillac at pulled into a
Speaker 3: gas station down in Sacramento, which is about an hour away,
Speaker 3: and he had the attendant on duty.
Speaker 5: It is Ryan here, and I have a question for you.
Speaker 5: What do you do when you win?
Speaker 2: Like?
Speaker 5: Are you a fist pumper, a wooer, a handclapper, a
Speaker 5: high fiver? I kind of like the high five. But
Speaker 5: if you want to hone in on those winning moves.
Speaker 5: Check out Chumback Casino at chumbacasino dot com. Choose from
Speaker 5: hundreds of social casino style games for your chance to
Speaker 5: redeem it serious cash prize. There are new game releases
Speaker 5: weekly plus three daily bonuses, so don't wait. Start having
Speaker 5: the most fun ever at shumba Casino dot com.
Speaker 4: No, we just necessary where if I lost the terms
Speaker 4: of conditions eating plus.
Speaker 3: Be there noticed that he had sort of a towel
Speaker 3: on his lap and appeared to be bloody, but attendant
Speaker 3: for some reason didn't really ask him about it. He
Speaker 3: noticed that there was a woman's handbag in the back
Speaker 3: seat at a car and then when this man driving
Speaker 3: the Cadillac went to pay for it the gasoline, he
Speaker 3: handed them a credit card with Anita Andrews name on
Speaker 3: it and said that was his wife and even signed
Speaker 3: it A Andrews. Before he left headed south and which
Speaker 3: would be, you know, towards San Francisco, toward La.
Speaker 7: Now with this information that they have, you know, too little,
Speaker 7: too late. But what does this trail lead to? For
Speaker 7: what does it lead to in terms of suspects?
Speaker 3: Well, they actually some years later they sort of developed
Speaker 3: a couple of different theories. One is that you know,
Speaker 3: this is a stranger who came into town clime of
Speaker 3: opportunity the way that those guys left. He attacks Anita,
Speaker 3: who fly back. He kills her and robs her and
Speaker 3: takes her Cadillac and disappeared south. And the other theory,
Speaker 3: developed actually more by the district attorney at the time,
Speaker 3: happened to also be a friend of Anita's, was that
Speaker 3: perhaps it was somebody who she knew who had done
Speaker 3: this and then possibly even taken the car somewhere and
Speaker 3: gotten rid of it, and then had doubled back. So
Speaker 3: for years no one quite knew who this killer was.
Speaker 3: Was he a stranger or was he somebody still living
Speaker 3: among them?
Speaker 7: So I guess the cats of the bag, this case
Speaker 7: goes cold. So what we do jump to right away,
Speaker 7: and you do in the book, is that in short order,
Speaker 7: we're talking about August thirtieth, still nineteen seventy four, but
Speaker 7: this is eleven hundred miles to the east. So tell
Speaker 7: us about a little bit about twenty five year old
Speaker 7: Michelle Wallace. She's an avid outdoors person. Tell us a
Speaker 7: little bit about her, she's an avid photographer. But tell
Speaker 7: us a little bit about this five foot six, one
Speaker 7: hundred and twenty pound beauty, Michelle Wallace, twenty five years old,
Speaker 7: and we're talking about eleven hundred miles away in August.
Speaker 3: Michelle is quite an interesting person for her era. In
Speaker 3: nineteen seventy four, a young woman who you know easily
Speaker 3: went up into the mountains to go backpacking with her
Speaker 3: dog out in the photography. Was sort of very adventerous.
Speaker 3: She was about to go on a photo expedition for
Speaker 3: National Geographic, I believe, taking photographs of the hill people
Speaker 3: and Carolina's kind of last of that part of that civilization.
Speaker 3: And I was working in the mountains of Colorado backpacking
Speaker 3: sort of a care free, happy go lucky spirit, had
Speaker 3: lived in asked in the area for a while and
Speaker 3: just sort of a bright light. One of those people
Speaker 3: that you know, everybody liked and mark to her own drummer.
Speaker 3: And so she's up in the mountains when in August
Speaker 3: nineteen seventy four.
Speaker 7: Now, what is her plans she is doing this, but
Speaker 7: what is her ultimate plans she's going to do this for.
Speaker 7: She's got this assignment here for a couple of months,
Speaker 7: and then she has this other professional assignment. So and
Speaker 7: does anybody worry about this woman? And you said she's
Speaker 7: an independent type person, but just tell us about what
Speaker 7: she had really planned and if there wasn't any concern
Speaker 7: for her being able to take care of herself.
Speaker 3: Well they her plans were Michelle. I think she wanted
Speaker 3: to be a professional photographer. And I don't know how
Speaker 3: much farther ed she was looking other than the next
Speaker 3: the next place she did. It was very close to
Speaker 3: her family, particularly her mother, who all lived back in
Speaker 3: a little feburb near Chicago Riverside, North Riverside, and and she, uh,
Speaker 3: you know, she checked in most every Sunday, and in fact,
Speaker 3: I think she always checked in on Sundays with her
Speaker 3: mom would call from wherever she was and check in
Speaker 3: just to tell him she was good. But her mom
Speaker 3: also kind of lived through Michelle. If her mom had fathered,
Speaker 3: George had married young, and I think her mom kind
Speaker 3: of you know, lived vicariously a little bit to it
Speaker 3: Michelle's adventures. So she was always encouraging Michelle to to
Speaker 3: get out there. Michelle, after high school, went off to
Speaker 3: Spain for a while to study and travel, all with
Speaker 3: the blessing of her mom. So you know, her dad
Speaker 3: is a little more, uh, a little more concerned about it. He's,
Speaker 3: you know, a typical dad. It's his daughter out there.
Speaker 3: But you know, they also took some pride in Michelle
Speaker 3: being such an independent spirit and you know, striking out
Speaker 3: on her own and and living the life that she
Speaker 3: wanted to live. Then she also had a friend, Donna.
Speaker 3: I don't know if you were I had were referring
Speaker 3: to Donna, but Donna to compeglie. I'm hoping I'm pronouncing
Speaker 3: that right, Donna, if you're listening. But she she's Michelle's
Speaker 3: sort of her spiritual sister. These two were other their
Speaker 3: birthdays are only six days apart, and they met and
Speaker 3: kind of looking in the mirror and junior high and
Speaker 3: putting on the makeup, and it become pretty much during
Speaker 3: those school years in separable. And then after high school,
Speaker 3: course they were living their own lives and traveling a bit,
Speaker 3: and both of them sort of back up binding a bit,
Speaker 3: but they always checked in, and they wrote dozens and
Speaker 3: dozens of letters. And I'm just one of those friendships
Speaker 3: you know that you know you're going to have when
Speaker 3: you're ninety some mid years old. You should in a
Speaker 3: good world.
Speaker 7: Now, in late August, she plans a short trip. This
Speaker 7: is like the twenty seventh, and she says she's going
Speaker 7: to be back by September second, So we're talking just
Speaker 7: a few days, but she's gonna go. She's gonna go
Speaker 7: backpacking and then tell us about what happens, what's the
Speaker 7: circumstances where she meets Chuck Matthews and a stranger named Roy.
Speaker 3: But as she said, she had gone backpacking for a
Speaker 3: few days in this area, and it's kind of she
Speaker 3: was going to come out this was this was going
Speaker 3: to be her last trip. She was pretty much done
Speaker 3: and and was going to have to move out of
Speaker 3: away from Gunnison, Colorado, where she was, and and go
Speaker 3: back easton begin this new job. So she's kind of
Speaker 3: taking one last hurrah on the Colorado Mountain and did
Speaker 3: that for a number of days with her her German
Speaker 3: shepherd Okie. And she was walking out of from the
Speaker 3: trail head down to the road toward her car where
Speaker 3: she'd had to park a mile or so away from
Speaker 3: the trailhead, and these two guys came kind of up,
Speaker 3: bought past her and stopped and gave her a sip
Speaker 3: of beer, and they were going up farther, and she
Speaker 3: was walking down the road and they kind of came
Speaker 3: back and they passed her, and and she gets down
Speaker 3: and gets to her car, and well actually then they
Speaker 3: actually pick her up, and he starts giving her rising
Speaker 3: in his car breaks down, So now they're all on foot.
