[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And I just gotta ask, again. I know we've all asked this before.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] What's wrong with you? Like who does that? Like who just goes, like what do you get out of that? Like that girl who was like, has anyone noticed that Elena's annoying? I'm like, even if you gathered an army of people that were like, we are the riders of Elena being annoying and you started a group and you had meetings and like you had like a special handshake that you did.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I hate following. It's like you love me. I was literally like, sounds like someone protests too much. I don't think you find me annoying. I think you like me.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Which that's the thing, it's like normally, like we've really gotten to a point years through this that we don't pay it any mind, like the constructive stuff, sure, but like, just people being dicks like that, like that's not constructive at all, like you can fuck yourself. But like, that kind of shit is like...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You're just, you're being an asshole for the sake of being an asshole and I don't know what you got out of it, but I sure hope it gave you some kind of jolly because it sounds like you need it.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Karma is a thing, man. Attract abundance. That's why we're, and you know it took like a while to get here, but that's why we're in a place where we're just like, you know what?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Whatever. And we're also in a place of just like, we're gonna keep trying to like build people up that deserve to be built up. Like that's why we shout out different creators for you guys to go check out. And you're also really the queen of that. I don't even do that as much as you.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] No, it's just fun, and it's really fun to see when like, like, especially on TikTok, I've been seeing it lately and it's like really making me happy, you guys like fucking kill it.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Cause like, morbid listeners will go follow these people that we mentioned. Right. And then they'll be like, oh, I got, I came here for morbid. And it's so fun to see. Cause then it's like, they are, and they're always like, oh, I'm so excited to have found this. This is so fun. And it's like, I love like blowing those people up.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You guys are the real ones. We know who you are. We know who this community is. We met a lot of you last night.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, so we know who you are, so don't worry, they don't represent you.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] We're in part two of the Burger Chef Murders. This is a really sad one. It's a bummer. It's technically still unsolved, which is always a hard pill to swallow. I love it though when you say technically.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, cause it's like, we got a pretty viable suspect.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] No, it's been out there and we'll talk about them, but it's one of those things where you just can't pin it.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I was talking about how you know, they really had exhausted the few leads that they got.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And the state police had actually publicly stated, in this case, we've got to hope that the killer killers may have told someone who has a conscience who will come forward. So they're not even hoping now that the killer has a conscience. They're hoping that the person that the killer tells this to, they have a conscience and they come forward.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So that's, you should probably. That tends to be like one of their main traits.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You never want to hear investigators go, well, the thing we're banking on is that this guy just straight up confesses to someone.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And not only that confesses to someone that has a conscience. It's like that's a lot.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I don't want to rest all of my hopes and dreams on that. I'd rather rest it on like you investigating the case. Same. You know?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But either way, that sucks. So I had mentioned it before, but in 1978, Speedway police were dealing with a lot more shit than they normally did.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] This super small midwestern town was really being pushed like to the limit of its resources. We mentioned in part one that there was these random horrific bombings.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That were seeming and were ended up being connected to.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, the murder of a woman. And that woman was 69-year-old housewife Julia Skifers.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] She was shot to death under very mysterious circumstances.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The bombings that followed were just more stress and mystery added onto this whole thing. Uhm, they happened on September 1st, three bombings happened in Speedway. That Saturday there were two more, and then another one the next day, and the last one happened the following day at Speedway High School.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] They were being put in like, uh, trash cans and stuff and at the high school I think they were found in like a gym bag. Like somebody picked up a gym bag and it exploded.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That this really small town PD had to offer. Um, they were not able to muster up a whole lot more for anything else. And as November turned to December, state and local police were really just grasping at anything that could take the burger chef case forward. They just had nothing, but they were not entirely without leads.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Because Speedway police were continuing to receive leads from the public, from telephone calls, letters, and in the end they actually produced at least 36 leads that they could deem at least slightly credible.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Which isn't a whole lot, but really the best leads that they had were the tip from that young couple who had been approached by those two men in the parking lot of the Burger Chef. Cause they were cockin'. And this was up cause they were nickin'.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, and this was like an hour or so before the robbery and kidnapping occurred, so this was a pretty good witness statement to have.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, the police department didn't have a sketch artist on Chef. Rock on. On Chef, on staff. I didn't even catch that. I'm tired, I need more caffeine. Uh, but they also didn't have the funds or resources available to get a professional one. Right. So detectives found and hired Robin England, who was an art student at Ball State University.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Also was the niece of one of the investigators on the case. And they were willing to create sculpture busts from the descriptions that were provided by the witnesses. And those witnesses later said that the busts were quote, between 95 and 100% accurate. Wow. Busts are always so interesting to me.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] These buses are very interesting looking buses. Oh. I will say. I saw that little glimmer in your eye. They're very interesting looking. Uhm, and a composite drawing was made from the bus and it was circulated throughout the press. Okay.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Now, and again, we have the witnesses saying that these are very accurate. So that means that the composite images are pretty accurate. 95 to 100%. That's huge.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And they were, at one point we're gonna see that they were able to find a couple of guys that literally are like dead ringers for these guys and somehow they weren't able to place them in Speedway at the time of the murders and it like shocked me.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So photographs of these busts were circulated around the media and a statement from state police sergeant Chuck Hibbert was released saying, we are not calling these two men suspects, we just want to talk to them.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Which is like, we just wanna talk to you. Literally, I was just gonna say. We just wanna talk man. We just wanna talk man, like hands up. Bro to bro. Yeah, off the record, it's fine.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So beside these witness statements and witness accounts, this was really the biggest evidence they had was these composite images. So detectives hoped that publishing them was maybe gonna jog.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Someone's memory around that time, someone from the public that was around the burger chef had maybe caught glimpse of these guys and seeing the composite image was going to make them go, oh shit, yeah, I did see them. And they were hoping this person would come forward, help with an ID.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] However, the images definitely prompted people to call in about 600 calls to police. None of them produced a concrete lead. Not one.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I don't know, that's the thing. Could be a combination. Honestly, that is, that's kind of the theme of this case. Everyone sucks. Is like...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Could it have been solved if they just did their jobs better? Yes. And it's like, yeah, I think so.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Anything at that scene. Hell, they could have taken a polaroid photograph of themselves at that scene and left it on the floor or the counter and it was thrown away.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] We literally don't know. There could have been a mural painted on the wall by one of them. We're going in different directions here. Like, it could have just, I'm just an artiste. You're like, there could have been a razor scooter belonging to one of them.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Exactly. We don't know. That is the most frustrating thing. It's not that they like, oh, there was blood and they cleaned it up. It's like, we don't fucking know. We have no idea what evidence was at that scene that could have absolutely nailed these fuckers. And it makes me crazy.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So as 1978 came to an end, the murders were kind of starting to fade out of the papers. That's fucked. People are starting to move on. Nothing's happening in the case.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And when I say people, I mean everyone but these poor victims' families who are still sitting there waiting for fucking justice.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And police are just hitting wall after wall after wall. The reward money that the Burger Chef Corporation put out there, unclaimed, just sitting there.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And apparently, even the typically very chatty jailhouse informants could not help push anything forward.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Now, with the public kind of fading away from this case, the headlines are fading away, investigators are now desperate to keep it in the papers, keep the public engaged. Keep the pressure on these killers. Yea, they know they have to make up for what they've done. Right. Like what they haven't done for their negligence.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The Indianapolis Star actually set up this new system, and with this system, readers could submit tips or other information anonymously. Okay. Which always helps, I feel like. It always gets people to talk more. Uhm, and what they said was some of you may not realize you hold valuable information that just may aid police in solving the crime.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And it said that it said, do not sign the letter, but put a five digit number at both the top and the bottom page. Then make a jagged tear across the bottom of the sheet just above the number.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Oh, that's absolutely going to make sense to everyone listening I feel like.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Write your name up here. Write your name on the bottom. Write your class number here. Write your class number here. Don't you dare write your class number here. Write my name over here. And you're like, can I just take the test? Like, but what's my name? What's my name though?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So some weren't like super detailed. Uh, like one came from Johnson County from a man who said that he saw a suspicious man who bore a striking resemblance to the clean shaven man. And this man was standing alone on stones crossing road on November 18th. And that's it.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Standing. And he did not have a beard. That man was not sitting. He was standing. And I imagine that these robbers.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Okay. Thanks for that, I guess. Like, we'll keep that in mind, that that road contained a man that was standing.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So then there was other ones that were a little more detailed. One came from a Greenwood gas station attendant. He wrote in saying that he actually recognized those bus as two men who'd short changed him in the early morning hours of November 18th.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I don't know what to tell ya. That man is so sweet. So sweet. And he was just trying to tell you something and he's a gas station attendant.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And this guy is saying that on November 18th in the early morning hours, he was shortchanged by two men who looked like those busts.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yes, and he said it was strange because these men bought $12 worth of gas for their black Chevrolet, so he was able to provide that. And he said, but they attempted to pay with a $5 bill in two singles.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So they attempted to pay seven dollars for twelve dollars worth of gas. I think he thought like that they would, they probably thought that he would just take the five thinking it was a ten. They could leave before he noticed. Which like, you're an asshole.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Now he immediately pointed out this error and he was like, I think you gave me the wrong bill. And they were like, oh, okay. So they went back to their car. They got the money.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But then he said they both, quote, spewed obscenities at him while driving off.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So the tips from the Speedway Police Hotline and the Indianapolis Stars Reward Desk, they prompted hundreds of responses, but


