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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
If you're as into true crime as I am, then you need to join our free newsletter I@patreon.com thebinge if you're watching this episode, then you can see just how easy it is to become a free member of our community today. Our newsletter comes out twice a month and offers exclusive insights, behind the scenes photos and videos, and more on how we report these incredible stories. Sign up today@patreon.com thebinge we'll see you there. Thanks so much for joining us on Song Crime Scene. This show is a production of Sony Podcasts and the Binge. Thank you to everyone who makes this show happen each week. Also, we love journalism. These stories are deeply informed by the reporting that has brought these cases to light. We stand on the shoulders of giants. To learn more about our sourcing, check out the extensive bibliography listed in our show notes. Be sure to like, subscribe and follow wherever you watch. You can get exclusive content from us and over 50 jaw dropping true crime series ready to binge ad free right now by subscribing to the Binge on Apple Podcasts or go to getthebinge.com to explore all the true crime stories included in your subscription. Two Good and Coffee Creamers are made with farm fresh cream, real milk and contain 3 grams of sugar per serving. That's 40% less than the 5 grams per serving in leading traditional coffee creamers for a rich, delicious experience. Whether you enjoy your coffee hot, cold, bold or frothy, two Good Coffee Creamers make every sip a good one two Good Coffee Creamers Real goodness in every sip. Find them at your local Kroger in the creamer aisle.
Crime Scene — "Kentucky Brothel Murders" (April 9, 2026, Sony Music Entertainment)
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.
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.
For further sources, reporting, and exclusive material, see the episode bibliography in the show notes or join their Crime Scene newsletter community.