Speaker 3: So they get the Michelle's car and they all pile
Speaker 3: on that and she's gonna take this is up near
Speaker 3: Crested Beauty, get twenty some odd miles away and she's
Speaker 3: takes herself and them down to Gunnison where she let
Speaker 3: Chuck Matthews kind of an old ranch and Vietnam. That
Speaker 3: guy a little bit of an alcoholic. She lets him
Speaker 3: off at a at a bar there, the Columbine Bar
Speaker 3: in Gunnison. And Roy Mellenson says that you know, asked
Speaker 3: her if she could drive him a little bit farther
Speaker 3: and take him to where his truck is.
Speaker 7: Now you said in the book that that was strange
Speaker 7: for Chuck, because tell us why Chuck thought that was
Speaker 7: very strange when he when Roy had asked this woman
Speaker 7: to drive him a few blocks to his truck.
Speaker 3: Well, Chuck didn't know Roy very well. They had met
Speaker 3: in the bar the same bar a couple of days earlier,
Speaker 3: just having some beers and then kind of just spent
Speaker 3: the next two days out traveling around. Roy said, Oh,
Speaker 3: he's working for a rancher and there's a troublesome bear
Speaker 3: that they were gonna hunt. And but they're mostly wandering
Speaker 3: around drinking beer and uh, you know, just carrousing up
Speaker 3: in the in the mountains there. When they come across
Speaker 3: Michelle and and they were driving Chuck's truck in our car,
Speaker 3: and just like it did when they met Michelle, it's
Speaker 3: kept breaking down and had flats and all sorts of problems.
Speaker 3: So when Chuck hears that, and when and Roy had
Speaker 3: never mentioned that he'd had a vehicle or a truck,
Speaker 3: they could have driven around or or something instead of his.
Speaker 3: So when Roy, when he hears Roy, and that's he
Speaker 3: only knows him by Roy. He doesn't never ask him
Speaker 3: in his last name. Apparently only knows him by Roy.
Speaker 3: This guy, Roy asked the girl if he can she
Speaker 3: can drive him to his truck, and he thought that
Speaker 3: was strange because he'd never heard of a truck, this
Speaker 3: guy having a truck. But on the other hand, by
Speaker 3: this time, all Chuck wants to do is get into
Speaker 3: the bar and have a few drinks. So he against
Speaker 3: his better judgment, I guess lets the girl go off
Speaker 3: with this guy Roy toward his truck.
Speaker 7: What's interesting too, is that he the Roy, says listen,
Speaker 7: I'll be back in a little while, and Chuck does
Speaker 7: not see him that night. And in fact, you talk
Speaker 7: about it's very, very different circumstances in the near future
Speaker 7: that they speak again. We're gonna use this as an opportunity,
Speaker 7: Steve to stop for a moment to talk about pro
Speaker 7: Flowers now. Mom has always been an expert on everything, cooking,
Speaker 7: relationship advice, fixing your cuts and bruises. In fact, my
Speaker 7: mother is still the expert I go to for recipe advice,
Speaker 7: like what are the names of those three cheeses that
Speaker 7: she puts in her famous lasagna? Again, But the one
Speaker 7: thing you can't ask her advice about is what to
Speaker 7: get her for Mother's Day. But not to worry, you'll
Speaker 7: look like an expert on Mother's Day when you use
Speaker 7: pro flowers Now with a special offer, get Mom one
Speaker 7: hundred blooms with a free glass glass vase for nineteen
Speaker 7: ninety nine plus shipping and handling, or make her day
Speaker 7: extra special, upgrade to a premium vase and add gourmet
Speaker 7: chocolates for just nine to ninety nine more. Go to
Speaker 7: pro Flowers that's ProFlowers dot com today and use my
Speaker 7: code true Murder. Pro Flowers takes the guesswork out of
Speaker 7: sending Mom, Grandma, or your wife the perfect Mother's Day gift.
Speaker 7: Pro flowers are guaranteed to be fresh and beauty for
Speaker 7: at least seven days or your money back for My
Speaker 7: Mother's Day. For my mother's birthday, the folks at pro
Speaker 7: Flowers created a beautiful arrangement with a very nice matching vase.
Speaker 7: The roses and lilies were vibrant and super fresh, and
Speaker 7: they lasted for many days after the week that they
Speaker 7: had promised. Now, my mother's best friend and neighbor was
Speaker 7: so impressed with ProFlowers she immediately ordered some flowers and
Speaker 7: chocolates for herself. Now here's the only way to get
Speaker 7: one hundred blooms with a free glass vase starting at
Speaker 7: only nineteen ninety nine. Visit ProFlowers dot com. It's one word.
Speaker 7: Click the blue microphone in the top right corner and
Speaker 7: type in true Murder one word that's pro Flowers p
Speaker 7: R O F l o w Ers dot com. Click
Speaker 7: on the microphone and type in true Murder. Remember Mother's
Speaker 7: Day is next week and order today because this offer
Speaker 7: expires Friday at midnight. That's ProFlowers dot com. Okay, Steve.
Speaker 7: When we last left off, we have Chuck Matthews thinks
Speaker 7: he something was strange when his friend Roy, who had
Speaker 7: mentioned the truck whatsoever, says he's going to get a
Speaker 7: ride and he'll be back, and he doesn't visit, He
Speaker 7: doesn't see his friend again, doesn't think anything of it.
Speaker 7: What happens with this woman and the search for this
Speaker 7: missing woman tell us about that.
Speaker 3: Well, Michelle disappears. Chuck is the last person to see
Speaker 3: her alive anyway, And what happens is that nobody really
Speaker 3: notices her roommate is out of town at a wedding
Speaker 3: for some other other things, and nobody really knows that
Speaker 3: she's missing until she doesn't make her weekly call home
Speaker 3: to her mother, Maggie. And Maggie of course is alarmed,
Speaker 3: just because Michelle was so regular about this and know
Speaker 3: that knew that her mom kind of waited for her calls.
Speaker 3: But Maggie calls Donna, and Donna, you know, she thinks
Speaker 3: this is unusual too, But then again, you know, Michelle's
Speaker 3: twenty five years old. She might have found some people
Speaker 3: she was having fun with up in the mountains and
Speaker 3: decided to stay an extra day or so, and or
Speaker 3: maybe had a new boyfriend or something like that. But
Speaker 3: these are these are the days before cell phones, so
Speaker 3: it's a little harder to call home, and so she
Speaker 3: wasn't completely alarmed. You know, she believed in her friend's
Speaker 3: abilities to take care of herself. She knew she was
Speaker 3: a you know, quite the outdoors woman. She's row climber
Speaker 3: and done all sorts of things. So she wasn't terribly
Speaker 3: alarmed at first, but her mother was. And a day
Speaker 3: later that her mom called the sheriff's office and still
Speaker 3: hadn't heard from her daughter. And now the sheriff's office decides, well, okay,
Speaker 3: you know, kind of at her insistence, they send the
Speaker 3: in officer, the lieutenant actually a sub lieutenant to her
Speaker 3: off her apartment, Michelle's apartment, just to see if you know,
Speaker 3: he can find her and say, hey, call your mom
Speaker 3: or whatever. Find out something gets there and Michelle's roommate
Speaker 3: has returned, but she says, you know, Michelle hasn't and
Speaker 3: she's a little concerned about it too, because she knew
Speaker 3: that Michelle needed to work and was supposed to pack
Speaker 3: up her things and be getting getting ready to move on,
Speaker 3: and she hadn't heard from her either. So now people
Speaker 3: are starting to worry. And this continues for several days
Speaker 3: until a massive search is launched for once again, this
Speaker 3: is Dennison, Colorado is a very in a very rugged
Speaker 3: area of Colorado of the mountains and valleys and rivers
Speaker 3: and all sorts of places that a backpacker, especially one alone,
Speaker 3: could have fallen and been injured or or anyone of
Speaker 3: a number of different things and be looking for some help.