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Really only a handful actually produced viable leads that they could even chase down. And then when they chase down those leads, nothing.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So after two months of investigation, there was still not even a clear motive for this crime.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Because the robbers had seemingly gone into the burger chef to rob the restaurant.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Why the fuck did they kidnap and murder four teens there? Like why did they do that? And it's like we always hear the robbery gone wrong explanation for these kind of situations, but this was really wrong.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Like this went really wrong, and not only really wrong, but they took them far away.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That's the thing, that would be a robbery gone wrong, that they just start shooting and everybody is at the scene.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Very rare, I mean typically robbers aren't in the habit of executing people in the middle of the woods. Like pretty rare for that to happen. So the best explanation that detectives could have come to was that something had thrown them off their plan that night.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That they went in there ready to rob that place and some unexpected thing happened that threw the whole thing into just shenanigans. And the only difference that night that they could come to was the presence of Mark Flemons. He had switched shifts with another employee.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Who were thrown off by his presence and killed all of them in a panic. I don't agree with that.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I think they're looking at that theory from the wrong angle in my opinion. I don't think it was that Mark knew these people. I think it was that they went in there thinking there was four specific people that were going to be working, which it also was a girl who was supposed to be working in Mark's place.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I wonder if they went in there saying, okay, there's three girls, there's one boy, and the boy is like a 16 year old, we can take him.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And then when they went in there and they saw now there's two.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Strong, like, you know, those two, like, teenage boys, that threw everything off. I don't think it had to do with Mark knowing who these criminals were.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] What they were not expecting to see, which is apparently an extra boy instead of an extra girl.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Cause that's just my random speculation. I can see that like throwing everybody off.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But like to that extent? Yeah, not to that's exactly it. Not to that extent. It's just that there's a lot of unanswered.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Questions in that. I feel like that's a theme of this whole. Yeah, every time you think you're like, oh, well, maybe this happened. You're like, no, that doesn't make sense.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But maybe this is one of those things too that it's like, it doesn't make sense. None of it's senseless. So like, maybe that's what it is.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It was again causing problems for the burger chef murder investigation. And there was a lot of confusion among the press that was happening.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] On March 7th, the Indianapolis news reported, quote, Speedway police chief Robert Copeland and all his officers were ordered by his police commissioners and state police not to talk about any aspect of the November slings.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So they're essentially saying there was a gag order put on them. Right.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] When reporters asked more about this, uhm, they were told by the state police superintendent John Settle, or Shettle, excuse me. This is the first I've heard of it. We don't dictate to anyone. We try to cooperate in a case like this.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That's opposite day, baby. And then in the same vein, a spokesperson for the governor's office said quote, gag orders are the authority of the judicial system. Right. Which implies that unless a judge has issued that gag order, you're not under a gag order.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So it's so wild with that and there was no explanation for this. So it seems like Copeland's, you know, gag order quote unquote.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Really was nothing more than just an attempt to avoid questions. Like, and they didn't, and not take on more scrutiny or deal with more scrutiny from the press.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Basically not wanting to confront the fact that they had made zero progress in this case and that it was botched from the start.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And he was like, if I just say there's a gag order, nobody can talk about it. And it won't bring any focus to the negligence that we have committed. Cause that's the thing, he just doesn't have answers. So he's like, I can't say anything. It's like, but you're just lying and making people believe you less.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But whatever. So investigators thought they actually found, that had actually caught a break in April. Okay. They finally something popped.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Two men were arrested in Chicago on murder charges, and they were discovered to bear a pretty uncanny resemblance to the composite sketches. Here we are. Here we are. Now, on April 24th, Milwaukee police, because it was in, um, charges were in Milwaukee.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Milwaukee police arrested Stephen Coffey and Norman Pepin.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Criminals from Somerville, Massachusetts.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] We were there last night. Oh my god, they're fucking stomping ground. There it is. Uh, so they were arrested for attempting to cash $300 in travelers checks, but those traveler checks had been stolen from travelers. Not, not just a random person, but one of two men killed in a quote, execution style killing. Oh. Yeah.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] They were in the city for an engineering conference and the four of them went to a disco, as you do.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Now based on their resemblance to the sketches and the fact that this was very similar, made them lie down, face down in a ditch before shooting them, that, all that like similarities to the burger shop case,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, they had coffee and Pepin extradited to Indiana. I don't blame them. Because they were like, yeah, we gotta at least look at this. Gotta talk to y'all. There, they appeared before a judge and they had to wear paper bags over their heads because they couldn't jeopardize a lineup. And it would have tainted a lineup to have their faces out there.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And don't you love that visual? Yes, I do. It's so weird. It feels wrong. Now, unfortunately, apparently, when they looked at the timeline of everything,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Police announced on May 1st that Coffee and Pepin were no longer people of interest in the burger shop case. Did they give reason? Just like the timeline didn't match up, but I'm like,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Okay, but like, why? Like, I need you to say, because they were in Chicago when this happened. Well, and it's like, ehh, the timeline didn't work.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I don't know if I trust you with this case. I know that I don't. Yeah.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I don't know about that. Yea girl, me either. I just don't know about that. You'll know soon. Yea, but by October of that year, investigators once again found themselves just...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The Metropolitan Board of Police Commissioners voted unanimously to fire Police Chief Robert Copeland.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Ohhhhhh shit. And they voted to do this because of his lack of leadership on the bombings and the murder of Julia


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And then also the burger chef murders. So all the recent crimes. All the things that he failed to lead his department about. All of his jobs. And so he was fired and then after that there was a bunch of dismissals or transfers of like at least a handful of other law enforcement officers that had something to do with the burger chef case.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So they got either transferred out or they were just dismissed.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Gears are going by at this point. Right. Tips are starting to dry up. They're coming in, but they're not really doing anything. Leads are definitely nowhere to be found and the case is really going cold at this point.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Then in December of 1984, Indianapolis star journalist Dan Lusiter


