190: The Murder of Liz Sennett

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Southern for a true crime covers cases
that are not suitable for young listeners,

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and there may also be some explicit
language used listener discretion as advised. You

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hear the phrase happy wife, happy
life a lot. It seems to put

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the onus on the woman to keep
the marriage and calm waters, but that's

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not always how it's meant. Sometimes
it just means that the wife is the

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rock of the family. She keeps
everyone centered. Liz Sinnate was very much

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the rock of her family. Her
husband, Charles, was a preacher and

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the center of their church, but
together they were the center of their community,

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and Liz was very much the heart
of her family. As one of

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her sons put it, it's not
easy being a preacher's wife, but she

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performed the role with the same grace
and love that she did being a wife

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and mother. When she was murdered, naturally, Charles was the first suspect.

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The husband always is, But Charles
had a solid alibi. Who would

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want to hurt this lovely and loving
woman. Liz Senate had no enemies.

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The brutality shook their small Alabama town
and especially congregance of their church, and

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the truth would destroy the Senate Family. Welcome to Episode one ninety the Murder

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of Liz Senate. In the nineteen
eighties, Ronnie May was an investigator with

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the Colbert County Sheriff's Department in Alabama, and he wasn't new to this job.

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Far from it. He had started
his law enforcement career over a decade

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earlier, in nineteen seventy three,
and he enjoyed the work because Ronnie would

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continue to be an officer of the
law for over forty years, only retiring

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in twenty fifteen. But back in
the eighties, Ronnie wasn't anywhere near retiring.

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On March eighteenth of nineteen eighty eight, it was a cool spring day.

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The high was in the forties.
The rolling hills of Culbert County were

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bright green with new life. The
breeze was light and airy. It was

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the perfect kind of day for a
morning coffee and a big breath of fresh

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air. As Ronnie opened the door
to the Sheriff's department that morning, he

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might have thought the same, but
not for long. At eleven forty four

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am that day, a local pastor, forty five year old Charles Sennett,

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called the Culbert County Sheriff's department and
a secretary answered, but the preacher,

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Charles, was unintelligible, screaming.
The secretary couldn't make out what he was

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trying to say, and at that
point the call was transferred to Officer Ronnie

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May. Ronnie waited for Charles to
gather himself. Only then could Charles explain

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to Ronnie what had happened, and
it was horrible. Charles's wife, forty

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five year old Elizabeth Liz dor Len's
Senate, was dead. Charles didn't know

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how, he didn't know who,
but his and Lizz's home had been ransacked,

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and Liz was covered in blood lying
on the floor of their den.

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Years later, Ronnie May told al
dot com all we knew was a pastor's

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wife had been killed and what had
been a home invasion. Ronnie rushed to

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the senate home near Tuscumbia, Alabama, along with other first responders. When

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they arrived, Liz still had a
pulse, but it was faint. In

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the hopes that she would wake up
and say something anything about her killer's identity,

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Ronnie rode with her in the ambulance
to the hospital, but Lizza's eyes

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never opened. She died in surgery
two hours later. Thus, the investigation

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into her murder began, and some
time later, after the dust had settled

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and the case was solved, Ronnie
realized something strange. He had seen Lizza's

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killer before, and it was only
a few weeks before her murder. Ronnie

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had been at a gas station in
Cherokee, an Alabama town about fifteen miles

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away from the senate's home. This
too had been a crime scene. The

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owner of the gas station had been
shot and killed. Ronnie and other officers

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were investigating the gas station when he
noticed a strange man following him around.

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The man appeared to be part of
the rescue squad, according to Ronnie,

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but the man was in the way. He asked him to leave multiple times,

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but for whatever reason, the man
kept returning. Ronnie would speculate that

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this man was trying to understand how
law enforcement investigated a crime scene. He

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was doing reconnaissance, but at the
time there was no way for officer Ronnie

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made to know that. So when
the man left, Ronnie led him and

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he didn't think much of it.
I'm going to pause now for a short

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commercial break. Elizabeth Dorlen Thorne was
born on December tenth, nineteen forty two

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to parents Howard and Dosha in Franklin
County, Alabama. Throughout her life,

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her friends and family referred to her
as Liz, so that's what we'll call

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her too. Growing up, Liz
was the oldest of her two brothers and

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one sister, and of the four
Thorn children. Liz was especially soft spoken.

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She was a quiet young woman with
a typical type a personality. Liz

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liked things to be neat and organized. She was a person who had a

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place for everything, and everything was
always in its place. Liz also enjoyed

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being a particularly feminine woman. Her
family would later describe her as a girly

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girl. The Thorn family was born
and bred in Alabama for generations, and

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I'm not just saying that. Lizz's
parents, her parents parents, and their

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parents parents were all born in the
northwest corner of Alabama. Liz two,

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of course, but her family moved
to Ohio sometime between nineteen forty eight and

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nineteen sixty one, during the time
Lizz's father spent in the military. The

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family moved to a home near Cleveland
when Liz was in her teens, and

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there she met a young man named
Charles. Charles Edwards Sennett was born on

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October twenty third, nineteen forty two, and hen Lawson, West Virginia,

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to parents Ed and Beava. Ed
was a preacher and Liz and Charles had

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a great deal in common. They
both lived in Ohio, but were Southerners

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at heart. They were both the
same age, and they were both Christian

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folk, and so were their families. But most importantly, the young couple

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fell deeply in love with each other. So on June second, nineteen sixty

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two, twenty year old Liz and
twenty year old Charles were married in Ohio,

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and literally nine months exactly after their
wedding date, on February third,

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nineteen sixty three, Liz and Charles
welcomed their first child into the world,

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a baby boy named Charles Junior.
They called him Chuck, and two years

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after that, in May of nineteen
sixty five, Liz and Charles had yet

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another baby boy. His name was
Michael and he would go by Mike.

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Chuck and Mike remember their parents' relationship
as idyllic. In an interview with American

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Monster, Chuck said, Dad love
and adored mother. She was the best

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thing that ever happened to him,
and Mike affirmed, saying everyone thought of

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them as the perfect couple. Liz
and Charles weren't just picture perfect spouses,

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they were good parents too. According
to Mike, Liz was like a big

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mama hen, keeping everybody in check. It was clear that she cared about

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her sons and she wasn't afraid to
show it. She went above and beyond

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to make sure both Chuck and Mike
knew that she loved them through joyful birthday

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parties, meaningful Christmas gifts, and
a ton of special family traditions. Chuck

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explained that their family was always rich
in faith and health. We had what

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we needed and some of what we
wanted, and Charles did his part too.

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Chuck explained that his father was always
a hard worker and a great provider,

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but more than that, he remembered
his dad as an all around nice

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guy. When baby Mike was born, Charles and Liz were about twenty three

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years old. Around this time,
Charles worked at a Seers department store in

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Ohio, but that wasn't what he
wanted to do. He wanted to be

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a preacher. Remember, Charles's father
had been a preacher, and Charles knew

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that it was his life's calling to
follow in his father's footsteps. This probably

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didn't surprise anyone who knew Charles.
After all, he was an excellent speaker

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and a strong leader. Chuck told
American Monster, a preacher has to know

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what they're talking about. People have
to believe in what they're saying, and

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that came natural to him. But
in order to fulfill his dream of sharing

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God's word, Charles felt he couldn't
stay in Ohio. So the young senate

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family left behind one life and began
another, this time in Nashville, Tennessee.

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Mike recalled that this big move felt
like a leap of faith, but

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in the end it appeared to be
worth it. In Nashville, Charles began

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attending evening classes for up and coming
preachers under the Church of Christ, and

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three years later he graduated. He
and Liz were about twenty six years old.

