Morbid - Episode 489: Rainbow Family Murders

Episode Date: August 28, 2023

In the summer of 1980, nineteen-year-old Nancy Santomero, and two friends, twenty-six-year-old Vicki Durian and nineteen-year-old Liz Johndrow, left Durian’s parents’ home in Iowa to hitchhike to West Virginia to attend a gathering of the Rainbow Family. Five days later, Santomero and Durian’s bodies were discovered in the woods in West Virginia, shot to death just hours before being found, and Johndrow was nowhere to be seen.More than a decade after their bodies were discovered, police in West Virginia had identified several suspects and eventually charged thirty-four-year-old farmer Jacob Beard, who was convicted in 1993 and sentenced to life in prison. Upon appeal, however, it was revealed that the investigation into Beard was rife with dubious circumstantial evidence, police misconduct, and perjury, which led to a new trial and Beard was exonerated. Thank you to the lovely Dave White for research assistanceReferences: Associated Press. 1992. "W. Va drops Rainbow charges." Roanoke Ties and World-News, July 21: 6.—. 1992. "Arrests in women's deaths 'witch hunt' attorney says." The Daily Progress , April 25: 7.—. 2000. "Jury finds man innocent in Rainbow murder trial." The Roanoke Times, June 1: 21.Behrens, David. 2000. "Too many years without answers." Newsday, February 16: B6.Daily Press. 1980. "2 murdered women in 'Rainbow Family'." Daily Press, June 27: 44.Danville Reigister and Bee. 1993. "Jury deliberating in slayings case." Danville Register and Bee, June 4: 10.Darling, Lynn. 1980. The Rainbow People. July 7. Accessed August 7, 2023. https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/lifestyle/1980/07/07/the-rainbow-people/80aadbf3-ef61-4d43-9d62-766d4d01fc56/.Horn, Dan. 1997. "Franklin's boasting may unlock convict." The Cincinnati Post, April 18.Lovegrove, Richard. 1980. "Rainbow camp still going up despite slaying of women." The Roanoke Times, June 28: 1.—. 1980. "Two women slain near 'Rainbow' camp remain unidentified." The Roanoke Times, July 10: B-8.Possley, Maurice. 2012. Jacob Beard. July 30. Accessed August 8, 2023. https://www.law.umich.edu/special/exoneration/Pages/casedetail.aspx?caseid=3963.State of West Virginia v. Jacob W. Beard. 1998. 24644 (Supreme Court of Appeals of West Virginia, July 15).State of West Virginia v. Jacob W. Beard. 1995. 22504 (Supreme Court of Appeals of West Virginia, January).The Gazette. 1983. "2 West Virginia men charged in death of Wellman woman." The Gazette, April 8: 14.—. 1992. "4 charged in Wellman woman's 1980 slaying." The Gazette, April 17: 10.United Press International. 1980. "Young woman who skipped tragic hitchhiking trip found." The Daily Progress, July 17: 7.Wallace, Terry. 1992. "Seething hostility led to killing of hitchhikers." The Daily Progress, April 20: 1.West Virginia Public Broadcasting. 2020. Two Women Murdered Traveling to Rainbow Gathering. June 25. Accessed August 8, 2023. https://wvpublic.org/june-25-1980-two-women-murdered-traveling-to-rainbow-gathering/.https://kmbllaw.com/dont-just-ask-to-suppress-the-involuntary-statement-and-the-evidence-thats-fruit-of-the-poisonous-tree-ask-for-a-full-kastigar-hearing/#:~:text=In%20other%20words%2C%20the%20Kastigar,compelled%20after%20an%20immunity%20order.https://www.upcounsel.com/legal-def-habeas-corpus#:~:text=The%20writ%20of%20habeas%20corpus%20serves%20as%20an%20important%20check,290%2D91%20(1969).See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

You're listening to a Morbid Network podcast. Hey, weirdos! I'm Elena. I'm Ash. And this is Morbid. You were chonty about that, hey. I know I was. Maybe it's the eyeshadow of it all. It's the eyeshadow. You're great.

You've never looked better. eyeshadow of it all. It's the eyeshadow. You're great. You've never looked better. One of my daughters, while we were getting them ready for dance, decided to give me a makeover. Yes. While you're waiting, you know. But as well, she grabbed a Halloween palette. Yep, a Halloween palette that I have. And I actually kept that palette, haven't used it,

because I wanted to wait for Halloween. And I figured they could use that palette, because I'm sure they're gonna want to be something fun and fancy and all that fun stuff. But boy, the user is pumpkin orange glitter, and glitter glitter in this palette. Like drag queen glitter. Like so glitter, so glitter.

Yeah, it's so glitter. And she said, mom close your eyes and I said, okay. And she did it. She lipstick to you too, but that's a way. She lipstick to me too, but that was a way. But the eyeshadow remains. It might remain until the day I die. Because it's really, it's really embedded in there, but I feel spooky, oogie.

It was great. You know what? She gave me a gift. She gave you her all. She did. They were like, what did they say? Oh, the other one wanted to do mine, and I was like, I already have makeup on. And it goes, you can never have too much. And I was like, nope, you can. Lessons more, bye. Have fun at dance. So here I am. I got to.

I'm sitting with my fancy eyeballs, okay? I got to, I'm sorry. You feel it adequate. I don't, I don't, I feel safe over here. You feel safe because of this disco ball. You know, if they spoke when people are like, I've been marked safe from like, the horrible safe from glitter.

I was, it was on. It wasn't marked safe from my, the bottom of my hair is so crusty. Wow, okay, like dry. Yeah. What, what's so funny over there? Glitterhead, that It was so weird. The fact that you had to like clarify what you meant.

You were like, dry. Dry. Like not just crusty. Like, these crusty crusts I got on the bottom of my hair. For glizzella was her lips for me. It's my ends. There you go. That speaks to some of the story. I'm sorry about that, but summer's almost over, everybody said, don't worry about it. Yay.

Because spooky season is coming. It's upon us. It's here. As far as I'm concerned. Yeah, and I have a hair appointment tomorrow, so party. Oh my god, for the day. I saw. I saw.

I was really trying to connect that. You were like, what does that have to do with spooky season? But it started with hair. I was still on my hair. I see. It's called being self centered. Look it up. So I guess there's no better way to go into the case. The that.

Yeah, what better way? This, I have like a bummer one today, obviously. And it's interesting. I was reading like articles to try to find my next couple of cases. And I saw a book pop up and I was like, whoa, that looks interesting. And was reading articles to try to find my next couple of cases and I saw a book pop up and I was like, whoa, that looks interesting. And that's how I discovered the rainbow family. I don't think I've ever heard of this one. Nor had I. Yeah.

So it all starts with a girl named Nancy. Okay. And from a very early age, Nancy Santomero knew whatever she ended up doing for her career. She wanted it to be something that helped people. And I think that automatically is just really fucking sweet. Yeah. Her mother Jean told reporters in 2000, she had such promise, such a free spirit. She wanted to be a forest ranger. It was the end of the 1970s and she was non-materialistic. She just wanted to improve society. Oh, Nancy. It was almost like Nancy was born a couple years too late.

In the late 70s, her love of nature and, you know, her deep feelings of empathy and compassion for others reminded most people of the hippie subculture that had recently kind of left behind. Now, most people were going on to a period that was, you know, maybe a bit more self-centered and definitely a whole lot more materialistic. But Nancy's family always encouraged her interests and respected the kind of hippie-esque culture that she felt so close to. That's a good family. It is.

They just supported her in love with who she was. Yeah. And she had a lot to offer. Her mother later said, I didn't even worry when she was hitchhiking because her family and her mother included new, she had a close knit group of girl friends and just friends in general, who could very much hold their own

in a potential conflict. I love that she was like, I wasn't worried like they're boss bitches. I'm not worried about them at all. She's like, they got this. That's awesome. Now one of those girls was 26 year old Vicki Durian. Vicki was known to her friends as bright star.

