216: The Wellnitz Family Murders

WEBVTT

1
00:00:09.880 --> 00:00:14.199
Southern Fried true crime covers cases that
are not suitable for young listeners, and

2
00:00:14.240 --> 00:00:22.719
there may also be some explicit language
used. Listener discretion is a vised In

3
00:00:22.760 --> 00:00:27.960
the early nineteen eighties, Dana King
was a little girl who liked horses in

4
00:00:28.039 --> 00:00:34.840
the small town of Columbia, Kentucky. When a new family, the Wellnitzes,

5
00:00:35.280 --> 00:00:41.880
moved nearby, Dana was intrigued.
She was overjoyed when she learned that

6
00:00:41.920 --> 00:00:47.799
the father of the family, Joe
Wellnitz was a veterinarian and that he and

7
00:00:47.880 --> 00:00:53.240
his wife, Beth were going to
open their own vet clinic. Dana later

8
00:00:53.320 --> 00:00:56.960
said they were kind, they were
loving, and they were fun to be

9
00:00:57.039 --> 00:01:03.280
around. She also remembered how Beth
let her help wash their pony. Beth

10
00:01:03.359 --> 00:01:08.040
had always been so kind to her. Over the years, Dana ended up

11
00:01:08.040 --> 00:01:12.680
doing a lot of odd jobs for
the Wellnuts family and their vet practice,

12
00:01:14.040 --> 00:01:19.359
and when she grew up, Dana
married a veterinarian. Many years later,

13
00:01:19.920 --> 00:01:25.560
she and her husband would come to
own what was once the Wellnutz family's veterinary

14
00:01:25.640 --> 00:01:33.120
practice. Joe and Beth Wellness were
long since gone. The well Nuts story

15
00:01:33.599 --> 00:01:42.400
had ended in tragedy. Welcome to
Episode two sixteen, the Wellnutz family murderers.

16
00:01:51.359 --> 00:01:56.400
Beth Wellnitz was born Elizabeth N.
Preston on May first, nineteen fifty

17
00:01:56.400 --> 00:02:00.760
two, to Leonard and Mary Preston
in Lexington, Cantucky. She had two

18
00:02:00.840 --> 00:02:07.599
brothers. Beth's parents met at the
University of Kentucky. Her mother was studying

19
00:02:07.640 --> 00:02:12.360
to be an English teacher and her
father was a college football player. By

20
00:02:12.439 --> 00:02:16.000
nineteen forty three, Mary and Leonard
were married. For the rest of their

21
00:02:16.039 --> 00:02:23.199
lives. Beth's parents would be avid
University Kentucky sports fans. During the Korean

22
00:02:23.280 --> 00:02:28.400
War, Beth's father served in the
Army. While her father was in the

23
00:02:28.400 --> 00:02:32.159
military, the Preston family moved all
over the world. They lived in Japan,

24
00:02:32.639 --> 00:02:38.680
Germany, Philadelphia, Fort Knox,
and Louisville. Then, around nineteen

25
00:02:38.759 --> 00:02:45.199
sixty six, Leonard was seriously injured
in the line of duty. At the

26
00:02:45.240 --> 00:02:50.639
time, he was stationed in North
Korea. Following that, Leonard retired from

27
00:02:50.719 --> 00:02:54.240
the military, and when Beth was
around six years old, the Preston family

28
00:02:54.280 --> 00:02:59.759
settled down in Lexington, Kentucky.
Beth's mother, Mary, taught her to

29
00:03:00.319 --> 00:03:06.039
about the importance of academic excellence,
tolerance, and compassion. She was a

30
00:03:06.080 --> 00:03:10.080
teacher and a great role model.
Pleus. Mary was an active volunteer.

31
00:03:10.800 --> 00:03:16.360
She participated in local politics, co
founded housing organizations, and helped out with

32
00:03:16.479 --> 00:03:23.560
mills on wills. Meanwhile, Beth's
father, Leonard, taught the kids the

33
00:03:23.599 --> 00:03:29.919
importance of teamwork and determination. Leonard's
military career also played a big part in

34
00:03:29.960 --> 00:03:34.840
his children's lives. One of Beth's
brothers, Lee, followed in his dad's

35
00:03:34.879 --> 00:03:40.039
footsteps and joined the army. Lee
even attended the prestigious West Point Military Academy

36
00:03:40.039 --> 00:03:46.479
in New York. Tragically, in
March of nineteen sixty nine, twenty four

37
00:03:46.560 --> 00:03:52.080
year old Lee was killed in action
in the Vietnam War. Lee's name is

38
00:03:52.120 --> 00:03:58.240
engraved in the Vietnam Veterans War Memorial
in Washington, d c. Beth lost

39
00:03:58.280 --> 00:04:02.960
her other brother, William Power Preston, in nineteen eighty five. As an

40
00:04:03.000 --> 00:04:09.120
adult, Beth was known for her
kind heart, energetic nature, and selfless

41
00:04:09.159 --> 00:04:14.240
generosity. She always said that if
she ever won the lottery, she'd use

42
00:04:14.240 --> 00:04:17.160
her winnings to help those in need. She would start a home for terminally

43
00:04:17.199 --> 00:04:21.720
ill children. She'd use the money
to assist the elderly. She'd buy her

44
00:04:21.759 --> 00:04:27.639
friends and family homes and Cars,
a woman who worked with Beth for many

45
00:04:27.720 --> 00:04:32.560
years, Cindy Yates told the Lexington
Herald Leader her philosophy was, if you've

46
00:04:32.600 --> 00:04:38.759
got it, share it. In
June of nineteen seventy, eighteen year old

47
00:04:38.759 --> 00:04:44.680
Beth experienced two major milestones. First, she graduated from Henry Clay High School,

48
00:04:45.120 --> 00:04:47.480
and on the twenty seventh of that
same month, Beth got married.

49
00:04:48.759 --> 00:04:54.160
His name was Sam Mullinix. He
worked at IBM and took classes at the

50
00:04:54.279 --> 00:04:59.720
University of Kentucky. That fall,
Beth also began her bachelor's degree at UK.

51
00:05:00.120 --> 00:05:03.600
Beth had two children from this marriage. Her son, Dennis, was

52
00:05:03.600 --> 00:05:09.759
born in April nineteen seventy two.
Then two years later came Margaret and Mullinichs.

53
00:05:10.199 --> 00:05:14.040
She was born on March tenth,
nineteen seventy four, in Good Samaritan,

54
00:05:14.120 --> 00:05:20.040
Kentucky. Margaret would always go by
Meg, but unfortunately Beth and Sam's

55
00:05:20.079 --> 00:05:26.279
relationship didn't work. They divorced in
the late seventies. Then Beth made her

56
00:05:26.360 --> 00:05:30.360
way to Lexington, Kentucky. That's
where she met a man named Joe.

57
00:05:30.800 --> 00:05:35.800
Joseph Verle Wellness was born in October
of nineteen forty two to parents Vile and

58
00:05:35.879 --> 00:05:42.160
Dorothy. Joe grew up near Louisville, Kentucky, in the rural areas of

59
00:05:42.240 --> 00:05:46.399
Jefferson County. He had a brother
and a sister. Even as a child,

60
00:05:46.759 --> 00:05:51.000
Joe had a passion for helping animals. It was natural that he grew

61
00:05:51.120 --> 00:05:57.360
up to be a veterinarian. Joe
graduated from Wagner High School in the nineteen

62
00:05:57.399 --> 00:06:03.040
fifties. Then he attended Ohio's University
of Cincinnati. In nineteen sixty five,

63
00:06:03.439 --> 00:06:09.199
Joe moved to Alabama to earn his
doctor a veterinarian medicine from Auburn University.

64
00:06:10.160 --> 00:06:14.920
After that, he moved back home
to Kentucky. Joe also served in the

65
00:06:14.920 --> 00:06:18.600
Air Force during the Vietnam War.
While enlisted, he helped care for the

66
00:06:18.720 --> 00:06:24.759
U. S. Sentry dogs and
assisted Vietnamese farmers. Once, he flew

67
00:06:24.800 --> 00:06:29.519
into an area where enemy soldiers were
nearby to treat some sick farm animals.

68
00:06:29.800 --> 00:06:34.560
For his bravery, Joe was awarded
the Bronze Star. On December thirtieth,

69
00:06:34.639 --> 00:06:39.920
nineteen seventy one, twenty nine year
old Joe married his first wife, Elizabeth

70
00:06:39.959 --> 00:06:45.639
Weddington. Joe and his new wife
began their lives in Versailles, Kentucky.

71
00:06:46.680 --> 00:06:50.319
For about six years, he worked
at a local veterinarian clinic, but ultimately

72
00:06:50.480 --> 00:06:55.879
Joe and Elizabeth's marriage did not work
out and they divorced in the early seventies.

73
00:06:56.959 --> 00:07:00.439
In January of nineteen seventy six,
thirty three year old Joe married a

74
00:07:00.439 --> 00:07:05.000
woman named Sarah Houston. Sarah had
a son from her previous marriage named Eric.

75
00:07:05.879 --> 00:07:11.480
Joe adopted Eric at a very young
age, but by December of nineteen

76
00:07:11.519 --> 00:07:15.959
seventy eight, this marriage had also
failed and Joe and Sarah divorced. Over

77
00:07:16.040 --> 00:07:24.839
time, Joe's relationship with his adopted
son Eric became estranged. After his divorce,

78
00:07:25.240 --> 00:07:29.399
Joe moved to Lexington, Kentucky,
where he worked as a veterinarian for

79
00:07:29.439 --> 00:07:33.800
the Southland del Tour Clinic. This
was when Joe Wellnut's crossed paths with a

80
00:07:33.839 --> 00:07:41.000
young, blonde, single mother and
English teacher named Beth Molinix. They fell

81
00:07:41.040 --> 00:07:45.240
in love, and on June twenty
second, nineteen seventy nine, thirty six

82
00:07:45.360 --> 00:07:49.560
year old Joe married twenty seven year
old Beth in Fayette, Kentucky. They

83
00:07:49.600 --> 00:07:55.639
spent their honeymoon camping at Dale Hollow
Lake. For the rest of their years

84
00:07:55.639 --> 00:08:00.839
together, Joe and Beth would recreate
the same honeymoon camping trip every year on

85
00:08:00.879 --> 00:08:05.199
their anniversary. When Joe and Beth
were married, Beth's son, Dennis was

86
00:08:05.240 --> 00:08:11.079
seven years old, her daughter Meg
was five. Both children came to love

87
00:08:11.120 --> 00:08:15.720
and respect Joe as their father,
and in the nineteen eighties, both Dennis

88
00:08:15.720 --> 00:08:20.319
and Meg officially changed their last names
to Wellnets. Dennis even took Joe's middle

89
00:08:20.399 --> 00:08:26.480
name, Le as his middle name. Joe and Beth's relationship seemed meant to

90
00:08:26.519 --> 00:08:31.759
be. They were madly in love. Even after years of marriage, they

91
00:08:31.799 --> 00:08:37.399
acted like dough I teenagers. Their
reverend, Jim Chaffin, was blown away

92
00:08:37.480 --> 00:08:43.639
by their continuous passion for each other. He told a newspaper, I've never

93
00:08:43.720 --> 00:08:50.120
met a couple their age who were
so devoted. I'm going to pause now

94
00:08:50.159 --> 00:08:58.360
for a short commercial break. In
January of nineteen eighty one, the Wellnuts

95
00:08:58.360 --> 00:09:05.039
family moved. They went one hundred
miles south from Lexington to Columbia, Kentucky,

96
00:09:05.720 --> 00:09:11.360
which probably felt like a big change
for the family. Lexington is a

97
00:09:11.440 --> 00:09:16.799
large, bustling city with a population
of more than three hundred thousand. Colombia,

98
00:09:16.840 --> 00:09:20.080
on the other hand, was a
small rural town back in the eighties

99
00:09:20.120 --> 00:09:26.519
and nineties, Columbia was populated by
fewer than four thousand people, but that

100
00:09:26.679 --> 00:09:31.200
was exactly why Joe and Beth wanted
to move there. Their lifelong goal was

101
00:09:31.240 --> 00:09:37.120
to open their own veterinary clinic in
a carrying, close knit community. They

102
00:09:37.120 --> 00:09:41.879
would work together, with Beth running
the office. So they bought a farmhouse

103
00:09:41.960 --> 00:09:46.840
with a big barn in Columbia.
They renovated the barn, creating their clinic.

104
00:09:48.000 --> 00:09:52.759
As Joe would later say when speaking
to the Adair Progress newspaper, we

105
00:09:52.879 --> 00:09:58.440
feel our dream has come true.
Over the next twelve years, doctor Joe,

106
00:09:58.639 --> 00:10:03.000
his clinic, and his face family
became pillars of the Columbia community.