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I think it's lose atter or lose atter. I thought you said loser and I was like, I don't think lose atter. I think it is. Okay. Um, he received a call from an inmate, an inmate from the Marion County jail. Finally their chit chat. Alrighty. Now this inmate was in there after being arrested for a ton of thefts.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, this man said that he had information about the burger chef case. He said it's gonna be a great story and I will happily give it to you as long as you're willing to help me out.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] No. And so Dan was like, yeah, I don't know how I can possibly help you because I'm a journalist. Like I'm not a judge. So like, I don't know what to tell you. But he was like, you know, it's worth finding out at least what he has to say. So he made his way down to the Marion County jail to talk to him.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] They've been, it'd been turned around, it'd been lied about, it'd been retracted, all this stuff. It's just been through the mud. It has. Through the thick of it. But.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It was, I guess this reporter, Dan, he said that there was something about the story.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And then he said the other one was a name that he had actually heard, but that he, this reporter had never heard before, but the police definitely had. This guy's name was Donald Ray Forrester.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Now, Donald Ray Forrester's name, like I said, didn't ring a bell to Dan.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] This is not their first rodeo. No way. There you go. But then after all these petty thefts and these little crimes,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] He definitely escalated to a violent crime in 1977.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So right before the burger chef murders, he was arrested for quote assault and battery with the intent to gratify sexual desires. Holy shit. Which is a mighty escalation.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Now, Forrester had actually been out on parole.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It didn't seem like they had been, nothing that I read suggested that they were. Okay. Uhm, but he had been sentenced to 95 years in prison. Wow. So, so Dan Lusiter, uhm, he went on like a research deep dive on the burger chef murders and on Donald Ray Forrester because he was like,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I gotta try to make a connection here. And then he finally contacted Forrester, who was actually serving out a sentence at Pendleton Reformatory.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So they fi- he finally got him to agree to meet with him, and the meeting was June 24th, 1985.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Now, at that point, Forrester had already been questioned by investigators about the burger chef murders. He had failed two polygraph tests and, but he was saying that he knew nothing about the case.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You're like, yep, that was it. I know it's so true, but so this reporter though was like, cause he, again, he's saying he knew nothing about the case. This reporter is not going to give up hope though, because he's like,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] There's some connections here. The timing is making sense. He was out on parole during that time. He had just escalated to a lot of violence. And he committed another act of violence after. Yea, it's not like his name was just pulled out of thin air.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But when he's going to meet with him, he's like, I have to be realistic about this. He might not give me anything.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So when he went, he asked Forrester, he said, did you commit the murders? And Forrester said I did not.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Then Lucider began just like, Dan, he began like, pondering aloud. He's like, you know, I just wonder why. Why did these murders occur? You know? And I guess Forrester, who was not asked directly this, just gave an answer and said it was drugs. Drugs and homosexuality.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But he said he did know who committed the murders and he said, I'll give you that information if you get me a new trial for the rape charges that I'm in here for. And Dan is like, one more time for the people in the back, I'm a motherfucking journalist.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Put a good word in with my editor, like, I don't know. It's just like, are you kidding me? So, but over the next few weeks.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Dan Lucider spent hours and hours and days and days just investigating Forrester. And eventually he got to interview Forrester's ex-wife. Oh shit. The plot motherfucking thickens. Now his ex-wife.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] She told Lucider, um, and she told Lucider that you need to bring detectives to this house. Okay. So he did. He brought detectives and she led them to shell casings that were hidden in the couple's septic tank.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That matched the ones found in the burgership murders.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And was like, uhm, yeah, like, uh, do you want to say anything about that? And he was like, oh no, I'm still innocent. But then he kept, he was like, coyly giving pieces of information that you were like, why would you know that? How do you know that? But he kept saying he wanted something in return.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But he would not admit to doing it. And he said he'd never been there, he had nothing to do with it. Investigators were so frustrated at this point, but eventually he did provide the names of two men that he claimed were the killers.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Well, they, they were like, as soon as they sat down and started talking to them, the two men, they were like,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] No. Like this is a lie. Right. So by November of 1986, now nearly eight years after the Burger Chef murders occurred, detectives were just done. They were like, Dan, or Donald Forster is not going to do the right thing. He's not going to confess. Of course not. We just have to try to get some evidence to like force it. And then they were stunned.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Because they received a call that year saying that Donald Forrester wanted to chat with them.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So no one understands why or what led this to happen, but Donald Forrester sat down with these detectives on November 10th, 1986, and he gave a detailed confession of the murders.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So what do you mean that this is unsolved? So, and these were things, details that only someone who was there that night could have known.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Like, he described the positions of the bodies, the wounds they suffered. One of the things he said was that Daniel Davis had been shot in the cheek and that had never been released to the public.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So why didn't, did he get arrested? And that's a pretty spit, well he's in jail for 95 years. Oh, right. So, so yeah. But did he have to, like...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Well, he also told investigators that the gun that was used, they threw in the White River.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Who had shot Ruth Shelton and Daniel Davis. He admitted to the two, which also makes sense because Jane and Mark were the ones that were found further away. So not only did he confess, but he's confessing correctly saying, I'm the one who shot the two that were found on the ground.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The murders quote, resulted from an effort to collect a large debt over a cocaine deal that involved one of the victims.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And the crimes had been committed by multiple people, obviously.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Now, this was not seeming to be the real story, because if we look at the four people involved, like the four victims, it doesn't add up. So everybody was like, I don't know about that. But in 1981,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Jane Freit's brother James was arrested on cocaine charges.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And he actually said at the time of his arrest that he suggested that Jane's murder could have been connected to his.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Oh no. It doesn't look like the investigators followed up on it at the time though in 81.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Right, like only a few years after, a couple of years after the murders that, that he was arrested, Jane's brother, and at that time he said to investigators, guys, I think this might


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Be the reason that my sister was killed and they didn't follow up on it.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Now based on this whole thing, police now connected the murders to the huge drug ring that had been operating in Speedway at the time. Okay. Uh, it was run by a guy that Forrester actually implicated as the individual who planned the whole thing in the first place. Yeah, cause he was running it so he wanted his money. Exactly. Now in exchange for the information,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Forrester was granted immunity from prosecution for this. Cause he was already in prison for 95 years.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] He was only going to be granted that if he hadn't committed the murders, which he already confessed to. Okay. So they kind of like played a little game. And two weeks, but this kind of backfired because two weeks later he recanted.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And he said that he had been coerced to confess by police and that they threatened to, you know, that they threatened all this stuff and that he was, when he was sent back to prison, he was going to be labeled an informant.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And investigators are looking for anything that can tie physically Forrester to these murders. I mean that confession is great because he gave the details that only someone there could know. But they have nothing physical. And then it's like if he's saying he was coerced into that it's their word against his. Because then he can say well they gave me those details. Exactly.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So they're trying to come up with anything and they came across a charge from 1969 where Forrester was actually arrested for sexually assaulting a 14 year old girl. Wow, he's a piece of actual human garbage. Yup. In a wooded area off Stones Crossing Road, which was about a mile and a half from where the burger chef murders occurred. Wow.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Now, for some reason, he was never sentenced for sexual assault. Oh good.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Now his confession and then the recanting of that put the district attorney in a really bad position.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] There's one hand that's like the d- like I said, the details.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It's a near certainty that he is one of the killers. A near certainty. But on the other hand, this story had unraveled and been told and retold and fucked around.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And they all believe, like, he 100% is one of the killers, like that is it, but it just makes proving it a completely uphill battle.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And the biggest problem that the district attorney faced was that


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So many people had been involved in the investigation and had contact with Forrester and all of them had received varying versions of the story.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And none could settle on just one version of the story. So it was like no one could even settle on like this is the narrative. And then what makes everything worse is that the territorial stuff and the ego stuff