Stop it. Like immediately I was like, I love Vicki. I was just gonna say, this is like, I just wanna be around these people. Right, and so Vicki being also known as Brightstar, you can see why she and Nancy headed off immediately. They both had very free spirits.

They were open people, friendly people. Vicki was born and raised in actually a very rural area, well, in Iowa. It was a town where there were only about 1,000 people. Vicki was born and raised in actually a very rural area, Wellman, Iowa. It was a town where there were only about a thousand people. Whoa, yeah. But like Nancy, Vicki had a strong sense of empathy and compassion. She really liked helping people. What a duo. I know. After high school, she became a licensed practical nurse. So she was also like, like a multifaceted Chica there. Oh yeah. And it seems like a natural fit for somebody with her skills and personality. Now, even though she had a well-established career,

and she was very much professionally trained, Vicki's still identified it seemed even more so as like a free spirited person who wanted to get out and experience the world. Yes. I love it. It starts off so beautifully. Now, Vicki and Nancy's friend,

Liz John Drow, told reporters, Bright Star was a loving person. She was real open to everybody, even if they weren't like her. Oh, I love that. Yeah, that's like the kind of people everybody should be. Yeah, that's the kind of people you want to surround yourself with. Yeah, just be open to people. Yeah. So Liz actually had met Vicki outside of a food co-op in Tucson in the late 70s, and the two of them became really fast friends because Vicki let then teenage Liz stay at her apartment when she had no room to go. Now it was through Vicki that Liz eventually met Nancy and then the three girls bonded together over their increasingly uncommon interest of the hippie lifestyle, which is crazy. That like, even at the end of the 70s,

it was pretty much done. Yeah, like that. It changed over so quick. Yeah. It seems like it was just all of a sudden, like, nope, that's not okay. Yeah. Like we're onto new things.

Onto material items. But now look, the hippie, like, you know, look at least, and like aesthetic is still, it's constantly in style. I feel like hundreds of ways. Yeah. And I think there's like a lot more music festivals now to kind of try to like borrow from the ones back in the day. Yeah.

But yeah. So they were, there were a couple of hippies and they loved hitchhiking. OK. It was just a good way to get around. Now, as we all know, it was obviously wildly popular in the 70s to hit chike, in the early 70s, but by the end of the decade,

most of the general public kind of realized how dangerous it could be, spent like accepting a ride from a stranger. That's so sad. Which I think the reason a lot of people started to realize is because the news and the press started covering more serial killers and more instances of violent crimes

from hitchhiking. Yeah, you're never hearing about like, I'm a, like, I would never hitchhike just because I'm scared of everybody. But now it's so different. Now it's so different. But like, you also back then, we're not hearing about the millions of successful hitchhikings that happened every single day where somebody was brought to the place they were looking to go and had a nice conversation and met somebody kind and great and. Yep. Was better for the experience like you didn't hear about any of that. You only,

it's like a plane crash. Exactly. You only hear about the bad ones. You're not hearing about the thousands that take off a day that successfully get with you need to go. Precisely. Exactly. You get it. Yeah, girls that get it get it. That's me. Now, but listen, even with that awareness, there were still people who felt like the benefits like we were just saying outweighed the risks

and they were comfortable taking rides from strangers. Liz would later tell reporters, hitchhiking is a cheap, easy, free way to travel. We could get off anywhere we wanted. No worries about gas or cars. You meet people who are just interested in hearing about your travels. We were no strings attached people.

And wouldn't it be nice if that's all it was? You just meet people, get a little different perspective on stuff. Hear about their fun trip they're taking and then be like, bye. And like you said, maybe time leave better for it. Yeah. Like, oh, what a cool guy.

What a cool guy. That was just the way it was. And we could be that way as a species. It would be so sick. It would be, but we're one of the most terrifying species of all. Sure. So in June of 1980, Vicki traveled from Wisconsin

where she had recently moved for work to her family home in Wellman, because she was attending her brother's graduation. And Nancy planned to meet Vicki at Vicki's parents' house in Iowa after the grad party was over. Okay. And together with Liz, the three of them were going to hitchhike their way

to the Rainbow Family's Fourth of July celebration in Marlington, West Virginia. Otherwise known as a rainbow gathering. This sounds adorable. Oh, it's, it's just so pure. Okay. I could see myself wanting to go to this when I, if I like, lived back then.

You would have been all over this. 100%. Now, the Rainbow family was started in 1971. It's like very interesting reading about it because you're like, who exactly started this? What happened? There's a couple people that started it, but they're like, we're pretty informally led. So, they started by an informally connected group of mostly young people with pretty progressive ideals.

And they're known for organizing really large gatherings that are just supposed to celebrate the spirit of the counter-culture movement from the 70s. Oh, that's fun. It's hippies. Yeah. They don't really have any specific agenda. There's not really any organizing principles. They're mostly understood by the public as a well-intended group who quote, are out to seek a little earnest spiritual fulfillment, learn a thing or two,

and have a good time in the process. It seems wonderful. Like, who the fuck doesn't want to go to that? Yeah. Now, their annual gatherings were pretty freeform. They included events and activities that drew from spirituality, like new age spirituality, and the back-to-nature movement. And they also incorporated cultural elements

of the 1960s, like music and sexual freedom. Oh, lots of stuff going on. It's talking awesome. Yeah. It's like very woodstock, it sounds like. Yeah, you know. No, I loved it. I loved it.

As the Washington Post described it, it was as if the rainbow people had slipped through a time warp, a slice of the 60s suddenly wedged into the 80s. That's interesting. Signed me up. Yeah. Let's do the time warp again. Yeah. I mean, I'll watch from far away. Yeah. I'll make sure you have like pop brains. I'll support you. Okay. I'll write you a postcard from there. Cool. Now, while the attendees of the rainbow family gatherings may have been mostly well intended, it seems. Their annual convergence on very, very rural locations had a tendency to worry local law enforcement over what they referred to as, quote, the high potential for user conflict. Essentially, they were worried about the largely progressive counterculture attendees coming

up against the largely conservative local Sikh, who really resented public nudity, the like, flagrant drug use, and what they felt was a general disregard for authority. Okay. Just two different sides of a coin coming together. Very opposite ends of this spectrum here. Luckily, the troublemaker seemed to be pretty few in far between, and most attendees overall were like Vicky, Nancy, and Liz, just free-spirited people trying to keep up the ideals of hippie culture alive in a very different world. But still, in the weeks before this gathering was set to begin in Marlington, West Virginia,

the Secretary of State, James Manchin, actually filed a suit against the group in an attempt to stop this gathering from happening altogether. He told reporters, West Virginia didn't need this bunch of derelict misfits. I mean, that was a choice having it in West Virginia. I will say that. It was a choice. I'm not saying it was a bad choice. I'm not saying it was a good choice. It was just a choice. It's simply a choice. It's an interesting choice. Darylict misfits. I mean, they're just trying to vibe.

That's what I think. It sounds like they're not doing anything. Like let them hang. Let them hang. Let them hang. Just do their thing. Yeah. It'll end.

And then they go home. None, that's it. Who cares? His suit was unsuccessful at keeping the rainbow family from coming to us for a journey. I figured. But that specific instance definitely highlights the tensions that were building over before the event had to be forgotten.

You can see that it was clearly like an issue. And people in town were not excited about it. In a big issue, this isn't like a bunch of people just being like, oh, this is annoying. It's like the secretary of state is trying to see them. That's a lot. That's pretty big. Now when Liz Nancy and Vicki left from the Durant House

on June 20th, their plan was to hitchhike to the gathering, which was going to be held. And I looked this up, so I'm going to do my best. West Virginia's Mananga Heala for a national forest. Wow. Yeah. Impressive. Very cool.

