Frosty the Ice Man

Summary

Podcast Summary: Paper Ghosts: The Texas Teen Murders

Episode Title: Frosty the Ice Man
Date: December 10, 2025
Host: M. William Phelps
Podcast Network: iHeartPodcasts

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Overview

In this episode of Paper Ghosts: The Texas Teen Murders, investigative journalist M. William Phelps dives deeper into the devastating ripple effects of the 1983 murders of two teenagers in Parker County, Texas. This episode, "Frosty the Ice Man," focuses on the connections between the families, community rumors, and the evolving theory that drugs—particularly a meth trade tied to a figure known as "Frosty"—may have played a role in the killings. Phelps weaves together personal anecdotes, community trauma, and new witness accounts, seeking to separate myth from reality in a case mired by decades of rumor and silence.

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Key Discussion Points and Insights

1. The Enduring Pain of the Families

[02:41-09:59]

• Phelps frames the tragedies through novelist Larry McMurtry’s lens of Texas: a place of beauty and “American bleakness.”
• Interviews with family members, like Patricia Springer and Raymond T. Garina, convey the immense and ongoing suffering resulting from the murders.
  • Patricia Springer: Reminisces about her daughter Shelly’s love for her horse and innocence before tragedy struck.

    “I can't even tell you, she loved that horse a lot more than she loved me.” (04:56)

  • Raymond T. Garina: Describes his brother Vincent Sr.'s obsessed, life-consuming quest for justice for his murdered son, and the family’s belief that the truth was covered up by authorities.

    “It took his life away from him… that was his only son and he was 16 years old.” (09:45)

2. Community Rumors and Law Enforcement Distrust

[13:43-15:40, 21:05-24:32]

• Family and community members recall other unsolved killings in the area, especially the murder of Wendy Robinson, which, like Shelly and Vincent's case, remains officially unresolved.
• Suspicion falls on law enforcement—rumors swirl that the crimes were inside jobs or covered up.
  • Mel Mitchell: Discusses the chain effect of murders, the community's suspicion, and a belief that justice has been systemically denied.

    “There was just so many, so many [murders] that were not even written about... I just hope that they can stop the chain of murder that goes on over there.” (13:43)

3. The Case of Wendy Robinson & Link to Suspects

[21:05-29:14]

• Focus on Ricky Lee Adkins as the convicted killer in the Wendy Robinson case—distinct from the earlier-discussed Ricky Lee Green.
  • Patricia Springer shares that Adkins' later confession implicated others, but only Adkins was convicted.

    “They all put it on the other guy. Now, unfortunately, Atkins is the only one who has been convicted of that.” (25:50)

  • Patricia notes the linking factor: both Robinson’s and Vincent's cars were Monte Carlos found with critical items missing, though definitive links fade under scrutiny.

4. New Witness Testimony & Party Confession

[35:31-44:23]

• Mel Mitchell recounts a chilling memory: At a party in Horseshoe Bend, she overheard a man—one implicated by rumor and whose name is censored—admit, "We killed those kids."

  “He started mouthing off the thing that caught my attention... I heard him say, we killed those kids. And that immediately got my attention, and it scared me.” (38:11)

• She describes subsequent intimidation by local law enforcement, supporting persistent local rumors about a cover-up tied to those with power.
  • When asked by Phelps whether she felt this was meant to intimidate her:

    “I think he was trying to. Yeah, I think he was trying to scare me.” (43:58)

5. The "Frosty" Theory – Motive and Meth Connection

[44:38-48:52]

• Phelps details the prominence of Ernest Alford "Frosty" Cauliflower, Shelly’s uncle, as a notorious local meth cook.

  • Frosty's refusal to cook for a powerful dealer ("the Breaking Bad kingpin of Parker County") may have set the stage for revenge.
  • Phelps posits that Shelly’s murder could have been a message to Frosty—tying the case more to the drug trade than personal vendettas.

    “So this now gave me a direct connection between one of the victims, Shelley's uncle Frosty, the meth trade, and one of the names I have been censoring... Within all of that, a monumental motive emerges.” (46:34)

• Mel Mitchell and Allen Carter both reinforce Frosty’s role and connections:

  • “Frosty was like one of the big wigs back then when it came, you know, he's the Walter White of Parker county when it came to cooking methamphetamine.” (46:43)

  • The presence of local DAs and law enforcement among Frosty's Facebook friends indicates unusual ties between criminals and authorities.

6. A Tangled Web: Allen Carter’s Account

[52:22-55:32]

• Allen Carter introduces firsthand experience with the feuds and paranoia of the Parker County meth scene.
  • He says law enforcement recently questioned him about the murders, suspecting he and an unnamed man (implicated in rumors) were involved, but he passed a polygraph.
  • Revelations include the alleged recovery of the murder weapon from one of the suspected men and a pattern of unexpected deaths and disappearances among those connected to the case.

