Kentucky Brothel Murders

Summary

Crime Scene — "Kentucky Brothel Murders" (April 9, 2026, Sony Music Entertainment)

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Episode Overview

This gripping episode explores the unsolved double homicide of Candy Belt and Gloria Ross—a case that rocked the small military town of Oak Grove, Kentucky, in 1994. Through meticulous storytelling, hosts Jonathan Hirsch and Cooper Maul dissect a labyrinthine tale of corruption, flawed policing, and long-standing community secrets centered around the New Life Massage Parlor—an open secret brothel frequented by local law enforcement and officials. Nearly three decades later, the case is still unresolved, with deep scars left on victims' families and the town itself.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

The Setting and Crime

• Oak Grove, Kentucky in 1994 is the backdrop—a town living in the shadow of Fort Campbell, with the New Life Massage Parlor as a hub for soldiers and prominent locals.
• The Brothel's Operations: Run by madam Tammy Papler, the parlor stayed in business by allegedly bribing local law enforcement. “They say the cops were on the payroll for this establishment. Try to just grease the wheels, keep things moving. Nobody asks any questions.” (Jonathan, 04:10)
• Corruption Web: Police officers and even the mayor are regulars; Ed Carter, a police officer, serves double duty as the brothel’s janitor.

The Night of the Murders

• Timeline: On September 20, 1994, at around 2:00am, Officer Ed Carter, recently banned from the premises, is seen at the brothel acting suspiciously. (06:48)
• Victims: Candy Belt (22, single mother of two) and Gloria Ross (18, newly married) are found shot and with their throats slashed after coworkers leave and return for a food run. (08:17)
• Brutality & Significance: The overkill (execution-style shooting and throat slashing) suggests both premeditation and personal rage/conflict. “It’s colder... And then like when you slash somebody’s throat, that happens in a fit of rage or psychosis or whatever.” (Jonathan & Cooper, 09:05-09:12)

The Crime Scene Fiasco

• Immediate Contamination: Local officers, many with personal ties to the brothel, arrived and quickly compromised evidence, removing shell casings and wiping down surfaces. “They’re contaminating the crime scene from the second that they get there ... the sheriff’s deputies would later note that the scene was obviously contaminated from the start.” (Jonathan, 10:02)
• Conflict of Interest: Lead detective Leslie Duncan is Carter’s former roommate, adding another layer of murkiness.

Early Suspects and Investigation Breakdown

• Officer Ed Carter:
  • Suspicions: Last seen at the scene, questionable alibi (wife contradicts his account), missing .22 caliber handgun.
  • Affair revealed: Carter was having an affair with the brothel’s manager (not Tammy), compounding his motives and clandestine involvement.
  • Aftermath: Carter resigns from the police, becomes an attorney, and evades charges, with evidence conveniently disappearing. “He moves, Carter moves to another part of Kentucky. He gets a job as a part-time police officer in a different town.” (Jonathan, 15:25)
• Other Potential Suspects:
  • Ryan Ross: Gloria’s controlling husband, had violent tendencies and was allegedly jealous of a romantic relationship between Gloria and Candy. Had access to the parlor and a suspiciously timed absence on the night of the murders. (20:10–22:37)
  • James Steve Henson: Member of the brothel, allegedly confessed to his girlfriend, but never seriously investigated. (23:09–24:18)

Community Impact and Ongoing Suspicion

• Community Rumors and Media: “This is like the rumor mill, the talk of the town... the time those cops killed the two prostitutes is sort of the whispers around town.” (Jonathan, 27:33)
• Victims’ Families: Long-standing grief and feeling of injustice due to socioeconomic bias and the stigma of sex work. “You just see victims’ families having to live with uncertainty for years and years.” (Jonathan, 30:22)

Attempts at Justice and Cold Case Reopens

• Public Accusations: Tammy Papler publicly denounces the town’s officials in 1997 with documented proof of bribes (“cleaning services”). (28:11)
• State Police Takeover: In 2006 the Kentucky State Police take over, but years pass with no breakthroughs due to the lost and tainted evidence.
• Finally, Some Accountability: Leslie Duncan is arrested in 2012 for evidence tampering (disposal of shell casings, wiping fingerprints), pleads guilty to mishandling the crime scene. (33:24)

Prosecutions—Too Little, Too Late

• 2013 Indictments: Ed Carter (two counts of murder), Frank J. Black, Jr. (alleged trigger man), and Leslie Duncan (complicity) are indicted, but the case is inherently weak:
  • Key Gaps: No murder weapon, no matching DNA, no physical link between Carter/Black.
  • Defense Strategy: Point to other plausible suspects (Ryan Ross, Henson), and question the entire investigative process.
• The Narrative Theory: Carter as mastermind, motivated by revenge for being fired as janitor, orchestrating the murders with Black. Prosecution hinges on circumstantial evidence and suspect testimonies. (38:01–39:27)

Trial and Verdict

• Court Proceedings: Entering court in 2016, the prosecution lacks physical evidence and key witness recordings. DNA found on Candy does not match any of the accused. Jury instructions debated as the defense pushes a “third party culprit” defense (45:35).
• Acquittal: “After two hours of deliberation... the jury returned to not guilty on all counts for Ed Carter and Frank Black.” (Jonathan, 46:36–47:50)
  • Judge Patton: Drops complicity for Duncan, citing failure to show active involvement.
  • Reflections: Jurors suspicious yet unable to convict beyond a reasonable doubt. (Jonathan & Cooper, 48:56)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “So she's like laying down the law to the law.” (Cooper, 06:30)
• “It makes this attack look targeted and personal.” (Jonathan, 12:05)
• “This is called a third party culprit defense. This is when the defense alleges that there are other people we should be looking at.” (Cooper, 45:35)
• “This case is obviously like a cautionary tale about small town corruption. But there's another piece of this... to be a sex work worker at this time is to have a criminalized profession. And that places you in quite a vulnerable position.” (Jonathan, 53:00)
• “If you met her, you would have loved her. I know.” (Jonathan on Candy, 52:57)
• “It kind of feels like everybody... holds a piece of the story. Do you know what I mean?” (Jonathan, 54:24)
• “There’s just a missing link with each one of these.” (Cooper, 55:07)

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Key Timestamps (MM:SS)

