My Favorite Murder with Karen Kilgariff and Georgia Hardstark - 398 - Gloria & Colleen

Episode Date: October 19, 2023

This week, Georgia tells Karen the story of murderer Felix Vail. This episode was recorded on October 6, 2023. For our sources and show notes, visit www.myfavoritemurder.com/episodes.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

I'm Candace DeLong and on my podcast Killer Psychie Daily, I share a quick 10-minute rundown every weekday on the motivations and behaviors of the criminal masterminds you hear about in the news. Hey, Prime Members, listen to the Amazon exclusive podcast Killer Psychie Daily in the Amazon music app. Download the app today. 🎵 Hello! Hello! And welcome to my favorite murder! That's Georgia Hardstart.

That's Karen Kilgarafee. And it's just an introduction podcast now. And we're still hammering it out. That could be the wrong names for all we fucking know. We should look up our government names. Truly, your name could have been Marie for all, you know. You know what my name almost was? What?

Colleen. Oh, mine was almost Gloria. Let's start over. Hello, and welcome to my favorite murder. That's Gloria, hard star, and that's Colleen, Kilcarath, our alter-fuckin' ego. Who are those women? Who are they?

And what kind of life are they living? There's gotta be some in the world. If you're either of those women, will you ride in and just let us know? There's got to be some in the world. If you're either of those women, will you write in and just let us know? There is none. I just wonder like on what plane of existence we would be if those had, because I don't think I'd be me if my name wasn't Georgia. I think at Gloria would have been like a little more dull.

Oh, the butterfly wing flap of the name Gloria. And you just have no idea how it would have changed anything and everything. She wouldn't have been made fun of as much because George is a hard one when you're in elementary school. But the song Gloria being sung to her constantly would have driven her a little mad. Probably, right. And then Colleen, what's Colleen's deal? I think Colleen just stands around with her other Irish Catholic cousins and just holds the line. You know, I'm actually afraid to say there's gotta be Colleen kill Garas on the East Coast and back in the old country. There has to be.

Right. Literally I would get an angry. It's where it's like, how dare you say that I? No, I didn't. Colleen. Are there kill Garas? Like that aren't related to you? Is that a name? There are...

Well, I think they are related distantly, but there are East Coast Kylgeras. Didn't I ever tell you the story of when I went to that audition and I signed in and this guy signed in behind me and he saw my last name and goes, Karen Kylgeras, are you related to Pat Kylgeras? And I said, yes, she's my mother and he goes, oh my God. And he had this like full on like freak out and he was like, she is related to Pat Kilgarov. And I said, yes, she's my mother. And he goes, oh my God.

And he had this like full on like freak out. And he was like, she is one of the most amazing women. And I was like, thank you. And then he literally talked about her for like two minutes. Pure stranger in like the waiting room of an audition. And finally I went, so what are you a nurse? And then he went, no, is your mother not Pat? He'll get off the opera singer?

And I was like, no, she's not. And he literally turned and walked away. Like as if we were not speaking. What if, and I hate to bring this up? He accidentally slipped into a different plane of existence. And in another plane of existence, your mother was a fucking opera singer. I'll tell you this.

Then I would have had the New York City Manhattan Brownstone childhood I wanted through the mid-70s, late-70s. It worked. Even. Thank you. That I was up for as a young, sassy, smart mouthed daughter. She could have gotten Annie. She could have gotten the lead role in Annie.

Don't say it. it breaks my heart. Colleen. Colleen. Colleen was Annie. Colleen pat the opera singer's daughter. Yes! Oh my God. Oh wait, sorry.

Knock knock. Oh, it's a lawyer. Here's a cease and desist. We have to stop talking about the East Coast girl girl. Colleen. We're talking about her favorably. She's got a pretty fucking sweet life. She's mad at this man.

She needs to get a hobby. She needs a grow up. She needs a get out. In today's internet. Cool. This is obviously a trick crime comedy podcast. Did you not know? Oh, are you new?

Do you just listen to any podcast your sister tells you to listen to? Okay. Well, welcome. Welcome. I have a quick thing. I have a weird thing. Okay.

I have a band, which I don't think I've ever done on my favorite murder. Okay. But Vince took me to see this band play. They're like a post punk indie band that reminds you of like a rye girl punk band from the 90s, but they're like young and cool, you know? So like, yes.

I'm the old aunt who's like, you guys have to listen to sweeping promises, sweeping promises. Which is like the greatest name. It's a duo, the singer and bassist is Lira Mondal, and I watch them in awe. She's the most badass motherfucker. The songs are so catchy and fun. And then the her partner is Caulfield Schnug.

Just like they are so complimentary of each other. The music rocks. It's like, I'm jogging. her partner is Caulfield's schnug. Just like they are so complementary of each other. The music rocks, it's like, I'm jogging and I really want a jog harder music. Cause sorry, it would pause. Your jogging? No, no, no, if I was jogging. Oh my God, no, are you kidding me?

