Witnessed: Devil in the Ditch - Friendly Fire | 6. Carson County

Episode Date: July 11, 2022

A Carson had been sheriff in Scott County for 22 of the previous 30 years— until Marty Carson’s father loses in a landslide. His successor gives a behind-the-scenes look at how the sheriff’s department had been run under Carson’s leadership, and the effect of John John's killing on the community, including the Carson family. Lori learns a staggering theory that could turn her case upside down. 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

Can't sight media. County Sheriff's are first and foremost cops. They're the top law enforcement officer in the county, the same way that a police chief is a top officer in a city or a town. The sheriff has some extra responsibilities, like running the county jail and providing security for the county courts, and the sheriff has a wider jurisdiction, the whole county, as opposed to a particular city or town. But the job, the meat and potatoes of it, is roughly the same as running a police department,

to protect and serve, maintain civic order, catch the bad guys. The difference, though, is in who the sheriff works for. The police chief is hired by the mayor or the town council, which means he or she has a boss to whom they are accountable. Because they can be hired, they can also be fired. The county sheriff, on the other hand, is elected. Here she answers only to the voters, and so a sheriff can behave, and to some extent has to behave, as much like a politician as a law enforcement officer. In many states, including Tennessee, they can hire friends and family, or anyone who might pay back a favor. They can deputize untrained volunteers, like, say, John John Yancey back in the day. And there's

no real check on their authority other than the voters and the law, which they're in charge of enforcing. Here's Ben Barton, the law professor at the University of Tennessee. The sheriff in all 97 Tennessee counties is an elected office, and it's frequently, as you can imagine, the most powerful person in that county, more powerful than the county executive. They just have a lot of leeway to do things, and in a little tiny county like Scott County, and a pretty poor county, the sheriff is sort of king of the road for sure.

So when Barton heard that the shooting of a deputy involved the son of the sheriff, I was like, oh, that's no good. That's not off to a good start. I just gotta be bad for sure. Piano music playing See, there's a history with sheriffs in this part of Tennessee. There's a history more particularly in Scott County.

In 1985, the sheriff in Scott County had been in office for almost a decade, been reelected twice. And he did seem to have an awful lot of power, or at least he thought he did because he bragged about it. That fall, one year into his third term, the sheriff told some drug smugglers that they could fly a load of cocaine into the tiny Scott County airport. And he'd make sure no one gave them any trouble. And yes, for those who listen to season one of witness, borderlands, this is probably giving you deja vu. The sheriff in Scott County, even arranged to have one of his own deputies, escort the courier and their cocaine to the county line.

That's the sheriff talking to those smugglers. He also said that if one of his deputies turned rat, he'd quote, take him out behind the barn and beat him to death. He also said, again, quoting, I've been in this business 13 years, and I've always had a man that I can just pick up the telephone and call him and tell him what to do, and by God he'll do it. And what sort of things might that man do? If I told him to kill you tomorrow, the sheriff said, he'll kill you tomorrow. That's all on tape. Those smugglers weren't really smugglers. They were undercover FBI agents.

The feds were mighty busy in East Tennessee back in the 80s. They arrested eight county sheriffs on drug and gambling charges. The Scott County Sheriff in the spring of 1986, pleaded guilty to conspiracy to distribute cocaine. He was sentenced to 15 years in federal prison, but he died after only five.

His name? Marion Carson. But that wasn't the end of the Carson's in Scott County Law Enforcement. Eight years after Marion pleaded guilty to federal drug charges, his brother Jim, who was not involved in those charges, was elected sheriff. Jim, in turn, hired his own son those charges, was elected sheriff.