107
00:10:03.000 --> 00:10:09.279
Beth became the historian for the Kentucky
Veterinary Medical Association. Joe joined the Adair

108
00:10:09.320 --> 00:10:16.440
County Health Board. Their eldest Dennis, was considered a reliable, smart and

109
00:10:16.519 --> 00:10:22.080
hard worker, and Meg was very
involved at Adare County High School. She

110
00:10:22.240 --> 00:10:28.360
tutored other students, and she participated
in art and library clubs. The Wellnuts

111
00:10:28.360 --> 00:10:33.279
family were also members of the local
Presbyterian Church. They were extremely well liked.

112
00:10:33.759 --> 00:10:39.000
Joyce Malden, who lived with her
husband in a cabin on the Wellness's

113
00:10:39.080 --> 00:10:43.600
property told the Herald Leader, they're
the type of people everybody loved. They'd

114
00:10:43.639 --> 00:10:50.039
do anything for you. Joe,
who was lovingly referred to as Doc,

115
00:10:50.600 --> 00:10:56.000
was considered a caring veterinarian with a
big heart. He would frequently treat people's

116
00:10:56.039 --> 00:11:00.840
pets for free. When he had
to put an animal down, he grieved

117
00:11:01.039 --> 00:11:05.799
alongside its owner, and when a
wayward dog didn't have a home to go

118
00:11:05.879 --> 00:11:09.759
to, it wasn't unusual for Joe
to bring it over to the house with

119
00:11:09.840 --> 00:11:15.600
him. In October of ninety two, someone brought in a dog with two

120
00:11:15.639 --> 00:11:20.480
broken legs. Joe treated the poor
fella without payment, Then when no one

121
00:11:20.519 --> 00:11:26.399
could adopt the dog, Joe took
him home. The dog's name was Tequila,

122
00:11:26.960 --> 00:11:30.840
and Tequila stayed with the Wellnesses for
many months until he was well enough

123
00:11:30.840 --> 00:11:35.559
to move on. On a different
occasion, Joe took in a Border Collie

124
00:11:35.559 --> 00:11:39.799
that couldn't walk. That poor pup, whose name was Boose, had severe

125
00:11:39.840 --> 00:11:43.919
back issues. A specialist confirmed that
there was no way the dog was going

126
00:11:43.960 --> 00:11:48.320
to stand again, but Joe wasn't
dismayed. He put a diaper on Boose

127
00:11:48.440 --> 00:11:54.120
and let the dog live on his
property. Roger Smith a dentist and Joe's

128
00:11:54.120 --> 00:12:00.720
neighbor, told the local newspaper Joe
treated animals as a physician treated people.

129
00:12:01.240 --> 00:12:05.639
He couldn't stand to see them suffer. Joe's employees at the vet clinic also

130
00:12:05.679 --> 00:12:11.360
spoke highly of his dedication to animals. One employee, Dan Lawhorn, tease

131
00:12:11.480 --> 00:12:16.120
Joe that he could stand to be
a little meaner. He said, I

132
00:12:16.200 --> 00:12:18.480
told him one time, I thought
he was about too good to the animals

133
00:12:18.600 --> 00:12:24.200
and the people. At the beginning
of nineteen ninety three, the Wellnuts vet

134
00:12:24.240 --> 00:12:30.440
practice was thriving. Joe and Beth
were, by all accounts, very happily

135
00:12:30.480 --> 00:12:35.320
married. Twenty year old Dennis was
a student at Somerset Community College. He

136
00:12:35.399 --> 00:12:41.480
also worked at the movie warehouse in
Columbia, and eighteen year old mag had

137
00:12:41.559 --> 00:12:48.720
just started at Lexington Community College.
Everything really seemed picture perfect for the Wellnuts

138
00:12:48.799 --> 00:12:52.759
family, which is probably why the
morning of Friday, February twenty sixth,

139
00:12:54.039 --> 00:13:00.399
nineteen ninety three, came as such
a shock to quite literally everyone. At

140
00:13:00.399 --> 00:13:05.200
about eight o'clock that morning, two
employees arrived at the Wellnuts clinic. They

141
00:13:05.200 --> 00:13:09.799
both thought it was strange that Joe
and Beth hadn't come in yet, after

142
00:13:09.879 --> 00:13:13.759
all, their house was the stone's
throw away. It wasn't like they could

143
00:13:13.759 --> 00:13:18.799
be stuck in traffic. One of
the employees, Dan Lawhorn, noticed a

144
00:13:18.840 --> 00:13:24.240
bullet sized hole in the side door
of the building. Dan knew Joe would

145
00:13:24.240 --> 00:13:26.519
want to know about the damage,
so he walked over to Joe and Beth's

146
00:13:26.519 --> 00:13:31.000
house. The doors to the home
were unlocked, but that wasn't really strange.

147
00:13:31.639 --> 00:13:35.840
After all, this was small town
Kentucky. Nobody locked their doors,

148
00:13:37.960 --> 00:13:41.799
so Dan walked inside the Walnuts home
to search for Joe. He found fifty

149
00:13:41.840 --> 00:13:48.320
year old Joe Wellnets downstairs. He
was wearing a T shirt and sweatpants and

150
00:13:48.440 --> 00:13:52.399
lying face down in a pool of
his own blood. A second employee had

151
00:13:52.440 --> 00:13:58.600
accompanied Dan to the Wellnuts home.
When Dan had gone downstairs, she walked

152
00:13:58.679 --> 00:14:03.960
upstairs. That's where she found forty
year old Beth Wellness dead in the main

153
00:14:03.000 --> 00:14:09.679
bedroom, and then she found twenty
year old Dennis dead in his bedroom.

154
00:14:09.080 --> 00:14:16.840
The stunned employees called nine one one
and waited for first responders. Captain Jeff

155
00:14:16.879 --> 00:14:20.679
Hancock of the Kentucky State Police arrived
at the scene. He had known Joe

156
00:14:20.679 --> 00:14:26.960
and Beth pretty well. In later
interviews with oxygen. Captain Hancock said,

157
00:14:28.440 --> 00:14:31.159
I'll never forget walking in the house
that morning and seeing what I saw.

158
00:14:31.799 --> 00:14:35.480
It was just total shock. I
knew what kind of people they were.

159
00:14:35.960 --> 00:14:39.799
I knew how kind they were,
and how compassionate they were with the work

160
00:14:39.840 --> 00:14:46.440
they did. I couldn't believe it. All three members of the Wellnuts family

161
00:14:46.480 --> 00:14:50.720
were dressed for bed, and all
three had suffered multiple gunshot wounds to their

162
00:14:50.759 --> 00:14:58.039
heads and torsos. The only remaining
wellness was Meg. On the night her

163
00:14:58.039 --> 00:15:03.000
family was massacred, he was out
of the house one hundred miles away in

164
00:15:03.120 --> 00:15:09.559
Lexington, where she attended community college. That specific Friday night, she had

165
00:15:09.559 --> 00:15:13.279
been playing cards with her boyfriend Randy
and another couple, Bill and Regina Meese.

166
00:15:16.080 --> 00:15:20.279
Captain Hancock's heart broke for mag Her
entire family had been annihilated in the

167
00:15:20.320 --> 00:15:24.559
blink of an eye. He said. When Meg was told that her mom

168
00:15:24.600 --> 00:15:28.480
and dad and brother were murdered,
I felt really sorry for her. I

169
00:15:28.559 --> 00:15:33.279
thought, how is she going to
go on? How does she recover from

170
00:15:33.320 --> 00:15:39.240
this? The funeral service for Joe, Beth and Dennis Wellnets was held four

171
00:15:39.320 --> 00:15:46.240
days later, on Tuesday, March
second, nineteen ninety three people gathered at

172
00:15:46.240 --> 00:15:52.559
one pm in the Christ Church Cathedral
for the service before interment. After the

173
00:15:52.639 --> 00:15:56.399
service, all three members of the
Wellnuts family were buried in the Lexington Cemetery.

174
00:15:58.440 --> 00:16:02.919
Previously, his father and both of
her brothers were buried in this same

175
00:16:03.000 --> 00:16:07.840
cemetery. In twenty twenty, Beth's
mother Mary would be laid to rest there

176
00:16:07.879 --> 00:16:15.679
as well, after losing almost all
of her immediate family. As police investigated

177
00:16:15.679 --> 00:16:19.759
the crime scene for clues, they
became increasingly baffled. There was no sign

178
00:16:19.799 --> 00:16:25.320
of forced entry into the house,
no busted locks, no broken windows,

179
00:16:25.679 --> 00:16:30.120
no mysterious fingerprints, nothing. No
one had rifled through the drawers, the

180
00:16:30.200 --> 00:16:37.279
furniture hadn't been overturned. In fact, everything was clean and tidy, and

181
00:16:37.399 --> 00:16:41.039
all valuables exactly where they should be. It didn't appear that this was a

182
00:16:41.159 --> 00:16:48.799
robbery gone wrong. There wasn't even
a sign of struggle. Whoever was responsible

183
00:16:48.120 --> 00:16:52.799
seemed to have caught all three victims
by surprise. Joe was the first,

184
00:16:53.080 --> 00:16:57.360
and his body was positioned in such
a way that officers believed he might have

185
00:16:57.399 --> 00:17:00.879
been headed towards his gun, but
he didn't make it there in time.

186
00:17:03.519 --> 00:17:07.960
At first, authorities wondered if there
were multiple killers. They had found seventeen

187
00:17:08.000 --> 00:17:15.359
shell casings throughout the home. That's
nearly six bullets per victim, but ballistics

188
00:17:15.400 --> 00:17:21.160
testing later revealed that all seventeen casings
came from the same gun, so the

189
00:17:21.279 --> 00:17:29.319
multiple shooter theory was considered unlikely.
Early in the investigation, Beth's mother Mary

190
00:17:29.559 --> 00:17:33.759
told the police to look out for
a small fireproof safe. She said it

191
00:17:33.839 --> 00:17:40.000
held important papers, and indeed,
detective Roy Wheat had discovered keys labeled fire

192
00:17:40.119 --> 00:17:44.400
safe in the house, but the
safe itself was nowhere to be found.

193
00:17:45.440 --> 00:17:48.839
Usually it was located in the back
of Joe and Beth's closet. They could

194
00:17:48.880 --> 00:17:53.920
see a square endent in the carpet
where it should have been. So far,

195
00:17:55.480 --> 00:18:00.000
this was the only lead police had. If this was a robber,

196
00:18:00.519 --> 00:18:03.480
it was a very specific kind of
robbery, not a smash and grab,

197
00:18:04.359 --> 00:18:08.799
but a robbery that required a great
deal of planning. How else would someone

198
00:18:08.880 --> 00:18:14.240
have known where the fire safe was
hidden. It was in an upstairs bedroom

199
00:18:14.279 --> 00:18:18.680
closet. That's not exactly in plain
sight. You've got to know where you're

200
00:18:18.680 --> 00:18:25.200
going. Due to the brutality of
these killings, local investigators were nearly certain

201
00:18:25.599 --> 00:18:30.079
that this crime was personal in nature, that it wasn't random. No,

202
00:18:30.640 --> 00:18:37.079
they suspected that someone had a vendetta
against the wellnesses. Detective Roy Wheat told

203
00:18:37.079 --> 00:18:41.799
the Lexington Herald Leader, I would
have to say, in my almost nineteen

204
00:18:41.880 --> 00:18:48.359
years, it's probably the worst situation
I've had to deal with. I'm going

205
00:18:48.400 --> 00:18:56.680
to pause now to her word from
today's sponsors. As a Southern Fried listener,

206
00:18:56.000 --> 00:19:00.200
you know the world can be a
dangerous and unpredictable place, yes,

207
00:19:00.680 --> 00:19:04.039
and you know vigilance and preparation are
the keys to your safety. Listening to

208
00:19:04.079 --> 00:19:07.799
true crime makes us more aware of
danger, but we want to feel safe

209
00:19:07.839 --> 00:19:11.839
in our own homes without being scared
all the time. Establishing a sense of

210
00:19:11.839 --> 00:19:15.680
control in your home is fundamental to
your peace of mind. That's why I

211
00:19:15.880 --> 00:19:22.000
recommend Simply Safe Home Security. Simply
Safe blankets your whole home and protection.

212
00:19:22.480 --> 00:19:26.079
It has sensors for break ins,
fires, floods, and more, with

213
00:19:26.200 --> 00:19:30.279
indoor and outdoor cameras to keep watch
over your property day and night for less

214
00:19:30.319 --> 00:19:34.200
than a dollar a day. Simply
Safe twenty four to seven. Professional monitoring

215
00:19:34.200 --> 00:19:38.400
agents can even help stop crime in
real time by speaking to intruders through the

216
00:19:38.440 --> 00:19:44.240
wireless indoor camera warning them that they're
being recorded and police are on their way.

