Speaker 1: Hi, I'm Heather and I'm Dylan. We are Mountain Murders
Speaker 1: and Appalachian true crime podcasts, dropping weekly episodes every Sunday.
Speaker 2: Our show offers well researched cases with unique storytelling and
Speaker 2: Southern flavor.
Speaker 1: Story's so good you'll want to sop them up with
Speaker 1: a biscuit.
Speaker 3: Ooh.
Speaker 2: I pull back the curtain on lesser known and often
Speaker 2: obscure regional cases from Georgia to Maine, exploring the darkness
Speaker 2: that lurks deep in the heart of Appalachia.
Speaker 1: And I react with profound statements.
Speaker 2: You mean, profoundly stupid statements, something like that. We're not
Speaker 2: your stereotypical Hillbillies, but we do like moonshine. It'll tickle
Speaker 2: your yards.
Speaker 1: Join us every Wednesday for Mountain Murders Offbeat.
Speaker 2: Off Beat is a mini episode covering a variety of
Speaker 2: time topics, from true crime to conspiracy theories, the pureanormal
Speaker 2: and Appalachian centric subjects.
Speaker 1: Find Mountain Murders anywhere you download podcast hit Subscribe today
Speaker 1: to catch up on our latest episodes, or bene our catalog.
Speaker 4: Dark Cast Network the best in indie podcasts. Check out
Speaker 4: all the incredible shows at Darkcastnetwork dot Com. Hi, I'm Jackie,
Speaker 4: the host of Cause of Death one hundred seconds to midnight,
Speaker 4: and you're listening to Rainbow Crimes and hopefully this episode
Speaker 4: will let us see some unicorn justice.
Speaker 3: Hey guys, it's me CJ. I sure hope you're all
Speaker 3: well and that summer is treating You're right. I can't
Speaker 3: complain too much. Our weather has been in the load
Speaker 3: to mid sixties, but sometimes it feels like it's in
Speaker 3: the mid fifties, which means it's still sweatpants and hoodie weather.
Speaker 3: For me, I don't have too much going on. It's
Speaker 3: been nice having the kids back, So with that, I
Speaker 3: guess we'll just jump into the case. In twenty twenty three,
Speaker 3: nineteen year old Klay Stevens was living in Lawton, Oklahoma.
Speaker 3: Being an openly gay young man in the state of Oklahoma,
Speaker 3: I'm sure it had to be particularly rough for Clay.
Speaker 3: Clay was born and raised in Dallas, Texas, which I
Speaker 3: believe to be a little more open to the LGBTQ community. However,
Speaker 3: Lawton is the sixth biggest city in Oklahoma, with just
Speaker 3: over ninety thousand people, and although a small representation, it
Speaker 3: does have a limited but present LGBTQ community. Nothing like Dallas. However,
Speaker 3: Anne Lawton does lean towards being conservative. Clay made the
Speaker 3: move to go live with his grandparents. He had an
Speaker 3: especially close relationship with his grandmother and he wanted to
Speaker 3: be there to help take care of her. But there's
Speaker 3: another reason why I think he really moved to be
Speaker 3: with his grandparents, and I'll get into that. In Lawton,
Speaker 3: Clay would finish out high school. At the time of
Speaker 3: his move to his grandparents, Clay was just seventeen years old,
Speaker 3: and he was reeling from a family tragedy that had
Speaker 3: just occurred in twenty twenty one. You see Clay's cousin,
Speaker 3: Haley Watts, who was only eighteen. She was murdered in
Speaker 3: Fort Worth, Texas in twenty twenty one. Clay loved Hayley
Speaker 3: so much. She was his best friend, and he took
Speaker 3: her murder extra hard. Haley and her boyfriend were shot
Speaker 3: in an apartment complex while in Haley's car. They were there,
Speaker 3: or at least thought they were there to be selling
Speaker 3: a gaming system, but I think they were set up.
Speaker 3: Two individuals shot into Haley's car, missing the boyfriend but
Speaker 3: fatally hitting Haley. Since Clay was so close with Haley,
Speaker 3: he was hoping by moving three hours away to his grandparents,
Speaker 3: he could get his mind together after losing her and
Speaker 3: focus his grief in a more productive way, and caring
Speaker 3: for his grandparents would be just one of those ways.
