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Speaker 5: You are now listening to True Murder, The most shocking
Speaker 5: killers in True crime History and the authors that have
Speaker 5: written about them Gasey, Bundy, Dahmer, The Nightstalker VTK. Every
Speaker 5: week another fascinating author talking about the most shocking and
Speaker 5: infamous killers in true crime history. True Murder with your host,
Speaker 5: journalist and author Dan Zufanski.
Speaker 6: Good Evening. By nineteen sixty six, Hot Springs, Arkansas wasn't
Speaker 6: your typical sleepy, little southern town. Once a favorite destination
Speaker 6: for mobsters like al Capone and Lucky Luciano, illegal activities
Speaker 6: continue to lure out of state gamblers, flim flammen, and
Speaker 6: high rollers to its race tracks, clubs, and bordellos. Still,
Speaker 6: the town was shaken to its core after a girl
Speaker 6: was found dead on a nearby ranch. The ranch owner
Speaker 6: claimed it was an accident. Then the rancher was found
Speaker 6: to be the killer of another woman, his fourth wife.
Speaker 6: The story begins when thirteen year old Kathy Ward was
Speaker 6: found dead after horseback riding at Black Snake Ranch on
Speaker 6: the outskirts of Hot Springs, Arkansas. Frank Davis, the owner
Speaker 6: of the ranch, tells authorities Kathy's death is an accident.
Speaker 6: He claims her foot caught in a stirrup and she
Speaker 6: was dragged to her death. Despite his pursuit of the
Speaker 6: runaway horse, people who know the forty two year old
Speaker 6: skilled horsemen don't believe his story, and soon rumors of
Speaker 6: her rape and murder began swirling around town. The rumors
Speaker 6: reach a crescendo after Davis viciously guns down his fourth
Speaker 6: wife and mother in law in broad daylight outside of
Speaker 6: a laundromat. Davis is arrested and charged with first degree
Speaker 6: murder soon after Hot Springs authorities reopened the investigation into
Speaker 6: Kathy Ward's Snake Eyes is the first book to examine
Speaker 6: this notorious villain, featuring personal interviews, crime scene records, court documents,
Speaker 6: and Davis's own prison files. Author and lifelong Hot Springs
Speaker 6: resident Biddy Martin reveals the true story for the very
Speaker 6: first time. The book that we're featuring this evening is
Speaker 6: Snake Eyes Murder in a Southern Town with my special guest,
Speaker 6: journalist and author Biddy Martin. Welcome to the program, and
Speaker 6: thank you so much for this interview. Biddy Martin, Thank
Speaker 6: you for inviting me, Dan, Thank you so much for
Speaker 6: joining us with this incredible tale. First off, tell us
Speaker 6: how you came. We know that you are a Hot
Speaker 6: Springs resident, but tell us how you came to this story.
Speaker 6: When and how you came to this story.
Speaker 3: Kathy Ward, the thirteen year old girl that died Dyed
Speaker 3: Black Snack Ranch, was our junior high school friend. And
Speaker 3: it was very shocking to us. We've never experienced a
Speaker 3: deadline that of a peer. The rumors of ripe and
Speaker 3: martyr begins, and it was just it haunted us because
Speaker 3: we never really knew what happened to her. They said
Speaker 3: she was dragted death by a horse, but it was
Speaker 3: at that time we never knew what really happened, and
Speaker 3: it's haunted us, and we had gone through a lifetime
Speaker 3: wondering about the truth. And then in twenty fourteen, I
Speaker 3: called my friend Leslie, who was a childhood friend, and
Speaker 3: told her that I wanted to start digging up this story.
Speaker 3: I want to see if I could just find Kathy's obituary. Again,
Speaker 3: we never knew what happened. If it hadn't been for
Speaker 3: a spooky event that followed, I would have never started
Speaker 3: researching and interviewing and writing this book. But what I
Speaker 3: found out is that Kathy was a little princess in
Speaker 3: a town not far from here, and her father was
Speaker 3: a doctor. Her parents separated and her mother moved to
Speaker 3: Hot Springs in the early sixties. She was a family
Speaker 3: of divorce and tried to fit in here in Hot
Speaker 3: Springs with all the kids who had been here all
Speaker 3: of our lives. By the time she had gone through school,
Speaker 3: she had acclimated and was doing very well. But one
Speaker 3: thing that she wanted by the time she reached junior
Speaker 3: high school was to go horseback riding with some friends
Speaker 3: out at Black Snake Ranch. Her mother was a typical
Speaker 3: mother I guess of a single parent, and she had
Speaker 3: things that she wanted to do, and sometimes they were
Speaker 3: to go to the nightclubs here in Hot Springs. Kathy
Speaker 3: was left at home at times and with her siblings,
Speaker 3: but they got through it and she by the time
Speaker 3: she became thirteen, she had started dating the cornerback at
Speaker 3: the junior high school and everything was going her way,
Speaker 3: except her mother wouldn't allow her to go horseback riding
Speaker 3: with her girlfriends. But for some reason, three weeks after
Speaker 3: Kathy finished the seventh grade, her mother relented and allowed
Speaker 3: her to go out to the ranch. Well, of course
Speaker 3: we all know what happened.