You're talking about my pronunciation, right? Yes. Thank you. Very impressive. So that was the plan. They were going to hitchhike there. And then when they got there, they were going to meet up with Nancy, sister Kathy, who was also going to be going to the festival. Okay. Kathy's plan was to drive herself down a few days later. Okay.

However, their plan changed just a few days later when they reached Richmond, Virginia on the 24th of June. The day before, the three friends were picked up in South Carolina by the driver of a commercial bus. And Liz later told reporters, it was raining. And as I stared out the window, something told me not to go to the rainbow gathering. Ooh, she just had like a premonition.

Ooh, always listen to your gut, man. And she did. So many times I have not listened to my gut and I regret it every time. Yeah, she said it was just something like telling her not to go. Wow. So instead, she placed a listened to my gut and I regret it every time. Yeah, she said it was just something like telling her not to go. Wow. So instead she placed a call to her father in Connecticut and she arranged for transportation to get back home. She really listened. She's spiritual girl. Yeah.

And actually her dad was going to be getting married the next weekend. So going home seemed like the right thing to do anyways. Yeah. Even despite her feeling. And like there was a lot of convergence of signs there that she was like, you know what? Yeah, that's the thing. And I wonder if she just kind of like kept the feeling to herself and was like, it's about me,

like, not about them kind of thing. So the three of them made plans to get together in Vermont later that summer. And they were, they totally understood that. Yeah. They didn't want to go anymore. And the last thing Vicki and Nancy said to Liz was, be careful.

And then they proceeded on their way to West Virginia to the rainbow gathering. Oh boy. This show is sponsored by BetterHelp. Sometimes we're faced with a crossroads in life, and we don't know which path to take. Maybe you're thinking about a career change, or maybe feeling you know, like, your relationship needs a little TLC.

Whatever it is, therapy can help you map out your future, and trust yourself to find the way forward. I remember before I started therapy, I second-guessed myself all the time about big decisions in life. I'd be like, I don't know, because what if these five terrible things happen and everything just goes off course? But now that I've gone to therapy, I have the tools to kind of better one,

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Right now, morbid listeners can get a special 20% off any Simply Safe System when you sign up for a free month trial of fast protect monitoring. This special offer is for a limited time only. Visit simplysafe.com slash morbid. That's simplysafe.com slash morbid. There's no safe like simply safe. Now around 9 p.m. on June 25th, so just one day after Vicki and Nancy parted ways with Liz. A student walking back to his lean-to and briary knob near Drupemountain Park discovered

two bodies lying face down in the woods, both dead from apparent gunshot wounds. Oh! Now, they were nearly 40 miles from the rainbow family gathering, but police immediately believed that these two women had attended the gathering due to one of them wearing a shirt with a rainbow motif, similar to emblems used by participants of the gathering. Okay. Now, other than that, neither woman had any identification or other clues about their identities.

So the news of the two murders, excuse me, came as a shock to some, but not all attendees at the Rainbow Family Gathering. One of the organizers of the gathering, Tony Crow, told reporters about an unrelated instance. He said, quote, there were 11 shots fired into the site. It looks like some of the locals have gone a little gun crazy.

Oh. So basically, people were targeting this event. Wow. And like the site where the gathering was actually taking place, that's what had happened. People shot into it. Now, but like I said, unrelated incidents or incidents, excuse me, that's scary. But despite the deaths, the event continued without a second thought. One attendee told reporters, it's a really bad thing that it should happen, but I know that those two sister who have passed

on to another realm would be very unhappy if they saw that it affected the energy of the scathing. No comment. I'm just going to stay here. I don't know how they would feel. I have no idea. I, yeah. We'll leave it at that. Yeah. But since the deaths did not affect the gathering, the identities of the victims were still unknown. And Nancy's sister Kathy had no reason to change her plans. So at the end of June, she and some friends traveled to West Virginia to meet up with her sister. Oh, mm-hmm.

Years later, Kathy told reporters, when I arrived, no one knew where Nancy was. That week, I heard two girls were killed in the country, but there were no photos. I was a little worried, but someone said the victims were American Indians. No, when Kathy still hadn't been able to locate her sister after several days, she just figured that Nancy had found something that interested her more, so she left the area. She said that would have been pretty typical of her. Because again, very free spirit of people, that's a thing. And I mean, this is like in your wildest nightmares, you couldn't imagine that this happened to your sister.

No, of course not. And nothing in your brain wants you, wants to believe. Exactly. So it's going to tell you, no way, there's no way. Right. So Kathy and her friends drove back to New York on July 5th, but when she got home, some friends had received

a copy of the Pocahontas Times and showed Kathy the pictures of the two young women who had been killed. Now at first Kathy wasn't sure the girl in the photo was her sister, there definitely was a resemblance, but she couldn't be sure. So she drove back down to West Virginia to see if the girl in the photo really was her sister.

I wonder if it's one of those things where she was pretty sure, but like, again, her brain didn't want to be like, no, that's definitely her. Yeah. So as she made her way back to West Virginia, investigators continued to struggle to make any kind of headway in this case. And like I said a minute ago, neither girl that was found had any identification

and the only personal items found with them were a Swiss army knife and a pocket comb. And then the post-mortem exams were just as unhelpful. The cause of death was gunshots, this is horrible. Vicki had been shot twice in the chest. Nancy had also been shot twice in the chest, but also once in the head. Sheath. With what the technician believed was a high-powered rifle. Wow. Now, although they had

an identified the bodies yet, local authorities felt confident that the killer was local, quote, because of the rural area in which the bodies were found. And they were also pretty certain that the girls had been killed in one location and then dumped where they'd been found because there was no blood pooling around the exit wounds. Okay. Now, Kathy reached Pocahontas County on July 8th and immediately went to the local police who took her to see the bodies.

She later recalled, quote, my girlfriend knew right away, but I could not believe it was Nancy. Then I saw that she was wearing the silver bracelet I had given her. Oh, like got her a awful way. I can't imagine having to identify I could not believe it was Nancy. Then I saw that she was wearing the silver bracelet I had given her. Oh, that's a awful way. I can't imagine having to identify a family member, let alone like your sister.

Yeah. So after identifying the body's Kathy, was able to help the investigators get in touch with Vicki's family. And then she got in her car and drove back to New York to deliver the news to her mom and person. She said, I didn't wanna have to tell her about Nancy on the telephone.

Wow, that's, yeah. Can you imagine just having to, like, it's just you. And you're driving, and you're having what you have to do. After just seeing what you saw, like, as a sister and her friend who you probably knew. And you're showing up at your mom's house.

She's probably gonna answer the door being like, oh my God, hey girl, you know, I'm so happy to see you. Like, blah, blah, blah, like mom stuff. And this is what you have to. And to think too that like you were at the gathering and you had no idea, it's awful. So a couple days after Nancy and Vicki were identified,

the state police held a press conference to press conference, to announce the identification. Other information about the investigation was still really scarce. Investigators didn't believe that the motive was robbery. And actually, sometime later, Nancy's backpack was found about 50 miles from where the two bodies were discovered. And this is strange. Nothing appeared to be missing. But strangely, a Confederate flag was found

among the possessions. And like neither one of them would have had that, Vicki or Nancy. That's strange. And when Liz was asked about it, she said she didn't remember Vicki or Nancy being in possession of one. And she elaborated that it would have been very odd

given who they were and what they believed in. Yeah, that seems to have go against. So it seems like whoever did this to them left that there as like a fuck you. Wow. Now as far as motives went though, there was no evidence that either had been sexually assaulted, so that was ruled out as well.

And in fact, aside from the murders, there had actually been no reports of violence in the area. So investigators had no suspects. What the fuck? Nothing. Now, the biggest and most unexpected information revealed during the press conference was that, in addition to the murders, Vicki and Nancy's friend Liz, who had been traveling with them,

was still missing. Ah. Because obviously nobody knew that, like, only Vicki and Nancy knew what had happened, And she had gone off. So it took nearly a week before West Virginia authorities were actually able to track Liz down. She was in Vermont vacationing with her family and had no idea how close she was to becoming the third victim of this.

