8 | They're Digging Up Bodies Right Now

Summary

Blunt Force Trauma – Episode 8: “They're Digging Up Bodies Right Now” (May 28, 2026)
Host: Troy Taylor (EchoSpace)
Main Theme:
This episode dives further into the tangled and evolving investigation of Faithe Ely’s death. Troy and his team push through new revelations—from rumors of a kill list and hidden bodies, to jurisdictional questions tied to Native American lineage, to a tense new forensic evaluation of Faithe’s autopsy. This installment pivots around mounting communal fear, evasive law enforcement, and bombshell accounts from people too terrified to speak openly, suggesting Faithe's case is a thread in a much darker tapestry.

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Key Discussion Points and Insights

Deepening the Complexity: New Testimony on Kill Lists and Serial Violence

[00:53]–[09:53]

• Rumor and Reality of Kill Lists:

  • Multiple unnamed sources speak of a chilling “list” of women targeted for death—women who have disappeared from the Shawnee area. One source claims Faith was on this list and links the violence to two men: Jack and Ryan.
    • “There was a list of girls that they were going to kill that they didn’t want living anymore. Faith was on the list. I was on the list. There’s all kinds of women on the list... there was like, 10 girls on it.” —Anonymous Caller [08:10]

• Jack’s Reputation for Violence:

  • Jack is described as “the big bad wolf in town... he kidnaps women, beats them, dumps them in fields.” This fits descriptions of Faithe’s injuries.
    • “He’s known for beating women. He’s known for kidnapping women... That’s his M.O.” —Anonymous Caller [07:34]

• Bodies Being Dug Up:

  • It's revealed that authorities are currently “digging up bodies” at various houses in Shawnee, Bethel, and Logan County—up to 21 bodies found, hinting at something much bigger than Faithe’s case alone.

Native American Heritage and Jurisdiction – Unraveling Legal Complications

[02:26]–[06:21]

• Investigating Lineage:

  • Troy and team research the Native American heritage of suspects and victims, crucial for legal jurisdiction due to the McGirt v. Oklahoma ruling.
    • “I dug into Veronica’s background, and from what I can see there, 100% Native American. Cherokee... So she would still be under that McGirt v. Oklahoma ruling.” —Troy [02:30–03:06]
  • Tribal court appearances for Ryan’s father, Bobby, add complexity to potential avenues for investigation.

• Doors Slam Shut:

  • Amanda and Caitlin’s painstaking work is repeatedly stymied by officials. Law enforcement agencies shift responsibility or clam up:
    • “Everywhere they go, nobody wants to help.” —[05:39]

• Next Steps:

  • Troy resolves to contact the FBI, since established heritage should trigger federal jurisdiction.
    • “I think we have enough now to actually get a letter out and make a call to the FBI.” —Troy [05:46]

Razor-Thin Lines of Trust: Fear in the Community

[06:21]–[07:34]

• Pervasive Fear:
  • Sources will talk—but only if identities are hidden. Troy describes a “tightness” in conversations, and realizes the fear runs deeper than just retribution for Faithe’s murder.
    • “I can hear it in people’s voices; I can feel it in what they say and what they stop themselves from saying.” —Troy [06:45]

Second Anonymous Testimony: Police Threats, a New Suspect

[10:21]–[14:42]

• Claims of Police Intimidation:

  • One caller says the Seminole County sheriff threatened them to stay quiet, even with bodily harm or prison.

• Alternative Theory—Family Involvement:

  • A woman alleges, via hearsay, Faithe’s boyfriend’s mother beat her to death after an argument, and that her body was then placed on the highway to stage an accident. She details specifics about other local women’s fear, further supporting a climate of cover-up and terror.
    • “She’s the one that killed her. She beat her to death, and they put her on the highway.” —Anonymous Caller [12:49]

• Inconsistencies Noted:

  • The caller questions the absence of “car-hit” injuries: “If a car would have hit her, wouldn’t she have been bruised or anything?” [14:37]

Forensic Breakthrough: Contrasting Expert Opinions

[14:42]–[21:25]

• Top Forensic Pathologist Examines Autopsy:

  • “Tony,” an unnamed but renowned pathologist (different from earlier consulted Anna), reviews Faith’s autopsy.
  • Tony’s findings:
    • No evidence Faith was hit by a car—at any speed.
    • Injuries (fractured ribs, head trauma, lacerated spleen) are more in line with beating or stomping, not with being struck by a vehicle.
    • Liver mortis (the settling of blood post-mortem) pattern aligns with her being moved after death; the body showed posterior lividity, meaning she must have spent time on her back before autopsy, contradicting highway death-at-scene theories.
    • The brow laceration was not EMS intervention.
    • Walking half a mile with her injuries was “possible, but not likely.”
    • ABSOLUTELY rules out vehicle collision as cause.
  • Notable quote:
    • “In your professional opinion, is there any way that this was a vehicle versus pedestrian collision? …his answer was, ‘No. Not possible.’” —Troy [21:25]

• Contradictory Opinions:

  • Points out how even professionals cannot agree—Anna previously said possible collision, but not at speed; OSBI (state police) says vehicle collision, OHP (highway patrol) disagrees.

Bombshell: The Man at the Center Reaches Out

[22:14]–[25:16]

• Ryan Contacts the Team, Hints at Confession:

  • Ryan, one of the men linked to Faith and mentioned repeatedly, wants to “tell the truth.” There’s a sense of desperation as he confides that he “loved Faith”—yet feels trapped by guilt.
    • “I feel like the only way for me to let go of anything is to let go of the truth. I don’t know how to tell y’all this, but I feel like she killed herself because of our relationship.” —Ryan [23:16]
  • Team member rebuts suicide theory:
    • “She did not kill herself, Ryan, and she was not hit by a car. Did your mother not tell you?... She did not kill herself. She was not hit by a car.” —Amanda [23:47]

• Revelation:

  • “Faith died at that house.” – Amanda [24:27]

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Notable Quotes & Moments

• “There was a list of girls that they were going to kill that they didn’t want living anymore. Faith was on the list. I was on the list.” —Anonymous Caller [08:10]
• “You don’t go against Jack... Jack and Ryan see each other a lot. There’s several of them connected to all that. And there’s so many missing women in Shawnee.” —Anonymous Caller [07:34]
• “The sheriff there in Seminole county threatens me... That’s the reason I don’t trust Seminole County.” —Anonymous Caller [10:21]
• “He said... No, [her death] was not possible as a vehicle versus pedestrian collision.” —Troy, relaying “Tony” the pathologist’s verdict [21:25]
• “Faith died at that house.” —Amanda [24:27]

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Important Segment Timestamps

• 00:53–03:37: The first hints about the “kill list” and police knowledge
• 04:42–06:21: Discussion about Native American heritage, jurisdiction, and triggering FBI involvement
• 07:34–09:53: Anonymous calls expand on Jack and Ryan’s connection, missing women, and bodies being exhumed
• 10:21–14:42: Second anonymous call details police threats, points a finger at Faith’s boyfriend’s mother
• 14:42–21:25: Forensic pathologist’s analysis (Tony): Not a vehicular death, evidence aligns with beating, livor mortis explained
• 22:14–25:16: Ryan’s call to the team, hints at coming clean, affirmations from the team that Faith neither killed herself nor died via accident

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Tone & Takeaways

The episode is somber, tense, and urgent. The tone is driven by the mounting dread of revelations—the sense that the case is about much more than Faithe Ely herself, with communities caught in the grip of systemic violence, silence, and cover-up. As the investigation closes in, the hope is for legal doors to finally open, and for at least one insider to break the wall of silence—with the team on the verge of hearing the truth straight from a key suspect.

Blunt Force Trauma continues its gripping, compassionate, and increasingly disturbing investigation, foregrounding the stories and fears of those left in the case’s shadow.

Transcript

[A]

Please note, this podcast contains references to physical and sexual assault and graphic depictions of violence. Listener discretion is advised. The views and opinions expressed throughout this podcast are solely those of the individuals expressing them and do not necessarily align with the opinions or beliefs of the host or producers. Hey, it's Troy here. I just wanted to let you know that we're currently working on a Q and A episode for blunt force trauma. If you've got any questions you'd like to ask me, Rosemary, Amanda, Caitlin, or Casey, jump on over to EchoSpace Media Tips and send us a voicemail message or a text message. And now, today's episode.