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Had completely plagued everything about this case over the years, had led to so many miscommunications, tainted evidence, missing evidence.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] D.A. Goldsmith called a meeting with investigators from all the agencies involved in this case. Together they combed over Forrester's statement. It was 1200 pages.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Well, a hundred. All the statements that he had made. Holy cannoli. And after reviewing everything, Goldsmiths held a press conference and he made an announcement.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Because it's like if they had gone through with it, it just would have tainted it further. Exactly. So it's like, I understand why he was like, it's really not worth it to do this.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Now in 2003, 25 years after the murders, um, Rachel and John Shelton, who are the parents of Ruth Shelton,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] They gave an interview about the still unsolved burger chef murders and they said, at first I was convinced that it would be solved. That's what her mother said. And she said, I guess we sure don't hold our breath about it. It was a very long time ago, which is like so sad because that's just like, like just.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Throwing our hands up like no one's gonna do it. Now they had both hoped the killer would have been caught, but then when detectives told them that they didn't have enough evidence to prosecute the suspects, John Shelton said, to be honest, I don't even want to know their names.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeaah, like whatever. And today, the Burger Chef murder case is open but inactive.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So hard, because it's like, there's no evidence to look back on. It's just sitting there, and all the evidence that they do have, all the notes, all the statements and everything, it has, it's in a five drawer file cabinet and six and a half foot wall locker that's at State Police District 52 office. Just sitting there.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Just not being touched. It's been years since they've pursued any leads. And most of the original investigators are actually all of the original investigators on the case have either retired or died. Yeah.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And the burger chef restaurant chain was actually sold to CKE restaurant holdings in 1982, and it is now Hardy's restaurant, which I didn't know.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, uhm, and today the old Burger Chef restaurant on Crawford, Crawfordsville Road and Speedway sits empty.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] No, it's true, like something. I know it should be like a park, I feel like. You know, but in the end...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] We're just left with this, this frustrating void of information that we know if more investigatory like due diligence was done from the get-go and people didn't walk into this thing with a preconceived narrative in their head and they had actually taken even one fucking photo of that scene.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That this all could be different. Is mind boggling. But now we're sitting here and they're trying to solve this case that...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Was just completely erased from the beginning. They erased it. Right from the beginning. Literally, they magic erased it away. Yeah. And it's like, and then, and then they're trying to like...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You know, right from the get go, they're all sitting there being like, well, I think these kids just, you know.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, they decided that night to just steal all the money out of the safe and then took off together. Like that was their first theory and it's like- With no prior past of any kind of fucking- Yeaah. With no criminal past. Like it's just like, okay, I see you. I see you. And then later they theorized that it must be Mark.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The only black employee that was taken out of that restaurant that day who knew the killers and that he was the reason that they were all killed and it's like,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Like we're just gonna go with Mark being the problem here. I don't think any of them were the problem here. No, I think they were all working. I think they were all victims, and I think, I do think that if Jane's own brother suggested that his, the cocaine stuff,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And he's not bullshitting, it's not like her brother is being like, oh no, but he's actively saying, like probably out of guilt, like probably out of like anger and sadness and like grief, like this could have had something to do with it, like investigate it. And they were like, no.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] No, he brought it like that is, that's a fucking brother. Yeah, absolutely. Like regardless of what he was doing in his personal life or any like the cocaine stuff, it's like.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That he was being a brother. Yeaah. Like he was being a brother and being like I'm gonna put myself out on a limb here.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And then you have Donald Ray Forrester sitting there giving that exact same story and saying it is because of cocaine.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And a debt that we needed to pay, and it's like, that seems to me to line up.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, it's a very frustrating case.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] No, it's really fucked up. But it's scary what money will do to people. And drugs. Yeah. Money and drugs mixed together. Oof. Yikes. It's like a bad, bad combination.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Hey Prime members, you can listen to Morbid early and ad free on Amazon Music. Download the Amazon Music app today, or you can listen ad free with Wondery Plus and Apple podcasts. Before you go, tell us about yourself by completing a short survey at Wondery.com slash survey.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] What if you were trafficked into the inner circle of a cult and signed a billion-year contract at 13? What would you do? This Is Actually Happening is a weekly podcast from Wandery that features extraordinary true stories of life-changing events told by the people who lived them. Follow This Is Actually Happening on Amazon Music or wherever you get your podcasts.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] What, what was the last one? It's, it's Finoan. Eh, nah, you slowly, slowly lost it. Well, cause I added an L where one couldn't be. Yeah, no, no. You know, flowin' sounded good, but snow.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And that does not have a male in it. Is it Fowin? It would be Fowin if anything. Yeah. Guys, we're a little tired today. It's Friday? It's Fryay. It's Fryizzle. There you go. You're like, I'm not saying that. It's all that.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Okay, yeah, but we, we gotta get into this. My coffee has weaned the fuck off. Yeah, it's just one of those days, you know, it's after the holidays. Getting back into it. It's a lot of recordings.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Either after the holidays or almost the holidays at some point. Pretty much. So.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Alright, so my case, my case is like I said, it's pretty fucking out there. We are heading over to Mountain City, Tennessee, which is one of my favourite states to spell.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It's actually my favorite state to smell. Smell, smell. In smell, I bet. I've never smelled it. I've never been to Tennessee. Barbecue, I would assume would smell really good there. Yeah, probably. And the whiskey. Yeah, Nashville's gotta smell great.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Alright, well yes, so we're gonna talk about a case that became known as the Facebook murders. Oh. Yes. I don't know if I know this.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I don't know if you will, but I think you'll start, if you do know it, I think you'll know pretty early on that you know it. If you know, you know.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Ick yick. There you go. So this case has like a little bit of everything. It's a little smorgasbord if you will. There's a family murder plot. Oh. A CIA agent. Oh.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Facebook. Facebook. Manipulation, catfishing, and conspiracy theories galore. Wow. Everything after Facebook is all describing Facebook. Yeah, of course. Manipulation, catfish, and conspiracy theories. Yeah. Totally. That's just like, what will I find on Facebook? Well. I think I still have a Facebook. I gotta get rid of that.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uhm, I wanna like download my pics. Yeaah, smart. And then yeet it into oblivion. And then get outta there. Yeaah, but sadly,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] This case, back to it. Sadly, in January of 2012, two bodies were found in Mountain City, Tennessee. They were the bodies of 36-year-old Billy Bill Payne and his 23-year-old girlfriend, Billie Jean Hayworth. Geez. For the sake of the story, I'm gonna refer to Billie Payne more as Bill and Billie Jean as Billie Jean.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So Bill Payne's throat had been cut and the couple had both been shot in the face. Wow. Mhm.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Oh. Horrible. It's, it's, that's the worst part of this entire thing. Oh my god. Now it only took the police a week to arrest the men responsible for these murders. They were Jamie Curd, Bill Payne's second cousin, and Marvin, better known as Buddy Porter.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The latter man's daughter Janelle had originally been friends with the couple, but more recently, they had become her mortal enemies.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Now the case seemed pretty simple at first. It seemed like a father seeking revenge for his daughter who claimed that the murdered couple had been behind a string of online bullying and threats directed at her.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But this case would turn out to be incredibly more convoluted and so much more bizarre than anyone could have ever expected. By the time the detectives got to the truth, an entire family would be behind bars and the small serene town of Mountain City would be absolutely gobsmacked. Whoa.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You really set that up. I did. Damn. I feel like, like I felt like I was entering into a Dateline episode. Well, Keith is over there and you know what? He's looking at me all proud. He is. Keith is standing next to us with his hands in his pockets. Keith Morrison is standing next to us.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] He's just here in the, in the pod lab all the time. Yeah, always. And he's standing there in his comm versus with his hands in his pockets and he's looking at you like, good job. Gob smacked. Nice use of it. Yeah.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Well, at the center of this case is a young woman named Janelle, uh, Potter, excuse me. She was in her late twenties to early thirties during the time that we're going to talk about today.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But there are a lot of different ideas and arguments about if Janelle was really operating with a 30 year old's brain. According to her mother, she had the brain of an elementary school child, but obviously looked to be a grown woman.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Janelle was born to parents Barbara and Marvin, like I said, better known as Buddy Potter. And she was born in Pennsylvania in 1981.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] She had some uncomfortable moments with her peers throughout teenage years especially. And she was also managing type 1 diabetes. She had been diagnosed when she was younger. And it was something that really affected her self confidence.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] She was said to have many health issues in addition to diabetes, but it doesn't seem like those were ever elaborated on or specified.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] To many, she came off as quote, a little bit odd, especially when it came to reasoning and interactions with others.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Since she had her fair share of struggles, she wasn't always comfortable in social situations and she spent a lot of time either by herself or just hanging out with her parents.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Her sister Christine said that Janelle was very coddled, she used the word coddled by her parents, and said that the parents never really taught Janelle how to deal with her problems directly, and instead most of the time they would resolve issues that she was having for her, instead of showing her like, this is how you can take care of that.