    “A lot of the people started disappearing, getting killed, weird accidents, all kinds of stuff.” (55:19)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On long-term trauma:

  “They say the day a child dies crushes a parent's soul. But that's not true. It's every day after their child is still gone that hurts the most.”
  – M. William Phelps (07:48)

• On law enforcement’s reputation:

  “It’s unbelievable today and time that they’re still allowed to do all this.”
  – Mel Mitchell (14:19)

• On drug motives:

  “If this is not a serial killer case, and I don’t believe it is, there has to be a direct love, money, revenge, one of only three basic motives for murder.”
  – M. William Phelps (41:43)

• On party confession:

  “We killed those kids.”
  – Unnamed suspect, overheard by Mel Mitchell (38:11)

• On Frosty’s underworld position:

  “Frosty was the Breaking Bad Walter White of his time. And I was told Parker County's Gus Fring... wanted Frosty to cook for him. But Frosty rebuked his offers.”
  – M. William Phelps (44:38)

• On law enforcement coercion and fear:

  “After that, I was just... everybody in town was scared of them because of their reputation, and I was one of them.”
  – Mel Mitchell (40:08)

• On community silence and risk:

  “A lot of the people started disappearing, getting killed, weird accidents, all kinds of stuff.”
  – Allen Carter (55:19)

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Key Timestamps & Segments

• [02:41] – Phelps compares Parker County to Larry McMurtry’s Texas; introduces lasting pain for the families.
• [04:56] – Patricia Springer shares memories of Shelly.
• [13:43] – Mel Mitchell on multiple local murders and community loss.
• [21:05] – Wendy Robinson murder discussed as a parallel case.
• [35:31] – Mel Mitchell recounts party confession she witnessed.
• [44:38] – Introduction of Frosty/family connection to drug trade as possible motive.
• [52:22] – Allen Carter’s firsthand account with law enforcement and murder suspicions.
• [55:19] – Carter talks about the pattern of mysterious deaths among associated individuals.

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Conclusion & Episode Arc

This episode draws a complex tapestry linking personal tragedy, small-town rumor, organized crime, and longstanding mistrust of law enforcement in the Texas teen murders. As new witness testimony surfaces—particularly the recounting of a direct confession at a party and the deepening meth conspiracy theory surrounding "Frosty"—the central question evolves. Are authorities willfully overlooking suspects tied to both law enforcement and drug trade for political or corrupt reasons? The case remains as cold and enigmatic as ever, but Phelps’s dogged investigation peels back layers, hinting at the dark undercurrents beneath Parker County's quiet surface.

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Next Episode Teaser:
More on polygraph results, missing evidence, and the continuing mystery of the embattled family and community still seeking justice.

Transcript

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[M. William Phelps]

Please check out my weekly podcast, Crossing the Line with M. William Phelps, where I delve into a new missing person and Cold Case Murder each week, wherever you get your favorite shows. He called Texas a place of unpeopled horizons, a land of American bleakness, brazenly adding that culturally, socially and intellectually, Texas is empty. He also won an Oscar for his script Brokeback Mountain and is considered the most well known best selling authority to come out of the Lone Star State. The late, great, Pulitzer Prize winning novelist Larry McMurtry, who gave us Lonesome Dove, the Last Picture show and Hud to name only a few of his 30 plus bestselling books. McMurtry had a love hate relationship with his home state and often focused on that bleakness, depicting his characters as corrupt, broken and easily swayed by the devil's offerings. As I traveled throughout Parker county, developing sources, building trusting relationships, I began to understand McMurtry's passive aggressive brashness for the place he called home. Many of those good, honest, caring people I met, and even those I had reported on, felt as if they'd walked straight off the pages of a McMurtry novel. If I was to find any answers in these cases, I would need to appreciate that the testimony from those I spoke to and even those I hadn't, was inherently their own and that a deeper truth can often emerge from what is a fractured, scorned and broken space inside of people. And truth, as I have said before, is akin to a mountain standing tall all on its own, unmovable and even unshakable. Yet the issue I kept running into was getting to the summit of the mountain without falling.

[Patricia Springer]

I can't even tell you she loved that horse a lot more than she loved me. She spent more time with Dancer than, you know, when she was home. She was out there messing with with Dancer. He was green broke. So green broke means that you're kind of broke, you know. And so when she would ride, I would have to ride first to get him warmed up and such. And so, oh gosh, she loved that horse.

[M. William Phelps]

What could be more innocent or western? Exemplifying that nostalgic image of Texas Larry McMurtry paints so vividly than a teenage girl on her horse under a Texas sky on a summer day.

[Patricia Springer]

A big memory I have of her is one day she was walking the fence line, you know, with Dancer. And I said, I hollered at her and I said, shelly, I said, pull him up. I said, he's going to sleep. I said, I'm telling you he's asleep. And she looks at me, she goes, shh. You know, like, don't wake him up. But, you know, he could have woke up and he could have just threw her right off, but everything was okay. But I just had that. That's just embedded in the way she looked and told me to shh.

[M. William Phelps]

As Janetta says, Ronnie Cauliflower bought Dancer, the horse Shelly named and loved so much. And so when I hear an anecdote such as the one Jannetta just shared, along with how Ronnie liked to sit and watch his stepdaughter ride, even though the guy was ducking me and had acted a bit sketchy throughout the years, according to some I spoke to, there is no way I can believe Ronnie could have had anything whatsoever to do with killing Shelly or her boyfriend. That accusation has no place on the mountain next to me, but rather fits conveniently into a fictionalized version of this case some have created. Ronnie Cauliflower raised that girl as if she was his own. And her death had broken the man to the point where for decades, he refused to even talk about it. Forgive me for this, but. So Ronnie was with you that weekend you were gone?

[Patricia Springer]

Yes.

[M. William Phelps]

What if some people say Ronnie had something to do with it? What would you say? Not a chance. That he got somebody to do it or anything like that? No.

