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Speaker 5: Du You are now listening to True Murder, The most
Speaker 5: Shocking Killers in True crime History and the authors that
Speaker 5: have written about them Gaesy Bundy Dahmer, The Nightstalker VTK.
Speaker 5: Every week another fascinating author talking about the most shocking
Speaker 5: and infamous killers in true crime history. True Murder with
Speaker 5: your host, journalist and author Dan Zupansky.
Speaker 3: Good evening, This is your host Dan Zupansi for the
Speaker 3: program True Murder, The most shocking Killers in true crime
Speaker 3: History and the authors that have written about them. From
Speaker 3: the time he's a teenager, Jeremy Bryan Jones had led
Speaker 3: let his violent passions run wild, attacking, raping, and mutilating.
Speaker 3: Then in Mobile County, Alabama, Jones's rampage was stopped, but
Speaker 3: no one knew how many bodies were in his past.
Speaker 3: Convicted and sentenced to die for the brutal murder of
Speaker 3: Lisa Nichols, an Alabama mother of two children, Jones shocked
Speaker 3: authorities with the story of his life and his claims
Speaker 3: of snuffing out over a dozen victims in thirteen years.
Speaker 3: But was he telling the truth or was he simply
Speaker 3: taunting his captors. Detectives from across the South scramble to
Speaker 3: prove Jones's claims. At every turn. The man dubbed the
Speaker 3: Redneck Ted Bundy, made a mockery of investigators, the courts,
Speaker 3: and the media. In the end, he would be convicted
Speaker 3: of three murders, but investigators investigations into the horrifying crimes
Speaker 3: attributed to him still continue. Now, for the first time,
Speaker 3: the definitive story is told about a psychopath who enjoyed
Speaker 3: confessing almost as much as he enjoyed killing. Bloodlust killing
Speaker 3: was his pleasure. By journalist and author Sheila Johnson, my
Speaker 3: special guests this evening, Thank you very much for joining
Speaker 3: us on the program, Hilia Johnson.
Speaker 6: Thank you glad to be here.
Speaker 3: Oh, thank you very much. It's our pleasure now. First
Speaker 3: of all, of all the cases you could have chosen,
Speaker 3: and I know you've got some work in your past,
Speaker 3: what made you to decide to both to write about
Speaker 3: this case in particular.
Speaker 6: Well, I didn't really know about this case initially. My
Speaker 6: publisher at Pinnacle True Crime called and asked me to
Speaker 6: look into it and see if I'd be interested in
Speaker 6: doing a book. Since I was the closest writer geographically
Speaker 6: to the place where the murder took place and where
Speaker 6: Jonas had been jailed, And once I looked into it,
Speaker 6: I was totally hooked. I was on the opposite end
Speaker 6: of the state from Mobile, where he was arrested. I
Speaker 6: was up in the north end of Alabama instead of
Speaker 6: down on the coast, and since the distance there, I
Speaker 6: hadn't heard anything about the case. But I was just
Speaker 6: immediately started getting information as soon as I saw what
Speaker 6: was involved with it. And I didn't have any idea
Speaker 6: at the time just how much information there was going
Speaker 6: to be. And it was scattered all across the southeast
Speaker 6: and Midwest, and as time passed it just kept on growing.
Speaker 3: Now, this is a bloodlust is set in Alabama, But
Speaker 3: like you had mentioned that sort of bordering states that
Speaker 3: this whole story takes place. Now, what is the city
Speaker 3: of Mobile and an area like and how big is Mobile?
Speaker 3: For those people that aren't really don't really know what
Speaker 3: we're talking about, describe the communities where this story is set.
Speaker 6: Okay, it's Mobile, and it's one of the five largest
Speaker 6: cities in the States. It's down it's a port city
Speaker 6: down on the Gulf. But the murder took place in
Speaker 6: a rural area north of the city, and Johns seem
Speaker 6: to prefer to we work in the more rural areas.
Speaker 6: He was just not a city boy. He was seized
Speaker 6: from Oklahoma, and he liked to be in places where
Speaker 6: he could sort of ingratiate himself to his employers and
Speaker 6: co workers and and track and press everybody and be
Speaker 6: the good guy. And also where he could get out
Speaker 6: at night and trove for hookups at the smaller local
Speaker 6: bars and restaurants, and city women, you know, didn't really
Speaker 6: go for his line as much as the the more
Speaker 6: country girl types did. So his only adventure into the
Speaker 6: big cities was when he made a trip to New Orleans,
Speaker 6: which resulted in the murder of a prostitute there, and
Speaker 6: when he would occasionally go into Atlanta to pick up
Speaker 6: prostitutes whenever he lived in Georgia.
Speaker 3: Okay, now you've uh got right into Jeremy Bryan Jones here,
Speaker 3: but we have a different name for him, So explain
Speaker 3: that whole. That's a very fascinating story because it's so important. Uh,
Speaker 3: just tell us who Jeremy Brian Jones is first, and
Speaker 3: then we can get into the rest go back into
Speaker 3: the background as much as you have found out in
Speaker 3: your book and tell us who Jeremy Brian Jones was.
Speaker 3: What was his character like.
Speaker 6: Well, there's not much information available about his early childhood
Speaker 6: and background at that time, but he came from a
Speaker 6: very lower class family that there was a lot of turbulence,
Speaker 6: drinking and drugs and things of that nature involved, and
Speaker 6: his mother had some pretty serious drinking and drug issues too,
Speaker 6: for which he was arrested on one occasion. And he
Speaker 6: was not none of his family was very educated. But
Speaker 6: he always had the ability to sort of talk his
Speaker 6: way out of trouble and charm himself into anything that
Speaker 6: he wanted to get an entry to. And he had
Speaker 6: a pretty bad temper to go along with his his
Speaker 6: charm and his conceit. Also, he thought very highly of
Speaker 6: himself even from a young age, but uh when his
Speaker 6: temper got the best of him. Well, the first incident
Speaker 6: on his his record of any kind of trouble was
Speaker 6: a schoolyard fight when he was just a little boy,
Speaker 6: and when the mother of the boy that he was
Speaker 6: fighting with showed up to pick her son up from
Speaker 6: school and saw him and Jones tied up out in
Speaker 6: the dirt in the school yard. She rushed out to
Speaker 6: try to break things up, and he turned on her
Speaker 6: and knocked her down to the ground. In him just
Speaker 6: a small boy, so that that was the first thing
Speaker 6: on his record, and it was sort of an indication
Speaker 6: of things to come. And he was a big favorite
Speaker 6: with the muckers of the girls that he dated in
Speaker 6: high school or was friends with, because he'd always he
Speaker 6: was like the Eddie Haskell of of criminals, I guess
Speaker 6: you could say, and they all liked him. He was
Speaker 6: the boy I'll hope that their daughters would end up marrying,
Speaker 6: which looking back now, I'm sure they feel differently. And
Speaker 6: he started experimenting with drugs in high school and started
Speaker 6: to show a pretty dark side there and eventually worked
Speaker 6: his way around to some sexual assaults and attempted rapes
Speaker 6: and things of that nature that sent him to court.