I was like, talk about burying the lead. What you've become, you actually referred to jogging as if that's one of the things you do in the day. I really appreciate that you knew to call me out on that because I wasn't, I didn't mean that I was jogging in any way I should have performed. I just needed the clarification personally of had things change this much.

If I were jogging, that would be what I would jog to. Yes, that music. Cool punk. The get you going. Yeah, it's good stuff. Love it. I love a band corner. That's a really good stuff. Love it. Yeah. I love a band corner.

That's a really good idea. Sweeping promises. Sweeping promises, I literally as you were describing them, I was looking them up and downloading their album on wherever you get your music. Oh, that's right. Wherever you might like to download your music. All right. I have the album now.

I'm going to listen to it when I do my weightlifting. Wait. You do archery now? Ha ha ha. Wait. You do archery now? Oh my God. No idea. You do calisthenics every morning at 6 a.m. Since when?

Oh, Frank's, he's in it. He's in it again. His rebellious barking era that will go on for the next 11 minutes. Friday night. So I bet Colleen, Kilgare, if doesn't have a barking dog. I bet she does everything perfect. I bet she has a cat.

Okay. Hey, let's do exactly right corner. We have a podcast now, because it's called exactly right. Here are some highlights. This week on Infamous International, the Pink Panther story, we had to Monaco, which is a sovereign micro-state

located on the French River here at Aaron. Aaron wanted you to know that for the rest of this. The Pink Panthers have penetrated this peaceful haven for the ultra wealthy and a dashing French inspector has been tasked with restoring the piece. There are only a few episodes left in the series, so please don't hesitate to binge it right now wherever you listen to podcasts.

Then on varied bones, Kate and Paul are covering Karen's favorite, sausage king of Chicago. Hell yes. He killed his wife in 1897, Chicago. If this sounds familiar, guess what, Karen told this story on episode three, 34 of MFM back in July of 22. I wasn't saying Hell yeah for the sausage king who wasn't murder.

But the idea of listening to Kate and Paul actually go into the forensics of the turn of the century, it's just so exciting to listen to those guys really analyze these historical true crime stories. Totally. One of our favorite comedians, Nicole Byer, is on adulting this week with Michelle Boutot and Jordan Carles.

You have to listen to that. That is probably gonna be hilarious. That's a chef's kiss. And finally, in honor of SpooKey Season, the MFM store is featuring Mothman and Giant Skeleton Items with illustrations by Nick Terry of MFM Animations. They're such great illustrations. They're shirts, tote bags, mugs, and koozies.

So head over to myfavoritermerter.com to check those out. And thank you. And thank you, too. That's a great point. That's a great point. And that's a great point to me. Thank you. By merch, we really appreciate it. But ultimately, I shrug them off. That is until a couple of years ago, when I discovered that every subsequent occupant of that house is convinced they've experienced something inexplicable, including being visited by the ghost of a faceless woman. And it gets even

stranger. It just so happens that my wife's great grandmother was murdered in the house next door by two gunshots to the face. Is the ghost somehow connected to her murder? I decided to go where no sun in law should ever go, digging up a cold case and asking questions no one wants answered. And the guy who did the killing? It might be my wife's great grandfather. This is a podcast about family secrets, overwhelming coincidence and the things that come back to haunted us. Follow ghost story on the Wondry app or wherever you get your podcasts. Listen everywhere on October 23rd or you can binge ad free on Wondry Plus starting the All right, so I'm solo this week. That's right. I did mine last week and took too long. So now we're being right. We're just getting to it. The way people have asked us to for seven years. You took just the right amount of time so that I didn't have to go which sometimes we just need a week off

You know what I mean? I can I tell you that I absolutely was preparing to go this week in my mind Oh trying to block out time and being stressed and the time I blocked out was last night and I was like okay, so now I'm gonna work on my story. I laid down on the couch, I turned on Bob's burgers, I watched it for 45 minutes, I fell asleep with it on, I woke up at 1 a.m., and I was like, uh-oh, I have to get up to 6. And then when I woke up, I remembered,

it's your solo week, and I don't have any homework hanging over my head. And then you got to your calisthenics immediately. Then I was like, let's put on this great two-piece jogging suit and some ankle weights and some wrist weights. Yeah. You got it. Going with the calisthenics. How about a head weight? Do they have a head weights? Put one on. Yeah, that's a good idea. Bend over at the waist. Good luck getting back up. It's great for your neck. All right, this is a standalone that has twists and turns. It would have been a cold case if it had not been for a victim's mother's unrelenting search for over

30 years for her missing daughter and what happened to her, which in a roundabout way, this is not a spoiler, and a roundabout way leads to the oldest murder conviction in America's history. Wow. This is a story of a net craver and the murderer Felix Vail. The main source for this story is reporting by Jerry Mitchell for the Clareon ledger

and the rest can be found in our show notes. And this is kind of a vague start, so we don't give away too much information, so check out the show notes for the other sources. So it's 1981, good old 1981, Mary Rose Craver and her 15 year old daughter Annette are at a friend's yard sale. They're in Houston, Texas. Annette, the 15 year old daughter is described by everyone as a beautiful, artistic girl. She's a very talented musician. Her mother still has recordings of her singing and playing guitar and she has this amazing like

Joni Mitchell style voice. So very talented young woman. And that's father had died in a car accident two years earlier. So she and her mother kind of on their own and they're planning to move to San Antonio, Texas. Well, and that is going through the items at the art sale. A handsome blonde man with a 80s mustache pulls up on a motorcycle, so it's like, you know, kind of cinematic. Yeah. He is much, much older than a 15-year-old Annette. In fact, he's older than a Nets mom, Mary Rose, who had a net young. And so she's currently in her 30s. And this dude who pulls up Felix Veil, he's 41.