Speaker 3: Clay settled into his grandparents' home and he finished out
Speaker 3: high school before finding a job. According to his friends,
Speaker 3: Clay wasn't very big on partying. He had a close
Speaker 3: circle of friends and he mostly stuck to them. But
Speaker 3: Clay was seeing somebody in secret, a twenty four year
Speaker 3: old man named Tajuan Richardson often went by his nickname
Speaker 3: of Pooh Butt and just to clarify that it's Pooh
Speaker 3: po H like Winnie the Pooh, not Pooh is in shit. Although,
Speaker 3: like me, when I'm done telling you about this story,
Speaker 3: you might consider Tiuan a piece of shit too. The
Speaker 3: relationship between Clay and Tijuan was secret because Tiuan also
Speaker 3: had a girlfriend, a pregnant girlfriend. At that Tiuan was
Speaker 3: fearful his girlfriend would find out that he was also
Speaker 3: sleeping with a gay man. Come April of twenty twenty three,
Speaker 3: the secrecy was weighing on Clay. He had sent numerous
Speaker 3: texts to Tauan telling him how he felt about it
Speaker 3: and that he didn't like that Tiuan was still involved
Speaker 3: with his girlfriend. This situation was causing so much tension
Speaker 3: between both Clay and Tuan, and it just continued to
Speaker 3: get worse. Clay threatened to out to Wan to his
Speaker 3: girlfriend to responded to these threats with intense hostility. I'm
Speaker 3: sure was not the reaction Clay thought he would get
Speaker 3: from the man he was interested in in having a
Speaker 3: sexual relationship with. Hal Clay might have even thought he
Speaker 3: was in love with Tiwan. On April ninth, twenty twenty three,
Speaker 3: year round seven thirty am, which just happened to be
Speaker 3: Easter Sunday that year, police responded to a call of
Speaker 3: a possible deceased body in a rural area of Lawton
Speaker 3: Coombs Road in thirty eighth Street. As officers responded to
Speaker 3: the call, they found a male victim who was dead
Speaker 3: from a gunshot wound to his face. They immediately knew
Speaker 3: the case was one of homicide. The police were quickly
Speaker 3: able to identify the body as nineteen year old Clay Stevens.
Speaker 3: Clay was last seen the night prior visiting friends While
Speaker 3: visiting the friends, he placed a call to someone else.
Speaker 3: When the call ended, he left his friend's home, but
Speaker 3: he promised to return shortly, but he never did. Days later,
Speaker 3: an abandoned Chrysler Pacifica was located in Vernon, Texas. The
Speaker 3: name on the registration showed the car belonged to Twan's girlfriend.
Speaker 3: Vernon police found blood on both the exterior and inside
Speaker 3: the interior of the car. Meanwhile, back in Oklahoma, the
Speaker 3: Lawton Police were searching Clay's phone records. They found that
Speaker 3: his last call was made to a number belonging to
Speaker 3: a Tiwan Richardson. Lawton investigators also secured video footage from
Speaker 3: Clay's friends home showing a Chrysler Pacifica picking Clay up
Speaker 3: in the early hours of Easter morning. You know, I
Speaker 3: don't say this too often, but the Lawton Police, they
Speaker 3: really did a good job in getting to this case
Speaker 3: and everything seemed to be falling into place for this investigation.
Speaker 3: Vernon Police in Texas got a hold of the Lawton
Speaker 3: Police regarding the Pacifica that they found in their jurisdiction.
Speaker 3: They also told the Lawton police about the blood that
Speaker 3: was discovered. It was now April eighteenth, nine days after
Speaker 3: Clay's murder, Tiwan was still molling around the Texas area.
Speaker 3: He called his mom from Wichita Falls and he told
Speaker 3: her what he had done. And then he asked her
Speaker 3: if she would come get him and take him back
Speaker 3: to Lawton so he could turn himself in. So, his
Speaker 3: mom and a couple of other family members took the
Speaker 3: hour drive from Lawton to wichitaf Balls to pick up
Speaker 3: to Wan. On the way back to Lawton, the family
Speaker 3: stopped at a taco bell off the highway. It was
Speaker 3: inside this taco bell Towan had a change of heart.
Speaker 3: He took his family keys and he abandoned them at
Speaker 3: the fast food restaurant. I'm sure plenty pissed off it
Speaker 3: to one the family reported he had stolen their black
Speaker 3: Toyota Camry. The US Marshals responded and they entered the
Speaker 3: information into their database. Now all the states that surrounded
Speaker 3: Texas were on the lookout for the black Toyota Camry
Speaker 3: with the Oklahoma plates. In Holbrook, Arizona State troopers located
Speaker 3: the reported vehicle on Interstate forty as it was leaving
Speaker 3: New Mexico. The car was heading west towards California. The
Speaker 3: trooper that spotted the car attempted to make a traffic
Speaker 3: stop with the vehicle, but the car sped up. The
Speaker 3: trooper then began a high speed pursuit of the car.
