Witnessed: Devil in the Ditch - Friendly Fire | 3. He's in Here

Episode Date: June 20, 2022

Lori decides to conduct her own investigation. She speaks to two witnesses who were there when John John was shot—and they share a different, and troubling, version of events. An innocent man questions why his name was dragged into the case. A Campside Media & Sony Music Entertainment production. Find more great podcasts from Sony Music Entertainment at sonymusic.com/podcasts. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

So John John's death was an accident, a tragedy born out of a few seconds of fear and confusion in a meth lab, that's what Lori Ants has been told. Not only by a press conference on TV, but also by Scott County's chief detective, Robbie Carson. Eventually, he'll draft a six page report laying out exactly what he thinks happened that Marty mistakenly believes he was defending himself. But before any of that, just a few days after the shooting, Robbie goes to Laurie's house and tries to sketch out what happened.

I remember him jawing the diagram on a blue piece paper of the trailer. He said that they went to the front door of the trailer and that Marty went on the end and he told John John not come in to stay out. He said, John John went in anyway. So Robbie almost felt like he was saying, you know, it's John John's fault because he went on in the trailer after Marty told him to stay out. In the prosecutor's version of events that we heard at the press conference the day after

John John's funeral, he said Marty believed he was the only officer in the mobile home. But he didn't mention that Marty explicitly told John John to stay outside. In fact, he said almost the opposite, that John John, being a beautiful partner, would have rushed inside when he heard a commotion. Sergeant Yancey had come in, probably out of concern for officer Carson Saikty. Marty's confused. He shoots. John John's dead. An accident. Get even more curiously, in Marty's statement to investigators hours after the shooting. He didn't mention telling John John to stay out either. It seems like a pretty big detail.

It seems really like almost the first detail one would blurred out. My God, I told him to stay outside. I didn't know he was there. So why not mention it? And I just, just these little things just starting to sing very odd, very suspicious, just hear different things. I thought we have got to get down to the bottom of this, the details. From Campside Media and Sony Music Entertainment, this is season 2 of Witness, Friendly Fire. Episode 3, I'm Sean Flynn.

Not quite two weeks after she buried her husband, Laurie found herself driving to Williams Creek Road, to the mobile home where her husband died. Laurie's wondering if she's on the same route John John took, and she realizes that no matter how small Scott County is, she's never actually been on Williams Creek Road. The road is only six miles from her house, but then it's another four on a long windy two-lane to Ryan's place. It takes almost half an hour. It is just an eerie feeling when you pull up in that driveway.

I'm almost just putting myself back in. Just an eerie feeling when you pull up in that driveway. I'm almost just putting myself back in, John, John, she's just thinking about what could possibly be going through her tis mind at this time. I'm sure he's just thinking they're just going in there to investigate the call that they've got with his, you know, guy, they're making math here. When Laurie gets there, she meets with Ryan Clark. He was living there with his girlfriend, Nikki, who's also there when Laurie comes. Ryan's not a bad guy.

Before John-John got shot, he spent most of the day playing board games with his daughter. She was eight, and she mostly stayed with Ryan's parents who lived in a nice house just up the hill because well because Ryan had a serious drug problem at the time. He started using when he was 15. He'd been to rehab and it hadn't worked. His parents owned the mobile home. I just went and talked to Ron and the parents. They just, Ron was very apologetic. He just hated that that had happened. I think they were just in shock, how quickly things escalated. The night had happened, Ryan says he'd been awake for 20 days. Methamphetamine is a stimulant.

Soldiers took it to stay awake in World War II. It also causes your brain to release a huge amount of dopamine, which makes you feel good, and it prevents your brain from reabsorbing that dopamine. So you feel good for a long time relative to, say, cocaine. Your alert, energized, and euphoric. If you've got enough supply, you can stay that way for days. Ryan was walking through the woods when Marty and John John pulled into his driveway. Two more officers, Sergeant Donnie Phillips and part-time deputy Carl Newport, pulled up

moments later. Marty's Jeep and Donnie's Blazer were parked at the end of the single-wide, outside the back bedroom where Mark was cooking meth. Ryan knew John John and Marty. They'd all lived in Scott County their entire lives. It's hard not to know people. They weren't friends. John John and Marty pulled them over a few times. Mostly Ryan tried to avoid cops. Ryan stayed in the yard and talked to John John. He remembered watching Marty knock on the back door.