Speaker 3: What type of drugs was he doing? And maybe tell
Speaker 3: us the nature of the extent basically of those sexual
Speaker 3: assaults was what was involved early on. And you say
Speaker 3: these are some of his first criminal charges, and you say,
Speaker 3: you know, you're talking about the the school yard fight
Speaker 3: being an indication. Tell us about the extent of those
Speaker 3: sexual assaults and tell us what happened as a result
Speaker 3: of those.
Speaker 6: Well, the sexual assaults I think were primarily brought about
Speaker 6: by Matthews. He was very much into crystal math from
Speaker 6: a pretty early time there. That was his drug of
Speaker 6: choice right from the beginning.
Speaker 3: Okay.
Speaker 6: And there's not too many details on record about those
Speaker 6: assaults because both he and the girls involved were still
Speaker 6: juveniles at that time. Okay, so we can't learn very
Speaker 6: much about that except that, uh one of the girls
Speaker 6: said that he threatened her with a pistol and and
Speaker 6: the other girl, you know, made a few other similar claims, right,
Speaker 6: And because of those two incidents, he went into a
Speaker 6: a program that they had in effect at the time,
Speaker 6: sort of a rehabilitation program, and he was required to
Speaker 6: go to therapy and and it was a residence type situation,
Speaker 6: and he on very many occasions would get mad and
Speaker 6: disrupt the proceedings and and storm out of his his
Speaker 6: group sessions and things of that nature. So he was
Speaker 6: working his way up to a lot of problems. And
Speaker 6: then when he got out of that situation, he tried
Speaker 6: a couple of other incidents and got arrested for those
Speaker 6: and then failed to show up, so he was wanted
Speaker 6: on failure to appear, So you.
Speaker 3: Say the book, he becomes in essence a fugitive at
Speaker 3: that point, mm hmm.
Speaker 6: Right, that's when he after he completed this treatment program
Speaker 6: that obviously did no good, then he went back out
Speaker 6: reoffended and then failed to appear. And that's when he
Speaker 6: started looking for a way out of trouble so that
Speaker 6: he wouldn't get arrested on those charges.
Speaker 3: And what was his solution for not being captured again
Speaker 3: and returned to the prison to face some time for
Speaker 3: these charges.
Speaker 6: Well, his mother really helped him out of that situation.
Speaker 6: She ran into a fellow one night in a bar,
Speaker 6: obviously pretty drunk drunker than she was because she could
Speaker 6: still out talk him at that stage, and she convinced
Speaker 6: him that her poor boy was about to get railroaded
Speaker 6: by the law and stepped to prison for something he
Speaker 6: didn't do. And she claimed that this man volunteered his
Speaker 6: social security and driver's license information, everything of that nature.
Speaker 6: I think more likely she stole it from him while
Speaker 6: he was drunk. Right, Well, Jones took all that uh
Speaker 6: information that mama had secured for him and hopped a
Speaker 6: bus to Alabama, and once he got down here, he
Speaker 6: had a very easy time getting news allegedly replacement ID
Speaker 6: with the Social Security number and and n name and
Speaker 6: driver's license number and birthdate that he now had, and
Speaker 6: he just very easily slipped into that identity and remained
Speaker 6: John Paul Chapman for quite some time. He was no
Speaker 6: longer Jemmy Brian Jones then, and in his mind and
Speaker 6: everybody else that knew him that he met, all the
Speaker 6: people he worked with, women he dated, everybody that knew
Speaker 6: him from that day forward knew him as John Paul Chapman.
Speaker 3: He essentially reinvented himself. The other part of his personality
Speaker 3: was that he was a drifter. And you talk about
Speaker 3: him securing work in different areas or having the premise
Speaker 3: for being in the area working, and you include the
Speaker 3: story of Hurricane Ivan in with the story because it
Speaker 3: just happens to be that was a threat in that
Speaker 3: area at that time. Tell us a little bit about
Speaker 3: what type of work that John Paul Chapman chose and
Speaker 3: seemed to be a convenient reason for him being traveling
Speaker 3: around and not staying put in one area.
Speaker 6: Well, he was the construction worker and had evidently had
Speaker 6: enough experience in enough different construction feels that he could
Speaker 6: get work very easily. And when he first came to Alabama,
Speaker 6: he got to work with a man named Mark Bentley
Speaker 6: and worked with him awhile. Then he went over into Georgia.
Speaker 6: He liked to do hurricane and and tornado clean up.
Speaker 6: He he was He was real fond of doing that
Speaker 6: type work because it kept him moving around and and
Speaker 6: it paid very well. So he went over to Georgia
Speaker 6: and worked a while over there, pretty good while, because
Speaker 6: he he committed several murders over that way, or claimed
Speaker 6: to have committed several murders, know for sure that he
Speaker 6: did a couple, but uh, that was why he liked
Speaker 6: to move around so he could he could kind of
Speaker 6: follow storms. And when he saw Hurricane Ivan was about
Speaker 6: to come in and hit the mobile area where Bentley lived,
Speaker 6: he immediately decided that he would go down there and
Speaker 6: see if he could secure a job with him once again.
Speaker 6: And he had been living with a woman for eighteen
Speaker 6: months over in Georgia named Vicky Freeman, and he told
Speaker 6: Vicky that he would go down there and get work
Speaker 6: and then find him a place and she could come
Speaker 6: and join him. So she thought she was due to
Speaker 6: be joining him, and then all of a sudden she
Speaker 6: learned when somebody knocked on her door in Georgia that
Speaker 6: he was in jail for murder in Alabama and he
Speaker 6: was not even who he had claimed to be for
Speaker 6: the past eighteen months. So that was a rude awakening
Speaker 6: for her.
Speaker 3: Okay, now let's go back to just a little bit here,
Speaker 3: so our audience was to get confused at all. Now
Speaker 3: you talk about him being in two areas and with
Speaker 3: a gentleman in Georgia, if I'm not correct, just correct me,
Speaker 3: and a gentleman he had met through sort of casual
Speaker 3: circumstances and the person that said, if you're ever in Georgia,
Speaker 3: come stay with me, and certainly he took them up
Speaker 3: on that offer, a person named McIntosh in Georgia. And
Speaker 3: the other person that he befriended was this person as
Speaker 3: you had mentioned, named Mark Bentley, very important character as well.
Speaker 3: Now tell us about Lisa Nichols. Who Lisa Nichols is
Speaker 3: in this story and how the two met. Jeremy Jones
Speaker 3: and Lisa Nichols.
Speaker 6: Well, Lisa was a very well liked, wonderful person, from
Speaker 6: all I've been able to gather who has Like you
Speaker 6: mentioned the two daughters, their two grown daughters, and they
Speaker 6: had children of their own, and Lisa was a grandmother
Speaker 6: and you would never have known it by looking at her,
Speaker 6: because Lisa looked every bit, you know, the piggure of
Speaker 6: her own daughters. She was just very useful and attractive person,
Speaker 6: well loved in the neighborhood and the community. She worked
Speaker 6: in a grocery store.
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Speaker 6: And she was divorced and had a very cordial relationship
Speaker 6: with her former husband. I think she must have had
Speaker 6: cordial relationships with everybody she'd ever met, because she was
Speaker 6: so so well loved, and she kept in touch with
Speaker 6: her her daughters and all of her other family members.
