Speaker 1: This podcast is intended for mature audiences. Listener discretion is advised.
Speaker 2: You know, ever since I moved to Gilmer. I remember
Speaker 2: that I was pregnant when I moved to Gilmer with Raymond,
Speaker 2: and they always talked about Satan. Gilmer talked about Satan
Speaker 2: worshippers all the time. They were the weirdest. I mean,
Speaker 2: I always thought that was so weird. I'll never forget
Speaker 2: one time everybody was picking up their daughters and stuff
Speaker 2: from the Junior High because they was supposed to sacrifice
Speaker 2: the blonde virgin.
Speaker 1: This is Tammy Joe Smith. It was the mid eighties
Speaker 1: when Tammy moved to Gilmer, about seven years before the
Speaker 1: disappearance of Kelly Day Wilson, before the investigation into Satanic rituals,
Speaker 1: cannibalism and murder that shocked the small East Texas town.
Speaker 1: At the time, Tammy had no idea that Gilmer's fear
Speaker 1: of the devil would forever change her life and all
Speaker 1: but tear apart her family.
Speaker 2: The Satan worshipers were trying to grab a girl, you know,
Speaker 2: the blonde virgin, to sacrifice to the devil. And that
Speaker 2: was the first rumors I heard in Gilmer and I'm like,
Speaker 2: they got a freaking church on every corner in this
Speaker 2: camp town. Literally, I mean literally, there's fifty freaking I mean,
Speaker 2: I mean there's a church everywhere. But all I ever
Speaker 2: heard people talk about was Satan worshipers. I never met
Speaker 2: one Satan worshiper. The whole fifteen years, I never met one,
Speaker 2: And still this day, I don't know if I've ever
Speaker 2: met one. And the funny thing too, is my girlfriend
Speaker 2: lived out in the country and preach it. And she'd say,
Speaker 2: I hear channing, and I hear you know, and she goes,
Speaker 2: there's zacrifice. I'm like, it's probably the freaking ku Klux
Speaker 2: Klan because they're so prejudiced. They're meeting out in the
Speaker 2: middle of nowhere do the thing. I've always thought that.
Speaker 2: I always thought their Kuklux planning was the big Satanic
Speaker 2: thing they were talking about.
Speaker 1: Tammy was just seventeen when she settled in Gilmert and
Speaker 1: had her oldest son, Raymond. Not long after, Tammy met
Speaker 1: a man named Down.
Speaker 2: I was very into the church community, the Pentecostal church.
Speaker 2: I met Don at church. He was a good looking
Speaker 2: older man and I thought that he was coming over
Speaker 2: to my house actually to see my mom. Because he's
Speaker 2: older than I am, and so I never looked at
Speaker 2: him really as a boyfriend type, you know, until later,
Speaker 2: I mean like a month later. But he was a
Speaker 2: friendly I thought he was smart and good looking and
Speaker 2: funny and all the good things. Now he's not as
Speaker 2: funny as he used to be, but thinks he's funny.
Speaker 1: Now here's Don whoo Man with that picture of her.
Speaker 3: The sweeter you got to Tammy, the sweeter she was bad.
Speaker 3: My name is Don Holman. I've got two honorable discharges
Speaker 3: in an army, four years in Hell on wheels, two
Speaker 3: six month tours in Germany, and now I'm noted for
Speaker 3: being a bible hauling. I mean I'm a bible thumper.
Speaker 1: Don was in his mid thirties, divorced. Even when he
Speaker 1: was just getting to know Tammy, Don already started helping
Speaker 1: out with her son, Raymond, who was born with a
Speaker 1: cleft palate. The condition had left baby Raymond with an
Speaker 1: opening in his lip and roof of his mouth, requiring
Speaker 1: corrective surgeries.
Speaker 3: After a while, I noticed that Tammy had this little
Speaker 3: deformed baby. He got a buying ladder cleft palette, and
Speaker 3: this baby is squirt milk about his nose. There ain't
Speaker 3: nothing there the inside of his liop, The top part
Speaker 3: was on the outside, and I'd get in there and
Speaker 3: she'd be just white. I mean, she'd be wiped out
Speaker 3: of sleep. I couldn't stand to get her up and
Speaker 3: say go without her feed, So I fed him, change diaper,
Speaker 3: put him back.
Speaker 2: Raymond was a baby. Raymond was like three months old
Speaker 2: when I met one two three months old, and Raymond
Speaker 2: was born with a hairlip. Dawn was very good at
Speaker 2: taking me to all my doctor's appointments and making sure that,
Speaker 2: you know, like during surgeries and stuff. So it was
Speaker 2: very supportive of Raymond and took on the father role
Speaker 2: right away. Raymon's daddy never had anything to do with us.
Speaker 1: Dawn and Tammy fell in love.
Speaker 4: After a while.
Speaker 3: I got the respecting her and she respected me, And
Speaker 3: I don't know how everybody else feels.
Speaker 4: Just because there.
Speaker 3: Was an age different and we get along with each
Speaker 3: other does not mean that I'm out of line or
Speaker 3: she's out of line. She's a grown woman had a baby.
Speaker 4: I don't think you know I'm.
Speaker 3: Doing the wrong as long as I do her right.
Speaker 3: And after while we got to lacking each other. One day,
Speaker 3: I said, me and you. She said yep, nobody else yep.
Speaker 3: I said, okay, And after like four years she said done.
Speaker 3: If you die, I don't have nothing to remember. You
Speaker 3: buy She said, I'd like to have a baby with you.
Speaker 3: And I said, how about it if I just buy
Speaker 3: you a car. She'd always says, stop acting stupid. I said,
Speaker 3: I ain't acting, I said, and right off she got pregnant.
Speaker 3: I said, Timmy, I don't have the money to pay
Speaker 3: for a baby. She said done. Everybody else who people
Speaker 3: all over the world's having kids, having on the welfare.
Speaker 3: And we had a kid.