217
00:19:44.440 --> 00:19:48.079
Simply Safe has given me and many
of my listeners real peace of mind.

218
00:19:48.279 --> 00:19:51.279
I'll want you to have it too. Get twenty percent off any new

219
00:19:51.319 --> 00:19:56.720
simply Safe system when you sign up
for fast protect monitoring. Just visit simplysafe

220
00:19:56.720 --> 00:20:00.440
dot com slash Southern Fraud. That's
simplysafe dot com slash Southern Fried. There's

221
00:20:00.480 --> 00:20:06.680
no safe like simply Safe. Nothing
gives me confidence like looking my best hair,

222
00:20:06.759 --> 00:20:10.720
makeup and clothes. Second to that
is smelling my best. And that's

223
00:20:10.759 --> 00:20:15.759
where Loomy Whole body deodorant comes in. Loomy is powered by mandelic acid to

224
00:20:15.839 --> 00:20:19.759
deliver outrageous seventy two hour odor control
everywhere from your pits, to your feet

225
00:20:19.799 --> 00:20:23.680
and even your privates. I have
very sensitive skin, and it's hard to

226
00:20:23.680 --> 00:20:26.920
find a product to use on my
under arms, much less anywhere else.

227
00:20:27.279 --> 00:20:33.200
Loomy is awesome. Unlike traditional deodorants
that try to mask odor with a fragrance,

228
00:20:33.319 --> 00:20:37.920
Loomy is formulated empowered by mandelic acid
to stop odor before it starts,

229
00:20:37.079 --> 00:20:41.640
more like a preodorant. Loomy's starter
pack is perfect for new customers. It

230
00:20:41.680 --> 00:20:45.640
comes with a solid stick deodorant,
cream tube deodorant, two free products of

231
00:20:45.680 --> 00:20:51.359
your choice like many body wash and
deodorant wipes, and free shipping. As

232
00:20:51.400 --> 00:20:56.400
a special offer for listeners, new
customers get fifteen percent off all Loomy products

233
00:20:56.519 --> 00:21:00.200
with our exclusive code SFTC. If
you combine the fifteen percent off with the

234
00:21:00.240 --> 00:21:06.079
already discounted Starter pack, that equals
over forty percent in savings. Use code

235
00:21:06.119 --> 00:21:11.799
SFTC for fifteen percent off your first
purchase at Loomydeodorant dot com. That's code

236
00:21:11.880 --> 00:21:17.079
SFTC at l U M E D
E O D O R A n T

237
00:21:17.400 --> 00:21:23.960
dot com. When investigating the murders, the authorities first looked at pet owners

238
00:21:25.000 --> 00:21:29.359
who were upset with Joe's veterinary practice, and they actually found a few.

239
00:21:30.240 --> 00:21:33.880
Namely, there was one man who
wouldn't pay his bill, but that guy

240
00:21:33.960 --> 00:21:38.960
was quickly cleared. The police also
spoke with a couple who used to rent

241
00:21:38.960 --> 00:21:44.599
the cabin on the wellness property.
The couple was supposed to complete some work

242
00:21:44.640 --> 00:21:48.119
for Joe and Beth in exchange they
would get to stay in the cabin for

243
00:21:48.200 --> 00:21:52.000
free, but they didn't do the
work, or at least they didn't do

244
00:21:52.079 --> 00:21:56.559
enough work to satisfy Joe and Beth, and when Joe handed the couple an

245
00:21:56.599 --> 00:22:00.519
eighteen hundred dollars bill, it didn't
go over well. But by February of

246
00:22:00.599 --> 00:22:06.440
nineteen ninety three, that couple had
moved away. According to them, their

247
00:22:06.480 --> 00:22:14.519
dispute with the Wellnuts family was fully
resolved and they had solid alibis. Then

248
00:22:14.599 --> 00:22:21.079
investigators began looking at Joe's estranged son, Eric Wellnits. Joe had never removed

249
00:22:21.200 --> 00:22:23.880
Eric from his will, so he
was set to receive about a quarter of

250
00:22:23.880 --> 00:22:30.240
a million dollars after Joe's death.
When law enforcement reached out to Eric,

251
00:22:30.680 --> 00:22:36.200
he was genuinely shocked that he was
still included in his stepfather's will, which

252
00:22:36.240 --> 00:22:41.079
made sense seeing as he and Joe
no longer spoke. Eric had cut ties

253
00:22:41.119 --> 00:22:45.519
after Joe abandoned him. He felt
that Joe's new family with Beth had essentially

254
00:22:45.559 --> 00:22:52.559
replaced him. Regardless, the killer
wasn't Eric. He had an airtight alibi

255
00:22:52.640 --> 00:22:56.400
for the night of the murders.
He was sleeping at a friend's house,

256
00:22:56.920 --> 00:23:00.039
and Eric, like Meg, was
all the way in Lexington, one hundred

257
00:23:00.079 --> 00:23:07.920
miles away, a two hour drive
at best. Eric told Oxygen, there's

258
00:23:07.960 --> 00:23:11.119
no way in the world, I
ever could have done anything like that.

259
00:23:11.680 --> 00:23:15.759
Yes, I was angry as a
child, you know, having your dad

260
00:23:15.799 --> 00:23:18.160
disappearing out of your life, kind
of in a snap of a finger.

261
00:23:18.720 --> 00:23:22.720
It was hard and I was angry, but not that kind of anger where

262
00:23:22.720 --> 00:23:30.440
I wished anything bad. Meg's college
boyfriend, Randy Appleton, was also considered

263
00:23:30.440 --> 00:23:34.720
a suspect. The police were suspicious
of Randy because he was a gun enthusiast

264
00:23:36.240 --> 00:23:40.799
and he didn't get along well with
Meg's mother, Beth, But none of

265
00:23:40.799 --> 00:23:45.640
the shell casings found in the well
Nuts home matched Randy's gun collection, so

266
00:23:45.799 --> 00:23:52.160
investigators kept looking. Meg herself was
also considered a suspect. She stood to

267
00:23:52.200 --> 00:23:56.119
inherit a lot of money, so
she had to be a person of interest,

268
00:23:56.880 --> 00:24:00.079
but Joe and Beth were in enough
debt that are actual internance was moot.

269
00:24:00.599 --> 00:24:04.599
In fact, Meg wound up having
to sell the farmhouse and land to

270
00:24:04.640 --> 00:24:10.279
pay off those debts, but the
insurance payout was going to be sizable,

271
00:24:10.880 --> 00:24:15.440
somewhere in the range of five hundred
and thirty thousand. In today's money,

272
00:24:15.480 --> 00:24:19.240
that would be more than one point
one million. As a brief sidebar,

273
00:24:19.839 --> 00:24:26.839
investigators also found that Meg had some
connections with the occult and Wicca nineteen ninety

274
00:24:26.880 --> 00:24:32.440
three was about the height of the
Satanic Panic in America, and Meg was

275
00:24:32.480 --> 00:24:37.640
definitely at the age of teens who
had become fascinated by Satanism. She kept

276
00:24:37.640 --> 00:24:41.720
a black candle in her bedroom in
the Walnuts home, and she had written

277
00:24:41.720 --> 00:24:48.440
a freshman term paper on the topic
of human sacrifice. Meg later claimed she

278
00:24:48.519 --> 00:24:52.319
only went to one WICCA meeting.
However, she and her friends Bill and

279
00:24:52.319 --> 00:25:00.720
Regina Mee did bond over their mutual
interest in Wicca magic and witchcraft. Perhaps

280
00:25:00.759 --> 00:25:06.440
Meg was just exploring her religious beliefs. She was young, just entering college

281
00:25:06.759 --> 00:25:12.160
figuring herself out. Court documents also
reported that Beth had a book about Wicca

282
00:25:12.200 --> 00:25:17.160
on her night stand, so I
have to wonder if perhaps Beth, a

283
00:25:17.200 --> 00:25:22.799
practicing Christian, was trying to understand
her daughter's new fascination with witchcraft. Of

284
00:25:22.880 --> 00:25:27.720
course, none of this seemed very
relevant to the murderers, especially since both

285
00:25:27.799 --> 00:25:33.640
Meg and Randy's time was accounted for
that evening. As I said before,

286
00:25:33.680 --> 00:25:37.759
they were playing cards with two other
people, their friends, Bill and Regina

287
00:25:37.839 --> 00:25:42.599
Mees. Detectives spoke to Bill MEAs, but they never had much contact with

288
00:25:42.640 --> 00:25:48.799
Regina According to her later testimony,
Mees forbade her from talking to the authorities,

289
00:25:49.400 --> 00:25:53.359
but he wasn't too worried about himself, and in late nineteen ninety three

290
00:25:53.559 --> 00:25:59.319
he agreed to take a polygraph test
with the Lexington Police Department. It did

291
00:25:59.319 --> 00:26:03.119
not go well. When he arrived
at the testing session, he was under

292
00:26:03.119 --> 00:26:07.000
the impression he was only going to
be asked about a gun in his possession,

293
00:26:07.680 --> 00:26:12.799
specifically a Browning high power pistol.
He said he had gotten it only

294
00:26:12.839 --> 00:26:18.720
a few weeks before the murders from
a friend of a friend. Mees refused

295
00:26:18.720 --> 00:26:22.680
to tell the police the identity of
the friend of a friend, saying this

296
00:26:22.759 --> 00:26:26.279
person was a felon. They weren't
supposed to own a gun, and Mees

297
00:26:26.400 --> 00:26:32.920
wasn't going to get them in trouble. During the polygraph test, the interviewer

298
00:26:33.240 --> 00:26:37.680
suddenly changed tracks. He asked MEAs
not about the gun, but about the

299
00:26:37.759 --> 00:26:42.720
murders of Joe Beth and Dennis Wellnitz. That's when Bill Meaes lost it.

300
00:26:44.799 --> 00:26:48.279
He became so agitated that he had
to be unhooked from the polygraph machine.

301
00:26:48.319 --> 00:26:56.240
Early Captain Hancock later said it definitely
raised red flags that he knows more than

302
00:26:56.279 --> 00:27:03.240
he's telling us. But red flags
are only that red flags. The police

303
00:27:03.279 --> 00:27:07.960
didn't have any evidence, and Meece, who wasn't under arrest, was well

304
00:27:07.960 --> 00:27:12.519
within his rights to leave. Local
authorities were highly motivated to find the person

305
00:27:12.599 --> 00:27:18.160
responsible for killing the Wellnesses, not
just because the family was so well loved,

306
00:27:18.599 --> 00:27:23.759
but also because residents of Columbia,
Kentucky were freaking out. They didn't

307
00:27:23.759 --> 00:27:29.839
feel safe and who could blame them. An entire family had been executed,

308
00:27:30.240 --> 00:27:34.079
and no one had any clue as
to why. Gun sells in the area

309
00:27:34.160 --> 00:27:41.200
were rising. People started locking their
doors. Cindy Yates, a longtime employee

310
00:27:41.200 --> 00:27:45.640
of the Wellness Vet Clinic, tried
to avoid going out at night following the

311
00:27:45.720 --> 00:27:51.440
murders. She told the Lexington Harold, you can't walk past your window without

312
00:27:51.480 --> 00:27:55.440
wondering who's out there looking at you. If I just knew who or why,

313
00:27:55.759 --> 00:27:59.519
it would help a lot. Just
not knowing is most of the fear.

314
00:28:00.119 --> 00:28:04.519
As a result of this community wide
panic, the rumor mill was cranking.

315
00:28:06.240 --> 00:28:11.079
One local newspaper even published a front
page story detailing the most common rumors.

316
00:28:11.759 --> 00:28:17.799
A portion of the article was styled
like mad libs, as in it

317
00:28:17.960 --> 00:28:25.400
said the prime suspect or suspects are
blank fill in your own names. This

318
00:28:25.519 --> 00:28:29.880
seems in very poor taste for a
newspaper to do after this kind of tragedy.

319
00:28:30.039 --> 00:28:34.640
I guess sometimes Gallow's humor takes over
in even the worst of cases.

320
00:28:37.240 --> 00:28:41.000
But the rumors were so prolific that
Ronnie Moran, a state Police trooper and

321
00:28:41.079 --> 00:28:48.960
spokesman, told reporters the community is
upset, is concerned, frightened. Everyone

322
00:28:48.039 --> 00:28:52.880
has their own suspect. It spawned
a lot of rumors and that's all they

323
00:28:52.920 --> 00:29:00.480
are rumors. So yeah, the
police wanted a perp and fast, not

324
00:29:00.519 --> 00:29:06.160
only because they knew the Wellness family
and wanted to serve justice, but also

325
00:29:06.200 --> 00:29:12.079
because this unexplained crime was wreaking havoc
on their community. The Lexington, Columbia

326
00:29:12.160 --> 00:29:18.559
and University of Kentucky authorities joined forces
to solve this crime. They assigned three

327
00:29:18.559 --> 00:29:25.519
investigators to the case. In total, hundreds of hours were spent tracking down

328
00:29:25.599 --> 00:29:30.079
leads, and the authorities followed up
on many, many tips from the public.