Speaker 6: And Lisa lived next to Mark Bentley in a trailer
Speaker 6: park there north of Mobile. She was his next door neighbor,
Speaker 6: and she had left her home the night before the
Speaker 6: storm was to hit to go and ride the storm
Speaker 6: out with one of her daughter's family and a motel
Speaker 6: farther up to the north where they'd be more out
Speaker 6: of the way of the projected path of the storm
Speaker 6: Kay And then when she returned home to check for damage,
Speaker 6: Jones had had shown up next door looking for work
Speaker 6: again with Mark Bentley, and he noticed her and a
Speaker 6: sort of homed in own her and had uh commented
Speaker 6: to his friend Bentley's cousin that uh he would be
Speaker 6: quite interested in making time with her if the opportunity arose,
Speaker 6: and uh because said, well, you better leave her alone.
Speaker 6: You know, she's way out of your league. And by
Speaker 6: that time Jones was so high on math and several
Speaker 6: other drugs that he and the cousin had been indulging
Speaker 6: in while Bentley and his wife were a way that
Speaker 6: just sort of made him that much more determined to
Speaker 6: go next door and see about her.
Speaker 3: Now you say that he that the cousin, and we're
Speaker 3: talking probably about Scooter Coleman said, yg Listen, listen, you're
Speaker 3: this woman is out of your league. And what you
Speaker 3: mean by this leap is that Scooter Coleman and definitely
Speaker 3: Mark Bentley and Steve and mister McIntosh and Georgia all
Speaker 3: of these people recognized very quickly that they had a
Speaker 3: person that was unreliable and definitely had a major, major
Speaker 3: crystal meth or a major drug problem living in their
Speaker 3: midst which created all kinds of problems. So he wasn't
Speaker 3: the most trusted person. So when you say that, I
Speaker 3: just wanted to make sure people under when you say
Speaker 3: out of his league, he really meant that they were
Speaker 3: friends with this this lady as everyone was Lisa Nichols,
Speaker 3: and they definitely didn't think this person was that they
Speaker 3: should introduce or encourage any kind of relationship.
Speaker 6: Oh absolutely, that's that's the case. And Lisa did not
Speaker 6: date people. You know, she concentrated on work and her
Speaker 6: family and she was not out looking for a good
Speaker 6: time in that sense at all, and would never have
Speaker 6: had anything to do with somebody like Jones.
Speaker 3: Now, what was the circumstances with Lisa Nichols being found?
Speaker 3: What what happened next? Why was why were they in
Speaker 3: the company of each other? Does anyone know? Tell us
Speaker 3: a little bit about what the circumstances of the next
Speaker 3: few hours? What happened?
Speaker 6: Well, apparently, while Lisa was staying at the motel with
Speaker 6: her daughter's family, Jones broke in next door and stole
Speaker 6: a pistol. And then that uh night, after Lisa had
Speaker 6: had returned home. Then uh, as soon as things kind
Speaker 6: of quieting down in the neighborhood, John's left the trailer
Speaker 6: and went next door and uh pretty much forced his
Speaker 6: way into the trailer and started making advances, and Lisa
Speaker 6: naturally ordered him out, and he got t re angry,
Speaker 6: and he was He said that at the time that
Speaker 6: he was higher than he'd ever been in his life.
Speaker 6: So raped her. Then he shot her. He put her
Speaker 6: in her body in the bathtub and attempted to set
Speaker 6: it on fire, trying to burn the trailer down. And
Speaker 6: before all the evidence and the trailer was shut up
Speaker 6: so tight that none of the smoke escaped, and nobody
Speaker 6: in the neighborhood could tell that there had been a
Speaker 6: fire inside. And when she didn't answer, her phoned it
Speaker 6: all the following day. The two daughters came that night
Speaker 6: to check up on her and walked in with flashlights
Speaker 6: and and found the trailer full of smoke and their
Speaker 6: mother's body in the bathtub. And that was that was
Speaker 6: an absolutely horrifying experience for them. They were very traumatized
Speaker 6: by it, and I I I can't even imagine what
Speaker 6: it would have been like for them to walk in
Speaker 6: and find something like that. And of course there was
Speaker 6: a a big cry was set up and all the
Speaker 6: neighbors from all around came running to try to help
Speaker 6: and see what was the matter, except for Jones. And
Speaker 6: he sat right there next door watching TV while everybody
Speaker 6: else was outside seeing what happened, because he knew what
Speaker 6: had happened.
Speaker 3: Did the police also find evidence that she was sexually
Speaker 3: violated as well?
Speaker 6: Oh yes, m first and then shot and and put
Speaker 6: in the bathtub. And he just he evidently just went
Speaker 6: into a frenzy.
Speaker 3: Now you say that, uh, clearly that there's a an
Speaker 3: investigation looking for a killer. Tell us what happens next.
Speaker 3: How long does it take for them to identify the
Speaker 3: killer Jeremy Brian Jones.
Speaker 6: Well, they didn't arrest him as Jeremy Brian Jones because
Speaker 6: his luck would have it, his false id held for
Speaker 6: for quite some time after he was arrested. But Uh,
Speaker 6: when the murderer just was discovered, several of the other
Speaker 6: neighbors reported that there was a new person in the area,
Speaker 6: and Uh described the vehicle that he was in, and
Speaker 6: Mark Bentley, his former employer, was able to give him
Speaker 6: his name and social Security number and both dates of
Speaker 6: the man that he knew as John Paul Chapman, right,
Speaker 6: and Uh he had disappeared from Bentley's home to da
Speaker 6: after the murder, and so they immediately had their prime
Speaker 6: suspect in Four days after the murder, one of the
Speaker 6: lead investigators got a phone call from Chapman and managed
Speaker 6: to keep him on the phone on enough for the
Speaker 6: call to be traced, and another one of the investigators
Speaker 6: went to the location and found him and arrested him
Speaker 6: right there, still on the phone with the other officer.
Speaker 6: So he was he was immediately arrested and charged in the.
Speaker 3: Murder now let's just go back just just a wee
Speaker 3: bit before we get to this next and you know,
Speaker 3: very exciting part of the story. He was arrested. You
Speaker 3: telling your book that he was arrested a couple other
Speaker 3: times in between a long period of over a period
Speaker 3: of three years, and his fingerprints obviously would be taken
Speaker 3: at that time. And despite those fingerprints being entered into
Speaker 3: the FBI's database that would do comparative studies between fingerprints,
Speaker 3: he was never the names were never associated. Just tell
Speaker 3: us a little bit about that and then go on
Speaker 3: to the next What happened.
Speaker 6: Next, Well, nobody has ever been able to pin down
Speaker 6: exactly how that happened. But uh, when he was arrested
Speaker 6: over in Georgia, he would be run with his fingerprints
Speaker 6: and the John Poulish happened identity, and it would come
Speaker 6: up that way. There was some kind of a glitch
Speaker 6: in the system. And if nobody ever figured out exactly
Speaker 6: how it happened, but they have certainly been trying to
Speaker 6: guard against that since that time. Because during the time
Speaker 6: he was being arrested and then released or arrested and
Speaker 6: you know, kept for a fairly short time, there were
Speaker 6: three other murders that probably would not have happened if
Speaker 6: they had caught that fingerprint mistake initially, right, but it
Speaker 6: was a FBI situation and they were they went jumping
Speaker 6: through hoops trying to cover all their bases, explaining how
Speaker 6: it might have happened, and you know, garden safeguarden that
Speaker 6: it wouldn't happen again.