Speaker 3: So a massive search is launched.
Speaker 7: Now what do they What kind of results do they
Speaker 7: net from this search for enough on these amount of days,
Speaker 7: and what happens? Do they find her car?
Speaker 3: Know that at first they don't find her car has
Speaker 3: has disappeared, which is unusual as a red red car.
Speaker 3: They were doing air searches and everything else and they
Speaker 3: couldn't find it. Now, so this this goes on for
Speaker 3: a little bit and then finally one day Chuck Matthews,
Speaker 3: our guy who was hanging around with Roy, he hears
Speaker 3: on the radio that they're looking for a girl with
Speaker 3: a German shepherd who was supposed to be backpacking in
Speaker 3: the area that he had been and he realizes this
Speaker 3: it's the description of the girl who gave him and
Speaker 3: Roy a ride back to Gunnison, and so he contacts
Speaker 3: the police. And so now the police are worried that
Speaker 3: she actually did come out of the hills. They know that,
Speaker 3: so she's not in the hills anymore, according to this
Speaker 3: guy Chuck, but she disappeared in the company of a
Speaker 3: man that nobody knows, named Roy Mellinson, and this has
Speaker 3: followed up with a report. Shortly after that at a
Speaker 3: rancher calls up and said he shot a German shepherd dog,
Speaker 3: matching description of the dog lasting with Michelle. And it
Speaker 3: does turn out to be Oki with a dog was
Speaker 3: running loose and chasing cattle, and so the you know,
Speaker 3: as ranchers will do sometimes if something bothering their lives,
Speaker 3: thoughts he actually shot the dog, and so now they
Speaker 3: know things are something's really wrong. Michelle came out, she
Speaker 3: disappeared from with the company of some man nobody knows.
Speaker 3: Her dog is running around loose. She was very attached
Speaker 3: to the dog that would have never happened, or they
Speaker 3: can't find her car. So things are pretty desperate at
Speaker 3: this point.
Speaker 7: Now they have one lead in terms of Chuck Mouths
Speaker 7: who says that Roy had said he'd worked for a
Speaker 7: sheep rancher. So they were looking for a sheep rancher
Speaker 7: in Scholfield Park. What were the efforts there? Did they
Speaker 7: need any results?
Speaker 3: Well they did, and they found found the rancher who
Speaker 3: had hired Roy Mellinson to watch, actually to hunt some
Speaker 3: coyotes and and that sort of thing. Roy was. Roy
Speaker 3: has the book is named Smooth Talker. Roy was a
Speaker 3: real smooth talker, and he had talked his way into
Speaker 3: having a job, uh supposedly hunting kyotes that were bothering
Speaker 3: the sheep ranchers herds. No, no real proof that he
Speaker 3: ever accomplished much of anything, but that's just who he was.
Speaker 3: So they did find this rancher, and the rancher yes,
Speaker 3: he'd hired a guy named Roy. In fact, he knew
Speaker 3: his name was Roy Mellinson M E L A N
Speaker 3: S O N and uh and said that you know,
Speaker 3: the guy didn't have much of anything, certainly didn't have
Speaker 3: a vehicle, didn't have uh, you know, had to be
Speaker 3: loaned to sleep sleeping bag for that matter, to be
Speaker 3: able to work. But he had fired him because he
Speaker 3: wasn't getting his work done and was hanging out with
Speaker 3: his family sort of a hippie family in the hills there,
Speaker 3: so you know, and hadn't seen him in several days. Now.
Speaker 7: Roy Mullinson's as you're described in the book. He's six foot,
Speaker 7: one hundred and ninety pounds, thinning hair and you say,
Speaker 7: remarkably large hands. He's born on February thirteenth, nineteen seventy
Speaker 7: thirty seven in Boroughbridge, Louisiana. And you say he was
Speaker 7: well known to law enforcement in southern Texas and Louisiana
Speaker 7: even before he was twenty years old. Tell us what
Speaker 7: kind of crimes he was first convicted of and known
Speaker 7: for in Texas well.
Speaker 3: He kind of starts early. He's still a minor when
Speaker 3: he gets his first burglary, raps and breaking and entering
Speaker 3: and does these sorts of things. Eventually, uh gets a
Speaker 3: little bit older and serves some time in prison. Then
Speaker 3: when he gets out he kind of ups the any
Speaker 3: a little bit by trying to uh and brutally trying
Speaker 3: to rape his cousin, a female cousin, and he's actually
Speaker 3: convicted of this, but he takes off and uh, you know,
Speaker 3: and doesn't serve much of it much of any time.
Speaker 3: He just he just kind of disappears and he he commits,
Speaker 3: he commits several rapes down in Texas. One uh that
Speaker 3: he's again he's a victim testifies that against him at
Speaker 3: an arraignments and and he.
Speaker 5: Is Ryan here. And I have a question for you.
Speaker 5: What do you do when you win?
Speaker 2: Like?
Speaker 5: Are you a fist pumper, a woo, a handclapper, a
Speaker 5: high fiver? I kind of like the high But if
Speaker 5: you want to hone in on those winning moves, check
Speaker 5: out Chumbuck Casino At chumbacasino dot com, choose from hundreds
Speaker 5: of social casino style games for your chance to redeem
Speaker 5: serious cash prizes. There are new game releases weekly, plus
Speaker 5: free daily bonuses, so don't wait start having the most
Speaker 5: fun ever at chumba Casino dot com.
Speaker 4: No, we're not necessarily dally REVOI wherever if I lost
Speaker 4: the terms of conditions eighteen plus and.
Speaker 3: He gives bail and goes and lives in a different
Speaker 3: part of the state. And finally gets caught again when
Speaker 3: he this is nineteen seventy four February or so I
Speaker 3: believe of nineteen seventy four, where he rapes yet another woman,
Speaker 3: and this time he takes her and drives her back
Speaker 3: and forth for a few days from Texas Louisiana, raping her,
Speaker 3: threatening her rope around her neck, and she ever struggle,
Speaker 3: he would tighten the garrets and choke her and just
Speaker 3: sort of a brutal few days of this young woman
Speaker 3: she was only seventeen at the time I had to
Speaker 3: endure with him. But at the end she talks him
Speaker 3: into being condensed to him that maybe they could be
Speaker 3: an item, and and you know, he shows her his
Speaker 3: actually shows her his driver's license and the adnits he
Speaker 3: kind of stopped her around the high school and this
Speaker 3: sort of thing. So she when she finally talks him
Speaker 3: into letting her go, she goes to the police and
Speaker 3: he's arrested, and this time they have him in jail
Speaker 3: for when again he's going to skip town.
Speaker 7: The sort of the seems a situation constantly is he
Speaker 7: gets a fairly stiff sentence, but through parole and through
Speaker 7: various other things, will various other circumstances. He seems to
Speaker 7: get out in a fairly short period of time. That
Speaker 7: continues even though he has these very serious sexual asault charges, doesn't.