• 03:34: Introduction to the New Life Massage Parlor and the town dynamics
• 06:48: Ed Carter’s suspicious return to the brothel
• 08:17: Discovery of the murder scene and victim details
• 10:02: Crime scene contamination and handling by local police
• 14:13: Ed Carter’s failing alibi and missing handgun
• 22:10: Revelation of relationship between Candy and Gloria
• 28:11: Tammy Papler’s public accusation of city council corruption
• 33:24: Leslie Duncan arrested for evidence tampering
• 35:34–39:27: Arrests of Carter, Black, and Duncan; prosecution’s theory
• 41:27: Discussion of weak evidence and the challenge of assembling a case
• 46:36–47:50: Jury delivers not guilty verdicts for all accused
• 53:00–54:47: Reflections on sex work stigma and broken justice
• 55:07: Final thoughts on the unresolved mystery

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Tone & Style

• Conversational, Sharp, and Candid: Hosts blend empathy for victims with wry observations about small-town politics and the relentless messiness of true crime investigations.
• Critical: Deep skepticism for systems that repeatedly fail marginalized victims, with pointed commentary on investigative failures.
• Occasionally Wry: “He wanted to be a cop, a janitor, and a madam.”
• Reflective & Inclusive: Both hosts push listeners to question not only who committed the murders, but why justice was never delivered—and what the story says about society at large.

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Conclusion

Despite years of rumors, town reckonings, media coverage, and a belated prosecution, the murders of Candy Belt and Gloria Ross remain unsolved—lost to corruption, systemic neglect, and the stigma of sex work. As Jonathan and Cooper observe, these unsolved crimes echo through Oak Grove and the true crime community as a sobering reminder of cases where “everyone has a secret,” but justice never comes.

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For further sources, reporting, and exclusive material, see the episode bibliography in the show notes or join their Crime Scene newsletter community.

Transcript

[Jonathan Hirsch]

Hi, binge crew. When you're finished listening to this true crime story, go see Hunting Matthew Nichols in theaters. This film has all the elements of the true crime stories we a sprawling mystery, intrepid investigators, powerful people who know more than they let on. Two decades after her brother mysteriously disappeared on Vancouver Island, a documentary filmmaker sets out to solve his missing person's case. But when a disturbing piece of evidence is revealed, it's she comes to believe her brother might still be alive. The film is in select theaters now, but you can immerse yourself in the story by going to huntingmatthewnickolls.com right now. That's huntingmatthewnichols.com and welcome to the hunt. How do you solve a murder in a town where everyone has a secret? And what if in that town, all of those secrets are connected to the same place? In 1994, in the small military town of Oak Grove, Kentucky, two women are murdered inside a massage parlor everyone knows is a brothel. Welcome to Crime Scene, the show where we tell the stories behind the world's most unforgettable crimes. As the investigation into the murders of Candy Belt and Gloria Ross unfurls, it seems that everyone in this town has something to lose. And nobody can can keep their story straight. This week on Crime Scene, the story of how a double murder turned a brothel into a battleground. From Sony Podcasts and the Binge, this is the story of the Kentucky brothel murders. Hey, y'.

[Cooper Maul]

All.

[Jonathan Hirsch]

Welcome to the Crime Scene office. My name is Jonathan Hirsch. I am a cult survivor turned documentarian covering culture, cults, crimes and cons.

[Cooper Maul]

And I'm Cooper Maul, a librarian turned podcaster obsessed with all things true crime.

[Jonathan Hirsch]

And together, each week, we're gonna bring you some of the most remarkable crimes that have stuck out to us. And we're really gonna focus not just on the story itself, but on the criminal and the legal aspects of the case, different angles of it, psychological, the characters and the world that these stories inhabit. And I should note that this program is a part of the Binge, which is Sony Podcast's network of limited run series. You'll probably hear me on it from Time. Ann Cooper. So think of this as all the things you love about those stories in one episode. All right, let's get to it. So Candy Belt and Gloria Ross, they sound like soul singers from the 60s. Yeah, this story really stuck out to me because it's kind of one of those cases where a single night kind of changes everything and all of a sudden, everybody is implicated. You just can't really see outside of the bubble of the community where this story happens. It's also a story that ages over time. Like, we learn more about this case as the years and the decades progress. Another way to think about it is, you know, like, the high school parties that get broken up by the cops.

[Cooper Maul]

Yes, I've been to a few.

[Jonathan Hirsch]

Oh, my God, me too. And when the cops show up, everybody disperses. He went that way. Right. This is one of those stories where it seems like the people who were standing were when the cops showed up were the ones who ended up being taken down for the entire operation. Except the cops were maybe also part of organizing the party.

[Cooper Maul]

All right, okay.

[Jonathan Hirsch]

Coming up after the break, the story of the Kentucky brothel murders. Okay, so our story starts in September of 1994 in a town called Oak Grove, Kentucky. The New Life Massage Parlor is, like, this openly illegal brothel in the town. The town is situated just across the river from Fort Campbell, so a lot of the soldiers come through and actually go to this establishment. The madam is a woman by the name of Tammy Papler. And to stay open, Tammy has to pay off some of the right people. And this is documented. They say that the cops were on the payroll for this establishment. Try to just grease the wheels, keep things moving. Nobody asks any questions.

[Cooper Maul]

Dang.

[Jonathan Hirsch]

Okay, and one of the cops, a guy named Ed Carter, was not particularly happy with his situation at New Life, so.

[Cooper Maul]

Say more.

[Jonathan Hirsch]

Yeah. So he's been taken care of like the other cops. There was kickbacks that were provided on a regular basis, but he was more of, like, a de facto employee. He was like a janitor.

[Cooper Maul]

So he's not only a cop, but he's also a janitor at a brothel.

[Jonathan Hirsch]

Yeah, the metaphor is not lost on me that he was being paid to clean the brothel. Right. So seven or eight of the Oak Grove police officers from the town are. Are visiting this brothel regularly, as is the mayor.

[Cooper Maul]

So the men in uniform and elected officials are like, the main clientele of this place?

[Jonathan Hirsch]

It would seem so. They definitely play a huge part. I mean, this is not like a plot from a Taylor Sheridan movie that I'm reading to you. Though it does sound like it a little bit. Officer Carter is one of those people. He gets his regular cleaning service payments, Reid bribes. But over time, he becomes apparently sort of needy and overbearing.

[Cooper Maul]

It's hard to say no to a person in uniform, too.

[Jonathan Hirsch]

Yeah, and it sounds like maybe the situation gets. You get in a little too deep, I imagine. I can't say for myself I haven't been in a bribe situation before, but I'm imagining that if you were, you would get in a little bit too deep at some point. It would be hard to sort of extract yourself from the relationship. It's the cops, they could shut you down at any point. So the demands start to become somewhat oppressive on an illegal establishment that's trying to stay in business. Right?

