MrBallen Podcast: Strange, Dark & Mysterious Stories - Murder by the Slice (PODCAST EXCLUSIVE EPISODE)

Episode Date: September 30, 2024

On a spring night in 2009, a middle aged married couple was closing up the local pizza place they ran in a small Virginia mountain town. The husband walked to the back of the restaurant and grabbed a large bucket of ice. He carried the bucket out the back door, and dumped the ice into the grass. He stood up and felt the cool breeze on his face – it was a nice change from the hot pizza ovens he’d been working around all night. But then, he heard screaming coming from inside the restaurant. Without thinking, he dropped the bucket, and rushed back inside. But when he discovered what was happening, all he could do was turn around and run for his life.For 100s more stories like these, check out our main YouTube channel just called "MrBallen" -- https://www.youtube.com/c/MrBallenIf you want to reach out to me, contact me on Instagram, Twitter or any other major social media platform, my username on all of them is @mrballenSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Hey Prime members, you can binge 8 new episodes of the Mr. Ballin podcast one month early and all episodes ad free on Amazon Music. Download the Amazon Music app today. On a spring night in 2009, a middle-aged married couple was closing up the local pizza place they ran in a small Virginia mountain town. The husband walked to the back of the restaurant and grabbed a large bucket of ice. He carried the bucket out the back door and dumped the ice into the grass. He stood up and for a moment he just felt the cool breeze on his face. It was a nice change from the hot pizza ovens he'd been working around all night. But then, right before

he turned to go back inside, he heard screaming coming from inside the restaurant. Without hesitation, he dropped the bucket and ran inside. But when he discovered what was happening in there, all he could do was turn and run for his life. But before we get into that story, if you're a fan of the strange, dark and mysterious delivered in story format, then you've come to the right podcast because that's all we do and we upload twice a week, once on Monday and once on Thursday. So if that's of interest to you, tell the follow button you have a hilarious joke and

then spend 20 minutes on the setup, but then never give them the punchline. Ok, let's get into today's story. I'm in Dravama and in the latest season of The Spy Who, we open the file on Klaus Fuchs, the spy who started the Cold War. It's the 1940s and Britain hopes to beat the Nazis by making an atom bomb. But there's a traitor in the ranks, Klaus Fuchs, a German nuclear physicist and communist who's secretly working for the Soviet Union. Whilst helping Robert Oppenheimer on the Manhattan Project, Fuchs stashes away atomic secrets for his Soviet spy masters.

As he quickly becomes embroiled in a web of espionage, his double life threatens to unravel, leaving his true motives and final fate hanging in the balance. Follow The Spy Who on the Wondry app or wherever you listen to podcasts. Or you can binge the full season of The Spy Who started the Cold War early and ad free with Wondery+.

From Wondery comes a new series about a lawyer who broke all the rules. Need to launder some money? Broker a deal with a drug cartel? Take out a witness? Paul can do it. I'm your host, Brandon James Jenkins. Follow Criminal Attorney on the Wondery app

or wherever you get your podcasts. On Sunday night, March 29th, 2009, 48-year-old Valerie Looney pulled a fresh hot pizza from an oven at Pizza Plus, a busy restaurant in a small mountain town in Tazewell County, Virginia. Valerie slid the pizza onto a serving tray and then walked around the front counter and delivered it to a booth filled with local police officers. The officers thanked Valerie by name and then dug into their pizza.

Valerie checked on the other diners, who had filled up almost all of the booths inside the restaurant, and then afterward, she headed around the front counter and went back into the kitchen. And there, she saw her husband, Harvey, standing by one of the pizza ovens. Valerie was short with cropped brown hair, and Harvey was a big guy with gray hair and a bushy beard. But despite the huge differences in their physical appearances, everybody who knew them thought they had always looked perfect together.