Wow. Now, unfortunately, while Liz was able to fill in the timeline between when they left Iowa and got to Richmond, there really wasn't much else she could do or provide beyond hitchhiking from one destination to the other. Now, when reporters asked her whether she would continue hitchhiking, she said, right now I don't think I'll do it again. It's kind of scary.

I guess not all the good rides make up for the one bad one. Exactly. Which like, what a haunting statement. I know. For the one bad one. That one bad one. Like, Which like, what a haunting statement. I know. For the one bad one. Like, oh, it gives me like chills. Because usually that's all you get. This is one bad one.

Yep. Oh. So local authorities investigated the case for two years. But they kept hitting dead end after dead end after dead end. They weren't able to turn up any leads, any additional evidence, nothing. Of course, they had some theories due to the remote location in which the bodies were found, I think I said this earlier.

They definitely suspected that a local was responsible, but who and why completely? And then their investigation was further hindered by the fact that most local residents were pretty tight-lipped when it came to talking to law enforcement. And especially when the crime was committed against two quote unquote outsiders. They're not gonna get involved. They're not gonna concern themselves. Which is really fucked up. Cause it's like two young girls.

Two people. No one in this town had like teenage sisters, teenage daughters, teenage cousins like Jesus Christ. But the first break in the case finally came in July of 1982 when Vicki's family reported that they had received several anonymous calls from a man who seemed to know something about Vicki's murder. Whoever was calling refused to identify himself,

but claimed to the local police, police, excuse me, quote, were not doing their job when it came to the investigation. And this caller said, as somebody who had a daughter himself, he was really sympathetic to the family suffering. But it was odd, like they were, they were turned off by these phone calls. So later that month, the police put a tap

on Vicki's family's phone and that led them to 36-year-old West Virginia tractor salesman and farmer and father father Jacob Beard. Now in 1982, Jacob Beard, he was actually already pretty well known to the police due to a few charges of animal cruelty. He was facing at the time. And he was facing those charges at the time

that he was making the call to Vicky's family. Trigger warning here, I'm just gonna quickly tell you what those charges were about. So if you wanna skip forward, I would do that now. According to the charges, he had killed his girlfriend's cat and left it in her bed for her to find. And he had also been accused of trying to kill her dog, but luckily the dog was able to be saved.

Oh, he also did this on Christmas Eve. What? Mm-hmm. No, because the charges were still pending, the county prosecutor actually offered to dismiss those animal cruelty charges in exchange for Jacob Beard's cooperation in the case. Oh, shit.

And they also offered to grant him immunity for any after the fact involvement that he may have had in Vicki and Nancy's deaths. Damn. Crazy. I know. They were desperate to get this solved. Yeah. Now, but if it was found that he was directly

responsible for the deaths, immunity would be off the table. Wow. OK. Yeah. So according to Jacob Beard, he had left for work about 515 that night, the night that Vicki and Nancy were killed.

Then he said he went home to eat something for dinner and then headed off to a school board meeting with his wife. He told authorities that he and his wife were returning from that meeting around 9 p.m. that night when they saw three local residents, Christine Cook, Palmer Adkinson and William McCoy entering into the woods near Drupes Mountain Park with two women, he said, resumbold, Vicki, and Nancy. Oh.

Now, he also claimed that there was actually a third victim from the Rainbow Family killed by Palmer Adkinson. And he knew that because Palmer and another local resident, Arnold Cuntlip, had brought the body back to his own property, Jacob's property, and disposed of the body by putting it into his corn chopper. What? So this is like a very fantastical tale if this is all true. Yeah. So the police arrested the men that Jacob claimed were responsible for the murders, but after two months of investigation, they determined his story was a hoax.

What? And all three men were released from custody. So he just came up with this entire story and named random people involved, supposedly. Wow. Maybe. It gets hair. Oh, just right. Okay. Wow, maybe it gets hair. Oh, just right.

Okay. So the shift in focus away from those suspects coincided with suspicions falling on two new suspects, 42-year-old Gerald Lee Brown and 20-year-old Bobby Lee Morrison. Now, according to Morrison, he had been out driving around with Gerald Lee Brown, excuse me, on the night of June 24th. And he said they picked up Nancy and Vicki who were head-chiking. And then he claimed the four of them spent some time drinking.

He passed out in Gerald Brown's van. And when he woke up, Morrison claimed he witnessed Brown's shoot both women. And then he said he helped Brown move the bodies out to Briary knob before returning to town. Why are so many people admitting to having some kind of partners? Oh, so many people.

You're barely at the tip of the iceberg right now. What the fuck? It's why. This case is one of the craziest ones when it comes to the investigation. I think that I am a personally researched. Wow. It's wild.

Now, both men were arrested in April 1983. Bail was set at $100,000 for Brown and $50,000 for Morrison. In a press conference, prosecutor Jay Stephen Hunter told reporters he, quote, in all probability, would try to seek Morrison as an adult, or excuse me, would seek to try Morrison as an adult, even though he was a juvenile at the time of the murders. So this is public now. Wow. Now, while the arrest of Morrison and Browns

seemed like a pretty positive turn of events in the case, a lot of people in town were pretty confused or weary about how investigators actually became suspicious of those two in the first place. Prosecutor Hunter told reporters, quote, at the time, he, meaning Morrison, wasn't a suspect. It just happened that this turned out to be the lead that led to an arrest. But he would never say what the lead was that led them to Morrison and Brown. Yeah. Because there wasn't one. In all reality, Morrison himself went to the police out of nowhere to report himself and Brown as the men responsible for Vicki and Nancy's murders. What? So strange. Okay.

But a few weeks later during the poor, I can never say this preliminary hearing, Morrison recanted his initial confession and told the judge and prosecutor that Jacob Beard have manipulated him into confessing in order to take the heat off of him. So Jacob Beard is back. Back again. The fuck? Morrison So Jacob Beard is back. Back again.

The fuck? Morrison claimed that Beard told Tim quotes something would happen to his family if he didn't make the season. Jesus. And that was the only reason he made up the story about picking up the hitchhikers in the first place. Wow.

So under those circumstances, the prosecutor had to drop those charges against Morrison and Brown, and the case went cold again. Oh, yeah. This is a whirlwind, and this is barely even the beginning. Geez. [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO It didn't take long before investigators had a new suspect, though. On March 1, 1984, while being interviewed by a special agent from the Wisconsin Department

of Justice for unrelated crimes, I feel like they should shorten their name. Maybe. Convicted serial killer, Joseph Paul Franklin confessed to murdering two white female hitchhikers near droop mountain forest. And he even provided a crudely drawn map of the location where he left the bodies. What? Now, I just want to give a trigger warning probably, I would say for racism here because this guy is a racist piece of shit. So skip forward if you don't want to hear about him. I feel like his name is familiar. Yeah, you probably know about him.

He's, he's a monster. Yeah. So Joseph Paul Franklin had actually been born. James Clayton Vaughn Jr. But changed his name to honor Benjamin Franklin and a Nazi leader named Paul Joseph Goebbels. I think is how you say it. Sounds right to me. He's pretty terrible, so I don't actually care how to pronounce his name.

Yeah. Franklin himself was a fucking deplorable monster. He was a member of the American Nazi party, a member of the KKK, and a vowed white supremacist and a serial killer. Oh, he checks all the really bad guy boxes. All the deplorable boxes. At the time of his confession,

he was already serving multiple life sentences for murder. He mainly targeted Black men and interracial couples. Wow. And he would eventually be convicted of killing eight people, but suspected of killing more than 20. Wow. He confessed to over 20 murders, but they were never able to completely pin them down.