And she's 15 years old, she's 15. And so Mary Rose, the mother watches this Felix in a Net chat, but doesn't think too much of it. So after the move to San Antonio, Mary Rose struggles to find work. She relocates to Tulsa, Oklahoma, where she can get a job easily. I suppose I say house there, and net stays behind in San Antonio

to finish high school, living with an art teacher, which sounds like a fucking dream. Can you imagine back in high school? Express yourself. Get high. But tell that, yeah, get high. Right, that part. I didn't think about that part.

I was just thinking, like, nurturing. Oh, what's that? This is how smart Annette was. She skipped a grade and is only 16 when she graduates high school in the summer of 1982. So she's very talented. And at this point, when she graduates, when she goes to Tulsa, it'll live with her mother

and not long after Annette gets to Tulsa, this fucking Mastasia dude Felix shows up on his motorcycle, and it's then that Mary Rose realizes that her daughter and this dude from the yard sale have been in touch this whole time. Okay. And it quickly becomes clear that they are actually in a relationship.

So Mary Rose is not comfortable, understandably, with the 40-something year old dude dating her 16-year-old daughter. A child. A child. A child. And at the same time, though, she also doesn't feel like she can stop them because she doesn't want to push her daughter away. She's the only parent.

The daughter's graduated from high school. The daughter could just leave and never speak to her again. She doesn't want that. Right. It's also like a different time. I don't want to say it's accepted that an older man with dating young girl, but it happened a lot. Yeah. People look the other way. Pretty easily back then. Yeah. So not long after Felix comes into town, he and and net take off on his motorcycle and go on a trip out West. So Felix

and a net travel around California and Mexico living off of a net's monthly social security check, which she gets because of her father's death. She's a little money as a young girl. The check is for $500 a month, which is about $1,600 today, which back then, like, I would have paid rent and then some. Having been there for the 70s a little bit as a child, it was such a crunchy granola. Hey, man, just jump on your bike and go across the nation.

And like, it was the leftover kind of summer, 69 thing where being kind of a hippie not spending money and doing stuff like that and like going on the open road. Outlaw, right? You're an outlaw, you're being anti-capitalist all those things. That was the part of the look is having a fucking teenager.

You have a teenager on your back that's paying your bills, old man. Exactly. But they could also probably do it for a long time because it was cheap and easy. Right. Is my point. Okay, so early on in the trip, there's already trouble in her calls and letters home, and Net tells her mother that she's had a painful abortion, and that Felix has come close to leaving her several times. A friend who Felix and a net stays within California remembers, quote, this coldness and controlling aspect to his personality. So he was very dominating. He would like try to convey that he was a higher form of being,

almost like that he was more evolved. And the person was really like, he was just arrogant. the person was really like he's just arrogant. You know, it's like cult leader type of person. You know when someone's boyfriend comes and stays at your house with them, who has a personality disorder and who doesn't. That's vibes of, hey, it's weird to eat breakfast with you. You're competing with me over breakfast.

Right. Right. So multiple people will describe Felix's language and behavior as being similar to that of a cult leader. In addition to his controlling nature, he often talks about special diets and spiritual enlightenment. Like, he's like perfect for the early 70s, yet it's the early 80s.

And so it's like throwing some people off. Right, he's a little leftover. Right. So despite all the trouble and the relationship in the summer of 1983, and Net calls her mother and asks for permission, because she's that young, to Mary Felix. At this point, they've been gone for a year,

and that is 17, and Felix is about 43. I know, Mary Rose tells Net, this is a terrible idea, but a Net says, if they don't get permission, they'll just go to Mexico and get married anyway. So of course, she doesn't want to lose her daughter again. And so Mary Rose feels like she has to give her permission. Yeah, that sucks.

Uh-huh. Only a few months later at the end of 1983, a net turns 18. And this is significant because she becomes entitled to a life insurance policy from her father, which is worth $98,000 then, which in today's money, do you want to do it? $400,000? Oh, oh, wait. $1.2 million. No, if 312, you had it right the first time closer.

Shit. I freaked out. But 312 then could buy you 15 houses. $312,000? Yeah. And if you're being like motorcycle people that couch serve on your friends' couches, yeah, you're all000. Yeah. And if you're being like motorcycle people that couch serve on your friends' couches, yeah, you're all set. Yeah.