Speaker 4: Then she died.
Speaker 3: Supposedly she was dragged to death by a horse. That's
Speaker 3: what the owner of Frank Davis the ranch told the
Speaker 3: sheriff's deputies, and that's what was accepted. After the investigation,
Speaker 3: they declared that, yes, indeed, it was an accident. So
Speaker 3: Frank was let off hot Plate and was living his
Speaker 3: life with his fourth wife. He had two children, a
Speaker 3: little toddler and a boy. But for some reason, I
Speaker 3: guess he was troubled. Forty six days after Kathy's death,
Speaker 3: his wife leaves him. She takes the children and she
Speaker 3: goes to her parents' home and lives with them. And
Speaker 3: Frank is desperate to be with her and to have
Speaker 3: the children with him, and he calls her every day,
Speaker 3: day in and day out, wanting her to come back
Speaker 3: home and to bring the children back home.
Speaker 4: But she won't.
Speaker 3: She tells him no, or just call me back later
Speaker 3: and I'll get back with you. And so Frank Sennastu.
Speaker 3: He begins stalking her in the fall of sixty six,
Speaker 3: and she's downtown and shopping and going from store to store,
Speaker 3: and for some reason she just happens to look and
Speaker 3: there's Frank driving slowly down the street watching her. She's
Speaker 3: so frightened that she goes to a lawyer and she
Speaker 3: files for divorce. By January of nineteen sixty seven. For
Speaker 3: some reason, Frank thinks that she's coming back to him.
Speaker 3: There's no indication why, but he just believes that. So
Speaker 3: he and his mother go back out to the ranch
Speaker 3: and wait for her one Sunday afternoon, but she doesn't.
Speaker 3: Sharon never arrives with the children, and he's and stuck
Speaker 3: because his mother had gone with him and they were
Speaker 3: waiting all day, supposedly all afternoon for Sharon to come
Speaker 3: and bring the children. It was just going to be
Speaker 3: a celebration. Four days after that, Frank is in a
Speaker 3: stew He has a rage hand that he had employed
Speaker 3: just to watch Sharon. He'd been watching her for quite
Speaker 3: a while and following her daily pattern. She was a
Speaker 3: beautician for Frank's mother, who had two beauty shops. He
Speaker 3: called her up one afternoon, which happened to be Frank's
Speaker 3: mother's birthday, and tells Frank, oh, she's here at the
Speaker 3: beauty shop. And for some reason, Frank had been in
Speaker 3: a stew All day, Frank goes over there. He watches
Speaker 3: covertly his mother in law drive up to the beauty
Speaker 3: shop to pick up Sharon drive off, and he claims
Speaker 3: he didn't follow them, but later that evening Frank finds
Speaker 3: them across town at a laundermat. He drives up to
Speaker 3: the laundermat and gets in an argument with his mother
Speaker 3: in law while Sharing's inside switching the clothes from and
Speaker 3: washer to the driver. After she's finished that, she comes
Speaker 3: walking back out and gets in the car and Frank
Speaker 3: is part side by side to their car behind the laundromat,
Speaker 3: and he and Sharon start talking and for some reason
Speaker 3: he reaches behind him and there happens to be a shotgun.
Speaker 3: He pulls it out and just bam shoots Sharing. The
Speaker 3: mother in law starts screaming jumps out of the car.
Speaker 3: She was holding a baby sitting right beside Sharon who
Speaker 3: was in the driver's seat, and there was a toddler
Speaker 3: in the back seat. She jumps out of the car,
Speaker 3: runs out and runs into the lngdernet and just as
Speaker 3: she hits the back door, Frank names of her, bam
Speaker 3: shoots her. She falls down and the children are in
Speaker 3: the in the car alone. But they the police find
Speaker 3: him later at his mother's house because there were witnesses
Speaker 3: this time. There weren't any witnesses when Kathy.
Speaker 4: Died, or so we think.
Speaker 3: They find the owner knew it was Frank, and this
Speaker 3: is real odd. The owner of the launder mat lived
Speaker 3: right up the street from Frank's mother in the other direction.
Speaker 3: The uncle of Sharon's Sharon's uncle lived in the other
Speaker 3: a block away, so there was like this Bermuda triangle
Speaker 3: of homes and families involved in this one crime.
Speaker 4: That's pretty eerie, I think.
Speaker 3: But the police do find Frank at home and they
Speaker 3: take him away, and he had passed out, probably from
Speaker 3: drinking so much that day.
Speaker 4: But they have.
Speaker 3: Him examined and then taking to the jail, and he
Speaker 3: goes through the process and they charge him with murder.
Speaker 3: In the meantime, though Sharon lives an hour later after
Speaker 3: she's been shot, they rush her to the hospital and
Speaker 3: she does live an hour and she is able to
Speaker 3: tell them.
Speaker 4: Who shot her.
Speaker 3: The mother in law is it's taking my ambulance to
Speaker 3: Little Rock, to a large hospital there where she undergoes surgery.