Harvey pointed to the clock hanging on the wall by the oven and he grinned at his wife. He said it was only a few more hours until their 29th anniversary. Valerie smiled back and then jokingly told Harvey to get back to work. Valerie had been the manager at Pizza Plus for over 10 years and her husband Harvey had been working for her for the past 7 years. The couple knew a lot of people would shudder at the thought of working alongside their spouse day in and day out, but it was actually what Valerie and Harvey had always wanted. In fact, while other people might dream about making a ton of money or traveling the world,

all Valerie and Harvey ever wanted was just to spend as much time together and also with their son Chris as possible. And so Valerie and Harvey working together accomplished a portion of that goal. Harvey got back to work like his wife had jokingly suggested and he began to prepare some pizza dough for the next order. As he did that Valerie stood up on her toes and gave Harvey a kiss on the cheek and then she headed back into the restaurant's dining room. Pizza Plus was a really popular restaurant in this little town.

The entire town only took up a few square miles and it was surrounded by thick woods and then mountains beyond that and at times the people who lived there could feel isolated from the rest of the world. And so Pizza Plus had become almost like a meeting place where everybody could get together and feel connected to their community at least for a little while. And Valerie and Harvey had really embraced that aspect of their work. The two of them always seemed so happy and welcoming to patrons, I mean they wanted their customers to feel like they were hanging out with family when they were there. Valerie made her way through the dining room and she checked in with the police officers to make sure their pizza was

good. They told her it was delicious as always. Then Valerie stepped towards the next booth, but she suddenly stopped and stared down at the floor. One of the police officers noticed and asked her if everything was okay, and Valerie smiled and said it was fine, but she quickly turned and marched right to the back of the restaurant. When she got there, she stepped into the supply closet near the back door and she saw her employee Brian Lee bent down and stocking some shelves. Brian heard his boss approaching him, so he slowly stood up and he turned around.

Brian was in his 20s and he towered over Valerie. Brian asked Valerie what she wanted, and she told him that before he went home tonight, he would need to make sure he mopped the floors in the dining room really, really well because she was just out there and they looked so dirty. Brian slowly exhaled and had to stop himself from snapping at his boss. Then he just said, OK, I'll mop the whole place after we close. Valerie could tell Brian was annoyed at her, but he was always annoyed when he was at work. For a second Valerie thought about scolding him, but she stopped herself.

Instead, she just thanked Brian and then turned and walked back to the front counter. Pizza Plus stayed busy the whole night until they closed around 10pm. Valerie and Harvey said goodbye to the last of their customers and when the dining room was empty, Valerie walked to the counter and opened up the cash register. While Valerie counted the money and did the paperwork for the night, Brian trudged out to the front of the store and began mopping and Harvey cleaned up the kitchen and the back of the restaurant. And at some point after cleaning for a while, Harvey picked up a large bucket of ice and

shouted towards the front of the store to Valerie that he was going out back to dump the ice. Valerie responded by saying that Brian was finished with the mopping and she was almost done with the paperwork so when he was done they could leave. Harvey carefully picked up the ice bucket, walked out the back door and dumped the ice onto a small patch of grass. And after he was done, he set the bucket down and Harvey just bent over at the waist, trying to catch his breath. He hated to admit it, and he would never want his wife or his son Chris

to see him like this, but even the smallest physical tasks, like dumping this ice, had really started to wear Harvey out. And so after standing outside in private for a couple of seconds there, Harvey was about to go back inside when suddenly he heard screaming coming from inside the restaurant. And so instantly Harvey charged back inside and the second he did, the screaming got louder and louder and he called out for his wife. But then a second later, the screaming completely stopped and the entire restaurant went completely silent. At 8.40am the following morning, a woman named Mary Fullin walked down the street towards Pizza Plus.

She was on her way to open up the restaurant that day and then work the lunch shift. Mary passed a car wash not far from the restaurant, then she waved to a couple of people outside drying a car, then she walked a bit further down the street and went around to the back of Pizza Plus. When she got there, she looked down and reached into her pocket to grab her key to the back door. But when she looked up, she saw Harvey laying face down right behind the back of the store. And so Mary ran over to him and began yelling his name, but as she did, she could see he was laying

in a pool of blood. Mary shook him like it might wake him up, but she knew he was dead. And so in a total panic, Mary threw open the back door of the restaurant, barely noticing she didn't have to use her key to get in. And then once inside, she ran for the phone on the front counter to call police.

