Morbid - Episode 439: Kiss and Kill Murder

Episode Date: March 8, 2023

When Betty Williams’ boyfriend, Mack Herring, broke up with her during their senior year of high school, her entire world felt like it was collapsing in on her. She had been struggling with depression and anxiety for some time, all of which seemed compounded by the problems of a society and culture that in 1961 seemed steadfastly unwilling to accept her for who she was. For Betty, death seemed the only way to free herself from the losing battle she had been fighting; however, despite her commitment to ending her life, Betty simply didn’t have what she described as “the fortitude necessary” to go through with it. Instead, she begged one last thing of the young man who had just broken her heart—she wanted him to pull the trigger for her.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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than the national average savings rate. Apply for your Apple card now in the wallet app on iPhone and start growing your daily cash with savings today. Apple card subject to credit approval. Savings is available to Apple card owners, subject to eligibility requirements. Savings is available to Apple Card owners, subject to eligibility requirements. Savings accounts provided by Goldman Sachs Bank USA. Remember FDIC? National Average Savings rate is from FDIC website. Terms apply. Hey weirdos, I'm Ash. And I'm Alaina. And this is morbid. It's more bad. Did you hear my whistle with my S that just happened? No, I didn't. I literally, it was like very slight, but that did just happen. Yeah, that felt embarrassing for some reason.

It wasn't, don't worry about it. I didn't even hear it. Okay, I didn't even hear it. Oh, I didn't. Guys, we're at our home away from home. We are. We're not going to say where that is, but. No, we're at our home away from home. We are. We're not gonna say where that is, but. No, we're not. But we are finally getting some time with our fam.

Exactly. We're spending time with family. Yeah. We're just chilling out, you know, relaxing all cool. Chillin' out, laxin', chillin' out, maxin' relaxin' all cool, there we go. She had some b-ball outside of the school. When a couple of guys.

We're really good too. That's what we're doing. Yeah, and we had our live show, our virtual live show last night. Yeah, thank you guys so much to everybody who logged on and watched, who logged on. What a fucking that.

What a fucking century. What a cool fucking location that was. That was the coolest location. Yeah. I want to film literally every live show from there. I want to live there. You should. I belong there. We got to get ready in this like old tiny bedroom where like all the furniture is like exactly as it was and like I think that place was built in like 1910 or something. Yeah. It was it was so cool. Yeah, it was and I think that place was built in like 1910 or something. Yeah, it was so cool. Yeah, it was awesome. And you guys rule.

And we're glad that you were there in spirit. Yeah, it was awesome. I also want to dress like I did every single day of my life. I also told Ash when we left, I was like, you should just come to work like that every day. Like you were literally made for that. I was. You were.

I really was. I believe that. I feel that very strongly. Not super comfortable. No. Tool. Yeah, I mean, it didn't look super comfortable. That's great.

That's great. I was wearing two robes technically. Not technically I was. Technically, technically. I had like a silky one underneath. That one was like super comfy. Like a butter. Yeah, but the tool was like a lot.

The tool of it all is always scratchy. And I have very sensitive skin, so. So I was itchy. I was the itchy. And then we both got cricks in our neck. Yes. Because cricks are cricks, right? Cricks, right?

Because I don't have like, cricks in my neck. No, I don't have like, criminals in my neck. I'm saying I have thieves in my neck. Nave, but I have cricks. Yeah, because we both were looking at each other for so long when we were telling the stories. And it was so cold in there that I think like, I popped with my neck like a lot. Me too, wicked bad. I was sleeping last night and I was pissed off because no matter which way I moved, I couldn't get my crick out my neck. Me too, it still hurts tonight.

Like mine really doesn't. Mine still hurts. I feel like I'm whispering a little bit because it's really late right now. It is really late. We're just like sequester in the corner somewhere that we set up like a bunch of so bleak. We got sequestered into a corner somewhere set up like a temporary, you know, recording studio. We're in a little cubicle. Yeah, we're in a little cubicle and it feels right. I love it. Well, this is like pretty long for me, for me, for me. So we should get into it. I did

kind of just really not kind of want to just like, just remember. No, that's seriously, I did want to put a little bit of a trigger warning at the top of this episode because this case has very, very heavy themes and a lot of mention of suicide. So if that's not something that you're in the headspace to listen to right now, we completely understand and respect that. You can set this one out and we'll see you next episode, which will be listener tails, I think. Which is always a fucking good time. Yeah. Yeah. It will be. So this is a Wednesday episode. Yeah, so know that. That it'll be okay. And for those stay in, today we are covering the murder of Betty Williams. I loved that murder. It is a murder. Yeah. It is, but it's complicated.

All right. Okay. And also, it's like a bit of an old timey case because it did happen during the 60s, but it's one of those older cases that weirdly feels like it could have happened yesterday. Like, it's got those vibes. And the reaction from the public in this case though,

that's definitely dated. That's very old timey. Yeah, that's definitely dated. That's very old-timey. Yeah, that's very old-timey, because along with, again, the heavy themes of suicide, there was also heavy themes of us slet-shaming and victim-blaming. Cool. All at the expense of Betty Williams.

Sounds fun. Yeah, we love it. So it all starts when Betty's boyfriend, Mack Herring, breaks up with her, and he broke up with her during their senior year of high school. That shitty. Really, really sad. Her entire world obviously felt like it was collapsing in on her.

And she had already been struggling with depression and anxiety for a good while at this point. And at the center of all of her problems was the fact that she was really living in a time that in a lot of ways just was not meant for her. Oh, that's sad. I feel like Betty was very ahead of her time in a way and I don't really know how to explain that, but I do feel like you'll also get that sense listening. The vibe is just there.

Yeah, yeah, definitely. She was progressive, she was outspoken, and she was really in tune with her sexuality. But she had all of those qualities as a teenager living in the 60s. Yeah. So like, you were not as a woman or a girl supposed to be sexual at all, outspoken, at all, or progressive in any way, shape or form. Because we're coming off the heels of the 50s. Yes, honey. So no one around her really knew what the hell to make of her.

And they really only paid any attention to her when they were talking shit about her or making her feel like an outcast. Wow. Yeah. So things got to the point where Betty felt like death was the only way to free herself from kind of a losing battle that she felt like she'd been fighting. Oh, that kills me. This is a very, very sad case.

Very sad. They put me in a weird headspace for a few days. Oh, great kills me. This is a very, very sad case. Very sad. It put me in a weird headspace for a few days. Oh, great. Yeah, I just saw you know. But it's also like, it's such an interesting story and it's like, I think it's so important to be told. Yeah.

So she was by all means determined to put an end to her life. Like very determined to do that. But she was afraid to do it alone. She didn't want to leave this realm and enter the next by herself. Oh my god! She described it quote, as not having the fortitude necessary to go through with it. So instead of facing the end of her life alone, she begged for one last thing from the guy who had just broken her heart. She wanted him to pull the trigger for her.

from the guy who had just broken her heart. She wanted him to pull the trigger for her. Wow. Yeah. The shooting of Betty Williams by Matt Kering, which is sometimes referred to as the Kiss and Kill murder, it's really been largely forgotten by a lot of people who live outside of the West Texas City of Odessa, where the killing took place. But the case really does remain among one of the most complicated cases of the 20th century, and still a lot of people have questions. And the most discussed question is, when is a death a killing and a killing a murder? It's convoluted this one. I told you. It's gonna be a lot. And that's the thing. I'm like, this was a murder, but like, it was a... There's more to it.

But it was like I'm so I'm still so conflicted. I don't know how to really say label this. Yeah, how to label it exactly. But let's start at the beginning. Elizabeth Jean Betty Williams, she was born on August 11th, 1943 and Marion Illinois to John and Mary Williams. Her early life was pretty good.

Her dad was a carpenter. And when there wasn't any contracting work for him to do, he was also able to get work in the coal industry. Now, the coal industry went from being a constant for John to fall back on to completely unreliable work very quickly. Then he injured his back in 1954 and neither job was something that he could physically do anymore. Oh man. Yeah. So while he was talking to his brother about what he could do to support his family, the brother suggested that he move out to Texas, which had a booming oil industry at the time. So surely John could find some kind of job in the oil industry and get his family back up on their feet in no time. Surely. Or maybe not. In Illinois, this family, they were family of five and they lived in a

really large house that John had actually built himself. They had all the space that they could ever need. But in Odessa, the house that they had moved into, which was on Henderson Street, it was definitely more modest. It was only about 10 to 20 years old at that point, but it felt, quote, old and well-worn to the family. Oh, wow. They were also constantly having to pick up trash from the front lawn, because the house was across from a factory, and the trash at the factory was just constantly blowing into their yard, or getting stuck on their fence. So, like, you're already down on your luck. Yeah. You've already crammed a family of five into a much smaller house than you were used to,

and now you're picking up trash from your front lawn and fence every day. Because trash is literally just wafting over to your house. Like, you're not feeling great about that. Yeah. And just to put the cherry on top of things, the job that John was hoping for,

never really materialized itself. He could still keep the family afloat on the money that he had made as a carpenter and he kept picking up side jobs and everything, but Mary ended up having to get a job at JC Penny to help even more. Sadly, the move was just not everything they had hoped it would be. So according to Betty's cousin Shelton Williams,

which I think is the cutest fucking name on the planet. Her father, John's employment problems might have had something to do with his attitude. He came off to many as a self-righteous man and he came off very arrogant. Shelton actually later wrote a book about this case. It's his cousin's murder. It's called washed and blood. And he wrote about John saying that he, quote, seemed to always either to be preaching in a whole year the now way or he seemed to be bragging. Wow. Those are not great things to hear about yourself. No, definitely not. And then the other thing on top of that was that things were just never John's fault. Never. We don't know people like that. Never ever.