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Almost immediately he was offered a full
time position at the Hatton Church of

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Christ and Hatton, Alabama. I'm
sure Charles and Liz were both relieved and

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excited by this news. For one, a job as a job, there's

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nothing like financial security, but for
two, Liz's parents now lived in Alabama,

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I'm sure it was nice to be
closer to them and their extended families.

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And Charles thrived in Alabama. Before
he arrived at the Hatton Church of

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Christ, it was a small church
community. The tiny town of Hatton only

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has about sixty people in it today. While there isn't data available on what

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Hatton's population was at this time,
we know that it hasn't had over two

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hundred people in it for over ten
years. But after Charles became the pastor,

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people flocked from miles away to hear
him speak. According to Chuck,

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they had to build a bigger church, one that could hold up to three

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or four hundred people. Needless to
say, Charles was doing very well as

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a pastor, and both Liz and
Charles became central pillars of the Hatton community.

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Mike told American Monster, whether it
be the elderly ladies of the church,

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the Boy Scouts, cub Scouts,
teaching graduation, ged classes, you

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name it, they were involved in
the community and everybody knew them, and

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church was central to the Senate family. Liz and the two boys always attended

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Charles's services. Chuck recalled that Sunday
morning, you knew where you were going

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Sunday's probably felt like a weekly celebration
for the Senates because after Charles led the

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Sunday service, he and Liz would
invite guests over. They hosted parties,

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dinners, and other events, and
actual holidays like Christmases and birthdays were happy

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times in the Senate House too.
American Monster showed some old home movies from

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one Christmas as Chuck explained that both
sets of grandparents, aunts, uncles,

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and cousins all came together. Chuck
and Mike remember these gatherings fondly. In

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fact, they remember most of their
childhood fondly. Mike said, you couldn't

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ask for better times. And,
believe it or not, Charles wasn't just

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known as a powerful preacher, a
welcoming host, and a beloved father,

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He was also known for his golden
singing voice. Mike said he had a

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deep voice. He could sing deeper
than he could talk. In Charles's childhood,

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his family sang regularly. At one
point, they even formed a singing

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quartet. Charles loved singing in this
quartet with his family. Throughout his adult

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life, Charles was always in one
a cappella group or another. On top

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of preaching, and singing. Charles
also started his own side venture. He

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sold burial vaults. These are the
outer containers that hold a casket. Most

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cemeteries require them. Said that man
is pretty high and that made Charles's business

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pretty successful. Plus it was another
way for him to provide for his wife

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and sons. But between his full
time job as a preacher, his hobbies,

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and his side business, Charles was
overwhelmed. In nineteen seventy six,

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thirty four year old Charles was really
starting to feel the pressure. Mike said,

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I could tell there was a tiredness
to him. One night, Liz

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called Charles at his burial vault business, but he didn't pick up. She

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called again and again, but still
no Charles. Concerned, Liz went to

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the business to check on him,
and she found him in the midst of

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a nervous breakdown. Fortunately, Charles
was able to get the medical attention he

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needed. His doctors diagnosed him with
depression and prescribed him lithium, But unfortunately,

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his doctors also recommended that he give
up preaching for good. At this

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Charles was heartbroken. Mike recalled,
it was like he was empty, an

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empty, broken down man, and
Mom had to step in and be the

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rock, and she did a very
good job of it. In light of

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Charles's mental health struggles, he quit
his job as a pastor and Liz became

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a secretary. She had to pay
the bills, but after about two years,

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Charles was feeling up to preaching again, and in nineteen seventy eight he

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returned to the pulpit and he traveled
some. In nineteen seventy eight, Montgomery

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Advertiser reported that Charles officiated about one
wedding or funeral a month at the East

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Tulassee Church of Christ, which is
over two hundred and forty miles away from

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Hatton and Colbert County, where Liz
and Charles lived. Like many who battle

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mental health issues, Charles wasn't fully
cured during his time off from preaching.

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It just doesn't work that way.
And several years later, around nineteen eighty

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three, Charles's psychologist wrote a letter
to a neurosurgeon. In that letter,

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the psychologists discussed Charles's irregular mood swings, how he could go from exhilarated to

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depressed and no time at all.
It's unclear what became of this letter.

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Perhaps Charles was looking for some sort
of surgery to help with his emotional balances.

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The court documents that mentioned the letter
didn't say meanwhile, Charles and Lizz's

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little boys were growing up. Until
Lizz's delight, they were starting to have

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children of their own, and Liz, more than almost anything else, loved

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being a grandmother. Chuck said his
parents were giddy when their first grandchild was

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born, especially Mamma. He added, when you hear grandmother, you probably

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picture a little old ladies with gray
hair. But in nineteen eighty eight,

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Charles and Liz were both forty five
years old. They had been young parents,

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and now they were young grandparents.
They lived on Coon Dogs Cemetery Road

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in Culbert County, near Tuscumbia,
Alabama. At this time, Charles was

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one of the pastors at the local
Church of Christ in Sheffield, Alabama,

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about ten minutes from small town Tuscumbia, a beautiful little city with less than

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ten thousand residents at the time.
On the morning of Friday, March eighteenth,

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Charles left his home at about seven
thirty in the morning to do some

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work at the church. He grabbed
some fast food before and visited some Sheffield

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area residence after. Then, around
eleven thirty am, he headed home,

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and by eleven forty four am,
Charles called the Colbert County Sheriff's Department and

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spoke to investigator Ronnie May. As
I mentioned earlier, a very upset Charles

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explained to Ronnie that he had arrived
home to find Liz dead. She was

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partially wrapped in an Afghan rug and
had been badly beaten and stabbed, and

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Charles said he believed the murder weapon
to be a fireplace implement. Shortly after

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his emergency responders came to help Liz. She was actually still alive, but

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barely breathing. They transported her to
the Helen Keller Memorial Hospital in Sheffield,

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but two hours later Liz passed away
during surgery. Later medical experts would determine

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that in addition to being brutally beaten, Liz had suffered ten stab wounds ate

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to her chest and one to either
side of her neck. She also had

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defensive wounds as well as slashes across
her head. Investigator Ronnie May later said

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she fought it, and she fought
hard. By several eyewitness accounts, Lizz's

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00:17:41.119 --> 00:17:45.799
body was badly mangled following this attack. I won't go into too much detail.

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00:17:45.240 --> 00:17:49.799
But in almost every appeals document I
read, one lawyer or another argued

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00:17:51.160 --> 00:17:55.119
that the photos of Lizz's body shouldn't
have been allowed in court. That's how

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00:17:55.160 --> 00:18:00.519
gruesome they were. Forty five year
old Elizabeth Dorlen Senate was buried in the

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00:18:00.559 --> 00:18:06.960
Dempsey Cemetery in Red Bay, Franklin
County, Alabama. She is buried in

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00:18:07.000 --> 00:18:11.680
the same cemetery as her parents,
Dosha and Howard Thorne. Lizza's mother had

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00:18:11.680 --> 00:18:17.200
passed away seven years earlier, in
nineteen eighty one. She'd only been fifty

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00:18:17.240 --> 00:18:21.200
nine years old. Howard outlived them, both, dying at the age of

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00:18:21.240 --> 00:18:26.160
eighty seven and two thousand and nine. In the wake of his mother's death,

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00:18:26.480 --> 00:18:30.079
Mike Senate told the Montgomery Advertiser that
he regretted she didn't have more time

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00:18:30.119 --> 00:18:37.440
to spoil her grandchildren right away,
the authorities suspected that Lizza's murder was the

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00:18:37.480 --> 00:18:41.240
result of a burglary gone wrong,
but as they inspected the crime scene more

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00:18:41.279 --> 00:18:48.240
closely, the detectives started to realize
things weren't adding up. Officer Buddy Aldridge

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00:18:48.240 --> 00:18:52.960
told the Birmingham Post Harold it just
looked strange from the very beginning. No

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00:18:53.079 --> 00:18:57.599
one had seen Lizza's killer. After
all, Liz and Charles lived in a

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00:18:57.680 --> 00:19:03.000
rural area. The nearest neighbor was
at work when the attack happened, so

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00:19:03.079 --> 00:19:07.880
all the detectives had was the crime
scene, and they meticulously cataloged it for

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00:19:07.960 --> 00:19:12.599
several days. That's how they determined
that the crime scene had been staged.