329
00:29:30.680 --> 00:29:33.599
At first, it seemed like this
case was going to be solved quickly.

330
00:29:34.440 --> 00:29:37.720
Less than a month after the murders
in March of nineteen ninety three,

331
00:29:38.359 --> 00:29:45.200
one police spokesperson told the Lexington Herald
that they were pursuing promising leads. Not

332
00:29:45.319 --> 00:29:51.359
long after, Detective Roy Wheat told
reporters it does look good as far as

333
00:29:51.359 --> 00:29:55.240
an arrest being made. I don't
have a doubt in my mind that sooner

334
00:29:55.319 --> 00:29:57.960
or later we're going to get the
break we need to break it wide open.

335
00:30:00.799 --> 00:30:07.480
But investigators didn't get their break until
almost ten years later. I'm going

336
00:30:07.519 --> 00:30:14.440
to pause now to a word from
today's sponsors. This episode is brought to

337
00:30:14.480 --> 00:30:18.480
you by Betterhelp. Sometimes you've just
got to get something off your chest.

338
00:30:18.720 --> 00:30:22.920
We all carry around stressors, big
or small, but it's unhealthy to walk

339
00:30:22.960 --> 00:30:26.559
around bottled up all the time.
Therapy is a safe space to unburden yourself.

340
00:30:27.240 --> 00:30:32.079
Talking about what is weighing you down
is so cathartic as well as constructive

341
00:30:32.119 --> 00:30:36.319
for your mental health. Therapy has
helped me through major life problems, but

342
00:30:36.319 --> 00:30:38.880
it's also been a place for me
to learn how to deal with everyday stressors.

343
00:30:40.319 --> 00:30:42.319
It has helped me broaden my sense
of self what I really need to

344
00:30:42.319 --> 00:30:47.480
feel balanced. I've learned coping skills
and how to set boundaries. If you're

345
00:30:47.519 --> 00:30:51.599
thinking of starting therapy, give Better
Help a try. It's entirely online,

346
00:30:51.799 --> 00:30:55.480
designed to be convenient, flexible,
and suited to your schedule. Just fill

347
00:30:55.519 --> 00:30:59.440
out a brief questionnaire to get matched
with a licensed therapist and switch therapists at

348
00:30:59.480 --> 00:31:03.519
any time or no additional charge.
Get it off your chest with better Help

349
00:31:03.680 --> 00:31:07.160
visit Betterhelp dot com slash Southern today
to get ten percent off your first month.

350
00:31:07.319 --> 00:31:12.839
That's Better Help h e lp dot
com slash Southern. In the old

351
00:31:12.960 --> 00:31:18.720
days, doctors made house calls.
Today they exist only in old movies and

352
00:31:18.839 --> 00:31:23.440
practically sound like make believe In our
present day, frustrating medical times, teledoc

353
00:31:23.519 --> 00:31:27.359
Health is giving a new, more
modern meaning to the term house call.

354
00:31:27.720 --> 00:31:32.279
With teledoc Health, you can get
in touch with a doctor twenty four hours

355
00:31:32.319 --> 00:31:34.319
a day, three hundred and sixty
five days a year, all from the

356
00:31:34.319 --> 00:31:38.279
comfort of your own home. You
can choose a primary care doctor and talk

357
00:31:38.319 --> 00:31:41.759
to them from your couch when you're
too sick to get out. Whatever your

358
00:31:41.799 --> 00:31:47.799
medical problem, just open the teledoc
app and connect with a board certified doctor

359
00:31:47.880 --> 00:31:52.680
to get a diagnosis, treatment plan, prescription, or even schedule an in

360
00:31:52.720 --> 00:31:56.759
person visit if needed. Teledoc Health
is convenient, affordable, and is covered

361
00:31:56.799 --> 00:32:01.319
by a surprising number of insurance plans. A few years ago, I became

362
00:32:01.400 --> 00:32:06.039
septic after a surgery, and not
only was it so hard to get out

363
00:32:06.079 --> 00:32:09.799
of the house, it was dangerous
to expose myself to other illnesses. Teledoc

364
00:32:09.880 --> 00:32:15.039
Health would have been such a safer
and more convenient option. Download the app

365
00:32:15.079 --> 00:32:19.279
to get started today, or go
online to register or schedule a visit at

366
00:32:19.319 --> 00:32:29.720
teledoc heealth dot com. That's te
la doc health dot com. Years passed

367
00:32:29.759 --> 00:32:34.680
without any new developments in the Wellness
triple homicide case, so as much as

368
00:32:34.680 --> 00:32:38.640
people can move on from a tragedy
of this caliber, they did. Meg

369
00:32:38.720 --> 00:32:45.160
transferred to the University of Kentucky to
study English. A year after the death

370
00:32:45.200 --> 00:32:51.480
of her family. In February nineteen
ninety four, Meg sued the Mutual Life

371
00:32:51.519 --> 00:32:55.880
Insurance Company of New York. Joe's
insurance policies were supposed to go to Beth,

372
00:32:57.440 --> 00:33:00.680
but Beth was gone. After Beth, Joe's money was supposed to go

373
00:33:00.720 --> 00:33:07.880
to her mother, Mary Powers Preston. Missus Preston was directed to use the

374
00:33:07.960 --> 00:33:12.519
money to care for Meg and Dennis. Joe wrote in his will that he

375
00:33:12.599 --> 00:33:17.160
had the greatest love and affection for
Dennis and Meg. So since Meg was

376
00:33:17.200 --> 00:33:22.720
the sole survivor, she was to
get all of Joe's insurance money. This

377
00:33:22.880 --> 00:33:27.440
is where that five hundred thirty thousand
dollars sum I mentioned earlier comes from.

378
00:33:28.319 --> 00:33:32.160
Meg filed for the insurance money in
December nineteen ninety three, but the insurance

379
00:33:32.200 --> 00:33:37.519
company refused to pay, and for
a pretty good reason. Meg was still

380
00:33:37.519 --> 00:33:44.200
a suspect in her family's murders.
However, as she hadn't been charged with

381
00:33:44.279 --> 00:33:49.680
anything, the insurance company was forced
to give Meg the check. She also

382
00:33:49.720 --> 00:33:54.279
provided a legal document in which she
denied that there is any substantial credible evidence

383
00:33:54.359 --> 00:34:00.960
indicating that she caused her family member's
deaths. After Meg sued the insurance company,

384
00:34:01.359 --> 00:34:07.000
Eric Wellnuts Joseph stranged son, also
sued. He wanted a portion of

385
00:34:07.039 --> 00:34:13.440
the insurance payout too. Ultimately,
Meg agreed to split the insurance money with

386
00:34:13.639 --> 00:34:17.360
Eric. She received about three hundred
thousand, but it's unclear how much money

387
00:34:17.480 --> 00:34:24.559
Eric actually received. Interestingly, when
Eric and Meg organized the split, they

388
00:34:24.599 --> 00:34:29.679
both agreed that neither could sue the
other if it was found out that they

389
00:34:29.679 --> 00:34:35.559
were involved in the murders. In
nineteen ninety five, Meg married her college

390
00:34:35.639 --> 00:34:42.440
sweetheart Randy Appleton. Meg and Randy
had one son together in nineteen ninety seven,

391
00:34:43.280 --> 00:34:46.679
but that same year they divorced.
Then Meg would go on to marry

392
00:34:46.679 --> 00:34:52.719
her second husband, Justin Manly.
Jump to October of two thousand and two,

393
00:34:52.760 --> 00:34:59.599
five years later, Detective Sergeant Dennis
Spinningfield was following up on the Wellnuts

394
00:34:59.639 --> 00:35:02.760
case, which by then was a
cold case, a very cold case.

395
00:35:04.400 --> 00:35:08.119
No one knew if it would ever
be solved, but Sergeant Benningfield had hope,

396
00:35:08.519 --> 00:35:13.719
and his hope grew when he found
out that Bill and Regina Meaes had

397
00:35:13.719 --> 00:35:20.360
had a nasty breakup in November nineteen
ninety nine. Meaes and Regina were separated.

398
00:35:20.960 --> 00:35:25.039
The next month, Regina alleged that
MEAs had sexually assaulted her on Christmas

399
00:35:25.039 --> 00:35:30.519
Eve. Later, a grand jury
ruled that Meaes had not sexually assaulted his

400
00:35:30.599 --> 00:35:37.320
wife, but Regina continuously maintained that
he had. By the end of the

401
00:35:37.360 --> 00:35:42.800
year two thousand, they were officially
divorced, and Benningfield saw this as an

402
00:35:42.800 --> 00:35:49.480
opportunity. He approached Regina to discuss
the deaths of Joe Beth and Dennis Wellness.

403
00:35:50.199 --> 00:35:53.679
Before her husband had stopped her from
going to the police now she was

404
00:35:53.719 --> 00:35:59.800
free and clear. He wanted to
know if perhaps Regina had some insight as

405
00:35:59.800 --> 00:36:04.800
to what really happened that night,
and she knew exactly what happened nine years

406
00:36:04.840 --> 00:36:10.480
ago on that cold February night.
Regina explained that her ex husband Bill MEAs

407
00:36:10.639 --> 00:36:17.000
and Meg Wellness had orchestrated the entire
thing, and to prove it, Regina

408
00:36:17.039 --> 00:36:22.320
provided the authorities with a small fire
safe, the same fire safe that had

409
00:36:22.360 --> 00:36:28.119
been stolen from the Wellnuts home that
night. When Regina handed it over to

410
00:36:28.159 --> 00:36:31.800
the police, they found a hair
inside of it. Lab testing indicated it

411
00:36:31.840 --> 00:36:37.800
was very similar to Joe Wellness's hair. William Harry Meaes was born in October

412
00:36:37.840 --> 00:36:43.159
of nineteen seventy two. He would
go by the nickname Bill all his life.

413
00:36:44.199 --> 00:36:46.400
I've been referring to him as niece
since that is the name he is

414
00:36:46.480 --> 00:36:52.119
most widely recognized by today. When
Mees was a newborn, his mother jan

415
00:36:52.559 --> 00:36:58.800
left his abusive father. Then before
he turned one year old, she abandoned

416
00:36:58.840 --> 00:37:02.360
him. At that point, his
grandmother on his mother's side took him in.

417
00:37:04.239 --> 00:37:08.079
She lived in Florida and legally adopted
him, but when he was twelve,

418
00:37:08.159 --> 00:37:13.280
years old, his grandmother passed away. Then Mees was forced to move

419
00:37:13.320 --> 00:37:16.960
in with his biological mother, and
that's how he ended up in Lexington,

420
00:37:17.039 --> 00:37:23.480
Kentucky, where she lived. Jan
pretended to be Mysa's sister for fifteen years.

421
00:37:23.960 --> 00:37:28.920
She kept him out of school and
discouraged him from talking to other people.

422
00:37:29.800 --> 00:37:35.159
Later on, Jan would testify that
she was diagnosed with several mental illnesses.

423
00:37:35.840 --> 00:37:40.000
She frequently heard voices that told her
to kill people. She believed that

424
00:37:40.000 --> 00:37:45.519
mes also heard similar voices, but
he denied it. But even if he

425
00:37:45.559 --> 00:37:51.880
didn't have her same mental health issues, his childhood was certainly a recipe for

426
00:37:52.000 --> 00:37:58.119
making a sociopath. Eric Wellness,
Joe's estranged son, happened to go to

427
00:37:58.159 --> 00:38:01.360
junior high school with Mees, and
he recalled how Mees had once stabbed him

428
00:38:01.360 --> 00:38:07.599
in the thigh with a pencil.
Eric also remembered that Mees would often discuss

429
00:38:07.719 --> 00:38:12.400
killing. When Eric said that he
was going to share Mesa's fascination with murder

430
00:38:12.559 --> 00:38:16.760
with some adults, Mees threatened to
hurt him. In the late nineteen eighties,

431
00:38:17.000 --> 00:38:22.599
Mees attended Henry Clay High School in
Lexington. He didn't graduate. Later

432
00:38:22.639 --> 00:38:30.159
on, he would earn his ged
and enroll in Lexington Community College. Afterward,

433
00:38:30.559 --> 00:38:34.800
he attended the University of Kentucky,
and in August of nineteen ninety one,

434
00:38:35.280 --> 00:38:40.480
eighteen year old Mees married Regina.
They had three children together. Mees

435
00:38:40.760 --> 00:38:45.639
was a pathological liar. He'd later
say as much in court. He lied

436
00:38:45.760 --> 00:38:50.639
so much and so often that it's
tricky to know what is true about his

437
00:38:50.800 --> 00:38:55.920
life and what's not. For example, he told numerous people, including Regina,

438
00:38:57.320 --> 00:39:00.760
that he was an ex Navy seal. He claimed he had been involved

439
00:39:00.760 --> 00:39:05.000
in black ops, the CIA,
and a failed attempt to kill a Rocky

440
00:39:05.119 --> 00:39:09.920
terrorist, Saddam Hussein, but there
is no known record verifying that information.