Also, I am really smearing and tarnishing the name John lately. You are dragging the name John through the mutt. I think I've had three cases in a row. One of them was the live show where the John's have been bad. Yeah, where you've just been like, and John came, and I was like, I love a john, and you were like, not this one.

And it's like, damn. All right. Yeah, sorry. Wow. Well, this john sucks. And things were never his fault. And most of the time that he spent out of work, he actually ended up blaming on his children.

Cool. Yeah, you should do that. It's their fault, really. He was a very religious man. He was described as a strict Baptist. And he wanted to make sure that his children followed the same faith, and he told them whenever the family was going through some kind of hardship, or he was out of work, that it was their fault, and that they had done

something, quote, to bring God's punishment down on our household. Wow, what an asshole. Like, maybe it's your fault, because like, I didn't know how to be here, dad. Yeah, you're a straight up asshole. Like, you brought me into this. Yeah, you blame your kids for your bullshit. Like, you're an asshole. And then you just say like, it's their fault. And God's mad at them.

Like, go fuck yourself. You shut the fuck up, John. Exactly. So as Betty got older and she became a teenager, she became the main focus of her father's outburst and just, she pure distinct. Pure of her father's outburst and just pure distinct. Pure distinct. Oh, I hate this man.

Mm-hmm, me too. He quote, often preached a betty about sin and eternal damnation. And on more than one Sunday morning, he prayed that she might learn to be a more obedient daughter. Ew. Like in front of her.

Ew. Yeah. Oh God, I hate this man. Me too. Now somebody else, especially again, in that time period, would have tried everything they could have to make their father happy or avoid his anger, but Betty let it feed her.

By the time she turned 14 or 15, she realized that her dad's belief system, all of his rules and morals, were going to be everything she stood against. That's amazing, which I think is fucking awesome. So when she was entering high school, she was immersing herself in everything she could to expand her world. She was reading books by John Kerawak, an author who many people probably know, but if you didn't, he basically let a movement in the 50s that was later called the beat generation. I was going to say the beat poets. Yes, exactly. Now, the people that made up this generation were

people like Betty who rejected conventional society. And this is a quote, and favored Zen Buddhism, modern jazz and free sexuality, baby. I love it. Now, Betty loved all of the beat poets, and she also loved the comedian, Lenny Bruce, whose comedy style was mostly satirical. It featured jokes about politics, religion, sex, things that she had no business listening to back then. No. And she also wore what was considered as too much makeup

and she did basically everything she could to reject conforming to the world around her in small-time Texas. I love that for her. I do too. If you look up a picture of her, I think she's the cutest little bean. Oh, she's adorable, right?

But she didn't dress like you were supposed to back then. We'll get into it. To some people, she probably sounds like a typical teenager, just kind of going against the grain to establish her independence. And I definitely agree that there is a piece of teenage innocence and like resistance here. Yeah. She did have something to prove.

But at the same time, like I've already said, she was really just more progressive than most people around her. According to Pamela Kohloff, quote, Betty disstained conformity and reserved particular contempt for the girls with matching sweater sets and saddle shoes who seemed to look right through her. Oh my God, I love Betty. I do too.

She wanted to be unique and she expressed that through her appearance. Sometimes she would dress in all black. Sometimes she would just wear jeans and a t-shirt, which was like fucking wild. Yeah, back then. And other times she would wear very revealing clothing, which like she probably like showed her shoulder or something.

I was going to say her ankle. Yeah. But more than just dressing differently and reading those kinds of books, she also spoke freely about her ideas and opinions. I mean, clutch the price. She thinks she is. You know? And that definitely had more than a few people clutching their pearls back then. Absolutely.

She would talk to her teachers and other adults around her and try to get them to see where she was coming from when it came to topics that they simply were not talking about back then. She wanted a lively debate. She did. She wanted to talk about racial segregation. She wanted to talk about sexism.

She wanted to talk about equality. Like She wanted to talk about sexism. She wanted to talk about equality. Like, she wanted to get your fucking mind out. Yeah, she did. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I have a lot of like full-blown fixations of sessions, if you will, and one of them is HelloFresh. I'm obsessed with HelloFresh, because with HelloFresh, you get farm fresh, pre-portioned ingredients, and seasonal recipes. Righte-a-jaw. Skip those trips to the grocery store and count on HelloFresh to make home cooking

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I loved Drew so much, but I don't really think he cooked dinner. I opened the door, you guys. He had prepared for me the sheet pan Parmesan chicken, and it came with green beans on the side. It was freaking delicious. Drew cooked the whole thing. He even cooked the chicken thoroughly. And he said, ash, that was so easy because I had all the steps right in front of me.

Go to hellofresh.com slash morbid60 and use code morbid60 for 60% off plus free shipping. Again, that's hellofresh.com slash morbid60 and use code morbid60 for 60% off plus free shipping. Hello fresh, America's number one meal kit. What makes a person a murderer? Are they born to kill? Or are they made to kill? I'm Candice DeLong, and on my podcast, Killer Psychie Daily, which you can find exclusively on Amazon Music. I share a quick 10-minute rundown every weekday

on the motivations and behaviors of the criminal masterminds you read about in the news. I have decades of experience as a psychiatric nurse, FBI agent and a criminal profiler. On Killer Psychie Daily, I'll give you my expert perspective on cases like the mysterious New York City drugings, breaking down Lori Valow, a.k.a. Mommy Doom stays motives and what drove Caitlin Armstrong to murder. I'll also bring on expert guests who add even more insight into these criminal minds. I promise you won't regret adding these 10 minutes to your morning routine.

Hey Prime members, listen to the Amazon Music exclusive podcast Killer Psychie Daily in the Amazon Music app. Download the app today! Mikey Daley in the Amazon Music app. Download the app today. Now, her cousin, Shelton Williams, remembers the urgency and passion with which she would talk about any kind of social issue. She loved getting engaged in like a heated debate. And she would tell her cousin, there are too many secrets in the country. You can't just tell people that racism, war, and poverty are wrong.

You have to make them feel it. Where is Betty now? Seriously. Like, we need Betty. And that's the sad thing because I think, I mean, she did leave a mark on the world, obviously. But I think had she been able to live into adulthood. It sounds like she would have done,

she would have moved the needle. And it's so sad because she just didn't have people like adulthood. It sounds like she would have done, she would have moved the needle. And it's so sad because she just didn't have people around her that made her feel heard, made her feel respected, made her feel like she was worth being alive. Like it's awful. So sad.

Now, to Betty, the most effective ways of making people understand her quote-unquote progressive ideas was to address the issues through drama, comedy, and art, just like her idols, the beat poets, Carol Ak, Lenny Bruce. But unfortunately, where she lived in Odessa, progressive politics and edgy artistic influences, only made her more of a social outcast.

Wow. So outside of school and outside of her part-time job at the local Woolworths. She dreamed of a glamorous life, which you know, that's like a center theme in all of my series. She wanted to get far away from Odessa. She loved films and she absolutely devoured the Hollywood tabloid magazines. I want her. I know how this is going to end very tragically. I know. Yeah, it does. But I just, I'm like, I want you to get out. I do too. I know it's gonna end badly,

but I just wanna be like, whoo, bruh, wine. She was just so young and promising. Yeah, so promising. And I just love that. She would read the beat poets and she would engage in all these topics that she wanted to spread the word about and really get into.

But then at the same time, she's your typical teenager, like flicking through a people magazine, you know? Obviously not people back then, but, you know. She would also hang all kinds of photos on her bedroom wall from magazines like Confidential. And next to those, she would hang movie posters and play bills, like she was just fucking cool. Yeah.

And like the stars and the tabloids, she really dreamed of becoming a famous actress one day. And in the meantime, she joined the drama club at school so she could like kinda get that going. And her cousin remembered, quote, she loved to be on the stage where she could be anyone but herself. Oh.

So in many ways. That's why I still love drama. Yeah. Cause I have like, not a great experience in school. Yeah. And that's exactly why I love drama clubs. Cause you could be a character. You can be whoever you wanna be. And that's exactly why I love drama clubs. Because you could be a character. You can be whoever you want to be. And it's literally just like disassociating. Yeah.

Oh, that hurts my heart. I get that. I love you. I love you. No, like seriously. I really hurt my heart. But again, in many ways, she was a typical teenager. She lived in emotional extremes.

She felt like nobody understood her. And she longed for something greater than what she saw around her. I could have related to that. Yeah, we were all there. Yeah, but she was also an outsider in her community, and everybody from her own fucking dad, to her classmates, and even some of her teachers reminded her of that on the regular.

That's so fucked up that no one around her valued her. Mm-hmm. And then on top of everything else, if anything about Betty made her and not so great fit for where she lived or just about anywhere else in the late 1950s, it was her unashamed interest in sex. Yeah, it, you know, didn't,

it rocked some socks, didn't make her a lot of friends. No. According to her cousin, she was so bright and natural discussing sex, it almost seemed to be okay to do so. Which it is. It almost seemed like it was all right and healthy, weird. It almost seemed like we could communicate with two groom people. Honestly.

