Until My Last Dying Breath

Summary

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Paper Ghosts: The Texas Teen Murders

Episode Title: Until My Last Dying Breath
Date: November 12, 2025
Host: M. William Phelps

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Episode Overview

This episode of "Paper Ghosts: The Texas Teen Murders" delves deep into the unsolved, execution-style murders of teenagers Shelly Cauliflower and Vincent T. Gerena Jr. in Weatherford, Texas, 1983. Veteran investigative journalist M. William Phelps revisits the investigation, exploring not only the crime itself but the web of rumors, mistakes, cover-ups, and persistent community whispers that have haunted the case for over four decades. Through fresh interviews, new evidence, and the persistence of private investigator Mel Mitchell, listeners are taken through a labyrinth of conflicting facts, emotionally charged memories, and unresolved questions about who may have been hiding the truth.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

Introduction to the Case and Main Players

• Setting the Scene: Phelps provides context for listeners about the small-town atmosphere of Weatherford and Parker County, where "everybody kind of knows everybody… everybody’s business… a lot of money, a lot of cattle, a lot of big ranches" (Mel Mitchell, 06:41).
• Mel Mitchell’s Motivation: As a mother and private investigator, Mel is deeply driven to find answers for the families, stating, “I will do it until the dying breath I have” (04:32).
• Chain of Serendipity: Mel learns about a personal connection to the case through her work as a bartender, which opens doors to survivors and witnesses who'd never previously spoken.

Theories and Rumors

• Two Major Motives:
  • The teens may have “witnessed something narcotics related that they shouldn't have seen” and were killed as a result, or
  • Jealousy, “that Shelly may have had a relationship… and it was a jealousy thing between, you know, the ex and Vincent” (Mel Mitchell, 08:26).

The Crime Scene: Confusion and Contradictions

• Case Mismanagement:

  • The local police's inexperience with violent crimes compromised the early investigation. “People walking around everywhere… the crime scene was, quote, screwed up” (Phelps, 21:40).
  • Officer Robert Hardin, who first responded to the scene, was never properly debriefed or even formally interviewed—"Not ever, which is beyond suspect to me" (Phelps, 42:35).

• Key Details:

  • The bodies were staged inside the car, which had been moved—possibly after the teens’ deaths (Phelps & Mitchell, 43:44–45:50).
  • Peculiar details, like the car being left out in the open with headlights on and no keys present, suggest the scene was set up deliberately (Mitchell, 36:03; 36:22).
  • Time of death is estimated between 10:30 pm and 1:00 am; the bodies were discovered around 5:45 am (Mitchell, 37:37; 37:49).
  • There are disputed accounts about who arrived first and who moved the vehicle (Hardin, 21:16–23:34).

• Forensic Anomalies:

  • Both teens were shot execution-style behind the head, most likely outside the car, then placed inside (Mitchell, 43:04–43:57).
  • Blood evidence suggests at least one victim bled out outside the vehicle; Shelly’s shoes were clean despite her clothes looking as if she’d been dragged (Phelps, 25:07).
  • A family member recounts seeing a face-shaped imprint in the mud, possibly Shelly’s (Mitchell, 46:11).

Politics, Power, and Potential Cover-Up

• Community Secrecy:

  • Several sources mention an atmosphere of fear and rumors tying local officials, law enforcement, and prominent business owners to the underworld and perhaps to the murders themselves (Phelps, 53:11; 59:10).
  • At one point, Janetta Cauliflower Smith, Shelly’s mother, recalls being told by police they couldn’t question a suspect “because of the mayor… they will own us” (Smith, 51:28–52:28).

• Notable Quote:

  • “They got scared, but that’s my daughter’s life, you know, I’m scared too. They didn’t deserve it.” — Janetta Cauliflower Smith (53:03)
  • “With, with the amount of time that it elapsed, you almost experience a similar thing there. Right, because the crime scene wasn’t handled in 1983 the way it would be handled today…” — Lt. Johnny Quals (39:34)

Modern Investigation and Forensic Challenges

• Evidence and Technology:

  • Challenges of working with 1983-era forensic standards: “I don’t know that anyone’s thinking about DNA, but, but maybe we have something in here that, that we can resubmit.” — Lt. Johnny Quals (57:09)
  • Phelps questions whether law enforcement has fully utilized modern forensic databases and methods (57:18–57:55).