Speaker 1: When Raymond was five years old. Don and Tammy had
Speaker 1: their son.
Speaker 2: Luther, beautiful baby that loved his mom and daddy. It
Speaker 2: was really just a simple life. I mean, you know,
Speaker 2: he'd go to work every day. I was a stay
Speaker 2: at home mom, and we went to church three four
Speaker 2: times a week.
Speaker 1: Don had a bunch of different jobs at times. He'd
Speaker 1: even worked as a reserve police officer, so he actually
Speaker 1: knew James York Brown, the Gilmer police sergeant who eventually
Speaker 1: would be accused of kidnapping and murdering Kelly Wilson.
Speaker 3: I didn't like James Brown. He was the cop you
Speaker 3: probably know about him. He was all right, but I
Speaker 3: thought he was a bad guy. Well, he's always smart
Speaker 3: enough to me, and you think you're badass or something.
Speaker 3: He said, I'm a boxer. He said, you every want
Speaker 3: to stop the car, get after it? He said we
Speaker 3: I said, well, I know how to box and I
Speaker 3: use my feet too. He said, you're in the martial arts.
Speaker 3: I said, I can kick you enough. You can't get
Speaker 3: close to me, and I said why, I said, We're
Speaker 3: gonna look real funny on side row. Two cops fighting.
Speaker 4: But he would do.
Speaker 3: Some people take it that they don't know them easy going.
Speaker 3: I'm not as smart ass or anything. So he'd take
Speaker 3: me to his house and his wife fixed chicken, and
Speaker 3: he treated him as good as gold.
Speaker 1: Don and Sergeant James York Brown patched things up. Years
Speaker 1: before Kelly's disappearance, Don and Tammy, Raymond and Luther lived
Speaker 1: in government housing in Gilmer. Their neighbor was a young
Speaker 1: woman named Wanda Hicks. She had two sons, the Hicks Kids,
Speaker 1: from a guy named Bad Jimmy.
Speaker 2: From what I understood is that those kids and Wanda
Speaker 2: were put in the project apartment right there. They were
Speaker 2: being filtered from her egg because her ex was abusive.
Speaker 2: From what I understand, the kids had mental problems from
Speaker 2: all that craft. I don't know why they went and
Speaker 2: said hey, you know, because they're the ones that actually
Speaker 2: started the accusations against me, and from what I understand,
Speaker 2: that's how we got into this.
Speaker 1: The name Wanda might sound familiar, open my mouth.
Speaker 3: They have threatened to kill Wanda.
Speaker 2: I had to say, Mark some Wanda's throw and I
Speaker 2: asked Wanda what happened to her throw?
Speaker 5: And she wouldn't tell me. I don't know she was
Speaker 5: scared to tell Mayor Wan.
Speaker 1: That's from the interrogation of Connie Martin, a suspect turned
Speaker 1: witness in the criminal investigation against the family accused of
Speaker 1: kidnapping and murdering Kelly Wilson. At first. Tammy says she
Speaker 1: has no inkling about the abuse allegations leveled against Wanda
Speaker 1: and the curs She.
Speaker 2: Was real strict with her kids, and that's why I
Speaker 2: thought she was a good mother, you know. I mean,
Speaker 2: I was, like, never seen her whip on. Her kids
Speaker 2: are knitting, you know, but she kept her kids in line.
Speaker 2: You know, they were pretty decent. I know the oldest
Speaker 2: one acted out a lot and got sent home from
Speaker 2: school a lot, like stabbing kids with orks and shit
Speaker 2: like that. But other than that, I mean, I don't
Speaker 2: know anything else about her. I know that when she married.
Speaker 2: When I met her, she wouldn't Maccurr. Her name was Hicks.
Speaker 2: And then she started dating Wendell. And Don knew Wendell through.
Speaker 2: You know, gilm were small town, all them guys, they
Speaker 2: were all raised together.
Speaker 1: Later investigators would claim that Wendell was the ringleader of
Speaker 1: the Kerr satanic cult in Gilmer.
Speaker 3: We had went to school together. I never had sex
Speaker 3: with none of the none of the Curve women, and
Speaker 3: uh never cared too.
Speaker 2: You know, they don't hang out together, but they all know.
Speaker 2: We all know each other because it's such a small town.
Speaker 2: Don's oh, I know him. That's that's Wendell Kerr, you know.
Speaker 2: And sometimes Don would say, hey, you know whatever. And
Speaker 2: then she was like, I'm gonna get I'm going to
Speaker 2: marry Wendell, and I was like, oh.
Speaker 1: That's sweet.
Speaker 2: I helped her get ready for her wedding to him,
Speaker 2: and I went out to the curR house, the old man,
Speaker 2: old woman Curve the mam and daddy. I was at
Speaker 2: their house one time for the wedding and we were there,
Speaker 2: saw me an hour, an hour and a half.
Speaker 3: Maybe I went out to wedding one time. They was
Speaker 3: a preacher window wing his wife got married. That kind
Speaker 3: of I did, just went to wedding the first thing,
Speaker 3: you know, I'm a cannibal to eating people in the
Speaker 3: bag that had a witch and circle.
Speaker 2: That was the only time I've ever really actually hung
Speaker 2: out with the Curves, you know. I mean other than that,
Speaker 2: I don't know anything else about them. I've never been
Speaker 2: around them except for hey, at the bus stop or whatever,
Speaker 2: you know, with our kids. Them kids were good kids.
Speaker 2: I thought.
Speaker 1: You know, Timmy's son Raymond wasn't really friends with the
Speaker 1: Hicks kids for a reason.
Speaker 4: Yeah. They lived across the sidewalk from us up here
Speaker 4: at the government housing. One of them was older than me,
Speaker 4: and I think one of them was younger than me.
Speaker 4: We would play every now and again. We didn't always
Speaker 4: get along because at one point Don had bought their bicycle.