441
00:39:10.719 --> 00:39:15.639
In fact, the only official record
we do have is a court document explaining

442
00:39:15.679 --> 00:39:22.280
that Meaes received an other than honorable
discharge from the Navy. He had tested

443
00:39:22.320 --> 00:39:27.559
positive for cocaine, but Meaes insisted
he had never done cocaine, though he

444
00:39:27.599 --> 00:39:34.519
did admit to struggling with alcoholism.
Bill MEAs met Meg Willnitz while they were

445
00:39:34.559 --> 00:39:40.239
attending Lexington Community College and the University
of Kentucky. It doesn't appear that Meaes

446
00:39:40.320 --> 00:39:45.559
received his degree from either school.
If he did, he never pursued a

447
00:39:45.599 --> 00:39:50.159
career. Instead, he had a
series of jobs at various points in time.

448
00:39:50.239 --> 00:39:52.840
He was a landscaper, a pest
control specialist, a cab driver,

449
00:39:53.039 --> 00:39:59.480
and a bank courier. That is
until his ex wife, Regina started talking

450
00:39:59.480 --> 00:40:05.320
to the authora in the early two
thousands. Not long after that, Mill

451
00:40:05.440 --> 00:40:09.599
Meese was just another jail inmate.
I'm going to pause now to hear a

452
00:40:09.599 --> 00:40:17.880
word from today's sponsors. Support for
today's episode comes from Honeylove. Ladies,

453
00:40:19.079 --> 00:40:22.719
y'all know there is nothing worse than
an uncomfortable bra. Thankfully, Honeylove has

454
00:40:22.800 --> 00:40:29.119
revolutionized the bra game. Honeylove's bras
features supportive bonding that eliminates the need for

455
00:40:29.239 --> 00:40:34.000
underwire without sacrificing lift. When I
started working from home, the first thing

456
00:40:34.039 --> 00:40:37.360
I did was get rid of all
my underwire bras and then began a quest

457
00:40:37.440 --> 00:40:40.719
for the perfect comfortable bra that still
had the support I needed. That's when

458
00:40:40.760 --> 00:40:45.800
I found Honeylove. Honeylove's best selling
crossover bra is so comfortable it's sure to

459
00:40:45.800 --> 00:40:50.440
be your new go to. This
bra gives all the support of traditional bras

460
00:40:50.559 --> 00:40:53.840
without using any underwires. And if
you are tired of bras that calls bulging

461
00:40:53.840 --> 00:40:59.440
in the back. Honeylove's bras are
designed with backsmoothing fabric to prevent bra bulge.

462
00:40:59.599 --> 00:41:02.960
Honeyl is not just supporting women,
it's empowering women. Treat yourself to

463
00:41:04.000 --> 00:41:07.840
the best bras on the market and
save twenty percent off at honeylove dot com

464
00:41:07.880 --> 00:41:12.679
slash sftc. Use our exclusive link
to get twenty percent off honeylove dot com

465
00:41:12.679 --> 00:41:15.880
slash sftc to find your perfect fit. After you purchased, they'll ask where

466
00:41:15.880 --> 00:41:20.400
you heard about them. Support our
show and tell them we sen you honeys.

467
00:41:20.440 --> 00:41:23.199
You deserve this. Lose the pain
and discomfort, keep the support with

468
00:41:23.320 --> 00:41:30.079
Honeylove. Have you heard that flavored
air is quickly becoming an alternative to vaping

469
00:41:30.159 --> 00:41:35.199
and smoking. It's a whole new
movement towards better habits led by today's sponsor,

470
00:41:35.519 --> 00:41:38.800
Fume. Breaking bad habits is the
worst. That's what's great about Fume.

471
00:41:39.039 --> 00:41:43.760
It's not about giving up, it's
about switching up. Fume is an

472
00:41:43.760 --> 00:41:49.440
innovative, award winning flavored air device
that does just that. Instead of electronics,

473
00:41:49.599 --> 00:41:53.880
Fume is completely natural. Instead of
vapor, Fume uses flavored air instead

474
00:41:53.880 --> 00:42:00.159
of harmful chemicals. The cores are
infused with essential oils. If vaping is

475
00:42:00.199 --> 00:42:04.679
like a sticky soda, Fume is
like a refreshing herbal tea. My favorite

476
00:42:04.679 --> 00:42:08.639
flavors are maple pepper and orange vanilla. The design is sleek and it comes

477
00:42:08.639 --> 00:42:14.800
with an adjustable airflow dial with movable
parts and magnets for fidgeting, giving your

478
00:42:14.800 --> 00:42:19.599
fingers a lot to do, helping
with stress and anxiety. Fume has served

479
00:42:19.599 --> 00:42:23.440
over three hundred thousand customers and you
can be the next success story for a

480
00:42:23.519 --> 00:42:29.519
limited time, use my code SFTC
to get a free gift with your journey

481
00:42:29.559 --> 00:42:36.079
pack. Head to try fume dot
com. That's try fum dot com and

482
00:42:36.280 --> 00:42:44.079
use code SFTC to get a free
gift with your order today. The following

483
00:42:44.079 --> 00:42:49.840
sequence of events is put together from
what Regina and the police investigation revealed about

484
00:42:49.840 --> 00:42:55.159
the Wellness murders. Around November of
nineteen ninety two, Meg's parents were traveling

485
00:42:55.199 --> 00:43:00.719
to Africa. The running joke among
her buddies became how much she would inherit

486
00:43:00.760 --> 00:43:06.440
if her parents died on this trip. Around this same time, Meis,

487
00:43:06.719 --> 00:43:10.519
who was interested in Wicca magic and
the occult. Just like Meg, wanted

488
00:43:10.559 --> 00:43:15.760
to start a commune. He had
a business plan for it. The name

489
00:43:15.760 --> 00:43:21.920
would be black Watch Enterprises. In
Meg's later recanted statements, she said this

490
00:43:22.079 --> 00:43:28.320
commune was a David Koresh kind of
situation. Meg and Mes hatched a plan.

491
00:43:29.119 --> 00:43:34.039
They decided that Meeces would kill her
parents. Then Meg would inherit their

492
00:43:34.079 --> 00:43:38.199
money, which she estimated to be
about one million dollars, and she would

493
00:43:38.239 --> 00:43:43.920
pay Nis ten percent of that million
one hundred thousand, which would be about

494
00:43:43.920 --> 00:43:47.880
two hundred and fourteen thousand today.
And also MEAs would be free to use

495
00:43:47.920 --> 00:43:53.840
the wellness land to start his David
Koresh like commune. Meg said in a

496
00:43:53.880 --> 00:43:59.639
later recanted statement, it was really
kind of a game at first. Heads

497
00:43:59.719 --> 00:44:05.920
up, I'll continue flagging whatever information
comes from Meg and Mice's recanted statements,

498
00:44:06.360 --> 00:44:08.039
we'll get into the he says.
She said of it all in a moment.

499
00:44:08.599 --> 00:44:14.360
But just know that Meg would first
admit to everything. Then she claimed

500
00:44:14.440 --> 00:44:16.840
she had no idea about any of
this. She said, MEAs did all

501
00:44:16.840 --> 00:44:22.599
of it on his own. Meanwhile, Mees would also admit to everything.

502
00:44:22.199 --> 00:44:25.960
Then he claimed that he was innocent, that he wasn't even in the same

503
00:44:27.079 --> 00:44:30.320
city on the night of the murders. I want to be extra clear here

504
00:44:30.920 --> 00:44:36.159
they are lying. They are both
lying. A jury later confirmed they were

505
00:44:36.199 --> 00:44:39.719
lying. The courts affirmed that they're
lying, and quite frankly, common sense

506
00:44:39.840 --> 00:44:45.400
says they are lying. But the
information can and will get a little jumbled

507
00:44:45.760 --> 00:44:50.119
due to their ongoing lies. I'll
do my best to organize it for you.

508
00:44:51.599 --> 00:44:54.880
For months, Mees and Meg plotted
the massacre of the Walnuts family.

509
00:44:55.960 --> 00:45:00.639
Two weeks before the murders happened,
Meg bought a rounding high power nine milimeters

510
00:45:00.679 --> 00:45:06.199
pistol. She wasn't twenty one years
old yet, so she had to use

511
00:45:06.239 --> 00:45:10.800
her fake ID for the purchase.
Normally she just used it to buy booze.

512
00:45:10.960 --> 00:45:15.320
Then Meis, who was actually with
Meg when she bought the gun,

513
00:45:15.920 --> 00:45:20.920
bought the gun from her. He
used his five hundred dollars tax refund to

514
00:45:20.960 --> 00:45:27.079
pay her. Afterward. Mees also
bought hollow point bullets and human silhouette targets.

515
00:45:27.679 --> 00:45:31.119
He used both items to familiarize himself
with his new pistol at a firing

516
00:45:31.199 --> 00:45:37.599
range. Remember how I said that
the Wellness family appeared near picture perfect before

517
00:45:37.639 --> 00:45:43.800
they were murdered. Perhaps the only
visible issue in the family was something so

518
00:45:43.960 --> 00:45:50.480
common that it probably seemed kind of
innocent. At first, Beth wasn't so

519
00:45:50.519 --> 00:45:53.960
sure about her daughter's friend group.
She didn't like Meg's current boyfriend, Randy,

520
00:45:54.480 --> 00:46:00.519
and Beth certainly wasn't a fan of
Meg's married friend Meis. Beth actually

521
00:46:00.599 --> 00:46:06.519
knew that Meg had slept with Meece
while he was married and while Meg was

522
00:46:06.519 --> 00:46:10.679
still in a relationship with Randy.
As you can imagine, that didn't sit

523
00:46:10.719 --> 00:46:16.119
well with Beth. It's unclear if
Misa's then wife, Regina or Randy knew

524
00:46:16.159 --> 00:46:22.440
about the sexual relationship. They might
have been in an open or polyamorous relationship

525
00:46:23.000 --> 00:46:27.519
where it could have been an illicit
affair. We don't really know any more

526
00:46:27.559 --> 00:46:32.639
details. What we do know is
that Beth was not a fan. On

527
00:46:32.719 --> 00:46:37.760
Wednesday, February twenty fourth, nineteen
ninety three, Meg brought Randy, Meis,

528
00:46:38.079 --> 00:46:44.360
and another unnamed person who was likely
Regina, Mysa's wife, to her

529
00:46:44.400 --> 00:46:50.159
parents' home. Meg wanted to show
her mom that Mes wasn't some evil character,

530
00:46:51.000 --> 00:46:53.880
or at least that's what Meg said
she was doing. Really, she

531
00:46:53.960 --> 00:47:00.280
was giving mee an opportunity to case
the house. The next day, on

532
00:47:00.360 --> 00:47:04.880
Thursday, Myes returned to the Wellnuts
home. He went up to the door.

533
00:47:05.840 --> 00:47:09.280
Then, for reasons unknown, he
left. He either chickened out or

534
00:47:09.320 --> 00:47:15.119
something must have gone wrong, though
it's unclear what because MEAs hadn't changed his

535
00:47:15.239 --> 00:47:20.840
mind. He waited that night until
one thirty am the next morning, and

536
00:47:20.880 --> 00:47:24.639
then he went up to his bedroom
to speak to his wife. He told

537
00:47:24.639 --> 00:47:29.559
her that he and Meg were going
to get coffee, and at about two

538
00:47:29.599 --> 00:47:32.559
thirty am, Meg filled up a
vehicle with gas at a BP station.

539
00:47:34.559 --> 00:47:38.280
Then she and Meice drove from his
home in Lexington to the Wellnuts family home

540
00:47:38.320 --> 00:47:45.679
in Columbia. When they arrived,
Meg gave Mees a key to her family's

541
00:47:45.719 --> 00:47:52.840
home. Then she waited in the
car while mee slaughtered them. Later,

542
00:47:52.960 --> 00:47:55.920
during one of his confessions, Meece
would claim that Regina was waiting in the

543
00:47:55.960 --> 00:48:01.159
car with Meg, but as I
mentioned, he canted those and Regina told

544
00:48:01.280 --> 00:48:06.719
multiple sources that she was woken up
when mys and Meg returned to their home

545
00:48:06.760 --> 00:48:12.480
in Lexington, which meant she hadn't
gone with them. Ultimately, law enforcement

546
00:48:12.559 --> 00:48:16.840
did not believe that Regina had anything
to do with the murders. In several

547
00:48:16.880 --> 00:48:22.239
recorded video statements, Mes explained exactly
what happened in the Wellnuts family home.