Speaker 3: She makes it, but Frank does go through a trial
Speaker 3: a year later. But now I'm sorry, I am to
Speaker 3: have to back up because after Frank murders his wife
Speaker 3: in January of nineteen sixty seven, in April of nineteen
Speaker 3: sixty seven, the police authorities reopened Kathy's case because originally
Speaker 3: there have been so many rumors of rape and murder,
Speaker 3: and people at all pointed their fingers at Frank because
Speaker 3: they knew that he had a bad reputation. They knew
Speaker 3: that he was a skilled horseman and he could have
Speaker 3: caught a horse that he told them that she had
Speaker 3: died from falling off of a runaway horse and dragged
Speaker 3: to death. Well, they knew that he could have caught
Speaker 3: that horse. But the authorities opened up Pathy's case, and
Speaker 3: what they find during a grand jury trial is that Sharon,
Speaker 3: who is now to cease, had written a note and
Speaker 3: putting it in She put it in a lock box
Speaker 3: at the bank where her uncle, who lived a block
Speaker 3: away from Frank's mother, where her uncle was vice president
Speaker 3: of the bank. She put it in a lock box,
Speaker 3: and I guess her uncle told the authorities, well, hey,
Speaker 3: there's a lock box of Sharon's. Let's see what's in it.
Speaker 3: And she'd written in a note, and from that note,
Speaker 3: and this is what doctor Ward, Kathy's father, told me,
Speaker 3: because it's a grangery evidence and that can't be FOI.
Speaker 3: There's no way that they could give me that information
Speaker 3: without court order. But it had to be from the
Speaker 3: note that Sharon wrote that the grand jury said, indeed,
Speaker 3: it wasn't that Kathy didn't die accidentally, it was murdered.
Speaker 3: And so Frank was charged with Kathy's murder, so she was.
Speaker 3: He was charged a few months after murdering his wife
Speaker 3: with Kathy's death, But the prosecuting attorney said that they
Speaker 3: would first go through and would help Sharon trial, and
Speaker 3: they would put Kathy's merch charge on the back burner
Speaker 3: until they went through this trial.
Speaker 6: So now you're talking about the first this. He is
Speaker 6: now indicted for first degree murder. And now they reopened
Speaker 6: the investigation into Kathy Ward's death, and then they found
Speaker 6: some information that Sharon, before she died, was alert enough
Speaker 6: to be able to put this information in a lock box.
Speaker 6: And now the authorities have that information. As you said,
Speaker 6: from a ranch hand, as you write from a ranch hand,
Speaker 6: that said he knew exactly what had happened, and he
Speaker 6: had witnessed it. Yes, So now the information that you
Speaker 6: find from this grand jury investigation and from your own investigation,
Speaker 6: what do you find really happened that day despite what
Speaker 6: Frank Davis had to say.
Speaker 3: Okay, Well, from one I learned is that he supposedly
Speaker 3: took one of the little girls who was there with
Speaker 3: Kathy riding horses. He took her to search for Kathy
Speaker 3: as a cover up, and supposedly they found she actually
Speaker 3: she found the little girl found Kathy's.
Speaker 4: Body, right, and that was his.
Speaker 3: But then he told the deputies that she had died
Speaker 3: from a runway horse. So which story do you believe?
Speaker 3: This story that I was told about the little girl
Speaker 3: that went with him and found her body was told
Speaker 3: to me several years into my research and investigation of
Speaker 3: the story, and I tend to believe that it's true.
Speaker 6: Absolutely. Now he's sent to the state hospital and they're
Speaker 6: going to be psychiatric evaluation. But right as you write,
Speaker 6: very very interestingly, right from the very beginning when he
Speaker 6: was passed out of his mother's house, when he awoke,
Speaker 6: he was incredulous that he had done anything, that he
Speaker 6: had committed a murder. Of course, total amnesia. After he
Speaker 6: had spotted Sharon. After those events that are transpired after
Speaker 6: including the shooting. Of course, he had no memory, supposedly
Speaker 6: of any of that tell us a little bit about
Speaker 6: the kind of behavior he exhibited in prison and the
Speaker 6: defense that the defense was trying to put forward at
Speaker 6: this trial.
Speaker 3: Okay, while he was in prison, they sent him to
Speaker 3: the State Hospital and he spent a lot of time
Speaker 3: there with the doctor telling these bizarre stories about how
Speaker 3: people were always following him and they were always out
Speaker 3: to get him. He also told them that he would
Speaker 3: make a great astronaut, and he never once recognized he
Speaker 3: bought the whole time that he was at the State
Speaker 3: hospital that he was there because of his stomach issues.
Speaker 3: And this goes back to his serving in World War Two.
Speaker 3: He was a flight officer and was discharged in nineteen
Speaker 3: forty five because of stomach problems. And throughout the years
Speaker 3: he would go to different doctors for his stomach problems,
Speaker 3: and one told him that it's all in your head,
Speaker 3: and another one said, oh, no, you do have stomach problems.
Speaker 3: But he actually thought that while he was there being
Speaker 3: samined by this psychiatric doctor at the State Hospital after
Speaker 3: murdering his wife, that he was there because of his
Speaker 3: stonach problems. He never wants He did tell them that
Speaker 3: when he was being held in a holding cell in
Speaker 3: Hot Springs after having murdered after the incident, that three
Speaker 3: days later they allowed him to read a newspaper and
Speaker 3: that's when he read about the story about his wife's death.