• Persistence of Investigation:

  • Mel Mitchell interviews over 100 people tied to the case, generating new leads from overlooked or long-silenced voices (Phelps, 38:58).
  • Family advocacy and social media (a Facebook group for justice) have played a recent role in stirring new interest (Mitchell, 13:25 & 13:55).

Emotional Resonance

• Families’ Unyielding Pain:
  • Janetta’s journey through grief and her disbelief at the lack of progress is palpable: “For days, for months. I mean, it was…” (Smith, 49:34).
  • Mel Mitchell’s dogged determination as a mother and investigator: “There’s no way you’re going to stop me from ever finding out who murdered my child” (Mitchell, 04:32).

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Memorable Quotes & Moments

• “I can't imagine being a parent and not having answers. I can't fathom that. And I can't fathom getting to the point where I just resign myself over to… I'll never have answers.” — Mel Mitchell (03:24)
• “When you had a case such as this one, where the victims were shot to death, ballistics could help. Yet ballistics were only as good as having both parts, the gun and the bullet.” — Phelps (56:09)
• “Several people are either lying or misremembering things. So what is the assumed time of death?” — Phelps (36:47)
• “It was a dark town and boy… It's just a scary town.” — Mel Mitchell (58:51)
• “Word is that the man that owns the town and knew he owned a sausage horse plant or a processing plant that somehow he was involved. Then again, they're talking at that time about the law being involved.” — Robert Hardin (59:10)
• “You find yourself. It's not fair. It's… you find yourself being angry and mad at them those moments nonetheless, because you're like, you know, if you had just done this, then we would have this.” — Lt. Johnny Quals (40:37)

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Noteworthy Timestamps

• 04:32 — Mel Mitchell on why she won't stop pursuing the truth as a mother.
• 08:26 — Main motives behind the double homicide.
• 10:29 — Mel discovers a key connection at her bar, kicking off her deeper involvement.
• 12:06–14:19 — The Facebook group and renewed private investigation.
• 21:40 — Officer Hardin and the disorder at the crime scene.
• 25:07 — Forensic inconsistencies (drag marks, clean shoes).
• 36:22 — “No keys” detail at the crime scene.
• 43:04 — Shots fired: execution-style, forensic evidence.
• 51:28–53:03 — Alleged political interference in the investigation.
• 57:09–57:55 — Efforts at modern forensic testing.

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Summary & Takeaways

This episode peels back the layers of decades-old trauma, institutional mistakes, and a community suffocated by rumor and fear. The desperation and resilience of the families—and the persistent efforts of outsiders like Mel Mitchell—shine through. Ultimately, the investigation into the Texas Teen Murders is not just about finding a killer, but about exposing the enduring aftershocks of unsolved violence, the corrosive nature of secrecy, and the hope that new eyes, new methods, and unrelenting resolve might finally reveal the truth.

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Transcript

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[M. William Phelps]

Hi Mel.

[Mel Mitchell]

It's nice to finally. I know.

[M. William Phelps]

Good to meet you.

[Janetta Cauliflower Smith]

You too.

[Mel Mitchell]

Lori should be here in just a second.

[M. William Phelps]

All right. All right. And then we'll head that way.

[Mel Mitchell]

Yeah.

[M. William Phelps]

So that's where Piss Hill is.

[Mel Mitchell]

And yes, that is where our famous Piss Hill is.

[M. William Phelps]

When Weatherford, Texas residents woke up on the morning of March 26, 1983 and news began to trickle down about what happened up on Tintop Road, accusations, theories and speculation spread immediately.

[Mel Mitchell]

I mean at first my drive for this was, you know, I can't imagine being a parent and not having answers. I can't fathom that. And I can't fathom getting to the point where I just resign myself over to. I'll never have answers. I will never know who did this to my child. I just. I can't fathom that. Me personally, especially being a mom. Now

[M. William Phelps]

District Attorney Max Smith, who took the lead as spokesperson for law enforcement came right out of the gate and made a promise. We intend to investigate all details in order to apprehend whoever committed this crime. 40 plus years have passed since Max Smith made that comment. For a hardened private investigator like Mel Mitchell, justice has no shelf life. When she got involved in 2022, a deep seated empathetic nature as a mother putting herself in Shelly and Vincent's parents shoes drove Mel to fight for victims

[Mel Mitchell]

families like there's just no way you, there's no way you're going to stop me from ever finding out who murdered my child. I don't care. I will do it until the dying breath I have.