Speaker 3: He yes, And in fact, in nineteen seventy four he's
Speaker 3: he's he skips bail again. He that that's it's part
Speaker 3: of his you know, he I think it's it's there's
Speaker 3: a couple of interesting things here. One is the you
Speaker 3: know where where the name of the book comes from.
Speaker 3: The smooth talker that he talks these women into. Oh,
Speaker 3: he's going to help them get gas when they run
Speaker 3: out of gas, or he's going to change a tire
Speaker 3: for him, or or he does all these sorts of things.
Speaker 3: And and he's kind of a smooth talker no matter
Speaker 3: where he goes. So he's yeah, he doesn't spend. He
Speaker 3: goes to prison and doesn't you know, he gets twelve years,
Speaker 3: serves six. He he a couple of times he gets
Speaker 3: bail and he takes off on bail, even though he's
Speaker 3: done it before. So in nineteen seventy four he actually
Speaker 3: skips town and takes off with his Some say his
Speaker 3: wife is just a go from but woman he got
Speaker 3: pregnant and takes off for Arizona while he's out for
Speaker 3: this nineteen seventy four rape, the one where he was
Speaker 3: taking the young woman back and border. And so it
Speaker 3: really is that, you know, law enforcement sort of fell
Speaker 3: down the job here about putting this guy away when
Speaker 3: he's obviously a serial rapist at the very least, and
Speaker 3: he's escalating, things are getting more violent. He's threatening to
Speaker 3: kill him, he's got a gun, he's you know, he's
Speaker 3: getting worse.
Speaker 7: Tell us about Sally Burton, just to further cement the
Speaker 7: m O and signature of this Roy Mellenson.
Speaker 3: Well, Sally Burton is a I told you about. He
Speaker 3: was the sheep ranchers that he's living with a family there.
Speaker 3: And there's this Burton family that's kind of up at
Speaker 3: this family cabin up in the hill. The mom and
Speaker 3: her five daughters are all there, and the dad is
Speaker 3: they're from Pueblo. He's back working DNA Pueblos. But royce
Speaker 3: his way into into the good graces of the Burton family,
Speaker 3: at least mom at first, and then he takes a
Speaker 3: particular shining to Sally, who's fourteen years old, and the
Speaker 3: he's and I can't imagine doing this as a father
Speaker 3: of daughters myself, but she allows Mellonson to talk her
Speaker 3: into when they have to go back to Pueblo to
Speaker 3: join her husband after their vacation, she tells Mellonson, sure,
Speaker 3: her fourteen year old daughter can stay behind with him
Speaker 3: and you know, come down later when Melonson to return
Speaker 3: her to Pueblo. So she's they leave Sally with him
Speaker 3: and they have a sex relationship going on where she's
Speaker 3: pretty much kept a prisoner in the in the cabin.
Speaker 3: This is a little bit different. He's using his charms
Speaker 3: and and that sort of thing on her. I mean,
Speaker 3: she knows that she has no uh, she better not
Speaker 3: try to get out of leave the cabin, and she
Speaker 3: better do what he wants when he asks for sex.
Speaker 3: But this isn't the brutal raping and threats to kill
Speaker 3: that some of these other others were. He's he's quite
Speaker 3: a chameleon when he's uh, you know, he can be
Speaker 3: perfectly charming in a situation, even though of course this
Speaker 3: is a sexual relationship with a fourteen year old.
Speaker 7: Now, tell us about Melonson and and Michelle Wallace, how
Speaker 7: how they meet, and tell us a little bit both
Speaker 7: their meeting.
Speaker 3: Well, Roy had had as we said, Roy gets picked
Speaker 3: up by Michelle and with Chuck, and then he leaves
Speaker 3: with Michelle. And then Michelle hasn't heard of And now
Speaker 3: once we get the sheep Rancher and Chuck Matthews and
Speaker 3: these guys there, they now know they're looking for a
Speaker 3: guy named Roy Mellinson could be driving a red Moss
Speaker 3: station wagon, which was miss Michelle's car, and so they're
Speaker 3: looking for this guy. And so they have a bowl
Speaker 3: platform and and and in the meantime, Roy has taken
Speaker 3: off in michelle station wagon. He's cashed some checks. He
Speaker 3: uh now takes her. He goes down to Pueblo to
Speaker 3: see Sally Burton, and Burton stays down there for a
Speaker 3: little bit. He actually has Michelle's camera and somebody takes
Speaker 3: a photograph of him laying on on the couch there
Speaker 3: at the Burton home with a young visitor, not one
Speaker 3: the Burton girl, but a visitor from a different town,
Speaker 3: uh sitting in front of him. It's kind of a
Speaker 3: very creepy photo, and it's the very last photograph taken
Speaker 3: on the film that Michelle had in the camera. So
Speaker 3: but he later he takes that camera and he hawks
Speaker 3: it and ponds it actually and ponds her her camping
Speaker 3: equipment and drives her car all over the place. He
Speaker 3: drives it a thousand miles down to Texas, out to Oklahoma,
Speaker 3: and he finally meets this other guy and and they
Speaker 3: kind of become drinking buddies, and he ditches the Subaru
Speaker 3: down in Texas and drives back up to Pueblo, and
Speaker 3: he's kind of hanging around to school looking for Sally
Speaker 3: Burton to get out of school with this other guy.
Speaker 3: And when he gets pulled over by the police because
Speaker 3: somebody reports sort of tow creepy middle aged guys hanging
Speaker 3: around the school looking for looking at the girls. So
Speaker 3: he has pulled over, but the police computer such as
Speaker 3: this at this time is down, but at first nothing happens,
Speaker 3: but then shortly afterwards the computer goes back up and
Speaker 3: the police officer who would pull it pulled Melonson over
Speaker 3: and Dina's driver's license now learns that Mellonson has wanted
Speaker 3: for both a rape in Texas and he's wanted in Gunnison, Colorado,
Speaker 3: and so he goes Actually they eventually find they eventually
Speaker 3: find Melons and there's an off point bulletsin and there's
Speaker 3: a man hunt for him in Pueblo and they eventually
Speaker 3: catch him at a motel.
Speaker 7: Well, how does tell us how this thermon gene Welder
Speaker 7: fits in this as well? Because he spends it again
Speaker 7: is incredible. You say, he's a born bullshitter, but he
Speaker 7: talks to a guy and then he meets in a
Speaker 7: bar and the next thing you know, he's convincing him
Speaker 7: of his way out of a white catile. Actual tell
Speaker 7: us about this?
Speaker 3: Yeah, so this is this is the guy he meets
Speaker 3: when he's driving the Subaru around and and they become
Speaker 3: drinking buddies. He details, uh Wilder that oh I you know,
Speaker 3: Wilder's a heavy construction uh uh heavy uh uh equipment driver.
Speaker 3: So Mellinson said, oh, you know, follow me at the Pueblo.
Speaker 3: I got a friend up there who can give you
Speaker 3: a job right away. So that's basically wild Wilder is
Speaker 3: with him. Other than you know, Mellonson is a is
Speaker 3: a good talker and and uh guess good to drink
Speaker 3: with and that sort of stuff. So's I mean, we're
Speaker 3: not talking about a couple of rocket scientists here. So
Speaker 3: we have Wilder and Melonson in there. You know, Mellinson
Speaker 3: gets him to come up to Pueblo, which was Mellenson's
Speaker 3: only real motive there was to ditch the Subaru a
Speaker 3: long ways away down in Texas and then returned to
Speaker 3: Pueblo to find Sally Burton.