But before she could even get there, when she was in the kitchen, she looked down and found Valerie, who was also on the front counter to call police. But before she could even get there when she was in the kitchen, she looked down and found Valerie who was also on the floor, blood covering her hair and her clothes. It was obvious that she was dead too. And so Mary began crying and her whole body was shaking, but she still made it to the phone and she dialed 911. The operator told her police would be right there and that for now,

she needed to get out of the restaurant immediately. And so Mary hung up and just ran out the front door, not noticing that that door too was also unlocked. A few minutes later, the Tassville Chief of Police, David Mills, pulled up in front of the Pizza Plus and just sat there in his car for a minute. When the call had come into the station, Mills and the small group of officers who worked under him couldn't believe it. They all knew Valerie and Harvey really well, in fact they usually went to Pizza Plus as

a group at least a few times a week. Mills looked out his windshield and he saw a couple of officers from the county sheriff's department standing with Mary in front of the restaurant, the woman who had called the sin. Mills took a long deep breath, then stepped out of his car and went up and joined them. All of the officers knew Mary about as well as they knew Valerie and Harvey. Mills could see Mary was a total wreck, and so while he didn't want to press her too hard, he did ask her if she could just fill him in on everything she had seen and heard that morning. Mary told Mills she'd been coming in to open the restaurant when she had found Harvey out back and then when she ran inside to use the phone

she found Valerie lying on the kitchen floor. Mills told Mary he was so sorry she had to see that and then he asked her if she had had to use her key to unlock the door when she went inside. Mary looked like she hadn't even thought about this and then she told Mills and the other officers that were there that actually the back door had been unlocked when she ran in. And also, now that she thought about it, the front door had also been unlocked when she ran back out again. Mills thanked her and then asked her to please wait outside.

Then Mills and one of the county officers put on their gloves and walked into the restaurant. The sight of Valerie laying there on the kitchen floor surrounded by a huge pool of blood almost knocked Mills back. He had known Valerie for years and he couldn't remember a single person ever speaking badly about her. It might sound foolish to people outside of the area, but as the manager of the local pizza place, Valerie was a huge part of this community and sometimes after a bad day, a good slice of pizza and a great conversation with Valerie could turn everything around.

Mills and the county officer went over and knelt down and began to examine Valerie's body, and it was even worse than they thought. Valerie had several horrible wounds on her head and neck, in fact she had been attacked so violently that she had almost been decapitated. After a moment, Mills and the other officer stepped back from the body and they both just could not believe what they were looking at. This was not a town where homicides happen very often, and for these two officers and basically all the officers on site, like they had never dealt with anything this gruesome.

Mills and the other officer collected themselves, and then Mills noticed that from where he was standing he could see the front counter. And he noticed at the front counter was the cash register and the drawer was open, and it appeared to be empty. So Mills' first thought was that somebody had come in to rob the place when Valerie was counting cash and closing for the night. And maybe Valerie put up a fight and the robber attacked her and killed her. And then obviously at some point after that, Harvey must have gotten involved and gotten attacked and killed too. The investigators headed

down a hallway to the back door and they stepped outside and there they saw Harvey's body on the ground. He did have one major wound but it didn't look like the attack on him had been nearly as violent as the one on his wife. Mills knew they still needed to do a thorough sweep of the restaurant but already just the sight of these two bodies made it clear to him that neither the local police nor the county sheriff had the resources to deal with a case like this on their own. There had not been a recorded robbery homicide in the county in 20 years, and as far as Mills knew there had actually never been a double homicide in this area and certainly not one

that involved this level of brutality. So Mills grabbed a cell phone and he made a call to the Virginia State Police. And then after the call, he and the other officer went back into the Pizza Plus and began searching the entire restaurant. And it wouldn't take them long to find multiple pieces of evidence that seemed to paint a picture of a vicious struggle that had taken place the night before. Mills located blood spatter on the pizza ovens not far from Valerie's body and he saw blood

stains in the sink, like maybe the killer or killers had tried and failed to clean up after themselves. Then Mills heard the other officer calling for him. The officer was standing a few feet away from the pizza ovens, staring at a fire extinguisher that was hanging on the wall. And when Mills joined him and looked at the extinguisher, he saw all these blood stains on the bottom of it, and so it seemed like the extinguisher had to have been one of the murder weapons.