[M. William Phelps]

44 year old Mel Mitchell has shoulder length black hair, soft brown eyes set against a clear complexion unstained by the scorching Texas sun. She doesn't come across like your typical Texan. Or at least the big hair and big belt buckle idea so many have about a Texas woman. She's reserved, doesn't say much and comes across outwardly harmless. Yet spending time with her, I got a sense right away that there's a steely toughness there hovering just underneath the surface. The quiet confidence carrying a 9 millimeter handgun brings to a woman in a tough line of work ready to come out. Should Some unsavory type cross her. Let's go back for a minute. Where did you grow up, Mel?

[Mel Mitchell]

I grew up in a little place called Ovilla, Texas.

[M. William Phelps]

Ovilla is about an hour and 15 minutes southeast of Weatherford, driving along the 20 toward Mineral Wells and much further out Abilene and Sweetwater. Growing up in Ovilla gave Mel a solid Texan identity, reminding her how important it is to keep the ties that bind even into your later years.

[Mel Mitchell]

It's a super small town, but I ended up having to go to a little bit larger district over in Red Oak. And so it was nice. I mean we had. I think there were like 800 in my graduating class. I mean, so it wasn't super small by any means, but it was just. It was small enough to where you still know the locals and you know, felt comfortable around town.

[M. William Phelps]

As I got to know Mel and she talked about Parker county in general, she brought up something vital to our understanding of this case.

[Mel Mitchell]

So you have a lot of very wealthy people that live out there. There's also a lot of oil and gas people. You've got a lot of real estate people. For a long time it was actually. There was more money per capita in Parker county than there was DFW combined for quite a while just because people had wanted to move out of the city. And Weatherford or Parker county was a. Was a. It's right on the other side of Fort Worth. And so if you want to kind of get outside of Fort Worth but still be close enough to city, then you go to Parker County. I mean, so the people are, are really nice, down to earth. Your typical Texas people, if that's what you want to call us. You know, the. How do you wave you when you drive by? You know, when I lived out there, you know, you could drive down the street, you knew a lot of people. There wasn't nearly like the traffic it is now. I mean it's grown exponentially since then. But yeah, it's just a usual small town place where everybody kind of knows everybody. Everybody's business, you know, and like I said and just. It's just a lot of money, a lot of cattle, a lot of big ranches out there really where there is

[M. William Phelps]

money problems are not far behind, sometimes big ones. And people can get caught up in the middle without ever knowing why. With a double murder case like Shelly and Vincent's unsolved for all these years, myriad theories have developed. Unsolved homicides of two teenagers can leave a town reeling to fill in the blanks. One theory I kept hearing from multiple sources that Shelley and Vincent saw something they shouldn't have. Wrong place, wrong time. In that sense, they could have been collateral damage within a much bigger story.

[Mel Mitchell]

One of the things we've been told over and over again is that they may have witnessed something narcotics related that they shouldn't have seen. And they had to be taken care of. The other motive was jealousy. That Shelly may have had a relationship with someone prior to. And it was a jealousy thing between, you know, the ex and Vincent.

[M. William Phelps]

After the stock market crash of 2008, when the employment rate fell off the charts and private investigation dried up, Mel went back to behind the bar of a local joint. Pulling beers and slinging whiskey. Thing is, people naturally trust a bartender. They talk, they open up. As the night goes on and the booze flows, lips get looser. As it turns out, tending bar is one of the best moves. A private investigator can make if she wants to develop sources in a case where the people with the best information have been afraid to talk.

[Mel Mitchell]

I decided to go back and bartend at a local. A brand new restaurant out there in Parker County. Back then, there weren't a lot of options. I mean, so anything that was new that came into town, everybody went to. And so I started working out there. And it was crazy. It was busy. And anybody who knew anybody and anybody was politics related. I mean, they all came through the bar that I worked in. So the information alone that was coming through this location was insane. Like, I figured out and started knowing, like, who is who. And, you know, how they're affiliated to different people. And, you know, all the politics at the time. I mean, it was just. It was a great information pipeline to use. I can't tell you how many people I meet, you know, that way. Or if someone found out what I was doing on the side, then they would kind of be like, hey, I heard a rumor. And I'm like, oh, what's the rumor?

[M. William Phelps]

Then something happened one day in the bar, changing everything.

[Mel Mitchell]

People knew that I could keep my mouth shut. That's a really big, big part of it, of course. And so. But I had a group of guys that come in every Friday morning. And they're class of 66 and 67. And there used to be about 20 of them. And anyway, one of them's name is Ronnie Cauliflower.