[Cooper Maul]

Yeah. I mean they can always up the ante, right?

[Jonathan Hirsch]

Yeah, yeah, they can always ask for more. So at some point Tammy's like, enough's enough, we can't have you in here anymore. She bans him from the premises. She tells all her employees like don't let the guy in.

[Cooper Maul]

So she's like laying down the law to the law.

[Jonathan Hirsch]

Yeah, well, we'll see what happens with that. And that becomes the heart of what happens next. Right. Okay, so let's Fast forward to September 20th, 1994. It's about 2:00am in the morning. Officer Ed Carter shows up at the New Life massage parlor.

[Cooper Maul]

So he didn't respect Tammy's wishes, he

[Jonathan Hirsch]

was banned and he showed up anyway.

[Cooper Maul]

Completely violates the boundary in the middle of the night.

[Jonathan Hirsch]

Right. He shows up at the lobby and apparently comes in, picks up the telephone in the lobby and dials a few numbers as if he's like making a call and then hangs up the phone and then leaves without explaining himself. Super weird, really strange behavior. Like it appears he's got some intention for doing it, but like maybe he was trying to reach somebody. We don't really know. Around 3 o' clock in the morning. So an hour later, two co workers leave Candy Bell and Gloria Ross alone at the New Life parlor. They're going to get some food, like a late night food run. Candy by the way, is 22, she's a single mom. She has two kids that she's providing for by working at New Life. And Gloria is 18, so a little bit younger. She's also recently married and has a child of her own, a two month old girl. So about 35 minutes later, at 3:35 in the morning, the co workers come back and what they find is pretty terrifying. The door is locked, there's a heavy rock that's normally used to prop open the door that's been moved to block the entrance. And there's like an ashtray that's been overturned on the floor and the phone is off the hook.

[Cooper Maul]

It would be so creepy to just come back in the middle of the night to this scenario. Looks like so afraid to walk in.

[Jonathan Hirsch]

Yeah. And it gets Worse, when they get in, they discover Candy and Gloria in the back. They've both been shot execution style and their throats have been slashed. Gloria is dead at the scene. They rush Candy to the hospital and she dies a few hours later. Really, without having the ability to communicate what had happened.

[Cooper Maul]

So hold up. Like Gloria and Candy have been both shot and stabbed. Seems like total overkill. Cause one method would kill you either way. Like, what's going on there?

[Jonathan Hirsch]

Yeah, I get what you're saying. It's kind of like a contradiction in terms. Right. Like, you imagine when somebody shot execution style. There's a clinical nature to it. It's premeditated. They might not even know the person. They might just be carrying out orders.

[Cooper Maul]

Yeah. It's colder.

[Jonathan Hirsch]

Right. And then like when you slash somebody's throat, that happens in a fit of rage or psychosis or whatever.

[Cooper Maul]

It's crime of passion.

[Jonathan Hirsch]

Yeah. It's oftentimes somebody who probably knows the person or is in some kind of dark other state of mind when they do it. Not that anybody's in a good state of mind when they kill somebody, but you just see them as distinct kinds of crimes. And yet this contains both, which confuses people. Definitely. Yeah. I mean, it's confusing me. Yeah. And I can imagine that when people showed up at the scene at 4 o' clock that morning, that is exactly what was on the mind of some. Though I do need to tell you about the scene because stuff goes haywire after the cops show up at 4 o' clock in the morning.

[Cooper Maul]

These are the same cops that are patrons of this place. And the last guy seen at the massage parlor was a cop himself.

[Jonathan Hirsch]

Yeah.

[Cooper Maul]

I don't like where this is going.

[Jonathan Hirsch]

Yeah, Maybe not surprising at all that things start to get messy when they show up at the crime scene. But they're, you know, contaminating the crime scene from the second that they get there. They're removing shell casings and they're wiping down telephones for, like, fingerprints. It's just clear that there's a very messy job of handling a crime scene that's happening. The sheriff's deputies would later note that the scene was obviously contaminated from the start.

[Cooper Maul]

Yeah, sounds about right.

[Jonathan Hirsch]

Yeah. Maybe both metaphorically and physically contaminated. Given the nature of this story, the

[Cooper Maul]

contamination of this crime scene, like, could be cashed up to incompetence. But knowing what we know about the involvement of some of these police officers as patrons of this place, it raises big questions. Yeah, for sure. Sounds a little bit like it could be deliberate.

[Jonathan Hirsch]

Yeah, yeah. It's definitely a question, and we continue to ask ourselves that, I feel like, even to this day, about this case. So Detective Leslie Duncan is leading this investigation. He's Carter's former roommate, the guy who was the janitor.

[Cooper Maul]

The conflict of interest with this whole, like, former roomie now investigating you is massive here.

[Jonathan Hirsch]

Yeah, I mean, that is not the way this is supposed to go down. And like I said, the shell casings were removed from the scene. There was other questionable evidence. I mean, the phone that Carter had made the phone call on an hour before all of this happened was wiped down at the scene. And then later, when they performed the autopsy on Candy Belt, it suggested that there had been some kind of sexual assault that night. Tammy, the madam, had said that her employees always used protection with clients, which made this piece of evidence crucial because they did find DNA of another person.

[Cooper Maul]

So what, was there anything else missing from the scene? Money? Anything to suggest this could have been a robbery?

[Jonathan Hirsch]

Robbery was ruled out as a motive because there was no money taken. Which is even more perplexing. Right. It makes this attack look targeted and personal.

[Cooper Maul]

Definitely did. Like, do you think, like, Candy or Gloria could have pissed off the wrong john here?

[Jonathan Hirsch]

Entirely possible. Or maybe there was something going on in their life that we didn't know about.

[Cooper Maul]

Still, like knowing Ed Carter was there an hour before he's the last person seen there. It's not looking really good for him right now.

[Jonathan Hirsch]

I mean, definitely, based on what we know, it would seem that he'd be the prime suspect.

[Cooper Maul]

So do they start looking into him

[Jonathan Hirsch]

or Ed Carter a few months after this crime does agree to take a polygraph test? The results are never officially released, though. Shortly after, on October 5th, he abruptly resigns from the Oak Grove Police Department and becomes a private attorney.

[Cooper Maul]

That doesn't.

[Jonathan Hirsch]

Yeah, I don't know. So here's the thing. There's always a thing. Officer Carter wasn't just a cop with this side gig as a janitor.

[Cooper Maul]

What a resume.

[Jonathan Hirsch]

Yeah, I mean, really impressive cv. He was also having a relationship, an affair with the brothel's manager. Not Tammy, but the manager.