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00:19:15.920 --> 00:19:22.319
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off. As the authorities investigated the crime

265
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scene where list Senate was killed,
they realized that this couldn't have been a

266
00:22:52.440 --> 00:22:57.480
burglary gone wrong. Hardly anything was
missing from the senate house, just a

267
00:22:57.559 --> 00:23:03.279
stereo and a VCR. Numerous valuable
items were left behind, and hundreds of

268
00:23:03.319 --> 00:23:08.759
dollars and Lizz's purse remained untouched.
Plus, there was no sign of forced

269
00:23:08.880 --> 00:23:12.759
entry, which meant Liz might have
let the killer inside her house willingly,

270
00:23:14.440 --> 00:23:17.799
as if she knew them or was
at least comfortable enough to open the door

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00:23:17.920 --> 00:23:23.400
for them. Now, authorities were
even more suspicious. During their investigation,

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00:23:25.000 --> 00:23:30.440
One officer saw something odd floating in
the pond located about fifty yards from Charles

273
00:23:30.440 --> 00:23:36.480
and Lizz's house. It was a
broken piece of a walking cane. Another

274
00:23:36.519 --> 00:23:41.000
portion of that same cane was found
in the Senate's den near Lizz's body.

275
00:23:41.240 --> 00:23:45.119
Authorities quickly deduced that the cane had
been one of the many items used to

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00:23:45.160 --> 00:23:49.480
brutally beat Liz, so they drained
the pond to see if more weapons were

277
00:23:49.519 --> 00:23:56.559
there, and there were, According
to the Birmingham Post, Harold law enforcement

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00:23:56.599 --> 00:24:00.160
agents discovered more pieces of the walking
cane, a fire poker, and a

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00:24:00.200 --> 00:24:07.079
black handled hunting knife. Back inside
the sentence home, investigating officials also found

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00:24:07.160 --> 00:24:14.240
several hairstrands near Lizz's body. These
hair strands were discovered in two places,

281
00:24:14.880 --> 00:24:18.400
the rug that had been draped across
Lizz's body and a baseball capp the attacker

282
00:24:18.480 --> 00:24:25.160
had presumably left behind. Today,
hair strands are a great find at a

283
00:24:25.160 --> 00:24:29.720
crime scene. It's DNA evidence right
well, as long as you find one

284
00:24:29.720 --> 00:24:33.599
with a hair follicle. Even without
the follicle, it can be powerful circumstantial

285
00:24:33.640 --> 00:24:40.079
evidence. But back in nineteen eighty
eight, the technology to compare DNA and

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00:24:40.160 --> 00:24:45.279
forensic science had only just been invented. It wouldn't be mainstream until the nineties,

287
00:24:45.640 --> 00:24:48.720
and even then there would be a
long wait before databases like cotis what

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00:24:48.880 --> 00:24:55.759
help solve cases consistently. Still,
the labs could easily conclude that these hairs

289
00:24:55.759 --> 00:25:00.440
did not belong to Liz, and
they didn't belong to Charles either. There

290
00:25:00.440 --> 00:25:03.799
were also fibers found on the hunting
knife that appeared to match the rug on

291
00:25:03.880 --> 00:25:10.440
Lizz's body. Now, detectives were
at an impasse. They had the murder

292
00:25:10.480 --> 00:25:15.039
weapons, but no murderer, and
they had zero suspects, so they couldn't

293
00:25:15.039 --> 00:25:22.200
compare these mysterious hair strands to anyone
else's hair. Not to mention, Charles's

294
00:25:22.240 --> 00:25:26.400
tom was easily accounted for during the
time Liz was killed, so he couldn't

295
00:25:26.400 --> 00:25:30.319
have done it, and most of
the people Liz knew had strong alibis too.

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00:25:30.240 --> 00:25:37.119
Investigators were baffled. Who could have
killed Liz senate who would have wanted

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00:25:37.160 --> 00:25:41.319
to? She didn't have any enemies, She was an active member of the

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00:25:41.359 --> 00:25:47.319
community, a caring mother and grandmother, the pastor's wife, and whoever had

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00:25:47.400 --> 00:25:52.039
murdered Liz did it for almost nothing. They didn't even take the remote that

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00:25:52.119 --> 00:25:57.319
went with a VCR. The Alabama
Bureau of Investigation became involved in Liz's case

301
00:25:57.400 --> 00:26:03.279
early on, but still days passed
with no new leads. The people of

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00:26:03.319 --> 00:26:10.400
Sheffield, Tuscumbia, and other surrounding
Culbert County cities were terrified a killer was

303
00:26:10.440 --> 00:26:14.559
on the loose, and it probably
felt like if Liz's Senate could be killed,

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00:26:14.920 --> 00:26:18.200
then no one was safe. But
by a stroke of sheer luck,

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00:26:18.519 --> 00:26:23.799
the Culbert County Sheriff's Department received a
lead. A member of Charles's congregation contacted

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00:26:23.799 --> 00:26:30.160
the authorities. They had somehow come
across a Valentine's Day card that was addressed

307
00:26:30.200 --> 00:26:34.759
to Charles, but it wasn't from
Liz. It was from a different woman.

308
00:26:36.559 --> 00:26:40.160
This woman was a member of Charles's
church too, and was also a

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00:26:40.200 --> 00:26:45.400
close friend of the Senate family.
Immediately, the investigators brought the woman in

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00:26:45.440 --> 00:26:51.839
for questioning, and she confirmed what
the Valentine's Day card had implied. According

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00:26:51.880 --> 00:26:56.160
to author Tim Kent, who wrote
Murder from the Pulpit, the woman lawyered

312
00:26:56.240 --> 00:27:00.839
up, presumably after confirming the affair
and admitting that Charles had borrowed money from

313
00:27:00.839 --> 00:27:04.960
her. Detectives could also have gotten
a warrant for bank records, though,

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00:27:07.039 --> 00:27:10.400
But now they knew for sure that
Charles was cheating on Liz with this woman.

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00:27:11.440 --> 00:27:15.039
Detective Ronnie May could now view his
interactions with Charles on the day of

316
00:27:15.079 --> 00:27:21.319
Liz's murder in a different light.
He could see clearly how Charles had seemed

317
00:27:21.720 --> 00:27:26.400
especially shocked when they realized that Liz
still had a heartbeat. According to May,

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00:27:26.920 --> 00:27:33.160
Charles almost fell at the news.
In total, the authorities brought Charles

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00:27:33.160 --> 00:27:37.200
in for questioning three times. The
first two times he denied any involvement in

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00:27:37.240 --> 00:27:42.079
his wife's death, but according to
the authorities, Charles's story kept changing.

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00:27:42.640 --> 00:27:48.640
But that's pretty typical. It's hard
to remember specific details at specific times.

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00:27:48.519 --> 00:27:53.359
I'm not sure the deputies or sheriffs
really thought Charles was involved until this third

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00:27:53.480 --> 00:27:59.519
questioning, because this time when the
officers spoke to Charles, they weren't messing

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00:27:59.559 --> 00:28:03.759
around. They told Charles they knew
about his affair, and they knew that

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00:28:03.799 --> 00:28:07.359
he had borrowed three thousand dollars from
his girlfriend in the weeks leading up to

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00:28:07.440 --> 00:28:14.039
Liza's death. Charles agreed, yes
he had an affair, and yes he

327
00:28:14.079 --> 00:28:17.759
had borrowed that money, but he
wouldn't tell the officers what he had spent

328
00:28:17.839 --> 00:28:21.359
it on, and he denied that
he had been involved in Lizza's murder.