548
00:48:23.239 --> 00:48:28.000
He recanted these statements later, of
course, but the jury was allowed to

549
00:48:28.000 --> 00:48:34.119
watch the video statements during his trial. First, Mees went downstairs. He

550
00:48:34.239 --> 00:48:37.440
was looking for Beth, who he
thought slept in a bedroom down there.

551
00:48:37.039 --> 00:48:40.960
That's where she had been sleeping that
Wednesday when Meees came to visit. She

552
00:48:42.039 --> 00:48:45.440
had recently had back surgery, so
she was probably avoiding stairs for a while.

553
00:48:46.480 --> 00:48:51.840
But instead of Beth, Mees ran
right into Joe and quickly fired at

554
00:48:51.880 --> 00:48:57.679
him. Joe kept coming towards him, but Meaes continued firing. When Joe

555
00:48:57.679 --> 00:49:02.079
fell to the floor, Meaes headed
upstairs. He found Beth standing next to

556
00:49:02.079 --> 00:49:07.880
her in Joe's bed. He shot
and killed her. Then he went down

557
00:49:07.920 --> 00:49:13.079
the hall to Dennis's room. The
door was locked and me struggled for a

558
00:49:13.119 --> 00:49:16.159
moment, but once he was inside, he found Dennis sitting on his bed.

559
00:49:16.960 --> 00:49:21.400
He yelled at him to get on
the floor and reloaded his gun.

560
00:49:22.320 --> 00:49:27.039
Dennis complied and got down on his
stomach on the floor. When Mees was

561
00:49:27.079 --> 00:49:30.000
done reloading, he shot Dennis in
the back. Then he picked up his

562
00:49:30.039 --> 00:49:36.360
discarded magazine. He put it in
his pocket as a final precaution. MEAs

563
00:49:36.440 --> 00:49:39.719
went through the well Nut's home room
by room to ensure everyone was dead.

564
00:49:40.480 --> 00:49:45.559
Then he returned to the main bedroom
to steal the fire safe. Meg had

565
00:49:45.559 --> 00:49:49.519
told Mees that she thought there was
one thousand dollars cash in there. Back

566
00:49:49.559 --> 00:49:53.760
in nineteen ninety three, the medical
examiner suggested that the Wellnuts family probably died

567
00:49:53.960 --> 00:49:59.159
around four o'clock in the morning,
which fits the time period after MEAs and

568
00:49:59.199 --> 00:50:04.119
Meg left to Lexington. They returned
to his house at about seven o'clock in

569
00:50:04.159 --> 00:50:09.320
the morning. When they arrived,
Meg was upset. She told Regina that

570
00:50:09.360 --> 00:50:15.079
Dennis was not supposed to be there. Afterwards, Meaes told Regina she wasn't

571
00:50:15.079 --> 00:50:20.159
allowed to talk to the police or
let them into the house. He also

572
00:50:20.280 --> 00:50:23.679
refused to divulge the gruesome details of
the murders with her right away. He

573
00:50:23.760 --> 00:50:30.440
told Regina that he wanted to give
her plausible deniability, But when they all

574
00:50:30.480 --> 00:50:35.519
went to the Wellnuts home to pack
up the dead family's belongings, Meaes couldn't

575
00:50:35.559 --> 00:50:40.199
help himself. He began pointing out
where his victim's bodies had been. As

576
00:50:40.239 --> 00:50:45.960
it turns out, investigators were always
pretty certain that Bill Meaese was involved with

577
00:50:45.000 --> 00:50:51.880
the Wellnut's murderers. The polygraph incident
was pretty damning, so in March of

578
00:50:51.960 --> 00:50:57.320
nineteen ninety four, they assigned an
undercover police officer to watch and try to

579
00:50:57.400 --> 00:51:02.239
ensnare Mees. The officer and Felice
of the Kentucky State Police posed as an

580
00:51:02.239 --> 00:51:07.199
employee for True Green chem Lawn,
where Meis worked. Mees was supposed to

581
00:51:07.239 --> 00:51:13.880
train her to be a salesperson.
Officer Felice rode around with him for approximately

582
00:51:13.920 --> 00:51:19.320
three weeks as a trainee officer.
Felice tried to gain his trust and then

583
00:51:19.360 --> 00:51:23.199
lure Meese into another murder for higher
scheme. She fed me a fake story

584
00:51:23.239 --> 00:51:29.360
about her horribly abusive husband. She
planted the seed so that Mees would offer

585
00:51:29.400 --> 00:51:35.039
to kill him for her. During
those conversations where Felice was befriending and tricking

586
00:51:35.079 --> 00:51:39.880
Meese, his behavior was concerning.
He had a black and white human silhouette

587
00:51:39.880 --> 00:51:45.400
target outside of his work cubicle.
There were twenty six bullet holes in the

588
00:51:45.400 --> 00:51:50.800
target's upper body. When discussing this
silhouette, Mes said to Officer Felice,

589
00:51:51.280 --> 00:51:53.480
by the way, what did that
little trick on the wall? Was this?

590
00:51:54.159 --> 00:52:00.840
And he pulled out a nine millimeter
six hour from his briefcase. When

591
00:52:00.840 --> 00:52:05.119
they were back at his apartment,
Mees pulled out the gun and dry fired

592
00:52:05.119 --> 00:52:09.559
it at her face twice. That
Officer Felice kept her cool in the moment

593
00:52:09.840 --> 00:52:15.280
is remarkable enough. The fact that
she kept going back was incredibly brave.

594
00:52:15.920 --> 00:52:21.400
Me spragged her about his ability to
lie with a straight face and not feel

595
00:52:21.440 --> 00:52:25.719
bad about it at all. Me
said lying was so simple that reality was

596
00:52:25.719 --> 00:52:32.360
a mild inconvenience. At one point, Officer Felice casually brought up the Wellnuts

597
00:52:32.440 --> 00:52:38.239
family murders, and Mes responded that
Meg Wellnitts had had her family wasted.

598
00:52:39.199 --> 00:52:44.719
When Felice asked what kind of look
did they have on their faces, Mees

599
00:52:44.840 --> 00:52:52.280
responded shocked mostly. Mice also provided
Felise with detailed instructions for how to go

600
00:52:52.320 --> 00:52:55.639
about killing her abusive husband, starting
with how to acquire a murder weapon.

601
00:52:57.239 --> 00:53:00.599
He said, you don't buy it
in your name, so it can't be

602
00:53:00.639 --> 00:53:05.800
traced back to you. After the
deed was done. Meaes suggested that Felice

603
00:53:05.800 --> 00:53:09.119
throw the gun in a dumpster outside
of a fast food restaurant. He also

604
00:53:09.280 --> 00:53:13.960
suggested she put the clothes she had
been wearing in the same trash bag.

605
00:53:15.199 --> 00:53:19.639
As we know, Meg used a
fake ID to buy the murder weapon and

606
00:53:19.679 --> 00:53:23.679
then Mees bought it from her without
registering it, and according to Regina's talks

607
00:53:23.719 --> 00:53:30.480
with the police and Mesa's recanted video
confessions, he and Meg disposed of their

608
00:53:30.480 --> 00:53:36.480
clothes and the murder weapon and a
McDonald's dumpster. Mees told the undercover officer

609
00:53:36.800 --> 00:53:40.559
that this was the optimal solution.
One white plastic bag looks like every other

610
00:53:40.559 --> 00:53:46.400
white plastic bag, and a dumpster. He also suggested that she use one

611
00:53:46.440 --> 00:53:51.480
hundred and twenty four grain hollow points
to kill her husband. He said they

612
00:53:51.519 --> 00:53:55.000
were the most effective at getting the
job done, which was the exact ammunition

613
00:53:55.079 --> 00:54:00.920
he used to kill the well Nuts
family. He also told her it doesn't

614
00:54:00.920 --> 00:54:06.880
matter what people think. What matters
is what people can prove. Honestly,

615
00:54:07.239 --> 00:54:12.159
it seemed like everything was going according
to law enforcement's plan. Mees seemed on

616
00:54:12.199 --> 00:54:16.960
the brink of agreeing to kill Felice's
fake abusive husband, or he was until

617
00:54:16.960 --> 00:54:23.280
he hit on Officer Catherine Felice when
she rejected his sexual advances. He reported

618
00:54:23.280 --> 00:54:29.400
her to the Lexington Police. What
a petulant, vindictive, little asshole,

619
00:54:30.400 --> 00:54:34.119
he alerted them that she was trying
to hire someone to kill her husband,

620
00:54:35.280 --> 00:54:39.480
but at least Officer Felice's cover was
not blown, and the authorities continued to

621
00:54:39.519 --> 00:54:45.800
surveil Meese from Afar. Unfortunately,
he made the pass at the officer before

622
00:54:45.840 --> 00:54:51.280
he decided to offer up his hipman
services, so investigators could not arrest him

623
00:54:51.320 --> 00:54:54.679
for that as planned, and did
not have enough concrete evidence about the wellness

624
00:54:54.760 --> 00:55:00.079
murders. All they had was what
he bragged about. He could easily say

625
00:55:00.119 --> 00:55:06.480
he made that up to impress her. Their next encounter with Mes did not

626
00:55:06.679 --> 00:55:09.880
happen until eight years later, in
the fall of two thousand and two.

627
00:55:10.199 --> 00:55:15.239
That October, a woman named Georgia
Rose was standing outside her daughter's home.

628
00:55:15.800 --> 00:55:22.719
She was extremely upset. Meys,
who was walking his dog, stopped to

629
00:55:22.760 --> 00:55:27.719
ask her what was wrong. Georgia
explained that her boyfriend was acting like a

630
00:55:27.800 --> 00:55:34.280
jerk, so Mes offered to take
care of the boyfriend. Georgia was immediately

631
00:55:34.320 --> 00:55:39.559
schewed out and called a friend who
was a police officer. That officer was

632
00:55:39.599 --> 00:55:46.119
Detective Sergeant Dennis Benningfield. This was
the catalyst that caused Benningfield to look into

633
00:55:46.119 --> 00:55:52.039
Mysa's relationship with Regina after all,
happily married men don't offer to commit capital

634
00:55:52.119 --> 00:55:58.400
murder for women they just met.
In addition to reaching out to Regina,

635
00:55:58.840 --> 00:56:05.360
the authorities also enlisted Georgia. She
became an undercover agent for the authorities at

636
00:56:05.480 --> 00:56:10.280
law enforcement's request. Georgia continued to
contact MEAs about killing her boyfriend, and

637
00:56:10.360 --> 00:56:15.159
eventually she and Mees settled on a
price of two thousand dollars for the hit.

638
00:56:16.360 --> 00:56:21.760
MEAs would receive a five hundred dollars
down payment before the kill, and

639
00:56:21.840 --> 00:56:24.880
he would get the rest after.
To prove the job was done, he

640
00:56:24.960 --> 00:56:30.400
was supposed to take a polaroid photo
of the boyfriend's dead body, then Georgia

641
00:56:30.440 --> 00:56:34.360
would leave the rest of Mesa's cash
payment and a toolbox on his back porch.

642
00:56:36.000 --> 00:56:39.119
So on November third, two thousand
and two, Mees hopped into Georgia's

643
00:56:39.119 --> 00:56:44.920
car outside of a CVS pharmacy.
He said to her, on a practical

644
00:56:45.000 --> 00:56:49.360
level, I need the money and
you need a problem solved. Then Georgia

645
00:56:49.880 --> 00:56:54.360
handed him the five hundred dollars and
Bill Mease was immediately arrested by the Kentucky

646
00:56:54.400 --> 00:57:00.840
State Police. The sting operation had
been a success. During Mysa's trial in

647
00:57:00.960 --> 00:57:05.960
June of two thousand and three.
His defense tried to convince the jury that

648
00:57:06.039 --> 00:57:09.119
this was all a misunderstanding. He
wasn't going to murder a guy for Georgia,

649
00:57:09.519 --> 00:57:14.079
he was scamming her. As soon
as he received the money, he

650
00:57:14.119 --> 00:57:19.760
was going to run. But recorded
conversations between Mes and Georgia revealed otherwise.

651
00:57:20.920 --> 00:57:25.440
Meaes had repeatedly bragged about faking polygraph
test results to Georgia. He told her

652
00:57:25.480 --> 00:57:30.880
all about his experience killing people,
and he even explained the need for a

653
00:57:30.920 --> 00:57:37.119
clean weapon and the element of surprise. Clearly Mees had an mo because these

654
00:57:37.159 --> 00:57:44.440
were very similar to the tactics he
used to annihilate the Wellnuts family. On

655
00:57:44.519 --> 00:57:49.039
Thursday, February twenty eighth, two
thousand and three, Bill MEAs was arrested

656
00:57:49.119 --> 00:57:53.960
for the Wellnuts family murders. Ten
years and one day after the initial slayings.