[Cooper Maul]

Oh, God. Okay, so they're really going to have to talk to this guy now.

[Jonathan Hirsch]

Yeah, the police talk to his wife, too, who by now has found out.

[Cooper Maul]

And she's giving zero Fs about this. Right.

[Jonathan Hirsch]

She's also not backing up his alibi.

[Cooper Maul]

Yeah, she's going to throw him under the bus, I'm sure.

[Jonathan Hirsch]

100%. So she tells the police that Carter had claimed he went home by three, which would have been before the murders. Right, but he didn't arrive home until after four, which is after the murders.

[Cooper Maul]

This does not look good for him.

[Jonathan Hirsch]

Yeah, his alibi is totally falling apart.

[Cooper Maul]

But you can't expect loyalty when you haven't been faithful.

[Jonathan Hirsch]

So, yeah, she wants him out of the house. She might want him in jail. Who knows what's going on there? Not my place to meddle, but it is starting to make the story a little bit more complicated. Right. There's some other pieces to the puzzle. One of them being a.22 caliber handgun that Carter was apparently in possession of. According to his wife, that they kept under the mattress, the gun was missing from around the time of the crime. And Carter, for his part, denies ever owning such a handgun. Do you want to hear what his wife had to say?

[Cooper Maul]

Yeah.

[Jonathan Hirsch]

Yeah. Quote, ed did own a small caliber gun. He kept it under the mattress for my protection.

[Cooper Maul]

Clearly, she's really not holding back.

[Jonathan Hirsch]

No. My protection being key there. It was not there that night. Carter. So despite these revelations, there's no arrest that's made in this case.

[Cooper Maul]

Crazy.

[Jonathan Hirsch]

He moves, Carter moves to another part of Kentucky. He gets a job as a part time police officer in a different town.

[Cooper Maul]

Possible.

[Jonathan Hirsch]

I mean, he was never charged. It's amazing what skipping out on a case can do for you. The initial detective also resigned. Duncan resigned in 1995, which was like a year later.

[Cooper Maul]

So nobody connected to this thing is around really anymore.

[Jonathan Hirsch]

Yeah. And then the evidence starts to disappear. So there were hairs, fibers, a knife, clothing. All of this evidence was misplaced or ignored.

[Cooper Maul]

Sounds a lot more like obstruction.

[Jonathan Hirsch]

Yeah, I mean, you can imagine where this is leading, where so many of these cases lead when the initial investigation goes haywire like this.

[Cooper Maul]

Yeah, it's going completely cold.

[Jonathan Hirsch]

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[Cooper Maul]

So to catch everybody up. Yeah, Gloria Ross and Candy Belt were brutally murdered in this brothel that they worked in.

[Jonathan Hirsch]

Right?

[Cooper Maul]

The this cop, Ed Carter, is immediately implicated in this due to his connections here at this brothel as both kind of a common patron and also the janitor. Anyway. Yeah, but as they start looking into him, as they start going through the evidence, all leads just kind of trail into the sand.

[Jonathan Hirsch]

Right.

[Cooper Maul]

The lead investigator looking into all this, he's resigned. And this case is just cold now.

[Jonathan Hirsch]

Yeah, some of the main characters have kind of dispersed and Carter still remains the primary suspect. But there's these two other figures that people had been looking at at the time of the crime in 1994, but neither of them had been seriously investigated. So the first one is Ryan Ross, Gloria's husband.

[Cooper Maul]

Makes sense to always kind of like look into the romantic partner of one of the victims.

[Jonathan Hirsch]

Yeah, I mean, the age old adage that it's like always the husband, he's a soldier at Fort Campbell. He's had this volatile relationship with Gloria. It did not go well. He appeared to be quite jealous and controlling from accounts. He told a private investigator that if Gloria was unfaithful to him that he would kill her.

[Cooper Maul]

Yeah, that's a common domestic violence trigger.

[Jonathan Hirsch]

Yeah, there's clearly something very off here. So the plot thickens yet again, as it is wont to do. And something I haven't mentioned to you yet is it's not just about the history of controlling behavior that Gloria's husband had clearly demonstrated. It's about who it was directed at because Gloria did have feelings for somebody. It just happened to be Candy.

[Cooper Maul]

Oh, wow. Okay. I wasn't expecting that. That bomb to drop.

[Jonathan Hirsch]

Yes. This is the soap opera turn in the story.

[Cooper Maul]

And you know, being gay, lesbian, queer back then was not like it is now.

[Jonathan Hirsch]

Definitely not.

[Cooper Maul]

I mean, you could call it an affair, but either way, they were gonna have to be secretive about this if they were having a relationship.

[Jonathan Hirsch]

Right.

[Cooper Maul]

So these two women that died, Candy and Gloria, they weren't just working at this brothel. They were also lovers. Lovers?

[Jonathan Hirsch]

Yes. Yeah. So shortly after the murders, Gloria's mother informed Ryan that her daughter had planned to leave him and move to Florida with her new baby.

[Cooper Maul]

Oh, and he did. I bet he did not like that.

[Jonathan Hirsch]

Yeah, he definitely wouldn't have liked that. It would explain the sort of crime of passion undertones to the murders. And then you start to try to put it together. Right. Like, how could this have all happened? How could Ryan have been a feature in this case? He had a key to the massage parlor through Gloria. And a neighbor had also claimed that Ryan left his home at around 3, 4 o' clock on the night of the murder.

[Cooper Maul]

Which doesn't look good for him at all.

[Jonathan Hirsch]

Yeah, totally aligns with the time frame. Right.

[Cooper Maul]

So there's a version of this that's kind of that classic, like, if I can't have you, nobody else can yeah.

[Jonathan Hirsch]

Yeah. Maybe that's what's going on here. And he had been questioned briefly in 1994. He failed a polygraph, but he never really went any further than that. And investigators never asked him for a DNA sample, so they can't compare it to what was found on Candy.

[Cooper Maul]

What the hell is going on here? It's like, inexcusable oversight.

[Jonathan Hirsch]

It really is. Okay, so there is Ryan now to add to the list of potential suspects. Then there's James Steve Henson. Henson's girlfriend had contacted the authorities after the murders.

[Cooper Maul]

A lot of women and just kind of down to throw their men under the bus here.

[Jonathan Hirsch]

And I know these men that are out there too. He had obtained a membership to New Life and wasn't home. On the window of time in question here back in 1994, what were all

[Cooper Maul]

these people, like, doing in the middle of the night?