Wow. So this would be out of his victim profile. It would be, but when you hear his quote unquote motiver, what at least what he says it is, not necessarily. So according to his confession, he picked Vicki and Nancy up in West Virginia, and the three had been just engaging in small talk, and the subjective interracial dating came up.

I'm sure he was the one to bring that up. And he was disgusted when neither woman objected to the idea of dating a black. There it is. He said one of them said she had, and the other said if the opportunity arose, that she would. Yeah.

Now it was then he claimed that he decided to quote, waste both of them right there. Geez. He's a disgusting image. My gosh. In a prison interview, he said, it only took one shot for the first one. Then I just turned it real quick over the seat and shot the other one.

Okay. Later. That's awful. Horrible. And just like to think that one question and then that's it. But later, he said he regretted killing Nancy because according to him it was Vicki that was the one who had an interracial relationship before.

And he said when he asked Nancy if she would consider it, she said she would. But he said he still wished he didn't kill her. What the fuck? It's he's, I don't even know if he did this. Like I don't really know what my opinion is because it gets so convoluted along the way. But I'm like, either way, you're fucking out.

Yeah, you're disgusting. So Franklin's confession would seem to have brought the mystery to an end, but there were more than a few unanswered questions. And a lot of people suspected he wasn't telling the truth. Because after his initial confession, he refused to discuss the murders with law enforcement again. And while he may have confessed to these murders, he actually seemed to

have very few details about the crime. And some of them... Right, exactly. For one thing, you probably noticed, he said he only shot each girl one time before dragging their bodies out to the woods, when, like I said earlier, the technician who had performed the examinations, the post-modern examinations, was clear that Vicki had been shot twice and Nancy had been shot three times. Yeah. And then, in addition to that, it was believed that a high-powered rifle was the murder weapon. That's what I didn't get. And a gun like that would be very awkward to use

in the close combat lines of a car. And it just doesn't make a lot of sense. None of it lines up. So finally, there was also the fact that he had a history of making supposedly false concessions. There you go. So they were like, what? What kind of...

Oh, I do, I'm like, you monstrous, like truly monstrous. To try to take credit for this kind of stuff, it's like my goodness. And by the time he was executed by lethal injection in 2013, oh, like not that long ago, he had confessed to more than 20 murders across the country. Wow.

Including the shooting of Hustler Magazine founder Larry Flynn in 1978 and Urban League president Vernon Johnson in 1980. Oh, so he was just like taking credit for everything. They were never able, I guess, to prove that he didn't do either of those shootings. But they weren't able to prove he did either. Correct, exactly.

Correct. I always had very constant. Correct. Now, given the had very condescending. Correct. Now, given the questionable validity of his claims, authorities in West Virginia declined to prosecute, saying that the confession, quote, lacked the requisite guarantees of trust readiness. It doesn't line up for me. No. Now, in the context of West Virginia law, the confession fell into the category. I thought this was interesting. Of what's known as a statement against interest or a statement that is so contrary to the declarance interest that it's unlikely to be true.

Huh, yeah. Now, because they're mostly determined to be false, a statement against interest is typically not admissible in court. Oh, okay. And without any more corroborating evidence, West Virginia prosecutors were like, yeah, he's notifiable so much.

This would be a supreme waste of time. That's basically how they felt. Now, I don't know. I'm not sure what I think about it, because when you think about the fact that a Confederate flag was left with their belongings. Oh, yeah, but I mean, he's not the only. And that's what I was just going to say.

Like, that seems like something he probably would have done. But again, he's not the only person that would do. Yeah, I don't, to me, I don't, just from hearing that, I would say no. But the fact that he didn't know how many times each was shot, and I guess it was a high powered rifle that would be very difficult to do in a car. In a car, right.

And the map he drew was not, it was like, all right, but they were like, I don't know. Like, you could have got that from reading different sources about this case. Nope, don't buy it. Yeah, well, you're not the only one. And law enforcement officials were not the only ones who considered this confession self-serving

wildly inconsistent with the details, all of the above. A lot of people, including actually Nancy's own family, found these claims hard to believe. And like of people, including actually Nancy's own family, found these claims hard to believe. And like many investigators, Nancy's sister Kathy believes Franklin had picked up a few details from magazines or news reports, which would account for the lack of specificity in his claims. Because he gave no details. That would be something only the killer would know. Exactly.

And if you can't give me that, then you weren't there. Exactly, that's the thing. If you can read it in a magazine or a newspaper, I don't trust it. That's the thing. And actually, at the time he was arrested, he supposedly, I couldn't totally pin this down, but I read in a couple sources

that he was said to have a magazine in his possession that laid out a couple of the key details from the case. And those were the ones he pointed to. There you go. So authorities in West Virginia, they shared Kathy's theory. An anonymous source from the prosecutor's office told reporters, his story has evolved over the years. When he began the scenario, he really knew none of the details.

He did not know how many times the women had been shot. He did not know what areas of the body, the wounds were sustained, and he could not accurately describe his root before and after the murders. Yeah, bye. So, bullshit. Yeah. Now, after the quick collapse of his confession,

the investigation into Vicki and Nancy's murders went inactive yet again, getting, you know, the occasional review ever so often, but other than that remaining mostly cold. And it wasn't until late 1991, when a new group of investigators decided to give the case a second look. Now in that review, this is so interesting.

Detectives, or at least to me, detectives found a note from 1985 regarding a local woman named Alice Roberts who had contacted them and they had never followed up with her initial, like reaching out to them. What? So when detectives got in touch with Alice,

these new detectives, she redirected them to her daughter Pam Wilson, saying that she actually knew her daughter, or she believed that her daughter knew something about the murders. Oh wow. And they just ignored her the first time around. Just never got back to her.

Cool. Is that right? So according to Pam Wilson, she had been in town on the day that the murder has occurred. And she said she saw two quote unquote, hippie type women get into a blue van belonging to a man named Richie Fowler. And she said Richie Fowler wasn't alone that afternoon.

He was in the company of two other local men, Winters Peewee, Walton, and William McCoy. William McCoy had previously been arrested. Oh, no, that's gonna say, that brings a belt. Yeah, and that he was arrested alongside Jacob Beard, so the tip was definitely of interest. Yeah. So around the same time, investigators were also contacted

by an inmate named Keith Coliner, I believe is how you say his last name. He was serving a tenure prison sentence for forgery. And he said that he was willing to trade information about the murders in exchange for better prison conditions. He's gonna pause there. Better prison conditions. Just say. I'm like, if you got something again, I don't know how to do. Yeah, I don't know.

But he claimed that he had actually been at Gerald Brown's home several months after the murders. And while he was there, he overheard Gerald Brown confess that he, Richie Fowler and two other men had been responsible for the murders and that quote, everyone should just keep their mouth shut. Whoa. So that's pretty interesting.

She's this like set of people number four. The amount, it got so confusing at the end because there's gonna be even more players and a bunch of them have the same last name or like one has a last name that somebody else has first name. I was getting really confused. But after investigating Pam's tips as well as Keats, investigators learned of more eyewitness accounts who had spotted a group of men including Peewee Walton,

William McCoy, and Richie Fowler together on the day of the murder. Now one tipper claimed they actually saw three of the men hosing out the back of the van on the same night. That's chilling. Now, based on the, and remember, they had said they didn't believe that they had been killed there. They believed that they had been killed elsewhere and dumped there.