Jim, in turn, hired his own son, Marty, as a deputy. And after a while, Jim promoted Marty to drug officer and charge of drug investigations. And it was during one of those investigations that Marty shot John-John to death. And then his father gave him a promotion. From campsite media and Sony music entertainment, y su padre ha ganado mi promoción. En la media de Campside y Sonny de la música intertánica, esto es el segundo de la vida de la vida,

la frontera de la vida, en el caso de la noche. Estoy en la florentica. El Museo Picasso Málaga presenta Picasso es cultor, al igual que en el resto de su creación, la escultura de Picasso se distingue por innovar en el uso de técnicas y materiales poco ortodoxos. Puedes imaginar cuáles y cómo descubrela. La vida empezó a mover a la Cámara de la Cámara. Ryan, Nicky, Mark and Penny, the four people at the mobile home, the night of the shooting, all had their charges reduced and mostly got

probation. Mark knew the guy who had nothing to do with anything but got hunted by all those cops. He was gone. He'd moved across the state line to Kentucky. By 2006, Laurie's of course still working on her case, but she's got a year until trial. She'd started dating someone, and it was getting pretty serious. There's also a local election coming up that August. Paul Phillips, the DA, was running unopposed. Again, Donnie Phillips, the deputy who backed up Marty's story, was getting into politics. He was running for Clerk of the Circuit Court.

They'll both win. And then there's the sheriff, Jim Carson. He was running for a fourth term. John John Yancey had been dead for almost three years at this point, so he obviously wasn't around to challenge him. But three other people did. In the normal order of things, that probably wouldn't matter. A Carson, first Marion, then Jim, had run the Scott County Sheriff's Department for 22 of the previous 30 years, despite Marion going to prison. The office seemed to be theirs for the taking. A job they weren't so much elected to as entitled

to. But Jim Carson loses by a lot. That was a huge relief for me. Lori Ensy. I actually felt like, you know, I could call the Sheriff's Department if I had an issue, you know, a home or anything like that. So that made me feel a little bit more safe that we had a new sheriff. I had already thought if they got re-elected that I was probably going to have to move that I could not continue living in this county with that Sheriff's Department,

I thought, you know, that's going to make life much more difficult here to be able to live here. Jim Carson was beaten by a 29-year-old former state trooper named Anthony Lay. He lost about quite a bit, so I think that led me to thanks the people in the community believes as I believe. Lay won with more than 50% of the vote in a four-way race. Jim Carson came in second with about 26%. Which Lori saw as sort of a referendum on her belief that the Carson's were no good, that Marty intentionally killed her husband.

That was not the platform that Anthony Lay ran on. After a lot of back and forth with our producer Lindsay, he agreed to talk to us. Okay, be there soon. Bye. You had to say we missed the exit. Sorry, that's embarrassing. Lay would have a good read on the Sheriff's Department in the years after John John was shot. After all, it's the department he inherited, and he was there while Laurie's suit was going to trial. She was alleging basically a murder and a cover-up. He should know, or at least have a good sense, of whether anyone was capable to trial. She was alleging basically a murder and a cover-up. He should know, or at least have a good sense, of whether anyone was capable of that. If not, he'd know if anyone believes Lori. If within the

department itself, deputies thought it was possible. He's a captain now at the police department in Jellico, a little city to the east of Scott County. We met him at a Duncan Donuts off the interstate, about 45 minutes south of there. When we show up it's pouring rain. We start at the very beginning, September 1, 2006. Lay's first day as the newly elected sheriff of Scott County. I had a departmental meeting at 12.01 a.m. And ironically, we're talking about this, the sheriff's son, Marty Carson, he was the chief deputy. And I remember about two minutes to 12. I stepped up to the office door. And chief Carson at the time stepped to the door. And I'll never forget his words. He said,

Dad laid you a bunch of keys on his desk. And you know, they'll go to all the doors to the jail. He just named off a list of things the keys went to. And he looked at his watch and it was kind of funny. He kind of smiled at me. And he had some keys in his hand and he handed over the keys and I took them in my hand and he said, well, it's 12 o'clock. I'm going home and going to bed. This is your show now.

And I thought, I'm the sheriff. You know it kind of it kind of said in it. You know a 29-year-old man I'm the sheriff now. It's time it's it's time to do this. Lay was young and he looked it. He still looks it. Baby faced and clean cut. He's got a cleft in his chin and giant arms. Guys totally jacked. He says he used to be a body builder, which is not one of the stereotypes

that typically pairs up with a Southern sheriff. But despite that youthful appearance, he had a decent amount of experience. Even back then, he'd gone to work straight out of high school as a dispatcher in the local police department. And a few months after that. Sheriff Jim Carson actually, who we're talking about today, gave me a job.