329
00:28:22.680 --> 00:28:26.319
But the detectives were not having it. By the end of it, they

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00:28:26.359 --> 00:28:30.200
told Charles that he was a suspect, and they arranged for him to undergo

331
00:28:30.200 --> 00:28:34.920
a polygraph test the following week.
Still, Charles was adamant that he didn't

332
00:28:34.920 --> 00:28:38.559
do it, He didn't kill his
wife. But as he stood up to

333
00:28:38.640 --> 00:28:44.880
leave, one of the interrogating officers
made one final comment. The officer said

334
00:28:44.920 --> 00:28:49.200
something along the lines of I wonder
if Charles knows Kenney Smith, and according

335
00:28:49.200 --> 00:28:56.160
to officer Ronnie May, Charles's face
turned beat red. Kenny Smith, who

336
00:28:56.240 --> 00:29:00.319
will get too momentarily, was known
as a bad actor in the Colbert Howny

337
00:29:00.359 --> 00:29:07.160
area, and Kenny wasn't above taking
money in exchange for murder. It was

338
00:29:07.240 --> 00:29:11.799
Friday, March twenty fifth, nineteen
eighty eight that Charles spoke with the authorities

339
00:29:11.839 --> 00:29:15.920
for the third and final time.
He didn't take the news well that he

340
00:29:15.000 --> 00:29:19.519
was now a suspect. Afterwards,
he got in his pickup truck and drove

341
00:29:19.559 --> 00:29:23.240
to a family member's house. There, his sons, Chuck and Mike,

342
00:29:23.480 --> 00:29:30.319
and their families were gathered. After
Charles arrived, he told his two sons

343
00:29:30.559 --> 00:29:33.480
that he had cheated on their mother
with this woman from the church. Right

344
00:29:33.519 --> 00:29:37.720
away, Chuck and Mike were met
with a whirlwind of feelings. Mike told

345
00:29:37.720 --> 00:29:44.000
American Monster, I'm mad. My
emotions were running You just lost your wife

346
00:29:44.279 --> 00:29:48.200
and now you're having an affair.
You're a preacher, man of the cloth.

347
00:29:48.640 --> 00:29:52.279
You're not supposed to be doing that. But Charles wasn't done yet.

348
00:29:52.680 --> 00:29:56.200
He had more to tell his two
sons. He told them that he was

349
00:29:56.240 --> 00:30:00.240
to blame for their mother's death,
and he walked out of the house.

350
00:30:00.960 --> 00:30:04.319
He climbed into the front seat of
his truck and picked up his twenty two

351
00:30:04.319 --> 00:30:11.039
caliber gun and shot himself in the
head. Chuck and Mike heard the blast,

352
00:30:11.680 --> 00:30:14.960
and then they watched as their father
closed his eyes for the very last

353
00:30:15.000 --> 00:30:22.680
time, only one week after they
lost their mother. Later, the authorities

354
00:30:22.680 --> 00:30:26.960
found a note in Charles's pocket.
While the contents of this note have not

355
00:30:26.079 --> 00:30:33.400
been released verbatim, Officer Buddy Aldridge
told reporters that the note indicated the following

356
00:30:33.000 --> 00:30:37.079
that Charles had never hurt his wife
and that he had gotten in with some

357
00:30:37.160 --> 00:30:41.359
bad guys and he did not want
to cause the family any more embarrassment.

358
00:30:42.799 --> 00:30:48.039
Just like after Liz's death, Officer
Ronnie May was one of the first people

359
00:30:48.079 --> 00:30:52.720
to arrive at the scene of Charles's
death, and also just like with Liz,

360
00:30:52.319 --> 00:30:56.319
Ronnie rode with Charles and the ambulance
on the way to the Helen Keller

361
00:30:56.400 --> 00:31:02.319
Memorial Hospital. Again, he was
hoping that Charles would say something that in

362
00:31:02.400 --> 00:31:06.039
Charles's final words, he might explain
when he meant when he said he was

363
00:31:06.119 --> 00:31:10.720
to blame for Liz's murder. But
he didn't say anything, and the doctors

364
00:31:10.720 --> 00:31:18.119
at the hospital declared Charles dead at
six forty pm. Liz Sennett's murder case

365
00:31:18.240 --> 00:31:22.519
was already high profile in this area
of Alabama. A pastor's wife being horribly

366
00:31:22.559 --> 00:31:27.519
bludgent and stabbed at death was scandalous
enough on its own, but after Charles's

367
00:31:27.519 --> 00:31:34.039
suicide, this case's publicity shot into
the stratosphere. There was a sense of

368
00:31:34.079 --> 00:31:40.279
disbelief, like this was all a
TV show, not real life, and

369
00:31:40.359 --> 00:31:45.839
the two hundred members of Charles's congregation
were devastated. They had known Charles,

370
00:31:45.279 --> 00:31:51.240
they had known Liz. How could
any of this have happened. Charles's associate

371
00:31:51.279 --> 00:31:56.039
pastor, Cherald Sockwell, told the
Alabama Journal that the whole situation has got

372
00:31:56.119 --> 00:32:00.759
us all torn up. But even
though it seemed like Charles's suicide meant that

373
00:32:00.759 --> 00:32:05.759
he was involved in Lizza's murder,
it still wasn't clear who had actually killed

374
00:32:05.799 --> 00:32:09.440
Liz. Charles couldn't have. He
was with other people at different locations,

375
00:32:10.160 --> 00:32:14.599
and of course, someone else's hair
strands were found at the crime scene.

376
00:32:15.079 --> 00:32:20.599
So, due in part to the
massive publicity this case was getting, Alabama

377
00:32:20.680 --> 00:32:25.920
Governor Guy Hunt advertised a ten thousand
dollars reward for any information about Lizza's murder.

378
00:32:27.440 --> 00:32:31.160
That's about twenty six thousand in today's
money. On March twenty ninth,

379
00:32:31.240 --> 00:32:37.480
nineteen eighty eight, an anonymous female
called the Colbert County Sheriff's Department. She

380
00:32:37.559 --> 00:32:40.720
asked about the reward, and Officer
Ronnie May directed her to make the call

381
00:32:40.839 --> 00:32:46.359
through crime stoppers to receive the money. So she did, and then the

382
00:32:46.440 --> 00:32:52.200
anonymous tipster told Ronnie May and other
relevant officers exactly who was responsible for Lizz's

383
00:32:52.200 --> 00:32:57.519
death. And it wasn't just one
person, it was three, none of

384
00:32:57.559 --> 00:33:02.200
whom were Charles Sennett, though his
hands aren't clean either. I'm going to

385
00:33:02.240 --> 00:33:14.240
pause now for a short commercial break. Now I'm going to tell you the

386
00:33:14.319 --> 00:33:17.240
series of events that led to the
heart wrenching murder of forty five year old

387
00:33:17.279 --> 00:33:22.400
Liz Senate. Most of this information
was gained from the anonymous tipster, but

388
00:33:22.519 --> 00:33:28.480
for clarity. I've supplemented the details
the tipster left out with court documents,

389
00:33:28.519 --> 00:33:35.240
the perpetrator's confessions, and newspaper articles
relating to this case. About a month

390
00:33:35.279 --> 00:33:39.240
before Liz's murder, sometime in February
of nineteen eighty eight, Charles Sennate was

391
00:33:39.240 --> 00:33:45.599
feeling trapped somehow. He had accrued
massive financial debt Andy was cheating on his

392
00:33:45.680 --> 00:33:51.039
wife. So, figuring he could
kill two birds with one stone, Charles

393
00:33:51.039 --> 00:33:54.359
took out a life insurance policy for
Liz, and then he orchestrated her murder.