Speaker 3: That he never once admitted it, never in.
Speaker 6: Keeping with his background when he was young, you write
Speaker 6: about that his mother never criticized him and thought, in
Speaker 6: reaction to his bad behavior when he was very young,
Speaker 6: that she would just spoil him more, that she would
Speaker 6: give more attention to him.
Speaker 4: Yes, she pampered him. She babed him.
Speaker 3: He was a single, he was the only child, and
Speaker 3: she gave him everything. He had twenty five to fifty
Speaker 3: horses that she would stable all over Hot Spring And
Speaker 3: I'm not going to go into all of her. He
Speaker 3: used his mother like an ATM machine, That's what I
Speaker 3: will tell you.
Speaker 6: And she had financed this black snake ranch endeavor as well.
Speaker 4: Yes, she had.
Speaker 3: He had another ranch in a different part of the county,
Speaker 3: and then she bought him this black snake ranch. And
Speaker 3: they thought that he was finally getting it all together
Speaker 3: because he had married Sharon, and they'd had two children,
Speaker 3: and they thought that everything was right in his world.
Speaker 3: But then pathy died out at the ranch. Then his
Speaker 3: wife left him, then he murdered his wife. And so
Speaker 3: now he's at the state hospital. And he told the
Speaker 3: doctor there that he was the best teacher of boys
Speaker 3: that just give him some and he'd have them going
Speaker 3: the right way, and that they were easier to try
Speaker 3: a horse, and he just he was a little bit bizarre.
Speaker 6: Now, this case is a death penalty case, and in
Speaker 6: the state it's the electric chair is the choice of death.
Speaker 6: And so the mother bank roll's good representation. Ironically, on
Speaker 6: the night that Sharon planned her escape from Frank, he
Speaker 6: had been involved and supporting a circuit judge for election,
Speaker 6: Bob Ridgway. Now in this trial, his mother bank rolls
Speaker 6: the defense, and he is with an attorney named Holt,
Speaker 6: and also this Bob Ridgway that he had coincidentally supported.
Speaker 6: So their defense that they're trying to mount is an
Speaker 6: insanity defense. And so when you talk about his background,
Speaker 6: now his mother and others are employed to be able
Speaker 6: to give this background to support this insane, needy defense,
Speaker 6: don't they.
Speaker 3: Right, there's several witnesses that talked about his bizarre behavior.
Speaker 3: One of them is his mother tells them about Frank
Speaker 3: in one week bought five cars. Now what mother buys
Speaker 3: her son five cars in one week? But what was
Speaker 3: so telling about that is one of the witnesses said
Speaker 3: that Frank somehow backed up one of those cars to
Speaker 3: a tree and he let.
Speaker 4: The engine going.
Speaker 3: And this was at his mother's house, and it was
Speaker 3: in the front yard, and the neighbor was nearby, and
Speaker 3: the engine he turned it on on I think it
Speaker 3: was like a Saturday night. And the next day it
Speaker 3: was still there, hiked up on that tree, the back
Speaker 3: bumper and the engine was still going. And the man
Speaker 3: was just curious and he went over there and knocked
Speaker 3: on the front door to find out what happened. If
Speaker 3: Frank said, oh, I just want to see how long
Speaker 3: it would take for the amNY miles whatever for the
Speaker 3: gas to run out, something pricing like that. But Frank
Speaker 3: would do crazy things like that. He was now living
Speaker 3: at his mother's.
Speaker 4: House in town. His range was outside of town.
Speaker 3: And that same man said that Frank would throw beer
Speaker 3: cans and liquor bottles out in the yard.
Speaker 4: Now, who does that?
Speaker 3: But he was just very bizarre, and the neighbors recognized that,
Speaker 3: and so did his mother. He also did some crizy
Speaker 3: things like chasing cars down a road and hollering at
Speaker 3: him and falling down on the ground and hitting his
Speaker 3: head and just doing crazy things like that. But he
Speaker 3: wasn't normal.
Speaker 6: You talk about that. There was a diagnosis of manic
Speaker 6: depressive reaction. But basically he had this mood disorder, a
Speaker 6: psychiatric disorder. But then there was this element of this
Speaker 6: explosive rage. Suddenly always depressed, manically depressed, manic, and then
Speaker 6: in these events of rage, and then they cited so
Speaker 6: many witnesses said things like he threw himself on the
Speaker 6: ground and banged his head on the ground. So and
Speaker 6: many people described it, including his mother and other people,
Speaker 6: as tantrums, like a very much like a young child
Speaker 6: would have, right.
Speaker 3: And one of the psychiatrists compared it to his son's
Speaker 3: childish tantrums. And then they also brought out the faking
Speaker 3: bad that Frank was faking bad, and the different doctors.
Speaker 7: They finally had a team that came down and made
Speaker 7: a conclusion that he needed actually to stay in the
Speaker 7: state hospital and spend more time in the state hospital,
Speaker 7: and this was when he was being examined.