Speaker 7: Now, once these guys are arrested, you say, they find
Speaker 7: So they find the pawn tickets, one for the sleeping
Speaker 7: bag and a backpack, and then the one for the
Speaker 7: thirty five millimeter camera. They find an unused bus ticket
Speaker 7: from Gunnison to Peblo and a set of mazdakar keys.
Speaker 7: So how do police proceed with this information?
Speaker 3: Now, Well, they did. They actually developed the film. Me
Speaker 3: Inson is arrested and he's taking up the Gunnis and
Speaker 3: he's wanted now for questioning in the show case. But
Speaker 3: he's also there's a check forging the charge against him
Speaker 3: that gives them the ability to arrest him and take
Speaker 3: him up there because they can't charge him with anything.
Speaker 3: And Michelle's case, they don't know what's happened to Michelle
Speaker 3: at this point, but they do manage. They're taking back
Speaker 3: the Gunnisan on the check charge, so they've got him
Speaker 3: in custody. Now they're trying to figure out what to do,
Speaker 3: so they run some of these pawns down they pawn
Speaker 3: the camera, I believe in Iowa or Oklahoma. I figured
Speaker 3: which one it was now. But and on the bed
Speaker 3: they developed a film in the camera, and most of
Speaker 3: it are photographs that Michelle had taken during her trip,
Speaker 3: you know, herself or her dog, the outdoors, the sorts
Speaker 3: of things she liked to do. There's a photograph taken
Speaker 3: of it by somebody of her and the dog standing
Speaker 3: with some family that we still don't know who they are.
Speaker 3: But at the very last frame on this role of
Speaker 3: film that's developed, there's Mellonson laying on the couch with
Speaker 3: the girls in front of him, reading the newspaper, and
Speaker 3: it's it's just sort of definitely ties Melonson to Michelle's camera, which,
Speaker 3: of course, you know Mellonson that was at some points
Speaker 3: was saying that he'd never met Michelle, never didn't know her,
Speaker 3: the sorts of things. Now of course decides finding the
Speaker 3: subrew and and Wilder saying yeah that he was driving
Speaker 3: red subru and we went here and there and that
Speaker 3: sort of thing. Now they can connect Mellonson to Michelle.
Speaker 3: They just don't have what happened to Michelle or her body.
Speaker 3: If she was killed and left somewhere. They don't can't
Speaker 3: find her, they don't know where she is. They don't
Speaker 3: really want to prosecute a case in which they can't
Speaker 3: yet prove murder or with the body. And so Mellonson
Speaker 3: is basically up in Gunnison where he beats the check charge.
Speaker 3: But he's taken to Texas for the nineteen seventy four
Speaker 3: rape he conducted down there where he is convicted and
Speaker 3: now he's sentenced to life without parole for as a
Speaker 3: multiple offender, a three time loser, and he gets sentenced
Speaker 3: this this big supposed sentence that she'd put him away
Speaker 3: for good. Unfortunately it doesn't.
Speaker 7: Now in this interim period of where the case Skoll
Speaker 7: is cold and technology is developed and other people come
Speaker 7: into play and other characters, and we talked about Kathy Young,
Speaker 7: Let's also maybe can tell our audience about what happens
Speaker 7: to Michelle Wallace's mother, Maggie.
Speaker 3: Well, sure, this is it's just the whole Wallace story
Speaker 3: is just such a huge tragedy. After after it became
Speaker 3: a parent that Michelle wasn't coming home and stayed you know,
Speaker 3: there's all this this growing stuff and then they hear
Speaker 3: that she had disappeared in the company of some guy
Speaker 3: named Roy, and that they had arrested him and found
Speaker 3: her camera with him. Maggie despairs that, you know, she
Speaker 3: kept holding on the hope, you know, maybe Michelle was
Speaker 3: being kept somewhere, or had you know, been hit on
Speaker 3: the head, if I following off a cliff or something
Speaker 3: been hit on the head. Her friend Donna Campeglia was
Speaker 3: the same. They're all trying and hoping to believe that
Speaker 3: somehow Michelle was still alive. But this kind of it doesn't,
Speaker 3: especially for Maggie, who gives up on Michelle coming home
Speaker 3: or and even that they can't even find her body.
Speaker 3: That's just getting to her. So she gets worse and
Speaker 3: worse and mentally and with draws. And so one night
Speaker 3: she was about to go to bed with her husband
Speaker 3: and she makes up some tea and gives him to
Speaker 3: ask him if he wants Somebody tries it, but it's
Speaker 3: kind of bitter, so he decides he doesn't want to
Speaker 3: drink it and puts it down, but she drinks hers
Speaker 3: and to go to bed, and in the morning wakes
Speaker 3: up and his wife has dad. She'd taken an overdose
Speaker 3: in her tea and left the message though saying, you know,
Speaker 3: when you find my daughter's body, please bury her with me.
Speaker 3: And so you know, this death or disappearance of Michelle
Speaker 3: Wallace is compounded by now the suicide of her mother.
Speaker 7: Now, in nineteen seventy nine, you talk of a hiker
Speaker 7: named Thomas Cools and he's walking along the logging track
Speaker 7: off the main road over Kebler Pass. And what we
Speaker 7: didn't mention is that Michelle Wallace had sort of a
Speaker 7: telltale long dark hair in two thick braids, and two
Speaker 7: thick braids had been found or tell us about the
Speaker 7: two thick braids that were found.
Speaker 3: Well, the hiker you're talking about, he's walking along a
Speaker 3: sort of a logging road, but it's not very used
Speaker 3: at this time. It's getting sort of overgrown. And then
Speaker 3: he's hiking along where he finds up on the road
Speaker 3: who has apparently been dragged by a scavenger of some
Speaker 3: sort human scalp of with dark hair with two thick braids,
Speaker 3: which he you know, he recognizes as seems to be human.
Speaker 3: So he takes it down to the sheriff's office and
Speaker 3: it's then confirmed to be human hair for sure. But
Speaker 3: they can't yet prove that it's Michelle's hair because they
Speaker 3: don't have anything to compare it.
Speaker 6: Yes, and we.
Speaker 7: Got to mention too that we're also talking about nineteen
Speaker 7: seventy nine, so we're many many years away from any
Speaker 7: kind of DNA discovery or announcement or development at all.
Speaker 3: Right, you know, it's so a gleam in the scientist.
Speaker 3: I guess sure.
Speaker 7: So let's talk about a real central figure in this,
Speaker 7: and that's uh, the young police officer Kathy Young. So
Speaker 7: tell us about her.
Speaker 3: Well, Kathy Young, she had she was the youngest detective
Speaker 3: on the Sheriff's office. She she'd come up to, uh,
Speaker 3: it's Gunnison area about a year after Michelle, also a
Speaker 3: young woman kind of out for adventures. And you know,
Speaker 3: this is that that time in the American culture and
Speaker 3: history where women were starting to assert themselves and being
Speaker 3: able to do anything men could do. And Kathy was
Speaker 3: another one. And she eventually worked away into law enforcement
Speaker 3: and became a deputy and then became the investigator, the
Speaker 3: youngest one on the Gunnison County Sheriff's department. And she
Speaker 3: was basically the police officer or the chief up in
Speaker 3: Crested Butte, which is the ski area fairly near Gunnison,
Speaker 3: in the area where Michelle had been hiking. Says, you know,
Speaker 3: there's an old cold case that he might be interested
Speaker 3: in some time about this girl, Michelle Wallace, who was
Speaker 3: twenty five when she disappeared here in seventy four. And
Speaker 3: Kathy goes and starts looking into it. There's another deputy, deputy,
Speaker 3: Scott Jackson, who was involved in the search for after
Speaker 3: the hair was found on the road, they again mounted
Speaker 3: a large search and tried to search this whole area
Speaker 3: to see if they could find her bones or body.