And that and Felix withdraw all the money and cash from a bank in San Antonio, which is so heartbreaking. You think about like what this poor girl can have done with that and like where she could have taken herself if she had been alone, you know. Okay, but if you're going to date somebody, just date them near your mom, like date them near your community.

So if you are right where it's like, you don't understand him and he's the greatest, give that a year to prove it to yourself. Not to other people, because then you painted yourself into this corner where it's like, yeah, we gotta go. And it's like, but what if you don't know this guy? Like what if the mask comes off?

I mean, he's clearly a sociopath, which will come to find out at a narcissist on the charm. And I mean, it's all encompassing. But you know, you know how you test that? You test that personality. You say no to them. You say nope, I'm not doing your plan. No thanks.

Like you actually stand up to them. That's when masks get dropped. So you have to like be in a normal back and forth. You know, we all have been there with those personality types. You do whatever they want, and that's kind of the setup, but I am just saying that if you feel

like you might be in that position, just do the one thing of negating them to see what they're actually like. Cause the love bomb is a phase, and it ends ends as we all know. Yeah. So a few months after that in April of 1984 and net shows up at her mother's house in Tulsa without Felix. So finally she's alone. She tells her mom she wants to get a divorce. She tells her mom that I want occasion Felix had broken his hand when he took a swing at her. She had ducked and he had hit the wall instead. It was with such force that he broke his hand.

So you can know that probably wasn't the only instance of physical abuse. And that and her mother spend a few happy weeks together until Felix shows up again and net and Felix quickly reconciled and Felix turns a net against her mother and a net tells Mary Rose that, quote, Felix is the wisest person in the world and I can't make decisions without him. So it's like she's in a cult. And it's also like she's at this point, what, 19, 19, yeah, yeah, child.

So eventually they become so hostile against Mary Rose that they force her to move out of her house, the mother's house. Mary Rose deeds the house to Annette and moves to California. I think just thinking probably like, if I give them a home base, then maybe I can actually keep an eye on them and they'll be safe and she'll have a home in her town.

I mean, who the fuck knows? But she's clearly trying to keep her daughter in her life. Yeah, absolutely. You don't want her out there by herself with him. Right. So shortly after this, Annette adds Felix to the deed and then deeds the house to him fully. So it's his house now.

Still Mary Rose and Annette continue to talk on the phone. On one occasion, Mary Rose asked how the two cats she left behind and Tulsa are doing. And Annette tells her that Felix killed the cats because they were quote, a bother. In late summer of 1984, Felix and Annette tell their neighbors that they are going on a trip. And then in October, Felix returns home alone.

Hearing about this, Mary Rose first calls Felix. And he tells her that Annette has left him and not satisfied with his answer. Mary Rose comes back to Tulsa and files a missing persons report. And Felix tells the police that on September 15th, he brought a net to a trailways bus stop in St. Louis and that she took off to Denver with the goal of going to Mexico.

She was just like, I'm leaving you and he was like, great, here's the bus stop. Goodbye, like that happened. And so police eventually closed the missing person's case. On his word, few questions asked, I'm sure. Yeah, yeah. Mary Rose refuses to let this go, though, of course. She moves back to Tulsa.

She hires private investigators. On some occasions, she simply drops in on Felix at her old fucking house. And it was like, where the fuck is my daughter? She enlists the help of her ex-boyfriend who has coincidentally become friends with Felix. This is a man named Scott Porter and he's really into martial arts and so Felix quickly makes martial arts his new hobby. And Jerry Mitchell, the person who's the main source for my reporting says, quote, Felix believed he was

a martial arts expert too after practicing flying kicks into a mattress. So he's that guy. He's like, I'm good at this too. Yeah. I'm actually a pro. And Miri Rose's request, Scott, the ex boyfriend, pays extra special attention to his conversations with Felix. Like he's kind of doing a like a mole thing where he's trying to get some info about Miri

Rose's daughter. And he says that Felix never mentions the possibility of a net coming home. Like it's never like she left me, maybe she'll come back, that never comes up. Mary Rose works at certain angles, you know, trying to figure something out for years. And so in 1991, when she's about 41 years old, she decides to visit Felix's sister, Sue. She's just like out of options. 41 years old, she decides to visit Felix's sister, Sue. She's just like out of options. She drives 2,000 miles from Oregon,

where she's now living, to Canyon Lake, Texas, where Sue lives. And Sue tells Mary Rose that she lasts saw Felix and Annette at a local fair together in October of 1984. But remember that Felix said he had put Annette on a bus in St. Louis in September. So there's a blatant lie immediately.

And Sue says that a few days after the fair, Felix and a net left together. And a few days after that, Felix returned home and she says he was distressed and drinking a lot. Then Sue, the sister, tells Mary Rose something else, which Mary Rose had never known before, and it's that Felix had a wife who drowned in the 60s. Hmm.