[B]

I have no idea. I could never figure that part out because I think the guys just made the list. I don't know where the list come from. I don't know who got it, how it was, how it was done, none of that. But I know the cops know about it because I've talked to him about it before. I know that, you know, lawyers know about it, the judges know about it. So you gotta. You gotta catch them in the act, too. And especially with what I heard on the news, that Faith was not hit by a car. She was beaten.

[C]

That.

[B]

That's Jack. That's something Jack does. And I say that because he kidnapped a girl a couple months ago and beat her so bad that he dumped her in a farmer's field. And that farmer sales out of her that warning.

[D]

Hello.

[C]

Hi.

[A]

How are you?

[D]

I'm good. How are you?

[A]

I'm good. I'm good. So on the back of all of this conversation about whether Ryan and Ronica are Native American, I decided to jump on line and I dug into Veronica's background, and from what I can see there, 100% Native American. Cherokee. It looks like her great grandfather, I think, was Cherokee. So that would put her at, like, what she.

[D]

I think she'd be at an 8. There is no minimum in Oklahoma, right? There is no.

[A]

Right, yeah. Right. So she would still be under that McGirt v. Oklahoma ruling, then she would still be considered Native American. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. So there was that. And then did a little more digging, and I also found an obituary for her aunt. And. And that clearly lays out all of it, you know, that. That she was Native American, that she was Cherokee. So, you know, the. The tie is definitely, definitely there.

[D]

So, you know, in line with all of this, Amanda has been doing some amazing digging, and she's sent me some images of these court cases in Seminole county that are showing Bobby in court.

[A]

Bobby Ryan's dad?

[B]

Yes.

[D]

So it's Tribal court. And I. There's one or two, maybe three instances where this is reflected so in tribal court.

[A]

Okay, so in tribal court.

[D]

So it. Is it on both sides for Ryan? I mean, does Ryan have a father who is Native American and a mother? I mean, it's a pretty amazing find.

[A]

Yeah.

[D]

And kind of helping put things together, put these pieces of puzzle together to. To really get this jurisdiction right.

[A]

Yeah. Well, I mean, that's the thing, isn't it? You. If you look at it that way, you know, even if, let's say Bobby isn't. But his court case is fighting someone who is, you know, it's from enough different angles that, you know, one of them has to check out.

[C]

Right.

[A]

Like, one of them clearly indicates that there is that lineage there and heritage there. So, you know, from.

[D]

And maybe Troy, maybe this is why the light horse show up. Because, you know, I mean, percentage wise of people who might be or might not be. I mean, they probably needed to be there and knew they needed to be there.

[A]

Yeah. And what.

[C]

What.

[A]

You know, this is the thing I don't get either. Like, I mean, I'm not a homicide investigation. I'm not a homicide investigator. Neither are you, and neither is Amanda. And, you know, we're. We're able to find this information, you know, like, why can't anybody else? Like what this cli. Yeah. So, I mean, that. That's just. I mean, it's just continually. That's frustrating. So I kind of imagine how Amanda and Caitlyn feel after all these years of just closed doors.

[D]

But it is constant for them. It's constant.

[A]

Yeah.

[D]

A door slammy in their face. It's every. Everywhere they go, nobody wants to help.

[A]

Yeah, they're all passing the back or shutting the door. Well, on. On the back of all of this, in terms of the Native American side of things, I think we have enough now to actually get a letter out and make a call to the FBI. So I'm gonna. I'm gonna do that today. And then hopefully they take it on and see it.

[D]

Yeah, hopefully. I'm praying. And they. They should, if. If they follow the McGirt decision. This is right in line with it. So, yeah.

[A]

Yeah, maybe we'll get some answers. One of the things that continues to surprise me is how willing people are to talk about what they've heard surrounding Faith's death and about what they believe is really going on in Wewoka. People will talk. Sometimes they'll talk a lot, but almost always there's a line they don't want to cross. They don't want anyone to know they're the ones saying it. There's a fear beneath so many of these conversations. I can hear it in people's voices. I can feel it in what they say and what they stop themselves from saying. And what strikes me the most is the fear seems to run deeper than the question of who may have been responsible for Faith's death.

[E]

Death.