Speaker 3: Around three forty pm, the speeds reached in excess of
Speaker 3: over one hundred miles per hour were one sixty point
Speaker 3: nine three kilometers for my non US listeners, roughly thirty
Speaker 3: five miles west of Holbrook. US marshals laid out a
Speaker 3: spike strip on the highway. I'm pretty sure they closed
Speaker 3: the highway down too. They would have had to close
Speaker 3: it for a stretch at least. They didn't want to
Speaker 3: risk having any civilian casualties. One in his high speed
Speaker 3: attempt to avoid capture, hit these spikes, which immediately punctured
Speaker 3: the tires of the car. He lost total control, crashing
Speaker 3: into some bushes that were inside the highway. Median Towan
Speaker 3: was taken into custody right there on the spot. He
Speaker 3: didn't require any medical attention. He was arrested, charged and
Speaker 3: put in an Arizona jail where he awaited extradition back
Speaker 3: to Oklahoma. When she finally got back to Lawton, his
Speaker 3: mom was arrested for aiding a fugitive. I'm not sure
Speaker 3: for charge stuck or not, or if she had a
Speaker 3: fine or served any time, but I just think that
Speaker 3: sucks for her. First, her kid steals her car, leaves
Speaker 3: are stranded at a taco bell, then he crashes her vehicle,
Speaker 3: and now she's getting arrested. What a pooh butt, I mean,
Speaker 3: the shit kind. Tiuan was charged with three main felonies
Speaker 3: that he pleaded guilty to. Those were a first degree murder,
Speaker 3: unlawful removal of a dead body, and unlawful possession of
Speaker 3: a weapon after a former felony conviction. Man, this pooh
Speaker 3: Butt is bad news. He was already a felon before
Speaker 3: ever meeting Clay. While awaiting his trial in January of
Speaker 3: twenty twenty four, Tiuan was slapped with nine additional charges
Speaker 3: after a hostage situation took place in the correctional facility
Speaker 3: that he was being held at. Two of these included
Speaker 3: kidnapping and a soul in battery with a dangerous weapon.
Speaker 3: Because pooh Butt wasn't in enough trouble as it fucking was,
Speaker 3: he had to create more chaos. What an asshole. When
Speaker 3: Taiwan finally had his day in court, he not only
Speaker 3: pleaded guilty, but he was found guilty and sentenced to
Speaker 3: life in prison without the possibility of ever parolling, take
Speaker 3: that pooh butt and in your next life, own up
Speaker 3: to your shit. Man. If he would have just owned
Speaker 3: up that he was in a gay relationship and a
Speaker 3: hetero relationship, he wouldn't have had to take a young
Speaker 3: gay man's life from him. Clay has been described by
Speaker 3: family and friends as being outspoken, funny, and kind. He
Speaker 3: was deeply empathetic, and he had a great smile. Clay
Speaker 3: loved cooking, especially chicken wings, and music, with Rihanna, Cardi
Speaker 3: B and Nicki Minaj being among his favorites. He also
Speaker 3: loved movies. He's with his cousin Haley now rest in power, Clay.
Speaker 3: I just feel so bad for that boy. He seemed
Speaker 3: like such a sweetie and I know his family must
Speaker 3: miss him so very much. Okay, let me see if
Speaker 3: I can leave us all on a happier note. It
Speaker 3: looks like the UK is following the Netherlands lead with
Speaker 3: banning conversion therapy for members of the LGBTQ, although they
Speaker 3: aren't quite at the same point of criminalizing those who
Speaker 3: are performing it. It's a start. California is allocating twenty
Speaker 3: six million dollars to safeguarding gender affirming care from federal interference. Dang,
Speaker 3: that's a lot of money and so great of Governor
Speaker 3: Gavin Newsom from California. I love that he's doing this
Speaker 3: for the LGBTQ community, but it is truly too bad
Speaker 3: he has to protect the community from the federal bad guys.
Speaker 3: Still good for California. Now for a few jokes. A
Speaker 3: guy came out to his dad as bisexual. His dad as, so,
Speaker 3: you can date a man or a woman, and that
Speaker 3: means you're by yes, dad exactly. So if you aren't
Speaker 3: seeing anyone, does that mean you are on standby? Oh?
Speaker 3: Dad's Two old lesbians were doing it on a park bench.
Speaker 3: The first one says to the second one, take off
Speaker 3: your glasses, Phyllis, you're scratching my leg. The second one
Speaker 3: says to the first, put yours on athole, you're licking
Speaker 3: the bench. And lastly, what is the primary distinction between
Speaker 3: a straight and a gay man? A straight man and
Speaker 3: dresses a woman with his eyes, well, a gay man
Speaker 3: has already imagined a whole new, more stylish outfit for
Speaker 3: But I love you guys. You matter, and remember it's
Speaker 3: not a crime to be gay or to live your truth.
Speaker 3: Say it with me, y'all, unless you're a murderer.