So some nights after her siblings and her parents went to bed, she would sneak out of the house and she would go down to Tommy's drive-in to flirt and talk with boys, get out of town. And unlike the chaste good girls in Odessa, she was assertive when it came to her interest and her desire to have sex. Yeah. And by the time she was a junior in high school, she was meeting up with guys regularly,

she would meet them at the drive-in, or she would just hook up casually with them. I mean, get it. Whatever. It was this, though. This really set her outside. Way more than her outfits, her attitude, her progressive ideals. This made her an outcast. Awesome. We learned nothing from the Scarlet Letter. Literally nothing. Her former classmate, Jean Smith-Kieker, put it, if a girl had a steady boyfriend, then she could have sex as long as she didn't advertise it. But if she did it with someone who wasn't her boyfriend, then she was a pariah. Betty was a pariah. It's so wild because that's all based in like religious ideals. Of course it is. And it's not everyone's religious.

Oh my God. So why is that? It's so weird that that tracks against such a large demographic of people. Like it's so strange to me. To me, that's a very weird way of thinking. It is, I agree with you. That you should judge someone about that

when it has literally no effect on you. Well, think about people that hate on the LGBTQ community. That's exactly what I was just, I was like literally just you giving a shit about who I have intercourse with. Literally who I thought was like, it's like why does that matter to you? Like you'll sit there and you'll bang your head

against the wall about it and ask, it's the question I has constantly. I'm like, why does it matter to you? It doesn't affect you. Right, like, why, like if I'm cool with like going to hell, then why do you care? Exactly, like let me burn, motherfucker. What, what's the problem?

Like it's, you still get to go to heaven. Are you worried I'm gonna run into you down there? Because like if you're so sure, you're going up there, then why the fuck do you care that I'm going down here? It's so true. With like, it's so weird to me. I could go on for like hours about it. No, it just, it infuriates me because.

Honestly, I don't give a fuck what anybody does. No, I don't give a shit. I don't give a shit as long as it's legal. Yeah, like legal in the sense that like, as long as it's like not hurting someone. Like you're not hurting someone. Right. And as long as it's like, that's it.

As long as it's a consenting adult, that's literally all I care about. No, it's like not hurting someone. And as long as it's like, that's it. As long as it's a consenting adult, that's literally all I care about. No, it's so true. I was like lucky to come from this family and Drew was so lucky to come from his family, but we've made friends over the years like in the LGBTQ community and you're like, what?

Like you hear the experience. And even people that you're not friends with, that you know what their experience was coming out to their family. And you get disowned, you get thrown on the fucking streets, and it all comes down to who you're bumping ugly as well. That's what it's like, you're disowning your childs because of who they care about.

Yeah. What? It's wilds. What planet? And also, the psychological fuck-upitude of that is off the Richter scale, And also the psychological fuck up to two of that is off the Richter scale, because it's like, you shouldn't give a shit

as long as the person your child cares about is a good person. It kind respects them and treats them correctly and makes them happy. Literally. That's all you care about. Beyond that, then there is some deep seated issues happening. Say a lot of the people in the background. It makes me crazy. It makes me crazy. care about. care about. care about. care about. care about. care about.

care about. care about. care about. care about. care about. care about. care about. care about. care about.

care about. care about. care about. care about. care about. care about. care about. care about. care about. care about. care about. care about. care about. care about. care about. care about. care about. care about. care about. care about. care about. care about. care about. care about. care about. care about. care about. care about. care about. care about. care about. care about. care about. care about. care about. care about. care about. care about. care about. care about. care about. care about. care about. care about. care about. care about. care about. care about. care about. care about. care about. care about. care about. care about. care about. care about. care about. care about. care about. care about. care about. care about. care about. care about. care about. care about. care about. care about. care about. care about. care about. care about. care about. care about. Like, you can't fuck your son, you know that, right? Like, that is against the law. And then you see it on the other side with the guys being like, I'll have a shotgun if some guy comes to, why? You can't fuck your daughter. Like, it's just, what are you all doing? Like, why did you have kids to do this? It's so weird.

It's very, very bizarre. I hope my children, I hope my daughters come home with wonderful humans, whoever they are. And also, I want to get to know that person. I want to love that person. I'm like, to me, I'm like, cool, I can't wait to have more humans that I love in my family. I'm like, I'm excited, that's just more kids.

My future mother-in-law the other day, I literally almost cried because I know she considers like me and my sister and brother-in-law, like her kids. She literally says that she has six kids. I love that. And like, I feel like she's setting an example for me as like how I want to be like when my kids get married.

Exactly. I can't imagine having a different experience. No, like my mother-in-law has been giving me like every card that she gives me always says to my son and quote unquote daughter. Like, because it's like a daughter-in-law card, but it's like she always finds the one that say quote unquote daughter.

And then she writes in it, thank you for making my son so happy. Like that's a, that's the, that's a mom. You wanna bring. That's her mother-in's the, that's a mom. That's a mom. You wanna bring that. That's her mother and all that's a mom. Yeah. Literally. It's just, I know that was like an off tangent, like, you know,

whatever, but like that kind of stuff plugs the shit out of me. No, it's just weird. But again, live your life because it doesn't affect me. But, live and let live. Exactly. But that's not what happened to Betty. Nobody was letting her live at all.

That makes me sad. Me too. That's just for Betty. Exactly. But that's not what happened to Betty. Nobody was letting her live at all. That makes me sad. Me too. That's just for Betty. Honestly. For all her non-conformity and dreams of getting out of Odessa, what she really wanted the most. The absolute most was to be loved and accepted. The bare fucking minimum. Yeah. That's what everybody should be able to have. at home starting out there starting at home. She didn't even get that. But finally in her junior year, she felt like she had finally found that acceptance and that love that she craved in a sophomore named John Mac Herring. He went by Mac. Mac Herring was a year younger than Betty, but he was everything that she was not. He was tall, he was handsome, he was well-liked, he was popular, and he had absolutely no trouble

fitting in with his family and peers. And this is another John. Oh my God, fuck, I didn't even think of that. Shit. I don't know how to feel about this John to be honest with you. We'll leave it hanging in the ether. I'm not really sure how I feel.

It's going to leave you feeling so conflicted. But anyway, Biola Council was a very typical Texas boy. He played football, he hunted, he fished, he went to church, and he did well in school. But he was also kind, he was thoughtful, and he liked to be alone. Like he liked his alone time. And his sensitive side was what appealed to Betty because she's a fucking artist.

Hell yeah. And she quote, Sensed in him a kindred spirit. And she thought there was something lonely and romantic about him. Oh, like, y'all beautiful. Love. Yeah. Now they started out with, they started out as friends.

But by the summer after Betty's junior year, they started out with, they started out as friends, but by the summer after Betty's junior year, they started dating and Betty fell in love and she fell hard and she fell fast. She told her friends all the time how Mack just seemed to get her. He really listened when she spoke. He wanted to hear what she had to say, but Mack on the other hand,

didn't really talk a lot to his friends or really anybody else about his relationship with Betty. Come on. He was very, very aware and very self-conscious that his relationship with her could affect his social status. Come on.

As her cousin Shelton put it, Betty never wore his football jacket, never went to the Scott Theater with him on a Saturday night and never met his parents. Come on. But she was like his steady girlfriend. But it's like you're hiding her away. Exactly.

You're treating her like everyone else in her life. Yeah. What the fuck? So she got pissed. She really liked Mac. But the fact that he just had, he lacked outward excitement and it started to piss her off. So in response to his distant and discrete fucking annoying ass behavior,

she tried to make him jealous one night because that's what teenagers do. If I had a fucking dime for every boy that I tried to make jealous and it didn't work, I would have a fucking home full of dimes. So she tried to do that and she parked with one of his good friends. Oh, yes.

And he was another football player who was more popular and had actually been voted the most handsome in his class. And also is apparently an asshole because he's doing that to his friend. I mean, like, what the fuck? Most handsome in class is always an asshole. Let me go and speak real. Also, superlatives are the weirdest fucking thing ever. They are so weird.

Can we end them now? Yeah, they're like, talk about setting up some just fucked up issues going right out into the use of the high school with all these shitty judgments and issues all over you. And like, it's really like, it's like, you have to like, plateau there. That's my favorite. It's most likely to likely to use the like- That's my favorite. It's most likely to succeed. Cause it's like all you other idiots. Fuck all y'all.

Like, only these two are gonna succeed. I was nowhere near. Most likely to succeed. And I would like to say, fuck all y'all cause I am succeeding. Okay. I am success. I am succession.

I also watch it on TV. Oh, that's coming back in like a month. And I am success. I am succession. I also watch it on TV. Oh, that's coming back in like a month and I am stoked. I am still on season two. I'm ready for more shiv. Oh, I love shiv. I don't know if I should say that, but I do. I know I love season two. I love shiv. I don't care what she does.

I love her. I don't care what she does. I get it anyway. This is the one forever if we keep side tracking. I don't know where we are right now. So high school, parking with other boys, trying to make your boyfriend jealous, whatever. Whether she was trying to make Mac jealous

or get his attention or just get some kind of reaction from him is unknown. Whatever her intentions, the stunt backfired. And by the start of the school year, Mac had ended things with Betty, which I understand. I can't say I blame him. And he started dating another girl.

And this is what sucks. He was much more out there with his relationship with this new girl. That sucks. Everyone knew he was dating her. And in a weird way, and certainly to Betty, he seemed to be more proud of dating this girl. Oh, that makes me sad.