John John asked if he was going to have to get a warrant to search the place. But then Nicky let Marty in and it didn't matter. A minute later, maybe less, John John ran toward the door. The next thing is a gunshot. And Ryan ran toward the woods. Just in a minute, he had been shot. She says Ryan and Nikki are walking her through this. They showed us, you know, we're John-Johnless standing in the back, you know, and we went inside the trailer.

I was just not expecting the trailer layout to look like it did, when I went in. I didn't expect it either. I walked through it in 2008 when I was reporting this story for GQ. And all of the statements, all of the reports, Marty was in a hallway, and the bedroom, with the guy he said he was afraid of, was at the end of that hallway. But that word, hallway, it gives you the wrong idea. It's a really small space, more like a cubicle in a hallway.

When you step inside the back door, there's a bathroom across from you and a little to your right. If you turn your head 90 degrees to the right, you'll be looking at that back bedroom I just mentioned. The distance between the back door where you came in and that bedroom is 7 feet 8 inches. That's a little longer than a mattress. Three small steps door to door. And this little space is less than five feet wide, half of which is taken up by a washing machine. It's cramped.

Marty, in his statement, went from the door where he came in toward the bedroom. But then he got scared that someone in that bedroom was going to shoot him. So he stepped into the bathroom for cover. He turned and was looking out of the bathroom. So from understand him, he thought the person had come out that bedroom, you know, in what's advanced on him, that's a reasonable shot. At that point, the bedroom where Marty said he thought there was a man with a shotgun, was immediately to his left. That's where he said the threat was.

Anyone coming into the mobile home, meanwhile, would be coming from his right. So... John John is entering in the opposite way of where these two people are in this bag bedroom. If he was going to shoot, what did you shoot that direction? Not the opposite direction of the person who just came through that door. The same door he came through. There were only two people in that cramped little hallway that night. More than two wouldn't fit. One of them, John John, is dead. The other, Marty, shot him. There were also two people in the bedroom, Mark, and Penny. They didn't see anything, and they

ran into the woods the first chance they got. But there is one more person inside that night. Ryan's girlfriend, Nikki Porter. She's the person a sheriff's deputy tried to interview that night. She wasn't much help then. But Nikki had more to say after she had time to calm down. She just watched a man die after all. Thank you. Uncover from CBC podcasts brings you award-winning investigations year-round. Infiltrate an international network of neo-Nazi extremists. Grant it with racist language. Discover the true story of the CIA's attempts at mind control. Their objective was to wipe my memory. Or dig into a crypto king's mysterious death

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globales de clientes en 2021-2022. interviews with Nikki, the witness inside. The clearer audio is from an interview she gave a couple of years after that night. The less clear tape is from just a few weeks after the shooting. You'll hear some of both. Here's her side of the story. Nikki said she'd been sleeping all day and that she was sober that night and had been for days. I heard her knocking the door and went and answered the door and Marty Carson's standing out my door. He said, there's something going on around here. I need to know if I'm coming in and talk to you for a minute. I was like, you know, I really don't want to invite her in my house, but I said, yeah, you can come in and talk to me."

She didn't want him to come in because Mark and Penny were in the bedroom, less than eight feet away, cooking methamphetamine. Penny had only lived there for a week because she'd been in jail in the next county over. Mark had been there for two. He needed a place to stay, Ryan had an extra room, and Mark knew how to cook meth. He said, Ryan bought all the ingredients, the matches, the cold medicines, the coldman fuel, everything but the iodine, and marked it the cooking. At the time, his third batch, three grams, and about an hour and a half to go. He and Penny were both asleep. Marty asked Nikki if anyone else was in the trailer.

I'll talk him now. But light was leaking through a gap under the back bedroom door. I mean, it was obvious there was somebody in there. Marty's steps inside and was hollering at the door. He said, I can see you living in there. Come out. He's like, I see your shadow. And at this time, he dropped his gun.

He was pretty nervous. I've been pulled over by Marty and John John a lot, and they were always real calm, cool, and collected. But he was real nervous. Nikki says Mark responded with a threat. And Mark hollered back at him, saying that he was gonna kill Penny. Kill Penny.

Mark denied that, by the way, and Penny didn't mention it either, but in her first interview at the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation, Nikki says he was very specific. She also said she didn't take him seriously. I just rolled my eyes like you know you're not going to do that whatever. But Nikki's not a police officer. Marty couldn't afford not to take that seriously. Marty took a couple steps in, which is in our trailer. There's not very many steps.

So he's inside the door. Here's where things are a little different from the story we've heard so far. She says Marty then sort of twists and leans his head out the back door. He hollered at John John and said John he's in here. Come in here and he said boys they're in here. John he's in here. Come in here. That's a lot different than stay out.