Carson hired him as a corrections officer, working in the jail. He was 18 years old at the time. He went on to be a state trooper and to work undercover drug investigations. And then he ran for Sheriff. So what was that like running against a guy who gave you, you know, one of your first law enforcement jobs. It was very sad a Lot of people don't understand that I

Didn't run against sheriff Carson because I disloct him or anything like that a small town population less than 23,000 at the time basically if you had a bad incident or something of the nature that happened, you were just baited, and, you know, 9.9 chances out of 10, you were baited. The way Lacey's it, Jim Carson was going to lose no matter what, and all because Marty shot John John. It made that big of a fact. I'm going to go ahead and tell you on the record right now and I don't care who hears it.

Jim Carson was unbeatable until that happened. He could be the sheriff right now at an older age. Fair enough, though, bad incidents seems to be a generous euphemism. A man doesn't go from unbeatable to toast because of unfortunate happenstance, because of an accident, no matter how tragic. He loses badly because voters have lost faith in him. But again, Leigh did not run on the fact that Marty killed John John. I just didn't want the wrong person to get the job up there. I saw the place really needed

some change in a positive direction and a modern law enforcement change way. So what was your platform? Modern day change. I think my slogan was a professional change. That by implication suggests that the Sheriff's Department wasn't professional. No, no, not saying they weren't professional. Sheriff Carson was a very professional man. Times change in law enforcement. If you don't keep up with the modern techniques, times change, you know. Sometimes you need no modern ways to fight modern day crime. You know, there's no drugs developed every day that hit the street.

You have to stay up on those things. If you don't, you're behind. Scott County was way behind. Before Lake, it gets a modern crime fighting. He had to provide basic equipment. In 2006, deputies had to buy a lot of their own gear, including their guns. I remember when I went to work there, I had to buy my own pistol, my own portable radio, my own little doodads for my uniform, my collar brass, you know, all those things.

The county didn't have much budget money. I think I'm the first sheriff to issue the whole department guns. You know, the pistols, I think we put them in a, in a Glock 45 gap, and an AR-15 rifle and a 12 gauge pump shotgun. And we actually put mounting devices in the car to hold the rifles and the shotguns in place. He also got rid of the unpaid volunteers.

I demolished that program. It was scary. There were untrained people working. And he squeezed the county for more money. When I took over a sheriff, I think a deputy sheriff was making $19,100. And I went to the county commission and it was like pulling teeth with some of them to get a pay raise for these guys. And what I'm about to tell you is not something to brag about, but I was able to get on my think to around 23, 5 starting

and then if you had an associate's degree, an extra 500, you know, if you had a bachelor's degree, a thousand dollars, a master's, 1,500, you know, extra add on to that 235. You know, you had to do it in baby steps. I'm probably the first person in the history of Scott County to my knowledge anyway that re-interviewed every single employee there and gave anybody who wanted to work a fair chance to stay on, you know, under my administration. Most I'll reapplied. Marty didn't, and you have to understand, Sheriff Jim Carson was his father.

There was a loyalty there. I have utmost respect for what Marty Carson did. He represented his father. We've been told that the Jim Carson ran the Sheriff's Department as a family business. Well, I can't deny that. I don't know if we'll call it a family business, but I wrote an article in the paper talking about a family affair. FAMILY A FARE, FAMILY BUSINESS, TAMETO, TOMATO, there were a lot of carcins on the payroll.