It's awful. And the breakup devastated Betty. She finally had felt that real connection to somebody and it was ripped away from her right after it had started, whether she was partially at fault or not. Yeah, it was like stupid teenage shit. Exactly. It's so impulsive.

Yeah, and like, I am shit. Exactly. It's so impulsive. Yeah. And like, I am one of the most impulsive people so I can relate to heavily to that. But she told a friend, oh my God, this hurts my heart. I've never been so humiliated and torn to pieces. I feel so lonely and deserted. I don't care what happens now or ever. Oh, and it only got worse.

And you just want to be like, it gets better. It will get better. Once you get out of this town and out of this high school, it only got worse. And you just want to be like, it gets better. It will get better. Once you get out of this town and out of this high school, it will get better. And she would have. She would have. She would have. So the end of her relationship with Max

set the new school year off on a terrible note. But that was only the beginning of a slew of disappointments. During the school year before this one, Betty had really fostered her love of the theater. The theater. by performing the lead in a lot of the school plays like multiple. Get it. But this year there was a new drama teacher at the school. Her name was Enid Woodward and she didn't seem to see much talent or ability in Betty.

And instead of giving her the lead in the school's production of Winter set, she gave, I was like, we're forming off this. She gave Betty the role of stage manager. Eannid didn't even get a act like an actual role. She made her stage manager. Eannid, I'm on impressed. Me too. And this is the thing for years, theater was the thing that fueled Betty's dreams of getting the fuck out of Odessa and her fantasy of making a name for herself on Broadway. That was her dream. It probably seemed like small potatoes to the adults around her, but Betty not getting any kind of part in the school play. How would be devastating? That's devastating.

And then you add that on top of her breakup with Mac, things were just making her feel like the world is crumbling around her. She was hopeless and she was feeling desperate. So that fall and a letter to Mac, she wrote, well, I guess you accomplished what you set out to do. You hurt me more than you'll ever know. I've done a lot of things. I know that were bad and cheap, but I swear before God that I didn't mean them to be like that. I was just showing off. I know it's much too late with you, Mac, but I swear that another boy won't get the chance to say what you've said to me. You've made me realize that instead of being smart and sophisticated like I thought, I was only being cheap and ugly and horish. Forgive me for writing this last note and thank you for reading it. I'll not trouble you again,

and Mac, I haven't forgotten all the good times we had. When you think of me, try to think of the good times we had and not of this. Oh, so sad. That is so sad. Devastating, so sad. Now, if losing Mac and her dreams of stardom weren't enough for Betty,

things escalated at home when her dad started snooping around her room while she was going, no. And one day he found her diary tucked away in a dresser drawer and Betty had detailed her experiences with boys in this diary. So to John Williams, the discovery that his daughter was sexually active and not married was just outrage and further proof to him that she was turning away from God and couldn't be trusted. So now this only added to tensions at home. So Betty has literally no faith in space. She doesn't have the stage at school, she doesn't have

the theater, she doesn't have a boyfriend she can go hang out with, and now she is not happy at home and probably getting like preyed at. Oh, preyed at literally, literally. So as Fall turned into winter and Betty's loss is piled up, her mood just got darker and darker. She was just sullen really. And in that letter, what really struck me was that she said, instead of being and she named all these positive things, like I thought I was, you've shown me

that none of that is true. And it's like, oh no, no, no, like that, like hold on to that, that is what you are. You are all those things. And it's like to let anybody make you feel like you are not those things, but like we all know. Oh my God. Especially, even now, that can be hard.

Yeah, you know, even when you know who you are, I'm 37, I'm 37, right? Yeah, I'm 37 years old. Like I know who I am, like I'm. Of course. I am who I am now. I'm fine with it. I'm comfortable.

And I like me. I'm pop by the Sailor Man. But it's like, you can see like a really nasty comment. Yeah. You know where you are. You can see a really nasty comment. And it you know where you are. You can see a really nasty comment and it can make you second-guess yourself because it's just you shouldn't see that shit. No, you know, even and you shouldn't be told that kind of stuff. What people think of you is none of your business. And that's

the thing and it's like and especially when you're a teenager, it means so much more because you're not there yet. You're not in a place most of the time. Like if you're one of the lucky ones that as a teenager was just completely awesome, comfortable with who you were. I don't know about that. Nine times out of ten, you're not there yet. No. And it's like you are fragile, you are in the building phase, and it's almost like a baby's head in the beginning. Yes. How it's fusing together and it has a soft spot. And anything can fuck that up just while it's building itself to be your strong ass head.

That's exactly what it is. She is that soft spot. And she would have gone to a really strong fucking skull if she was able to. Great point because also her frontal lobe is still developing. Her decision-making skills are not quite there yet. Exactly.

Not quite there. It's just really sad. And that's my excuse for everything I did there you go. There you go. And after. It makes me sad. It does. So she was just really pulling back from everything.

And she told her cousin, Shelton, she wanted to die if she couldn't be with Mac. I think it was a lot, I don't think I know. It was a lot more than just not being with Mac, but I think it's weird. I think when you're going through so much, you just crave a person. That's exactly what I think it was. Like you said, I don't think it was just not being with Mac.

I think it was with all of this happening, I need Mac. Like that's the thing I need. Yep. And if I can't have that, like do you remember when everything was, I had like a very tumultuous time in high school where I was literally moving into my grandparents house because things had gotten so bad. And I was not really dating this guy, but like we were, we were like about to date. And then I invited him to your wedding because he was gonna be my plus one.

And then he said, no. I felt like the fucking world was crumbling beneath my feet because of that one incident. That was what set it all off. But it was really that like, no, the world was actually just crumbling around me in many different ways. But when you're a teenager, you put it on that

because you need a person to get through everything with. Exactly. But you don't. You're an independent woman who don't need no men. You've got this. You do. But when you're 16, you don't feel that way.

No way. So she was desperate to get Mac back, but he had already moved on with that other girl. He felt bad, but he didn't want to be back together with Betty. So eventually, she started expressing suicidal thoughts to friends at school and in the drama department, very regularly. One friend remembered, Betty said the situation

at home was bad. I wanted to help, but I didn't know what to do. I was 16 years old. Exactly. And I remember my friends being in shitty situations and being like, oh my God, you have to move in with us. But like, I couldn't, like, yeah, that wasn't gonna happen. Yeah, like it's on my house, I don't know what to say.

Nothing I can do. So unfortunately, Betty had spent years reveling in the reactions that she received from her provocative behavior, her unfavorable opinions. So to those around her, these cries for help just sounded like Betty looking for attention. That's what they thought. So it's like a boy who cried wolf kind of.

Exactly. Yeah, exactly. They thought she was just trying to stir up some kind of drama. But there were countless times that Betty told her peers working on that play that she wanted to kill herself. Yeah, and it's like you, you can never let that slip. No, you can't let that go away.

Like you can't just feel like, well, she's probably just looking for it. Like don't do it. Overreact. Overreact. Always. You will always feel better if you overreact versus underreact.

Exactly. And she was constantly telling people this and saying that she just didn't have the nerve. Oh, see, yeah. And you gotta tell someone. Like she was very like being very clear about it. And she's right up to her breaking point. On at least five separate occasions,

Betty asked another student if they would be willing to help her do this. And no one told anyone. Worse, they all laughed it off. They thought it was a joke. That's a lot of fucked up people. Like I'm sorry. I don't understand that. I don't get it at people. Like, I'm sorry. I don't understand that.

I don't get it at all. Like, I don't get that. If one of my friends in high school came said to me, like, I want to kill myself. I'd be saying something right away anyway. Yeah. But if they added on to it, would you help me do it? I mean, come on. I don't know. I don't know.

I don't either. That's fucked up. I think it was a combination of the time period. Oh, yeah. Age of the people she was telling, where they lived, and the fact that she had been, quote, unquote, dramatic in the past. It's like, it's so wild to me though, that even those like factories can factor into just like,

what is right and what is wrong? Yeah, you know, yeah, but it's like, what youth is right and what youth is wrong. But we, it's, you know, yeah, you're absolutely right. What I think is right and what I think is wrong. Like we, I think we are right. Yeah, but I know it's, but it's so hard. You could be a completely different person

and have a completely different view of this. Which is crazy. It's crazy to me. It's just like how there's different for you pages on TikTok. That blows my mind. That's true. Not everyone's for you pages like mine.

Yeah, like what? Yeah, you don't just constantly get parenting things. No, I do. I know you do. I was very alike. But sometimes you get those. I know you do. I was very like, so yeah. But sometimes you get those stitches from another side of TikTok and you're like, that exists.

Oh yes, sometimes you get real scared and you're like, am I on, and then all of a sudden the stitch comes through and you're like, oh, you're like, what did I talk about last night? What the fuck did I just get into? Yeah, also sorry that we're going off on side pieces here, I'm sure it kind of feels

a little bit weird, but I think it's also just us trying to get through this. 100% this is like very heavy and it's very heavy. A little stressful. It is. So back to it. One night, Mack agreed to give Betty and another friend to ride home from school. And Betty actually ended up posing the question to Mack. Would he be willing to kill her? She asked him.

Wow. She said, and this is this is a lot. So if you'd like to skip forward, I understand. She said she would be the one to hold the gun to her head. And all he would have to do is pull the trigger because she couldn't. Oh my god. And he assumed that she was just being melodramatic. And he laughed at the suggestion, which made Betty and her friend laugh as well. I think at that point, she was like, oh, like no, she's like kidding.