She says John John was outside talking to Ryan when Marty called for him. And he immediately came on the porch and came inside. And at that point I backed up a little bit into the kitchen. And I wasn't like fully in the kitchen. I could see a little bit, you know, take a course coming to your house with guns and you kind of get out of the way. Marty approached the bedroom door first and I never heard anything after John's on came in. I never heard him say, come out or anything like that and everything went really fast after that.

In Nikki's version, unlike Marty's, Marty never took cover in the bathroom, at least not the she could see. The bedroom door never opened. Instead, Marty was standing in the hallway, and a space no bigger than a large closet, with his gun drawn, facing the bedroom door. And then John-John came in right behind him. I mean, if he'd had turned around, he'd have hit him. He was directly behind him. And then, very quickly, she heard something.

I bent her foot, grants, and stomping up against the wall. I mean, it was like, you know, like, I just discussed a lot. Somebody was right going in the hallway. You could hear, like, noises that hit the wall, hit the dryer, like when you bump into the dryer or washer. I thought that were driving the wall, hit the dryer, like when you bump into a dryer or a washer. I thought that were driving the mark out of the bedroom, but the door never opened, as you can hear the door when it opens.

It's almost like a bang when you slam a door, but it's opening. It wasn't in screen and it wasn't in the talking, it wasn't in, you know, come out with a hand, but there wasn't anything. And then there was a shot. And I just started screaming immediately. I came around the corner and Marty was facing John, John.

And John had backed up against the wall and he said, John are you okay or you are right and he said no I've been shot and he just went down on the ground like with his feet out and his back up against the wall and Marty pulled his legs down to lay him flat. Marty looked up at me and said, holler for Donnie Phillips. He was just looking around and didn't, you know, know what to do. Donnie Phillips was one of the other two deputies posted outside. He was watching the end of the building.

Apparently, Marty had forgotten about the man he thought had a shotgun in the bedroom. He put his gun back in his holster and he was facing the door where he and John John had come in. And thought he had his back to the bedroom. Nikki went on the porch and yelled for Donnie. She says Donnie came around the corner of the home from the front. Donnie never ended the trailer. He came to the front of the porch and that was it. Marty went outside.

I didn't see anybody for a long time. I sat down for a massage on for a minute and I was pacing the floors. I got back up and I went into the kitchen and I came back for John's lawn and I went back into the kitchen. When I went back into the kitchen the second time I heard the door open to the bedroom. And I turned around and looked and Mark and Penny were stepping over John. And I looked at Mark and I said, don't leave. And they just looked at me and ran. I'm the old down to side, John, John, and I was holding his hand. I

didn't know what to do. I mean, you could tell the look in his eyes. He was going to walk. And I just kept screaming out the door. you know, please help, somebody help. I was like your friend is gone in here and nobody came, I never heard anything. Please help, your friend's dying and she's the one holding his hand. It felt like a good 8, 10 minutes. I mean, it was just forever. I know it's just the longest feeling. I mean, somebody's laying there dying in my hallway and there was nobody coming to help him. You know, why isn't there a cop sitting here doing something? I didn't know what to do. I didn't know. I mean, I'm in CPR, but at that time, I didn't know to I mean, I'm sick. He are, but at that time I didn't know to do it. I was just

hysterical, you know, and I was just on my knees crying, you know, begging him not to die. I mean, and I asked him not to die and he squeezed my hand and then pretty soon after that I watched his this heart-quibby. I guess just, it just slowed to... You didn't see back into the mobile home for several minutes. He didn't go inside with either mobile home for several minutes. He didn't go inside with either of the other two officers already unseen. Donnie Phillips said he was scared after the gunshot he was crying and praying in the yard. The

other deputy, Carl Newport, the older part timer, was focused on watching the front. Instead, Marty waited for the first backup officer to arrive, a rookie. And the two of them started CPR. The other officer started doing compressions, and Marty gave him a breath. And I did a couple more compressions, and gave him another breath. And that was it.

And then Marty got up and left again, and left the other officer in there with me. By the time the ambulance came, John John's skin was gray and cool to the touch. He had no pulse and he wasn't breathing. The medics noted there was a lot of blood. They started CPR in the way to the hospital, but John John was already dead.

The rookie left inside with Nikki, told her to sit in the living room, don't go anywhere. She was the only one of the four people staying at Ryan's who didn't run. But by then, she really had to pee. She couldn't wait. The cop was reluctant, but he'd let her go to the bathroom. Well, when I was eating the bathroom, I was again behind the toilet. A gun behind the toilet. You know where you turn the water on and where the pops get through the floor? It was behind that. And I looked at the cop and I told him there was a gun right here.