So, after her conversation with Sue, Mary Rose calls the public library and lakes Charles, Louisiana, where Felix's first wife Mary had drowned. The librarian remembers the case and makes copies of newspaper articles to send to Mary Rose. Mary Rose learns that Felix's first wife, named Mary Horton, was born in 1940 in Eunice, Louisiana. In high school and in college, Mary is very popular. She's a door. She's a lovely girl. She's homecoming queen. she graduates, goes to college in Lake Charles. She's so popular that she gets invited to join every single sorority, which is like, shit man. I didn't get invited to join one sorority at Los Angeles City College, you know. I'm so sorry about that. If you want to sit

with this for a second, I'll help you hold it. Thank you. Not even Chi-Pi over Del A.C.C.? No, not Chi-Pi. So in 1960, when Mary is 20 years old, she meets Felix, who is 21, so age appropriate, finally. They start dating. Felix has a good job at a nearby refinery. He takes Mary out to company dances and crawfish boils, they have a great time together. And apparently if he looks as super hot,

one of Mary's friends says quote, he looked like he had been kissed by heaven. Wow. But he looks like a blonde hair blue eyed jock. You know what I mean? Like back then I think probably just was like, this is an all-American, yeah, beautiful boy, whatever. But you know what the key was.

But jogging. And calisthenics. Oh, don't, I know it. Oh, don't, I know it. We haven't, we learn. Have we learned anything. But I mean, that is that kind of thing back then, very kind of like the era.

If you were blonde, with any sort of like blonde with dark eyebrows, blonde with a dark mustache or something, it was like the post red ferd kind of like blonde with dark eyebrows, blonde with a dark mustache or something. It was like the post red fird kind of like, this is the ultimate chip and Dale's kind of, hey, look at this guy, kind of idea. Totally. So they have some bumps in their relationship

and it turns out Felix gets really jealous easily, but a year later in July of 1961, after Mary graduates college, Felix and Mary get married. They get an apartment in Lake Charles, Louisiana, and Mary gets a job as a teacher. And in December, Mary finds out she's pregnant. It's not ideal because Felix says he doesn't want any children, but still the baby is born in July of 1962. And they named the baby Bill. Mary is Bill Mary's course in love with her son. And then very shortly after giving birth Mary tells a friend that she think she might be pregnant

again like a month later. Oh wow. Yeah. On the evening of October 28, 1962, Mary, who's now 22, and Felix leaves three month old Bill with a sitter and go out on their boat. At about 7.30 p.m. Felix docks his boat at its regular spot in the Calcassue River and then goes to authorities to report that Mary is fallen into the river and is now missing. Felix says that they were laying trot lines, which is a fishing technique.

When you string a line with a lot of hooks between two points, he says that he swerved the boat to avoid a tree stump in the river and that Mary fell out. He says he jumped into the river to try to save her, but he couldn't find her in the dark water. And of course, there are a lot of red flags about this story. For one thing, this particular river is not a place where people do trout line fishing. And this part of the river is deep, it's heavily trafficked, which would disturb the trout lines, not trout.

I mean, it would make sense that it would trout lines, right? Right, for trout. It's trout, TRO, T. It's trout, yeah. Secondly, several people say Felix simply isn't a fisherman. His boat's primarily used for water skiing. It isn't even the right kind of vessel

for trot line fishing. And also, the place where he looks as Mary Feltland is several miles from where he reported her missing and he needed help. He would have passed by multiple other boaters and an ice house along the shore before getting to his regular dock and then going to authority.

So like, it's just not adding up. Also, that idea that you would look around frantically and try to find somebody or whatever, I was just thinking, who would I cut the time off for? It sounds like he did that for about an hour. Right. You know what I mean? Or it's just like, it's your wife.

Wouldn't you be going insane, screaming at the top of your lungs and doing it until it was pitch black outside? Like, even if it wasn't a quaint and I knew if I thought someone was drowning or that idea that it's like, so then I left. Right. And I decided I was going to go get help in the other direction. Like, it's just a little crazy. Yeah.

So Mary's brother will later tell reporter, Jerry quote, the fishing tackle was dry, the trot line was dry, the boat was dry, even Felix's cigarettes were dry and quote meaning like he didn't jump in the water to try to fucking save her. And none of that bullshit was true. So two days after Felix reports Mary missing, her body is found in the river. It immediately doesn't look like she drowned. Her autopsy shows a four inch bruise on the back of her head. There's another four inch bruise on her right calf and a two inch bruise above her left knee. There's also a scarf around her neck

and four inches of it are in her mouth. Mm. Her clothes are covered in oil stains as if she rolled around on something on the boat deck. Sheriff W. D. Stinthadeth is suspicious, but the coroner still rules it an accidental drowning. Two days after Mayor's funeral, Felix is arrested, but the District Attorney declines to prosecute him.

Of course, though, lots of people around town have their doubts as do the two life insurance companies who Felix turns out to have policies with. One policy is worth 50 grand, which is about $500,000 today. The other is worth 8 grand, but it pays double in the event of an accidental death such as drowning. So the insurance companies don't pay out the full policies because the whole thing is suspicious.

Also, Mary had never signed a $50,000 policy. So the company settled with Felix. Despite getting all that money, refuses to pay the $1,500 from Mary's funeral. He just won't fucking pay it. Her mom finds out about it and she's mortified and pays it herself. That's horrifying.