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] She felt like her mother, Christine felt like her mother in particular, emphasized Janelle's social, physical, and intellectual disabilities. And it seemed like this really fed Janelle's negative self-image and exacerbated her inability to develop any kind of healthy relationship or any kind of really social skills. Yeah.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Now at the same time, Janelle's sister wasn't solely placing the blame on their mother.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It put a strain on her relationship with her family, especially Janelle. These two sisters did not get along at all. Okay.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Now in late 2004, their father, Buddy, decided that it would be a good idea to relocate the family from Philadelphia to Mountain City, Tennessee.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Christine and Janelle's relationship at this point had become so deteriorated that Christine actually decided not to go with her family. She ended up moving in with her grandmother and at this time she actually took out a restraining order on her sister due to her sister's harassing and threatening behavior. Whaaat? Yeah.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It really didn't seem to help her in any way. She felt like it was even harder to make friends out in Mountain City, she said, because she wasn't born and raised there and that the people there didn't like outsiders.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] This was really also like around the boom of social media, so that became Janelle's like cocoon if you will. Instead of having to go out and make friends and make connections face to face, she could log into the internet, craft any persona she wanted, and communicate to anybody, anywhere.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] From the comfort of her own home. Yeah, and that is the first step into why social media is terrible. Is a farce. Yeah. I like that word.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So that was pretty much the only way Janelle communicated with the outside world until like 2009.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And she could kind of recognize that Janelle was a bit awkward and didn't necessarily have fantastic social skills, but instead of avoiding Janelle, she decided, like, why don't I try and befriend her? She doesn't seem like she has a lot of friends. And she has, like, she's kind of not new here, but she's been here a while and hasn't made friends with anybody.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Tracy went out of her way to call Janelle. She would invite her out with her own friends so that she wouldn't be cooped up at home all the time with like just her parents as companions.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Ah, there you go. So Janelle's parents, who have been described many many times over as very overprotective,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] They wanted Tracy to come over to the house for a couple times before they allowed Janelle to go out with her. Okay. Now remember, she's in her twenties, thirties, so.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, so that's like a different, different scenario. Cause at first I was like, I get that. But then she's not a teenager. She's not a child. According to her mother, she is a child.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So once they were confident though that Tracy was good company, they did allow Janelle to go out with her. And it wasn't long before Janelle bonded with Tracy's group of friends, she was regularly hanging out with them, they took a rock climbing, there's like pictures of them hanging out together, it looked like they all had a great time, yeaah. Now, part of the friend group was Tracy's brother Billy Payne.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Janelle immediately took a liking to Billy, who like I said, was also referred to as Bill.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Whenever the group would go out, both Tracy and Bill would also- Bill too went out of his way to include Janelle. He was like a good guy, just like his sister.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The district attorney who would later become involved in this case, Dennis Brooks,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Felt like it was during this time that Janelle developed feelings for Bill Payne.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] He quote, included her in social occasions, like I said, going rock climbing or just hanging out.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Well, of course I'm looking at pictures and he just has like a very kind face. He does. And both billies do. I was going to say Billie Jean and Billie Payne.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The baby's so cute. So the thing was, it wasn't long before Janelle's feelings turned into an obsession with Bill. Oh no. Even though she kinda seemed to be able to hide it from her friend group for a little while, things would not remain that way. Eek.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Now, like I said, even though Janelle was in her late twenties by this point in time, she'd never had any kind of romantic relationship or relationship at all with anybody before.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And since she wasn't upfront about how she felt about Bill Payne, he didn't know, and neither did Tracy.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So instead, the brother-sister duo thought it would be a great idea actually to set Janelle up with a great guy that they knew. Yeah. Their second cousin, Jamie Curd.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Okay. Jamie had grown up in Mountain City, just like his cousins, and shared a lot of the same friends. He was a part of the larger friend group that Janelle was now in at this time. Okay. And Jamie and Bill also worked together at the Parkdale Mills. Okay. Jamie and Janelle hit it off instantly.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But, like I said, Janelle's parents were very overprotective.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So Janelle thought it would be a better idea if she kept this relationship a secret from them.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] At first, her and Jamie would just have quote, 30 to 45 second phone calls with each other. And on one of those phone calls, Janelle mentioned to Jamie that her computer seemed to be having some kind of issue lately, like she couldn't get it to work. So he offered to come by and fix it.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And he came to the house several times a week to keep working on this computer.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And Janelle told her parents that she just knew him through a friend or she made up some kind of story.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But the whole time he was fixing her computer, which took hours and hours, days and days, she would sit with him and they would just chat.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Until he was finished for the day. Yeah, so there were, you know. It sounds like a meet-cute. Like a very cute, like, you know? Yeah, it's a cute meet-cute. Yeah, good, good meeting. Exactly. Now once the computer was finally fixed, though, Janelle and Jamie needed a new way to keep in regular contact without being caught by Janelle's parents.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So Jamie came up with the idea to get Janelle a separate prepaid cell phone that she would only use for calls to him. Janelle agreed, she was like, this is a great idea.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] A girl, like a young woman who has been sheltered her whole life.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Very into fantasy. It makes sense. Like I see that. Like I bet that excited her that she was like, ooh, I get to do this like little mission to go get it. I love that you caught that. Yeah, it's like, it's exactly what I thought of. Cause it's like this like,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Did you know that property crimes like burglaries and package theft spike over the winter? That's why now is the best time to secure your home with award-winning home security. Simply Safe is the home security system that I personally recommend to literally everybody. Make it your New Year's resolution. Start the New Year with a greater peace of mind and safety for you and your family.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I know what's happening in the back corner, I know what's happening at the front door, and it's all super, super clear HD monitoring. In an emergency, 24-7 professional monitoring agents use Fast Protect technology, which is exclusively from SimpliSafe. They will capture critical evidence and verify that the threat is real, so you can get priority police response.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So the couple's plan worked for a few weeks, but eventually Janelle's mother, Barbara, which I'm just now realizing is very teen mom-esque. Oh yeah, Janelle and Barbara. She found out about the phone and she got rid of it.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But anyway, she, she continued to use that phone strictly to calls to Jamie.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So things went on like this for about six months, with Janelle and Jamie sneaking around behind her parents' back.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But by early 2010, a lot of Janelle's friends kind of noticed a shift in her behavior. It was a pretty big change in her personality. And it seemed, her personality seemed to shift right around the time that Bill Payne started dating Billie Jean Hayworth.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] She was a local girl who he and Jamie actually both worked with at the Mills.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Jamie said that Bill and Billie Jean, quote, hit it right off and Bill just fell head over heels in love with her.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Oh, and they look like they love each other so much, like all their pictures. Yeah, I want to take like a little time to talk about the two of them and before we get back to the story, they seem to be meant for each other.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The two of them had a lot in common and they, like I said, seemed to bring out the best in each other. Billie Jean Hayworth had been born in Mountain City, Tennessee on March 19th, 1988. Her parents were Carl and Martha Hayworth.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] She had two sisters, Janie and Beverly, and two brothers, Greg and Daryl. And when she was growing up, she really loved to be outside, she loved to play volleyball.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And the older and older she got, especially when she was a young adult and kind of making her own money, one of the things that she loved to do was go to different like flea markets, yard sales, auctions, and just see what treasures she could find. She loved like, loved a good flea market flip. Oh hell yeaah. Which is one of my favorite trips.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I love all the Billy's here. I do too. I love it. And Beverly Dugger. His wife, just like Billy, or excuse me, his life, just like Billy Jeans, was average. He got along with his parents, got along with his siblings, he had the sister Tracy that we know about, and also a brother named Josh.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And, just like Billie Jean, he also grew up loving to go to the flea markets, the auctions, the yard sales, only he had a thing for rare coins. Oh, that's like a really cute niche. Like how fucking cute is that?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But at the time of his death, he was getting treatment at a local clinic and he was working hard to become sober.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] He wanted to be the best father that he could be to his kids. Because in addition to the young son that he had with Billie Jean, he actually also had a son Justin that lived in Florida with his mother.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Unfortunately, he couldn't really see Justin very often because he lived in Florida. But he was trying for his sons.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Bill wasn't the only person in a state of change. Janelle was too. But hers was not for the good.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] She'd make comments about Billie Jean and how much she disliked her. When Jamie would tell Janelle that she shouldn't be so hard on this girl because Bill Payne was really in love.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Janelle would just make comments about their relationship not lasting. She was like, I, I give it this amount of time. Okay. Or like, it's not going to last like blah blah blah. It's like, why are you being a hater? Yeah, that's bad energy. It is. Yeah. And she got even nastier when Billie Jean became pregnant with her and Bill's baby.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Her comments became worse and worse and worse over time. But her mean spirit wasn't just directed toward Bill and Billie Jean. A lot of it was, but not entirely. It was even directed at her own boyfriend, Jamie.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Now on one occasion in February, Jamie had gone to a party at Bill Payne's house and he had too much to drink so he ended up passing out there. He woke up at some point to his phone ringing off the hook. It had been ringing all night. I don't know if like,