[M. William Phelps]

In all the years Mel had known Ronnie before that day, he had never once mentioned that his stepdaughter Shelly was one of the two murder victims from 1983 up on Tintop Road. Ronnie and Janetta had been divorced for quite some time by then, but Ronnie still lived in Weatherford. He kept a low profile and would rarely discuss what happened.

[Mel Mitchell]

I've never heard of Ronnie talking about any of his family. Like, I knew he had been divorced, but I didn't know. He was very quiet about his private life, and so I just never heard. And I was like, you know, let me. Let me ask Ronnie and just see if this is his daughter. So I pulled him aside, I asked him, and he's like, yes, that's my daughter. I was like, well, you've never said anything about her before. He's like, yeah, I just haven't, because I know it's never going to be solved. There's nothing that anybody can do about it. And, like, why do you say that? He's like, because of the local, you know, politics. We'll. We'll put it that way. I was like, okay, well, you know what I do, you know, outside of, you know, working here. And he's like, well, yeah. And I was like, well, do you want me to. To look into it?

[M. William Phelps]

That one serendipitous moment reignited a fire in this case. For decades before this, nothing new had really been uncovered. The case was stuck and going nowhere. Law enforcement had made another run at it in 2021. Yet, as one current Weatherford cold case detective told me, nothing came from that reinvestigation. But now you had a private investigator not connected to the case in any way, stepping in and getting to work for one of the families.

[Mel Mitchell]

And he's like, if you can, that'd be great, but I'm gonna tell you right now, it's gonna be a rabbit hole. I'm like, what do you mean? He's like, because there's. There's a lot more connected to my daughter's murder than just. Just my daughter and her boyfriend. I was like, okay, well, let me just. Let me see what I can. I can do.

[M. William Phelps]

Mel, of course, asked the first question any cold case investigator would. It had been 40 years by the time she stepped up. Surely by now there had to be boxes of documents from any prior investigation the family had access to.

[Mel Mitchell]

Do you have any, you know, files? Do you have any paperwork? And he's like, well, there's a Justice page on Facebook, and it's called, you know, justice for Shelly and Vincent. And it's run by Shelly's cousin and Lori. And he's like, you need to reach out to both of them. Or primarily Lori. She's the One that's been running the website.

[M. William Phelps]

Lori Cates, who you heard in a previous episode had taken over as administrator of the Facebook group.

[Mel Mitchell]

So I. I called Lori up and I had a long conversation with her and I was like, hey, I know you're working with his cousin. You know, this website. I kind of looked it up. They. It had been up for about, I think a year, maybe a year and a half, and it had a couple of, you know, posts here and there and there's a couple people would say, you know, a couple of things on it, but it's. It really wasn't up and going, really. I mean, it wasn't generating any leads.

[M. William Phelps]

And it became that chance encounter, an unplanned conversation between Mel and Ronnie and Mel inevitably contacting Lori Cates, that ultimately revived this case in a way nothing else had up to this point. For the first time maybe since the case began back in 1983, people would start talking again and change the entire course of the investigation. Previously on Paper Ghosts.

[Janetta Cauliflower Smith]

Johnny, she was shot. Her and Vincent were both shot. Of course. I just lost it. It's not real. This is not real. And not my Shelly.

[M. William Phelps]

No.

[Janetta Cauliflower Smith]

You know, and it's just like a. Oh, I cannot even tell you what it feels like.

[Ryan Seacrest]

And then I heard it again.

[M. William Phelps]

I heard like a thunder noise.

[Ryan Seacrest]

And then I heard what sounded like a gunshot.

[M. William Phelps]

And then I think I may have heard it maybe one or two more times.

[Robert Hardin]

And then that was it.

[Mel Mitchell]

But we were always told, never stay when it gets dark because that was

[Lt. Johnny Quals]

known to be where the KKK would

[Mel Mitchell]

come and, you know, do their nightly

[Lt. Johnny Quals]

things or whatever meetings.

[Mel Mitchell]

So if you were in the wrong place at the wrong time, then you would get caught in that.