Speaker 6: Right now, the trial progresses, and of course you mentioned
Speaker 6: that the dueling psychiatrists. Of course his psychiatrists claiming that
Speaker 6: he didn't know right from wrong, and of course these
Speaker 6: other psychiatrists saying very well that he was certainly sane
Speaker 6: at that time and was not suffering from any mental
Speaker 6: illness that would mitigate this death penalty sentence. Before we
Speaker 6: get to what happens at this trial, let's stofer these
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Speaker 6: talking about what was happening at this trial, this fight,
Speaker 6: this expensive and talented defense team and their psychiatrists that
Speaker 6: were testifying that he didn't know right from wrong at
Speaker 6: the time of the murder of his wife and the
Speaker 6: shooting of his mother in law. Let's talk about what
Speaker 6: happens with the charges regarding and the investigation regarding Kathy Ward.
Speaker 3: Okay, Kathy's again, Kathy's murder charges on the back burner
Speaker 3: while they're going through his trial, and Frank is sentenced
Speaker 3: to death.
Speaker 4: Knowing that.
Speaker 3: Kathy's parents realize that he's going to be in prison
Speaker 3: and they're glad about that. But Harry goes to prison
Speaker 3: and he's on death row, and he's sitting on death
Speaker 3: row and his mother's in the background trying to pull stringscoring, well,
Speaker 3: there's one that she didn't need to pull that it
Speaker 3: was a lucky one, and it's that the governor. Governor
Speaker 3: went their Brocketfellers going out out of office, and he
Speaker 3: decides to pardon death row. He's against the death penalty,
Speaker 3: and he decides he's going to pardon all of them,
Speaker 3: and Frank's one of them, and he's he becomes a
Speaker 3: member of the general prison population and he gets a
Speaker 3: life sentence. So now he's alive for knowing that Kathy's
Speaker 3: parents and the prosecute attorney everyone knows that now he's
Speaker 3: in for life. And Kathy's parents decide that they don't
Speaker 3: want to go through another they don't want to go
Speaker 3: through a trial. They can't handle it, so they decide
Speaker 3: that not to proceed with it, and they discourage it,
Speaker 3: and the prosecuting attorney, because of that, decides to hansel
Speaker 3: that process and they remove the charges because everyone thinks
Speaker 3: Frank's now in prison for life and there's no way he's.
Speaker 4: Going to get out.
Speaker 3: Little do they know that in the meantime, while Frank's
Speaker 3: in for life, now he's able to get out around
Speaker 3: the prison and he's becomes a trustee because of his background,
Speaker 3: his college degree in agriculture from Texas Tech. He can
Speaker 3: ride a horse and he can handle the cattle and
Speaker 3: he's good at that, and they make him a trustee
Speaker 3: in that capacity. Frank takes advantage and he begins slipping
Speaker 3: out of prison and is seen up here in Hot Springs.
Speaker 3: His mother in law swears that she was so frightened
Speaker 3: him she wouldn't leave her house after dark, and she
Speaker 3: couldn't drive because her injuries from the gunshop wound, but
Speaker 3: she would find cigarette butts outside in her backyard on
Speaker 3: the backsteps. Convinced that was Frank Davis. They said that
Speaker 3: his girlfriend was getting meeting him and bringing him up here.
Speaker 4: To Hot Springs.
Speaker 3: The county clerk also swear so that she saw him
Speaker 3: one year at the County Fair that out a corner
Speaker 3: of her eye she saw something, looked back and there
Speaker 3: was Frank with his hand guessturing like a gun, pointing
Speaker 3: at her. He was frightened. He was up here haunting people.
Speaker 3: Other people said that they saw him at the County pier.
Speaker 3: Can you imagine, David, he's in Hot Springs. How did
Speaker 3: he get out of prison? He was looking out of
Speaker 3: prison and get back, so he took full advantage of that.
Speaker 4: In the meantime, because he was.
Speaker 3: Now alifer, his mother started to crusade to get him.
Speaker 3: He owed she somehow she found an attorney down there
Speaker 3: near the prison and who was very well connected in
Speaker 3: the political world here in Arkansas, and she hired him
Speaker 3: to start working on Frank's carroll. And she also would
Speaker 3: do other things like get very distinguished people here in
Speaker 3: Hot Spring to sign a document saying that he should
Speaker 3: be released from prison and such. But she was in
Speaker 3: the background trying to pull strings to get him out
Speaker 3: of prison, while he was actually doing a lot of
Speaker 3: it on his own.
Speaker 6: You say that between his mother and himself, he's trying
Speaker 6: to get this parole hearing. What's interesting is that and
Speaker 6: people opposed to this are saying he started off with
Speaker 6: being slated for execution, then it was commuted to a
Speaker 6: life sentence, and now they're calling every bit of his
Speaker 6: time as at least fifteen years that would then allow
Speaker 6: him potentially to apply for paroles. So they again massaged
Speaker 6: everything everyone to be able to try to get this
Speaker 6: from a death penalty case to eligibility for parole. Not
Speaker 6: to say that he was it was guaranteed, but his
Speaker 6: mother and the attorneys got to the point where he
Speaker 6: was deemed eligible for parole, which was incredible really considering.