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[Assistant] But when he answered it, it was Janelle's father, buddy on the other line. And he told Jamie, quote, Janelle had left the house and they found her in a ditch.


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[Assistant] But then, three days later, Jamie got a call from Janelle telling him that she did love him and she did want to continue on with their relationship, and it was her dad that made her say those awful things to him.


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[Assistant] From that point forward, she told them that she should be the one to initiate phone calls.


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[Assistant] But anyways, I think what happened the night of that party, in my personal opinion, I think Janelle was upset for a number of reasons. I think one of the main ones was that she couldn't go to parties like that. Her parents wouldn't allow her to, even though she was a grown ass woman.


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[Assistant] And I think the other thing that she was pissed off about was that this was Bill Payne's party. She wouldn't have wanted to miss that.


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[Assistant] And I think since she was so angry at him now, she felt like Jamie going to that party was him going against her, betrayal in some way.


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[Assistant] Uhm, I just, honestly, overall I think this was like a weird, strange ploy for attention.


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[Assistant] And she was kind of infatuated with him and, uh, vice versa.


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[Assistant] So they continued dating, even though their conversations were limited to really odd hours of the day and night because Janelle didn't want to be caught by her mom talking on the phone with him. That's wild. And they weren't able to go on dates because her parents disapproved of him.


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[Assistant] Now over time, Jamie's feelings toward his cousin Bill and Billie Jean also shifted, most likely due to Janelle's manipulation. Bill and Jamie had worked together, like I said, at the mills for years, and they had always been close. They'd always gotten along. Remember, Bill was the one to set Jamie and Janelle up in the first place.


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[Assistant] But now Jamie was suddenly pulling back from his cousin and was becoming distant and actually went as far as to request a change in his work schedule so that his hours wouldn't line up with Bill's or Billie Jean's because she also worked at the Mills.


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[Assistant] Now since Janelle wasn't able to see Jamie very often, and by this point her parents had pretty much forbidden her from seeing any of the rest of the friend group,


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[Assistant] Now it was late in 2010 and it was around this time that Janelle started to mention a man named Chris to Jamie and a lot of her other friends.


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[Assistant] She told Jamie that Chris was a family friend and neighbour back in Pennsylvania. She said he grew up in the house next to hers, he was really more like a brother to her all throughout high school and he always watched out for her. And now, he worked for the CIA.


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[Assistant] And she was super, super excited because he was actually gonna be transferred to Tennessee soon and he would actually be buying a house in Mountain City. Oh boy. And she was super, super stoked about it.


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[Assistant] And like I said, Jamie wasn't the only one to hear about Chris, this Chris character. One of Janelle's friends online, strictly online, they never met in person.


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[Assistant] Bob Meehan also remembered that right around mid to late 2010, Janelle kept bringing up Chris more and more frequently. Bob also lived in Pennsylvania where she was from, and though he'd never met Janelle in person, he actually thought that they were in a long distance relationship. Oh.


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[Assistant] Mhm, they texted, they exchanged emails, they were social media friends. Oh boy.


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[Assistant] And that's the tea on that. Now other friends of hers online remembered her bringing up Chris too, and most of them remembered that she described him as a family friend, not like a love interest or anything like that, just an old friend who now worked for the CIA.


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[Assistant] These anonymous users started posting all these terrible things about her and on her wall and messaging her. All anonymous users. Okay. On Facebook.


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[Assistant] I was just gonna say on Facebook, I thought that was hard. And also, uhm, another social media platform she used was Topics. The fuck is that?


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[Assistant] Uh, news based on like where you were and you could also interact with people in your area, I guess. Oh, okay. I've literally never heard of that, that's fascinating. Kinda sounds like the Neighbor app, I don't know what it's called, but the Neighbor app, I know what you mean. You know what I'm talking about? Yeah, the one where you can be like, hey,


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[Assistant] But anyways, at the same time, uh, that Janelle was getting harassed and bullied and la-dee-da-doo, Jamie started getting texts from Chris. So he is real.


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[Assistant] He's like Janelle is getting bullied mercilessly and it needed to stop. I feel like you're the CIA and you fix it. That's what he's saying. So eventually Chris started emailing Jamie telling him more and more about the relentless online bullying and how he needed to put an end to it being her boyfriend. But strangely,


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[Assistant] Apparently he was also against having his own email address as well. He has a phobia of phones? Like sir, you work for the Central Intelligence Agency. I don't, I don't like answering a phone call, like a cold call is pretty- Don't ever fucking cold call me. It's a severe violation in my book, but- If we're friends and you cold call me, we're not friends anymore. Yea, that's gonna be a problem, but I would definitely not classify it as a phobia.


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[Assistant] Does anyone else get severe anxiety about texting? And does anybody else prefer to answer text messages on their laptop? Yea, I don't like typing on my phone, and then I


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[Assistant] I get anxious when I get text messages and then I don't answer them right away because like I am who I am and then I keep thinking about it and days go by and I go, oh no, I'm a week past this text message that I didn't answer and then I get more anxiety and then I just


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[Assistant] But yea, I just had to throw that out there. So if you feel that way as well, you're not alone. Well, Chris felt that way. He said, no phones. Chris feels that way. Yep. The CIA doesn't make us use them. Nope. It's also like, okay, you're going to have a phobia of phones, but where the fuck is your email address? Well, that's the thing. Can you have one? You have not explained all of this, sir. I have no idea.


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[Assistant] But Jamie would later say that he could tell the difference between an email or a text that came from Chris because Chris was way more intense than Janelle. Janelle quote, never cursed, never called people names or spoke hatefully to people.


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[Assistant] What a kind soul. But Jamie said that Chris's communications were full of obscenities, ranting, and harmful wishes toward others. Specifically, Billie Jean and Bill Payne.


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[Assistant] But when Chris wasn't going off about the couple, he would give Jamie advice on how to better his relationship with Janelle. You know, cause like the CIA also doubles as your own personal therapist. Absolutely. Yeah.


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[Assistant] So when Jamie asked Janelle about what was going on online, she told him that this harassment really came out of nowhere. And like I said, I said like I said so many times during this. Like I said. Sorry, I will come up with something else. But was a slew of anonymous comments to her Facebook page telling her she was a bad person. And this is intense.


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[Assistant] That they were gonna have her raped. Oh my god.


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[Assistant] That's horrific. The comments had escalated so much over the course of a couple of weeks that Janelle's mother, Barbara, actually ended up posting her own comment to Janelle's wall, begging the anonymous commentators to stop and not, please not do this to her daughter. That's awful. Like, Barbara was really distraught over this. Yea, of course, but just delete your Facebook.


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[Assistant] But, so Barbara was really, really concerned, but this was interesting because Janelle's friends didn't really seem to be too concerned about this. They felt like there was something really suspicious about all of this, and they didn't really seem to think any of it was real. Tracy Greenwald.


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[Assistant] Yeah, Tracy Greenwell later said, quote, Janelle was always saying that somebody was mad at her, somebody hated her, somebody wanted to kill her. She was paranoid about it. Ah.


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[Assistant] So Janelle was frustrated that her friends didn't believe her and she insisted that the danger she was facing was very real.


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[Assistant] And over weeks the tension was building and building and Janelle was starting to point the finger at four people within her very own friend group.


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[Assistant] A girl named Lindsay Thomas, the girl, the first girl who had ever befriended her in this town, Tracy Greenwell, Tracy's brother Bill Payne, and Bill Payne's girlfriend, Billie Jean. Aw, come on.


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[Assistant] Now, within this same time period, Janelle called the police to her home and reported that a rock had been thrown into her front yard and it had the names Billy Payne and Billie Jean painted on it. And she felt like this was proof that they were the ones behind all the harassment. Okay.


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[Assistant] So to retaliate, she started posting on Facebook calling Lindsay Thomas and Billie Jean mean girls and sharing screenshots that were clearly doctored and manipulated to seem like these girls were harassing her. Wow. Doesn't seem like they were.