Speaker 3: So again that they did try to go forward with
Speaker 3: some sort of a case against Melonson, who at this
Speaker 3: time is as we know, is serving time in Texas
Speaker 3: for rape. And so Kathy and Scott he shows her
Speaker 3: the evidence box and she sees the hair and which
Speaker 3: kind of fests her back a little bit, makes it
Speaker 3: very real. But they also and and and Kathy sort
Speaker 3: of identified with Michelle. You know, here's another young woman's
Speaker 3: same approximate ages, very close, same sort of wanting to
Speaker 3: get out there and be adventurous and love of the
Speaker 3: mountains in Colorado. So she comes along and uh and
Speaker 3: looks at this box and in what another part of
Speaker 3: the box that they didn't notice. Is that early on
Speaker 3: in the investigation, within the first few days, that officer
Speaker 3: who went over to Michelle's house and met a roommate,
Speaker 3: asked for anything that Michelle might have used that but
Speaker 3: only Michelle used and it so happened that the roommate
Speaker 3: had given her a hair brush or given this office
Speaker 3: or a hair brush, and so Kathy's used the thing.
Speaker 3: And now they have this hair from the found on
Speaker 3: the road. So they send the hair from the hairbrush
Speaker 3: along with the hair on the road to the Colorda
Speaker 3: Bureau of Investigation, and it's confirmed that Michelle's hair from
Speaker 3: the hairbrush and they have ever found on the road
Speaker 3: are Michelle's are identical. They're both Michelle. So we now
Speaker 3: have more proof that Michelle is actually dead. But it's
Speaker 3: still not a case. It's still not enough of the
Speaker 3: case to go after Mellinson. They need to find Michelle.
Speaker 3: They also and Kathy also needs to build more of
Speaker 3: a case against Mullinson. Revisits the old witnesses, try to
Speaker 3: find Chuck Matthews, trying to find the sheep rancher repeace
Speaker 3: this case together and try to build a case against Melonson.
Speaker 7: Where the braid is found and where the dog was
Speaker 7: found shot, it's sort of in the same vicinity, within
Speaker 7: twenty miles or so, so they know they have a
Speaker 7: better idea of the area that they might be able
Speaker 7: to search for. But they also have some information. They
Speaker 7: don't know how useful it is. But there's a couple
Speaker 7: of inmates that apparently Melinson has bragged to what the
Speaker 7: information A little bit of bits of information do they
Speaker 7: get from these two inmates, But the's.
Speaker 3: Two inmates Mellinson and brags that he'd raped and killed
Speaker 3: a girl up in the hill. He talks, he tells
Speaker 3: various stories, one of them that he knocked her teeth
Speaker 3: out with the hammer or whatever so she can be identified,
Speaker 3: or he you know, he'd done this and that, and
Speaker 3: so he basically he confesses to a degree, but he
Speaker 3: also changes his stories around a little bit. And part
Speaker 3: of that maybe that you know, he's trying to see
Speaker 3: who's gonna leak information after the sheriff, and and who
Speaker 3: knows what he's doing. He's you know, he's obviously a sociopath.
Speaker 3: He's you know, we know at this point, law enforcement
Speaker 3: knows at this point that he's at least a serial rapist,
Speaker 3: and now they believe he's also a murderer.
Speaker 7: Now with you even talk about when he's in prison,
Speaker 7: he couldn't stay out of trouble. And what is he
Speaker 7: accused of in prison, Well.
Speaker 3: He's accused of killing his There was a young black man,
Speaker 3: kind of a small guy in prison and Melonson was
Speaker 3: said to have beat him to death and strangled and
Speaker 3: beat him to death. But nobody had This is down
Speaker 3: in Texas, at Texas prison, and nobody was coming forward
Speaker 3: to you know, you don't snitch even on something like that, apparently,
Speaker 3: and so he was it was believed that he killed
Speaker 3: this young man. But and he had later bragged about it.
Speaker 3: But he you know, doesn't get and doesn't get into
Speaker 3: any real trouble. And in fact, during this time closed
Speaker 3: life sentence that he was supposed to have received. The
Speaker 3: he gets his, he gets to repeat offender statue used
Speaker 3: against him overturned, so instead they recent them to thirty years,
Speaker 3: but he ends up serving twelve years and instead gets
Speaker 3: out in nineteen eighty eight. So and this is during
Speaker 3: the time when Kathy Young over in Dennison, Colorado, is
Speaker 3: working on the case. So these things are kind of
Speaker 3: happening jointly that Mellinson gets released out of prison about
Speaker 3: the same time Kathy starts to really dig into this
Speaker 3: the Michelle Wallace case over in Colorado. So we had
Speaker 3: Melonson at luth in nineteen eighty eight and Kathy Young
Speaker 3: work on the Michelle Wallace case in Colorado at the
Speaker 3: same time.
Speaker 7: Now he's released in nineteen eighty eight, so now we're
Speaker 7: talking about this fourteen years later. Mellinson's now fifty one.
Speaker 7: He goes to live to Port Arthur. He's staying with
Speaker 7: the mother of his son that he once abandoned in
Speaker 7: Tucson and her current boyfriend, and the couple was renting
Speaker 7: an apartment from Pauline Clump, a fifty one year old woman.
Speaker 7: So take it from there. What happens with Pauline Clump
Speaker 7: and Mellonson.
Speaker 3: Well, Pauline shows up one day and she's going to
Speaker 3: pick up a TV from this apartment that she is
Speaker 3: menting to this couple where Mellinson is also staying, and
Speaker 3: she notes says something about that she has an air
Speaker 3: conditioner that needs some help, and Mellonson of course said, though,
Speaker 3: I you know, I can repair air air conditioners and
Speaker 3: that sort of stuff. So they leave the apartment complex
Speaker 3: and Pauline's car and then the next day, Pauline's car
Speaker 3: is found in a grocery store parking lot. But Pauline
Speaker 3: is missing. She's never been found, and Mellinson disappeared left
Speaker 3: town that day.
Speaker 7: Now, just just terror. Never in horror, story doesn't end
Speaker 7: for the victims. There's another person that's sucked into this
Speaker 7: vortex of murder is a person named Vince Lejeune who
Speaker 7: has a His fiance is Charlotte Sorowin. So tell a
Speaker 7: that's what happens with these people, and this is two
Speaker 7: hundred miles east of Port Arthur, Texas. Tell us a
Speaker 7: little bit about this couple.
Speaker 3: Well, they're a young couple. They're twenty four years old.
Speaker 3: They planning on getting married in about six months when
Speaker 3: Vince turns twenty five. It's sort of the dates stayed set.
Speaker 3: But they're a young Louisiana couple from a very small town, Walker, Louisiana,
Speaker 3: which has been the Livingston Parish and sort of a
Speaker 3: one store town sort of place. But they have their dreams.
Speaker 3: They have. Vince has bought some property outside of town,
Speaker 3: and they would like to put their dream house up
Speaker 3: there and raise a family and all these sorts of things.
Speaker 3: But they they're trying to raise the money to have
Speaker 3: it cleared. It's been a it was a logged area,
Speaker 3: so there's a lot of stumps there, there's a lot
Speaker 3: of brush trees there's it just basically needs to be
Speaker 3: bulldozed and cleared. So he's trying to save up money.
Speaker 3: But he's a twenty four year old and he's you know,
Speaker 3: every time he saves the time he spends a nickel.