A moment later, the two policemen left the kitchen and headed down towards the hall towards the back door again, where Harvey's body was. They had already searched the area once, but this time they were going to do a more thorough search. And this time they noticed a mop leaning up against the wall next to a bucket. Mills walked over to it and knelt down and he noticed in the mop head were several pinkish spots that looked like blood. And what struck both investigators about this mop and the bloody fire extinguisher as kind of odd was that after both items had been used it looked like they had been placed back where they belonged. They just kind of put them back as if nobody would notice.

And so Mills and the other officer began speculating about who would do something like that. And they both agreed that, you know, while this was kind of a flimsy theory, it seemed like maybe it was an employee who was responsible because an employee would know where the fire extinguisher went and where the mop went. You know, they both seemed to be back where they belonged. And so perhaps just kind of out of habit, you know, they've put those things back. A few minutes later, Mills and the other officer started yet another walk through the restaurant. And as they did, they heard several cars pull up out front.

Mills stopped what he was doing and went outside. And there he saw members of the Virginia State Police and a state forensics team heading his way. A man wearing a dark suit extended his hand and introduced himself as Agent John Santola of the Virginia State Police. Mills shook Santola's hand, introduced himself, and said he was glad to have some help. Then Agent Santola and the forensics team walked inside the restaurant to take blood samples and look for other possible DNA samples. And as Mills stood there outside, something suddenly hit him.

He would now have to go tell Valerie and Harvey's son, Chris, that his parents were dead. Imagine you're walking through the park one day and you see a suspicious backpack sitting underneath a bench. You report it to the police and upon investigating, they discover two live pipe bombs inside. You rush to clear the area before they explode, saving countless lives and preventing injury. Everyone declares you a hero for a fleeting moment until everything changes and you are declared the prime suspect. This was the story of security guard Richard Jewell.

After the Centennial Park bombing killed one person and wounded more than 100, public pressure and a media witch hunt pushed a desperate FBI to find a suspect. Despite obvious holes in the case and unethical tactics used by the FBI, security guard Richard Jewell was under pressure to confess. I'm Aaron Habel. And I'm Justin Evans. Join us as we explore the aftermath of the 1996 Centennial Olympic Park bombing and the newest season of our podcast, Generation Y, the Olympic Park bombing. Follow Generation Y on the Wondry app or wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen to Generation

Y ad free right now by joining Wondry Plus. If you're listening to this podcast, then chances are good you are a fan of the Strange, Dark and Mysterious. And if that's the case, then I've got some good news. We just launched a brand new Strange, Dark and Mysterious podcast called Mr. Bolland's Medical Mysteries. And as the name suggests,

it's a show about medical mysteries, a genre that many fans have been asking us to dive into for years. And we finally decided to take the plunge and the show is awesome. In this free weekly show, we explore bizarre, unheard of diseases, strange medical mishaps, unexplainable deaths, and everything in between. Each story is totally true and totally terrifying. Go follow Mr. Bolland's Medical Mysteries wherever you get your podcasts, and if you're a Prime member, you can listen early and ad-free on Amazon Music.

While state police searched the Pizza Plus, Mills and the county officer drove across town to the small trailer where Valerie, Harvey, and Chris had all lived together. When they got there, Mills walked up to the door and knocked, and shortly after, Chris answered. Chris was 28 years old, he wore a black sweatshirt and jeans, and he looked really confused to see two police officers standing there. He asked Mills if everything was okay, but Mills just shook his head and asked if they could come inside. Chris said, yeah, of course, and he let the officers in.

And then once Mills and his partner got inside, Mills just turned to Chris and with a sad look on his face, he told him that unfortunately, both of his parents were deceased. They had been attacked and killed at the restaurant. For a moment, Chris just stared at Mills like he was in total shock. And then he began shaking his head and said, no, that doesn't make any sense. Today, his parents were out of town on a trip for their 29th wedding anniversary. But Mills just shook his head and said he was very sorry, but that could not be true. His parents had not left town.