[Mel Mitchell]

I believe that in my heart. When they asked me. Will you please ask me that? I believe that in my heart.

[Patricia Springer]

That's the first thing they asked me.

[M. William Phelps]

When a murder wraps a family in a cocoon of emotional hell, those who have not lived through the experience could never understand the totality of that loss. They say the day a child dies crushes a parent's soul. But that's not true. It's every day after their child is still gone that hurts the most. There's also a physical toll the weight of a child's murder places on the backs of parents. As you have heard throughout, Jeanetta Cauliflower Smith suffers still to this day because of a loss shattering every aspect of her life. She's broken like a piece of glass. In a similar fashion, Vincent D. T Jarena Sr. Worked tirelessly every day of his life searching for the answers to his son's murder. He did not stop. Some say he was obsessed. How could a parent in his position not be? The guy badgered the Weatherford police and pushed them to not give up, even as the years passed and the case fell, and as though it would never be solved, here's Raymond T. Garina, once again, Vincent's brother, whom you have heard in previous episodes. This must have destroyed your brother. Tell me about that, if you can.

[Raymond T. Garina]

Well, he wanted so bad for, you know, either him to find the killers or the police to find the killers and prosecute him. Whatever it's been done. And here it is 42 years later and nothing still. But I'm going to say that that's what it was, you know, to me, that's what it was. A sure sign. And they all covered it up.

[M. William Phelps]

He was never the same after this happened. I can imagine.

[Raymond T. Garina]

Oh no. It took his life away from him. That was his only son and he was 16 years old. I mean, I don't mind it. In the prime of his time, I mean.

[M. William Phelps]

Yep, horrible.

[Raymond T. Garina]

So yes, he tore him all to hell and it was not the same. He talked to me a lot. You know, he would just try to get some of the steam out of him and stuff like that. And he talked to me a lot, every time I saw him and stuff. And he came up and saw me, you know, came to see me and stuff like that. And we talked and stuff like that. I kept telling him, giving him hope that they will find him, you know, we'll find it.

[M. William Phelps]

The longing and the need for answers eats away at a parent like rust on an old farming tractor out in a pasture. I will never stop saying it. The ripple effect of murder reverberates like a perpetual echo, generation after generation. So Vincent, your brother, two Texas Rangers started to talk to him. Is that true?

[Raymond T. Garina]

Yes, yes.

[M. William Phelps]

Tell me about that.

[Raymond T. Garina]

Nothing was done and my son hired a private investigator and he's one cooperating at all with him and stuff like that. So they, they summoned the Texas Rangers to come in and investigate it because they kept saying that it was an inside job, okay, as you call it, police. And they were covering up, but the rangers came and they could never find out. And you know, the police, I'm sure didn't cooperate with the dam, with them. That's what I heard. Police wouldn't do nothing. I mean we, I went and talked to them, you know, they were not sharing any kind of information, all this stuff. One officer came and called us in, called me and called my brother in law which was married to my sister. And we went and talked to him and they didn't have that much thing to tell us, that this just had been pursued and some guy that had left town, I don't know whether he was around the place, anything or anything like that or what, but he left town right after that night. I believe he left for the northern states and Ohio, somewhere up there in that northern part. And they were chasing him for two weeks and he finally came in on his own and took a potty test and ran it. And he was questioning a lot and everything. And it's determined he wasn't in it. We let him go. And they had no leads of any kind, anything? That's what they told us.

[M. William Phelps]

Several sources told me the person Raymond mentioned, a schoolmate of Vincent and Shelley's, was up on Piss Hill that night. It was 10:30pm when he and a family member with him heard three gunshots and right afterward saw a young man, one of the names I have censored throughout the podcast, standing near Vincent's car. The schoolmate left town right after the murders because I was told his life had been threatened. He was eventually located out of state by investigators and, and agreed to take a polygraph, which law enforcement says he passed. I'm so sorry this happened to your family, Raymond.

[Raymond T. Garina]

Yes, yes, I am too. My brother, he never was the same. He started deteriorating and he had been discharged from medical discharge from the army, so he just started deteriorating, deteriorating. He was young, yeah, 30, I believe.

[M. William Phelps]

Here's another Tjarina family member you heard from earlier in the podcast. And as you'll hear, utterly implicit in her voice there is that generational ripple effect. I mentioned.

[Mel Mitchell]

What they did to not just our family, but many other families, you know, like Wendy's family. And there was a couple of, you know, young African American boys that were killed and murdered for no reason. There was just so many, so many things and so many that were not even written about that we know about that were missing, you know, so I just hope that they can stop the chain of murder that goes on over there. It's unbelievable today and time that they're still allowed to do all this. It's unbelievable to me.

[M. William Phelps]

Vincent Sr. Kept a secret from most everyone in the family, including Vincent Jr. Throughout all of this. He was very ill Then on February 23, 1986, not quite three years since his son's murder, at just 38 years old, Vincent died from complications of a lung issue he'd struggled with for years, never knowing what happened or who was responsible for the murder of his son.

[Mel Mitchell]

Because he'd been working in the commercial painting industry back then. Of course, the lead based paint ended up getting, getting him health wise. But he really wore himself down trying, you know, so hard to get information. He would not let up. He was constantly at the police station, he was constantly talking to newspapers, anybody that would listen to him, trying to get answers. Even on his, you know, deathbed, he was just like, you know, I'm gonna be with my son now. His son was everything to him. He was a great kid.