Speaker 4: But I remember I came home from school one day
Speaker 4: I've been wanting a bicycle, and I went to my
Speaker 4: room and I had two bicycles, and I remember like
Speaker 4: being really excited, like those are both mine, and they're like, yeah,
Speaker 4: you got two bikes. But when I would go outside,
Speaker 4: they bought it from the neighbor. So the neighbor kids,
Speaker 4: they still looked at it as that was their bikes.
Speaker 4: You know. We would argue over those bicycles. But I
Speaker 4: was like, I said, I was the only child I
Speaker 4: won't used to sharing, And I was like, hold up,
Speaker 4: I got two bikes, the brand new, and I gotta
Speaker 4: let them ride one of them, like, you know, so
Speaker 4: we really like argue and fight over those bikes.
Speaker 1: One day, the Hicks kids were gone. Wendell Kerr and
Speaker 1: Wanda Hicks had just gotten married in a ceremony outside
Speaker 1: the curR home on Cherokee Trace. Days later, child Protective
Speaker 1: Services removed the cur and Hicks kids from the home.
Speaker 1: The Curves have been described as quote marginal characters in Gilmer,
Speaker 1: so most people around town probably didn't even notice that
Speaker 1: some country folks lost their kids.
Speaker 3: Ley Tope Wendell's kids a way because he had been
Speaker 3: accused of lessening his kids.
Speaker 2: The first time they came to the door, me and
Speaker 2: Don were asleep and they were wanting us to go
Speaker 2: down to the police station top and we agreed and
Speaker 2: we went and that's when they just started asking questions
Speaker 2: about the curves, and basically it was just, you know,
Speaker 2: have you ever seen Wanda Kerr hit her kids? And
Speaker 2: have you ever seen any kind of abuse? And I
Speaker 2: was like, no, you know, yeah, she's just a young girl.
Speaker 2: It's got all these little babies, and you know, I
Speaker 2: thought she was a pretty decent mom.
Speaker 1: The two Hicks boys were placed with foster mom Barbara
Speaker 1: Bass and her husband Karls. If the name Barbara Bass
Speaker 1: sounds familiar, she was mentioned in episode three. The Basses
Speaker 1: were in their early forties and lived in a big
Speaker 1: country home a little more than half an hour from
Speaker 1: gilmert They would have been empty nesters if they hadn't
Speaker 1: filled the house with foster children. Barbara described herself as
Speaker 1: very down to earth, very basic and trying to help people.
Speaker 3: She had been the East Texas Foster Parents of the Year.
Speaker 2: I think the year before.
Speaker 1: That was Melvin Dodd, the founding member of the Justice
Speaker 1: for Kelly Wilson Committee. Back then, there was this amusement
Speaker 1: park in Shreveport, Louisiana, just across the state line from Texas.
Speaker 1: I remember the commercials when I was a kid and
Speaker 1: always wanted to go. Never got to. Raymond did though.
Speaker 4: Our church went out to an amusement park called Hamil Park,
Speaker 4: and while we were there, the Hicks kids were in
Speaker 4: Foster Hume and we saw it with their foster parents
Speaker 4: our church group, and they'd waved or something and they
Speaker 4: wouldn't let us talk to them. Like the foster parents
Speaker 4: that they were with were kind of like, hey, y'all
Speaker 4: need to keep those distance type thing. And I was
Speaker 4: a kid who were just kind of like waved at
Speaker 4: each other. When they asked one of those Hicks boys,
Speaker 4: like how do you know that kid? They were like
Speaker 4: he was our neighbor. And then they were like, well,
Speaker 4: did y'all's parents abuse him too? And one of them
Speaker 4: were like yeah, so one of them kids and lied
Speaker 4: to her or whatever falster parents they were with, saying
Speaker 4: that I had been molested with them, like all like
Speaker 4: in some big group or something like some kid orgy
Speaker 4: or something. I don't know, like that's how we got
Speaker 4: drawled into the.
Speaker 1: Whole myth Raymond never should have waved to those Hicks kids.
Speaker 1: What he describes as a typical childhood.
Speaker 4: It was school, church, family, school, church, family, like those
Speaker 4: my life for the first seven years.
Speaker 1: That life as he knew it was over from imperative entertainment.
Speaker 1: I'm Wes Ferguson. This is Deviltown. This is Chapter five.
Speaker 1: Raymond Raymond Smith is thirty six years old now. He's skinny,
Speaker 1: dark hair, dark eyes. After bouncing around some he recently
Speaker 1: moved back to Gilmour and lives with his stepdad, Don Holman.
Speaker 1: In the early nineties, during the Kerr and Kelly Wilson investigations,
Speaker 1: Raymond was said to be a smart and inquisitive little boy.
Speaker 4: I can remember my mom had set me down on
Speaker 4: a back porch one day up there, and she said
Speaker 4: something along the line like somebody wants to come speak
Speaker 4: with you or something like that. Whoever it is comes
Speaker 4: to talk to us, be honest with them, telling them
Speaker 4: the truth. And when I asked questions.
Speaker 2: In the very, very very beginning, they kept the cops
Speaker 2: kept saying. He said, Okay, if we let somebody talk
Speaker 2: to Raymond at school, I said, go go talk to him.
Speaker 2: They questioned Raymond five times. I mean, how many damn
Speaker 2: times were they gonna go questioning until he said something?
Speaker 2: I mean basically is what it was. You know, they
Speaker 2: weren't gonna quit going up there.
Speaker 4: Probably about like a week or so after that, I
Speaker 4: was playing in the front yard one day and sheriff's
Speaker 4: apartment pulled up.
Speaker 2: That's when I get a knock at the door and
Speaker 2: they're coming to take my kids away.
Speaker 4: They had a mixed stack of papers they told my mom.
Speaker 4: They were like, uh, we're here to take the kids.
Speaker 4: I wasn't frightened at the time because none was a patrolman,
Speaker 4: you know, like so I wasn't scared of pouense.