394
00:33:55.799 --> 00:34:00.799
Author Tim Kent pointed out what he
thought was the main motive. As

395
00:34:00.799 --> 00:34:05.279
a preacher in the Church of Christ, Charles would believe marriage was sacred and

396
00:34:05.319 --> 00:34:09.039
he couldn't divorce Liz unless she had
committed adultery. The only other way out

397
00:34:09.159 --> 00:34:14.239
is for her to die. He
said, that may be true, but

398
00:34:14.320 --> 00:34:17.159
it seems to me that murder is
a much bigger sin than divorce. I

399
00:34:17.159 --> 00:34:22.320
would think Charles was motivated not only
by his feelings for his mistress, but

400
00:34:22.480 --> 00:34:25.639
also money. Those are the two
biggest reasons people kill in this world.

401
00:34:27.880 --> 00:34:31.880
As Charles schemed, he made sure
to do his research and at least once

402
00:34:31.960 --> 00:34:37.679
he followed the unsuspecting officer Ronnie May
around the gas station crime scene that we

403
00:34:37.760 --> 00:34:42.719
discussed at the top of the episode. Once Charles had a plan, he

404
00:34:42.760 --> 00:34:47.000
reached out to twenty one year old
Billy Gray Williams. Billy rented an apartment

405
00:34:47.039 --> 00:34:52.599
from Charles and Florence, Alabama.
For reference, Florence is less than ten

406
00:34:52.599 --> 00:34:59.519
miles away from where Charles and Liz
lived near Tuscumbia. Charles explained to Billie

407
00:34:59.599 --> 00:35:02.320
that he he needed to hire someone
to kill his wife. It's not clear

408
00:35:02.400 --> 00:35:07.800
why Charles entrusted Billy with that information, but he did. Maybe Billy was

409
00:35:07.840 --> 00:35:13.800
the only criminal type person Charles knew. Charles said he could get three thousand

410
00:35:13.840 --> 00:35:17.599
dollars to pay for the assassination.
That's less than eight thousand dollars in two

411
00:35:17.880 --> 00:35:22.920
twenty three money. From there,
Billy reached out to his close friend,

412
00:35:23.199 --> 00:35:29.519
twenty two year old Kenneth Eugene Smith, who went by Kenny. Billy and

413
00:35:29.639 --> 00:35:31.840
Kenny had known each other for a
long time. They had gone to high

414
00:35:31.880 --> 00:35:37.079
school together, so when Billy called
up Kenny and asked him to come to

415
00:35:37.119 --> 00:35:42.079
his apartment for a chat, Kenny
probably didn't think anything of it, but

416
00:35:42.199 --> 00:35:45.320
as they sat on Billy's front porch
in the late afternoon. Billy told Kenny

417
00:35:45.360 --> 00:35:49.679
about the murder for hire plot,
and then he asked Kenny if he would

418
00:35:49.719 --> 00:35:54.599
kill Charles's wife. Billy explained how
they could split Charles's money fifty fifty each

419
00:35:54.639 --> 00:36:00.119
getting fifteen hundred, which is about
thirty eight hundred and today's money. At

420
00:36:00.159 --> 00:36:04.719
first, Kenny wasn't sure. He
told Billy he would think about it.

421
00:36:05.280 --> 00:36:09.280
Kenny and Billy revisited the topic a
few more times as Kenny pondered. Two

422
00:36:09.320 --> 00:36:14.400
weeks before the murder was scheduled,
Kenny met Charles through a meeting that Billy

423
00:36:14.519 --> 00:36:17.559
arranged. Charles had never met Kinny
before, and the two men did not

424
00:36:17.639 --> 00:36:22.880
exchange names. Charles said that he
wanted somebody taken care of, and then

425
00:36:22.920 --> 00:36:27.960
he proceeded to pitch to Kenny why
he should murder his wife, though he

426
00:36:28.039 --> 00:36:32.679
didn't say wife yet. Charles just
reassured Kenny that the target would be at

427
00:36:32.679 --> 00:36:37.199
home alone during the time of the
murder. He also said there would be

428
00:36:37.199 --> 00:36:42.320
no visitors at the house because this
person never had any visitors, and he

429
00:36:42.480 --> 00:36:45.039
explained that the house was in a
rural area, so no one would be

430
00:36:45.079 --> 00:36:51.239
nearby. Kenny listened to Charles's proposal
and told him he would get back to

431
00:36:51.320 --> 00:36:54.800
him. He gave Charles his phone
number, which Charles used to call Kenny

432
00:36:54.920 --> 00:37:00.360
multiple times. He wanted to know
if Kenny had decided what he do it

433
00:37:00.559 --> 00:37:05.320
or not. About a week before
the murder was to occur in early March

434
00:37:05.320 --> 00:37:09.199
of nineteen eighty eight, Charles hurd
back Kenny would do it, and Kenny

435
00:37:09.280 --> 00:37:14.800
had also enlisted another young man and
the murder for higher plot. This was

436
00:37:14.920 --> 00:37:17.800
nineteen year old John Forrest Parker.
He had gone to school with Billy and

437
00:37:17.880 --> 00:37:23.159
Kenny. Also. They were all
three friends from Florence, Alabama, and

438
00:37:23.360 --> 00:37:28.400
as a brief sidebar, Kenny had
actually asked another friend of his to join

439
00:37:28.519 --> 00:37:32.719
him in murdering Liz before John,
but that friend said no. With John

440
00:37:32.719 --> 00:37:37.679
in the picture, he Billy,
and Kenny would now receive one thousand dollars

441
00:37:37.719 --> 00:37:43.840
each about twenty five hundred in today's
money. Neither Kenny nor John ever knew

442
00:37:43.920 --> 00:37:49.239
Charles or Lizz's names. On Tuesday, March fifteenth, Charles and Kenny met

443
00:37:49.280 --> 00:37:52.519
at a coffee house. There,
Charles drew a diagram of his and Lizza's

444
00:37:52.599 --> 00:37:59.679
home. He explained to Kenny that
the target was his wife. Originally,

445
00:38:00.039 --> 00:38:04.119
Lizza's murder was to happen the next
day, on Wednesday, March sixteenth.

446
00:38:04.199 --> 00:38:08.400
Charles was going to Birmingham for a
doctor's appointment, but Liz unexpectedly decided to

447
00:38:08.400 --> 00:38:13.599
go with him that Wednesday, so
Charles rescheduled the murder to that Friday,

448
00:38:13.840 --> 00:38:17.320
March eighteenth. Billy, Kenny,
and Charles met one more time before the

449
00:38:17.400 --> 00:38:22.079
murder. On that Thursday. They
met outside of Billy's apartment in Charles's silver

450
00:38:22.199 --> 00:38:28.800
car. John wasn't there. Earlier
that day, Charles had cashed to check

451
00:38:29.000 --> 00:38:32.480
for three thousand dollars. He had
borrowed the money from his girlfriend. She'd

452
00:38:32.480 --> 00:38:37.079
had no idea what it was for. Charles only told her he needed to

453
00:38:37.079 --> 00:38:42.440
pay some debts now. Charles gave
Kenny two hundred dollars. He told him

454
00:38:42.440 --> 00:38:45.639
that this was to front the cost
for any supplies needed to kill Liz,

455
00:38:45.320 --> 00:38:49.960
and Charles also showed Kenny that he
had the remaining cash in a hand.

456
00:38:51.480 --> 00:38:54.920
Charles also explained that he wanted Lizz's
death to appear like a burglary gone wrong.