[M. William Phelps]

Previously on Paper Ghosts.

[Patricia Springer]

There's a man that worked on that ranch that found her body laying there. He had gone to enter the ranch and that's when he discovered her.

[Commercial Announcer]

It appeared that she had been sexually assaulted. She had been bound by the hands and feet. She had, like, her bathing suit top on and some shorts on. And then she had been bludgeoned in the head. And they believe it may have been a rock.

[Allen Carter]

Yeah, you're spot on. We opened up at some point, you know, a hotline. I say hotline. It was just a direct. It was my extension. You know, people were calling me left and right. A lot of it was just stuff I had already heard before. But people wanted to, you know, they wanted to do their part.

[M. William Phelps]

My name is M. William Phelps. I'm an investigative journalist and the New York Times best selling author of dozens of true crime books. This is season five of paper the Texas Teen Murders.

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[Sophie Cunningham]

This is Sophie Cunningham from Show Me Something. Do you know the symptoms of moderate to severe obstructive sleep apnea, or OSA in adults with obesity? They may be happening to you without you knowing if anyone has ever said you snored loudly, or if you spend your days fighting off excessive tiredness, irritability and concentration issues, it may be due to osa. OSA is a serious condition where your airway partially or completely collapses during sleep, which may cause breathing interruptions and oxygen deprivation. Learn more at don'tsleep on OSA.com this information is provided by Lilly, a medicine company.

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[Mel Mitchell]

Shh.

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[M. William Phelps]

Cruising through Parker county on a clear day, it feels as though you can drive directly into the sky. The flat land and horizon appear endless. At dusk, with the sun backlighting the heavens, certain hues of purple, pink, orange and yellow will make a believer out of even the most ardent skeptic. This tranquil, friendly country life residents were used to living had been darkened by not one or two murders, but a rash of homicides as the 80s ended and the 90s crept up with Wendy Robinson's sexual assault and vicious murder, just like Vincent and Shelley's still unresolved, the community had been scarred forever by the evil nature of innocent kids just starting out in life and stricken down in the most horrific fashion. And in Wendy Robinson's case particularly, the idea that someone law enforcement had bought into Ricky Lee Green's masquerade admission heightened the lack of respect already felt for law enforcement and what's even worse, allowed her rapist and killer to walk the streets of Free man with the possibility of doing it again.

[Patricia Springer]

On July 9th of 87, there was a robbery at the Petro gas station in Weatherford and the person who was assaulted was a trucker. He gave them a vague description on both people and they did a sketch of them. So then on November 16, the police talked to the two women that owned a restaurant at Lake Weatherford and asked them if they recognized either of these two people.

[M. William Phelps]

To be clear, I want to point out that in the previous episode we focused on Ricky Lee Green, the man Patricia Springer, the author investigating Wendy's case, just described is a different guy, Ricky Lee Adkins. Adkins is a bony looking dude with a scruffy goatee of peach fuzz. Close set Dark, beady eyes, long hippie like knotted black hair. He was a known sex offender, rotten to the core. Not to mention, as they like to say in Texas, dark as coffin air. The lead they developed about Adkins doesn't come from until 2016. And not until, as Patricia touched on in the previous episode, Adkins daughter called the Weatherford police and reported he had confessed Wendy's murder to her. From there they backtracked and began looking into Adkins life. And wouldn't you know, investigators had had their eye on Adkins as far back as is 1987. In the months just after Wendy's murder.

[Patricia Springer]

They found out that Atkins was in Arizona in custody on a burglary or robbery case there. So they extradited him back to Weatherford and he came back to Texas on November 28th of 87. Then they started talking to him, but they only talked to him about. From my notes that I've gathered, they only talked to him about the robbery at Petro, I guess to see if they could get him to confess to that, then they could get him on the murder. He denied that entirely. They talked to him twice and each time he denied it. The third time they tried to talk to him, he refused to speak to them any longer. And they didn't speak to him after that.

[M. William Phelps]

I was interested in Wendy Robinson's vehicle, which seemed to share a few consistencies with how the Monte Carlo Vincent drove was found, including the fact that it was the same exact car.

[Patricia Springer]

When they went to the wall to see what was left there, her car was there, it was unlocked. But her purse and her radio and her keys were gone. So they thought she had just gone off with someone she knew at that point, that she had just taken off to decide to go get a Coke or something.

[M. William Phelps]

Remember, they had never found the keys to Vincent's car. Elwood Hohertz is on record saying he thought the two cases were linked. Wendy Robinson and Cauliflower Trevino. Why would he say something like that, you think?

[Patricia Springer]

Oh, I think probably because both cases involved young people. Both cases were murder. Although the similarities are not alike. I mean they're totally different. Different circumstances entirely.

[M. William Phelps]

Based on all the available evidence, in addition to what Patricia tells me next, I don't think we can link Wendy's case to Shelly and Vincent's murders. Adkins was indicted in 2016 for the capital felony murder of Wendy Robinson. In 2018, he was convicted and sentenced to 35 years in prison. But that was far from the end of Wendy's case. Because Adkins then Implicates two other men in Wendy's rape and murder.

[Patricia Springer]

He told me, as I've interviewed him, too, that Michael Dedmon and Grady Bruce Dedmon both raped Wendy. And of course, he didn't do any of that, you see? Yeah, we can believe that. And that then Grady said, we can't leave her alive. And that Grady is the one that actually crushed her skull with the rock.