Speaker 1: Don happened to be out of town that day. Raymond's
Speaker 1: little brother, Luther, only two years old, was absolutely terrified.
Speaker 2: I will never forget them taken him from us and
Speaker 2: him screaming at the top as once, I.
Speaker 4: Want my daddy, I want my daddy. They told us,
Speaker 4: they said, you know, uh, you can get something for you,
Speaker 4: you know, go grab you a toy. You can get
Speaker 4: your brother a toy. And uh, I grabbed a Bible
Speaker 4: that the church told give me. It was it was
Speaker 4: blue and silver, had my name Raymond Smith printed on it,
Speaker 4: like real nice professional like printed into it, and uh,
Speaker 4: I grabbed Luther's pillow and then they hauled us down
Speaker 4: to rain and it took us to a Falster family.
Speaker 4: That first family. They were real nice. We were out
Speaker 4: of our element, but it was a normal, you know situation.
Speaker 4: They bring me, h I think they did bring me
Speaker 4: for a visit with my mom and them, my mom
Speaker 4: and Don, and then usually it was to go see
Speaker 4: Ang goere. She was ahead of the case at time.
Speaker 1: We've talked about a Gore throughout the series. She was
Speaker 1: the first CPS worker to discover abuse in the Kerr family.
Speaker 1: Now a gore was protecting Raymond also.
Speaker 4: Then there was a day that they brought me up
Speaker 4: there and Gore was like, I want to introduce you
Speaker 4: to a friend of mine and she wants to ask
Speaker 4: you some questions. And then next thing I know, we're
Speaker 4: like going to get in the van. There ain't no
Speaker 4: seats in the van, and they're like, I want you
Speaker 4: to lay down. They had me laid down in the
Speaker 4: back and Barbara Vass was laid down there beside me.
Speaker 1: Yes, that Barbara Bass, the foster parent. She had come
Speaker 1: to the CPS office in her forge van to help
Speaker 1: angre coax some information out of Raymond.
Speaker 4: And she said, well, you know, you don't be scared.
Speaker 4: We're just gonna ask you some questions this and that,
Speaker 4: and A Gore was driving and Debbie Mianto was in
Speaker 4: the passenger seat. I believe we rode out of the
Speaker 4: CPS office and at that time what they were asking
Speaker 4: us about was all about being molested or touched or
Speaker 4: something along the lines of that, you know, And I
Speaker 4: tell them no. They say, well, did they touch he?
Speaker 4: I say no, I ain't never been touched or nothing
Speaker 4: like that, Like, you know, where's this? You know, like
Speaker 4: when you're a kid, you don't realize what the hell's
Speaker 4: going on. But that ended up turning into Barbara basketting
Speaker 4: behind me and wrapping her arms around me, and then
Speaker 4: she took her legs, hold my legs down, and she
Speaker 4: take her thumb and sticking in my rib cane chair
Speaker 4: and rub up and down on my ribs.
Speaker 1: Barbara Bass, who died in twenty seventeen, was using the
Speaker 1: holding technique, a controversial therapy of restraining kids like in
Speaker 1: a bear hug that was supposed to help them form
Speaker 1: a bond with their foster parents. But Barbara Bass had
Speaker 1: adapted the holding technique for her own purposes.
Speaker 5: Apparently there was some kind of radical theory about getting
Speaker 5: kits to disclose things they wouldn't normally disclose through this
Speaker 5: holding technique.
Speaker 1: This is former Assistant Attorney General Shane Phelps.
Speaker 5: Which in what I came to understand about this holding
Speaker 5: technique was that it was just torture.
Speaker 1: What is the holding technique?
Speaker 5: The theory behind it, I guess is that the children
Speaker 5: have to be I guess, forced to disclose. They hold
Speaker 5: them tightly, like I mean, it's a crime. Actually it's on.
Speaker 5: They're holding these children tightly and they will not let
Speaker 5: go of them until they disclose what they think this
Speaker 5: child has to disclose.
Speaker 4: I remember I was saying no, no, you know, and
Speaker 4: I'm squirming. I'm fighting with her, and then she would
Speaker 4: ask me questions repetitively, you know, did your parents do this?
Speaker 4: Did they touch you? Did they touch you?
Speaker 1: At some point, Raymond says, A Gore climbed into the
Speaker 1: back of the van with him and Barbara Bass and.
Speaker 4: Gore was in the back there and she was holding
Speaker 4: my legs down because I was fighting and swirming and everything.
Speaker 4: Barbara couldn't hold me down or whatnot. At that time,
Speaker 4: they had a big billboard sign right there where the
Speaker 4: subway is now here in Gimmer there was a big
Speaker 4: billboard sign and it said Kelly Wilson, you know, And
Speaker 4: I remember seeing that when we were leaving the CPS office.
Speaker 4: I was laid down in that van and I can see,
Speaker 4: you know, the Gary Queen sign. Now I've seen that
Speaker 4: Kelly Wilson sign. And the next thing I know, all
Speaker 4: I can see is tree. You know, we're on some
Speaker 4: old top Roadbacker.
Speaker 1: Barbara Bass and the caseworkers and Gore and Debbie Minshew
Speaker 1: had driven Raymond out of town into the woods.
Speaker 4: Well what the hell are these people doing? You know?
Speaker 4: And so they kept rubbing my ribs and asking me questions,
Speaker 4: you know, did did your mom? And Donald less few
Speaker 4: and uh I was, you know, no, no, no, no.
Speaker 4: Finally I said yes. And when I would tell her yes,
Speaker 4: she would stop rubbing my ribs, you know, and then
Speaker 4: like kind of pan for me, like oh, it's okay,
Speaker 4: you know, nobody's gonna hurt you no more. We're here now.
Speaker 4: And then and then she'd start right back again, you know,
Speaker 4: asking more stuff. And I remember feeling like I remember
Speaker 4: feeling like they were gonna kill me or something like
Speaker 4: because I didn't know what's going on, and so I
Speaker 4: said something like along the lines where I said Kelly
Speaker 4: Wilson's name, I've seen that sign.