[A]

It feels bigger than that. Amanda, Katelin, and Casey, of course, are different. But almost everyone else I speak to seems to be carrying the same quiet. I'll tell you what I know, but you can't let anyone else know it came from me. And when Amanda sends me two new clips, I begin to understand why. As you'll hear shortly, the voices of both callers have been distorted to. To protect their identities.

[B]

Jack and Ryan were friends. Jack is known for beating women. He's known for kidnapping women. I kind of think Jack was involved in it. I know Jack and Faith knew each other. I mean, this man beat me, and everybody knew. He's like the big bad wolf in town. You don't go against him. You know what I'm saying? Jack's been connected to all that shit. And Jack and Ryan see each other a lot. There's several of them connected to all that. And there's so many missing women in Shawnee. That's why I say Faith, because they had a list at one time. I don't know if you ever heard of a list of girls that they were going to kill that they didn't want living anymore. And I started their list. They. Some. Some of the people. They got some of the people digging up their bodies right now. It was a list of women that they were supposed to take out. Faith was on the list. I was on the list. There's all kinds of women on the list. There was like, 10 girls on it, but they had a list of people that they were going to kill.

[C]

I don't know why.

[B]

I still have never figured out why. And Jack and Ryan see each other a lot in the pink house. It's in Shoney, but it's. They call it the pink house, but it's just a dope house. You heard about the Logan county house where the digging of bodies out there, right? There's a house in Shawnee. They're doing that, too, as well. There's a house in Bethel. They're doing that, too, as well. All three houses, they found bodies. They're up to 21 bodies so far. There's a lot of weird stuff And a lot of that's happening. That's like, why are they getting by with that? Why don't you know? And I'm going, why the is this not on the news? There was five girls coming up at one time in Shawnee. Like I'm down here from the story. So it be about 20, 19, 20, 20. There were so many girls between 18 and 20. There's a ton of girls that come up missing. They'd be lying in ditches. And I mean, that's his M.O. that's what he does. And when I heard that she was not ran over by a car, that she was beaten to death, that's Jack.

[A]

The whole thing leaves me in a state I'm not really sure how to describe. There's a tightness in my chest that I can't seem to shake. A kill list, kidnapping, bodies piling up. I felt out of my depth before this. Now it kind of feels like I'm trying to swim up from the bottom of the ocean while I'm chained to the ground. I click play on the second tape. Nervous, uncomfortable, and with absolutely no idea what to expect.

[C]

Well, sometimes if you sit back, stuff will come to you. I'll just be truthful with you about everything. And the sheriff there in Seminole county threatens me by not having. And I had to back off. That's why I don't like them. I don't trust them. One of the guys was murdered, and then the head guy that done it was going to tell on everybody else, so they went up there and murdered him. He beat him. He beat him so badly he had a brain aneurysm and died. A detective called me to come up to the sheriff's office to talk to him. And I went up there to talk to you. And the sheriff drove up and he come over there and threatened me again. He's going to put us in prison for the rest of our lives. And he's threatened me with bodily harm. But that's the reason I don't trust Citadel County. My grandson's friend, she told me, she said, I need to tell you something. She said, but I'm scared. And I said, why are you scared scared? She said, because I'm scared of that woman. And I said, what woman? And she said, do you know Smurf? So, lady. And I said, to tell you the truth, I don't know who he's with now, and her name's Virginia or something like that. He heard them talking about it. She told me it was the boyfriend of your daughter. And they Were fussing and she was gonna take off walking, but the mama got a hold of her, and she's the one that killed her. She beat her to death, and they put her on the highway. And she said, wait, so the car hit her, but she didn't have any arcs like a car hitter. I said, no, if she'd have been hit by a car, should I was involved. And really, I called the highway patrol. I called them, but they haven't called me. He said he would have the highway patrol to call me, but they didn't call me. So I thought maybe the guy who was investigating it was off duty. But I know if I go, he came, what's going to happen? Because she smurfs screams. But anyway, this girl, she heard them talking about it, and she said it was Faith's boyfriend, mama that did that to her. And I said, who's his mother? And she said, she lives with Smurf. And I said, I didn't know Smurf had an old lady. And she said, yeah, she's got three kids. I said, smurf's kids? And she said, no, they're hers. And she said faith was out there at his house. And she said her and her boyfriend got into it. And she said, and mama went off on her and beat her to death. And I said, are you serious? And she said, yes, it was Smurf there. And she said, dina, I don't know who was there. She said, but I had been out there and I heard him talking about. She said, I'm scared to death of that word. The mom said that she. I guess she didn't realize that the little girl was deceased. And they put her on the highway and said something they said about a truck Hitler. The little girl told me that she didn't have no marks on her and that they had. The mama had beat her in the head. I don't know if that's what her cause of death was, but that's what she had heard. And she said, if a car would have hit her, wouldn't she have been bruised or anything? And I said, well, it looks like her. Her face, lungs would be broken and everything.