And he said, OK, I just leave it. And it wasn't like laying on it's side. It was sit up on its tip in the butt, so like in a triangle shape. Almost like someone balanced it against the wall. It wasn't like it slid over there or anything. It was sit there, you could tell. It was like at bottom of the triangle.

It was weird. A lot of things seemed weird. I mean, I thought they were friends, best friends. And if you know, I figured he would have done more to try to save him, or at least try to help him if he couldn't have said down. The sense of urgency was not there. It was just, it just took so long for anybody to come to his aid at all. And it was like I was the only one went through is and sent them that you easily forget.

And it's something I get through every day and every time I close my eyes. There were some differences in Nikki's interviews. The night of the shooting, right after it happened, she said three officers came into the trailer. Marty, John, John, and someone else. Later, in an interview at the TBI, you know that we're dead. You know that we're... John, John, and Mark. I can't clear it up.

I can't clear it up. I know I went over and over and over and over in my head and I really don't know. But I was there was three. She could have sworn there were three. And that's all I can really see. I can't tell you it. I can't tell you it's an idol. It's our wedding.

I can't tell you. So you're just not sure. I'm not sure. You know I've received her? I know it was me for sure. OK. She knows there were two for sure. For the most part though,

she told the same story weeks and then years later. And when Lori hears Nicky's version of events, that day at Ryan's, there was one thing, one seemingly tiny detail that stood out for her. Almost everyone calls John, John, John, John, John. But I did know that morning called him John. He is calling John. Quick fact check here from what I could tell that's true.

Some people called him John most didn't. Mardi John John Anthony and I don't know who John John says Lonnie I know they ain't nothing in that bra. A wonderful public servant John John Anthony. Thank you very. John John, answer. Please, you're right there, not John John. Shh. Yeah. And an interview tape from Marty, he called him John John

a few times, but he says John a lot more. You'll hear this later, but here's what we're talking about. And she'll be John, I'd deal with him sometime in the past. And your John said, well, do we need to get a certificate? I go to John, keep looking back from the informant that he had John with this with nothing out. In both of Nikki's interviews, she called him John-John almost every time, but always switches to John

when she's quoting Marty. This was 12 weeks after the shooting. The hour for John to come in there is that boy is in here, John is in here, and John got him up on the court and followed him inside. And this was a couple of years after. And then he followed it. John, John, and said, John, he's in here. Come in here. And he said, boys, they're in here.

That's what Laurie was hearing from Nikki, this switch when she's quoting Marty. So I thought, yeah, people just don't know that you can't make this up, you know. Laurie decides almost in that very minute that she finds Nikki more credible than the detective who told her Marty yelled for John, John to stay outside. So when I go and talk to Ron Clark's parents and Ron and Nicole, they are just very open, they're very forthcoming and their stories were consistent and it does seem like the people in the trailer are more truthful than the Sheriff's Department. Very thankful that she was with him, hell is hand that he didn't die there alone by himself.

Very angry and upset with morning that how can you leave your partner whether he showed him or anybody how do you just leave your partner there and that he's still in danger even if it was the suspects in the back room. Why would you not try to get him out of there? There's something else Laurie can't get straight. What happened with this guy, Mark New? The one all the cops were looking for that night. Supposed to be armed and dangerous. The one who was never at Ryan's place.

At the press conference, a reporter wanted to know about Mark New too. And the other question about it. The field suspect. At the press conference, a reporter wanted to know about Mark New too. And the other question I had, the field suspect. He asks, what happened to the fifth suspect? That, which is an APB, was put out on a gentleman. APB means all points bulletin, an alert from one police agency to all the others. And I'll have to see this flower that was being used my day to build suspect. The District Attorney General, Paul Phillips, turns to the sheriff's deputies and police officer standing behind him.

Do you know what he's talking about? Robbie Carson, the Chief Detective, steps in. To start with, we're looking for an individual for nearly anything more. Well, but this second, that person, there's no evidence of that for a relative involved. It was just a nightmare. They say it was just a mistake that they got a couple of marks confused. Like it's not that big of a deal. It is for Mark New.