Monstrous. This is all the information that Mary Rose finds out about in 1991, about her daughter's husband's first wife, who she suspects, the dread that that must have just washed over her at that point. You can't even imagine. Oh my god. Like, that would be earth shattering, totally. So after learning about this information in 1981, Mary Rose visits Mary's brother Will, Mary's the first wife. She goes to visit her brother and Will tells Mary Rose that he and others have always believed that Felix killed

his sister. And then he also tells her, do you know about Felix's one-time girlfriend, Sharon Hensley? She disappeared in the 1970s. Oh my God. she disappeared in the 1970s. Oh my God. So Mary goes back and starts digging again, tracks down the family of the squirrel friend named Sharon Hensley from Bismarck, North Dakota. She gets a phone number for Sharon's mom who is named Peggy and so Mary Rose asks Peggy

if she is familiar with the name Felix Vale and Peggy says, quote, you bet I am. So Peggy's daughter Sharon, like Mary Annanette, is singled out in Bismarck as a particular beauty. She loves to dance and perform in high school. She's on her school's competitive dance team. When she graduates in 1966, she goes on to the local junior college and studies dance and acting.

In 1967, when she's 19 years old, she becomes pregnant. And so she decides to go out to San Francisco where her older brother is to stay at a home for on-wed mothers and to give up her daughter for adoption. And then she struggles with depression after that. But in 1969, Sharon, who's now 21, meets Felix, who is 31. And he had also made his way out to San Francisco. And he's now very different from the clean cut,

jock, who married Mary Horton. Felix has embraced the counter culture and is sleeping on various San Francisco couches. He's doing a ton of acid. And Felix and Mary's son Bill, that was just a couple of months old when his mother was killed, is now eight. And he's sometimes with Felix.

And other times he's back with Felix's parents in the hometown of Montpillier, Mississippi. So the son is still involved in the picture, which is just kind of shocking. So Felix and Sharon become a couple and they become mutually obsessed with Felix's current interest, which is a 1928 book called The Grape Cure, which prescribes an all-grape diet. They hitchhike across California, sleeping in vineyards and stealing grapes, often bills with them, the little boy is with them on

these camping trips. And on one occasion, Bill remembers hearing his father tell Sharon that he killed his mother. He killed the child's mother. Yeah. Bill actually tries to turn his father into the police. And when they find Felix and Sharon in a tent with a huge bag of acid tabs and only grapes to eat, they removed Bill from his carer. Felix goes to jail for six months and Bill ends up back in Mississippi with his grandparents. So in 1972, Sharon and Felix show up back in Bismarck and Sharon's family immediately feels that something is wrong.

Sharon is now 24, she's lost a lot of weight. Her hair is falling out. She's just not herself. Her younger brother, Brian, says, quote, you could just tell she was not the same person. This guy was controlling what she was saying. End quote. At the end of 1972, Sharon and Felix leave Bismarck, telling her family they're heading south to Florida. They live in a commune and work at a health food store and their goal is to enter the burgeoning pornographic film industry. They quickly realize it's not for them. And Sharon's last conversation with her family is in early 1973. And after a year with no contact from her daughter, Peggy calls Felix's mother.

She doesn't have information, but after that, Felix writes to Peggy and says that he hasn't seen Sharon in about a year. And that she had taken off with an Australian couple to sail around the world, and that she had burned all her IDs. So, another girl goes missing. I'd be like, Felix, I've got some follow-up questions about why you're including that information. Did I ask you about that? Like, what? That's the over-talking that liars do. Interesting. It I ask you about that? Like what? That's the over talking that liars do. Yeah.

Interesting. It's got you all. So here's Mary Rose learning about Felix's relationships with Mary and Shannon. And so she spends the 90s and 2000s pursuing different lines of investigations. Like she's not giving up. She realizes that this man is a serial killer. Yeah. And that, you know, it's gonna happen to someone else and she wants to know where her daughter is as well. She's like pulling this horrifying thread of a true mystery while grieving her daughter being missing. Like that's superhuman. Yeah, totally.

She tries to get law enforcement interested in the case in the early 90s, she gets in touch with an FBI agent who thinks the case has merit. But he ends up leaving the bureau and the case has dropped. Mary Rose doesn't know this yet, but in the meantime, Felix bothers another daughter with another woman. He's married to other times to women who quickly leave him. He's investigated for beating one of his girlfriends. He's basically continuing

to live the same lifestyle. One night in 2012, so we're all the way now in 2012. Mary Rose is watching an interview on her favorite program, Democracy Now, and the person being interviewed is a Mississippi-based investigative journalist, and this is Jerry Mitchell, who's reporting is the main source for this story. Nice. For decades, Jerry has been instrumental in investigating Mississippi cold cases and has helped to get at least four Klanzman convicted for high profile murders, including one of the men behind the 1963 Birmingham Church bombing, which killed four little girls. And I cover that in episode 246. He's just like been portrayed in the movie Ghost of Mississippi.