[M. William Phelps]

They all put it on the other guy.

[Patricia Springer]

They all put it on the other guy. Now, unfortunately, Atkins is the only one who has been convicted of that.

[M. William Phelps]

The other two are still free.

[Patricia Springer]

Yes. It was determined that they didn't have any evidence against the other two. Only Ricky Lee Atkins word for it. And they didn't think that was good enough to take to a jury. That, you know, any good defense attorney would be able to turn that around.

[M. William Phelps]

What do you think of that?

[Patricia Springer]

Well, I was not happy about that. I have a good friend who was a prosecutor in Tarrant county. And I called him and asked him what the procedure would be to get a special prosecutor to take on the case. Because I couldn't get the prosecutor here to even return my calls. He said it's almost impossible, and not with this case, you know, he said that it just wouldn't fly. And so nothing was ever done with the other two. I did speak with Grady Dedman. He's scary. Out of all of them, he was the biggest and mean. And Ricky said that. Ricky Adkins told me over and over again how mean Grady Dedmon was. And that he was afraid of him. Now, Michael, who is Grady's brother, the last the police knew of him, he was homeless and living on the streets in Houston. Now, Grady's last I talked to him, he was in Fort Worth. When I spoke with him, he was at a halfway house. He had just gotten out of jail. He was going into a VA facility to live.

[M. William Phelps]

What do you think? Do you think all three of them did it?

[Patricia Springer]

Absolutely.

[M. William Phelps]

You believe Ricky Atkins?

[Patricia Springer]

I think he participated. I don't know whether he held her down. I don't know what he did. But, yes, I think he participated.

[M. William Phelps]

So these three are just kind of bumming around, doing drugs, drinking. They come upon her and they say, let's have a party.

[Patricia Springer]

Yes. Now, I think Ricky was smart enough not to want to pile any more charges on him. Because his claim was that she got in the truck with them of her own accord. And that they took her to Fort Worth to get beer. Because Parker county at that time was a dry county. I know, Wendy. I felt Like, I knew her pretty well, certainly knew her parents well. I didn't believe that for one moment, but I think that he wanted to get out of a kidnapping rap, capital murder at that point. Right.

[M. William Phelps]

In Texas. You're going to die.

[Patricia Springer]

Yes.

[M. William Phelps]

Do you think they have the right guy for Wendy's murder?

[Patricia Springer]

I think, yeah, eventually they did. They got one of the three. There are two out there.

[M. William Phelps]

You definitely think those three did it?

[Patricia Springer]

Oh, yes. Like I said, I've spoken to Atkins. I have a stack of letters from him describing everything to me. Yeah, Grady was gruff enough and scary enough for me to believe that he would kill someone.

[M. William Phelps]

So Ricky described murdering her and everything?

[Patricia Springer]

Yes, that Grady is the one that did that and how it was done.

[M. William Phelps]

And he talked about binding her and everything.

[Patricia Springer]

He told me that the bindings came from the leather shoelaces, boot laces out of Michael Dedmon's boots, and that that's what they used for the ligatures.

[M. William Phelps]

Did that check out with the crime scene reports of leather?

[Patricia Springer]

Yes. Yes, they were leather ligatures.

[M. William Phelps]

So that checked out?

[Patricia Springer]

Yes, that checked out.

[M. William Phelps]

So he couldn't have known that?

[Patricia Springer]

No.

[M. William Phelps]

I asked Patricia about the names I have been censoring throughout the podcast. She had reviewed every piece of paper in Wendy's case and interviewed scores of sources over a 40 year period. Within all of that time, I wondered, had she ever come across the names as being connected to Wendy's case, Vincent and Shelly's case, or any other murders.

[Patricia Springer]

It was never mentioned in any of the case files or in anybody that I interviewed. People may have thought that it could have been the same person, but because they were so different, I also think that they realized that it probably wasn't. The theory was that it was somebody within the sheriff's department that had done this, or it had been someone related to someone in the sheriff's department that had done this. Because the crime scene was evidently very contaminated by the author.

[M. William Phelps]

Patricia brings up another name. I have heard quite a bit as someone being connected to Shelly and Vincent's murders and how this person, right after the murders, disappeared from public view and became a recluse, which I touched on in a previous episode.

[Patricia Springer]

It'S my understanding. And never left his house after that. And so that even brought on more speculation that he was involved in some way.

[M. William Phelps]

This type of cold case can become dizzying with so many rumors, so many names, so much speculation, if you allow it to. In my experience, keeping it simple is the most productive way to go about finding new information and getting closer to the truth. As of the production of this episode, law enforcement has failed to produce anyone willing enough to step into a grand jury and point a finger at those names I have censored. That doesn't mean they were not involved. It tells me, within the scope of a cold case investigation, that there isn't enough hard evidence tying these men to the murders. Or for whatever political reasons, law enforcement flat out just refuses to go after them. Still, every time it felt as if I could exclude these guys, I landed on a source who changed my mind. And one woman, someone who knew most everyone involved, including the names I have censored, steps up and drops a bombshell.

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[Sophie Cunningham]

This is Sophie Cunningham from Show Me Something. Do you know the symptoms of moderate to severe obstructive sleep apnea, or osa, in adults with obesity? They may be happening to you without you knowing. If anyone has ever said you snored loudly, or if you spend your days fighting off excessive tiredness, irritability and concentration issues, it may be due to osa. OSA is a serious condition where your airway partially or completely collapses during sleep, which may cause breathing interruptions and oxygen deprivation. Learn more at don'tsleep on OSA.com this information is provided by Lilly, a medicine company.