Speaker 3: Right now, Chapman, you say, is he is located after
Speaker 3: they traced the where he's making a phone call from,
Speaker 3: and now he's in police custody. How long does it
Speaker 3: take the police to find out that he is not
Speaker 3: a Chapman? And then what happens?
Speaker 6: Well, as soon as they had him in custody, they
Speaker 6: suspected from the look of the murder scene and how
Speaker 6: things were done, that he had killed before. And they
Speaker 6: immediately sent all sorts of information out all over the
Speaker 6: country to departments, just literally from coast to coast, with
Speaker 6: all his information on there, John Paul Chapman and his
Speaker 6: name and numbers and picture in the whole nine yards.
Speaker 6: And they got a message back from a prison up
Speaker 6: in Oklahoma that said, you know, you don't have John
Speaker 6: Paul Chapman. We don't know who you do have. But
Speaker 6: we've got John Paul Chapman up and he had been
Speaker 6: in prison since very shortly after he gave up his
Speaker 6: identity to Jones's mother in the bar. Incredible, and one
Speaker 6: of the clerks that the prison happened to see the
Speaker 6: information that came through on the murder and Jeremy Brian
Speaker 6: Jones and recognized that who they had and mobile was
Speaker 6: not John Paul Chapman. And that was the first anybody
Speaker 6: knew of it. They were just flabbergasted. And it was
Speaker 6: some time after that that they found out his real
Speaker 6: identity because they noticed he was calling the number in Miami,
Speaker 6: Oklahoma very often to a woman named Jeane Beard, and
Speaker 6: they called the Miami Police Department and asked them what
Speaker 6: collection there could be and they said, well, we don't
Speaker 6: know that she's got a son that disappeared from up
Speaker 6: here a few years back, that we had warrant zone
Speaker 6: named Jeremy Brian Jones. And that's when they determined who
Speaker 6: it was that they actually had in jail. He had
Speaker 6: made his false identity hold for that long.
Speaker 3: That's incredible.
Speaker 6: Yeah, tell you.
Speaker 3: Think it's incredible. When they had two apparent John Shopman's
Speaker 3: in jail at the same time and no one noticed.
Speaker 6: Yeah that I guess they weren't. The Georgia authorities were
Speaker 6: not checking like the Oklahoma prison system and not running
Speaker 6: enough information through on a federal level for anything to
Speaker 6: turn up.
Speaker 3: So oh, sure it was.
Speaker 6: Everybody sort of dropped the ball all the way around
Speaker 6: on those.
Speaker 3: Yes, Now, who are the central characters in enacting a
Speaker 3: confession from Jeremy Brian Jones? And what does he say?
Speaker 3: And when does he finally get around to saying some
Speaker 3: of this stuff? Tell us about that thought about that
Speaker 3: fascinating story.
Speaker 6: Well, at first he denied everything, and then he would
Speaker 6: tell just a little bit of detail here and there,
Speaker 6: but still deny everything. And he wasn't long before he
Speaker 6: learned that every time they brought him out for a
Speaker 6: long interview session that he might get to order some
Speaker 6: special food or or get to make an extra phone call,
Speaker 6: or get some kind of privilege that he enjoyed. So
Speaker 6: he tried to drag things out as long as he could.
Speaker 6: But one of the most telling things that he did
Speaker 6: was to place a call to Mark Bentley from the
Speaker 6: jail and literally confessed to him about the whole murder,
Speaker 6: admit that he had done it, and how and why
Speaker 6: and how terribly sorry he was, and how he regretted it,
Speaker 6: and that, of course was recorded. So he admitted himself
Speaker 6: at that point that he had done it. And then
Speaker 6: later on, when the detectives started confronting him with more
Speaker 6: and more evidence, he started crying, big crocodile theres and oh,
Speaker 6: he didn't want to die. He's he was afraid of dying,
Speaker 6: and and he just loved life too much, and and
Speaker 6: he didn't want to get executed with one of the
Speaker 6: detectives reminded him that his victim had loved life too,
Speaker 6: just as much as he did, so, right, so he
Speaker 6: just kind of gradually started leaking out information because he
Speaker 6: saw that the the more he dropped to the the
Speaker 6: more he would get out of it. And all of
Speaker 6: his claims were just thoroughly investigated, and some of the
Speaker 6: time there was no indication at all that he had
Speaker 6: been involved in any way, and he just told such
Speaker 6: a good, plausible, believable story. But people would travel from
Speaker 6: all over the country to come and interview him from
Speaker 6: the various departments where he was claiming, you know, that
Speaker 6: he had killed somebody in their jurisdiction. It it just
Speaker 6: in the circus, and he loved giving phone interviews to
Speaker 6: the media. He loved for people to come there and
Speaker 6: and talk in various TV stations and newspapers. He just
Speaker 6: he literally ate it up and always had a story
Speaker 6: to tell and claim to make, and and it was
Speaker 6: the attention. He he just got addicted to the attention
Speaker 6: and could not stop talking, even though it's everybody who
Speaker 6: was advising.
Speaker 3: Him not too sure certainly. Uh. Now you talk about this,
Speaker 3: the conf some of the confessions he makes, and obviously
Speaker 3: you have alluded to that the some of these things
Speaker 3: or exaggerations or oh well lies, nothing can be uh
Speaker 3: confirmed what you do have in your book. You mentioned
Speaker 3: some names, Justin Hutchings, Kathy Freeman, Danny Freeman. Uh. You
Speaker 3: you mentioned some people in your book, and there obviously
Speaker 3: is a good reason why you're mentioning there are some
Speaker 3: likely victims of this man, and explain that whole story
Speaker 3: and why you're so certain or why other people are
Speaker 3: so certain that he'd likely He is charged for more
Speaker 3: than one murder, more than Lisa Nichols. So tell us
Speaker 3: a little bit about that. Who are these people that
Speaker 3: they they think he killed?
Speaker 6: H Okay, Well, the two. The two people that that
Speaker 6: they know he killed the little girl over in Georgia,
Speaker 6: Amanda Greenwell and uh tam Tina Mayberry is a very
Speaker 6: likely person that he killed, but there's been no proof
Speaker 6: on that now. He was indicted for Amanda's murder and
Speaker 6: Catherine Collins and New Orleans prostitute. He's been officially charged
Speaker 6: in that case. But uh, for instance, the Tina Mayberry case,
Speaker 6: she was a girl that was a regular at the
Speaker 6: same bar and restaurant that was his favorite place to
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Speaker 6: Georgia where he lived and she was murdered during the
Speaker 6: Halloween costume party. And just left literally lying on the
Speaker 6: front step of the bar whenever she went outside your car,
Speaker 6: and somebody stabbed her to death. And he's always been
Speaker 6: the prime suspect in that murder. But it's just that
Speaker 6: last little piece of evidence lacking in that one and
Speaker 6: another case that I still sort of believe he may
Speaker 6: have been guilty of. Patrese Andris was a Georgia head
Speaker 6: dresser that was kidnapped from herstalon and her body was
Speaker 6: found months later behind a church, and Jones had claimed
Speaker 6: that he had done that and gave all sorts of
Speaker 6: information about where the body could be found, and nothing
Speaker 6: ever quite panned out. But I still think it's possible
Speaker 6: he could have been given false information along with his
Speaker 6: confession that might possibly have been true. So all of
Speaker 6: those were really checked out thoroughly, and in the three
Speaker 6: cases that he was charged with, they had plenty of
Speaker 6: positive proof and evidence. But in so many others that
Speaker 6: he confessed to, he might have learned enough from newspaper
Speaker 6: and TV accounts or overheard things in jail and gotten
Speaker 6: enough to confess and then earn himself a pizza or
Speaker 6: stake or lobster or some free phone halls. So it's
Speaker 6: there's so many things that he may have done in
Speaker 6: so many that he might have not done that it's
Speaker 6: just nearly impossible to sort him out. But there's a
Speaker 6: huge list of people that he confessed to while he
Speaker 6: was in jail in order to get favors.