He's one of MacArthur Genius Grant. And so Mary Rose knows that Felix is from Mississippi. So she picks up the phone and calls Jerry. And when he answers, she asks, quote, would you like to write about a serial killer living in Mississippi? And he is immediately interested. Wow. So in May of 2012, Mary Rosejerry agreed to meet in Montpillier, Mississippi, where Mary Rose knows Felix has been living. They're going to go try to talk to him together. Basically,

they go to this land he's living on and find two like RV trailers where he isn't there. like RV trailers where he isn't there. But one trailer's damaged and basically now 62 year old Mary Rose jumps into the busted out window of a trailer and opens the door and starts showing Jerry machetes. There's just a bunch of fucking machetes in this trailer. That's just gross. So they can't find Felix, and so they're leaving,

and then Felix's sister who lives in the property stops them and wants to talk. And Mary, Rose, and Jerry are like straight up, we think Felix is a serial killer. And Kay, the sister, tells them that she does think her brother killed the three women. Wow. Like that's a red flag right there.

But they don't find Felix. And Jerry's first story about Felix in the news finally comes out six months later in November of 2012. And so at that point, Jerry's wondering how on Earth Felix didn't get indicted for Mary's suspicious death. Like, that's his main focus right now. He had been arrested with the drowning

and the autopsy looked suspicious, everyone thought he did it, and when Jerry visits the old county clerk's office and looks at the records of Mary's drowning death, he realizes that the district attorney at the time had dismissed a huge number of criminal cases, he had dismissed 882 of them. The year Mary died. So this guy was just like not wanting to do his job and dismissed criminal case after criminal case. 800. I mean, I can't even imagine a small town has that many.

That's insane. It seems like he dismissed every single thing that happened in that town. Exactly, yeah. That's crazy. So why did he do this? Local defense attorneys would shower the DA's office with gifts and probably cash, so that was likely part of it.

Also, Felix at the time was employed by a refinery and nearby sulfur Louisiana, which is basically the biggest business in town. And the DA had ties to this particular company and was friends with Felix's uncle who was a supervisor there. So they might have just been like, this is a good old boy, he wouldn't do such a thing.

Right. By 2012, things have changed a little bit in this part of town. The current DA tells Mary's brother will that he will pursue charges against Felix if they can gather enough evidence. The only problem is no one knows where Felix is. Jerry and Mary Rose go back to Felix's two trailers, but by this time all the machetes are gone, as is everything else.

But Jerry gets a lucky break. A man calls him saying he read the story in the paper and that he knows that Felix is in Canyon Lake, Texas, where his sister Sue lives. So Jerry gives us information to authorities and police track Felix now 70-years-old to a large storage shed on another man's property. And when they question him about the disappearances

of the three women, he simply smirks. True psychopath. He got away with it for so long. Yeah, it's all a game and he doesn't care about anything really. I mean, at least it's the pathetic ending of he's found an issue. Right. Hiding an issue. So in May of 2013, Felix is finally arrested and charged with the murder of Mary Horton

Vale, thanks to Jerry and Mary Rose and all the people who remembered the case and popped up to help them because a lot of people were like calling in when saw the articles were coming out. Prosecutors have gathered enough evidence to charge him. But then right before his arrest, Felix had sold that house in Tulsa that had originally been owned by Mary Ann, and then it was in that's, and then it was Felix's. He'd owned it for about 30 years, and I'd been collecting rent on it. And in the fall of 2013, a few months after his arrest, Mary Rose calls Jerry and tells him that the new owners of the house had found something

in the attic. Ooh. Felix's story had been that a net had left him in St. Louis, hopping on a trailways bus with the goal of going to Mexico. When the new owners move into the house, the door to the attic is padlocked. Oh, can you imagine? Like, let's see what's in here. They cut the padlock off and discover a blue backpack with two changes of clothes and

the pack of birth control with a prescription made out to anette. And the date on the prescription is November 12th, 1983. And there's one pill missing from the pack. And remember, he said that she had left in September. So the November pack had one pill missing. And he kept that backpack in that house. This is how cocky he is. He put it in the attic, padlocked it.

And it was like padlocked it. No one will ever figure that out. Ugh. So it looks like it was what she was supposed to be taking when Felix says she left in September of 1984. And so Jerry also figures one more thing out that the police back then, if they had done any fucking research into this, would have figured out

there is no trailways bus station in St. Louis. Oh God. They could have made one phone call. All right. So Felix's trial begins in Louisiana in August of 2016. He's 76 years old. Though Felix is only being tried for the murder of Mary, his first wife. The DA finds legal precedent for introducing the disappearances of Annette and Sharon as evidence, which is great. Mary's brother will, and Sharon's brother Brian,

and Annette's mother Mary Rose, all testify. The DA asks Mary Rose, quote, have you seen or heard from your daughter since September 1984? And Mary says no. And then he asks, how long have you been waiting to tell this to a jury? And Mary Rose says, quote, 32 years. Oh, wow. I mean, she's the reason this moved forward, you know? Absolutely. That's got to feel so satisfying.