[Commercial Announcer]

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[Mel Mitchell]

I was born and raised in Weatherford. All my life, Weatherford's always been a safe town. And when the murders happened, it was really, it really put everybody on edge because nothing like that had ever happened in Weatherford before. It was kind of at the time a once in a lifetime thing that, you know, none of us had ever experienced in our little town. Of course, Weatherford's a lot bigger now, but at the time it was small.

[M. William Phelps]

My source was in her late 20s, back in 1983. She had heard all the rumors, of course, during those days after the murders, the names everyone has been connecting to the case. But she didn't really put much stake in town gossip, most of which had been generated by a bunch of kids at the time. After all, people could say whatever they wanted, blame whomever they chose. Hearsay is cheap and it gets you nowhere. But for this source, however, all of that changed one day when. When she heard it straight from the horse's mouth.

[Mel Mitchell]

I stopped at a convenience store and I saw this friend of mine that I hadn't seen from high school and we were just trying to catch up and she said she was going to a party that night and asked me if I wanted to go with her. And I said, sure, no problem. So she picked me up and we started driving down to the river area, the Horseshoe Bend area. And we got to this house and I mean there were people everywhere, inside, outside. And we went in. She wanted to get some weed.

[M. William Phelps]

Horseshoe Bend is about a 20 minute ride south of Weatherford.

[Mel Mitchell]

And so we went in the house and she was looking for him and I was just kind of sitting there, you know, watching everything. I'm a people watcher, so just watching everything that was going on. And that's when I saw. I didn't know who he was when I saw him, but it was.

[M. William Phelps]

There was another guy with him. That second name I have been censoring the same guy. Others have Reported began living in seclusion right after the murders. Yet the guy my source didn't really know all that well, the one connected to someone in law enforcement during that party she was at.

[Mel Mitchell]

He started mouthing off the thing that caught my attention because I wasn't really paying any attention to him. But then all of a sudden, I heard him say, we killed those kids. And that immediately got my attention, and it scared me. And I started looking for my girlfriend. And I said, did you just hear what was going on? And what he said? And she said, I heard him. I said, I want to get out of here. I don't want any part of this. So we got the car and left. It wasn't long after that a girlfriend and I were working at Dairy Queen there in Weatherford on South Main. And it was. It happened to be one of those nights we were having a banana split sale. And we sold so many banana split sales that night. We were hot and sticky, it was. So we decided we wanted to go. I guess it was later in the summer because we went to the lake and went swimming and followed us out there. And we were in the water, swimming. It was my girlfriend and myself and her brother, just the three of us, nobody else, and told us to get out of the water. So we got out of the water, you know, we didn't know what was going on. And my friends, you know, her brother that was with us asked did. He said, what's going on? And took the butt of his gun and hit my friend's brother in the stomach. I mean, immediately a big old welp come up on his stomach. He said, y' all follow us to the sheriff's office. So we got in our van and we drove to the sheriff's office. And all of us had. I mean, you know, that was back in, you know, the 80s. We wore bikinis when we went swimming.

[Patricia Springer]

But he.

[Mel Mitchell]

We had towels, but he wouldn't let us cover up. He made us take the towels off. Then he got on the phone and called my daddy and told my daddy that he caught me naked out at the lake with a bunch of boys. And, I mean, after that, I was just. You know, everybody in town was scared of them because of their reputation, and I was one of them.

[M. William Phelps]

So there it was again, the same accusation, but here was a witness claiming she overheard the actual suspect himself admitting to killing Shelly and Vincent while using the pronoun we implicating someone else. This is the type of testimony grand juries want to hear. A credible witness, uninvolved, sitting At a party, overhearing someone admit to a murder, yet nothing was ever done about it. Her story, like so many I have heard, got sucked into the vacuum of Weatherford, which had essentially been cleaning up this case for more than four decades. As time passes, what are you hearing about suspects? Anything else you're hearing in town?

[Mel Mitchell]

Other than those two, I'm not hearing anything.

[M. William Phelps]

Was there any talk in town about it being some sort of love triangle?

[Mel Mitchell]

We never heard that. The only thing we ever heard was that it was the drug deal gone bad and that had killed them.

[M. William Phelps]

In this case, perhaps more than any other I have investigated, motive becomes the main piece of the puzzle. I am in search of why? Because if you can nail down a motive, it will lead you to an answer. The one promising lead in the case, serial killer Otis Toole. As I mentioned in the last episode, a serial killer who had admitted to law enforcement he committed the murders was another letdown, as Toole was ultimately ruled out completely by impartial evidence proving he was nowhere near Weatherford at the time of the murders. Not to mention he and Henry Lee Lucas became known for false confessions. Dozens and dozens of them. So, circling back to my main point, if this is not a serial killer case, and I don't believe it is, there has to be a direct love, money, revenge, one of only three basic motives for murder. All killers are effectively driven by. To me, after being stuck in the weeds of this case for years, the only logical motive feels awfully like what people have been saying from the time.