[M. William Phelps]

My name is M. William Phelps. I'm an investigative journalist in 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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[Robert Hardin]

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[M. William Phelps]

After the initial shock of finding his son and Shelly Cauliflower shot to death, had passed, if only for a brief moment, Vincent T. Gerena Sr. Did not know what to do next. His son had been murdered so brutally, he had witnessed the aftermath of the crime scene firsthand, an unimaginable horror. A parent finding his child's brutalized body, his eye dislodged from its socket, blood spatter on the ground. And inside the car, family members gathered at the T gerena household to console one another, anticipating facts about what had happened. With so many rumors already spreading around town, the Tjarinas stayed close and tight, waiting for law enforcement to brief them. Of course, you'd expect a massive investigation with yellow crime scene tape flapping in the wind, roads blocked off, and. And a manhunt underway for a suspect as Weatherford police, spared no expense, spread out and began rounding up anyone that looked good for it. Somebody had to have information. Piss Hill was a hot spot on Friday nights. There had to be witnesses. As you've already heard, Robert Hardin was the first officer on the scene. And what he has to say begins to paint a picture of just how chaotic and loose this investigation became from the moment it started. And I don't think at this point this is by the fault of anyone in particular more than it was a small department ill equipped to deal with a double homicide of this magnitude.

[Robert Hardin]

Of course, I was never questioned about what I found when I got up here before, I had none of the investigators talked to me or asked me about anything other than the fact that I was a first engineer. And I understand that's even been told different now. As far as I knew, I was the first person here besides Vincent Senior. He was here.

[M. William Phelps]

Did you write a report?

[Robert Hardin]

Just my regular report. Got the call and everything.

[M. William Phelps]

And in the report, did you put what you saw at the scene and all of that?

[Lt. Johnny Quals]

No.

[Robert Hardin]

Whenever I got here, I turned it over to the coroner. I went straight to the police station.

[M. William Phelps]

In a later interview with one of the first homicide detectives on the scene that morning. Morning, he states the crime scene was, quote, screwed up. There were people walking around everywhere. What's more, he claims it was another officer, Patrick Mahoney, who showed up on the scene first, not Robert Hardin. I asked Hardin what he did next. After reporting to the scene and turning it over to several Weatherford police investigators.

[Robert Hardin]

I didn't have any. Any connection with anything that happened.

[M. William Phelps]

And what was the talk around the. The PD about what had happened? Were there rumors going around the PD or talk about what might have happened, who could have been responsible?

[Robert Hardin]

Yeah, they were. They were talking. I'm sure I would. I mean, I wasn't involved in any conversation.

[M. William Phelps]

Right.

[Robert Hardin]

I was drove one night. It was one of the lowest people on the pole, you know, so I didn't. You know, they didn't. Didn't figure I had anything to give

[M. William Phelps]

or offer them, you know, well, that's wow. But you remember the blood on the ground? Yeah, that picture. There's a picture of. I've seen a picture of it.

[Robert Hardin]

There was blood on the ground on her side. They didn't see anything on his side.

[M. William Phelps]

And he was shot in the head as well.

[Robert Hardin]

Yeah, he was shot in the head. He was shot in the head. I'm trying to remember. I know they were both shot in the head. He was shot the second time. And I figured both shots from where the car was sitting. Like I say, I was been told the car was parked over on the other side of the building and had been moved over here. And of course, Vincent found out later. Vincent said he addressed the kids after he got here.

[M. William Phelps]

In talking to Robert Hardin further, I found out that his understanding was that the Monte Carlo was first spotted across the street by the school building that used to be there, and he had no idea who moved it. In that same interview with the lead detective, he says he believed the kids were killed where the vehicle was found on top of Piss Hill. In other words, right there in the parking lot. He also thought that the blood on the ground, which I have seen a crime scene photo of, dripped off the door before the door was shut. But one of the most confusing pieces of early information was when he noticed that Vincent Jr. S belt was on backwards and both kids were sitting up holding hands. Remember, Hardin says Vincent Sr. Admitted to him that when he first got there, he moved their bodies, effectively restaging the scene. And quite horrifically, Vincent Sr. Even tried putting his son's eye back into the socket.

[Robert Hardin]

I had up until after all, after all, years after this happened and I heard all these tales and everything about it. I never had any reason to believe that there's. One of the first thing I heard about him was he had a deal with his drug. I was out there, out here on the other side of Toledo.

[M. William Phelps]

Several details I kept hearing early into my investigation and was still trying to verify was that Shelly's body on her right side looked as though it had been dragged through a briar patch. That her clothing was dirty and muddy. But oddly, her tennis shoes, placed almost methodically perfect inside the vehicle on the floorboard, were clean and had no dirt or mud on them. Do you remember her having any scratches on her, any bruises on her or anything like that?