In fact, they had never left the restaurant the night before. Chris eventually sat down and just stayed silent for a couple of minutes, and the officers just waited. And then, with a shaky voice, Chris said he should have known something was wrong when he didn't hear his mother and father come home the night before and then also this morning when he didn't see him. But Chris said he had just assumed his parents got home when he was already asleep and that they had left that morning before he woke up to go on their trip, but now he felt like it was obvious there had been an issue.

Mills nodded his head and said he was sorry to have to do this, but he did need to ask some pretty pointed questions about his parents, and Chris just nodded. And so Mills asked Chris where he was the night before, and Chris said he had been at work, and then afterward he had come home, hung out for a bit, and then went to bed. Then Mills asked Chris what his relationship was like with his parents. Chris said their relationship had been good. He had been forced to move back in with his parents after going through a divorce, and he felt bad about it, but his mom and dad seemed happy to have him at home.

After that, Mills asked Chris if he could think of anyone who might have had a grudge against either of his parents, and Chris just shook his head and said absolutely not. Everybody loved his mom and dad. Mills knew this was actually pretty much the truth. I mean Harvey and Valerie were beloved in this town. So he wasn't surprised their son couldn't think of anyone. Mills said how sorry he was for Chris's loss and he promised the police would do everything they could to get the person who had killed his parents. Then Mills and the other officer turned to leave but then Chris told them

to hold on for a second. Mills turned around and Chris asked him if a guy named Brian Lee had been working with his parents the night before. Mills admitted they had not gotten that far yet but he asked Chris why would it matter if Brian in particular had been working. Chris just said his mom complained a lot about Brian and often got into arguments with him whenever they were working together. Mills thanked Chris for the information and said they'd be in touch and then he and the other officer walked outside, got in the car and headed back to the crime scene. And on the way, Mills called into the station and asked them to get in touch with Brian

Lee. On March 31st, so two days after Valerie and Harpie's murders, Police Chief Mills and Agent Santola met Brian Lee as he walked into the local police station. Brian was young and very tall and he already looked like he wanted to turn around and make a run for it. The news about the murders had spread through town almost as soon as cop cars started pulling up to the Pizza Plus, so Brian knew exactly why he'd been brought in. Mills and Santola led Brian to a small interview room, and inside was a table and chairs. Brian sat down on

one side, Mills and Santola sat down on the other. And pretty much right away, what investigators noticed was Brian just could not sit still. And then before the interview really even got going, Brian said something that totally threw off Mills and Santola. Brian wanted to know how much cash the killer had taken from the register. Now nobody had told Brian that the register had been robbed, but the investigators knew this news could have gotten out pretty easily. Still they were surprised that Brian's first question, when two people he worked closely with had been murdered, was about the money in the register.

Agent Santola said they couldn't discuss those details with Brian. And then after that, he asked Brian to please talk them through the last time he had seen Valerie and Harvey. Brian said he'd been working with the couple on the night they were killed and the place had been pretty busy. Then once they closed, he said he mopped the whole restaurant, just like Valerie had told him to do, and then after that, he clocked out and he left. Now right away, the mop stood out to Mills, because they had found blood on the head of the mop, and so Mills, as discreetly as he could, asked Brian where he left the mop when

he left, and Brian quickly said he left it close to the back door where it was supposed to go. Mills followed up this question by asking if anybody else was still at the restaurant when he had left. Brian seemed confused and he said, yeah, of course, Valerie and Harvey were still there. Valerie was doing paperwork and Harvey was waiting for her to finish. After he said this, Santola just stared across the table at Brian not saying anything, and this seemed to really make Brian uncomfortable. But Santola was not actually trying to intimidate this kid or anything, he was just trying to

size him up to see if he fit the profile of the murderer. Brian was young and certainly looked strong enough and big enough to overpower the older married couple, but Valerie's murder had been so violent, so gruesome that Santola really believed the killer had to have been harboring some deep anger against her. This just didn't seem like a crime that could be committed by a stranger. Santola finally broke his silence and asked Brian if he'd recently had an argument with Valerie. And Brian responded by laughing.