[Jonathan Hirsch]

What are they doing with guns? So he returns after being gone during that window of time with the gun in question, a knife and gym shorts.

[Cooper Maul]

So besides the gym shorts, kind of everything you need to carry out this exact scenario.

[Jonathan Hirsch]

He sounds terrifying and crazy to me, the way this is being described. And his girlfriend says that he told her he had killed these women with the gun and a knife.

[Cooper Maul]

A confession. So what does she do with that information? What did the cops do with that information?

[Jonathan Hirsch]

Despite all of this evidence, he's never a serious subject of investigation.

[Cooper Maul]

So this is just another lead ignored.

[Jonathan Hirsch]

So this kind of leads me to something I've been thinking about with this case and a ton of cases. It's like when the crime scene isn't actually secured. There's so many questions that come out of that. Right. Was there tampering of evidence? If there are differing points of view on what happened that night, you can never really walk that back.

[Cooper Maul]

That's what gets litigated, not the actual crime.

[Jonathan Hirsch]

Right, right. We're just talking about the conflicting narratives or what we don't know about. And that's where I think the sort of media narratives start to play, especially in these big cases. I think this is, like, different than a whodunit. I've been trying to find, like, a word to describe it. Like, the best I can come up with, it's like a blame ricochet.

[Cooper Maul]

Yeah. Perfect way of putting it.

[Jonathan Hirsch]

Yeah. It's like a bullet that, like, hits off of one side and assigns blame here and then assigns blame there, and it's just bouncing around. And you can never really kind of make sense of what actually happened that night, because the foundations of the case are still unclear. So, JonBenet Ramsey. Right. The police point to the family, the family points to the police incompetence. The West Memphis three police point to, you know, Satan worshiping and, like, incorrect narratives about what those boys were up to. And then the courts eventually blame the procedural elements of the investigation. Amanda Knox. Right.

[Cooper Maul]

Great example.

[Jonathan Hirsch]

Yeah. I mean, the investigators blame this suspect narrative. And the defense says that the confession that she made was coerced. And Casey Anthony, it's all over the place. Right. Prosecutors are blaming the jury. The juries are blaming the evidence. The police are blaming sort of missteps early in the case. And the media, of course, is blaming public perception. So everybody's got a point of view on why we don't know what happened in this case.

[Cooper Maul]

Yeah, it makes everything so cloudy, and

[Jonathan Hirsch]

it also makes for us talking about it.

[Cooper Maul]

Yeah. Great story.

[Jonathan Hirsch]

Right. Okay, so Tammy, the brothel owner, and her husband are arrested in late 1994 for promoting prostitution. Okay. So there's some things you should know about the case. So back to the case here. Tammy Papler, the madam from the brothel, she and her husband, in late 1994, are arrested for promoting prostitution.

[Cooper Maul]

So the murder happening there, like, outed there.

[Jonathan Hirsch]

And the case is still going, even though they're being, you know, pursued for running the brothel. Essentially, they plead guilty and they get off on probation. And then they opened up an adult video store.

[Cooper Maul]

They're keeping it in theme.

[Jonathan Hirsch]

Yeah, I mean, they're. Yeah, they're entrepreneurs, you know, but moving with the times. Yeah, exactly. So Tammy, in regards to the case, though, is still very frustrated. She still feels like this is an unresolved issue. There's no consequences for what must have been a mortifying and awful experience. Yeah.

[Cooper Maul]

Happened under her business's roof.

[Jonathan Hirsch]

Yeah. And, I mean, people around town start to really. This becomes, like, you can imagine, a small town. This is like the rumor mill, the

[Cooper Maul]

talk of the town.

[Jonathan Hirsch]

Right. It's like the time those cops killed the two prostitutes is sort of the whispers around town, you know? But actual justice is very elusive at this point. So fast forward, we're in July of 1997.

[Cooper Maul]

So three years and no answers.

[Jonathan Hirsch]

No answers. And Tammy is fed up. She shows up at the Oak Grove City Council meeting and publicly accuses the police department and the city officials of corruption and covering up the double murder. She says, quote, this town is crooked, and I've got the paperwork to prove it.

[Cooper Maul]

So what does she show them?

[Jonathan Hirsch]

She produces canceled checks showing payments to Ed Carter labeled cleaning services, as we discussed, and obviously Those were bribes. This is from the actual city council meeting. She said the police thought they didn't have to investigate it because no one's going to ask any questions. They're just two dead prostitutes, and no one's going to care about it.

[Cooper Maul]

I mean, that quote really does kind of capture the entire injustice here, though.

[Jonathan Hirsch]

Yeah. To have been a fly on the wall. In this moment, the city councilwoman Patty Bellow, stands up and validates Tammy's claims. She announces that she herself worked at New Life Massage Parlor for two years under an alias.

[Cooper Maul]

This place is keeping, like, everyone employed.

[Jonathan Hirsch]

Yeah. I mean, everyone's involved. The councilwoman also confirmed that multiple local police officers and prominent citizens frequented the brothel. Essentially just saying, like, hey, let's deal away with pretense here. Everybody went to this place, including people in positions of power in city government.

[Cooper Maul]

Know already, though, right?

[Jonathan Hirsch]

Yeah. And that there were officers involved in the crime. Or at least she's claiming that at the time, she said, quote, those officers knew the routines, the ins and outs about the place, and that gave them an intimate knowledge of how to actually commit this crime.

[Cooper Maul]

She makes a good point. I mean, now you've got this insider in the community essentially confirming conspiracy here.

[Jonathan Hirsch]

Yeah. And I mean, national media is starting to descend on this case, too, at this point. They called it, or the Washington Post called it, a Kentucky soap opera stemming from a brothel slang.

[Cooper Maul]

Yeah. I mean, this whole thing is just like, direct to tabloid.

[Jonathan Hirsch]

Yeah. That's accurate, too. It's a good logline. So despite all of this hoopla, no charges are filed. It is still a cold case, but.

[Cooper Maul]

And at this point, these children of Candy and Gloria are probably a little bit older.

[Jonathan Hirsch]

Yeah.

[Cooper Maul]

Which makes me think, like, what about their families? Like, what are their parents, their loved ones? Like, what's going on with them?

[Jonathan Hirsch]

Yeah. I don't know about you guys, but this is the kind of stuff that absolutely infuriates me and motivates me to investigate cases. Right. You just see victims, families having to live with uncertainty for years and years. And in cases when it just feels like the whole investigation has been dropped or mishandled, you just feel for the families that have to go through this.

[Cooper Maul]

Can't help but notice.

[Jonathan Hirsch]

Yeah.