You know, yeah, no, Jillike kidding. You know? But she wasn't gonna give up that easily. That night, she wrote out and signed a document that she planned to give Mac so that he could be absolved of any responsibility in the event that he was arrested for her murder. Oh my God, just the sheer amount of time

that she thought about this is like so sad. Months and months. But she was just sitting there thinking about killing herself Yeah, I know that probably sounds ignorant because I'm sure that is like a lot of people's experiences It is but it's not just like there's a lot of people Yeah, it's just like but it's just like whoa like that just like thinking about that just like give me a pit in my stomach It's really heavy. Yeah, And I think it's also, it says a lot about where she was that no adult realized

when she was coming. That's the thing that like, no one came to her aid. No one was listening to these conversations. Yeah. Nobody overheard this. Yeah. Like what the fuck,

all the adults just failed here. They did. Everybody failed here. They truly did. Everybody did. Now the next day during play practice, Betty actually pulled Mack into the prop closet and she again asked him,

will you please help me? She told him about everything that was going on at home, how lonely she had been since they broke up and how she just had no hope for the future and she believed that death was the only way to avoid a life of misery. Wow. I have to believe that she thought she was going somewhere else.

Yeah. I don't think she thought it was just from black. Like, I think she thought she was escaping to a more beautiful place. Yeah, and I hope she did. I hope so too. Now, maybe he still thought that he was joking, I don't know, or maybe he felt guilty for contributing to her misery, I will never know. But whatever was the case, Mac agreed to kill Betty Williams.

Okay, nuts. Okay, nuts. So on the evening of March 22nd, Betty waited until her parents had gone to bed, and then she snuck out of the house and down the street where she actually met up with her new boyfriend, Ike Nail. He was waiting for her in his car. The two of them sat in his car parked around the corner from Betty's house for a while, until Mack finally arrived to meet them. When Mack pulled up to Betty, or excuse me, when Mack pulled up, Betty said to Ike, oh my god, I didn't think he'd come. Betty said to Ike, oh my God, I didn't think he'd come.

Oh man. And she told Ike what she and Mack had been planning to do that evening. But even when Max car pulled up, Ike remained convinced that she was only joking. Guys, she is not like a stand-up comedian. No, like what is this like, oh, she must be joking. Like is she just constantly joking? Also, where's the joke? That's that they like, tell me what the punchline is. Like, where's the funny part? Like, I'm failing to see this. These people are shocking.

Shocking. Like, really shocking. It's because they're teenagers. Oh, so she opened the door and she stepped out of the car and she turned to Ike and said, I gotta call this bluff, even if he kills me. Whoa. Like, as she was, I think she was joking around it because I think she was probably nervous,

but she was ready in her own way. Oh, that hurts my heart. So she got in the car with Mack and Mack drove out to his vanless hunting cabin in the woods. Betty was dressed in pajamas and a duster coat and she told Mack that she'd been thinking about this for a while and that she had even tried previously to do this herself. She tried to take sleeping pills, but it only made her sick. She continued her line of thinking, talking about how she was going to be sorry to leave

Ike so soon after they started dating. She allegedly told Mac how happy she was going to be dead. Oh my God. Like a direct quote. So it's like, did you try to convince her otherwise? We have to hope so, but I don't know if Mac had the capacity to do that. That's so sad. You know, like I don't know him, but from what I do know of him, I just picture him sitting

there like quietly. And just like I'm just, I'm I just picture him sitting there like quietly. And just like I'm just, or maybe even disassociating. Yeah, you know. What if you were trafficked into a cult over shot nine times or fell in love with a vampire or went into a minor surgery and woke up one week later, paralyzed? What would you do? I'm Whit Missaldine, the creator of this is actually happening, a podcast from Wondry that brings you extraordinary true stories of life-changing events, told by the people who lived them. From a young man that dunes his entire future with one choice, to a woman who survived

a notorious serial killer, you'll hear their first-person account of how they overcame remarkable circumstances. Each episode is an exploration of the human spirit and personal discovery. These haunting accounts sound like Hollywood movies, but I assure you this is actually happening. Follow this is actually happening wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen to ad free on the Amazon Music or Wundery app. So they arrived at the hunting cabin. They sat in the car and they talked for another 15 or 20 minutes. But then at the same time, I actually, I guess I don't picture him just sitting there quietly

because I don't think Betty would have found him to be like attractive if he just sat there quietly and like not giving her anything. Like she wanted to have profound conversations. that she just sat there quietly and like not giving her anything. Yeah. She wanted to have profound conversations. Yeah, absolutely. So they talked a little bit and then Mac drove the Jeep down by the pond and parked on the shore. When they reached the pond, they both got out of the car and they started walking toward the shore. Sure.

But Betty had left her duster in the Jeep and it was really cold by the water. So she actually went back to the car to get her coat and then walked back down. And when she came back, she removed her shoes, and she told Mack she was ready. And Mack told her, give me a kiss to remember you by. She leaned in, she kissed him, she said, thank you, Mack, I will always remember you for that. She was standing there with bare feet, and she took the barrel of the hunting rifle that Mack had held in his hands. She drew it to her left temple.

She said, now and Mack pulled the trigger. Oh my God, she was 17 years old. Holy shit, 17 years old. Oh my God, that is the most chilling account I've ever heard. I have goosebumps telling it. Yeah. I had goosebumps writing it. I've had like nightmares about this case. Yeah. And I'm like picturing it in my head. Me too. It's playing like a movie. It is. It is. It is. It is. This is such a haunting case. Yeah. Like my whole body is chilled right now. I think this is one that will absolutely stay with me

for many, many years. That's the sadness. And just the fact that she found somebody willing to do this. That's it. She couldn't find someone that was willing to value her. But she could find someone that was willing to kill her. Mm-hmm. Like, how the fuck is that?

How the fuck is that? Like, God, she just, man, you just wanna like pay, you wanna go back in time, pick her up and just be like, come live with me. Like let's go for a drive. We're gonna take you somewhere where people are gonna think you're fucking rad. Let's go run away.

Yeah, I'm gonna get you out of this shit place. We need to, are you kidding me? Oh, it's awful. I said when it was done, Mac returned to the car and this was a plan because he brought along with him to large lead weights. He tied them around Betty's waist, and after removing his clothes,

he dragged her body into the pond. He later told reporters she sank right away. She had 50 pounds of lead tied to her. Okay, Mac, he's very blunt matter of fact. And now after she sang, he returned to the car and he got dressed and he sat in the parked car with the heater running so that he could warm up. And with all the walking back and forth, his boots had gotten muddy and he didn't want to get the interior of his jeep dirty because priorities, I guess. Wow. Like that's the fact that his head could even go there

after murdering somebody. Yeah. I mean, it's killing somebody at the very least. That you could even think like, oh, like your life just goes on. Like you don't want your car to be dirty tomorrow when you wake up in your happy life. Oh my God.

Like what? So because he didn't want his Jeep to be dirty, he left his shoes by the mud in the pond in the mud, excuse me. And they would be found by the police the next day. Wow. So once he was sufficiently warm, Mack drove home and went to bed. Just went to sleep.

Just went to sleep. A few days later, after Betty's body had been recovered, reporters asked Mac how he felt about what he had done. And he said, I never felt worse in my life, but I know she's better off. She's better off? Like, she's better off dead. Like, what?

I don't know what they had to have talked about for her, or for him to feel convinced that that she was living. That's the thing. That's what's so shocking about this. Even he didn't have the capacity to look far ahead enough into the future. He had no hope for. It's like none. What's so ever? How do you not see Yeah, like he had no hope for like it's none whatsoever. Like how do you not see? Like the the brilliance here. I And he did that's the thing like that's why he wanted to be with her. Yeah, but then at the same time He was ashamed of her. Yeah, it's Fox complex. It is and it only gets more complex and it only gets more fucking jaw-dropping Oh wow

So Unmarch 22, two days after Betty had snuck out of the house to meet Mack, her mother, Mary Williams, called the police to report her daughter missing. Two days later. Okay, thank you for repeating that because for a second I was like,

I think I heard that wrong. You didn't. Two days later, okay. I don't fuck these people. I don't know about that. Yeah. So the police visited the high school, and with the cooperation of the school principal,

they interviewed anybody who might have any information about where Betty had gone. Eventually detectives got to the casting crew of the school play, which included Betty's new boyfriend, Ike, who told the police about the exchange that he had with Betty the night he dropped her off in the alley to meet Matt Kering. No, it's like, it's like, it's been two days. It's been two days and like, did you not think? I mean, she literally told you. You haven't heard of your plan. Like, I tell you everything you

need to know, the silence. Come on. So at first, Matt told, and this is interesting to me. It's just strange. He told police that he had driven Betty home after play practice on the evening of the 20th, and that he dropped her off at her front door around 8.30 pm. So he lied immediately. Yeah. Now, he maintained for a little while that that was the last time he'd ever seen her. But the more Mac talked, the more the interviewing officers noticed inconsistencies in his story. And their suspicions were enough to move their conversation from

the nice familiar surroundings of the principal's office to a way more intimidating downtown police department. Yeah. After about 45 minutes of additional questioning downtown, Mac finally broke down and he admitted to killing buddy. He told the Odessa, Odessa police youth officer Bobby McAlpine. Sorry. He said, there is no motive. I think I'm crazy. Oh, yeah. Now he later explained to the officer that during play practice two days earlier, Betty had again begged him to end her life because, quote, she couldn't take living anymore like she had been living. It was just so sad. And he said he agreed to her request with the intention of talking her out of it. But after talking with her on the way to the pond by the cabin, he decided to go through with it.