Speaker 3: It was in fact he had there. He had some
Speaker 3: problems in prison, and he but he would make up.
Speaker 3: I don't know how he did it, but he finally
Speaker 3: got in their good graces and he worked his way
Speaker 3: through this trustee situation and somehow he was able to
Speaker 3: get reassigned to another prison in Arkansas that was lower level,
Speaker 3: it wasn't the high security type prison, and he went
Speaker 3: there to this other location where actually it's where they
Speaker 3: raised all the cattle for the prison system. So he
Speaker 3: was a great asset to them because of his background.
Speaker 3: He was a US CAT inspector after he graduated from college,
Speaker 3: and I guess they thought this would be a good thing,
Speaker 3: and they took him, and it was at a different
Speaker 3: part of the state, which coincidentally was often not far
Speaker 3: from Murphysburg, where Kathy's father lived, right And one night
Speaker 3: doctor Ward received a phone call that Frank Davis had
Speaker 3: gone down here. I'll take care of him. But they
Speaker 3: later he took off on a horse. And while this
Speaker 3: was going on, I think it was a Friday night,
Speaker 3: word got down here to Hot Springs, because that's about
Speaker 3: three mile or three hours away, up in the northern
Speaker 3: part of the northwestern part of the state. The newspapers
Speaker 3: covered the story about Frank's escape, and people were scared
Speaker 3: down here. He was frightening terrorized Hot Springs, and they
Speaker 3: remembered the murders. They remembered Kathy's brutal murder and his
Speaker 3: wife's horrible death out there at the Launderat, and people
Speaker 3: were afraid of him. They set up some roadblocks for
Speaker 3: him up there near the prison where he escaped, and
Speaker 3: finally two days later they found him and his horse.
Speaker 3: When they found him, he had tied his horse to
Speaker 3: a tree because he said he had just given up
Speaker 3: on him and he was on foot. They so they
Speaker 3: took him from that prison and took him back to
Speaker 3: the high security prison and put him into the cell
Speaker 3: blocked down there, and again he was able to He
Speaker 3: was a smooger, he was very gregarious, and he worked
Speaker 3: his way back into their good favored and that's with
Speaker 3: his mother's health. They just kept pulling strings, and he
Speaker 3: started doing research and met a man that worked there
Speaker 3: in the prison who would help prisoners try to get
Speaker 3: them out of the prison system. For one reason or another,
Speaker 3: their health or their loved ones were sick, and for
Speaker 3: whatever reason, he was there trying to advocate for him
Speaker 3: and get them out of the hostel, out of the
Speaker 3: prison system. So Frank was sitting off letters to various ones,
Speaker 3: to his attorneys. He had these attorneys his mother had
Speaker 3: gotten and he found some new attorneys based on some
Speaker 3: research he had done about a murder in another town
Speaker 3: with the man that had the same situation as him.
Speaker 3: But he was pulling strings while his mother was trying
Speaker 3: to pull strings to get him out of the prison.
Speaker 3: But in the meantime he married his fifth wife. She
Speaker 3: obviously was the woman who had been going down to
Speaker 3: the prison and bringing him back up here to Hot Springs,
Speaker 3: and my research I found out that she was at
Speaker 3: his mother's house the night that he murdered Sharon, his
Speaker 3: fourth wife, and that she also had a baby in
Speaker 3: July after murdering. After Frank murdered Sharon in January, this
Speaker 3: woman who would become his fifth wife, had their baby
Speaker 3: in July of that year. But they never had married,
Speaker 3: but she had stayed in touch with Miss David, Frank's mother, Irene,
Speaker 3: and I guess they decided to get married and he
Speaker 3: was able to get out on a leave to marry
Speaker 3: his fifth wife, and that's when the problems started. That's
Speaker 3: when he had been taken to this new low security
Speaker 3: prison and had escaped. And they said that sometimes prison
Speaker 3: would do that because of family matters. In the meantime,
Speaker 3: they were having the mother. Now the mother and his
Speaker 3: wife were doing all they could to get him out
Speaker 3: of prison.
Speaker 4: They'd write him letters.
Speaker 3: They were big letter writers, and they supported him through
Speaker 3: every episode. I'm sure that he still had his chronic
Speaker 3: stomach issues and they were there backing him up. And
Speaker 3: now not only did he have his mother babying him,
Speaker 3: he had a wife that was treating him the same way.
Speaker 3: And I guess that's he never really in my viewpoint,
Speaker 3: he never really could become a responsible grown adult because
Speaker 3: he was treated like a child all of his life
Speaker 3: by his mother, and I think she did a disservice
Speaker 3: to him for treating him that way. So there he
Speaker 3: is in prison, doing everything he can to get out
Speaker 3: when it looks like it is promising the local newspapers,
Speaker 3: because the parole board brings him up to Pureau and
Speaker 3: every time he comes up to Pureah. I did hear
Speaker 3: this most recently from Kathy Ward's mother's cousin who just
Speaker 3: contacted me recently. She said that Sarah Ward would go
Speaker 3: to the parole board every time to talk against them
Speaker 3: releasing him. And there was also an insurance agent here
Speaker 3: in town that Frank had threatened, and he was always there,
Speaker 3: and doctor Ward would speak up also, and they were
Speaker 3: always against parole. And he went through several of them
Speaker 3: where he was denied by the new governor and such.