Why you? That's the million dollar question. Did they explain how they could make such an enormous mistake? I think the only thing I ever heard was that Marty claimed he was so shook up that he didn't know why he joted my name out there So yes, what I'm saying it is there's none of it that makes any sense nothing

Again Mark knew had nothing to do with John John Yancy being dead or with manufacturing drugs And yet his name was dragged into it The night of the shooting Mark hunkered down with his wife at the time Paula Paula told Mark that things would be all right in the morning She was putting on a brave face because she was actually really terrified morning. She was putting on a brave face because she was actually really terrified. But Dawn came and Paula's sister called. Told her cops had been to their pastor's house, looking for Mark. And I even went out and looked in the snow. Like I said, there was a little bit of snow, I don't want to see if I can see any car or tracks or anything.

Paula called the Sheriff's Department in a panic. She told them that Mark was at home and had been all night. Come and look, and they'd see there were's Department in a panic. She told them that Mark was at home and had been all night. Come and look, and they'd see there were no footprints in the snow. We go to her mom and dad's house and call from there. They tell us, oh, it's a big misunderstanding. Don't worry about it. We're taking care of everything. It's all a mistake.

We'll take care of it. We're taking care of everything. It's all a mistake. We'll take care of it. And it's like, well, it's going on, it's running on the radio. It's on the air. Yeah, it affected me. It got to where I was a night out. I didn't go places. And if I seen people, I tried to dodge them. I wouldn't go anywhere without somebody in the car with me. I tried to dodge them. I wouldn't go anywhere without someone in the car with me. Because if they tried it that night, what was to say they wouldn't pull me over so I had didn't signal or something, changing lanes, you know, if they caught me at the right place and killed me then. I never stopped having that feeling that they, yeah, they get me in the right place they'll kill me. It had an effect on my whole life. We had a furniture store and I had a car lock. Somebody comes in to buy a car and all they want to do is

set and drill you about what's to deal with this. You're supposed to be killed a cop. That interferes with you trying to sell a car when you tell them the whole story and they turn and walk away in your mind. You're still thinking, does he believe me? After that, everything started falling apart. Family, business, my nerves. Mark and Paula divorced a couple years after that night. Maybe they would have anyway. But he never shook the feeling that something unsettling was going on in Scott County.

If he could get fingered for a cop killing, even by mistake, what else could happen? I wanted out of that town, and I came back to my hometown where I thought I'd be safe and built this house that we're setting in right now. Do you feel safe when you got up here? Yes, sir. out in the am. The day after Laurie buried John John, she found out from a press conference on television that Mark knew was never anywhere near that trailer, that the district attorney general in fact had no idea who Mark knew even was. That's just one of many things that weren't making sense to her.

For the record, there was no Mark, new or otherwise, on any most wanted list at the time, State or Federal, which was a tip that Marty said came from John John's informant. There was never a shotgun either, which remember was the weapon that Marty said had him so scared, scared crapless that he fired a blind round through an open doorway. A shotgun supposedly carried by a man that dozens of cops spent hours looking for. Then Laurie finds out her husband's gun was tucked up behind the toilet, another unexplainable thing. And finally, Nikki Porter, who was standing right there when John-John got shot, she told

Laurie that Marty definitely yelled for John to come inside, and there was a scuffle right before he shot him and killed him. Laurie is now thinking very dark thoughts. So you believe at this point that this was no accident? Right, yeah, definitely, but at this point, I want to believe this is no accident. Right. Yeah, definitely about this point. I want to say believe this is no accident. So within two weeks of losing your husband You're convinced that his partner intentionally shot him. Yes. Yes Mr. Carson, we're on the record. You were sworn yesterday, is that correct? Yes. You understand you're under oath today?

Yes. Next time, unwitnessed, friendly fire. But you were sure it was not Mark Noo that you were looking for? Yes, we were sure. Marty's version of the events. Can any of this be explained? And nothing about the events that occurred in the trailer, including John John being shot, changed your understanding that Martin knew was not your suspect. Now, it didn't change my name. So why was there a man hunt for Martin knew?

Later that night. No, I was not involved in any man hunt. You didn't tell anybody we need to find Martin Luther. The The The The The The The The The

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The Witnesses a production of campside media and Sony music entertainment. Friendly fire was reported and hosted by me, Sean Flynn. Lindsay Killbride is the senior producer and Kali Hitchcock is the associate producer. The story editor is Daniel Riley. The series was sound designed by Shani Aviram with mixing by Iwan Lytre Muin. This episode was fact-check checked by Alex Yablon. The theme song is Booey by Shook Twins. A special thanks to our operations team, Amanda

Brown, Doug Slaywin, Alia Papers, and Alison Haney. Campside media's executive producers are Josh Dean, Vanessa Grigoriatus, Adam Hoff, and Matt Shere. If you enjoyed witnessed friendly fire, please rate and review the show wherever you get your podcasts. Thank you.