657
00:57:54.400 --> 00:57:59.920
He had been sitting in jail awaiting
trial for agreeing to kill George's boyfriend.

658
00:58:00.039 --> 00:58:06.679
Meg, on the other hand,
now lived in Chicago. I'm going

659
00:58:06.719 --> 00:58:12.360
to pause now for a short commercial
break. As soon as Regina told detectives

660
00:58:12.400 --> 00:58:16.280
about how Meice and Meg had plotted
the deaths of the Wellnuts family investigators had

661
00:58:16.320 --> 00:58:22.920
tried to contact Meg, but she
continuously ducked their calls. When they did

662
00:58:22.960 --> 00:58:25.559
finally get a hold of her,
Meg was adamant that she needed to speak

663
00:58:25.599 --> 00:58:30.159
with her lawyer before talking to them. So when twenty eight year old Meg

664
00:58:30.519 --> 00:58:35.400
was arrested on February twenty eighth,
two thousand and three, she was very

665
00:58:35.400 --> 00:58:40.360
surprised, and I can see why
she had almost completely moved on. She

666
00:58:40.519 --> 00:58:45.400
was probably pretty certain that she had
gotten away with murder. By then,

667
00:58:46.000 --> 00:58:52.519
exactly ten years later, she had
studied ceramics both at Transylvania University and the

668
00:58:52.639 --> 00:58:58.800
University of Kentucky, and she had
run a bar at Chicago's Upper south Side.

669
00:58:59.119 --> 00:59:02.480
She had been divorced twice, and
she was a mom. The only

670
00:59:02.519 --> 00:59:07.679
recorded instance where we know Meg even
thought about murdering her entire family was in

671
00:59:07.719 --> 00:59:13.280
the year two thousand. At that
time, Meaes had sent Meg a letter

672
00:59:13.320 --> 00:59:19.400
through her grandmother. He wanted money
for quote services rendered so long ago.

673
00:59:19.840 --> 00:59:23.920
In a statement Meg gave officials which
she later recanted, she said he sent

674
00:59:23.960 --> 00:59:28.360
me a letter saying his life had
been ruined and that he had read some

675
00:59:28.440 --> 00:59:31.599
book about the witness Protection program and
that if I didn't give him enough money

676
00:59:31.599 --> 00:59:35.320
to start a lawn care service,
that he was going to go to the

677
00:59:35.320 --> 00:59:38.559
police and confess as a hit man
and get put in the witness protection program

678
00:59:38.559 --> 00:59:45.679
in Hawaii. Loll at Mees's thinking
he'd be put in witness protection much less

679
00:59:45.719 --> 00:59:50.599
sent to Hawaii. Meg told her
then husband, Justin Manly, about this

680
00:59:50.760 --> 00:59:53.880
letter, but she didn't explain that
she knew exactly what MEAs was writing about.

681
00:59:54.519 --> 00:59:59.519
Instead, she chalked it up to
some crazy guy reaching out. She

682
00:59:59.599 --> 01:00:02.519
pointed out out how Mee had once
told her he was in the CIA and

683
01:00:02.559 --> 01:00:07.800
that he killed people. Then Meg
shredded the letter and threw it in the

684
01:00:07.800 --> 01:00:12.199
trash. Later it would be revealed
that she was concerned the letter could be

685
01:00:12.320 --> 01:00:19.599
used against her as evidence the remaining
Wellnet's family members in Columbia community were flabbergasted

686
01:00:19.639 --> 01:00:24.559
to learn that Meg had masterminded her
parents and brother's deaths. Captain Hancock told

687
01:00:24.599 --> 01:00:29.639
Oxygen, it's very disturbing to know
that this sweet little girl that I remember

688
01:00:30.000 --> 01:00:32.000
has been the one that actually played
such a big role in this murder.

689
01:00:32.480 --> 01:00:38.239
Meg orchestrated one of the most horrendous
crimes that you could ever imagine and Cindy

690
01:00:38.320 --> 01:00:43.119
Yates, who worked for the wellnets
Vack Clinic for many years, told The

691
01:00:43.119 --> 01:00:46.079
Herald Leader, I was hoping it
would be a stranger. It hurts to

692
01:00:46.119 --> 01:00:51.039
know if they did do this,
that someone could be that cold hearted to

693
01:00:51.079 --> 01:00:57.000
their own family. When Mees and
Meg were charged and indicted, Meg faced

694
01:00:57.039 --> 01:01:00.599
three counts of complicity to commit murder
and one count of complicity to commit robbery

695
01:01:00.639 --> 01:01:06.920
and burglary. Mees faced three counts
of murder, three counts of complicity to

696
01:01:06.960 --> 01:01:10.239
commit murder, one count of first
degree robbery, one count of first degree

697
01:01:10.280 --> 01:01:16.360
burglary, and one count of complicity
to commit robbery and burglary. Right away,

698
01:01:16.559 --> 01:01:21.880
the Commonwealth's attorney, Brian Wright,
confirmed that he would be seeking the

699
01:01:21.920 --> 01:01:25.760
death penalty for both MEAs and Meg. He said to the Lexington Herald Leader,

700
01:01:27.159 --> 01:01:30.360
it's certainly a capital case and deserving
of capital treatment and the prosecution.

701
01:01:31.760 --> 01:01:36.519
On Wednesday, March twelfth, two
thousand and three, both Meg and Meese

702
01:01:36.519 --> 01:01:42.039
pleaded not guilty. By the way, yes, Kentucky is a commonwealth along

703
01:01:42.079 --> 01:01:46.039
with three other states, Massachusetts,
Pennsylvania, and Virginia. The distinction is

704
01:01:46.039 --> 01:01:51.159
a name alone. The commonwealths are
just like any other state in their politics

705
01:01:51.199 --> 01:01:53.719
and laws, and there is no
difference in their relationship to the nation as

706
01:01:53.760 --> 01:01:59.199
a whole. That's a little inside
baseball for you, because sometimes I slip

707
01:01:59.280 --> 01:02:05.880
up when discussing Virginia or Kentucky cases
and say commonwealth's attorney without explaining anyway.

708
01:02:06.639 --> 01:02:08.880
On Tuesday, June third, two
thousand and three, Bill Meaese was convicted

709
01:02:09.159 --> 01:02:14.400
for conspiring to commit murder in Fayette
County. That would be due to the

710
01:02:14.440 --> 01:02:19.960
sting with Georgia Rose. The jury
recommended twelve years in prison. In July,

711
01:02:20.400 --> 01:02:23.599
the judge accepted that sentence. That
same year, while Meg was in

712
01:02:23.679 --> 01:02:29.800
jail awaiting her death penalty trial,
her ex husband Randy Appleton, sought custody

713
01:02:29.840 --> 01:02:34.679
of their six year old son.
Meg said of the situation, Randy is

714
01:02:34.800 --> 01:02:38.719
just not responsible enough to have a
child. He's very erratic. She told

715
01:02:38.760 --> 01:02:44.639
a judge that she provided a more
stable environment for their son than Randy.

716
01:02:44.760 --> 01:02:49.599
She wanted her son to go to
her friend Tracy Harris and grandmother Mary Preston

717
01:02:50.000 --> 01:02:53.159
until she got out. Yeah,
a jailed mother is so very stable,

718
01:02:53.880 --> 01:02:59.039
not that it really matters, But
Randy Appleton was a tenured college professor.

719
01:02:59.440 --> 01:03:02.519
He had a c record not sitting
in jail waiting on a death penalty trial

720
01:03:02.679 --> 01:03:07.199
like his ex wife. Plus,
in two thousand and one, Meg had

721
01:03:07.199 --> 01:03:13.440
been arrested for endangering their son.
Randy said she lived in squalor. Social

722
01:03:13.440 --> 01:03:16.760
workers also confirmed this. They filed
a report that her house had garbage and

723
01:03:16.800 --> 01:03:22.599
trash on the floor and dry raw
sewage in the basement. You won't be

724
01:03:22.679 --> 01:03:27.960
surprised to hear that. Randy won
custody on the day that Meg's trial was

725
01:03:28.000 --> 01:03:31.000
set to begin in January two thousand
and five, she pleaded guilty to all

726
01:03:31.079 --> 01:03:36.480
charges. In exchange for avoiding the
death penalty. Meg was sentenced to life

727
01:03:36.480 --> 01:03:40.639
in prison without the possibility of parole
for twenty five years. She also agreed

728
01:03:40.639 --> 01:03:49.199
to confess, and she promised to
testify against Billmice at his trial. William

729
01:03:49.239 --> 01:03:53.079
Wellness, Joe's brother and Meg's uncle, told the press to hear she pled

730
01:03:53.119 --> 01:04:00.000
guilty, it's bittersweet they're solved,
But what a tragedy. It's just destroyed

731
01:04:00.199 --> 01:04:04.119
so much. But in July of
two thousand and six, Meg recanted the

732
01:04:04.159 --> 01:04:09.960
confessions she had made as part of
her plea bargain. According to her,

733
01:04:10.480 --> 01:04:14.280
she had made everything up based on
the information she knew about the crime.

734
01:04:15.320 --> 01:04:18.159
Meg claimed that she had been desperate
to avoid the death penalty, and also

735
01:04:18.800 --> 01:04:24.119
she said she was on and off
various drugs while in jail, some prescribed

736
01:04:24.159 --> 01:04:28.119
and some not. Meg later said
I would have told you I was married

737
01:04:28.119 --> 01:04:32.440
to Hitler in that statement. Now, Meg asserted that she had zero clue

738
01:04:32.480 --> 01:04:36.280
that Meies was going to murder her
entire family. None of this was her

739
01:04:36.280 --> 01:04:42.079
fault. She even blamed her lawyers
for ineffective counsel and a related appeal,

740
01:04:43.039 --> 01:04:45.679
But in March of two thousand and
eight, a judge upheld her conviction and

741
01:04:45.760 --> 01:04:50.760
sentencing. That judge did not address
any of Meg's arguments about her desperation,

742
01:04:51.280 --> 01:04:57.079
drug usage, or problems with her
lawyers. Instead, he simply cited that

743
01:04:57.119 --> 01:05:01.719
Meg had missed the three year of
pill deadline before days. Meanwhile, Mes's

744
01:05:01.760 --> 01:05:06.000
first trial began in November two thousand
and four, but the trial ended early

745
01:05:06.280 --> 01:05:13.119
when he pled guilty during the jury
selection process. He also accepted a plea

746
01:05:13.199 --> 01:05:16.440
deal in exchange for a sentence of
life in prison without parole for at least

747
01:05:16.480 --> 01:05:21.199
twenty five years. He received a
total of forty years on the other charges

748
01:05:23.079 --> 01:05:27.840
as a part of the plea deal, Mes also provided recorded video statements regarding

749
01:05:27.880 --> 01:05:32.800
his involvement in the Wellness family murders. By the next month, in December

750
01:05:32.840 --> 01:05:38.000
two thousand and four, Mees claimed
that he entered into the plea bargain under

751
01:05:38.039 --> 01:05:42.639
false pretenses. Turns out he didn't
want to plead guilty at all. He

752
01:05:42.679 --> 01:05:45.679
didn't like one of his current court
appointed lawyers, so he pled guilty to

753
01:05:45.719 --> 01:05:50.039
try to get a new one.
But he had already given those video recorded

754
01:05:50.039 --> 01:05:56.039
statements, and by this point Meg
had also provided her own recorded statements.

755
01:05:56.239 --> 01:06:00.559
And I cannot emphasize this enough.
Both MEAs and Meg's statement months aligned damn

756
01:06:00.559 --> 01:06:05.639
near perfectly. Now. According to
Mes, those recorded video statements were a

757
01:06:05.679 --> 01:06:10.639
lie, just a ruse to get
the plea deal going so he could immediately

758
01:06:10.679 --> 01:06:15.679
reneg on it. He said he'd
used the information that his lawyers provided to

759
01:06:15.760 --> 01:06:20.079
create the whole story. He even
told the press there still exists nothing to

760
01:06:20.119 --> 01:06:25.159
this case. When the smoke clears
and the mirrors are taken away, there's

761
01:06:25.239 --> 01:06:29.559
no fire, only a lot of
hot air. Unfortunately some of it my

762
01:06:29.679 --> 01:06:32.920
own. I still maintain my innocence. But this is chess. It ain't

763
01:06:33.000 --> 01:06:38.760
checkers ough I hate this guy.
He thinks he's so cute with his hip

764
01:06:38.800 --> 01:06:43.360
man bullshit and chess not checkers.
It may have taken ten years to get

765
01:06:43.400 --> 01:06:46.239
him, but it's not because investigators
didn't know where to look. It just

766
01:06:46.320 --> 01:06:50.039
took that long to get Regina to
turn so I guess he had some right

767
01:06:50.119 --> 01:06:56.159
to be smarmy, but I still
hate him anyway. A few months later,

768
01:06:56.320 --> 01:07:00.280
Mysa's motion to set aside his plea
deal was accepted, and he got

769
01:07:00.320 --> 01:07:03.320
new lawyers just like he wanted.
Since he had switched his plea deal,

770
01:07:03.639 --> 01:07:09.880
the judge ordered a competency evaluation in
February two thousand and five. Bill Meaes

771
01:07:10.039 --> 01:07:14.079
was ruled competent later that year,
and in the fall of two thousand and

772
01:07:14.159 --> 01:07:19.760
six his trial began. I'm going
to pause now for a final commercial break.