So that's interesting that they maybe were posing the van out allegedly. Now, based on the tips, arrest warrants were actually issued for a man named Richard Lewis, who also eventually was brought into the equation. Gerald Brown, Peewee Walton, and Arnold Cutlip. All of them denied any involvement, but still, obviously, they were not like, yeah, your

words the best. They're like, oh, sounds good. Oh, okay, never mind you for a while. So they were held on $100,000 bond, all of them. Now in his statement to the press, prosecutor Walt Weiford refused to speculate on any kind of motive, but he said, the arrest to date are the result of an intensive investigation conducted by Sheriff Jerry Dale

and Sergeant Robert A. Alkire. They worked a lot of long and hard hours. Now, Sheriff Dale was also pretty vague about what led investigators to these foremen who had been arrested. And all he really said to the public was, people got older and became less intimidated and frightened about the subjects

who were responsible for the murders. Okay. Which like, sure, okay. You declined to add any additional details. But to me, it sounds like they probably should have listened. Should have listened to the original tip from six years ago. Yeah. But like, okay, maybe just call her back to the original tip from six years ago.

Yeah. But like, okay, maybe just call her back. Just call her back six years ago. She reached out for a reason. And it looks like she had some amount of information. You've just arrested how many people? So within a few days, actually, additional charges were brought against three other men

believed to have been involved in the crimes. Johnny Lewis, Jacob Beard, yet again, and William McCoy. Now, all three of them had been suspected of some involvement at some point, as we all know at this point, in the previous decade. How many men were involved in this, geez. I think seven total. Wow.

One resident told reporters, a couple of those are very surprising. And then there's a couple of people that's not so surprising. Oof. Now, within a few weeks of the arrest, people in town were talking, and they had their own theories about the motive of the killers. Most people agreed that it was anger surrounding this supposed hippie invasion of the rainbow family, but the prosecutor's office had yet to make any formal statement as to what they believed was the motive. Gerald

Brown's defense attorney Paul Dutch was suspicious was suspicious though when it came to the evidence that led to the arrests. And he told reporters, it's a bunch of police officers who are on a witch hunt. They've got people held on paperwork that wouldn't hold an assault and battery case. Well, so it was shaky grounds here that they were holding them on.

And Arnold Cutlips lawyer, Martin Safer, agreed, saying, they're going to have to flush out the allegations of the warrant if they can, so he was like, I don't know. Now, Dech Safer and many others in town actually suspected that the prosecutors off us didn't really have any new information about the case, but they just wanted to clear the notorious cold case

to make it seem like they were getting shit done. I mean, then that does happen. Of course it does. And the county prosecutor on the case just wanted to clear the notorious cold case to make it seem like they were getting shit done. I mean, that does happen. Of course it does. And the county prosecutor on the case, Walt Wafford, wasn't doing much to stifle those suspicions. He wasn't talking a lot. Yeah.

Which you can look at two ways. One, he's not talking because he barely has anything. Yeah. Or he has a shit ton and he's keeping it close to the track. Exactly. We've said about how many times. All he would say to the public was that the evidence would be presented at the grand jury hearing,

but other than that, nothing. Okay. So by the time the case did reach the grand jury, things did not appear to be going smoothly for the prosecutor's office. The charges against P.W. Walton had been dropped for lack of evidence. William McCoy was already serving a sentence

in Nevada for an unrelated crime. Jacob Beard was living in Florida at this point in fighting extradition, and the two others who were involved were invoking their Fifth Amendment rights and refusing to cooperate. Cool. In fact, by May 1992, only two cases, Arnold Cutlip and Gerald Browns were bound for trial. Wow. Two months later, the cases against the seven men charged with these two murders had pretty much fallen apart. Wow. And the prosecutor, Walt Waferd, had no choice

but to drop the charges. What? He told reporters, I'm sitting here with a case that's been torpedoed. Now, what he was referring to was some new information that had come to light about investigation procedures. According to the prosecutor's office, Trooper Michael Jordan of the state's Bureau of Criminal Investigations had used improper investigation procedures and, quote, unquote, seriously

compromise the case. Oh, no. Wayford said he still planned to present the case to a grand jury in August of 1992, but he wasn't hopeful that it would go anywhere. Oh, man. Now, he was right to be discouraged. By the time the grand jury did review the evidence and considered the accusations of police misconduct, all the charges were dropped. Oh, man. And in the weeks that followed, they kept on trying.

New indictments were issued against Jacob Beard, Richard Fowler, William McCoy, and Arnold Cutlip. But of all of those new indictments, only Jacob Beard would end up going to trial. Wow. I mean, he's been a consistent name in all of this, for sure. He has. Now, his trial started in late May of 1993, and he was facing first-degree murder charges for, obviously, the murders of 1993, and he was facing first-degree murder charges for obviously

the murders of Vicki and Nancy. From the moment the trial began, the prosecution's case seemed pretty flimsy. They relied on hearsay testimony from some of the men that had previously been charged alongside Jacob Beard. And they alleged the prosecution that after picking up Vicki and Nancy, Jacob Beard attempted to convince one or both of them to have sex with him. And when they turned down his advances, he shot them both and dumped their bodies in the woods. That was their theory.

There quote-unquote evidence against him included one statement from that previous and made that we talked about Keith and Pam Wilson, which placed him at Gerald Brown's house on the night that the men were heard confessing. Okay. To a statement from a man who claimed he saw beard, quote, driving at a high rate of speed away from Drup Mountain, which was where the bodies were found on the night of the murders.

And three statements from Johnny Lewis and P.E. Walton that implicated Jacob Beard as the killer. It should be noted that these two men had actually been beaten by investigators previously, and that's why they had confessed previously. That's what I meant earlier by improper investigative procedures. Yeah, that would be improper.

Mm-hmm. And actually, one investigator previously stated that Johnny Lewis, quote, could be talked into saying anything. Wow. Lewis only, this is like sad that they went after him if he had nothing to do with this. He only had an education up to the third grade. And he didn't even know who the president was at the time he was being interrogated. Oh, man, that gives me Jesse Muskely vibe.

That is immediately what I thought of. Really? I knew you were too. And the same investigator. If he didn't have something to do with this, of course. and that gives me Jesse Muskely vibe. That is immediately what I thought of and I knew he was. Really? And the same investor. If you didn't have something to do with this. Of course. The same investigator, I don't know if I think he did.

The same investigator said Lewis only gave the confession because he was scared and he had previously been hit. He actually, I think the direct quote was that he was so scared. He felt like he was going to pee, which is heartbreaking. Again, if he had nothing to do with this. Yeah. But both of those men had been beaten previously into confessing. So, yeah, I don't really know how we're going to believe their testimony either way. Now, Jacob Beard's defense attorney,

Stephen Framer, of course, claimed his clients innocence. But he, and he noted that the cases, there, excuse me, the state's case relied almost entirely on testimony from known liars and accusations from two men who had only recently been given immunity in exchange for their testimony against Jacob Beard. Again, not great. Not great. The defense also made several notions to introduce evidence that maybe wouldn't necessarily prove innocence, but at the very least would have cast doubt on these charges against Jacob Beard.

And that evidence included Yoseph, I guess, Paul Franklin's confessions from years earlier. But the trial judge refused to admit any of the defense's evidence, calling it hearsay and unreliable. Ooh, but it's like, I think it's hearsay that all these other people who were previously accused and unreliable

that we would believe them too. This is a mess. Like, I'm not saying that Jacob Beard didn't have anything to do with it because I don't know one way or the other. But I mean, this is who we have testifying against him. Yeah, I mean, this is what's really sad about this whole thing is that Vicki and Nancy are just at the

center of this chaos. But got like completely lost in this whole shit trial. That's the thing they're just like, we don't even know anything about what happened to them. And it sounds like the, in my opinion, it sounds like the investigators didn't even really care to find out what happened to them. They just wanted to close the case. That's the thing. That's what it kind of feels like.

It became less about let's get justice for these two young girls who were just going to a music festival. Yeah. Like some little get together. Like a hippie festival. Like a rainbow gathering. Right. Instead of really focusing on that part of it, they're really just focusing on clearing their books. Yeah.