[A]

The whole thing reminds me of that old saying. If one person calls you a horse, you can ignore them. If three people call you a horse, well, maybe you should buy yourself a saddle. A few days later, I get a message from Rosemary. She's teed up a meeting with one of the most well known and well regarded forensic pathologists in the industry. He's taken a look at Faith's autopsy report for us, isolation of anything else, and he takes us through it point by point. I call Amanda the second we finish up to fill her in on his findings. Okay, so I've just got off a call that Rosemary teed up. She's got an acquaintance who is a really well known forensic pathologist, top of his game, has been involved in a whole lot of really high profile cases, and she managed to get him to take a look at Faith's autopsy for us. He doesn't want his name out there just yet until we have some kind of support from law enforcement or the medical examiner or the district attorney or someone or the FBI, someone in that area that says, okay, we're gonna. We're gonna investigate this deeper. And if that happens and we can get that happening, then he's happy to step forward and get involved. But right now, he doesn't want his name out there, so we're just gonna call him Tony. But he's happy for me to share with you exactly what, what he. What he had to say. And I found it really, really fascinating because obviously we had Anna look through it and give her opinion on it. His opinion differs completely, and this is. This is the complexity of it all. The one thing that they do both agree on is that there is no way in hell that Faith was hit by a car at 75 miles an hour. His take on it is that she wasn't hit by a car at all. He. Even at 25 miles an hour, it's not consistent with a vehicle strike. One of the key things that he mentioned was in terms of her. The ribs that were broken and that she had fractures on ribs. I think it was two to five in the front and four in the back. He was saying that that doesn't make sense because there would have been more ribs broken. Like those particular ribs would have been the ones that surrounded them as well. And his view was that that was actually more consistent with more localized impacts. I asked him what he thought could have caused that, and his take on it was that it was something. It could be something like stomping. He kept coming back to the fact that it looked like a beating. He said that, you know, obviously the head injuries, arm injuries, lacerated spleen, they're all consistent with Faith being either beaten or kicked, more so than a pedestrian versus vehicle. You remember Stevie mentioned that Ryan used to squeeze her? So I asked him specifically whether he thought that something like that could have caused it. And he said no, he didn't think that was possible. The Other thing I talked him about was the liver mortise and whether the secondary liver would have shown up within the window of time that Faith was on the highway. And his answer to that was no, there wasn't enough time for it to have settled if she was on her side. So therefore it is unlikely that there would have been a secondary liver mortis. So that, that answers that question a little bit. That was one of the questions we had outstanding of why, why was that not recorded? It probably didn't settle and it probably didn't exist.

[C]

So.

[E]

Okay, hold on, go back.

[A]

Sure.

[E]

Liver mortis. The liver mortis was fixed on her posterior, correct?

[A]

Correct.

[C]

So,

[E]

and it doesn't fix until six hours later, at least. So how is it that livor mortis was apparent and fixed on posteriorly, but she was on her left side?

[A]

So it would have been, it would have been when they took her away. So they would have positioned her on her back when they took her away and then she would have waited that way until they performed the autopsy, essentially. So it would have set while she was waiting.

[E]

Okay. Which means she was on the side of that highway for supposedly four hours on her left side.

[A]

So this is where.

[E]

So within that four hours there would have been no kind of indication.