773
01:07:27.679 --> 01:07:31.320
His trial took four weeks. In
that time, the Commonwealth asserted that

774
01:07:31.360 --> 01:07:35.440
Mees was the triggerman in his ameg's
plot to kill the Walnuts family for money.

775
01:07:36.239 --> 01:07:43.000
Brandy Appleton testified that Meaese told him
he was an assassin. Regina Mysa's

776
01:07:43.000 --> 01:07:47.280
ex wife, testified to the experiences
I've already told you about, and Meg

777
01:07:47.400 --> 01:07:53.599
also testified at this point, she
had already pled guilty and recanted. She

778
01:07:53.719 --> 01:08:00.760
said everything was Mysa's fault. Additionally, Badass undercover agent Officer Caine and Felice

779
01:08:00.039 --> 01:08:04.960
testified about her experience under cover with
Mees trying to convince him to kill her

780
01:08:05.039 --> 01:08:13.000
fake abusive boyfriend, and the jury
was allowed to hear Mysa's video recorded confessions,

781
01:08:13.280 --> 01:08:16.800
even though he had since recanted.
Mysa's defense team had a hell of

782
01:08:16.840 --> 01:08:21.560
an uphill battle. They tried to
prove that Mes and Meg were studying for

783
01:08:21.600 --> 01:08:28.600
their community college English test on the
night of the murders. Bill Meaes testified

784
01:08:28.640 --> 01:08:31.119
on his own behalf. He said
on the stand, I have a lot

785
01:08:31.159 --> 01:08:36.359
of experience making up false stories.
I've lied a lot in my life.

786
01:08:36.439 --> 01:08:42.479
The defense attorneys also argued that Mees
couldn't have killed the Wellnuts family. Meaes

787
01:08:42.560 --> 01:08:45.680
hadn't received a dime from Meg for
the murders. If you'll recall, the

788
01:08:45.720 --> 01:08:49.800
Wellnuts family inheritance, which Mees was
supposed to get a cut of, was

789
01:08:49.880 --> 01:08:55.600
lost to overwhelming debt. Meg even
had to sell the land on which Meaes

790
01:08:55.800 --> 01:09:00.439
was supposed to build his commune.
So his lawyer argued, if Meg didn't

791
01:09:00.439 --> 01:09:04.640
pay Mees, why hadn't he killed
her too, to which the prosecution responded

792
01:09:05.079 --> 01:09:10.920
Meg being alive was the only possibility
of him ever getting his money. Plus,

793
01:09:10.960 --> 01:09:15.840
if Meg was murdered, Meece would
certainly be a suspect. The defense

794
01:09:15.880 --> 01:09:19.560
also claimed that Regina was just bad
mouthing MEAs because she was angry about their

795
01:09:19.680 --> 01:09:26.239
terrible marriage, but the Commonwealth's attorney
pointed out that the authorities had approached Regina,

796
01:09:26.600 --> 01:09:30.760
not the other way around. On
Friday, September fifteenth, two thousand

797
01:09:30.800 --> 01:09:35.199
and six, after deliberating for less
than two hours, the jury convicted thirty

798
01:09:35.199 --> 01:09:40.039
three year old William Harry MEAs of
three counts of murder, robbery, and

799
01:09:40.079 --> 01:09:45.279
burglary. Days later, the jury
recommended that MEAs be sentenced to death plus

800
01:09:45.279 --> 01:09:50.880
two consecutive twenty year terms totaling forty
years, and October the judge agreed.

801
01:09:53.000 --> 01:09:57.239
The judge stated publicly that he had
no doubt that Meaes had killed the Wellnuts

802
01:09:57.279 --> 01:10:01.640
family. MEAs, of course,
later complained that he did not get a

803
01:10:01.680 --> 01:10:06.960
fair trial. He likened the court
system to Nazi Germany, Communist China and

804
01:10:08.000 --> 01:10:14.159
Soviet Russia. Right, you were
so persecuted, Mees appealed to the Kentucky

805
01:10:14.199 --> 01:10:17.560
Supreme Court in twenty eleven. He
had a myriad of complaints, some of

806
01:10:17.600 --> 01:10:23.119
which included that he was upset that
his recanted video statements were allowed. He

807
01:10:23.199 --> 01:10:28.600
also didn't like that Officer Felice was
allowed to tell the jury about their conversations,

808
01:10:29.840 --> 01:10:32.479
and he thought that Regina shouldn't have
been allowed to testify because she was

809
01:10:32.520 --> 01:10:38.039
his ex wife. We think spouses
aren't supposed to be able to testify against

810
01:10:38.119 --> 01:10:42.720
each other. Actually the law is
they cannot be compelled to testify against each

811
01:10:42.720 --> 01:10:48.880
other. Regina testified willingly. The
court also determined that everything Mees shared with

812
01:10:48.960 --> 01:10:55.560
Regina was knowledge found by other means
too. Ultimately, the Kentucky Supreme Court

813
01:10:55.800 --> 01:11:01.159
affirmed Bill Mees's conviction and sentence.
Today, fifty one year old William Harry

814
01:11:01.239 --> 01:11:06.479
Meaes is on death row at the
Kentucky State Penitentiary. His execution date has

815
01:11:06.520 --> 01:11:12.960
not been set. He's awaiting death
because of his own hubris. He never

816
01:11:12.960 --> 01:11:16.640
should have fought his plea bargain.
I said before that his childhood was like

817
01:11:16.680 --> 01:11:21.000
a how to for raising a sociopath. Maybe he just couldn't help himself.

818
01:11:21.600 --> 01:11:29.399
It was a self fulfilling prophecy.
On February twelfth, twenty fourteen, just

819
01:11:29.600 --> 01:11:33.640
shy of twenty one years since she
had her whole family butchered, thirty nine

820
01:11:33.680 --> 01:11:39.159
year old Meg wellnets Appleton was found
dead in her jail cell at about seven

821
01:11:39.159 --> 01:11:43.720
o'clock in the morning. She was
at the Prison for Female offenders in Peewee

822
01:11:43.840 --> 01:11:48.680
Valley. Her death was ruled a
suicide. Initially, reports said that the

823
01:11:48.720 --> 01:11:54.640
state police were investigating it, but
since then no other details have been released.

824
01:11:55.640 --> 01:12:00.760
Meg was buried next to her family
in the Lexington Cemetery. Beth's mother,

825
01:12:00.880 --> 01:12:05.560
Mary outlived almost all of her close
family, dying at age one hundred.

826
01:12:06.159 --> 01:12:11.119
Can you imagine living to be one
hundred years old with your closest loved

827
01:12:11.159 --> 01:12:15.520
ones all dead and buried. Mary
Preston was buried in the same cemetery as

828
01:12:15.520 --> 01:12:20.680
her family in twenty twenty. Her
husband, three brothers, three children,

829
01:12:20.800 --> 01:12:27.319
and grandchildren all died before her.
It was almost two decades without them.

830
01:12:28.359 --> 01:12:31.920
Mary only had her great grandson,
Mag's son left, but she did have

831
01:12:31.960 --> 01:12:38.399
some nieces, nephews and other extended
family who lovingly helped care for her in

832
01:12:38.439 --> 01:12:44.720
those long years without her close family. In a case like this, with

833
01:12:44.840 --> 01:12:49.279
so many interesting twists and turns.
The misery and devastation of those left behind

834
01:12:49.800 --> 01:12:55.840
can be forgotten as we get caught
up in the story. But the remaining

835
01:12:55.880 --> 01:13:00.439
family, as well as close friends
and the rest of the tight community never

836
01:13:00.479 --> 01:13:06.119
forgot. The murderers left a painful
scar on every one's heart. Knowing what

837
01:13:06.239 --> 01:13:12.119
good people Joe and Beth were,
it's hard to imagine they raised such a

838
01:13:12.159 --> 01:13:17.079
selfish, cold and hateful person like
Meg, someone who didn't place much value

839
01:13:17.159 --> 01:13:24.039
on human life. You see videos
with her and her horse on her family's

840
01:13:24.079 --> 01:13:30.159
property, and she looked so normal
and happy. How could she do it?

841
01:13:30.159 --> 01:13:34.279
It makes you think about that nature
versus nurture debate. To obliterate your

842
01:13:34.319 --> 01:13:40.159
parents for money is so sadistic.
Meg might have felt some guilt for her

843
01:13:40.199 --> 01:13:44.079
brother Dennis, but it didn't seem
to face her long as the young woman

844
01:13:44.119 --> 01:13:48.039
went on with her life for another
decade. After she got her money,

845
01:13:48.439 --> 01:13:53.239
she went to school, got married, had a child of her own.

846
01:13:54.680 --> 01:13:59.199
But then justice finally caught up with
her and she didn't last eight years in

847
01:13:59.239 --> 01:14:03.359
prison. But I can't stop thinking
about the suffering of the wellnesses. That

848
01:14:03.520 --> 01:14:09.479
night, Joe taken by surprise,
with no time to try and save his

849
01:14:09.520 --> 01:14:15.960
family. Then Beth hiding in her
bedroom she had surely heard the gunshots as

850
01:14:15.000 --> 01:14:20.439
she stood trembling, waiting for her
death. And poor Dennis maybe trying to

851
01:14:20.479 --> 01:14:26.800
lie quietly and hope the gunman thought
he wasn't home since he wasn't supposed to

852
01:14:26.840 --> 01:14:32.399
be there. It's a nightmare come
true. The shock and fear, then

853
01:14:32.439 --> 01:14:38.800
the dread and pain, and they
knew who Bill Meese was, so you

854
01:14:38.920 --> 01:14:43.479
have to wonder if they understood that
it was Meg who had wanted them dead

855
01:14:44.800 --> 01:14:49.439
mercifully, they seemed to die quickly, hopefully before they were fully aware that

856
01:14:49.520 --> 01:14:59.600
someone they loved had betrayed them so
callously. Southern Fried True Crime is hosted

857
01:14:59.640 --> 01:15:03.079
and produce used by me Erica Kelly. Today's episode was researched and written by

858
01:15:03.119 --> 01:15:09.279
me and Andrea Marshbank. As usual, any editorial comments and opinions are my

859
01:15:09.399 --> 01:15:13.479
own. Southern Fred's original music is
by Rob Harrison of Gamma Radio and the

860
01:15:13.520 --> 01:15:17.199
original graphic artist by Koly Horner.
Today's episode was edited and mixed by Brandon

861
01:15:17.239 --> 01:15:23.600
schock Snider of Southern Gothic and Erica
Kelly. Today's case was suggested by Dana

862
01:15:23.680 --> 01:15:27.199
Schmidt. If you have any suggestions, please go to my website, Southern

863
01:15:27.239 --> 01:15:32.039
Fred Truecrime dot com and click on
the listener suggestion tab or email SFTC Research

864
01:15:32.359 --> 01:15:35.560
at gmail dot com. This is
the best way for me to get those

865
01:15:35.560 --> 01:15:40.680
little known cases you'll always send me. Please remember that I do not accept

866
01:15:40.680 --> 01:15:44.880
suggestions on social media private messages,
but please come join our Facebook group,

867
01:15:45.239 --> 01:15:48.880
Southern Fried True Crime Fans Discussion Group, where we swap recipes, worship Dolly

868
01:15:48.920 --> 01:15:53.319
Parton, and share memes. We
do, of course discuss true crime,

869
01:15:53.359 --> 01:15:56.359
not just Southern Fried, but all
kinds, but it is still very much

870
01:15:56.359 --> 01:15:59.880
a Southern lifestyle group. Our group
is a safe and fun corner of Facebook,

871
01:16:00.000 --> 01:16:00.880
and by God, we mean it
when we say no shit as is

872
01:16:00.920 --> 01:16:03.600
allowed. It's not just a motto, it's how we run the group.

873
01:16:04.000 --> 01:16:08.680
If you enjoy today's show, don't
forget to subscribe and please tell a friend

874
01:16:08.800 --> 01:16:13.279
or rate and review. I'm on
all large platforms like iTunes, Iheartspotify,

875
01:16:13.359 --> 01:16:17.680
Amazon, Audible and YouTube. Until
next time, thanks so much for listening,

876
01:16:18.319 --> 01:16:19.079
y'all. Take care