Speaker 3: But it got down to the point to where he
Speaker 3: was eligible parole because his mother's attorneys had finally found
Speaker 3: some loop holes and he was up for parole. When
Speaker 3: that got back to Hot Springs, the judge and several
Speaker 3: law authorities and such would ride against it, but What
Speaker 3: happened is that the editor of our local newspaper wrote
Speaker 3: a front page editorial against his bureau.
Speaker 4: And that's when I found out.
Speaker 3: It was like it was like a gim had fallen
Speaker 3: out in the sky, and it was just I was
Speaker 3: so excited because in that editorial was finally the proof
Speaker 3: of the note that Sharon had left in the lock
Speaker 3: box that Frank had murdered a little black boy who
Speaker 3: must have been one of the ranks hands. And that's
Speaker 3: where it's a loop. Here is where he told Sharon
Speaker 3: about what he had witnessed when Frank murdered Kathy, and
Speaker 3: supposedly Frank murdered him. Well, there it was in a newspaper.
Speaker 3: They said that it was leg that he had murdered
Speaker 3: not oh, well, he had murdered Kathy and his wife, Sharon,
Speaker 3: but also it was rumored that he had murdered a
Speaker 3: little black boy there at the rank. So all of
Speaker 3: that came together in that editorial with the editor fighting
Speaker 3: to keep Frying from being released from prison.
Speaker 6: Let's use this as an opportunity to stop.
Speaker 2: Lucky Land Casino, asking people, what's the weirdest place you've
Speaker 2: gotten Lucky.
Speaker 4: Lucky in line at the Delhi I.
Speaker 2: Guess ah in my dentist's office more than once.
Speaker 3: Actually do I have to say yes?
Speaker 2: You do in the car before my kid's PTA meeting?
Speaker 3: Really?
Speaker 5: Yes?
Speaker 3: Excuse me?
Speaker 2: What's the weirdest place you've gotten lucky?
Speaker 4: I never win?
Speaker 5: And tell well, there you have it.
Speaker 2: You could get lucky anywhere playing at lucky landslots dot
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Speaker 5: No, we're just necessary void.
Speaker 2: Were going my long eighteen plus terms conditions of plus he.
Speaker 6: On evertgains for a second for these messages. Now you
Speaker 6: talk about that there is this possibility even though they
Speaker 6: have this new information about this little black boy, possibly
Speaker 6: a ranch hand, one of these foster kids that worked
Speaker 6: at the farm. Now he is released. Despite all of that,
Speaker 6: Now he's released, and the media, obviously and the people
Speaker 6: of Hot Springs are opposed. Judge Britt is definitely opposed
Speaker 6: and says publicly that it's a big mistake. Tell us
Speaker 6: about what happens in your investigation of what happens to
Speaker 6: Frank afterwards, and also tell us a little bit about
Speaker 6: this skateboard secret.
Speaker 3: Okay, Frank finally is parode in the dark the night
Speaker 3: he leaves the prison and they've.
Speaker 4: Made a pact with Oregon.
Speaker 3: There's some kind of process where he had an uncle
Speaker 3: up there and that he would go to Oregon to
Speaker 3: live under the supervision of his.
Speaker 4: Uncle in Oregon.
Speaker 3: So he's up there and his mother's by then, his
Speaker 3: mother is now on her fourth husband, and she and
Speaker 3: her fourth husband and Frank's fifth wife and his child
Speaker 3: by that wife live in Oregon, and Frank is there.
Speaker 3: I think it's like in January of eighty four. He's
Speaker 3: released and goes to Oregon, and his mother dies not
Speaker 3: long after there there in Oregon, but she does get
Speaker 3: to spend several months with her son finally as a
Speaker 3: free man there in the Oregon and he is there.
Speaker 3: He's back to his old ways where he was always
Speaker 3: a horse trader, and he has some friend up in
Speaker 3: that area, not in the Portland area, but actually up
Speaker 3: in Washington where he goes to do some horse trading
Speaker 3: and dies up there, and the prison gets noticed that
Speaker 3: he's died in Washington while he's listening to his friend.
Speaker 4: But they conduct.
Speaker 3: An autopsy and it is declared by natural causes. So
Speaker 3: Frank by that time, in nineteen eighty four, has died
Speaker 3: and his wife moves back to Hot Springs. But what's
Speaker 3: so telling about that is that all the years that
Speaker 3: Frank was on the front page of the newspaper, during
Speaker 3: the trials and the murders and the trials, when he dies,
Speaker 3: he's relegated to this tiny little column on the side
Speaker 3: of the newspaper. And it's not even the top story
Speaker 3: in that digest column. He's the fourth story down. He's
Speaker 3: finally out of the people's gress. But I think because
Speaker 3: it was that little story, he never had an obituary,
Speaker 3: because he it was just so nondescript that people really
Speaker 3: didn't realize that Frank Davis was dead, and they still
Speaker 3: think he's alive, and they're still afraid of him. There
Speaker 3: are people who would not give me interviews because they
Speaker 3: were afraid that he was still alive. R So I'm
Speaker 3: going to go to the story about that. It all
Speaker 3: comes full circle about the skateboard. Days before Kathy Board
Speaker 3: died at Black Snake Branch, she had been skateboarding with
Speaker 3: my neighbor across the street with Leslie, and she left her.