Speaker 1: Okay, did you hear that right there? That was the
Speaker 1: first time Kelly Wilson, the missing teenager, was ever connected
Speaker 1: to the Kirk case. Raymond was confessing to anything and
Speaker 1: everything to stop the women from hurting him when he
Speaker 1: blurted out Kelly's name. Raymond would eventually tell Barbara Bass
Speaker 1: that he also took part in something much bigger.
Speaker 5: It was for more than an hour, just not letting
Speaker 5: this kid go with I guess steps struggling, and then
Speaker 5: they would take their knuckles and they would rub it
Speaker 5: painfully up and down his ribs until, according to them,
Speaker 5: disclosed this satanic coven and in the process, soiled himself.
Speaker 5: So I mean basically they, from my perspective, they tortured him,
Speaker 5: he soiled himself. And for them, again, this is part
Speaker 5: of that dynamic where they think, if something happens, it
Speaker 5: just the only thing that registers in their brain is, oh,
Speaker 5: this must have been such an important disclosure for this
Speaker 5: child that he actually soiled himself. So in their mind,
Speaker 5: that proved that it was true, and I mean that
Speaker 5: is from my perspective, perverted thinking. It is, you have
Speaker 5: your mindset on something, and all you are going to
Speaker 5: perceive are things that tangentially prove what you think is
Speaker 5: going on. It's a cognitive bias where you form an
Speaker 5: opinion and all you're going to perceive are things that
Speaker 5: inform and prove that opinion and ignore anything that doesn't.
Speaker 1: Raymond insists he didn't soil himself. He says, one of
Speaker 1: the women soiled herself and let Raymond take the blame.
Speaker 4: I don't know how much like time passed from that
Speaker 4: first time I met Marba Bath, but one day they
Speaker 4: told me, they said, you and your brother getting ready
Speaker 4: to go to a new home. I didn't know it,
Speaker 4: but I was going to Barbara Basson's home. She realized
Speaker 4: that I could spot landmarks and was familiar with the area.
Speaker 4: From that day forward, when they would drive me to
Speaker 4: Gilmour back and forth from their house, I was always
Speaker 4: blindfold got to their house and there was a bunch
Speaker 4: of kids at her house, a whole bunch.
Speaker 1: Of kids that would be the Kirk kids.
Speaker 4: I knew two of them from the school bus, and
Speaker 4: so that was kind of like a relief, like seeing somebody,
Speaker 4: you know, after being taken away from everything that you know,
Speaker 4: still not realizing that it was connected, that we were
Speaker 4: involved in the same thing. They set all us kids
Speaker 4: down there and they told us the house rules, no masturbating.
Speaker 4: I was seven years old. I didn't know what masturbation was, Like,
Speaker 4: what's what's masturbating? You know, And all the other kids
Speaker 4: are sitting there and they're looking at me and they're laughing.
Speaker 4: They're like, you know what it is.
Speaker 1: As Raymond settled into his new home, there were some
Speaker 1: nice things about living with Barbara.
Speaker 4: Bass, like this mixed emotion of like how even like
Speaker 4: how I still remember it, like because there's a part
Speaker 4: of my mind I remember it as like you know,
Speaker 4: like man, we had all them toys and lived in
Speaker 4: a real big home, and you know, like it's different
Speaker 4: when you come from a project, you know, going into
Speaker 4: an environment like that. You know, we had a pet tiger,
Speaker 4: Like yeah, at the Bass home they had a tiger
Speaker 4: tiger and it was a Bengal tiger and it was
Speaker 4: only like a year old, over six foot tall. When
Speaker 4: it would stand up on the tiny legs like spread out,
Speaker 4: So that was pretty cool. They feed the tiger frozen chickens,
Speaker 4: and about once a month they'd take a live chicken
Speaker 4: and they'd throw it in there with a tiger and
Speaker 4: it pounces around like like a regular high cat plays
Speaker 4: with something. You know. They'd play with that chicken. Then
Speaker 4: they'd kill it and it'd swim around pluck its feathers out.
Speaker 4: So we'd sit there and watch it eat and stuff.
Speaker 4: One day, Uh, we woke up and we all go
Speaker 4: downstairs to breakfast. We'd all have breakfast in the dining area,
Speaker 4: and we had chores to do and be on them,
Speaker 4: you know, on the refrigerator door. You know, this day,
Speaker 4: you feed the chickens, you do rabbit. They had animals,
Speaker 4: and so you know, well she had marked on that
Speaker 4: calendar holding day.
Speaker 1: Holding day was not a happy day.
Speaker 4: And I noticed, like all the other kids in the
Speaker 4: in the house like they got like, you know, sketchy
Speaker 4: and like depressed. One of the kids was telling me,
Speaker 4: he's like, oh man, this whole day and everybody's like
Speaker 4: in a real bad mood. There's like fifteen of us kids,
Speaker 4: and we'd all line up on the right side of
Speaker 4: the stairwell. And what she would do is she'd have us,
Speaker 4: run up the right side of the steps, all the
Speaker 4: way up the landings, all the way to the top floor,
Speaker 4: all the way up, all the way down, all the
Speaker 4: way up, all the way down. And I mean this
Speaker 4: this went on for like, you know, an hour, two hours.
Speaker 4: This was not like a run up there for like
Speaker 4: ten minutes. And we're done with this thing. This was
Speaker 4: an all day event. And I get tired. I kind
Speaker 4: of like sit down, and the kids are telling me.