Speaker 3: Right now, y you mentioned that Amanda greenwell after she
Speaker 3: disappeared that Chapman was actually or Jeremy Jones was questioned
Speaker 3: about her death. How did that come about that he
Speaker 3: was close enough to that investigation that he was also questioned.
Speaker 6: Well, he lived there in the same trailer park with
Speaker 6: Amanda and her family, and as he had in several
Speaker 6: other instances, he showed just a little too much interest
Speaker 6: and acted a little bit suspicious enough to get people's attention,
Speaker 6: and that's how the authorities would end up coming to
Speaker 6: question him on these You know, he just he just
Speaker 6: tipped his hands sometimes by showing too much attention to
Speaker 6: young girls. I know when he was living there, I
Speaker 6: believe it was in the Macintosh household, he he showed
Speaker 6: a little too much attention to the the teenage daughter
Speaker 6: and literally started stalking her and tried to break in
Speaker 6: the householders several times. So, you know, he he was
Speaker 6: known for that sort of behavior.
Speaker 3: Now, hold the murders that he confessed to. How many
Speaker 3: did the police hone in and say these could be
Speaker 3: good possibilities based on the information that he gave us.
Speaker 3: The police, Well, they did that on almost all of them.
Speaker 6: But then when they would check 'em out in detail,
Speaker 6: they'd never be able to find enough proof for or
Speaker 6: never be able to locate bodies where he said they'd
Speaker 6: been left. And you know, they always tried. Everything he
Speaker 6: said seemed plausible at first, and then when they dig
Speaker 6: into it they might find it was coming up a
Speaker 6: little short, or or the timeline might not work out
Speaker 6: just right. But uh, for instance, the the girl that
Speaker 6: he claimed was his first victim, it was an Oklahoma
Speaker 6: neely wed. Her name was Jennifer Judd, and she was
Speaker 6: just a gorgeous girl and I think had only been
Speaker 6: married a week and he murdered her in her apartment
Speaker 6: and he confessed to that. But he's never been charged
Speaker 6: because there was no any evidence of any kind other
Speaker 6: than what he had had claimed. There was no physical
Speaker 6: evidence ever found that could link him in any way
Speaker 6: to that one. But he he claimed that she was
Speaker 6: his first victim, and when he claimed that he had
Speaker 6: killed a great number of prostitutes, and in Mobile and
Speaker 6: in Metro Atlanta, they could never find any corroboration there.
Speaker 6: And nobodies were found in the swamps where he said
Speaker 6: that he had dumped them, and no body in particular
Speaker 6: came up missing in the kind of numbers that he
Speaker 6: was claiming.
Speaker 3: Now in his confession, you know, it's various various responses
Speaker 3: from various types of killers. I guess at different levels
Speaker 3: or or different levels of honesty. How did he describe
Speaker 3: his victims? How callous was he in the description of
Speaker 3: the victim? Did he do the typical trying to rationalize
Speaker 3: why some of these people were killed? I'm saying in
Speaker 3: the confession.
Speaker 6: Itself, sometimes he would sometimes he'd be all remorseful and
Speaker 6: shed a tear or two, and sometimes he was just
Speaker 6: very matter of fact about it. And in the case
Speaker 6: of the New Orleans prostitute, they were questioning about him
Speaker 6: about her murder, and one of the officers from New
Speaker 6: Orleans that had come over said that it just gave
Speaker 6: him cold heels when they asked him why he had
Speaker 6: killed this woman, and said, a change just came over
Speaker 6: down his face and he sort of growled out because
Speaker 6: the bitch deserved it. And you know, sometimes he would
Speaker 6: be that way, and sometimes he'd be very matter of fact,
Speaker 6: and other times he'd say, oh, it was just business.
Speaker 6: He was sent to murder somebody because they had cheated
Speaker 6: somebody else on the drug deal. You know, he always
Speaker 6: had some reason, but it changed from one case to
Speaker 6: the next.
Speaker 3: Now you spoke of the confession that police got that
Speaker 3: was I guess damaging at court trial. Potentially this is
Speaker 3: talking about Lisa Nichols and his involvement with the death.
Speaker 3: Tell us about that confession. I'm very interested to see
Speaker 3: what he actually said. Obviously, he looked up to Mark Bentley.
Speaker 3: Mark Bentley took him under his wing. Tell us about
Speaker 3: that confession and how damaging specifically it was in some
Speaker 3: of the details he gave to Mark Bentley in that
Speaker 3: confession over the telephone.
Speaker 6: Well, Mark Bentley was the one that he told that
Speaker 6: at the time he did that, he was hired than
Speaker 6: he had ever been in his life, right, and he
Speaker 6: said he just he didn't know why he did it.
Speaker 6: It just happened, and he regretted it so much and
Speaker 6: he was so sorry for the family and sorry if
Speaker 6: because it was a friend of Marx, and Marcus was
Speaker 6: having none of that. He he didn't believe that for
Speaker 6: a minute, and Jones, you know, kept admitting a little
Speaker 6: more and more to him, and it boiled down to
Speaker 6: the fact that he was so high on crystal meth
Speaker 6: at the time that he was just totally out of control,
Speaker 6: and and said he'd n what he was doing. I
Speaker 6: think he was pretty well aware of what he was doing,
Speaker 6: but he didn't have any any conscience or any hesitation
Speaker 6: to to do any of it. But he'd be pretty
Speaker 6: much outlined. Well. One thing that he did, though, he
Speaker 6: tried to turn it around on on Scooter Coleman and
Speaker 6: say that Scooter was involved. And oh really tried to
Speaker 6: convince Mark that, you know, Scooter was in on the plan.
Speaker 6: And then later on, after Scooter was killed in a
Speaker 6: freak electrical accident, then he went just full bore at
Speaker 6: the time of his trial trying to turn it around
Speaker 6: on the Scooter. But uh that that blame the dead
Speaker 6: guy tactic didn't work in that particular case.
Speaker 3: Did he talk about any sort of rationalization or justification
Speaker 3: for having having shot her, and and then did he
Speaker 3: mention anything about the sexual aspect of it at all ever, too,
Speaker 3: Mark Bentley.