[A]

There would have been. It would have started to settle in that space. But it, but what, what? It doesn't fix. It doesn't start to fix until after that six hour window. So even at six hours it's not fully fixed. It's just, that's when it starts to fix in that position. So it potentially would have been visible on her left side at that sort of four hour mark when they first got to the scene. But after she was then taken away and she was put on her back, it means that she must have been on her back for at least six hours before they performed the autopsy. Then that's when it would have fixed. So it would have shifted from her left side to her back and then fixed. The other question that I had around that, which was whether there was any way we could tell whether her body had been moved to the highway. His, you know, his view on that again was that was probably not. He said, he asked about blood on the ground and I said, no, there wasn't any. So he found that interesting given that she had a head injury. Right, right.

[E]

And head injuries bleed profusely.

[A]

The other thing as well was the fact that her brow was cut. That's one, that. And I wondered whether that was something that could have been done by emergency services. But his take on that was, no, that's not something they would do. They don't cut it. They work around it. The other question I asked him on that front was, would it be possible for her to have sustained that, those injuries and walked to the half a mile, you know, point where she was found? Is it possible that she sustained those injuries, she walked out of the property to essentially escape because. But in a somewhat of a confused state, because let's not forget she was heading away from town into, literally into the darkness, you know, is it possible for her to have done that walking or stumbling for, you know, half a mile and 20 minutes with a lung injury and a lacerated spleen? And his take was that it was possible, but not likely. Well, the last question that I put to him was I, you know, I just wanted to ask him clearly, and I said to him, in your professional opinion, is there any way that this was a vehicle versus pedestrian collision? And his answer was, no, not possible.

[E]

So he, he was absolutely definitive on that stance.

[A]

Definitive. Now, again, that contradicts the other opinion that we had, Anna's opinion. But you know, to a point, to a degree, if signal 30 saying could be homicide, could be right. Motor vehicle collision. Anna's saying motor vehicle collision, but not at speed. Tony's saying not a motor vehicle collision. OSBI is saying motor vehicle collision. OHP is saying not a motor vehicle collision. It's clear that it isn't as cut and dry as we might think from that side. As we're getting ready to close out the call, Amanda springs something on me that I never in a million years expected.

[E]

Okay, so Ryan reached out to Caitlyn talking about how he wants to tell the truth and he wants to meet with us. He actually made a call that my son in law, Casey picked up. And Casey talked to Ryan a little bit about meeting up and yeah. What he's wanting to tell us truth about what really happened. So we're gonna meet with him, we'll see what happens. What he has to say gonna be interesting. I don't know how to tell anybody this. The only thing I know to do is to do the right thing. And I loved, I loved Faith. I loved her with everything in me.

[B]

And I want y' all to know

[E]

that I fought and I fought and I fought and I know everybody's fought. And this whole time they've been thinking, I've been scot free. I felt like I was scot free. But it's this, it's holding me down. I don't know how to let go in life of anything. And I feel like the only way for me to let go of anything is to let go of the truth. I don't know how to tell y' all this, but I feel like she killed herself because of our relationship,

[B]

because

[E]

of the things we've said to each other. And I don't she did not kill herself, Ryan, and she was not hit by a car. Did your mother not tell you? She said somebody said it was angle iron. I told him it was, but no, she fell. Investigators had that conversation with your mom. The whole vehicle thing was rolled out a long time ago. She did not kill herself. She was not hit by a car.

[C]

Faith died at that house.

[E]

You know what? Not just your past relationship that we know about that is point the finger at you.

[A]

Faith's case is still open and her killer or killers have not yet been brought to justice. If you know anything about Faith, her death, or those who may be responsible, we'd like to hear from you. Please visit EchoSpace Media Tips and either leave a voicemail or send us a message. You can also find us on Facebook and Instagram. Unforcedrauma Podcast if you're enjoying this podcast, please consider our subscriber option on Apple Podcasts or [e-mail] echo podcasts, where you get access to early episode drops, ad free episodes and bonus content across all of the Echo Space shows. If you'd like to keep up to date with progress on Faith's case, please visit and follow the justice for Faith Ely Facebook page. You'll find a link to it in the episode. Notes Blunt Force Trauma is a production of Echo Space, written and hosted by Troy Taylor. Executive producers are Troy Taylor, Mark Tarulli and Fred Schurter. Our main theme song is Lose My Mind by Maya Davidoff, and the show also contains audio content from Moby Gratis.