And they're not- And they're not- And they're not even and they're not, and they're not even doing it properly. Like, eating people, taking fest, you really feel good about that. And really, it, like, West Memphis three vibes because in that case, it's the same thing.

They grab the three kids, who they could pin this on, because they needed to clear this off the books. And it's like, that never works, like nobody wants you to just bullshit everybody into thinking it's been solved. Right, because eventually we're gonna find out that. People are gonna find out. No, it wasn't.

And they're gonna find out that one, you didn't care about the actual victims and two, that you put everybody in danger. Exactly. By letting the real people get away with it. Exactly. But it's really, honestly, this is like a tragedy in so many different ways.

I mean, I can tell you right now, I have no fucking clue who is innocent here and who isn't. I have no idea. I have no opinion on it, because I, it's all lost. By the end of this, I had read so many different things to try to convince myself whoever did it. Yeah.

Or whoever had done it did, but I'm still at a loss. I have no idea. So far, I have no opinion. I just think it's a mess. So in his closing statements, Stephen Framer reminded the jury of the unlikely scenario presented by the prosecutor, and he told them, if the state is right, Jacob Beard would have had to kill two girls in front of a group of people he mostly did not know.

That's true. It's pretty weird. Framer also reminded the jury that his client actually had an alibi that contradicted the statements made by the men formerly accused alongside him. And this included evidence showing that Jacob was almost certainly at work the night, like that night, and around the time that the murders were committed. However, I did read that his time card was handwritten. Okay.

So that could easily be changed. All right. And I just will say that. Now in his closing arguments, prosecutor Walt Waffer told the jury, quote, the only person who is testified here, who can tell you where Jake Beard was between the hours of 315 and 8 pm that day is Jake Beard, implying that the accused can't be trusted, which is fair. Even though most of his key witnesses had actually been the accused at one point or the other,

legitimately no one can be trusted here. None. Now, on June 4, 1993, the jury deliberated for six hours before returning with a guilty verdict on both counts of first-degree murder. And Jacob Beard was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole, otherwise known as life without mercy. Damn. Yeah.

Now we're not done. Because what should have been a moment of relief for, you know, pasta, I know you can't necessarily get closure, but some kind of closure for Nancy and Vicki's friends and family was instead completely suspicious. And most people were still skeptical about all the details involved. Nancy's own mother, Jean, spoke to reporters about the conviction later, saying, you should have heard the testimony. I didn't think there

was enough evidence, and I wasn't convinced he was the one. Wow. So that tells you something. One of the victims' own mothers is like, I, this evidence was wild, and the testimony was insane, and I don't think he did it. Because that wasn't convinced he did it. As a loved one of somebody who this happened to, like you would want to be convinced. Yeah, but they have the guy who did it to your child or your loved one. Like you don't want to just go, okay, I guess.

Like you want to, right. You want to walk out of there being like, yes, they convinced me that is him. Right, because that's a thing. Essentially, if you're not convinced, then the question on your mind is like, well, is this another life lost in the case? Yeah, like, is this it?

Or like, are there more that we don't know about? Like, you know, there's just a lot here. I feel really bad for the family members here. I do. They did not get that moment of at least for a minute justice being served. And unfortunately, I don't think they ever did. I think that this family was left with more questions

than they probably had even in the beginning of the tragedy that happened. And again, I have no idea if this man did it or not. I don't really don't feel confident saying either way. So do I. So in January of 1995, this is where things get a little bit complicated.

There's a lot of legal jargon here, but I did my best to kind of, I looked into it myself and I was like, I am not quite sure what that means. So then I kept looking into it and I broke it down in a Nash way. Okay. Cool. So in January 1995, Jacob Beard appealed his conviction to the Supreme Court of Appeals of West Virginia.

Among other things, the appeal cited the refusal to admit key pieces of the defense's case, like Franklin's confession, the result of Beard's polygraph test, the fact that he had actually been granted immunity from prosecution in 1983, and the fact that 11 years had passed between his arrest and his conviction. Now, the appeal also cited numerous errors supposedly committed during the trial. Those errors were allegations of police misconduct to what was considered credible evidence everything between. Now, regarding the claim of immunity, Beards Attorney acknowledged that the 1983 deal didn't necessarily protect him if he was the principal actor.

That's true. However, his role in the crime was supposed to be determined in what's known as a castigar hearing. And that never occurred. Now, a castigar hearing is based, excuse me, a hearing based on a 1972 Supreme Court case. And essentially, it states that a witness who is compelled to testify after they've been given immunity,

but then is later prosecuted, has a right to this hearing where the state has quote, the heavy burden of proving that all evidence it proposes to use was derived from legitimate independence sources. Okay, now, right, I thought so. In their decision, the justices wrote, the state argues that the failure to grant a castigar hearing is harmless, where it is otherwise evident that any immunized evidence admitted at trial did not prejudice the accused.

And that's where things get hairier, because in order to invoke this harmless error rule, there would have had to have been a castigar hearing. So it all goes back to the castigar hearing. Right. So after reviewing the evidence and the trial transcripts, the justices upheld the lower court's conviction, but they did remand the case for a review in the lower courts, quote, to determine whether any prosecution evidence had been

developed from leads, beard provided, after being granted limited immunity. OK. Because if he provided those leads that led to him, it would fuck things up from my understanding. Yeah. It wouldn't necessarily be derived purely. That makes sense.

Right? Yeah. It's very convoluted, but you made it easier to understand. Okay, I hope so. Thank you for that, Teril. Welcome. So Jacob Beard finally did get his castigar hearing, which was held in early September 1996

in the Circuit Court of Greenbrier County. The judge in that case ruled that the evidence was properly obtained. He wrote that quote, the state had not violated, excuse me, violated the use of immunity agreement and entered to with beard. Okay. But undeterred, Jacob Beard and his attorney

appealed the lower courts decision again in 1998. But again, the Supreme Court of Appeals upheld the lower courts conviction. Okay. Now, with no additional errors to claim in the trial, Beards Lawyer filed a petition for a writ of habeas corpus. Now, that is the fundamental instrument for safeguarding individual freedom against arbitrary and lawless state action. Okay. So the argument there was that certain evidence, mainly the sworn deposition from Joseph Paul Franklin's confessions, was barred at Jake Beard's original trial. Now, the petition also included the earlier testimony from Arnold Cutlip, which had also been barred from evidence at trial,

in which he admitted he had actually been with Richard Lewis on the day of the murders, and contrary to what he said at trial, the two men actually had not seen beer that day. That previously wasn't allowed in court. So in layman's terms, Beard's defense attorney, Stephen Framer, was arguing that this was crucial evidence that should never have been withheld from the jury and that with this evidence, his client could likely be proven innocent. Yeah, so that makes sense. Basically, saying, I have evidence here

and it wasn't allowed and that's why we should retry this. Yeah, cool. So in a statement to the press, Stephen Framer indicated his intent to request a retrial, saying, Franklin certainly has the resume to have done what he's done, what he says he's done. So talking about that original confession, the serial killer. The serial killer's confession that we weren't so sure about. Yeah, I don't know about that one. But again, that all I have to go on is very little information,

so. And it's valid to bring up in that trial. Of course it is. Because it's a valid argument to be like, well, multiple people have confessed to this. So look at these people also doing the same. Yeah. And he also talked about the seriously questionable sources that the prosecutors used as evidence for their conviction, specifically, P.B. Walton, who, like I said earlier,

only accused Jacob Beard after he had been wildly intimidated, which is a new legal term that I made. Look it up. Framer told the press, quote, he didn't remember anything about this until he was beaten by state police, talking about Arnold Cutlett. Now, in January of 1999,

the writ of habeas corpus was granted, and Beard's conviction was vacated with orders for yet another new trial. Wow. Now Jacob Beards new trial began in May 2000 this time in Braxton County because there had been so much press coverage and public awareness in Pocahontas County, but he was never going to get a fair trial there. Yeah. Now in this trial, he actually testified on his own behalf, admitting he couldn't remember his actions the night of June 25th 1980, but he maintained that he had never met and definitely did not kill Vicki and Nancy. Yeah, which I think is a fair thing to say Who the hell would remember what they were doing on June 25th 1980?