Speaker 4: They're like no, like like you know, they were terrified
Speaker 4: because they've been through this. They're like, no, don't don't
Speaker 4: do that, like, don't make her mad. Like everybody's getting
Speaker 4: read in the face. Kids are starting to cry, and uh,
Speaker 4: she would she would stand there on the on the
Speaker 4: uh in the hallway, they're on the landing, and she'd like,
Speaker 4: ridicule us. You know, that's why your parents don't love you,
Speaker 4: and that's why your mom you and that's why your
Speaker 4: daddy don't love you. And and so she's just yelling
Speaker 4: all this vulgar shit the whole time we're running. And
Speaker 4: so kids at different point in time are starting to
Speaker 4: break down, crying. That's what she called it. Breakdown. The
Speaker 4: first floor you had the kitchen. Second floor was like
Speaker 4: a big living area with a bedroom. Then the third
Speaker 4: floor you had bedrooms, and then that fourth floor was
Speaker 4: like an attic. That was where me and two other boys stayed.
Speaker 4: So there was like two or three girls that shared
Speaker 4: a room on that third floor. Right at the top
Speaker 4: of that stairwell, that was their room. Well, that's where
Speaker 4: she would do the holdings.
Speaker 1: It sounds like Barbara was trying to get the kids
Speaker 1: tired so they wouldn't fight back when she deployed the
Speaker 1: holding technique.
Speaker 4: I still didn't realize what was going on that I'd
Speaker 4: already experienced the rib reven and all that. Well, what
Speaker 4: she knew is she pull them in there and she
Speaker 4: get them on. She put us on that bed, and
Speaker 4: you could hear you could hear the kids through the
Speaker 4: door screaming. She'd go one at a time. She just
Speaker 4: picked one all of a sudden. You know, she'd picked
Speaker 4: you out while you're running, all right, you come on,
Speaker 4: and then she take them in there and she rub
Speaker 4: the ribs and hold them down. You hear them screaming
Speaker 4: and hollering and fighting and everything, and uh, you know,
Speaker 4: you can hear her cussing and them cussing, and next thing,
Speaker 4: you know, they come out and they're just worn out,
Speaker 4: like you know, after that whole process, you're just tired.
Speaker 4: You're like like, you know, draining, emotionally draining and uh.
Speaker 4: And then they get to go outside, you know, and
Speaker 4: go mess with you know, out in the yard, go
Speaker 4: play games whatever. I was thinking they were just bad kids.
Speaker 4: I was like, you know, dang, what the heck is
Speaker 4: going on? Like, you know, they're in there cussing her
Speaker 4: and you know, fighting and screaming and yelling like, man,
Speaker 4: this is bad, Like you know, all we gotta do
Speaker 4: is mind or something like and uh. Then she took
Speaker 4: me in there and did the same things. Then she
Speaker 4: started asking more questions, you know, and I'm like, I
Speaker 4: don't know what to say. So I'm sitting there coming
Speaker 4: up with these lies. And I used to get in
Speaker 4: trouble for lying. You don't lie to your adults. So
Speaker 4: once I lie to her, I was really I was
Speaker 4: more afraid of her, you know, like, man, what is
Speaker 4: she going to do now? You know, she's already treating
Speaker 4: me like this, What's she going to do now? If
Speaker 4: I'm you know, try to tell her like, look, lady,
Speaker 4: I'm lying to you, like you know, And so eventually
Speaker 4: I ended up saying something about James.
Speaker 1: Brown, as in James York Brown, the Gilbert police sergeant
Speaker 1: leading the search for Kelly Wilson. Raymond knew several police
Speaker 1: officers through his stepdad down so when making false claims
Speaker 1: in a desperate attempt to end the holding and rib rubbing,
Speaker 1: it was only natural that he'd bring up Sergeant Brown.
Speaker 4: Already lied on my mom. I lied on Don Now
Speaker 4: I'm lied on James Brown. In my mind at seven,
Speaker 4: I was thinking, all right, like James Brown, he's like,
Speaker 4: you know, he's like a big time cop. You know,
Speaker 4: if I say his name, he's probably gonna like show up,
Speaker 4: you know, and he knows Don and know my mom,
Speaker 4: and I'll be able to go home and you know,
Speaker 4: like you know, then I can tell him like, hey,
Speaker 4: she's hurting me, Like no. But it didn't work out.
Speaker 1: Like that, No, it didn't.
Speaker 4: Barbara could be really really nice, you know some days,
Speaker 4: and then other times she'd just she'd be real brutal
Speaker 4: and just you know, your little mother, you know, just
Speaker 4: real trash talk. So I think all the kids were
Speaker 4: scared of her. But and they walked on pins and
Speaker 4: needles around her now. Her husband, Charlie Bass, was real quiet, easygoing.
Speaker 4: You'd never hear him cuss or say something rude to you.
Speaker 4: He never punished us. He would leave and then you know,
Speaker 4: he'd leave for days at a time and then come back,
Speaker 4: and he was never home when we'd have that holding process.
Speaker 4: He was always gone. That was something I noticed, Like
Speaker 4: I could always tell like because she would do it
Speaker 4: on a spur of a moment. She wouldn't be like, hey,
Speaker 4: tomorrow's holding day. You'd wake up and come downstairs and
Speaker 4: you'd see it posted on the refrigerator, you know, like
Speaker 4: today's holding day. Then it got to where when she'd
Speaker 4: ask me questions, it won't like she just asked a
Speaker 4: question and wait for an answer. She'd ask a question
Speaker 4: along the lines of, you know, uh, so, did y'all
Speaker 4: were y'all in a dungeon or something like that, and
Speaker 4: I'm going, no, you know, and then it's no, well
Speaker 4: tell me where the dungeon is? You know? No, did
Speaker 4: y'all dress up like devils? No? You know, she's rubbing
Speaker 4: your ribs the whole time you're screaming and hollering. So
Speaker 4: finally it got to where I realized, like what whatever
Speaker 4: she was asking me, I knew she wanted a yes
Speaker 4: answer to you, you know what I mean, Like I
Speaker 4: figured that out real quick, like all right, if I
Speaker 4: say yes, she quits rubbing my ribs. And then she's, oh,
Speaker 4: you're well, you a baby, you know, And she said, there,
Speaker 4: try to like coddle us. So it gave you like
Speaker 4: a mixed emotion of you know, the abuser is now
Speaker 4: the you know, everything's all right, you know, And that's
Speaker 4: what she was doing to us.