Like what? I don't know. I wish that we could know what they had to send, well, like what the conversation was in that car. Like bro, why'd you even bring the gun? Yeah. Why'd you even load it? If you were gonna talk or why did you have lead weights? That's the thing. If you were gonna talk her out of it,

like that's the thing. It's like why'd you load that gun? If you had to bring it to show her, like, I'm going through with this plan just so she would get in the car and you could talk to her exactly. I hope so. But like not loaded. But it shouldn't have been loaded.

It should have been that thing where you go, there's no fucking bullets in here. And also, you're not doing this. Parents, why is your 16 year old son getting into his car with a hunting rifle? Do you want to ask the question? Like, and waits. Like, when you question that, where are the adults? Yeah. So to the interviewing officers, MacStory

was completely fucking unbelievable. Yeah. They had never seen anything and probably never would ever see anything like this again. What sane person would shoot and kill somebody simply because they asked, like what? Yeah. But when he talked about the shooting at the pond, his story never changed and his tone never changed. It remained flat and consistent. So they were like, okay, we're going to drive down to the hunting cabin and see what happens. Yeah. Even as they were driving down, they were still convinced that he wasn't telling the truth. They were still skeptical when they arrived at the pond, and Mac pointed toward the area where he left Betty's body. But the story became more convincing

when he directed them to the shore where they found spots of blood and tissue on the ground. Oh, God. Mm-hmm. Now, whether because they were unconvinced or unsure where to look, the officers actually asked Mac if he would go into the pond and retrieve the body. look, the officers actually asked Mack if he would go into the pond and retrieve the body. Whoa. So he undressed and entered the water. Are you kidding? Standing in nearly four feet of water, he signaled that he had found Betty, and he reached down to grab a hold of her and dragged her back to the shore. They just had him drag her out. They just had him drag her out. Yup.

I don't, I have literally, I don't know what to say. This is, I don't know what to say. By far and wide, the most brutal case that I've covered with like in the strangest way. In the strangest way. Like everything about this is bleak and brutal and fucked up. I'm rendered speechless. And that's yeah, that's something. So he stood on the shore with the officers and told and

retold the story of how of what had happened. And he explained that he asked Betty for a kiss to remember her by and then everything had happened. Now days later the pathologist would confirm his story. In the preliminary autopsy report, it stated the girl died from a shotgun blast which torn to the side of her head and partially decapitated her. Oh my god, it's a hunting rifle. That point blank rage. So soon additional officers and technicians were called to the scene along with an ambulance to transport the body and a large number of photographers and reporters because this is the 50s anybody can show up. Yeah, excuse me. It's the 60s.

So the story was true, but to everybody in Oteza, it still seemed fucking unbelievable. And you want to know why it seemed so unbelievable? Oh, why? Because Mac was such a nice boy. Oh, wait, no. Oh, wait, no. No one could ever picture him doing something like that. One student told the reporters, I just can't see Mac. Something terrible must have happened that drove him to do this. Oh, yeah, he had such a bright future.

And then there were other students who confirmed at least some of Max's story and they told reporters that Betty had also asked them to do the same thing for her. One student claimed that Betty had even offered to pay him to. Oh, that's her. Which I don't know if that's the truth. I think that could just be somebody wanting 15 minutes of fame. That is horrific. Another student said that Betty told them, I want to die, but I want to die pretty.

I don't want my face to figure it. Oh. Just like awful. Which is not what happened. No. Now it seems like literally everyone in the school play had at one time or another been asked by Betty to help with this plan.

Oh my god. But as one classmate put it, she had a morbid sense of humor. Nobody took her serious, but she acted serious. So if she was acting serious, then why did nobody take her seriously? Yeah, everybody needs to have a moment with themselves here. This story.

You got to have a moment with a mirror and you're a therapist. Whatever it is, you got to just have a moment. Yeah. So everybody recognized the tragedy and the seriousness of the situation, maybe. But no, maybe. I don't really know about that.

But nobody seemed willing to say an ill-world word about Mac herring. Even Eike Nail, who was dating Betty and had literally delivered her to her fate that evening, refused to talk to her reporters. And the only thing he would say was, anything I might say would just hurt Mac. What the fuck is going on?

What about Betty? What does he have on all of you? He's popular. Like, damn. He's a football star and he's popular. That's literally it. He rules the fucking world in high school. I gotta go.

So Betty's death prompted an outpouring of support for math. Yep, I was just gonna say. And that support included everything that it really shouldn't have. Quote, concerned phone calls to him, visits from friends, and no seeming diminution of his popularity. I think I said that right, by the way, I think you did. Yeah.

Now while students and friends were completely shocked to learn of Betty's death, they were also surprised to learn, quote, that Mac and a lot of the other boys we knew had been spending time with Betty after they had taken their girlfriends home. So people are shit talking her still, cool. She has been killed.

She has gotten so desperate and so lonely and so sad that she begged somebody to end her life. They agreed. She's not here anymore. And y'all are still talking shit when people show you who they are, believe them. Oh my God. Because, yep.

Like, it is, that tells you everything you need to know. It is beyond disgusting that this is the information they were spreading about her. All around Odessa, it seemed the consensus was Betty was odd and provocative. The kind of girl who would do something like this. That's what they were saying.

Jesus. Mac on the other hand, though, Elena, quote, Mac would break his arm before he would hurt anybody. Then why didn't he? So show me that broken arm. Where's your broken arm? Like who said that? Yeah. He would break his arm before he hurt anybody. He shot someone in the head. So he killed someone. I don't know what you guys were talking about. Jesus. Now, after the body had been recovered and the statements had been given,

John McHairing was taken before a justice of the peace and curment, where he pleaded not guilty to a charge of murder with malice. Now, his attorney, William Deirdrick, waived his rights to an examining trial and he was taken to Winkler County jail and held on a $10,000 bond. He was released on bond the following day. So that tells you a lot about this.

Cool. And return home with his parents to await news of a hearing. Good. Like, whoa, that seems right. Also $10,000 back then, I actually didn't look at what it was going to say. I must feel a lot. There was rich rich, apparently. Yeah. Now funeral services for Betty were held on Friday, March 24th at Odessa's Friendship Baptist Church, which pisses me off because she wanted that. Yeah, she wanted that. Yeah.

Attendance was at capacity. The fact that it was at capacity, it's like she was more popular in death than she ever was in life. And it just like, it is just fucked up. It really speaks to the situation and how showyristic. How shallow everyone is. The preacher read a passage from the book of revelations over Betty's closed casket and her father filled with regret. I'm sure. Yeah. Wailed uncontrollably in the front pew, lost it.

On more than one occasion, her sister had to literally hold her father back from hurling himself on top of the casket. It's like, well, dude, you didn't give her the love she needed. Like, her whole life. You can't just do it now. I think a lot of that was regretting the way that he had treated her in love she needed. Like in her whole life. Like you can't just do it now. I think a lot of that was regretting the way that he had treated her in life and guilt. Yeah, you know.

Now elsewhere that same day, District Attorney Don Sullivan was examining a note that had been given to him by Max Father, which he believed exonerated his son. The letter was dated March 20th 1961 and it was written in Betty's handwriting. It read, and this is a lot. I want everyone to know that what I'm about to do and no way implicates anyone else. I say this to make sure that no blame falls on anyone other than myself. I have depressing problems

that concern for the most part myself. I'm waging a war within myself, a war to find the true me, and I fear that I'm losing the battle. So rather than admit defeat, I'm going to beat a quick retreat into the No Man's Land of Death. As I have only the will, and not the four to two necessary, a friend of mine, seeing how great is my torment, has graciously consented to look after the details. His name is Mack Herring, and I pray he will not have to suffer for what he is doing for

my sake. I take upon myself all blame for their at lies on me alone, sincerely Betty Williams. She's also a brilliant writer. She's a brilliant, I think she would have had a fucking phenomenal career in writing. Oh, that's heart-wrenching, though. And just the fact that she sat in and still there was no one knocking on her door peaking their head in while she was writing this. Like, she knew there wouldn't be. Why? Yeah. Why wasn't anyone there for her? So the DA's office was hesitant to

discuss the case publicly because they worried that it would affect their ongoing investigation negatively. But the prosecutor, John Banks, did explain the seriousness of the charge to the press and he said, I understand he got his shotgun, his lead weight, weights, and his rope, and then picked the girl up. This constitutes murder with malice of forethought. Yeah. It does. It does. And according to Banks, the obvious planning that went into this execution

was grounds for the most serious of punishments. And as such, he was recommending to the DA that the death penalty be attached. Ooh, yeah. I don't know about that. I also don't know about that. I don't think that was a, yeah. I don't know about that. I also don't know about that. I don't think that was a good idea. I don't either.

Now as weeks went by, the DA's office really wrestled with how to go forward because Matt had confessed to the killing, but his explanation still to everybody seemed completely far-fetched and completely unbelievable. Because by all accounts, he was this normal boy who did really great in school, never caused anybody trouble. The principal of the high school literally told reporters,

if I were asked to name my most cooperative student, I would pause a minute and then say, Mac Herring. Wow. Like, wow. And it's also so sad that everybody is talking about Mac and what a great person he is. Cool. He's still here, you guys can tell him not later. Yeah, exactly. Anybody want to say a word about Betty? Yeah, a kind word. Why don't we let Matt get through his murder trial? Yeah. We can wait on the compliments.