Speaker 3: So there's that sort of thing. So at this time,
Speaker 3: they're sort of living on her parents' property. There's a
Speaker 3: shack that's been remodeled kind of shack shack. It's actually
Speaker 3: the interiors okay with it tiny, and it's on her
Speaker 3: mom and dad's property. So she Charlotte is looking to
Speaker 3: she really wants to move. She wants to move there.
Speaker 3: They have a trailer travel trailer that then uses in
Speaker 3: his work as a storage tank repairman, and she wants
Speaker 3: to move the trailer out to their property instead up
Speaker 3: out there and start building their home as they can.
Speaker 3: And so they're they're doing a little bit arguing about
Speaker 3: this because Vince isn't saving money very fast, and so
Speaker 3: she comes home one day and says, well, I met
Speaker 3: this guy at the laundromat who says he thinks he
Speaker 3: can get it clear cheaper than the guy you're talking to.
Speaker 3: And Vince is getting a little irritated this time because
Speaker 3: she keeps bringing us up and he keeps thinking she's
Speaker 3: pressuring him, and they're doing that sort of twenty four
Speaker 3: year old back and forth. So you know, he finally
Speaker 3: just says, oh, you know, go ahead, if you think
Speaker 3: he can get it done, to go talk to this guy.
Speaker 3: So Charlotte says she's gonna meet this guy the next
Speaker 3: day and they're going to go out to the property
Speaker 3: and he's going to give her a bit for clearing
Speaker 3: the property.
Speaker 7: Now, what's the next thing they have? You talk about
Speaker 7: that they're having this little argument and and you know,
Speaker 7: maybe even it didn't even say honey, I love you,
Speaker 7: because they are having a spat. What happens next and
Speaker 7: tell us a little bit about the nightmare that Vince
Speaker 7: enters into.
Speaker 3: Well, he, like you said, he they have this spat.
Speaker 3: The next morning we leaves for work. He kind of
Speaker 3: leaves in a little bit of a huff, and you know,
Speaker 3: he could never and it bothers him to this day.
Speaker 3: Remember if he totally he loved her or or anything
Speaker 3: like that. I guess those those sorts of things that
Speaker 3: we think about many years later. But so he comes
Speaker 3: home from work and he kind of wants to kiss
Speaker 3: and makeup and and move on from there. But Charlotte's
Speaker 3: not there when he gets there, and he's you know,
Speaker 3: so he's just waiting and tinkering around the house and
Speaker 3: cooks a couple of stakes up for him, and it's
Speaker 3: still not It's starting to get dark, and she's still
Speaker 3: not there, so he decides to go look for and
Speaker 3: he he first he goes and talks to the parents
Speaker 3: that they always start her to drive off this afternoon,
Speaker 3: and then he goes and tries to talk to one
Speaker 3: of her best friends and said, well, she was talking
Speaker 3: about meeting this guy at the laundromat who is going
Speaker 3: to you know, show her or go look at the
Speaker 3: proper be with her and give her a bit on
Speaker 3: getting that cleared. And you know, she's tired of waiting
Speaker 3: for this to be done. That sort of stuff. And
Speaker 3: he even talked to one of his buddies who says
Speaker 3: that he had seen her talking to some stranger outside
Speaker 3: the launder matinate apparently talks something about the property at
Speaker 3: that point, so Vince decides he better go atle out
Speaker 3: to the property and and see if she's out there.
Speaker 3: Wouldn't have been totally unusual for her to go out there.
Speaker 3: She likes to go out there and sit in her
Speaker 3: car with the stereo doing and listen to music and
Speaker 3: plan her dream house and that sort of thing. Now
Speaker 3: was a little bit later than she would have normally
Speaker 3: been out there, so he thinks, well, it's you know,
Speaker 3: it's rural property. There's not a lot of people out there,
Speaker 3: so you know, whatef her battery went at or something
Speaker 3: happened or or anything along those lines. So he decides
Speaker 3: to drive out there and gets out to the property.
Speaker 3: It's out on the stick quite a ways, and goes
Speaker 3: down the bend of the dirt road and turns the
Speaker 3: corner and sees her car just off the road in
Speaker 3: the weed, but in the weeds, and you know, drives past,
Speaker 3: stops his truck, goes back to look and notices that
Speaker 3: the stereo has been ripped out of the car, And
Speaker 3: now he's really worried. He thinks, you know, believes that
Speaker 3: something's real bad has happened, and even looks in the trunk,
Speaker 3: but he doesn't touch the rest of the car because
Speaker 3: he doesn't want to disturb a client scene. But he's
Speaker 3: worried that whoever did it might have put Charlotte in
Speaker 3: the trunk, and so he looks in there but can't
Speaker 3: find her there, so he starts walking around calling for her.
Speaker 3: It's very dark. He didn't have much of anything to
Speaker 3: look for. He has a flashlight, but he's it's a
Speaker 3: large area, so it doesn't get far. And he sees
Speaker 3: a neighbor quite a ways away pull into a driveway,
Speaker 3: so he hops in his car truck and reverses out
Speaker 3: of there and actually hits Charlotte's car, and he's doing
Speaker 3: that but manages turn around and go down to where
Speaker 3: this neighbor is and gets out and says, help me,
Speaker 3: help me, you know, call the police please, And the
Speaker 3: police come out and they they do quite a search.
Speaker 3: This was probably eight o'clock, nine o'clock when they're called.
Speaker 3: At about two am in that morning, when Vince is there,
Speaker 3: they're waiting. Everybody's out and they're all searching this wood
Speaker 3: wooded area. So it takes four or five hours before
Speaker 3: they come back to him and tell him that they
Speaker 3: found Charlotte. She's been murdered. And and so that's when
Speaker 3: the nightmare really begins.
Speaker 7: We won't have time to go into this because this
Speaker 7: is almost like we're you've jam packed so much information
Speaker 7: into this relatively, you know, not a huge book, but
Speaker 7: we're not even halfway into this story. You say, the
Speaker 7: nightmare for Vince Lejune is just beginning.
Speaker 3: He has had to read Dan.
Speaker 7: Yes, well, we still have a little bit. What I
Speaker 7: wanted to do was fast forward a little bit too,
Speaker 7: just the role that Kathy Young has in this And
Speaker 7: as of nineteen ninety, Kathy Young is on the trail
Speaker 7: of this man, and she doesn't immediately get to the
Speaker 7: satisfaction that she wants immediately, but she gets on his trail.
Speaker 7: And so a great part of this book, I guess,
Speaker 7: the upshot of this book is the fine work that
Speaker 7: Kathy Young does, the dedication that she has, and then
Speaker 7: the small I guess satisfaction that some of these people
Speaker 7: have after many, many years of going to court and
Speaker 7: having Roy Mellinson at least get justice served and it's
Speaker 7: very interesting too. We won't get into it, but it's
Speaker 7: unusual for the behavior of of a kind of a
Speaker 7: killer like this for him not to even attend his
Speaker 7: own trial. So that's another part of the book that's
Speaker 7: quite a fascinating aspect of this guy's character. I wanted
Speaker 7: to say too, maybe you can talk about it a
Speaker 7: bit that what this book does is successfully tie in
Speaker 7: another story that you were on this program with No
Speaker 7: Stone Unturned, and the fine work of a group called
Speaker 7: necro Search. So just tell us a little bit about,
Speaker 7: without giving any more away, of this story and then
Speaker 7: the incredible trial with the display boxes with the black
Speaker 7: cloth over it, and how effective that was. Again, we're
Speaker 7: just going to have to let the people that have listened
Speaker 7: to the program so far go and explore the book
Speaker 7: and find out for themselves, But just tell us a
Speaker 7: little bit about the incredible tie in between this story
Speaker 7: and your other book, No Stone Unturned.