But you can definitely remember if you killed someone. 100% fair statement to me. Now also testifying now in his defense, remember a man previously testified against him, was Arnold Cutlip, oh shit, he told the jury he had lied in his earlier testimony and that he in fact had not seen beard on the day of the murders. Instead, Steven Framer told the jury it was Paul Yosef Franklin who had committed the murders. Instead, Stephen Framer told the jury it was Paul Joseph Franklin who had committed the murders. And this time his confession was entered into evidence.

Okay. Now Nancy's mother Jean actually also wrote a letter for the defense stating she believed Jacob Beard was innocent. Wow. Yeah. Now when it came time for the prosecution's case, the most damning evidence they still had were the two calls that Jacob Beard had placed to the durian home, Vicki's family home, two years after the murders. I actually forgot that that was him. I don't believe me, because... Go ahead, let's just step back.

I've been a lot of characters. Now, that had actually gone a long way in his original trial to convince the jury that he was guilty. Yeah. But he didn't say, and it's weird that he called them in my opinion, but wasn't he just saying, I have a daughter, and it bothers me that you are not getting the information that you should be getting? Yeah, he was sympathizing, though. Which again, I understand why the family members were like, this is strange and freaking me out. Definitely.

But it sounds like if you look at it just purely from what it is, it's like, okay, it doesn't look like he, if he's innocent, then it looks like he just didn't have any malicious intent and literally was just trying to share information or sympathize. That's the thing because I can't tell. I, I think I would feel differently if he had been like calling them a heavy breathing on the other longer, hanging up like a creep. Exactly. Like harassing them.

I mean, he did refuse to identify himself, which was strange. But maybe it was like him just being freaked out because he was under those animal cruelty charges at the time. Which is not great. Which, that's of a good thing. He maintains he didn't do anything to do with that and those charges were dropped. So we don't necessarily know what to say. I don't want to say if he maintains he didn't do it and the charges were dropped, then we'll

negate that. And the charges were dropped again because of these new charges where he was granted immunity. But we're all very complicated. But it makes sense not to even go there at this point because let's just look at the information we have. And then you think he was criticizing the police in this case. He sure was.

And that's just a statement. That's just a statement that he was. And yeah. And I mean, I'm just the fact that Nancy's mother Jean wrote a letter for the defense, stating she believed he's innocent, that compels me to stand more on her side. Right. C's mother Jean wrote a letter for the defense stating she believed he's innocent. That compels me to stand more on her side.

Right. Not only that, but even when he had been previously convicted of this crime, she spoke to the press and was like, yeah, I was convinced. I was convinced. And the evidence and testimony at that trial was insane. And now she, I mean, if she's willing to have this guy out, that tells you a lot. She's not really in a't believe that he did it. No.

Like, there's no way you're going to want that somebody who killed your daughter in such a careless and awful way, just walking around. Yeah. If you don't truly believe in your heart, that he didn't do it. Exactly. So it was very interesting. I will say that Nancy Sister Kathy wasn't so sure. She didn't.

Okay. It doesn't seem like she thought Jacob did it, but I don't think she thought that he didn't. She wasn't convinced sure. She didn't. It doesn't seem like she thought Jacob did it, but I don't think she thought that he didn't. She wasn't convinced. She was like us. Yeah, I was gonna say I have no idea what happened here. Yeah. And it's a tragedy either way. This is awful for these families. It's horrible because I'm frustrated right now. I can't even begin to fathom how they feel. Exactly. Now again, just going back to the prosecution's main case here again was those two phone calls that he made to the Durey and family. In his defense, Spirit said he read an article in 1982

about how the murders remained unsolved. And as a father himself, he was sympathetic. He told the jury, I was sorry the police hadn't followed up the way many people in the area thought they should. Okay. You know, when you hear that, you're like, okay, that makes them. Yeah, I don't know if you necessarily need to like call a grieving fan. No, I do not agree with your methods here, sir, but...

But okay, if you're saying it's pure, I'm hoping the thought was pure behind it. Correct. Correct. Correct. No, the jury deliberated for less than three hours this time and came back and acquitted. Wow. Jacob yearned on all charges on May 31st. It's very deliberated for less than three hours this time and came back and acquitted Jacob Beard on all charges on May 31st. A year later, Jacob Beard filed a wrongful conviction lawsuit against the Pocahontas County

Police Department. And in January 2003, the county agreed to settle the case, awarding him $2 million. Wow. Yeah. I will say I saw $2 million in some sources and 1.3 million in other sources. Still a lot of money. Either way, he got millions. He got a lot of money. Yes. I think he said he bought a new tractor, but he wasn't about to buy like a bunch of other shit. Okay. That's what he said. All right. No, I don't know. I just don't know how to feel about any of this. So neither do I.

I'm just gonna say, okay. I know that Kathy Nancy's sister didn't love that he was awarded that money because she, again, she still wasn't convinced that he was innocent or that he was guilty. And in her mind, if he was guilty, he just got awarded millions of dollars. Absolutely, that's why I'm gonna stay over here. And then I think Gene was just like good for him.

Like I can't like whatever. Yeah, which is awful. So the Rainbow Family continues to hold annual gatherings around the United States. Actually incidents of violent crime remain low at the gatherings, but murders continue to occasionally take place at the events with the last murder as recent as 2021.

Oh, I'm gonna look into some of those. Yeah, potentially update if it's got enough for a full case. Wow, but interesting. Very interesting. to some of those potentially update if it's got enough for a full case. Wow. But interesting. Very interesting. And sadly, as of today, the murders of Vicki Durian

and Nancy Santamero remain unsolved. That's awful. That's honestly the biggest thing in this case is I can't believe that just they got lost in it. And I blame the investigators on this case. You can't intimidate people into confessing because it muddies the waters. Yes, you've lost all your credibility at that point.

Any trust, any kind of anything, professionalism, whatever you have going in, it's taken all out. And you fucked up the case. And it's like if you do your job, then you and you are good at your job, then you will convince somebody to give you information or you will have evidence to keep them. Exactly.

You don't need to beat it out of them. I really hope that someday there's some form of DNA that gets found or I think they would have found it at this point, I guess you would assume, but I just hope somebody talks. I want someone to talk somebody to make a real confession. Yeah. Like you just said, actual meat.

Right. Like somebody can sit there and go, this is what I saw. This is who I saw there and you can put the pieces together. But now there's so much information out about the case. It's so muddled. Exactly. It's so muddled. But I just feel bad for their families.

Like their brothers and sisters, just not having any idea what happened. And like, their parents. And to be like conflicted on whether this guy is really innocent or not or guilty or not, it's like, that's really hard. It is. You don't know.

And for him, it's like if he's guilty walking around with that much money, it's like, Jesus fucking Christ, dude. But if he's innocent, then like, and he got like a big stud like that. Yeah, then he lost like, you know, years of his life and everything. You know, yeah, it's really tragic all around.

It is. And to think that again, if he's innocent to think that he spent that much time in prison, holy shit. Yeah. So that is a very unfortunate case. That's a sad one. It is.

I mean, they're all sad, but that one's just like, you don't get that sense of like, at least we know who did it. Yeah, no justice. And just a very layered case. We're layered with tragedy. Yeah. But we hope you keep listening. And we hope you keep it weird.

Not so weird, not so weird, not so weird. Not that weird, keep it that weird. 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 to Morvid, Early, and Add Free on Amazon Music. Download the Amazon Music app today, or you can listen Add Free with Wondery Plus and Apple podcasts. Before you go, tell us about yourself by completing a short survey at Wondery.com slash survey.