There was Marty, of course, and two other sons, one is Sergeant, the other a mechanic. Jim's brother was the assistant chief, his cousin ran the jail. Two of his daughters worked dispatch and a third was a part-time bookkeeper. And we might have missed a couple. There's just a lot of Carson's in Scott County. If you want to run for office, you better look and see how long the phone book is, you know, with the person's last name in there because that's going to probably control some of your fate

And that's not a joke on that part. That's really true. And that's the tell That's how he knows that John John being dead cost Jim Carson his job Boaterson Scott County including all those carcines put him in office three times in a row and then dumped him for a kid named Anthony Lay if you look in the phone book the lay name's not that big. I might be the exception to what I said. You know, if I would have been the sheriff when that happened, it would have been the same thing. People liked him.

People loved him. You know, he would do anything, help you anyway could. Person doesn't get elected three times if people don't like him. On the other hand, we talked to a lot of people who did not like the carcines, neither Jim nor Marty. People who said they were scared of them and the power they seemed to wield. In fairness, many of those people, not all by any stretch, but many, had been arrested by Marty, or one of the other Scott County deputies.

Still, it's a different perspective. Jim Carson was very good to his family, it's very well to his family. You know, if one of his kids needed help, if one of his cousins needed help, if one of the cousins' cousins needed help, Jim would help them. If there was an opportunity to work them and help them, he would do that. And they liked Marty too. Marty was just a deputy. And a good deputy, a very nice guy always laughing and

cutting up and joking. Smoking a cigarette, drinking a cup of coffee, just an ordinary guy and you couldn't keep from walking Marty. He was the guy that everybody you know you just locked him. He was he was basically a smaller version of his father, Jim, who was a very well-loct man. Scott County is a very rumor full-town, you know. The rumors can run wild, like wildfire. Uncover from CBC podcasts brings you award-winning investigations year-round. Infiltrate an international network of neo-Nazi extremists. Ranting 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 and a quarter billion dollars missing. There are deep oddities in this case. mysterious death, y a ¥¥¥¥¥¥¥¥¥¥¥¥¥¥¥¥¥¥¥¥¥¥¥¥¥¥¥¥¥¥¥¥¥¥¥¥¥¥¥¥¥¥¥¥¥¥¥¥¥¥¥¥¥¥¥¥¥¥¥¥¥¥¥¥¥¥¥¥¥¥¥¥¥¥¥¥¥¥¥¥¥¥¥¥¥¥¥¥¥¥¥¥¥¥¥¥¥¥¥¥¥¥¥¥¥¥¥¥¥¥¥¥¥¥¥¥¥¥¥¥¥¥¥¥¥¥¥¥¥¥¥¥¥¥¥¥¥¥¥¥¥¥¥¥¥¥¥¥¥¥¥¥¥¥¥¥¥¥¥¥¥¥¥¥¥¥¥¥¥¥¥¥¥¥¥¥¥¥¥¥¥¥¥¥¥¥¥¥¥¥¥¥¥¥¥¥¥¥¥¥¥¥¥¥¥¥¥¥¥¥¥¥¥¥¥¥¥¥¥� son contagiosos. Pero MailChimp no. MailChimp analiza los datos de millones de correos electrónicos para ofrecer recomendaciones personalizadas para mejorar el contenido de tus correos electrónicos, segmentar tu público, entre muchas cosas más adivina menos y vende más con IntuitimailChimp. La marca número 1 en Emilio el Marketing y Automatización. Empezado hoy mismo en MailChimp.com. Vas a venderte sus públicos de marcas competidoras en número It took a while to get Anthony Lantay. For a long time, I think he wasn't all that sure he wanted to talk to us.

There was a lot of phone tag and text tag before he finally agreed to meet us. He did so because he wanted to make sure that the carcins, Jim and Marty and even Marion had someone speaking up for them, someone who knew them and understood them and liked them. But he was still wearing. Yeah, it's good. After we talked for an hour or so, we asked him to sign a release. It's a standard form, basically just acknowledging that he knows we recorded him.

We have a release, too. I'm not signing this. Sure, no problem. It's just general saying you're really recorded. Now listen, I'm going to say something to you back and I respectfully say this. I too recorded this because I just don't want miswords put out. You know, I trust you, but you got to trust me on that. We just got to look out for each other as well being on that, okay?