In the prosecution's closing remarks, he says, quote, how unlucky is this guy? His first wife dies. his second wife, or girlfriend disappears off the planet, his third wife disappears from the planet, he is either the most unlucky person born on this planet since Job, or it is what it looks like, a killer who learned from his mistakes. I love that alley, my research or told me who Joe is. After this, she's a Joe busy person in the Bible who keeps having lots of terrible things happen to him. I know Joe. Thank you. I love it. She's not wrong about that info, like letting me know. When the trial ends

and the jury is sent to deliberate, Mary Rose asked Jerry, how long he thinks they'll take. And he says at least several hours, possibly days, and that's based on all the prior cold cases he's covered. Right after he says, the jury comes back with a verdict, it hadn't even been 30 minutes. No way. Right, which you all know could be good or bad, right? Where it's like, yes. You just don't know if it's like there were like, that didn't do anything for us, not guilty,

or it's so obvious. It feels like with the DA's speech that you just read, that quote, it's just like, yeah, we're like, okay, we're just gonna go through this doorway because everyone has to watch us leave. We're gonna be back in literally one second. I'm gonna get some sun chips out of the vending machine. Yeah.

We'll have a quick snack at our blood sugar. And then this guy is toast because he was found guilty. Mary Rose was sitting next to Will, Mary Horton's brother, and they hold hands as the jury reads out the guilty verdicts. It had been 54 years since Felix killed Mary, making this the oldest murder conviction in America's history. So this would have been a cold case had I done this in 2016. Felix has sentenced to life in prison, and he is currently serving his sentence at the Louisiana State Penitentiary in Angola.

Mary Rose says that the verdict is, quote, a prayer answered, a dream come true, that someday justice would be done, and that Felix Vail would be held accountable for these three beautiful young lives that he took. Because Sharon and Mary's mothers have died by the time the trial takes place, Mary Rose says that she sees herself as a stand-in mother to both young women in addition to being the mother to her own daughter Annette. And that is the story of Felix Vail, whose murder conviction is the nation's oldest and was made possible by great investigative reporting and decades of work by a mother who never gave up.

Wow, Mary Rose. I mean, like, it's just such a beautiful thing out of a nightmare to know that a person could get herself together enough to do that. And then when you just said that thing about, she's standing in for all the girls' mothers, it's like, oh my God, this is horrifying. And then, yeah, it's best case scenario. It's like all that work means something.

It all actually adds up to something. I'm would a brilliant thing to reach out to a journalist. It's like the key. When I read these sometimes, I'm like, I do it in a mindset that Google exists. Because in my life, Google exists, but you have to really put yourself into that position back then, where you can't look up and see if that bus station existed.

You can't look up, you know, marriage records. You can't look anything up. This is all just you not giving up and checking every little lead that you find and it leads nowhere for five years and then it hits somewhat. You know, it's just it's dog-id in a way that we don't really have anymore and so it's just It's just, it's dogged in a way that we don't really have anymore. And so it's just incredible. Because there's actually love behind it, right? I don't think you're gonna get a better detective if you go missing than your own mom. I mean, that's a person who's like,

I'm not just gonna sit back and let this be a mystery. Totally. If there's anything I can do about it, it's amazing. When you said the thing about that she called and talked to the librarian and the librarian remembered the case, it's like that's what Google used to be. At the New York Public Library, you can basically Google a librarian. You can call and ask

librarian a question if you're looking for something really specific that you can't find anything about on Google the way you're looking for it. A librarian will go try to do the research and find it for you. Oh my God. A free service they have there. I just thought I'd take talk about it the other day. Isn't that cool? My brains are the fucking coolest people.

Yeah. What a great story. That was incredible. Thank you. A horrible true crime story with a definitive, positive ending. I thought you'd like the non-cold case aspect to that. Like this is the why I love

cold cases is something like this always fucking happens. Yeah, true. And 50 fucking four years later, something could change. And next year the cold case I covered a couple of years ago could not be cold anymore. And that's like, I think so exciting. It does happen. You're right. It's just a long release version of it where I'm like, I know I need that answer now. Yeah. But you're right. It does happen. You're right. It's just a long release version of it, where I'm like, I know I need that answer now. Yeah. But you're right. It's also satisfying when it's the 54-year version. Yeah. Well, great job. Thank you. We've done it. We did it. It's nice. Oh my god. If we finish this show in 30 seconds, we can be exactly an hour. Well, thanks everybody for listening. be exactly an hour. Well thanks everybody for listening. Thank you guys. We appreciate you so much. Next week we're back to two stories. Don't freak out. Yeah, everything's fine.

It's going to be great. It's going to be just like it usually is. And also stay sexy. And don't get murdered. Good bye. Yeah. The goodbye was on the onehour mark. Elvis, do you want a cookie? Ah! This has been an exactly right production. Our Senior Producer is Alejandra Keck, our managing producer's Hanna Kyle Crighton. Our editor is Aristotle Acevedo. This episode was mixed by Liana Squalachi. Our researchers are Marin McClashian and Ali Elkin.

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