[Mel Mitchell]

We first heard about it until, you know, all these years later, I'm still hearing the same thing. But, see, nobody ever knew any other details. People would go up there to park all the time. Everybody was relating all of it to drugs. I really don't know a lot. You know, I wasn't in high school, so I don't know a lot about what was going on there. The main thing I know about is what I heard him say, you know, at the party. I can't imagine him bragging about killing kids if he didn't actually do it, you know, And I was kind of afraid of that family after that. Took me forever to convince my dad that I wasn't at the lake naked with a bunch of boys.

[M. William Phelps]

And you think did that because of what you heard? Was he sending you a message?

[Mel Mitchell]

I think he was trying to. Yeah, I think he was trying to scare me.

[M. William Phelps]

I asked my source if any of those names I have censored had ever approached her again or threatened her.

[Mel Mitchell]

No, not at All.

[M. William Phelps]

Ever felt like you've been followed or watched or anything like that?

[Mel Mitchell]

No, because I moved out of Weatherford not long after that.

[M. William Phelps]

As I dug into the meth trade aspect of the case, seeing that everyone I spoke to mentioned drugs as a motivating factor in some form or fashion, I developed information which quite honestly began to paint somewhat of a clearer picture regarding what might have been going on here. I touched on this previously, but Ronnie Cauliflower's brother, Ernest Alford Cauliflower, 56 at the time known by everyone as Frosty, was arrested in 2014 with 10 others, including first officer on the scene up at Piss Hill, Robert Hardin's son, in connection with a large meth distribution ring working out of Parker county, an operation run from a property just a few miles south of of Piss Hill. Everyone I spoke to called Frosty the meth cook. Every major dealer wanted cooking for them. Frosty was the Breaking Bad Walter White of his time. And I was told Parker County's Gus Fring, the Breaking Bad drug kingpin, wanted Frosty to cook for him. But Frosty rebuked his offers. So this now gave me a direct connection between one of the victims, Shelley's uncle Frosty, the meth trade, and one of the names I have been censoring, the man Frosty refused to cook for. Within all of that, a monumental motive emerges. Okay, Frosty, you won't cook for us. The first opportunity we get, we will show you that you need to rethink your position.

[Commercial Announcer]

Yeah, I have no doubt Frosty knows everything.

[M. William Phelps]

That's Mel Mitchell again. She even asked Frosty's brother, Ronnie Cauliflower about him.

[Commercial Announcer]

Frosty was like one of the big wigs back then when it came, you know, he's the Walter White of Parker county when it came to, you know, cooking methamphetamine. So Frosty was very well connected to all of this, and he would have had his own people working underneath him. And, yeah, he went out there and he was actively looking to find out who shot Shelly, because, you know, Shelly was his niece. So I have no doubt that he found out.

[M. William Phelps]

As Mel started digging around when she came to Frosty's Facebook page, what she saw made even more sense.

[Commercial Announcer]

Really interesting with Frosty's page is that he has, gosh, like 2,000 people in there. But the highlight, though is it's like DA's and investigators and PD, you know.

[Mel Mitchell]

And most time when you have, like.

[Commercial Announcer]

Lifelong dopers, you're not going to have police on your Facebook page.

[M. William Phelps]

Mel and I decided we needed to find Frosty, put it all to him directly. Word was that he had been placed in hospice and closing in on his 70s, was dying. So we agreed it was time to find out if he wanted to talk to me for the podcast, maybe get anything off his chest before the lights go out. I was in the process of doing the same for the names I have been censoring, reaching out to them, and giving both an opportunity to speak for themselves. Mel mentioned the name Allen you've heard briefly from Alan Carter in this podcast. I reached back out to him again and I asked him about Frosty and what he had to say. Added more depth and construct to the consistent, most popular motive in this case.

[IBM AI Advertiser]

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[Sophie Cunningham]

This is Sophie Cunningham from Show Me Something. Do you know the symptoms of moderate to severe obstructive sleep apnea, or osa, in adults with obesity? They may be happening to you without you knowing. If anyone has ever said you snored loudly, or if you spend your days fighting off excessive tiredness, irritability and concentration issues, it may be due to osa. OSA is a serious condition where your airway partially or completely collapses during sleep, which may cause breathing interruptions and oxygen deprivation. Learn more at don'tsleep on OSA.com this information is provided by Lilly, a medicine company.

[Commercial Announcer]

The following ad is sponsored by Pet's Best Insurance Services. You knew right away he's perfect. The one for you. Those puppy dog eyes. That cute little button nose. You don't even mind the drool. When you find your perfect match in a dog or cat, the love is unconditional. Your budget, on the other hand, has realistic limits. Help protect your heart and your wallet with pet insurance from Pet Pets Best. With plans starting from less than a dollar a day, you can get up to 90% cash back on eligible vet bills. Pets Best makes it easy to pick a plan that works for you and your bank account. Find the perfect match for your Perfect [e-mail] Pet insurance products offered and administered by Pets Best Insurance Services, LLC are underwritten by American Pet Insurance Co. Or Independence American Insurance Co. For terms and conditions, visit www.petsbest.com. policy products are underwritten by American Pet Ins Insurance Co. Independence American Insurance Co. Or Ms. Transverse Insurance Co. And administered by Pets Best Insurance Services LLC. $1.00 a day premium based on 2024 average new policyholder data for accident and illness plans. Pets age 0 to 10. Then the space hamster flew his hot air balloon all the way to the bottom of the ocean. Where did that story come from? Book dream? Nope. It came from a conversation. Meet Meeko Minnie, the AI companion that co creates personalized story adventures with your child in real time. What color was the hamster's cape? And what did he pack for lunch? Unlock your child's imagination. Discover Miko Mini plus and the Magic of AI Exclusively at Costco.