I don't blame them. There's a lot of nuance in what they's trying to explain. Some complicated social dynamics in these rural politics. He learned that when he ran for sheriff in 2006 and was knocking on doors to pitch himself. I said, I'm Anthony Leigh, and here's my campaign spell I gave him. When I got done, this older man said, well, you seem like you'd be a good sheriff,

but you'll never be as good as Mary and Carson. Nobody ever will. I said, sir, I hear this a lot, and I want to understand because Mary and went to prison, you know, all of these things happened, and he said, well, because Mary and would come by and give me some green beans and tomatoes out of his garden. He was that guy and everybody liked him. And I made a joke and said, well, I guess I'd better grow a really big garden then, and we laughed it off.

That's a true story. I believe that story too. My wife's family goes back a couple generations in East Tennessee. She grew up south of Knoxville, but her father had a pretty good feel for how things worked in the rural counties. He hunted and he fished pretty much that whole half of the state, but more importantly, he was a lawyer, a country lawyer like his father before him. He represented a lot of people out in the hills and the hollers, and later he became a

state judge. And then, in 1984, he was appointed to the federal bench. His name was Jim Jarvis. And as it happens, he was the judge who sentenced Marion Carson to prison. He was decent enough about it. He gave Carson 60 days to tie up any personal business before he reported to prison.

And he recommended Carson do his time at the federal prison in Lexington. There was a good alcohol rehab program there. And Carson had said in court that his heavy drinking was one of the reasons he got mixed up with the drug smugglers. I didn't know any of this until years after both Carson and the judge were dead. I stumbled across it in some old newspaper clippings and just thought, huh, small world, ain't it? Later, when we were back nosing around in Scott County for this podcast, we found an odd little Facebook post laying out some more of

the backstory. Marion Carson was indicted along with a bunch of other people as part of a larger federal investigation into drugs and gambling. And according to this Facebook post, one of those other people, not Marion, put out a hit on Judge Jarvis. I have no idea if that's true. I talk to people who worked with my father-in-law back in the day, and they have no memory. My wife and her sisters remember a federal marshal showing up a couple of times and staying

around the house for a few days, but not why. And a friend from the courthouse remembers a sniper being posted near the judge's cabin for a bit, but again, not why. Apparently, it's not unusual for people to threaten federal judges. In any case, if there was a hit, nothing ever came of it. But I thought it was something I should mention. And really, small world, ain't it? For the first year of Lay's term in office, from September 2006 until the fall of 2007,

Laurie's lawsuit hung over the county like a dark cloud. Or, if you were Lori, like a tiny ray of light poking through that cloud. Did it have much of an effect inside the Sheriff's Department? No, not really. No. No, we moved forward under my administration. We moved forward in a positive way. We put all negative things in the past and move forward to try to make a positive outcome. Now, I'm sure there were some people that had personal failings, but it was never really openly discussed. Lay left near the end of a four-year term to take a job at the U.S. Marshals. But during those years, John John's death, Marty shooting John John, was nothing he ever

fixated on. But he can understand why others might have thought something fishy was going on There were things about that incident that was handled properly and things that were not and I think some of the things that put doubt in Citizen's minds in Scott County and probably even you know officials minds is You know there there was one incident that was told to me where Marty said in the car with his father and maybe uh, detective. True. The night had happened, Marty and his father and a detective sat in a cruiser, though for how long is the matter of some dispute. And I think when people heard that because

of the amount of time they were accused of sat in the car, They started formulaing and they stopped about cover up stories. I don't think it was that way. I reached out to Jim Carson. He'd already answered in court testimony or deposition, the specific questions I had, like how long he sat in that cruiser with Marty. He said it was about 10 minutes. Mostly though, I wanted him to tell me about the dad stuff. What Marty was like and how he had to reconcile those two roles, father and sheriff, especially the night Marty shot John-John. I called all the numbers I could find,

left messages where I could, had some people in Scott County reach out to them, though I'm sure several already had. We sent them a letter too, but never heard back. but never heard back. I get it. Put yourself for a minute in his shoes. What good can come from talking about all of it again? Anthony Leggez, he's got a lot of sympathy for the Carson's, Jim Ann Marty. People in the county, they don't understand