Speaker 6: I don't believe he rationalized it in any way. I
Speaker 6: think he may have told Mark that she turned him
Speaker 6: down and he got mad when he tried to but
Speaker 6: then he he told other people later on that that
Speaker 6: it had been consensual and she had asked him to
Speaker 6: come over and bring her some drugs, and his story
Speaker 6: changed constantly. But as far as rationalizing that, I don't
Speaker 6: think he was ever able to come up with any
Speaker 6: kind of an explanation that he thought Mark Bentley would
Speaker 6: even come near to buy because, I mean, what he
Speaker 6: did was so just beyond the pale that he tried
Speaker 6: to get Mark not to hold him as responsible as
Speaker 6: he thought he was going to hold him, and that
Speaker 6: you know, like I said, it just didn't work. Mark
Speaker 6: didn't want any part of it.
Speaker 3: Now. Tell us about the ensuing trial. Is there many
Speaker 3: motions put forward? Is there a huge delay between the
Speaker 3: time of the arrest and the trial? And tell us
Speaker 3: about whether Mark Bentley and then McIntosh, of mister McIntosh
Speaker 3: from Georgia, his other landlord, if they participated in the
Speaker 3: trial at all. Tell us about the trial please.
Speaker 6: Well, the trial took on some some really political aspects
Speaker 6: before it ever even got started, the Mobile County District
Speaker 6: Attorney had stalled around trying to get more confessions out
Speaker 6: of Jones, when it was obvious that he was making
Speaker 6: quite a bit of 'em up, and he kept wanting
Speaker 6: to put the the trial off and postpone any action
Speaker 6: being taken. And Lisa Nichols family appealed to Alabama's Attorney
Speaker 6: General and he personally took over the prosecution of the case,
Speaker 6: took the case away from the Mobile County District Attorney
Speaker 6: and and tried the case himself with his own staff,
Speaker 6: which doesn't happen very often, you know. And right, that's
Speaker 6: set up a a feud that's running hot and heavy
Speaker 6: to this day between those two men because of that,
Speaker 6: And the DA ran against the Attorney General in the
Speaker 6: last election and got soundly defeated. So, like I say,
Speaker 6: you know, the the feud is still ongoing, which started
Speaker 6: because of that. Now, when they got to the trial,
Speaker 6: Mark Bluntley did testify. They played his entire taped conversation
Speaker 6: for the jury, and I believe quite a few of
Speaker 6: the people from Georgia had come over to testify also
Speaker 6: that had worked with him over there, had offered him
Speaker 6: a place to stay until they were forced to put
Speaker 6: him out because of his drug use and things of
Speaker 6: that nature. But uh, the trial just turned into an
Speaker 6: absolute circus. There were so much media. Aaron Jones would
Speaker 6: turn around in his seat and smile for the cameras
Speaker 6: out in the hallway and and just paid more attention
Speaker 6: to what was going on in that respect than he
Speaker 6: did what was happening in the courtroom.
Speaker 3: But so he was really enjoy He was really enjoying himself,
Speaker 3: was he He loved it.
Speaker 6: He loved the attention. He never acted like he was
Speaker 6: on trial for his life the whole time. He was
Speaker 6: susan enjoying the attention so much. And he was constantly
Speaker 6: talking to the press and making statements and giving interviews
Speaker 6: and talking to these investigators without his attorney being present.
Speaker 6: And the attorney was just horrified. The man was completely
Speaker 6: out of control and there was nothing his a attorney
Speaker 6: could do about it. And he would He was constantly
Speaker 6: making his own statements, refuting whatever Jones had said that
Speaker 6: day to whoever he had said it to. And you
Speaker 6: could tell that he wished he had certainly never gotten
Speaker 6: involved in that. One on one instance, he was trying
Speaker 6: to get the judge to arrange for a psychiatric evaluation.
Speaker 6: And this was, you know, allegedly to help Jones. Well,
Speaker 6: Jones rears up in his seat and balls out I
Speaker 6: ain't crazy to the cook room m and his lawyer
Speaker 6: trying to prove that he is so he might use
Speaker 6: it insane defense. Well, the attorney of mister Hybibiosdy jumped
Speaker 6: up out of his seat and shock Jones back down
Speaker 6: into his chair and put his hand over his mouth
Speaker 6: to shut him up. So that's that's how out of
Speaker 6: control he was.
Speaker 3: Right, now, what was the you you mentioned now that
Speaker 3: this the state and he's tried in Alabama, obviously, right,
Speaker 3: and they have the death penalty. There is, uh the
Speaker 3: death penalty also available in Georgia as well.
Speaker 6: I'm not sure if it is at this time or not.
Speaker 6: It has been in the past. I'm I'm not sure
Speaker 6: if it is now or not. But he's highly unlikely
Speaker 6: to ever be tried for the murder in Georgia or
Speaker 6: the murder in Louisiana either one. Even though he's been charged.
Speaker 6: I don't think he'll ever come to trial because it's
Speaker 6: such an expensive proposition to try somebody, and he's already been.
Speaker 6: You know, he's on death row in Alabama, So as
Speaker 6: long as that's the case, I don't think they would
Speaker 6: ever attempt to try him in those states unless for
Speaker 6: some reason he got his sentence overthrown here, which is
Speaker 6: highly unlikely to ever happened.
Speaker 3: I was just wondering, you know, just something to think about.
Speaker 3: It's not much of a question, but just often some
Speaker 3: of these guys that are facing a death only one
Speaker 3: state will often confess to crimes where there is no
Speaker 3: death penalty and realizing that there's not much that anyone
Speaker 3: can do even if they were convicted of it. Anyway,
Speaker 3: getting back to the trial, what did they use as
Speaker 3: a defense, Well, we're attempt to.
Speaker 6: Use the Yeah, tempt is the word. It was so
Speaker 6: far fetched. It just just went beyond the pale. Here
Speaker 6: a lot of the time that he claimed that Jones
Speaker 6: was confessed into so many murders because he had been
Speaker 6: given medication in the jail that caused him to talk uncontrollably,
Speaker 6: and that most of the details of those the vasions
Speaker 6: was coming from stories that was told by drug dealers
Speaker 6: in the jail with him, and he also it was
Speaker 6: claiming his defense was that Lisa had had consensual sex
Speaker 6: with him and things got too rough, and during the
Speaker 6: preliminary hearing, Lsdy made the absolutely incredible statement that he
Speaker 6: didn't think it was that much of a crime to
Speaker 6: shoot a dead person, saying that Lisa had already died
Speaker 6: of a drug overdose before Jones shot her, which was
Speaker 6: not true. He Lassdy said, well, it's not that much
Speaker 6: of a crime to shoot a dead person. It's it's
Speaker 6: now a thing instead of a person, and that sent
Speaker 6: Lisa's whole family just running from the courtroom in in horror.