[Cooper Maul]

That because of Candy and Gloria's maybe socioeconomic status, their occupations as sex workers, I mean, these are people living on the margins. They're not being given the attention, say, Elizabeth Smart sort of case would get.

[Jonathan Hirsch]

Yeah. This is not JonBenet Ramsey or some of the other cases we talked about. The West Memphis Three Or Amanda Knox. This is a case that largely went under the radar for a long time and remains unsolved. So Gloria Ross's daughter, Shanice grows up without her mother. Right. She's raised with the knowledge that her mother's killers walked free because no justice has been done. Candy Belt's family lives with that same unresolved grief.

[Cooper Maul]

Drive me nuts.

[Jonathan Hirsch]

It's so frustrating. And it's compounded by the stigma of the profession itself. Right. So something that maybe people feel like they don't want to talk about. I've never spoken to the family, so I don't want to presume, but I can imagine that it's just very frustrating to see your. Your. Your own parents reduced to two dead prostitutes.

[Cooper Maul]

Right.

[Jonathan Hirsch]

A Kentucky soap opera stemming from a brothel slaying. Right.

[Cooper Maul]

That's awful.

[Jonathan Hirsch]

Okay, so 2006, we're fast forwarding here almost about a decade. The Kentucky. The Kentucky State Police take over the investigation from the local authorities.

[Cooper Maul]

So the state, finally.

[Jonathan Hirsch]

Yeah. Somebody. Detective Jason Newbie pushes really hard, but years pass without any breakthrough.

[Cooper Maul]

Well, yeah, I mean, so much time has passed. Whatever evidence was left was likely not preserved very well.

[Jonathan Hirsch]

Right.

[Cooper Maul]

Can't imagine there's a lot to dig up there.

[Jonathan Hirsch]

Yeah. And a couple states over in Arkansas. I mean, I was just thinking about our coverage of the Boys on the Tracks case. Sometimes there's intergenerational secrets that can be held here where, you know, people are holding back information because they're associated with people. Like, everything was so entrenched within the town that you can see why people would not come forward, at least not at the time. Okay, so 2012, the case is still unsolved. We are now inching on two decades. And there's a turn. The former detective, Leslie Duncan is arrested and charged with tampering with physical evidence.

[Cooper Maul]

Finally, some accountability.

[Jonathan Hirsch]

Duncan is accused of deliberately disposing of the shell casings, which we talked about from the murder weapon, and wiping the fingerprints off the lobby phone the night of the crime. And one of the first officers to arrive in 1994 had noticed this phone situation, that it was in a different position after Duncan had been at the scene. They corroborated the narrative. Yeah, exactly. So In September of 2013, about a year later, he pleads guilty and receives a three year prison sentence, largely time served at that point.

[Cooper Maul]

And he's pleading guilty to mishandling this

[Jonathan Hirsch]

crime scene, Right, Exactly. Yeah. And so in his plea, he admits that he mishandled the crime scene, but he denies that he had any sort of Malicious intent. He just sort of fumbled his way into a crime scene.

[Cooper Maul]

Duncan's conviction, though, I mean, this is in some way the first time that Needles ever really moved on this case.

[Jonathan Hirsch]

Yeah. And you hope that it's sort of like one domino falls and then another one falls, and there's sort of a cascade effect that might get to the heart of this. So Duncan pleads guilty. He receives his three year prison sentence. But in his plea, he says that he mishandled the crime scene, but not with malicious intent. In other words, he did not tamper with the crime scene with the intent of obfuscating the truth or protecting maybe some of his colleagues or people that might be implicated in it. So we don't. It's sort of a 50, 50 outcome here, but the fact that he did concede to the wrongdoing, and it, I think, gave some life to this case. And prosecutors.

[Cooper Maul]

Yeah, let's take a look at it again.

[Jonathan Hirsch]

Yeah. They're. They're continuing to pursue who they believe to be the masterminds of the case. Yeah. So fast forward a couple of months to November of 2013. Additional arrests are made. A grand jury in Christian county, which is nearby, indicts Ed Carter. I bet he our janitor.

[Cooper Maul]

Yeah, I bet he didn't think this was gonna come back.

[Jonathan Hirsch]

Two counts of murder. Then there's Frank J. Black, Jr. Who is charged with two counts of murder, as well as Carter's sort of alleged accomplice in this case. And Leslie Duncan, our investigator, he's in on it. Two additional counts of complicity to murder, aiding and abetting the killers. This is the triad of people who are implicated now by the prosecution.

[Cooper Maul]

So I'm familiar with Ed Carter and Leslie Duncan, but we haven't talked about Frank Black. Yeah, I'm not too sure. Tell me about this guy.

[Jonathan Hirsch]

Yeah. So he doesn't have any law enforcement ties. He does have a violent history, though. And the night after the murders in 1994, he assaulted a hotel guest at a nearby town and attempted to rape her at knifepoint.

[Cooper Maul]

So they started connection between the kind of the way the crimes look.

[Jonathan Hirsch]

Right.

[Cooper Maul]

And the proximity.

[Jonathan Hirsch]

Yeah, yeah, exactly. The way that the crime went down appeared to be consistent with behavior that he had shown. He was convicted in 95 for that act. He served seven years. The knife that Black used in the assault was a similar weapon to the one that was used in the Candy Belt and Gloria Ross case. He lived in Clarksville, Tennessee, which was like 20 minutes from oak Grove. And one witness stated that they were with Black. On September 20, 1994, and that they had allegedly saw him go into the New Life massage parlor around the time of the murders. Circumstantial. But there is a person who claims to have seen him enter the night of the murders. But this witness was also, I should say, developmentally disabled. So there's some questions about whether or not that individual had been coached by the prosecution. Again, this case is so full of rumors and speculation, it's hard to tell,

[Cooper Maul]

really the bulk of what's there.

[Jonathan Hirsch]

Yeah, the soap opera. The Kentucky soap opera.

[Cooper Maul]

Nevertheless. Yeah, the state finally has three guys they can bring into this grand jury. What is their theory of how they all pulled this off together?

[Jonathan Hirsch]

Yeah. So the theory is that Carter was the mastermind and that he did this. You're gonna love this. As a revenge against Tammy Papler, the madam, for cutting him out of his job as the janitor at the brothel.

[Cooper Maul]

This is motivated by, like, being a disgruntled employee.