the rumors that hurt you and your family. Marty took himself out of public view after this happened. I told a friend once, I said, I can only imagine this happening and having to walk out in Walmart in the public. Because everybody is going to look at you like you're a stone code killer, whether you are not, okay? I got a little tear-eyed because I know what Sheriff Carson and Marty and his family's been through. I didn't go through anything to the severity that they did where somebody was shot and killed,

but I can tell you what I went through just with rumors will drive a perfectly same person in saying almost, you've got to be strong and thick-skinned and luckily I was, even at an early age. Most people are getting about with that. It's incredibly rough. This is where Leigh does a little semantic jujitsu. He's convinced Jim Carson lost because Marty killed John-John. But he says that doesn't mean people believed Marty did it on purpose, that it was anything more than an accident.

It just kind of tainted everything. It's not that anybody believed or dis-believed, basically if the situation hadn't have happened, but you would have put the right rumor out there on somebody in Scott County you can beat them. El Museo Picasso Málaga presenta Picasso es cultor, al igual que en el resto de su creación, la escultura de Picasso se distingue por innovar en el uso de técnicas y materiales poco ortodoxos. Puedes imaginar cuál es y cómo? Descobrela. is taking statements gathering evidence, trying to build an iron-clad case against Marty.

And now Lori has someone to come home to and lean on. A man she'd been dating and eventually married. Howard Ellis. We met through mutual friends. A girl that babysit it for me, also babysit it for him. Even John-John sisters knew Howard. They'd went to school with him. And so everybody's just trying

to fix this up. I dated John John since I was a freshman in high school so I really couldn't say I really dated anyone other than John John. I was just really sick about it, I was nervous and really was going to change my mind because I thought this is not worth it, this is just too emotional. It's just a difficult situation. But I went through with it and he showed up at the door. And the first thing I told him that I am a nervous wreck. And it was kind of funny because he goes, I am too.

They went on another date and then another. And it was a little awkward because howard at the time was a prosecutor. He worked, in fact, for Paul Phillips. He ended up leaving the DA's office because that already sue the sheriff's department. I think it was going to be a conflict for him to continue working at the DA's office. Laureen Howard got married in the summer of 2006, just before Anthony Lay was elected.

I bring all of this up, not because it's a love story, which it is, but because of Howard's role in Lori's lawsuit. Because he'd been a prosecutor, and because he's now a defense attorney, he knows a lot of people who've been on the wrong side of the law in this little county. He knows how to find those people, and how to talk to them. That's an asset for Lori's team. When Howard joins, they're still trying to figure out their best strategy, particularly what to do with the theory that Marty killed John-John to stop him from running against his father. It never made a whole hell of a lot of sense.

John-John hadn't announced anything, and he definitely wasn't talking to the sheriff's son about it. I mean, why would you kill someone just because I'm here on a run for share if it does mean he's going to win. But at that point, that's all I knew, that's the only motive I knew of at that time. Did you imagine any other motives? Did you run any theories through your own head?

No, I know John-John had mentions, you know, on and off that, you know, at different points in times that he had heard that Marty was taking braves. I guess this came from confidential informants, You know, we'd heard this stuff, but I really didn't know why he would be killed over something like that. But it's all they had to go on. Until one day, a few months before the trial,

Laurie was working her shift in the ER, taking care of a patient. A man should've seen a few times in the hospital. That was Rick Bab. Rick Bab. Rick Bab The someone I had taken care of and they were on and off didn't really knowing very well Reddish hair a little scraggly probably like five seven or five eight and the first thing he told me that he was an outlaw He was a type person. I could see him being probably, as he called himself an outlaw.