Speaker 6: That was to to hurt a statement like that made
Speaker 6: under those circumstances. It that was just Yosdy was pretty
Speaker 6: good at statements of that sort anyway, And when he
Speaker 6: first took over the defense, he told the media that
Speaker 6: Jones was just a highly intelligent person, and then a
Speaker 6: few days later he'd be claiming that he was in
Speaker 6: no way mentally competent to talk to the authorities without
Speaker 6: an attorney present, And pretty soon he was saying that
Speaker 6: he didn't need talking to the media or anybody else
Speaker 6: because he was just totally mentally unfit. And this was
Speaker 6: a man that he had initially claimed to such a
Speaker 6: stand up guide that was so intelligent that he just
Speaker 6: couldn't possibly have murdered anybody. And uh, when when Jones
Speaker 6: finally made it under the Woodness stand, which he was
Speaker 6: just dying to do, that he couldn't hardly wait to
Speaker 6: get up there, and he had the audience literally laughing
Speaker 6: out loud because he announced what a good looking man
Speaker 6: that he thought he was, and how he had away
Speaker 6: with Lemons and he could talk the pants off of
Speaker 6: a nun and bragged about how whatever he wanted special
Speaker 6: food or privileges, all he had to do was make
Speaker 6: what he called the magic phone call to the investigators
Speaker 6: and they immediately had him escorted into the interview room
Speaker 6: and given him whatever he wanted, and and he just
Speaker 6: generally did everything that his lawyer had told him not
Speaker 6: to do and got up there and performed like a
Speaker 6: circus monkey on the stand. And it it was a
Speaker 6: total laughing stock.
Speaker 3: What was his explanation for why he you you've told
Speaker 3: this part of it? Why what was his explanation for
Speaker 3: having to shoot Lisa Nichols? Well, what was the purpose
Speaker 3: of it?
Speaker 6: I think he just had the stolen gun and and
Speaker 6: shot her to keep her from telling anybody that he
Speaker 6: had broken in and raped her. See, he had committed that,
Speaker 6: and then he killed her to keep from talking. He
Speaker 6: he shot her to keep from talking, and then he
Speaker 6: tried to burn the body to cover up evidence of
Speaker 6: her having been shot and raped.
Speaker 3: No, what I meant was what was his explanation on
Speaker 3: the stand for she s He already said, Well, she
Speaker 3: died from a drug overdose, so it wasn't a big deal.
Speaker 3: I didn't think it was a big deal to shoot her.
Speaker 3: But w what what?
Speaker 6: Yeah? Why he said that he had shot her after
Speaker 6: she had died of a drug overdose? Right, Well, he
Speaker 6: said at one point I don't recall if he said
Speaker 6: this on the standard not, but at one point he
Speaker 6: made the statement that he he shot her to keep
Speaker 6: it from looking like he had brought drugs to her.
Speaker 6: He wanted to make it look like somebody had broken
Speaker 6: in and shot her, not that he had given her
Speaker 6: drugs and she'd died of an overdose. So that was
Speaker 6: supposedly to cover up the overdose, which didn't happen.
Speaker 3: I see. Oh so so okay, So his claim that
Speaker 3: there was a drug overdose was totally disputed by the
Speaker 3: UH corner or the medical examiner.
Speaker 6: Oh, absolutely, there was not a trace of any kind
Speaker 6: of drug or anything else in in Lisa's system, so
Speaker 6: that that was a total fabrication.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and then obviously we won't go into too much.
Speaker 3: It doesn't d you know, this guy doesn't dignify too
Speaker 3: much to go through whether uh, there was any mitigating
Speaker 3: circumstances to prevent him from getting the death penalty. He
Speaker 3: certainly got the death penalty. The jury decided pretty quickly.
Speaker 3: What was the situation.
Speaker 6: Well, it took him two hours to find him guilty
Speaker 6: and it only took him forty five minutes to decide
Speaker 6: on the death penalty. So it was pretty much a
Speaker 6: cut and dried thing. It it was. It was very
Speaker 6: fast and there were no mitigating circumstances of any kind
Speaker 6: that were ever mentioned.
Speaker 3: Was uh Lisa Nichols family surviving members of the victim's
Speaker 3: family in the de attend court?
Speaker 6: Oh? Yes, yes, they attended every day. Her her daughters
Speaker 6: and quite a few of her other relatives were always there.
Speaker 6: And the father of Amanda Greenwell came from Georgia to
Speaker 6: attend the trial, and the husband of Patersea Drey came
Speaker 6: over and he attended the trial so you know, other
Speaker 6: victims' families there in addition to Lisa's family, but they
Speaker 6: were there, and after the trial, Lisa's daughters told the
Speaker 6: press that they just could not be more grateful to
Speaker 6: the mobile investigators and to the Attorney General's office for
Speaker 6: the work that they had done, because it was the
Speaker 6: case was handled very well by everybody involved in that respect.
Speaker 6: Where they all fumbled was allowing him to play him
Speaker 6: like fiddles on all these confessions to get his extra
Speaker 6: treats and privileges.
Speaker 3: Now, if you've answered this, I apologize. I just want
Speaker 3: to make sure that I understand this. I'm just curious. Now,
Speaker 3: officially or unofficially, Tina Mayberry, Amanda Greenwell, and Patricia Andres
Speaker 3: are the people that he is suspected of killing, likely
Speaker 3: the people women to disappeared.
Speaker 6: Yes, but there's another huge list besides those. There's there's
Speaker 6: so many other people that he was suspected of besides them,
Speaker 6: I mean, the list of would own and own and
Speaker 6: own in several states.
Speaker 3: How many would you say, not to pin you down
Speaker 3: or anything, but I mean, no one's going to sue you,
Speaker 3: But how many do you think he likely more than
Speaker 3: likely killed? With you know, with fairly solid evidence that
Speaker 3: of comparative type of crimes and victims and geography, how
Speaker 3: many do you really think likely that he killed.
Speaker 6: Well. I think that it's likely that he killed Jennifer Judd,
Speaker 6: who he said was his first victim. I think it's
Speaker 6: also likely that he killed a couple in Oklahoma, Danny
Speaker 6: and Cathy Freeman, and kidnapped their daughter, their teenage daughter Ashley,
Speaker 6: and her friend Laura Bible, and then murdered them somewhere.
Speaker 6: Their bodies had never been and there was no proof
Speaker 6: of any other kind to ever substantiate that, but I
Speaker 6: have a gut feeling that he was responsible for them.
Speaker 6: And it's also possible that another couple involved in the
Speaker 6: the drug underworld there in in Oklahoma, Danny Oakley and
Speaker 6: Doris Harris, were murdered and their trailer was burned, just
Speaker 6: like the Freemen murdered when and when their trailer was
Speaker 6: set on, and another couple out in Oklahoma was murdered
Speaker 6: under similar circumstances. There was a girl in at Moore, Alabama,
Speaker 6: close to Mobile that uh disappeared from her home under
Speaker 6: circumstances similar to Lucy's. She's never been found now it's
Speaker 6: very possible that he could have done some or all
Speaker 6: of those murders. It's possible that he might have done
Speaker 6: none of 'em. I think he's responsible for some of those.
Speaker 6: And also justin Hutchings, the young man you referred by
Speaker 6: a drug overdose, I think that was responsible for that
Speaker 6: because he was well acquainted with him and claimed responsibility right.
Speaker 3: Right, Yeah, with a combination of similar characteristics and mo
Speaker 3: and maybe even signature to a certain degree, or at
Speaker 3: least victim of victim characteristics. It's very likely because especially
Speaker 3: when you said earlier on that when people first look
Speaker 3: authorities first looked at this, given the particulars of Lisa
Speaker 3: Nichols murdered. Am I not correct in saying that they
Speaker 3: felt that this they immediately sent out the particulars to
Speaker 3: other bordering states. But they really did feel that this
Speaker 3: was not from a perpetrator that was on his first offense.