Santola and Mills looked at each other confused, this was not the response either of them had expected. But then Brian explained and said that he and Valerie had a whole bunch of arguments all the time because in his opinion Valerie was a really tough manager and she was always riding him at work. And sometimes he just didn't want to put up with it and so he snapped back at her and they'd get into these arguments. But then Brian noticed the investigator's reaction to his laughing and he quickly stopped laughing

and got a much more serious look on his face. And then he clarified by saying that, you know, he might not have liked Valerie as a boss, but he would never hurt her. That was crazy. A lot of people don't like their bosses, but they don't kill them. Santola and Mills would follow up with a few more questions, and then eventually they would tell Brian he could leave. But as soon as he was gone, they both agreed that Brian was definitely a primary suspect.

Over the following days, local county and state investigators looked further into Brian's background. And as they did that, they waited for results from tests that the crime lab was running on the blood samples that had been found at the crime scene. But while they waited, Santola and Mills did not want to overlook any possibilities. They both believed the most likely killer was somebody who worked at Pizza Plus, even

if it turned out not to be Brian. So they went ahead and met with every single current employee. But when they spoke to Mary, the employee who had actually found the two bodies and called 911, she said she thought there might be another possibility. She said the car wash that was right by Pizza Plus was one of the main spots in town where people bought and sold drugs. And Mary said some of these buyers and dealers who were pretty easy to spot came into the pizza place quite often.

And she said one of those people in particular, a guy named Homer, was really creepy. In fact, Mary and Valerie talked about how creepy Homer was. Mills got some information about Homer from Mary and then thanked her for the help. Now Mills knew there had always been issues with drugs around that car wash, but these were not big time drug dealers or anything. And so the idea that one of them had been crazed enough to rob the pizza plus and brutally murder two people inside seemed far-fetched. But still, Mary had said Valerie had been creeped out by this Homer guy, and so Mills

and Santola couldn't ignore that. The investigators would track Homer down at the car wash, and at first glance, he really wasn't scary or angry or creepy or anything, he was just really quiet seeming. Santola asked Homer if he had recently spoken to Valerie or Harvey, and Homer would say he had seen both of them at Pizza Plus on the night they died, but he had not spoken to either of them. But Mills quickly jumped in and said that didn't make sense, because if Homer really went into the restaurant that night, he definitely would have talked to one or both of them when he was ordering or getting his food.

But Homer shook his head and said he actually didn't go inside the restaurant. He said he had just sat in his car in the Pizza Plus parking lot and then through the window he had seen Valerie, Harvey, and all the other patrons and employees inside the restaurant. Mills was confused and asked Homer like wait a minute, you just sat in the parking lot watching people eat pizza? And Homer, whose expression was totally neutral, just nodded and said yeah. And then he said after a few minutes of sitting there watching people eat, he drove home.

Santola and Mills didn't know what to make of Homer. I mean, they tried to ask him questions to figure out why he was doing that and did he do this often? But really, Homer didn't offer much of anything. He just seemed incredibly creepy. And so eventually when the investigators left because they weren't getting anywhere talking to Homer, you know, they got in their car and they're both like, wait, like who is this guy?

Was he a stalker? You know, is he casing the place we could rob it later or is he just like kind of strange and lonely? But whatever the answers were, the investigators now had another viable suspect. In addition to the Pizza Plus employee, Brian, they now had Homer. And they held out hope that when all the forensics evidence came back, it would point to one of them. On April 3rd, 2009, so a week after the murders, Pizza Plus was once again filled with laughter and conversation.

The crime scene had been cleared and now this was a gathering place once again. But this time, the community had come here not to eat pizza but to pay their respects to Valerie and Harvey. There had been a funeral service for the couple at a local church, but everybody who knew them knew this restaurant is where they would want people to come, and they would also want people to have a good time. So Valerie and Harvey's son Chris and other members of the family thanked everyone for coming in and encouraged them all to take up seats in all the booths and just start

sharing stories of all their favorite memories with the couple. And so over the course of the day, several local and county police officers came by the restaurant. Now, it's actually common for police to attend funerals of murder victims, basically to study the actions of people who were close to the victim, to look for suspects, but that was not why most of the cops were here today. So many of them had spent several nights a week in Pizza Plus, eating pizza and chatting with Valerie and Harvey.