And then why don't we talk about Betty? Well, while we wait, maybe for the murder trial. No. No, other school officials had to try men too because they felt similarly. Oh yeah. They referred to Matt as fairly quiet, very friendly, well liked and real clean cut.

Oh yeah. Always has a haircut. You know what? I feel like school officials in the 50s and 60s just loved a football player. In the 50s. Just loved a football player. In the 50s.

Just like, it was still the case when I was in school. It's like, he was well liked. I'm a football player. I'm a football player. I'm a football player. I'm a football player. I'm a football player. I'm a football player. I'm a football player. I'm a football player. I'm a football player. I'm a football player. I'm a football player.

I'm a football player. I'm a football player. I'm a football player. I'm a football player. I'm a football player. I'm a football player. I'm a football player. I'm a football player.

I'm a football player. I'm a football player. I'm a football player. I'm a football player. I'm a football player. I'm a football player. I'm a football player. I'm a football player. I'm a football player. I'm a football player. I'm a football player. I'm a football player. I'm a football player. I'm a football player. I'm a football player. I'm a football player. I'm a football player. I'm a football player. I'm a football player. I'm a football player. I'm a football player. I'm a football player. I'm a football player. I'm a football player. I'm a football player. I'm a football player. I'm a football player. I'm a football player. I'm a football player. I'm a football player. I'm a football player. I'm a football player. I'm a football player. I'm a football player. Now, even Betty's parents told the police and the press that they had actually always liked Mack, and in the months since Betty's death, her father's quote, heart was too filled with grief to harbor hate for the slayer of his daughter. Oh, that's just sad.

It is really sad. I feel badly that he had to spend the rest of his life wondering what had happened. Absolutely. Not wondering what had happened, but living with guilt. Yeah, living with the whole situation. So the sentiment among the students was also similar. One girl said, we must feel sorry for Mac now. We can feel sorrow for Betty later.

Go fuck yourself. And what about that makes sense? We have to feel, we have to show up for Mac right now. Worry about Betty later. It's like, oh, that seemed to always be the fucking issue. Yeah.

That's why we're here. Worry about Betty later. Like I hope you stub your toe later. Now, others just didn't even bother to mask their bias. One day, literally, barely after Betty had died. Her uncle overheard another guy. Over her to Guy, tell another guy. Everyone knew that girl was no good.

She tricked that boy into killing her. Oh my God. But what was the trick? Is this town like foot loose? What's going on? Good, it sounds like it. Like Jesus. I think it kinda was like that.

Yeah, also like, but like, what's the trick? She tricked him into doing this? Well, that's the thing. It's like, okay. She tricked him into getting the lead weights. Like, well, it's like, she's got the ultimate punishment here. She's gone. Like, what? Like's like she's got the ultimate punishment here. She's gone.

Like what? Like what? Ridiculous. Yeah. He's a hunter. He knows what happens when you pull a trigger. I don't know where the trick lies. Now, despite the disbelief and bewilderment

from staff and students and law enforcement and the press and every investigating officer ever, people couldn't help but notice how seemingly unaffected Mac was by everything, specifically investigating officers. As he told the story to these officers on the night after his arrest, Officer MacAlpine was completely put off by his flat, emotionless tone while he literally told of killing his former girlfriend.

Seriously? Officers who had accompanied Mac to the location of the body, they were also disturbed by his lack of emotion. One highway patrol officer recalled, it didn't move him when he pulled her body out of the water, or when he said that he had put a shock onto her head. My God! Something's wrong there.

Something's deeply wrong. Now his seemingly remorseless attitude also struck reporters as unusual. The swell of character references and just support for Mac really didn't align with somebody who had just killed another person without explanation. And the descriptions of him didn't match the flat remorseless killer who had been cooperating since day one. He was like a dichotomy and enough himself. Now according to the sheriff Bill Edens, he said, something's missing somewhere. You don't just take people out and shoot them like rabbits. No, that's exactly how I feel. Like something is very much missing. Something is missing here. Some kind of like human empathy and compassion piece of this.

But the lack of motive was holding up the case from progressing to trial. But that also didn't stop anybody from speculating as to the reason for the death. Officers in the Sheriff's Department actually started to speculate that Betty wanted to restart her relationship with Mac and was asking classmates to kill her so that she could gain some kind of sympathy from Mac and win his love back. Wow. Now, their theory, if you can even call it that, suggested that this entire thing was just a melodramatic game, rather than a serious desire to end her life, which she went through with. Which she went through with, yeah. And the students out of Desi High,

they had similar theories. They said this whole thing, they were like, I think it was a joke. I think it all started as a joke with Mac and Betty trying to outbluff each other. They said. And then he must have just cracked up and killed Betty. started as a joke with Mac and Betty trying to outbluff each other. What? And then he must have just cracked up and killed Betty. Like what?

But he's a great guy, so don't think anything different. Awesome, dude. Yeah. Now, after months of looking for any kind of explanation for Betty's death, the DA's office finally gave up looking and they just filed papers to take the case to trial. Now on June 23rd, 1961, Judge GC Olson of the 109th District Courts set the trial date for September 18th. There were all kinds of delays, all kinds of holdups, but finally, his trial got underway in mid-February of 1962. Wow. Now, because he had confessed to the killing,

the question at hand was if he was of sound mine at the time of the killing and could be held accountable or not. His defense team filed a motion to have a sanity hearing held separately from the murder charge, which was actually granted by the judge on the grounds that if Mac was deemed insane at the time of the killing,

he could not be held accountable and then they wouldn't have to have a criminal trial. Okay. Now, the DA's office immediately objected and they filed a motion to have Mac evaluated by a psychiatrist who was far more qualified than a jury to determine sanity. But the judge actually rejected the motion.

What is not bananas? There is not the jury can do it. Now, so when they're opening remarks, the defense team took the position that no sane person would do what Mac had done. And through evidence and testimony, they said they would show that he was just a tool in Betty Williams scheme. Oh, so now she's scheming to end her life. Yeah, she's dead, but now she's scheming. Let's totally slander her in court now.

Now the prosecution, on the other hand, told the jury, John, and this is a quote, John Mac Herring planned, prepared, and executed a horrible offense and was of sound mine at the time. This was a cold-blooded premeditated murder. And that's Dan Sullivan said that to the jury. And then he added that the prosecution

was going to prove as much by demonstrating that John Mackering was cool and rational just one day after the kill. Yeah. Sounds like he was. He literally was. Now opening statements were followed by a ton of character witnesses testifying on Max behalf because everybody was. He literally was. Now opening statements were followed by a ton of character witnesses

testifying on Max's behalf because everybody was just dying to get out of here. Yada, yada, yada, he's so great. There was also a handwriting analyst verifying Betty's letter to the police and Dr. Marvin Greiss, a psychiatrist who actually had evaluated Max on multiple occasions and the days after the killing was also there. And he told the jury that he believed Mac was insane at the time of the killing. He noted that he believed Mac was, quote, suffering from gross stress reaction at the time of the tragedy. And he said, based on his discussions with Mac, Greis concluded that Betty was, quote, in a condition of death wish.

And that her persistent request led Mac to being dethroned of his reasoning. What? And his professional opinion was then echoed by nine character witnesses who were mostly students. Yeah. That agreed Mac was not in his right mind at the time of the murder. Like cool, we're just going to take a bunch of 17 year old ways. Cool. Also, you're not as a psychiatrist or a psychologist supposed to diagnose anybody that you've never seen. No. The psychiatrist had never seen Betty. Betty 101.

Yeah, never seen Betty. So how is he supposed to talk about her frame of mind? Yeah. Ridiculous. Now, on cross examination, he admitted, he hadn't even talked to Betty's parents or friends, and he was basing his understanding of Betty's emotional state entirely on interviews with Mac and some of the handful of students that had visited him for treatment.

That are obsessed with him. Cool. He said that sounds like a great pool to choose from for a totally unbiased reviews. Like you haven't even spoken to her family, dude. Yeah. He said that her persistent pleadings, that's what he called them, had caused Mac to become quote, so mixed up and so sick that he felt pulling the trigger was the, was what he should do for her.

He was deprived of the power of applying logic. Wow. Wow. No. Did you limber up before you stretched that far? He was deprived of the power of applying logic. Literally no one can do that to you. If you have a way of like figuring something out, you do. Or you don't.

Like you could apply logic if it's there. And he's implying that it was Betty who robbed him of that. And it's like, so we're just gonna keep like just, it's all Betty's fault. Yeah, so everybody was just coming on the stand and being like, well, she was dramatic and she was always seeing this stuff. It's bloody, bloody, bloody, bloody, blah, blah, blah, blah.

So I like the gossip that began circulating in the wake of Betty's death and the community's rush to support Mac, the defense's case relied heavily on victim blaming to just absolve Mac of any kind of responsibility. Under normal circumstances, he was a good boy who would have gone above and beyond to help anybody they all said. He was only after Betty's ceaseless, melodramatic badgering that he lost the power to apply logic.

And it's like, no one's really arguing here that much about whether this is how it happened, that Betty asked and he did it. Yeah, no one's really arguing that. Or arguing is, are you fucking kidding me that someone asks you to kill them and you do it. Yeah. Like that's, that's honestly the pure thing that we're really looking at here. Mm-hmm.

No one's really arguing that Betty was suicidal, that she had expressed suicidal ideation, Yep. That she had asked several people to help her do this, including Mac several times. Yep. The problem here is that all those people said, no. And you said, yes.