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[Assistant] Wow. But because of this sudden shift in her behavior and resulting turmoil, pretty much everybody in the friend group ended up unfriending her. Yea, of course. And they all removed themselves from her orbit to kind of save themselves from the drama of it all and the rest of them were like, Jesus Christ, when is she gonna turn on me? Of course.


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[Assistant] So Janelle just kept on posting about them though. Lindsay Thomas actually called Janelle on the phone on one occasion when she found out that Janelle was writing about her on Facebook and she was like, please, can you just like stop this? Like you gotta stop girlfriend.


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[Assistant] What a terrible era we live in. Oh my god, I know what these things are like. This person wrote this about me on Facebook. Oh god.


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[Assistant] No anyways, according to Lindsay, Janelle told her when she called her that she had no idea what she was talking about and she said she wasn't posting anything about Lindsay or Billy or Billie Jean, nobody. Yet right after this exchange, Lindsay started getting calls


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[Assistant] From the Potter's home line, where the caller would just breathe heavily, but other than that say nothing at all.


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[Assistant] But there were a couple of instances, though, where a man got on the phone. Lindsay said she believed this man was Janelle's father buddy, and he would demand that Lindsay and her friends leave his daughter alone, stop calling his house, like, end the nonsense.


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[Assistant] Even though she was the one getting the phone calls, she did not call them. Wow. Like what? Wow. So in May 2011, shifting gears a little bit.


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[Assistant] Jamie Curd's mother passed away, and it was around this time that Janelle's family actually started being more welcoming toward him. They still didn't want Jamie and Janelle to have a relationship with each other, but they were like,


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[Assistant] You know, you fix our computer, you're decent enough. You can be Jenelle's friend, but like, you can't date her. You can be around. You can be around. Now he got an invite for family dinners, holiday celebrations. And strangely enough, actually, in no time at all, he and Jenelle's father, Buddy, were like thick as thieves. They really hit it off. Now that same month, May of 2011,


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[Assistant] Lindsay Thomas ended up filing a telephone harassment, er, multiple telephone harassment charges against Janelle.


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[Assistant] And because she wasn't being stopped by anybody, Janelle continued her social media escapades. And now she was trying to bring more and more of this group of friends and even people outside of this group of friends into her feud with Lindsay, Billie Jean, Bill Payne, and Tracy.


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[Assistant] Tara Osborne would later end up testifying that when she tried to remove herself from the drama, she got an email from a Facebook account linked to Janelle.


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[Assistant] She answered the email saying that she wasn't interested in having any part of this. She was like, please God, just leave me alone. Yeah. And she was like, Janelle, please don't contact me again. And then she blocked the user.


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[Assistant] She then started getting phone calls similar to the ones that Lindsay Thomas was getting, and these calls were also from the Potter household, except this caller quote, tried to make noises from a horror movie and had an insanity laugh.


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[Assistant] What do you- I really wanna know what that entails. What would those- like, do you think she'd just been heavy breathing? Maybe.


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[Assistant] I love it. But yea, I don't, I don't know. Also an insanity laugh. I don't really know what that is either. Yea, I don't know. I just hear the wicked witch.


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[Assistant] Anyways, uhm, Osborne also tried to file telephone harassment charges against Janelle, but a clerical error caused her case to be dismissed.


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[Assistant] Okay. Love those clerical errors. Yeah, I don't know. Now, while everybody was getting more and more concerned about the situation that Janelle was creating for them, Janelle's CIA buddy, Chris, he was getting pissed the fuck off about the way she was being treated.


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[Assistant] And now Janelle's parents were hearing about Chris too, and anytime Jamie Curd would come over, he and Janelle's parents would talk about the latest ongoings in the feud and how concerned they were about their sweet precious Janelle.


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[Assistant] Janelle's mother, Barbara, commented to Jamie that Chris was quote, angry and firing back at Thomas and Hayworth with emails. And it was like a war. Hmm. Yeah.


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[Assistant] Seems to be the tipping point in the story. According to Jamie, Buddy Potter talked a lot about his quote, missions and other countries during his time in the CIA.


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[Assistant] Yes, you heard that right. Chris was not the only secret agent in this town, baby. Whaaat? Buddy Potter also claimed to have worked for the agency. Huh. Uh huh. Huh. Mhm. Okay.


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[Assistant] But Buddy Potter kept two strapped to him at all times. Okay. He would have one in a shoulder harness and another in a holster that he kept strapped around his ankle. There's actually a picture that I saw of him and Barbara gardening together and he has a gun strapped on him and uhm,


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[Assistant] Uh, sling of ammunition. Oh yeaah, I saw that in their gardening. They're just gardening. I saw that picture. And he is fucking packed? Stacked? Uh, yeaah, pa- he's packin'.


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[Assistant] Like what's going on? I am but a little innocent girl. Don't know how to say it? I'm like he has guns. Don't know how to say it. He, there was guns everywhere in this house. He actually had to carry like an oxygen tank around with him. Just, he had like some medical problems of his own. And there was ammunition slung around his oxygen tank.


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[Assistant] But, but Ian Barbara both seemed to be getting more and more aggressive about the situation with Janelle and eager, Jamie felt, to do whatever they needed to end it themselves. And I think he was kind of starting to get a little bit freaked out by this. Hmm.


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[Assistant] But at the same time, Jamie would later say that when Buddy and Barbara were getting aggressive, Janelle would just stay quiet.


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[Assistant] And he was like, I was really confused by this, because whenever we talked about it, Janelle had no problem sharing her opinions freely, discussing the whole entire feud at length with me, but around her parents, he put it that she, quote, acted like a needy kid to a parent. Huh.


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[Assistant] Manipulation at its finest. As the situation intensified, Barbara actually started getting messages directly to her email account from CIA agent Chris.


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[Assistant] He seemed to be really serious when it came to the threats being made against Janelle, and he emphasized to Barbara that everybody should take them seriously.


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[Assistant] She fully believed that this online bullying had reached the point where this CIA agent felt like he needed to get involved.


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[Assistant] But there are more than a handful of instances where family, friends, and authorities have referenced her as being delusional.


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[Assistant] And needing functional assistance. So I think that's important to keep in mind. Well, that's sad. It is, exactly.


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[Assistant] I wanted to say that part of it because you might be sitting there being like, Jesus Christ, how does she believe this? We don't know for sure, but it's been implied. There's possibly more at play. Exactly. Now, even before Janelle had moved to Mountain City and gone through this falling out with her friends,


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[Assistant] Barbara was almost overprotective to a fault. Remember what Christine said, she was like, she was...


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[Assistant] It kind of seemed to reach a point where Barbara was paranoid, like really intensely paranoid, and the emails from Chris were only feeding that paranoia more and more.


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[Assistant] In the summer of 2011 Janelle actually needed to be hospitalized. This was due to poor management of her diabetes.


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[Assistant] But I think her family felt like it was brought on by what was going on. This actually wasn't uncommon for her to end up in the hospital because of the way she managed her diabetes. But the timelines. But the timelines worked exactly.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Now while Janelle was hospitalized, the number of emails from CIA agent Chris to Jamie and Barbara reached a new level.


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[Assistant] All of these emails were coming from Janelle's account, but they knew that they were from Chris. Yeah.


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[Assistant] One from Chris to Jamie read, quote, I hope Janelle doesn't, or excuse me, I hope Janelle don't think about killing herself. And Jamie responded saying,


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[Assistant] I think that if it wasn't for us she might have thought about it. Didn't say it, but I can tell she has just took all she can from these motherfuckers. They won't let up and they're crazy. Hell, I don't know why they have to do this. I don't know


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[Assistant] Like, you're grown adults. Yeah. Just interact in life.


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[Assistant] Well anyways, Chris wrote back, seemingly trying to comfort Jamie, and telling him that he wasn't alone in the fight against Janelle's bullies. Chris was here for Jamie. And he even said that he had Lindsay Thomas under 24-7 surveillance at this time, and that he had shot her back glass out of her car.


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[Assistant] Which like, I don't know if the CIA like shoots people's cars for you if you're being bullied online.


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[Assistant] I've never had that experience. I've never had a friend who had that experience. This is an interesting use of the CIA's time and resources.


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[Assistant] Now, I don't think that actually happened, to be honest. I don't either. Like, I don't know.