He just came across that way. He was kind of, I think, proud of being an outlaw. That was just the way he came across. And he told me that he had, you know, drug problems himself. And that, I mean, he was very upfront about that and that he knew John-John and Morty. She didn't remember why Rick was in the ER and she probably couldn't tell us anyway. And then when I go back in to discharge him, he just calls me my name, he calls me Missy

Ante, he goes, you've got this all wrong. And I really didn't always tell him I was, you know, I've had his health care information while I said, what are you talking about? He said, why? Your husband was shot. He said, you've got this all wrong. He said, it's not because he was running for sheriff. And, you know, I was just shocked and surprised. He told me that him and another family member met Marty Carson in a cemetery. And I think that was located in O'Notta and that it was one nut and that he offered Rickbath money. And I think he also had a hangout and he was going to give him to kill John John. And I think he also had a hangout and he was going to give him to kill John John.

I thought, does this person know what he's talking about? I mean, I have no idea. He said he couldn't talk to me then, but there was more to the story that he needed to talk to me about. He just brought this information up to me. And I don't know. I just thought, I believe him because he brought this out of nowhere. I didn't ask him questions didn't even know who he was and I thought he seemed very credible Laurie calls for lawyer's office and told him what this guy had told me in the ER and Laurie calls her lawyer's office. And told him what this guy had told me in the ER.

And from that point, they set up to talk to him and get a statement from him. And this is what Rick Babs said. He said John-John was killed because of drugs. Rick Babs said that it had been a CI, a confidential informant for Marty Carson for six years, told him who was cooking and who was selling. He said it was Marty's delivery boy or runner who could make drug buys for Marty, ostensibly so Marty would have evidence the drugs to make an arrest. Except Rick said that after a lot of those buys, 65 or 70 of them, Marty didn't arrest anyone,

or even file a report. He just kept the drugs. And if he did make an arrest, Rick said, if Marty did lock up a cook or a dealer and confiscate a bunch of meth, he would only turn in a little bit. Marty, again, according to Rick Babb, was deep into meth. He used it. Rick said he snorted lines with Marty, thick as a pencil right off the hood of his cruiser. He said Marty had people cooking for him and even helped two guys break out of the county jail so they could go make more meth for Marty. He said that if Marty and were quoting here, found out about a meth lab that was not his,

he would shut it down. Rick Babb also said that it was his fault that John John was dead. He said that in the fall of 2003, he bought a bag of meth at Marty's direction. And for some reason, John John came to pick it up. And Rick, assuming John John was as dirty as his partner, said something like, new boys have fun with that. He asked Rick what he was talking about, and Rick told them all of it. John John said he was already on to Marty, and he had been for a long time. But he was investigating his own partner.

And then Rick Babb went and told Marty. He told Marty he'd screwed up and Marty agreed. And then Marty tried to give Rick and his nephew a gun and a pile of money to kill John John. Rick refused. He said that was three weeks before Marty shot John John. He said, I knew officer Yancey was going to get killed, and I knew Marty was going to kill him. That's what Rick Bab said. And then I thought, finally, maybe there is more to this.

Maybe there is a brick in this case. Next time on Witnessed Friendly Fire. The piece of it, Marty thought it would be funny to ask me if I wanted to kill Johnny Ansela. You know? I wasn't trying during that time to get involved in law enforcement. That buried me. Was Marty a dirty cop? Could any of this be true?

I said if I know anything on Marty Carson, it's not to be said out here in public. It's not to be said nobody. There'll not be nothing told that I know. I think when they stabbed Rick somebody, I'll say somebody was trying to send the message. 1 tbc dc 1 tbc dc 1 tbc dc

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1 tbc dc 1 tbc dc 1 tbc dc The Wittiness is a production of Campside Media and Sony Music Entertainment. Friendly Fire was reported and hosted by me, Sean Flan. Lindsey Killbride is the senior producer and Cali Hitchcock is the associate producer. The story editor is Daniel Ryley. The series was sound designed by Shani Aviram with mixing by Ewen Lytrimuyn. This episode was fact-checked by Alex Yablon. The theme song is Booey by Shuk Twins. A special thanks to our operations team Amanda Brown, Doug Slaywin, Alia Papers, and Allison Haney. Campside Media's executive producers are Josh Dean, Vanessa Gregoriatis, Adam Hoff, and Matt Cher. If you enjoyed

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