It was part of their routine. And so the officers were here to honor their memories, same as everybody else. In the days and weeks that followed the funeral and that memorial service inside of the restaurant, investigators continued to pursue two different theories. The first theory was that Brian or another Pizza Plus employee had some issue with Valerie or Harvey or both and they carried out the murders as a result of that. The other theory was Homer, the man who had watched Valerie through the window from the parking lot, who also was involved in drugs, could have killed Valerie and Harvey because he was robbing the place for drug money,

or maybe he killed them for, you know, some other motive that had not been discovered yet. And so police interviewed and re-interviewed everybody working at Pizza Plus, and they also expanded their search to include former employees. And simultaneously, they looked into people who were associated with Homer. But none of these interviews really led anywhere, and to make things worse for investigators, the test results from the crime lab came back as inconclusive. The forensics team had identified the victim's blood in the restaurant, but they could not find clear DNA samples pointing to anybody else. Eventually, Agent Santola got called away from the case to work on other state police

business and the case really began to weigh even heavier on Police Chief Mills, who now was basically running the investigation on his own. And pretty quickly, Mills began to lose sleep over this case. He felt like his team was always so close to solving the crime, but no new concrete evidence ever appeared, and so they never had enough to pin the murder on any of their suspects. Months and months went by and then years went by and still Mills could not figure out who killed Valerie and Harvey.

And then eventually when still this case had not been solved, Mills retired. And so with Mills gone and no new leads coming in, this double homicide became the only cold case in Tasswall County. And so family and friends had all but given up on the chance that Valerie and Harvey's killer would ever be brought to justice. But then, years after the murders, a new police chief and a new county sheriff decided that reopening and solving this cold case had to be their top priority. And they made a decision that would finally crack the whole thing wide open.

On February 13, 2013, almost four years after Valerie and Harvey's murder, a man named Rich Buyington walked into the Tassel County Sheriff's Department. Rich looked like an average middle-aged guy in a golf shirt and khaki pants, but he just so happened to be one of the most effective interrogators in the entire United States. Rich was so good, he actually taught other members of law enforcement how to interrogate, and he taught a very specific form of interrogation. It was known as the read technique. The new sheriff and one of his deputies met Rich as he walked into the building. The sheriff thanked him for coming in, and Rich said he was happy to help.

Rich had spent the last several weeks going over the cold case and talking with past and present law enforcement officers who had worked on it. And Rich, like the sheriff, knew that these officers were smart, dedicated, and hardworking, but none of them had had any real experience interrogating murder suspects until the murders of Valerie and Harvey. And Rich believed that employing the right interrogation tactics with this case would make all the difference. He felt like he just needed a chance to sit down face to face with one of these potential killers.

The deputy led Rich into an interview room and both men would sit down on the other side of a table from one of the major suspects in the case. And not long after that, Rich began his interrogation. Among other things, the read technique creates a high-pressure environment for the person being interviewed, and it combines this pressure with words and acts of sympathy shown towards the suspect. And so Rich, who was famous for using the read technique, began using it during this interview. And throughout the interview, as planned, the suspect could never really seem to get

their footing and every time they started to look comfortable, Rich would throw a question at them or made an outright accusation that sent the suspect back into a panic. Hours went by and the deputy could not believe that Rich just never seemed to tire. He just kept going wearing the suspect down and then making the suspect believe the police were really on their side, over and over and over again. And then finally, well into this interview, in this totally calm, caring voice, Rich laid out to the suspect what he believed had actually happened to Valerie and Harvey. And the read technique must have worked, because as Rich spoke, this suspect, who police had interviewed multiple times

over the course of several years, finally broke down and confessed to everything. By the time Rich left the sheriff's department, investigators finally knew who had murdered Valerie and Harvey Looney. Based on that suspect's confession, here is a reconstruction of what police believe happened to the killer walked across the Pizza Plus dining room towards the front counter. There, they saw Valerie bent over the register, counting out the cash.

The killer cleared their throat to get Valerie's attention, and Valerie looked up. At which point, the killer asked her a question. And when she answered, the killer started shouting at Valerie, but Valerie wasn't intimidated. She shouted right back, and soon the two of them were having a full-blown fight right there in the middle of the restaurant. And at some point, the killer got so mad and so frustrated that they rushed at Valerie, and Valerie screamed and tried to run away, but the killer chased her into the kitchen and grabbed her with one hand and picked up a large knife with the other.