[Jonathan Hirsch]

Yeah. I think this might be a reoccurring theme of Crime Scene. Just how many crimes are committed by men with fragile egos? Anyway, so he calls up Frank Black Jr. To be the sort of trig. The detective, the new detective on the case. Detective Newby, the one who took on the case after Duncan. He had said on the stand that, quote, it was common knowledge that Carter wanted to take over the massage parlor,

[Cooper Maul]

so he wanted to some gig. Okay, so he wanted to be a cop, a janitor, and a madame.

[Jonathan Hirsch]

Look, he doesn't want a label, okay? This is a new era. He wants to be whatever his heart desires. And clearly it is the proprietor of a massage parlor. I know. I'm a little bit like, okay, really? And he went on. He said that Carter was outside that night and that he saw there were only the two girls left inside. So he calls up his trigger man, Frank Black, to come over and carry out the murder for him like it was a premeditated crime.

[Cooper Maul]

Yeah, that's certainly what it looks like.

[Jonathan Hirsch]

Yeah. I mean, if that's what happened. But again, this is all just narrative at this point. Carter's held on a $1 million bail, and after nearly 20 years, it does appear, though, with shaky evidence, that justice

[Cooper Maul]

might finally be served, they might finally have their guys.

[Jonathan Hirsch]

Yeah. Coming up, the case finally lands in a courtroom and an ending nobody in Oak Grove saw coming. This episode is brought to you by Fandango. People say fans are too distracted these days, but the truth is, when a great movie hits the the screen, you show up, you stay glued, invested. Part of the story. And without fans like you, there'd be no cinema magic, no shared moments. So head to fandango.com to get tickets, stream or rent or buy top movies and series. Fandango loves fans.

[Cooper Maul]

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[Jonathan Hirsch]

Right.

[Cooper Maul]

They're coming before a grand jury trial.

[Jonathan Hirsch]

Right.

[Cooper Maul]

This case, though, has got to be really complex since so much time has passed, so much evidence is gone. Like, how do they start assembling a case for this trial?

[Jonathan Hirsch]

No, it's a really good question. So, like, the prosecution has to put all of this together, right? Without a murder weapon, without evidence that we talked about, without really clear, corroborated narratives across the witnesses, and we're also talking about 22 years since the initial crime took place. There was an audio recording of a key witness that placed Black at the scene, but that recording was lost.

[Cooper Maul]

Okay, so this is all just kind of following the same pattern as before.

[Jonathan Hirsch]

Yeah, exactly. How are they actually going to bring justice for this family? 22 years after the murders, Ed Carter, Frank Black, and Leslie Duncan are tried in Christian County Court. Carter's suspicious actions are sort of the core of this, right? That he arrived late home that night, that there was a missing.22 caliber that his wife Carol pointed out so astutely, and that there were sort of false statements like, I didn't have a gun, but he actually had a gun. There's also Black's propensity towards knife violence that had happened around the same time and his proximity to the scene.

[Cooper Maul]

A lot of this. So much of this is circumstantial, Right?

[Jonathan Hirsch]

It's really hard when you put it all together. You wonder what's gonna happen. Actually hold up in court, right? Then there's Duncan, who tampers with the evidence, but also is explicitly pleading guilty. Pleading guilty to the tampering of evidence, but not to any kind of malicious intent in relationship to the evidence itself. And of course, there's Tammy, who can testify with receipts and checks that show this, like, sort of wider criminal conspiracy.

[Cooper Maul]

Yeah, it's just a paper trailer. Yeah.

[Jonathan Hirsch]

She recounts Carter being, like, especially needy about the payments and about their relationship to each other, which, of course, led to her giving him the boot in the first place. Tell me about the relationship between you and Ronnie and Ed Carter.

[Cooper Maul]

How did it begin? He came by.

[Jonathan Hirsch]

He would come by and check on things, check on us, check on the

[Cooper Maul]

girls, be friendly, would need things, was your protector, and was very needy. We would give him money, we'd buy him equipment.

[Jonathan Hirsch]

He would come to our house, bring

[Cooper Maul]

his patrol car to our house, bring

[Jonathan Hirsch]

his drug dog to our house. There was, I think I also mentioned DNA that was found on Candy at the time they tested it, and it did not match Carter, Belt or Duncan.

[Cooper Maul]

That does not look good for the prosecution's case.

[Jonathan Hirsch]

Yeah. They suggest that the DNA could have been from some unknown client. But like I said before, Candy and all of the employees there, Tammy, had claimed used protection. And there was also no record in the log of her having any customers that night. So this is the point that the defense really zeroes in on.

[Cooper Maul]

Right.

[Jonathan Hirsch]

There's no witness or document linking Carter and Black to each other. No phone records, meetings, or communications between them. The defense argues also that Carter is on trial for, like, being a bad cop and an unfaithful husband, which I think he maybe should be on trial for, but it's not the case at hand here. Right. And they're also saying that, like, Ryan Ross, the husband.

[Cooper Maul]

Yeah, Gloria's husband.

[Jonathan Hirsch]

Gloria's husband is not being considered, nor is James Henson. These were plausible suspects. So if we're gonna talk about circumstantial evidence, why are we not focusing on them?

[Cooper Maul]

This is called a third party culprit defense. This is when the defense alleges and tees up that there are other people we should be looking at than the people on trial here.

[Jonathan Hirsch]

Right? Yeah. Sort of like the most recently. Like the Karen Reid trial.

[Cooper Maul]

Yeah, Major part of that trial.

[Jonathan Hirsch]

Yeah. So after the prosecution presents all of its evidence, Duncan's lawyer moves for a directed verdict. The special judge in this case, Philip Patton, agrees. And on September 14, 2016, the complicity to murder charge against Duncan is dropped. The judge also found that prosecutors had failed to really demonstrate that Duncan had actively conspired in these killings versus sort of like botching the investigation. And that left it up to the jury to deliberate on whether or not Carter and Black had something to do with this. So September 14, 2016, after two hours of deliberation which is not that much.

[Cooper Maul]

Yeah, not long at all.

[Jonathan Hirsch]

The jury returned to not guilty on all counts for Ed Carter and Frank Black. Kentucky vs. Ed Carter. The jury has returned the following verdict. As to count one, murder, the following verdict has been returned. We, the jury find the defendant Ed Carter not guilty. Signed by the poor person. As to count two, murder, the jury has returned the following verdict. We, the jury, find the defendant Ed Carter not guilty. Does anyone want to have the jury polled on this verdict with regard to Commonwealth of Kentucky vs Frank Black? As to count one, the jury has returned the following verdict. We, the jury find the defendant Frank Black not guilty. As to count two, murder, the jury has returned the following verdict. We, the jury find the defendant Frank Black not guilty.