Yep. And then you did it. Like, that's where the problem lies. That's a problem. Like, nobody does that. And now the problem is that we're relying on a bunch of 17-year-olds to say whether he was sane or not. Exactly.

Like, do you even know what sane means? Exactly. You said 17 years old? No. I sure didn't. No. So the next day, Mac was actually called to testify on his own behalf. And the prosecution asked him, when was it that you lost contact with reality?

Excuse me. What? Objection leading the witness. Thank you. Jesus Christ. Matt couldn't recall. He said he had no idea. Because he was like, because I did it. I don't know what that means. Exactly. He was also pretty evasive when Sullivan pointed out that he had told at least one person, his girlfriend, his current girlfriend, that he planned to kill Betty. So, this suggested that at some point before it happened, Mack knew he was going to kill

Betty, which meant that he wasn't insane at the time of the murder because he was full well planning to do it days before. And actually told his girlfriend that he was going to, wow. And she didn't do anything either. These are, woo. So he was like, Sullivan was like, what's the deal with that? And Mac responded, I didn't know as you speak of knowing.

I didn't wanna kill Buddy. I just wanted to help her. What? Maybe all these people do need Jesus. I don't know. Like, sometimes, sometimes a rye. Well, like, what does that mean? I didn't know as you speak of knowing.

What? Are you Dr. Seuss? Like, what is this? He also testified that Betty had asked him on three separate occasions if she, if he would kill her. And he estimated this consumed a total of some 28 minutes. So this prompted Sullivan to ask, in 28 minutes, was she able to wear you down and dethrone you of your reason? In macroplied no sir.

Wow. So that tells you everything you need to know people. He admitted it. He admitted it. 28 minutes, like over the course of multiple days. You were not 28 minutes. That was just, I think he literally pulled that out of thin air. Now the jury deliberated for almost 11 hours. And at one point they even sent the judge a note saying

that they had become hopelessly deadlocked. Wow. And the judge responded by telling them that the note was premature. It's been nearly like nearly 11 hours. And he said, the evidence presented during the trial would indicate that further deliberation of this matter might result in further progress being made. Okay. So he's basically saying like, if you deliberate too much in this matter, we might go forward to a criminal trial.

I think that's exactly what he was trying to say. Now, Mac literally disagreed with the psychiatrist assessment of his temporary insanity, but the jury returned a verdict, finding that he was temporarily insane when he fired the bullet that ended Betty Williams. That's bananas. So when the verdict was read, Max van Lee erupted into tears and applause. But before the judge even-

And even applause. Into applause. That is so fucked up, so disrespectful. Yeah. So disrespectful. But before the judge finished reading the verdict, John Banks, the attorney for the prosecution, objected and moved that a mistrial be declared

on the grounds that the jury had made a mistake in filling out the forms. But Judge Olson immediately denied that. Wow. So shocked. So in the wake of the verdict, the DA Don Sullivan actually filed an appeal of the ruling, arguing that Mac Herring had been indicted for murder, and that Judge Olson didn't have the jurisdiction to set aside the indictment and pursue only the question of the sanity. Yeah. So this was like a whole mistrial, basically. Essentially, he was arguing that Mac's sanity should have been a factor for consideration

when it was determining whether or not he was guilty or innocent, but saying that the court never had the jurisdiction to determine that factor separate from the trial in the first place, making the verdict completely illegitimate. So after hearing the case, the State Supreme Court agreed with the District Attorney's Office, reverse the verdict and prompted a new trial for Mac. And it was as though the new trial for Mac. Damn. And it was as though the first trial didn't take place. So the retrial started on December 2nd, 1962,

and I think it's Beaumont, Texas. Yeah, I think you're right. Cool. I didn't look it up. Yeah, that's the truth. It was on one count of murder with Malice. And if he were to be found guilty, he could receive the death penalty.

That was still on the table. Again, he was represented by the same council, and it was basically, like everybody was the same. The DA was the same, Mac had the same lawyer, bloody blah, blah. Yeah. Also, this was Dan Sullivan, the district attorney, his second murder trial.

Oh my God. This is your second murder trial? The first one was Mac's murder trial. Oh my God. This is your second murder trial? The first one was Max previous trial. Wow. Yeah. Now from the jump, it was clear that this trial was going to go exactly the same as the first one had gone.

That sucks. The defense team's position was that Mack did shoot Betty, but only after she had worn him down by repeatedly begging him to do so. It was literally the same trial over and over again. Now once again, though, Betty's letter, absolving Mac of responsibility, was the anchor for the defense.

And as was the testimony of Mac's dad, O.H. Herring. You know, he's rich. His name is O.H. He told the son. He told the jury his son, quote, was a happy boy before, always smiling. Now that old smile is missing. It's not there. It's like he's trying to make up for the sorrow he's caused.

Good. I was going to say, I hope he is. Bully for him. I don't know. Okay. So, Max Mother just basically echoed her husband's testimony and told the jury that she had directly asked her son whether or not he had done it.

And he said, I must have, as if he couldn't remember. So she was trying to be like, he wasn't saying. Yeah, he blacked out. Now, even though the arguments from both sides were pretty much the same as they had been in the first trial, the second trial quickly became a media circus. There were multiple occasions where the defense objected to a certain seemingly innocuous piece of evidence that was being admitted, but later on they asked that that same piece

of evidence be admitted for no other reason than to just undermine and manipulate the public's view of it. So there's like gaslighting people. They're like, get out of here. That does nothing. And then they're like, bring that back on it. Why would you do that out? Why would you do that?

Awesome. At one point, the judge also seemed to think that District Attorney Sullivan was implying that the court wasn't being fair because he'd spoken out against the defense's court romantics and the judge told him that he would hold him in contempt of court for three days if he ever suggested anything like that again. Holy shit. I'm like, you guys are losing sight of what we're here for. You guys got a chill. Now aside from the antics,

it was all the same. There was no new information or evidence, so it was hard to imagine any kind of different outcome. And there wasn't. After deliberating for several hours, the jury delivered a verdict of not guilty. Now, for a time, it seemed like there would be another deadlock jury, especially when the judge ruled that the jury couldn't review the transcript of the witness testimony when they requested it. That's shady. I don't think that's okay. Yeah.

But the next day, they all reached a unanimous decision. And upon hearing a verdict, Max Perrin's rushed to the jury box and started thanking the jury, telling them, it's going to be a merry Christmas. Wow. Not for Betty's family, but thanks. And her father, on the other hand, was over her to mutter, it is a gross miscarriage of justice, which it is. I agree.

So, it's just awful. Now, from the moment Betty was pulled from the pond where she was literally weighted down and jumped by somebody that she had loved once. The residents of Odessa, both young and old and everything in between, they had already made up their minds about what had happened, why it happened, and who was to blame. Mac was just a normal kid, played football, got good grades, he was always quick to help when anybody needed anything, but Betty, She was challenging, she was defiant, she was a progressive misfit,

and worst of all, she engaged in sex. Well, worst of all. Now, in the absence of an explanation, the people of Odessa, and pretty much all of Texas maybe, did what they had always done. They just assumed that whatever had happened, it was almost certainly Betty's fault. They said she had harassed Mac to the point that he was powerless to apply reason, and

he would never have done this if she hadn't been so manipulative. Wow. Yeah. Wow. Now the truth is, the only person who really knows why Mack pulled the trigger is Mack. Is Mack. And he died in 2019. Oh.

So his motive will likely remain a mystery. Wow. But what we can say is, regardless of what she thought she wanted or what Mac felt like the right thing was, Betty's death could have been avoided if even one fucking person, one fucking person was there to help and responded to her with sympathy, compassion, and a solution. Instead of literally rolling their eyes at her or laughing at her. Mac obviously fired the gun that ended Betty's life. But when all was said and done, it's really hard to say who should take all the responsibility for her murder.

Yeah. Because I don't think it's just Mac alone. No, I don't think so either. I think where she lived is responsible. Yeah. I think her home just Mac alone. No, I don't think so either. I think where she lived is responsible. Yeah. I think her home life was responsible. I think teachers were responsible. Students were, I think. It was a systematic failure on every level.

Exactly. I think everybody fell in love. And this is quite possibly the saddest case I have ever personally covered. That is unbelievably tragic, isn't it? And I had never heard of this case before. No, I had never heard of it. Dave brought it to my attention,

so shout out to Freken Dave. Shout out to fucking Dave. He's amazing. This story, I can't believe I've never heard of this story. I know, me either. Truly wild. It's so sad. I feel like we're gonna be talking about this

for like months. I know. Poor Betty. Yeah. So guys, that was really heavy, obviously. So we're gonna be back with listener tails in a couple days. Please go do something that makes you happy. And if you are struggling right now, please know that there are people out there that you

can talk to. Yes. And it's gonna get better. You can talk to anybody. Yeah. Like someone will help you. Someone is around that will care about you. Exactly. And yeah, that will care about you. Exactly.

And yeah, that is the case of Betty Williams. It's also known again as the Kiss and Kill Murder, which is so fucked up. Yeah. But we love you and we hope you keep listening. And we hope you keep it weird. I don't think I need one to close this out. You don't.

I think you all know not to keep it as weird as any of that. It'll get better, everyone. Bye. Bye. Hey, Prime Members! You can listen to Morvid, Early, and Add Free on Amazon Music. Download the Amazon Music app today, or you can listen ad-free with Wondery Plus and Apple podcasts. Before you go, tell us about yourself by completing a short survey at Wondery.com slash survey.