457
00:38:55.480 --> 00:38:59.760
He told Kenny to still whatever he
wanted from his and Lizz's house.

458
00:39:00.679 --> 00:39:04.079
They all agreed that Kenny and John
would do the murder and Billy would hold

459
00:39:04.079 --> 00:39:07.440
the money. After they murdered Liz, they would go to Billy's apartment and

460
00:39:07.480 --> 00:39:13.400
he would give them their remaining shares
of the cash. Charles told Kinney that

461
00:39:13.440 --> 00:39:15.559
he would be out of the house
from eight am to noon the next day,

462
00:39:16.039 --> 00:39:20.840
so that's how long Kenny and Johnny
had to kill Liz. Later,

463
00:39:21.159 --> 00:39:24.440
Billy gave John one hundred dollars of
the two hundred that Charles had given to

464
00:39:24.519 --> 00:39:30.400
Kenny. John was supposed to use
that hundred dollars to buy a handgun to

465
00:39:30.480 --> 00:39:34.440
kill Liz, but John, who
was a self admitted drug addict, did

466
00:39:34.519 --> 00:39:38.199
not do that. Instead, he
bought drugs. At about nine thirty am

467
00:39:38.280 --> 00:39:44.159
on Friday, March eighteenth, Kenney
and John loaded themselves into John's gold nineteen

468
00:39:44.199 --> 00:39:47.920
seventy eight Pontiac Grand Prix. First, they drove to Muscle Shoals, Alabama,

469
00:39:49.280 --> 00:39:52.239
a city very close to Florence,
Tuscumbia and Sheffield, though I'm not

470
00:39:52.320 --> 00:39:58.760
sure why. Then they made their
way to Charles and Liz's house. Sometime

471
00:39:58.840 --> 00:40:02.519
during this drive, John shot up
three ccs of talwan, which is an

472
00:40:02.519 --> 00:40:07.559
opioid, so he was high.
It's a narcotic that's been discontinued because of

473
00:40:07.559 --> 00:40:12.840
the high risk of addiction. And
as John drove to the Senate House,

474
00:40:13.000 --> 00:40:16.320
Kenney sharpened a six inch hunting knife. John had brought the knife since he

475
00:40:16.360 --> 00:40:21.559
had used the money for the gun
on drugs. Once the two men arrived

476
00:40:21.559 --> 00:40:24.360
at Liz's house, they parked near
her patio then knocked on the door.

477
00:40:25.199 --> 00:40:30.760
When Liz answered, Kenny and John
explained that they wanted to explore her land

478
00:40:30.800 --> 00:40:35.000
for a potential hunting area. They
said that her husband, who they didn't

479
00:40:35.000 --> 00:40:39.599
know as Charles, had told them
they could do this. Liz was understandably

480
00:40:39.760 --> 00:40:45.079
a little weirded out. She asked
them for their names and then called Charles

481
00:40:45.119 --> 00:40:49.559
to make sure what they were saying
was true. Charles apparently confirmed Kenney and

482
00:40:49.639 --> 00:40:53.679
John's information. He told Liz to
let the two guys walk around their property.

483
00:40:54.440 --> 00:41:00.159
As Kenny and John walked around outside, she stayed inside. John would

484
00:41:00.199 --> 00:41:04.480
admit to the authorities that he didn't
know why he and Kenny didn't jump Liz

485
00:41:04.519 --> 00:41:08.599
when she first opened the door.
Perhaps they got cold feet. Regardless,

486
00:41:08.760 --> 00:41:13.559
after Kenny and John made a show
of exploring the property. They came back

487
00:41:13.559 --> 00:41:17.079
to the door. They knocked again
and Liz answered. This time, the

488
00:41:17.119 --> 00:41:20.920
men asked if they could use her
bathroom and get a drink of water.

489
00:41:21.719 --> 00:41:25.880
Liz agreed and let them into her
house. First Kenny used the bathroom,

490
00:41:27.280 --> 00:41:30.880
then John went. As John was
in the bathroom, Kenny made conversation with

491
00:41:30.960 --> 00:41:36.480
Liz. When John came out,
he had placed cotton socks on his hands,

492
00:41:37.000 --> 00:41:42.159
presumably to hide his fingerprints, but
maybe not. One court document stated

493
00:41:42.199 --> 00:41:46.199
that both Kenny and John were wearing
gloves due to the cool weather. This

494
00:41:46.239 --> 00:41:52.360
is when the two men attacked.
It's unclear who did exactly what. Kenny

495
00:41:52.360 --> 00:41:55.679
would later claim that he never laid
a hand on Liz, that it was

496
00:41:55.719 --> 00:42:01.559
only John who attacked her. Kenny
described John's actions as frenzied, but John

497
00:42:01.599 --> 00:42:07.079
said the opposite, that it was
Kinny who had actually killed Liz. It

498
00:42:07.119 --> 00:42:12.039
doesn't matter. What does matter is
that these two evil men beat Liz Senate

499
00:42:12.159 --> 00:42:15.599
so viciously that she was, according
to court documents, struggling for her life.

500
00:42:16.280 --> 00:42:20.760
Officials believed that any item within reach
of the two men was used against

501
00:42:20.880 --> 00:42:27.199
Liz, including a galvanized pipe,
a walking cane, multiple fireplace tools and

502
00:42:27.280 --> 00:42:30.920
a chair. All the while Liz
was begging them not to hurt her.

503
00:42:32.079 --> 00:42:37.360
And then one of them, We're
not sure who, stabbed Liz ten times.

504
00:42:38.119 --> 00:42:42.920
Then Kenny and John overturned the house. They grabbed the stereo and the

505
00:42:43.039 --> 00:42:46.719
VCR, and they broke the medicine
cabinet. A china hutch was also overturned.

506
00:42:47.599 --> 00:42:52.639
Afterward, John through the stereo in
a nearby river. Kenny took the

507
00:42:52.719 --> 00:42:58.719
VCR home. The men said at
the time that they left Liz was still

508
00:42:58.760 --> 00:43:02.480
alive. They could hear her gurgle
breathing as blood entered her lungs. Then

509
00:43:02.559 --> 00:43:06.760
John and Kenney went to Billy's apartment
where they got the rest of their money,

510
00:43:07.280 --> 00:43:13.000
and then they disposed of their bloody
clothing. I'm going to pause now

511
00:43:13.079 --> 00:43:23.280
for a final commercial break. The
authorities wanted to believe that this anonymous tipster

512
00:43:23.440 --> 00:43:29.119
was telling the truth. She knew
so many details it would be crazy if

513
00:43:29.119 --> 00:43:32.480
this was just some random person sending
them on a wild goose chase. For

514
00:43:32.559 --> 00:43:37.599
example, the tipster knew that on
the day of Lizze's murder, Billy used

515
00:43:37.639 --> 00:43:42.239
his share of the money to buy
a water bed from water World and the

516
00:43:42.280 --> 00:43:45.679
tipster knew all about the stolen VCR
now at Kenney's house, that it did

517
00:43:45.719 --> 00:43:50.679
not have a remote because that was
left behind at the sentence house, its

518
00:43:50.760 --> 00:43:54.920
make, its model, its serial
number, that Lizza's blood was still spattered

519
00:43:54.960 --> 00:44:00.159
on it. But the local authorities
of Colbert County still had to verify this

520
00:44:00.280 --> 00:44:07.280
information. So the stolen VCR became
very important. It tied Kenny to Liz's

521
00:44:07.320 --> 00:44:13.159
murder. Authorities hoped that once they
had Kenny in hand, he would fold,

522
00:44:13.639 --> 00:44:17.679
then Billy and John would come shortly
after. So the officers found the

523
00:44:17.719 --> 00:44:22.719
box that the VCR came in.
Mike's wife, Kim, had gifted the

524
00:44:22.800 --> 00:44:28.400
VCR to her in laws and presumably
knew where the box was. Now they

525
00:44:28.440 --> 00:44:32.519
could match the serial number of Lizza's
stolen VCR to the VCR allegedly sitting in

526
00:44:32.599 --> 00:44:37.719
Kenny's house, So at about three
pm on March thirty first, about two

527
00:44:37.760 --> 00:44:42.920
weeks following Lizza's murder, the police
obtained a search warrant for Kenny's home.