[Robert Hardin]

No. When I got here, all I wanted to do determine say we're not alive. I know Vincent's dad was there. I mean, he knew. I mean, I didn't really look at things that much. Cause I knew I wouldn't have much to do with it.

[M. William Phelps]

I was curious about Vincent Sr. S demeanor because in my research, I hadn't come across any. Any information that he'd been hysterical or upset in the way you might expect. And if we're looking at this objectively, after learning that he might have staged the scene, Vincent Sr. Had to be considered a person of interest.

[Robert Hardin]

No, I mean, he was upset. You know, he didn't. He. He didn't want to tell his wife. He didn't think he could do. I didn't have any reason to respect anything.

[M. William Phelps]

I mean, he was out looking for them.

[Lt. Johnny Quals]

Right?

[M. William Phelps]

So. The idea being, why would a guilty man, knowing what he'd done, then go in search of the kids? Makes no sense. He kills them and then alerts law enforcement to where they are now. The car here, would it have been easily visible from the road at night?

[Robert Hardin]

Oh, yeah, of course that would. That road wasn't near as big then as it is now. You know, it was gravel. It wasn't paved.

[M. William Phelps]

I pointed to Tin Top Road, down a short decline from where Hardin and I stood in the same spot where the Monte Carlo was found. You're driving by, you could see the car here.

[Robert Hardin]

Yeah.

[M. William Phelps]

If you were looking like Vincent Sr. He was looking, but I guess he came by here earlier. The car wasn't here.

[Robert Hardin]

It may not have been, because, you know, I mean, I heard it. It was parked on behind the building.

[M. William Phelps]

Did they bring Vincent in and question him that night or morning? They never questioned him. Jesus. I wondered if the inside of the car was spattered with blood, if they were killed inside the car. With.22 caliber hollow points, as I have heard, they would have to be visible. Blood spatter, and a hell of a lot of it.

[Robert Hardin]

Well, but I mean, there was blood inside the car. Blood still dripping out of the car. And that's what I can't figure out. I don't know how long it takes blood to congeal, but if it had been very, very long, I think it would have been congealed. Wouldn't have been still running down and out of the cars, just dripping out of the car. You know, when I got here, if it had just been an hour, I mean, I've heard. Heard that they thought it happened earlier, you know, two or three hours before, even more.

[M. William Phelps]

Right. Midnight, someone. Something like that.

[Ryan Seacrest]

Yeah.

[Robert Hardin]

Bodies had been moved before I got here.

[M. William Phelps]

It's hard to believe they would be targets of this murder.

[Robert Hardin]

Yeah, unless. Like I said, you know, when I first saw the car, I thought it was A drug dealer's car.

[M. William Phelps]

See now that makes the most sense. Right? That makes the most sense that the car was mistaken for a drug dealer. The drug dealer had a hit on them.

[Robert Hardin]

No, that's what. And you know I've thought that for a long time that may have been the case, you know.

[M. William Phelps]

Sure.

[Robert Hardin]

Now I heard at one of these meetings that somebody said that they said that two deputies cars were up here and that was. And the way they talked I figured it must have been an hour maybe two hours before I got here. As far as I know they never our dispatch corps. I dispatcher dispatched for sheriff's department in that too you know. And as far as I'd ever heard they never had any report before that the sheriff's niches weren't too patrol cars were here. So I don't know where they were.

[M. William Phelps]

I hadn't.

[Robert Hardin]

I mean the only reason I thought they might have been two patrol cars up here because somebody said they saw them.

[M. William Phelps]

Robert Hardin had just told me that two hours before he even arrived two patrol cars were reported up on the top of Piss Hill parked in back of the Monte Carlo Vincent and Shelly had been murdered in.

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Support for the show comes from Public, the investing platform for those who take it seriously. On Public you can build a multi asset portfolio of stocks, bonds, options, crypto and now generated assets which allow you to turn any idea into an investable index with AI. It all starts with your prompt. From renewable energy companies with high free cash flow to semiconductor suppliers growing revenue over 20% year over year, you can literally type any prompt and put the AI to work. It screens thousands of stocks, builds a one of a kind index and lets you back test it against the S&P 500. Then you can invest in a few clicks. Generated assets are like ETFs with infinite possibilities, completely customizable and based on your thesis, not someone else's. Go to public.com podcast and earn an uncapped 1% bonus when you transfer your portfolio. That's public.com podcast paid for by Public Investing Brokerage Services by Open to the Public Investing Inc. Member FINRA and SIPC Advisory Services Services by Public Advisors llc SEC Registered Advisor Generated Assets is an interactive analysis tool. Output is for informational purposes only and is not an investment recommendation or advice. Complete disclosures available at public.com disclosures.