Speaker 1: From the moment Raymond had arrived at the baths house,
Speaker 1: he says his mentality changed. He retreated inward, went into
Speaker 1: survival mode.
Speaker 4: From that day forward, I was real guarded with all
Speaker 4: the adults. I mean any adults, didn't matter who they were.
Speaker 4: They take me to a church thing, anywhere we went.
Speaker 4: I avoided adults. All adults in my mind were out
Speaker 4: to get me. I was like, you can't trust any
Speaker 4: of these people, Like they're all gonna try to hurt us.
Speaker 4: They're lying, they're all like something's wrong with them. They're
Speaker 4: they're talking about killing people and eating them and devils
Speaker 4: and just like everything that I was scared of because
Speaker 4: like when you're seven, you go to church, you know,
Speaker 4: they're telling you, like, hey, you'd be good so you
Speaker 4: don't go to hell. The Kirk kids had told her
Speaker 4: so about a devil truck and being involved in these seances,
Speaker 4: and you know, they're burning stuff at night and killing
Speaker 4: babies and stuff. And so when one of them kids
Speaker 4: would say something to her like that, that was the
Speaker 4: new thing that was on my plate. When she was
Speaker 4: asking me questions, you know so, and then I'm just
Speaker 4: going along. I'm trying to keep up with these kids,
Speaker 4: you know, whatever they're saying. And the whole time I
Speaker 4: didn't realize that my mom and Don were in jail.
Speaker 4: One day, I was acting up, probably just doing like
Speaker 4: some regular kids stuff, and she punished me and she
Speaker 4: sat me down. She gave me a cheese sandwich, you know,
Speaker 4: like two pieces of bread, cheese in the middle and
Speaker 4: like a glass of water. All the other kids are eating,
Speaker 4: you know whatever. And when she put it down in
Speaker 4: front of me, she's like, yeah, well you can eat
Speaker 4: what your parents are eating in jail today, since you
Speaker 4: want to be acting up. That was the first time
Speaker 4: that I realized, like, all right, these things I'm saying
Speaker 4: and all this is like, you know, they're not at home,
Speaker 4: just ignore me. Like at that point, I thought like
Speaker 4: my mom and Donn had just like left us there
Speaker 4: and was like, you know, like gave up on us
Speaker 4: or something. Yeah, I didn't know like how serious everything was.
Speaker 1: In fact, Raymond's mom Tammy and stepdad Dawn were among
Speaker 1: the Gilmer residents indicted for kidnapping, raping, and murdering Kelly Wilson,
Speaker 1: along with the Kerr family and Sergeant Brown. They were
Speaker 1: in jail because of Raymond's coerce claims, plus the statements
Speaker 1: that Wanda Kerr and Connie Martin made to Special Prosecutor
Speaker 1: Scott Leeford and his investigators Steve Baggs and Brooks Flag.
Speaker 1: Remember those other foster parents who fled to West Texas
Speaker 1: trying to escape from the Curs, only to grievously injure
Speaker 1: one curboy and then commit suicide. Well, Barbara Bass was
Speaker 1: afraid the curs would come after her too, or she
Speaker 1: won the kids to think that.
Speaker 4: They always had us feeling like somebody was out to
Speaker 4: get us. Like I remember one time they were saying, yeah,
Speaker 4: they're gonna try and come kill y'all, you know, like
Speaker 4: you know, like Don and my mom had hired a
Speaker 4: bunch of people to come kill us or something like.
Speaker 4: And so I can remember all us kids sometimes at
Speaker 4: the house, it would be like, you know, like red
Speaker 4: alert or something like there was a stranger spotted down
Speaker 4: the road or something like. Neighbors would call like it
Speaker 4: was a network where we lived out there at that
Speaker 4: Bass home. You know, I'd ask them, like, you know,
Speaker 4: am I when do I get to go home? And
Speaker 4: you don't get to go home. You know, your parents
Speaker 4: soldier toys and you know they don't want you, like you.
Speaker 1: Know, Chasing leads on the Satanic cult and Gilmer. Members
Speaker 1: of the Lifer team took the children to sits where
Speaker 1: the ritual abuse and murder of Kelly Wilson were supposed
Speaker 1: to have occurred.
Speaker 4: And I can remember I remember being with the Hicks
Speaker 4: kids and the Kirk kids, and they had us all
Speaker 4: as a group and they wanted to know about some dungeon.
Speaker 4: Those kids kept saying that they were sexually abused in
Speaker 4: a dungeon.
Speaker 1: Here's Shane Phelps.
Speaker 5: And they got the wildest stories out of these kids
Speaker 5: that there was a dungeon. When they were taken.
Speaker 4: Well where the kids that took them. It is right
Speaker 4: down the road here headed out of Gilmburg towards Gladewater.