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[Assistant] Wow. I don't know if anybody followed up on that. If anybody drove by her car or if they just took Chris's word for it. They took Chris's word many, many times over. It seems like they lived for Chris's word. They did. His word and his word alone. They lived and died by Chris's word.


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[Assistant] But to be honest, even though there were pending telephone harassment charges and from time to time rebuttal posts on Facebook from the people that Chanel was pointing the finger at,


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[Assistant] They were all just going on with their lives and doing the best they could to avoid the drama and avoid Jamie and Janelle. They were like, I, I can't. This would be so scary that someone focused on you like that and you're like, I just want to live my life and like, without you in it. Like, please just go away. When you never bullied them in the first place. As we all know at this point, I'm thinking,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] This came from pure jealousy on Janelle's part to Billie Jean. Yea, because Janelle had feelings for Bill Payne. She never did anything about it, but.


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[Assistant] Because she liked him, she felt like Billie Jean was in the wrong for dating him. And it's like, he's allowed to not like you.


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[Assistant] Everybody has a different type. Exactly. It's ridiculous.


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[Assistant] It's freakin' ridiculous. It's freakin' ridiculous! But everybody's trying to move on with this. Yeah. And Tracy Greenwell, Bill Payne, Billie Jean, and Lindsay Thomas were really specifically trying to rid themselves of this situation.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But at that same time, Chris was making sure that Jamie Curd, Buddy and Barbara Potter were heavily immersed in this. It was consuming their lives at this point. What a way to live.


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[Assistant] And unfortunately was dismissed pretty quickly because again, there wasn't a lot of proof. I was going to say those things are so hard to prove. Exactly.


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[Assistant] Now this dismissal though seemed to embolden not only Janelle, but Barbara Potter. In the weeks that followed, they stepped up their harassment and actually just a few days after the court appearance,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] She was terrified of these people. Just filling up her car, going about her day, living her life.


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[Assistant] And there was also tension between Jamie Curd and Bill Payne at this time. The cousins. Like remember, they're family. Yeah.


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[Assistant] Though they didn't have to work together very often at the mill anymore, since Jamie had requested not to be scheduled at the same time as either person, uh, the couple.


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[Assistant] There were instances where it was inevitable. They were like, you gotta fuckin' work together, cause that's a schedule. Yeah, that's a schedule. So during some of those- This is work. Yeah, exactly. During some of those instances there were arguments between the cousins, especially over the fact


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And Bill also knew that Jamie was going back to Janelle and telling her everything that had been said during these arguments, because then Janelle would take to social media and air everything out. So he's like, I'm trying to talk to you like human to human, man to man. This is so pathetic. Yeah, exactly. Truly.


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[Assistant] Exactly. Now finally there was one night where Bill actually called his cousin Jamie in an attempt to end the feud once and for all. He was like, me and Billie Jean started keeping a record of emails and social media posts and comments directed at us by Janelle and Barbara.


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[Assistant] And he also told Jamie that there was no way an actual CIA agent was involved in this. And that Chris was clearly Janelle. Yeaah.


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[Assistant] I mean the emails were literally coming from her email account guys. They're coming from inside the house. But Jamie did not believe that Janelle was capable of doing something like that.


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[Assistant] And so it seems like the call really ended with no resolution between the cousins. Wow.


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[Assistant] And as the virtual feud was making its way into the real world, the tone of Chris's emails to Barbara Potter was getting graphic and dire. He kept urging her that if she didn't stop all of this soon, then quote, all of this crap might kill her daughter.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] He told Barbara that he was ready and willing to kill Billie Jean Hayworth and Phil Payne and anybody else who posed a serious threat to Janelle. And Chris also kept mentioning that he wished Buddy Potter still had his ID from his days in the CIA because then they would be able to work together to quote, neutralize this threat. Wow.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So as Barbara, Buddy, and Jamie were dragged further and further into this strange fantasy turned conspiracy that Janelle and this Chris character had created, Janelle was still posting under fake names across several social media platforms.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] She was constantly calling Lindsay Thomas and Billie Jean, Billie Jean Hayworth mean whores saying that they should be punished and making vaguely threatening comments toward the entire group that she considered to be her bullies.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Chris actually started using Janelle's Facebook account during this time.


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[Assistant] As well, and really amped up in the last months of 2011. In a post from December 14th, 2011, quote, Chris posted a status on Janelle's account saying to Bill Payne, Billie Jean Hayworth, Lindsay Thomas and Tara and Brad Osborne and et cetera.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Please leave, L-E-V-E, Janelle alone and stop with the harassment and stop trying to run her life. Look at your own lives and work on that.


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[Assistant] BC, you are all just a bunch of white trash, no good, ugly people that love to hurt others. Well, you need to think of this. Take care of your kids, Billy and Billie Jean.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And Lindy, get off your meth drugs and stop going after my sister and my family. Thank you. Or you can just go jump off a mountain, MTN, for all I care. You all need to get out of my sister's life. You know.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So these posts were commented on over and over again by Barbara, who started calling Chris her son at this point. Chris had started calling Janelle his sister. So he, she was like, all right, well, he's my son then. Ooh, there's a lot going on here. There's a lot of untreated mental illness in my own personal opinion.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But pretty much all of these posts just had a slew of comments from Barbara, Chris and Janelle. They were all talking to each other back and forth. And now Chris was saying that there were not only Janelle, excuse me, not only threats to Janelle's life, but to Buddy and Barbara's as well. He had found evidence that people were after them now.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I don't even know what's happening right now, like this is wild. Wild.com. Now by the new year 2012, Buddy believed that Janelle's former friends were working on plans to quote, take Janelle and cut her head off and then kill him and his wife.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Because that's what Chris had said he found. He found these drugs.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So on the evening of January 30th, 2012, Barbara called Jamie Curd and asked if he would stop by the house to take a look at their computer.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] While Jamie was alone with Buddy, Buddy asked if Jamie would, quote, do him a favor.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] He wanted Jamie to take him down to Bill Payne's house and quote, let him out and go down the road and come pick him up. Okay.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Jamie would later say that Buddy wasn't being very specific about why he wanted to go out to Bill's house that night.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So he left and went back to his own home. He was like, I don't know about this. But very early the next morning, like first couple hours of the morning of January 31st, 2012, Jamie missed a call from the Potter household. And then he got a text from Janelle saying that Buddy was on his way to his house.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Now Jamie and Buddy waited in the car until they saw Paw Bill.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Which is Bill Payne's, uh, Bill Payne Sr. Until they saw him leave for work. Then they got out of the car.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But if that was the case, then why did Buddy provide Jamie with a gun?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Now when they reached the front door, they found it unlocked and both men entered the home. Jamie stood by the front door. He said, this is Jamie's account.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And then he saw Billie Jean run out of the room down the hall.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Jamie then heard a gunshot and saw Buddy Porter exit the room where he had clearly just shot Bill Payne.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] He was now looking for Billie Jean and he looked to Jamie to find out which direction she'd gone in.


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[Assistant] As he looked he heard another gunshot and at that point he said he ran from the house, which I don't buy, back across the field and into buddy Porter's truck. Or excuse me, Potter's truck. Fucking autocorrect.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Buddy returned to the car several moments later, Jamie said, and Jamie gave him his gun back and they silently drove back to Jamie's house where Buddy dropped him off at the end of his driveway.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It's insane, like. It was Jamie, was, um, was Billie Jean, was she holding her son when she was shot? Yeah. That's why he was still in her arms.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It seemed like she was taking him out of his crib, like she was, to run with him. She was standing in front of his crib, er, when she was shot and fell in front of the crib. And luckily, somehow the baby wasn't harmed. And he was just sleeping? Just sleeping when they found him.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Oh, that breaks my heart. Yeah. And that she was going to save her baby. I think she probably was going to run out the back, but obviously was taking the baby first.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So at 6.30 that same morning, Brad Osborne, who I think was like a bigger part of the friend group because uhm, I don't know if he was related to the woman from earlier who had gotten involved in all of this or if he was dating her or, uh, married to her.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] He had been involved in this whole saga. He knew what this, what was going on. He arrived at the pain house to pick Bill up for work. When Bill didn't come outside after a few minutes, Brad tried to give him a call.