528
00:44:44.360 --> 00:44:49.559
Within ten minutes, they found the
VCR and confirmed the matching serial number and

529
00:44:49.639 --> 00:44:53.599
yes, Lizza's blood was still on
the VCR. On the same day that

530
00:44:53.639 --> 00:44:58.679
the officers rated Kenny's home. Kenny, Billy, and John were arrested.

531
00:44:59.400 --> 00:45:02.199
John and and he were charged with
capital murder, and Billy was charged with

532
00:45:02.239 --> 00:45:08.199
conspiracy to commit murder. The legality
of whether or not the authorities had enough

533
00:45:08.199 --> 00:45:13.079
grounds to arrest these men at the
time they did was questioned at length.

534
00:45:13.800 --> 00:45:19.719
Ultimately, Kenny confessed to everything immediately
and John did too. Based on those

535
00:45:19.719 --> 00:45:23.960
two confessions, the officers definitely had
the legal right to arrest Billy. But

536
00:45:24.079 --> 00:45:29.400
the timeline of when these young men
were all taken into police custody versus when

537
00:45:29.400 --> 00:45:36.599
they were arrested versus the confessions that
would allow them to be arrested is shaky,

538
00:45:36.639 --> 00:45:40.239
but ultimately the courts would let that
slide in the appills process. I

539
00:45:40.239 --> 00:45:45.199
imagine there was a fair amount of
grace given considering that these three men had

540
00:45:45.320 --> 00:45:50.239
killed an innocent woman in cold blood. Each of the three men were tried

541
00:45:50.320 --> 00:45:54.639
separately. First up was Billy Gray
Williams's trial. It happened in January of

542
00:45:54.719 --> 00:46:00.960
nineteen eighty nine. According to the
Birmingham Post Harold he was convicted of capital

543
00:46:00.039 --> 00:46:06.360
murder. Sometime throughout the legal proceedings, Billy must have been upgraded from his

544
00:46:06.400 --> 00:46:10.760
initial charge of conspiracy to commit murder. Almost no details about Billy's trial are

545
00:46:10.760 --> 00:46:15.960
available in the public record, but
we do know that a month later,

546
00:46:15.039 --> 00:46:20.039
in February of nineteen eighty nine,
Billy was sentenced to life in prison without

547
00:46:20.079 --> 00:46:24.639
parole. All of his appeals were
denied. On November twenty second of twenty

548
00:46:24.840 --> 00:46:30.159
twenty, Billy Gray Williams died in
prison. He was about fifty three years

549
00:46:30.199 --> 00:46:35.440
old and he had spent thirty one
years in prison. The next trial was

550
00:46:35.480 --> 00:46:39.280
that of John Forrest Parker. It
began on May thirtieth, nineteen eighty nine.

551
00:46:39.679 --> 00:46:45.360
According to court documents, both the
prosecution and defense agreed that John was

552
00:46:45.360 --> 00:46:50.239
guilty of assault and conspiracy to commit
assault, but the defense claimed that John

553
00:46:50.280 --> 00:46:55.000
had no intent to kill Liz,
just badly hurt her. John's defense attorneys

554
00:46:55.119 --> 00:47:00.880
went on to say that John actually
left Liz in ok health, as in

555
00:47:00.199 --> 00:47:05.280
she was beaten but not near death, and that it was Charles, not

556
00:47:05.480 --> 00:47:07.760
John, who returned to the home, pulled out his own knife, and

557
00:47:07.840 --> 00:47:13.519
stabbed Liz to death. That is, in my opinion, bullshit. Where

558
00:47:13.599 --> 00:47:16.480
was the second knife, then?
Where was Charles's bloody clothing? How did

559
00:47:16.519 --> 00:47:20.679
John know? He left her closer
to life than death. Did John take

560
00:47:20.719 --> 00:47:23.000
her vitals as he walked out the
door pull out of blood pressure cuff?

561
00:47:23.920 --> 00:47:29.119
I don't buy it, and neither
did the jury, especially because one witness

562
00:47:29.159 --> 00:47:34.079
testified that John had explicitly told him
he was going to kill somebody with Kenney

563
00:47:34.119 --> 00:47:38.039
Smith. John did not testify,
and after deliberating for about one hour,

564
00:47:38.480 --> 00:47:44.440
the jury found him guilty of capital
murder. They recommended that he'd be sentenced

565
00:47:44.440 --> 00:47:49.880
to life in prison without parole,
but the judge disagreed. He sentenced John

566
00:47:49.920 --> 00:47:53.679
to death, and after he exhausted
all of his appeals in the state and

567
00:47:53.760 --> 00:47:59.639
federal courts, forty two year old
John Parker was executed at six forty one

568
00:47:59.679 --> 00:48:05.679
pm on June tenth, twenty.
He died by lethal injection. His last

569
00:48:05.719 --> 00:48:09.079
mill was fried fish, french FROs
and iced tea. He had spent twenty

570
00:48:09.079 --> 00:48:14.800
one years in prison. In the
time leading up to John's death, Lizza's

571
00:48:14.800 --> 00:48:19.719
son Mike told the Montgomery Advertiser his
family has had twenty years to say goodbye,

572
00:48:19.800 --> 00:48:22.239
and I never had that. All
I wanted was an apology, and

573
00:48:22.280 --> 00:48:25.639
he's had twenty years to give me
one, and he still hasn't given me

574
00:48:25.679 --> 00:48:30.960
one to this day. Moments before
John's execution, he was asked if he

575
00:48:31.039 --> 00:48:37.400
had any last words. At this
he turned to Lizza's sons, Chuck and

576
00:48:37.440 --> 00:48:40.239
Mike, who were both present,
and said, I'm sorry. I don't

577
00:48:40.239 --> 00:48:45.679
ever expect you to forgive me.
I really am sorry. Then he told

578
00:48:45.679 --> 00:48:50.440
his friends that he appreciated everything and
he loved them, and then he died.

579
00:48:51.760 --> 00:48:54.800
The last trial was for Kenneth Eugene
Smith. It took place in October

580
00:48:54.880 --> 00:48:59.639
nineteen eighty nine. This was the
only trial of the three men that was

581
00:48:59.639 --> 00:49:05.320
grand a change of venue. By
this point, Liz's case was incredibly well

582
00:49:05.320 --> 00:49:08.679
known, so they moved Kenny's trial
from Colbert County, Alabama, to Jackson

583
00:49:08.679 --> 00:49:15.039
County, and the judge also placed
a gag order. Kenney's defense was based

584
00:49:15.079 --> 00:49:21.159
wholly on blaming John. John was
the one who killed Liz, not Kenny.

585
00:49:21.360 --> 00:49:24.960
Kenny claimed that he never touched her, and his lawyers also argued that

586
00:49:25.079 --> 00:49:29.440
he too, never thought he was
supposed to kill Liz, just to beat

587
00:49:29.480 --> 00:49:32.639
her up, but this, of
course was not true. It was a

588
00:49:32.679 --> 00:49:38.280
desperate man facing the consequences of his
own actions. The jury deliberated for twenty

589
00:49:38.280 --> 00:49:44.159
minutes before convicting Kenny of capital murder, and then they recommended that he'd be

590
00:49:44.239 --> 00:49:47.559
sentenced to death. Kenny, like
John, and Billy, uppealed his case

591
00:49:47.599 --> 00:49:52.559
at length, but Kenny, unliked
John and Billy, was the only one

592
00:49:52.599 --> 00:49:57.519
to be granted a new trial.
It was on a technicality the trial court

593
00:49:57.599 --> 00:50:04.280
judge did not enter a detailed explanation
about the aggravating and mitigating circumstances required to

594
00:50:04.320 --> 00:50:08.639
sentence someone to death. Kinny's second
trial took place in nineteen ninety six.