Speaker 4: There's a road that shoots back over it's like a
Speaker 4: little old top road. We all went as a group
Speaker 4: and they're going, well, do you all remember how to
Speaker 4: get there? And you know, the kids were kind of
Speaker 4: arguing with each other, No, it's over here in this
Speaker 4: part of the woods. And the one boy he was like, no,
Speaker 4: I don't know where they got it from, but they
Speaker 4: didn't know that location, you know, them kids lee It
Speaker 4: took bibbly like fifteen twenty minutes. And so the foster
Speaker 4: parents and them, there might have been some caseworkers, maybe
Speaker 4: even the law enforcement were there that day and we
Speaker 4: all went down and into the woods and walked through
Speaker 4: the woods and they were like yeah, and they had
Speaker 4: names for everything. They were like, this is the Devil's
Speaker 4: would you know? Everything was like devil cult, Like everything
Speaker 4: had a name or some kind of like title. And
Speaker 4: they were like, yeah, this is the dungeon. And what
Speaker 4: it actually was it was just a tornado shelter in
Speaker 4: the woods, like there might have been a house at
Speaker 4: one point there. Who knows that was the dungeon. I
Speaker 4: ain't never seen tornado shelter. I'm like, what the hell
Speaker 4: this is? Like, you know, I'm so curious about stuff,
Speaker 4: and you know, they were like, y'all want to come
Speaker 4: down here, and the kids were acting all scared, you
Speaker 4: know they were. And I remember just being like, Yeah,
Speaker 4: I want to go down and see what's in there,
Speaker 4: like you know, you go down the steps. It was
Speaker 4: just a little small tornado shelter. I remember they took
Speaker 4: me to the airport here in Gilbert one day where
Speaker 4: they had they picked up a shed and the Kirk
Speaker 4: kids had said that that their grandma had Kelly Wilson
Speaker 4: tied up in the shed and had tortured her and
Speaker 4: raped her and murdered her. Inside the shed, it was
Speaker 4: red with white trim on it. I went in there,
Speaker 4: literally went in there with the Texas Rangers and helped
Speaker 4: them gather pieces of hair and stuff. And then there
Speaker 4: were like little drawers and stuff with like screws and
Speaker 4: you know stuff you find somebody's shed, screwdrivers, things like that,
Speaker 4: and they were collecting hairs and putting it in big
Speaker 4: plastic bags. I remember being there that day with them
Speaker 4: and doing that whole thing, and then them asking me, like,
Speaker 4: you know, is this the shed that Kelly Wilson was in?
Speaker 4: And I can remember telling them, yes, you know, lying
Speaker 4: to them. I was scared of sticking to my story
Speaker 4: like that I lied about and yeah, yeah, yeah, you know,
Speaker 4: you know, I'd never seen that shed before my life.
Speaker 4: Come and find out the hairs that they had collected
Speaker 4: out of that shed and came from like dogs and
Speaker 4: you know, cows or something like, you know, it was
Speaker 4: like animal hairs or something. But I remember at the
Speaker 4: like when I was a kid, being like really scared,
Speaker 4: like like wow, I'm in the ship where somebody was
Speaker 4: killed and tortured, and like, you know, like they're pulling
Speaker 4: this hair out of you know, and I'm like, man,
Speaker 4: that's a dead person's hair, Like you know, like when
Speaker 4: you're seven, that kind of stuff's scary.
Speaker 1: Raymond had already been through so much, almost unbelievably for him,
Speaker 1: the worst was yet to come.
Speaker 4: Every every kid that I was in Foster Home with
Speaker 4: was on some kind of drug they had. Every kid
Speaker 4: was drugged out of their minds. You know. I was
Speaker 4: taking like six seven pills a day at eight years old,
Speaker 4: and wasn't nothing wrong with me. I remember one time
Speaker 4: They took me to a hospital. They made me get
Speaker 4: on a table, and when I walk in, I got
Speaker 4: Brooks Flags is there and Steven Baggs or something like that.
Speaker 1: Steve Bags and Brooks Flag were the special investigators.
Speaker 4: They wear a pistol, you know, cowboy hats, their badges
Speaker 4: and everything. And they had never done nothing and abusive
Speaker 4: to me. They were always kind of like, you know,
Speaker 4: my buddies. I'd ride around with them. They might ask
Speaker 4: me a question or two, and you know, I just
Speaker 4: go along with what I'd already told Barbara, and you know,
Speaker 4: they go get me hot dogs and ice cream cones
Speaker 4: or something. You know. They were just kind of like
Speaker 4: somebody cool to hang out with. But I remember they
Speaker 4: took me in this room and there's like three or
Speaker 4: four doctors there, and Barbara Bass is there, and Steve
Speaker 4: Bags and Brooks Flags were there, and they wanted me
Speaker 4: to strip down naked in front of all of them. Well,
Speaker 4: I got real nervous and scared because everything that Barbara
Speaker 4: Bass talked about was abusive and devils and death, and
Speaker 4: you know, there's a lot of heavy stuff for the kid,
Speaker 4: and so I was sitting there, I'm scared, and she
Speaker 4: had me get up on the table. They wanted me to,
Speaker 4: you know, I started crying and Brooks flags was like,
Speaker 4: are you scared somebody's gonna hurt you here? And I
Speaker 4: was like yeah, and he like, you want me to
Speaker 4: pulled out my pistol, like you know, like it may
Speaker 4: I'm not gonna let nobody heard shit here.
Speaker 1: Raymond describes how one of the doctors performed an invasive
Speaker 1: search for signs of molestation while the other adults watched.
Speaker 1: It's so upsetting we decided to cut it.
Speaker 4: And that alone, that right there messages you up. Like
Speaker 4: when you got somebody sitting there. They're wearing badgers. They're
Speaker 4: supposed to protect you and they're not. They're the ones
Speaker 4: that are doing it. You're raised up to believe in
Speaker 4: God lo then you go through something like that, they're
Speaker 4: the ones that are hurt us.
Speaker 1: Ultimately, Raymond would spend two years in foster care. He'd
Speaker 1: been taken from his mom and stepdad, Dawn, who were
Speaker 1: falsely accused of murdering Kelly Wilson based on Raymond's own
Speaker 1: coerced claims. Raymond had been through hell. He needed someone,
Speaker 1: anyone to save him, to bring him back to Gilmer
Speaker 1: where he belonged, and his parents Tammy and down. They
Speaker 1: needed rescuing too, That's next time on Deviltown. Deviltown is
Speaker 1: a production of Imperative Entertainment. It was written and created
Speaker 1: by me Wes Ferguson. Executive producer is Jason Hoak. Audio
Speaker 1: engineering and editing by Shane Freeman and Jason Hoak. Original
Speaker 1: score is by Robert Ellis, recording by Austin Sisler at
Speaker 1: east Side Studios. If you like the show, leave a
Speaker 1: review and don't forget to tell your friends thanks for listening.