[M. William Phelps]

As novelist Larry McMurtry once wrote, the hardest thing on earth is choosing what matters. What I appreciate about guys like Alan Carter, maybe because in some very small way they remind me of myself, is how unafraid they are to speak their truth and say what they feel. In this business of gathering information in ice cold murder cases, you cannot help but to respect that there are not a lot of those people left in the real world.

[Allen Carter]

Okay, the girl's name was Cauliflower. Her uncle was Frosty Cauliflower. That was my kinect. Well, my connect. And we're feuding because they both trying to sell dope in the same area.

[M. William Phelps]

So. And Frosty were at odds with each other.

[Allen Carter]

Ah, here's where it gets twisted. Frosty wouldn't cook for me.

[M. William Phelps]

Okay? Okay.

[Allen Carter]

But that big ape that got out of the car looks a whole lot like it.

[M. William Phelps]

No kidding.

[Allen Carter]

Because they asked me who I thought it was and I was like, I.

[M. William Phelps]

Thought it was no. Allen then tells me law enforcement paid him a visit as recently as late 2023, the cop came to my house.

[Allen Carter]

Here and they were accusing me of. Well, for one, they started choosing everything. And I said, well, before y' all get all high hung and all this other, y' all need to understand that I took a polygraph test and I passed it. Flying colors. So let's don't get to assuming things here because they said, well, you know, it was said that you and the.

[M. William Phelps]

Name he mentions there is someone connected to the sausage King, Weldon Kennedy. When they came to you last year, they were interested in.

[Allen Carter]

Well, they were asking me all kinds of questions about it. And I told them that for one, they said, well, the same gun, apparently the same gun that he was caught with was the same gun that killed the people in the Hill.

[M. William Phelps]

So here is a source telling me that one of those names everyone has mentioned the guy who now Lives in seclusion, had been caught with the murder weapon. If you recall from the beginning of the podcast, Alan Carter said he saw a dude in a cowboy hat driving a law enforcement vehicle parked behind Vincent's car up on Piss Hill on the night the kids were murdered, close to the time most think the murders occurred.

[Allen Carter]

I may be wrong, but, I mean, what I know is when I saw them on Piss Hill and the cop, and then when I started mentioning it, somebody said to him on Facebook, and I said, well, y' all need to ask. Talk back to me on Facebook and say, well, I'll just come over here and see me. And I said, you don't want me to come see you? I said, I don't like you. And he goes, well, I come see you. And I said, you best not be caught over here. You're at your jurisdiction and you ain't got buddies over here. I said, I ain't playing with you. I said, I done told you and y' all stay away from me. I'm gonna think y' all trying to hurt me. And the reason is, is because right after all this started coming down and investigating the murders and all that.

[Mel Mitchell]

A.

[Allen Carter]

Lot of the people started disappearing, getting killed, weird accidents, all kinds of stuff.

[M. William Phelps]

Coming up in the next episode of Paper Ghosts.

[Allen Carter]

Did somebody tell them that me and him were out together? Well, then what I hear, he failed his holograph. I didn't fail mine. That's why when they were asking me, I said no. He looked like. When they asked me that on the polygraph, I said that, and I passed.

[Patricia Springer]

I still.

[Raymond T. Garina]

Thank you for deal.

[IBM AI Advertiser]

Thank you.

[Allen Carter]

Strictly motive was he couldn't stand to see a Mexican dating a white girl.

[Commercial Announcer]

I did tell him. I was like, well, I was like, through some back channels, we'll leave it there right now. I did get a copy of Shelley's autopsy report, and he's like, oh, okay. So we also found out that we were missing some embalming. You know, Shelley's embalming report.

[M. William Phelps]

Paper Ghost Season 5 is written and executive produced by me and William Phelps, script consulting by iHeartMedia executive producer Kathryn Law, production by Tak Boom Productions. Audio mastering and mixing by Brandon Dickert. The Series theme number 442 is written and performed by Thomas Phelps and Tom Mooney.

[Sophie Cunningham]

This is Sophie Cunningham from Show Me Something. Do you know the symptoms of moderate to severe obstructive sleep apnea, or osa, in adults with obesity? They may be happening to you without you knowing. If anyone has ever said you snored loudly or if you spend your days fighting off excessive tiredness, irritability, and concentration issues, it may be due to osa. OSA is a serious condition where your airway partially or completely collapses during sleep, which may cause breathing interruptions and oxygen deprivation. Learn more at don'tsleep on OSA.com this information is provided by Lily, a medicine company.

[Allen Carter]

Shh.

[Commercial Announcer]

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[M. William Phelps]

Holiday season, do you know what the best part is?

[Allen Carter]

What is it, Patrick?

[M. William Phelps]

No, I'm asking. The SpongeBob Movie rated DG.

[Commercial Announcer]

Friday, 10 athletes will face the toughest job interview in fitness that will push past physical and mental breaking points. You are the fittest of the fit. Only one of you will leave here with an IFIT contract worth $250,000. This is where mindset comes in. Someone will be eliminated.

[Sophie Cunningham]

Pressure is coming down.

[Commercial Announcer]

Trainer games on Prime Video, January 8th. Watch the trailer on trainergames.com this is an iHeart podcast. Guaranteed human.