Valerie struggled and fought, but she couldn't break free and the killer raised the knife and slit Valerie's throat. Valerie fell to the floor bleeding profusely and the killer just dropped the knife. But suddenly the killer heard shouting and footsteps coming from the back of the restaurant and so the killer turned and saw Harvey charging down the hall. The killer rushed at him and Harvey managed to punch the killer but he quickly realized he was no match for them and so Harvey turned and tried to run towards the back door but the killer followed and managed to grab Harvey right by the door and the killer wrapped their hands around Harvey's throat and began to choke him. Harvey

fought as much as he could and managed to stumble out through the back door onto the ground outside. The killer scrambled to their feet and managed to grab Harvey's throat again and kept on squeezing. But at some point Harvey managed to buck the killer off one more time and the killer was about to re-engage for a third time when Harvey just kind of abruptly fell forward on his face and just lay there motionless. It would turn out Harvey actually just had a heart attack. And so the killer just stood there for a second, not really sure what to make of this. And then they turned and ran back inside to the kitchen.

There they saw Valerie face down in a pool of blood, but the killer wanted to make sure she really was dead. So the killer grabbed the fire extinguisher off the wall, stood over Valerie, and raised it up and began slamming it down over and over again into the back of her head. And after nearly decapitating her, the killer put the fire extinguisher back where it went on the wall, blood still all over it, and then they picked up the knife they had used to slit Valerie's throat. Then they walked out through the back door to where Harvey was still lying motionless on the ground, and just like the killer had done with Harvey's wife, they wanted to be

sure Harvey really was dead. So the killer bent down and used that knife and slit Harvey's throat as well. After that, the killer went inside, they grabbed the mopping bucket by the back door, they went to the kitchen and filled that bucket with water They grabbed the cash out of the register and pocketed that and then they mopped their way out through the back of the store Trying to get the floor as clean as they could without spending too much more time inside of the restaurant After ringing out the mop and emptying the water the killer left the mop and bucket by the back door walked outside past Harvey's body and Disappeared into the night the following day the killer went into work like nothing had happened, and then they went home

and waited patiently for the police to arrive to tell them that their mother and father had been killed. Valerie and Harvey's son, Chris Looney, murdered his parents in cold blood. It turned out that after his divorce, Chris had been struggling with money, and so Valerie and Harvey had helped him for a while, but they had had enough. So on the night of the murder, Chris went to Pizza Plus one last time to ask for money, but Chris had already planned on killing his parents if they denied him. Because Chris knew his parents had a $245,000 life insurance policy and Chris was the beneficiary. And so when Chris' mom refused to give him money and started fighting with him in the

restaurant, Chris went through with his plan B. He murdered his parents and then stole the money from the cash register to make it look like a robbery. Investigators had suspected Chris once they learned about this life insurance policy, but it was also the placement of the fire extinguisher and the mop that made him stand out to the police. Mills and the other investigators had always suspected a Pizza Plus employee had carried out the murders, because the fire extinguisher, which was one of the murder weapons and the mop, had been put back exactly where an employee would put them, almost like it was habit. That was one of the primary reasons they had suspected Brian Lee early on. Now, Chris was not a Pizza Plus employee,

however, when he was younger, he had been. And so over the course of several years, Mills and others felt like they were close to being able to prove Chris had done it, and they had interviewed him several times, but they could never find enough evidence or get him to admit to the crime. That is until the new leaders of the investigation called in Rich Buyington, the interrogation

expert for help. And after Rich faced off with Chris, Chris would confess to the murders and would tell police exactly how and why he had killed his own parents. Chris Looney was found guilty and was given two life sentences. After the trial, members of Valerie, Harvey, and Chris's family issued a joint statement. It said, quote, Chris, we love you and forever will love you, but we cannot forgive what you have done, end quote. Thank you for listening to the Mr. Bolland Podcast. If you liked today's story and you're looking for more strange, dark and mysterious content,

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