[Cooper Maul]

I mean, I can't say I'm surprised here. I mean, when you have this much evidence, and I know we've belabored this so much, but this much missing evidence, you know, this is 80s. It's not like CCTV everywhere. This is already taking place in a establishment that is trying to kind of operate, you know, below board.

[Jonathan Hirsch]

Right.

[Cooper Maul]

There's just not a lot there. And then add 20 plus years after the fact.

[Jonathan Hirsch]

Yeah. And like, I don't think any of us are going to have sympathy for Ed Carter and his plight, but you imagine that if he truly did not do this, which in a court of law was determined that he did not, this guy had spent three years in jail for a crime that he did not commit. And so, you know, the documentation at the time indicated that he had been like, sort of gasping and weeping with relief at the time that the sentence was not brought down on him. And the jurors would later say that while they had many suspicions about the defendant's involvement, the evidence just wasn't there to convict beyond a reasonable doubt.

[Cooper Maul]

I mean, yeah, there's some critical forensic gaps here. There was no murder weapon, no matching DNA, no concrete link between Carter and Black. The state's case, you know, was pretty

[Jonathan Hirsch]

threadbare here after 22 years, yet another example of a case where it seemed at the time that there would have been momentum and a lot of places to look. Nothing happens. Time just continues to move on. And here we are without a verdict or justice for this family. So there's like the official version of this, which is deeply disappointing, but in a way, this story really does carry on in a community like this. You know, it's more than just a not guilty because people are talking about it in their homes, they're talking about it at the bar. It's in the group text like, who did this? You know, this case really does live on, and hopefully somebody will unearth the truth about what happened here. So here we are today. You know, the double homicide case is still unresolved. So there were some civil lawsuits that came out of this. Gloria Ross's daughter, Shanice, filed a wrongful death lawsuit against Ed Carter and Leslie Duncan and the city of Oak Grove. That was either settled out of court or just hasn't been publicized. And then there's, you know, Ed Carter, who spent those three years in jail. He sues the Kentucky State Police detective Jason Newby, for malicious prosecution, which is unsurprising. Right. Like, he said that they had fabricated conclusions and presented false statements. At one point in the trial, they had said that Carter's wife had claimed he had washed bloody clothes on the murder night, which he insists was completely made up by the prosecution.

[Cooper Maul]

Accuser becomes the accused in this situation.

[Jonathan Hirsch]

Yeah, they're sort of turning the tables here. It doesn't provide justice for. For the families, necessarily, but there is a lot that this man went through if he indeed had nothing to do with this.

[Cooper Maul]

Yeah. I mean, to play devil's advocate, you know, had my name been disparaged like this and I was incarcerated for something I didn't do, I would probably seek some accountability there.

[Jonathan Hirsch]

Yeah. And we have no reason to not given the judgment. Right. So the scandal is defining this town for decades. I can imagine. Forever, to an extent. But two weeks after Carter's acquittal in 2016, an Oak Grove police supervisor is arrested for running a prostitution ring out of a local motel.

[Cooper Maul]

No way.

[Jonathan Hirsch]

Holding women against their will, pimping them. So this is. This is like legacy, a problem that extends beyond the specific institution, which does, I gotta admit, sound like a plot out of a Taylor Sheridan movie TV show. The corruption continues. Right. So Candy Bell and Gloria Ross, the subject of the story, they have never really received justice. Tammy Papler, the madam, believes that they were dismissed as just two dead prostitutes and their lives didn't matter enough for all of us to pursue aggressively.

[Cooper Maul]

So awful. I mean, I agree with Tammy there.

[Jonathan Hirsch]

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I think I do, too.

[Cooper Maul]

I mean, even before this, I had never heard of this story. And you think about, you know, the stories that the media chooses to cover versus the ones that kind of get buried. And a lot of times that has to do with what the victim looks like and how they present and what

[Jonathan Hirsch]

they do, their socioeconomic status. One of Candy's friends had said that Candy wasn't just an escort. She was a mother of two. She graduated first in her class from Providence High. She wanted to be an accountant.

[Cooper Maul]

She was just doing what she had to do to get by.

[Jonathan Hirsch]

Yeah. She was loved. And if you met her, you would have loved her. I know. So this case is obviously like a cautionary tale about small town corruption. But there's another piece of this that's sort of interesting, which is like, to be a sex work worker at this time is to have a criminalized profession. And that places you in quite a vulnerable position, whether or not you assign, you know, criminality to their jobs or their activities. These young women were imperiled by virtue of their. By their work. And, you know, I really do hope that some answers can come to this family eventually. So before we wrap up here, this case could be seen through so many different lenses. I'm curious what sort of you're seeing having heard all of this evidence.

[Cooper Maul]

Yeah. I think what I keep coming back to is when an environment is created where a murder like this could go unpunished.

[Jonathan Hirsch]

Yeah.

[Cooper Maul]

For, you know, three decades. There's clearly systemically an issue here.

[Jonathan Hirsch]

Right.

[Cooper Maul]

And I think this could be one of those cases, unfortunately, that you just have to sit in that discomfort where it's like, I think I know what happened.

[Jonathan Hirsch]

Yeah.

[Cooper Maul]

But I can't say for sure.

[Jonathan Hirsch]

And it definitely just didn't happen by accident. So something happened and somebody is responsible for it. And, yeah, it kind of feels like everybody, person that's been accused holds a piece of the story. Do you know what I mean?

[Cooper Maul]

It's like they're a mosaic. If they were all to just kind of come together, we might be able to see this clear.

[Jonathan Hirsch]

It kind of makes sense that the prosecution would sort of put these different pieces together, even though no one makes sense. Like Ed Carter doesn't make sense. There's no DNA. Ryan Ross, sure. You know, he had this history with his. With his wife, and then also potentially a motive there. But again, there's no evidence beyond that.

[Cooper Maul]

There's just a missing link with each one of these.

[Jonathan Hirsch]

Yeah. You just look at all of these and you just sort of wonder, like, and then who was the DNA that was found on Candide? Like, who did that come from? There's no. There's no clear understanding of. Of where that came from or who that might have been.

[Cooper Maul]

I'm actually surprised they haven't pursued other forensic methods in this case, like genetic genealogy or something like that. Right. That's like, we've seen that cracking a lot of these missing DNA cases.

[Jonathan Hirsch]

Get on it everybody. Like we would love to see this case relitigated and reconsidered. So you know, let us know what you think. We'll certainly be watching this now and into the future and hopefully something can come of it. It's been 30 years later and Candy Belt and Gloria Ross still await justice.

[Cooper Maul]

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