595
00:50:09.159 --> 00:50:15.239
He was reconvicted. This time,
the jury recommended a sentence of life in

596
00:50:15.280 --> 00:50:22.119
prison without parole, but the judge
disagreed and sentenced Kenny to death. Today,

597
00:50:22.320 --> 00:50:25.360
Kenny is in the home in prison
and at Moore, Alabama. He

598
00:50:25.440 --> 00:50:30.920
is about fifty seven years old.
He was originally scheduled to be executed at

599
00:50:30.000 --> 00:50:36.760
six pm on November seventeen, twenty
twenty two, but Kinney was able to

600
00:50:36.800 --> 00:50:40.480
pull some last minute legal shenanigans.
Long story short, the U. S.

601
00:50:40.480 --> 00:50:44.960
Supreme Court was forced to review Kenny's
case on the literal day of his

602
00:50:45.079 --> 00:50:50.079
execution. The medical staff in charge
of his execution was given the go ahead

603
00:50:50.159 --> 00:50:54.000
at about ten twenty two PM,
but the warrant for Kinny's death penalty expired

604
00:50:54.079 --> 00:50:59.519
at midnight. They had ninety minutes
to do a process that was originally given

605
00:50:59.559 --> 00:51:04.800
six hours. When the medical team
struggled to place Kenny's second IV line,

606
00:51:05.159 --> 00:51:09.440
they called off the execution at eleven
twenty PM. At that point, there

607
00:51:09.480 --> 00:51:14.280
wouldn't have been enough time for the
lethal injection to kill Kenny before the warrant

608
00:51:14.360 --> 00:51:17.920
ran out. This was a very
big deal in Alabama, and that's because

609
00:51:17.920 --> 00:51:23.719
it happened in the wake of criticism
over Alabama's lethal injection process. In July

610
00:51:23.840 --> 00:51:30.960
of twenty twenty two, convicted murderer
Joe Nathan James Junior was executed following a

611
00:51:30.000 --> 00:51:35.280
three hour long delay after they struggled
to successfully set up his IV line.

612
00:51:36.280 --> 00:51:40.920
In September of twenty twenty two,
the execution of convicted murderer Alan Eugene Miller

613
00:51:42.000 --> 00:51:46.960
failed after the execution team couldn't find
a suitable vein. There were and are

614
00:51:47.159 --> 00:51:53.679
rampant allegations that Alabama's lethal injection process
is at best flawed and at worst in

615
00:51:53.760 --> 00:52:00.360
humane. After Kenny's failed execution in
November of twenty twenty two, Alabama paused

616
00:52:00.400 --> 00:52:07.760
all executions they were internally reviewing their
procedures. They resumed in the summer of

617
00:52:07.760 --> 00:52:13.800
twenty twenty three. Kinney was able
to use this bungled execution as an opportunity

618
00:52:14.280 --> 00:52:17.639
to lobby for his right to die
by a new method in Alabama. It's

619
00:52:17.679 --> 00:52:23.280
called nitrogen hypoxia. Basically, an
inmate is forced to breathe in nitrogen until

620
00:52:23.280 --> 00:52:29.679
they die from the lack of oxygen. Meanwhile, his lawyers are also trying

621
00:52:29.719 --> 00:52:34.519
to stop the second execution attempt.
They wrote in a court filing to subject

622
00:52:34.519 --> 00:52:38.639
mister Smith to a second execution by
lethal injection would subject him to the tortuous

623
00:52:38.719 --> 00:52:45.280
experience of unnecessary physical and psychological pain, as has been established through Alabama's last

624
00:52:45.320 --> 00:52:51.719
three execution attempts. I know these
lawyers are doing their job, and I

625
00:52:51.800 --> 00:52:54.280
know Kenney just wants another day on
this earth. But it's hard not to

626
00:52:54.320 --> 00:53:01.079
compare words like torturous experience and unnecessary
physical and psychology logical pain without thinking of

627
00:53:01.079 --> 00:53:06.840
what Liz must have gone through.
When I first read about this case,

628
00:53:07.159 --> 00:53:12.559
I thought it was incredibly sad,
but basically another spousal murder for higher case.

629
00:53:13.639 --> 00:53:17.000
But the devil is truly in the
details here. How could a preacher,

630
00:53:17.400 --> 00:53:22.840
a loving father and husband do this? How could three men agree to

631
00:53:22.920 --> 00:53:28.320
murder Liz Senate for just a thousand
dollars each. That's still only about twenty

632
00:53:28.320 --> 00:53:32.119
five hundred dollars today. I suppose
the answer to the killers is drugs.

633
00:53:32.840 --> 00:53:37.079
That's why they would kill Liz for
so little money. Addiction is a terrible

634
00:53:37.159 --> 00:53:44.079
disease, but murder is an unspeakable
choice. But Charles is even harder to

635
00:53:44.159 --> 00:53:47.960
understand. From all sources, he
was a devoted preacher and family man.

636
00:53:49.519 --> 00:53:52.960
There had never been one hint that
he was capable of something like this.

637
00:53:52.760 --> 00:54:00.079
An affair was inconceivable to his sons, but to orchestrate their mother's murder a

638
00:54:00.159 --> 00:54:05.199
suicide was sadly not as shocking.
Charles had long suffered with mental health issues,

639
00:54:05.320 --> 00:54:07.360
and I suppose the guilt of what
he had done was too much for

640
00:54:07.440 --> 00:54:13.199
him to live with. Liz Sennate
was only forty five years old when she

641
00:54:13.280 --> 00:54:16.360
was viciously murdered. She had so
much of her life ahead of her.

642
00:54:17.039 --> 00:54:22.039
She had grand babies to cherish,
sons to watch grow older. Her hopes

643
00:54:22.039 --> 00:54:28.599
and dreams were smashed to pieces.
Her sons were devastated, and the moment

644
00:54:28.639 --> 00:54:31.880
they had to process what their father
had done, he killed himself basically in

645
00:54:31.920 --> 00:54:37.800
front of them. I cannot even
imagine the sort of pain and grief they

646
00:54:37.840 --> 00:54:43.559
have had thirty five years to live
with this horror. Perhaps Kenny's execution will

647
00:54:43.559 --> 00:54:49.960
give them closure. Perhaps not.
Many people believe that there is no such

648
00:54:49.960 --> 00:54:54.639
thing as closure, and with a
crime this monstrous, I'm inclined to agree.

649
00:55:00.159 --> 00:55:05.840
Southern Fried Truecrime is hosted and produced
by me Erica Kelly. Today's episode

650
00:55:05.880 --> 00:55:09.440
was researched and written by Andrea Marshbank, with additional research and writing by myself,

651
00:55:09.480 --> 00:55:14.719
and of course, all editorial opinions
are my own. Southern Fried's original

652
00:55:14.760 --> 00:55:17.079
music is by Rob Harrison of Gamma
Radio, and the original graphic art is

653
00:55:17.079 --> 00:55:22.599
by Coley Horner. Today's episode was
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654
00:55:22.639 --> 00:55:27.440
Southern Gothic and Erica Kelly. If
you have any case suggestions, please go

655
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662
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663
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664
00:56:07.960 --> 00:56:09.119
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669
00:56:25.519 --> 00:56:29.159
thanks so much for listening, y'all. Take care