Speaker 3: Kathy left her skateboard at Leslie's house after she died
Speaker 3: a few days later, Kathy had left her skateboard there,
Speaker 3: and Lessie had hidden it in a bush and told her, well,
Speaker 3: I'm going to camp to church camp at the Twins.
Speaker 3: That's me and my twin, and I'll be back on Friday.
Speaker 3: Let's go skateboarding this weekend. But then we get home
Speaker 3: we find out that Kathy's died out on this terrible,
Speaker 3: tragic accident out at the ranch. Lessie goes outside and
Speaker 3: she finds Kathy's skateboard still there, stuck in some bushes
Speaker 3: where she had left it for Kathy to pick up
Speaker 3: that week while she was gone. Leslie's had that skateboard
Speaker 3: all these years. In twenty fourteen is when she thought
Speaker 3: it was lost, and that's when her handyman finds it
Speaker 3: up in the attic on the forty eighth anniversary of
Speaker 3: Kathy's death. And that was a mystery there too, because
Speaker 3: Leslie didn't know when it was founding. I asked her
Speaker 3: and she said, well, I wrote him in a check
Speaker 3: and she gave me the date. And after I discovered
Speaker 3: the date of Kathy's death, I put two and two
Speaker 3: together and realized that Kathy's skateboard had reappeared on the
Speaker 3: forty eighth anniversary of her death. She wanted this story, Toad,
Speaker 3: and now it is told in the book Snake Eyes
Speaker 3: Murder in a southern town.
Speaker 6: Yes, you talk about too, that there was a grave
Speaker 6: site the unknown where she was buried. And so a
Speaker 6: friend involved in this story, somewhere along the line made
Speaker 6: it his business to find out. And so you visit
Speaker 6: the grave site, don't you.
Speaker 3: Every year on June twenty fourth, Leslie and I drive
Speaker 3: up to Murphysboro Park, Saw which is about an hour away,
Speaker 3: to visit Kathy at the Murphy's Bar Cemetery. I guess
Speaker 3: it was probably, I guess the second year actually we
Speaker 3: were there. We were taking pictures because Leslie would always
Speaker 3: spring Kathy's skateboard and we take flowers, and we were
Speaker 3: getting a picture with us with Kathy's skateboard that year.
Speaker 3: When we got back in the car, I wanted to
Speaker 3: look at him and I showed it to Leslie, the
Speaker 3: picture of Leslie holding the skateboard right there Kathy's headstone.
Speaker 3: The pixels were distorted, but it's what The distortion came
Speaker 3: from the headstone and traveled upward like there was somebody
Speaker 3: next to Leslie was just this black eary figure standing
Speaker 3: there beside Leslie. That's never happened before, and it's never
Speaker 3: happened since.
Speaker 4: And I believe that.
Speaker 3: There was more to it than just and it wasn't
Speaker 3: a dysfunction of the camera. I think that Kathy was
Speaker 3: there with us that day. Call me crising, but I do.
Speaker 6: I believe you absolutely, this book is very important to
Speaker 6: you and very personal. Tell us a little bit about
Speaker 6: this book release, when it's to be released or when
Speaker 6: it was released, and also if there's a website that
Speaker 6: people might take a look at about this book.
Speaker 3: Well, the book was released this past Sunday. It's done
Speaker 3: very well here in our area. People are sending me
Speaker 3: notes every day. I've got the book. I've got the book.
Speaker 3: But they're also excited because this Sunday, I'm going to
Speaker 3: be holding a book signing and program and within this
Speaker 3: program that I really don't know what's going to happen,
Speaker 3: and we don't until it happens that day, but it's
Speaker 3: going to be a big celebration for us, and it's
Speaker 3: also going to be a closure because we never attended
Speaker 3: her funerals, So it's finally, after all these years, we're
Speaker 3: going to be able to say goodbye to Kathy. Now,
Speaker 3: I do have a website and it's Biddy Martin dot com.
Speaker 4: That's b I T.
Speaker 3: T Y Martin dot com. There's a lot of information
Speaker 3: on there, and I have all my speaking engagements. I'll
Speaker 3: be at a lot of different book clubs. I have
Speaker 3: a presentation and power point that I give to all
Speaker 3: these different groups, and I'll be at one tomorrow morning.
Speaker 3: It's it's thirty, but it's Bittymartin dot com. And thank
Speaker 3: you for asking.
Speaker 5: Dan.
Speaker 6: Thank you so much, and you will with this book
Speaker 6: have told the story of your friend Kathy Ward, the
Speaker 6: story that till this point has been unknown. So I
Speaker 6: want to thank you so much for this interview Snake
Speaker 6: Eyes Murder in a Southern town. It's been fascinating. Thank
Speaker 6: you so much, Bittty Martin. You have a great evening,
Speaker 6: and good night, Thank you, Dan. Good night.
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