[M. William Phelps]

It's vitally important to have a complete understanding of of this crime scene and where it is located. The layout establishes so many different points of view you will hear from witnesses I have interviewed. So I asked Mel Mitchell to describe the scene from the point of view of driving up to it. If you are thinking about this like me, something isn't adding up, particularly the car being right there out in the open for everyone to see, almost as if it's on display. Like say somebody was trying to send a message. With so many other teen deaths within the county, which we will get into as we move forward, you have to wonder if the entire crime scene, not just the kids bodies, was staged.

[Mel Mitchell]

Well, if you go down I20 and you exit onto Tintop Road, there's a kind of a gravel area on one side of the road because it meets there's Cleburne Avenue that basically comes out onto Tintop Road. So on one one side you've got the old municipal power plant and then on the other side you've got you've got where the old consolidated school building used to be. The gist of the area is still the same back then. It's just. You're just missing the building is pretty much what it is. And so a lot of kids back then, they would go up and down Main street cruising. We all know how that was. For some of us, not so old people would, you know, you go and stop in into Sonic, have some drinks, see your buddies, and then move on down to next area on the road. I mean, I've heard there could be up to 7,500 kids up there on a Friday, Saturday night. And so the cops would come by and just like, you know, hey, make sure you're not having any fights going on. Like, that was their big thing is just don't have fights, you know, just keep it under control. Kind of toned down, mellowed out. So it wasn't a place where there was a lot of privacy.

[M. William Phelps]

There's no place to hide up there where the car was found. It's all out in the open, no obstructions. If Vincent Sr. Had driven by there at all throughout the night as he searched for the kids, which is what Vincent Sr. Began telling everyone, he would have seen the vehicle. No question about it.

[Mel Mitchell]

I mean, to be honest. I mean, if you're gonna, I guess you wanna make out your girlfriend, you might have to drive behind the Consolidated School building. Or maybe there were some trees across the street on the municipal side that might give you a little bit more privacy.

[M. William Phelps]

And if I'm Officer Robert Harden, I'm driving up there that night. What do I see when I get up there?

[Mel Mitchell]

So he believes it looked like they just kind of been pulled in, like off the road facing east with the headlights on. And so it wasn't that hard to see it from the road. I mean, it was just kind of like you're driving on the road, it's just right there.

[M. William Phelps]

Then Mel gives me a peculiar detail about the crime scene. I hadn't heard.

[Mel Mitchell]

No keys.

[M. William Phelps]

Oh, that's interesting. I didn't know that. So the headlights were on, which means it couldn't have been there longer than an hour, per se.

[Mel Mitchell]

Yeah. I don't know what the battery life is on the Monte Carlos back then, but yeah, I assume hour, maybe two, that you could just keep your headlights on and drain the battery.

[Janetta Cauliflower Smith]

Sure.

[M. William Phelps]

As we move forward, I want you to build a crime board in your mind like the ones you see on tv. You'll begin to place all of these various scant, seemingly minor details on that board. The contradictions, the different stories, the conflicting facts, times what people hear and see. Because all of it will begin to tell a story. As I began to do this literally in my office and would soon implore Mel Mitchell to help me out, it became abundantly clear that several people are either lying or misremembering things. So what is the assumed time of death?

[Mel Mitchell]

Anywhere between, say, 10:30 to 1:00am is what we're guessing.

[M. William Phelps]

And what time does Hardin get there?

[Mel Mitchell]

He gets there around 5:45ish, because he was just about to get off his shift that morning at 6am when the call came out that Vincent Sr. Had found them and he needed to go up there.

[M. William Phelps]

Come to find out, just after Vincent Sr. Found them and staged the scene, he rushed to a neighbor's house to call 911. Well then someone had that car for most of the night because the lights could not have been on.

[Mel Mitchell]

Correct.

[M. William Phelps]

So after they were murdered, someone had possession of that vehicle?

[Mel Mitchell]

I believe so, yes.

[M. William Phelps]

Otherwise the keys would have been in it. And I just want to clarify that. Robert Hardin assumed that they were shot from the driver's side, but that's impossible because she's shot on the right. The autopsy says right hand side. And so is he.