Speaker 3: Well, the story of Necrosearch International, which is a group
Speaker 3: of there's scientists, there's law enforcement, folk performer and even
Speaker 3: some current people with various sorts of expertise, whether it's
Speaker 3: lying drones or botanists or prins. The canthologists, but they
Speaker 3: were formed to as a to help law enforcement find
Speaker 3: the clandestine graves of murder victims, or sometimes not graves
Speaker 3: but just remains or even evidence, so law enforcement contacts them.
Speaker 3: Back when I wrote notes on Turn in two thousand
Speaker 3: and two, there they were still sort of a fairly
Speaker 3: young group and that law enforcement, you know, wasn't always
Speaker 3: convinced that they could work with. Over the years, they've
Speaker 3: really proven themselves. In the Michelle Wallace case was one
Speaker 3: of their first big ones. And this is in net
Speaker 3: Research International with was able to who put together a
Speaker 3: search for Michelle Wallace's remains, partly based on some biological
Speaker 3: material that was discovered in the hair, along with narrowing
Speaker 3: some things down, and eventually first found the skull and
Speaker 3: then we're able to find the rest of Michelle's remains,
Speaker 3: which showed that she the body had been thrown from
Speaker 3: an embankment above on the road above and come to
Speaker 3: rest against the tree. This becomes of course, just a
Speaker 3: big part of the trial, particularly when her skull is
Speaker 3: mounted inside of a glass case, a kind of a
Speaker 3: black material draped over it, and a moment naturally this
Speaker 3: is one of the pre trial motions. But when Melonson
Speaker 3: is there, and probably one of the reasons why he
Speaker 3: doesn't attend the trial is they unveil the skull and
Speaker 3: he is finally confronted with you know the results of
Speaker 3: it is evil and uh hevisibly uh is shaken by
Speaker 3: the by this and uh and it's you know, as
Speaker 3: you say, part of the story, but it's really was
Speaker 3: uh NET Research Internationals first UH real success story. They've
Speaker 3: had many many sins, but uh, you know, without it, uh,
Speaker 3: the ability to successfully prosecuted this case probably doesn't happen.
Speaker 3: And if it doesn't happen, then these other cases we've
Speaker 3: discussed never get solved as well.
Speaker 7: It's a lot of incredible in it. Go ahead.
Speaker 3: Sorry, well, I'm just gonna say and and and I
Speaker 3: gave we gave credit to Next Research International, which is
Speaker 3: a wonderful organization. I'm proud to be associated with him.
Speaker 3: But Kathy Young is really the dry She's simply heroic
Speaker 3: in how she went after Mellonson and without her dedication
Speaker 3: and what she did, these other cases also never gets solved.
Speaker 3: And in the it's quite possible that Roy Mellanson would
Speaker 3: be well probable if she didn't solve the Michelle Wallace case,
Speaker 3: that he would be out and still attacking women.
Speaker 7: Yeah, that's an incredible fact. And everybody was cognizant, especially
Speaker 7: Kathy Young, of the fact that this guy kept getting
Speaker 7: out and could be out, and every time he was
Speaker 7: out there was evidence of, and rumor of, and and
Speaker 7: all kinds of talk of all the other murder and
Speaker 7: rape that this man was committing. He never stopped for
Speaker 7: a second. What's fascinating about for those that are going
Speaker 7: to buy this book and read this book, is that
Speaker 7: the re emergence of people like David Loose, such a
Speaker 7: you know, sixty seven years old dying of answer comes
Speaker 7: to the trial Muriel Anita's sister of course, vince Le
Speaker 7: June as well. So all of these people, including the
Speaker 7: detectives and all the fine people that were instrumental in
Speaker 7: gathering the evidence, and all the other people that were
Speaker 7: witnesses with regrets and wanted to have some kind of closure.
Speaker 7: It had affected their life incredibly, all of these people.
Speaker 7: It's an amazing trial and result and story about all
Speaker 7: of the characters involved and all of their reactions to
Speaker 7: all of the things that go on in this incredible
Speaker 7: and very dramatic and dynamic Trial. I want to thank
Speaker 7: you very much Steve for this. For those that have
Speaker 7: been listening to the program, we have some Wild Blue
Speaker 7: Press giveaways. Again, maybe you can tell our audience about
Speaker 7: the prizes that you are going to be giving away,
Speaker 7: and I will tell people how they can do that.
Speaker 7: Just tell us a little bit about what you're giving
Speaker 7: away this evening.
Speaker 3: Well, we're giving away five audiobook copies of Smooth Talker,
Speaker 3: which is the story we've been talking about, and we're
Speaker 3: going to give five e books copies to your listeners
Speaker 3: as well, so a total of ten ten copies. And
Speaker 3: the only thing we'd ask is that you know, if
Speaker 3: you if you'd care to take a few moments and
Speaker 3: review these courts. It's always good for the author. It's
Speaker 3: good for whether it's me or one of our other
Speaker 3: fine authors at Wall Blue Press. But anyway, so it
Speaker 3: just follow Dan's instructions and we'll give these he'll he'll
Speaker 3: give these away to his listeners.
Speaker 7: Yes, I want to stress that as well too, is
Speaker 7: that I had mentioned that I was remiss and not
Speaker 7: mentioning that too except to a couple of the people.
Speaker 7: The winners that those that do win and do enjoy
Speaker 7: the book and do enjoy the program. One of the
Speaker 7: greatest things for authors is to have a real honest
Speaker 7: and review from somebody that loved the audiobook or the
Speaker 7: ebook or the paperback version of the book. That's very
Speaker 7: very important for other people, and it's really what other
Speaker 7: people do to make sometimes make their decision is the
Speaker 7: careful description and the reaction that they have to the
Speaker 7: book itself. So I I want to thank you very
Speaker 7: much for Steve, for those gifts, and for those people
Speaker 7: that are going to call in. It's the first ten
Speaker 7: people that contact me at Dan dot Zupanski zup a
Speaker 7: n sky dot com. But this time for this contest,
Speaker 7: I would like people the first ten people to say
Speaker 7: Hello Dan, and that's part of the way you're going
Speaker 7: to get that prize. So the first ten people that
Speaker 7: email personally to Dan dot Supanski at gmail dot com.
Speaker 7: That's Dan Dotzepanski at gmail dot com, Hello Dan, and
Speaker 7: those ten people will be the winners of the ten
Speaker 7: audiobooks that were given to us by Wild Blue Press.
Speaker 7: Steve Jackson. Thank you very much for those gifts, Steve,
Speaker 7: and thank you very much for this interview and coming
Speaker 7: on and talking about this great book, smooth talker. Thank
Speaker 7: you very much, Steve.
Speaker 3: Like I said, it's a great pleasure.
Speaker 7: Dan. Well, thank you very much, and be sure that
Speaker 7: we'll be hearing from you in the near future. For
Speaker 7: those that might want to contact you or get more information,
Speaker 7: maybe you can give us some if you do Facebook
Speaker 7: or Twitter or give us the weld Blue Press contact information.
Speaker 3: Well, I'm certainly on Facebook as Steve Jackson, and also
Speaker 3: through wild Blue Press dot com. It's wild Blue pres
Speaker 3: or one word dot com where you can find my books.
Speaker 3: You can find we have another fourteen authors these days,
Speaker 3: producing some great true crime crime thrillers, even a few
Speaker 3: romances and mysteries and that sort of thing too. But
Speaker 3: www dot Wildbluepress dot com and you can find myself
Speaker 3: for any of our other authors.
Speaker 7: Well, thank you very much, Steve. You have a great
Speaker 7: evening and talk to you again in the future.
Speaker 3: All right, Thank you, Dan, Bye bye, Thank
Speaker 7: You, bye bye.