Speaker 6: That's right. The detectives said at the time that as
Speaker 6: soon as they looked at the scene, they immediately had
Speaker 6: a feeling that this was not his first crime of
Speaker 6: the sword, and that's why they sent all the details
Speaker 6: and descriptions out to so many different places and that's
Speaker 6: why they started having hits from all around over the
Speaker 6: country from some of these similar crimes. They thought for
Speaker 6: a time that he might be responsible for some of
Speaker 6: the crimes that were attributed to the fellows that they
Speaker 6: called the truck stop killer, and uh, he kills quite
Speaker 6: a few, and Jones confessed some of those, and then
Speaker 6: you know, gave some details about some others. There were
Speaker 6: several unidentified bodies that they thought, you know, with the
Speaker 6: location and evidence of how they were killed, that might
Speaker 6: have been Jones's responsibility. Now, the lady in New Orleans,
Speaker 6: the prostitute that was murdered there, it took a while
Speaker 6: to identify her, and they had to send her her
Speaker 6: skull to have her her face reconstructed, and then sent
Speaker 6: photographs of that around and had him on the knees.
Speaker 6: And one of her friends happened to see the picture
Speaker 6: of the reconstruction and recognized it as being her, and
Speaker 6: she had been at that time for several months. And
Speaker 6: then they started investigating that and and discovered that Jones
Speaker 6: was responsible for that murder.
Speaker 3: Wow, So where is uh? Just quickly, where is uh
Speaker 3: Jeremy Bryan Jones right now? Where's he being held? Uh?
Speaker 3: In death row.
Speaker 6: Uh, he put home in prison here in Alabama, and
Speaker 6: he's having himself a fine old time. He's he's working
Speaker 6: all of the internet death row pen pal websites, and
Speaker 6: and just on one of 'em, he made the statement
Speaker 6: that all the different wonderful things that he enjoyed doing,
Speaker 6: he liked long walks, and he liked the hunt and fish,
Speaker 6: and he liked Nascar. And then he made a statements
Speaker 6: that he liked Marti Gras, which I found pretty m
Speaker 6: I don't know, it's that's where Katheryn Collins was murdered,
Speaker 6: was during Marti grass And for him to make a
Speaker 6: statement like that on his website, I thought was pretty strange. Yeah,
Speaker 6: he's up at the throw and working it for all.
Speaker 3: The worth and enjoying his infamy.
Speaker 6: That's it. He enjoys that. He would do anything any way,
Speaker 6: anyhow to get attention. And he's thanks to a lot
Speaker 6: of people that I tend to personally think of as
Speaker 6: bleeding hearts. He's getting a lot of attention from those
Speaker 6: death row websites. Yeah, they all want to they all
Speaker 6: want to save the poor misunderstood boy.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, I know. We got a lot of that
Speaker 3: in Canada, a hell of a lot more than you've got.
Speaker 3: It's incredible here, you wouldn't believe. Well, we don't have
Speaker 3: too much type of that. We have a few minutes, though,
Speaker 3: I'd like to talk a little bit about some of
Speaker 3: the other books that you have and some of the
Speaker 3: other projects that you have coming up, and how people
Speaker 3: can contact you if you have a website or a
Speaker 3: blog or just what. Uh, just give us a little
Speaker 3: bit of information about new projects and some of the
Speaker 3: other books that you have already ought in print.
Speaker 6: Okay, My first book was about uh, one of the
Speaker 6: cases that I worked when I was a reporter. Fella
Speaker 6: was about a four hundred pound cannibal that carded his
Speaker 6: dead girlfriend's body all over the southeast, strapped into the
Speaker 6: passenger seat of his car, and he's I only had
Speaker 6: a wreck up here in the county where I was working.
Speaker 6: And that's that's how they discovered that that was a
Speaker 6: hard book to write though, because there was no trial,
Speaker 6: there was no search for the killer. I mean, the
Speaker 6: killer was right there and they had him, you know,
Speaker 6: right from the get go. But it was it was
Speaker 6: a very interesting story and I I did manage to
Speaker 6: get a book out of It, which was my first one,
Speaker 6: and my second book was also from Concerned a man
Speaker 6: that murdered his wife and mother in law for insurance
Speaker 6: money and then stabbed him with Native American spears and
Speaker 6: knives and things to make it look like a cult
Speaker 6: killing of some kind. And he would have gotten away
Speaker 6: with that except he just couldn't keep his mouth shutting.
Speaker 6: He had to brag to somebody about what he had done,
Speaker 6: which happens pretty often, I think. And my third book
Speaker 6: was The Jones Book. My fourth book, which will be
Speaker 6: out in August, is I'm I'm really conflicted about this book.
Speaker 6: I have never written about somebody that received a big
Speaker 6: sentence for anything that I believed was truly innocent of
Speaker 6: what they were convicted of, right, But the woman that
Speaker 6: has been sent to spend her life in prison for
Speaker 6: murdering her ex husband's current wife, I think she's innocent.
Speaker 6: I think someone else committed the murder. There was another
Speaker 6: person with her at the time, and I think that
Speaker 6: person is the real murderer. And I'm really conflicted about it.
Speaker 6: Everybody that has read that manuscript says that they immediately
Speaker 6: come to the same conclusion when they're just presented with
Speaker 6: the straight facts. So I would sincerely like to see
Speaker 6: this woman to get another trial. I hope that that
Speaker 6: can happen because I think she should have gotten the
Speaker 6: short sentence and the person that's walking free now should
Speaker 6: be the one in prison for life.
Speaker 3: Well, good for you. I'm glad you're taking sort of
Speaker 3: an activist role. I think there are obvious there are
Speaker 3: people fighting for people to get retrialed, but I think
Speaker 3: the fastest, most and one of the most effective ways
Speaker 3: is to get the media involved write a book about it.
Speaker 3: It's surprising what kind of attention then comes to that
Speaker 3: same story. So I just get to you and good
Speaker 3: luck with that.
Speaker 6: Well, I certainly hope it works in this case. I
Speaker 6: would like to sit out on my back porch and
Speaker 6: drink coffee with this lady instead of having her sitting
Speaker 6: down there in prison for the rest of her life.
Speaker 6: I feel a lot of empathy for her.
Speaker 3: Well, that's great. I want to thank you very much,
Speaker 3: Sheila for a very informative interview about your great book, Bloodlusts.
Speaker 3: I want to thank you like I say, I want
Speaker 3: to thank you very much and have yourself a good
Speaker 3: evening and best of luck with the new project. What
Speaker 3: is the name of the new project, the projected name
Speaker 3: of the latest project. Do you have a name for
Speaker 3: it yet? Title for it?
Speaker 6: The new book is blood Ambush.
Speaker 3: Blood a Bush. Okay, we'll be looking for that and
Speaker 3: other titles with Sheila Johnson. Thank you very much.
Speaker 6: Have a good Thank you so much, thank you, thank you.
Speaker 3: Bye bye bye. You've been listening to the program A
Speaker 3: True Murder with your host Dan Zapansky, the most shocking
Speaker 3: killers in true crime history. Have a good evening, Good night,