[Mel Mitchell]

Yeah, he was shot on the right hand side too, because they all remember his left side being just really messed up, the eye kind of hanging out. So it would have been on the right temple as well for Vincent and

[M. William Phelps]

the window was rolled up.

[Mel Mitchell]

Correct.

[M. William Phelps]

Mel Mitchell has interviewed over 100 people involved in the case, including former law enforcement at the time of the murders. The information she has gathered, compared with some of the information first officer on scene Robert Hardin gave me, entirely contradicts one another. It's almost as if a group of people are purposely confusing and conflating the situation. And if that is true, the obvious question is why?

[Lt. Johnny Quals]

It wouldn't be fair to say that we didn't have, I mean, we obviously had a crime scene that was worked out there, but with, with the amount of time that it elapsed, you almost experience a similar thing there. Right, because the crime scene wasn't handled in 1983 the way it would be handled today, or, or even, even in 1993 for that matter. Just a different world.

[M. William Phelps]

In all my years of investigating cold cases where information is expected to be in conflict and often mistaken or even forgotten, I do not think I've run into a case with more opposing details. And one of the reasons for that is the lack of documentation available from the earliest stages of the investigation. Here once again, is the current cold case investigator working for the Weatherford Police Department Lt. Johnny Quals, reiterating the lack of control over that crime scene

[Lt. Johnny Quals]

policing and all that stuff evolves like everything else. And it's just, it. Just it, it. You know, I'd be lying to you if I said I didn't lose sleep over it. It frustrates you. And you. You find yourself. It's not fair. It's. It's. It's not fair to be angry or mad at some of those folks that just didn't know any better, but you find yourself being angry and mad at them those moments nonetheless, because you're like, you know, if you had just done this, then we would have this.

[M. William Phelps]

Robert Hardin says he wasn't the first law enforcement officer on scene. Information that's in dispute. There are those reports of two patrol cars spotted on the scene in the hours before he arrived. So what Hardin sees when he gets there is not an accurate depiction of the crime scene, which will later be borne out by the facts. Was there blood inside the car?

[Robert Hardin]

Not that I noticed. Huh. It was a small caliber, you know, and it would have made a big hole with. I didn't see them. They said they found three shells.

[M. William Phelps]

I confirmed this with someone who inspected the vehicle not long after the kids were found. In the backseat. On the floorboard of the vehicle, three shells were located, along with a used condom stuffed into the seat. Did Vincent appear to be shot from the back?

[Robert Hardin]

I don't know. Told you, I can't. You know, I can't remember. I can't remember.

[M. William Phelps]

Gruesome scene, though.

[Lt. Johnny Quals]

Oh, yeah, of course, I.

[Robert Hardin]

They didn't ask me make up a report or anything, but what I saw, what I found.

[M. William Phelps]

Nobody asks you questions after. Even years after.

[Robert Hardin]

Even years after.

[M. William Phelps]

According to Hardin, he was never formally interviewed, not ever, which is beyond suspect to me. What's more, both kids were shot behind their heads, which I confirm after getting my hands on an autopsy report that showed up under extremely odd circumstances in late 2024. Here's Mel Mitchell once again.

[Mel Mitchell]

We believe that they were shot with 22s. And so depending on, you know, which 22 we're talking about, we know that 22s, usually when it enters the body, it just kind of bounces around. So I don't know if, with his injuries, if they had found the shell, like the actual, you know, bullet fragment, like inside his brain or if it exited. But I haven't heard of any kind of, you know, bullet holes in the car. And like, that's one of the first questions I asked was, hey, were the windows Intact. Did you find anything on the car door that might show there was a bullet that hit it? None of that. So I'm assuming it probably didn't exit, but I don't know for a fact.

[M. William Phelps]

Every indication that I've seen, read, spoken to people about is that they had to be executed outside of the vehicle and staged inside the vehicle. What are your thoughts on that?

[Mel Mitchell]

Well, we do know that there was two huge pools of blood next to the passenger side when they were discovered because Vincent was pushed all the way back. His seat was pushed all the way back. You know, he obviously didn't drive that. But we also knew that the kids were staged in a position that wasn't well known. I don't know if I want to disclose that on this because it could obviously probably help catch somebody that could say, yes, we know this is how they were. That's how we position them. But we do know that wasn't the way that Robert would have seen them because we know that Vincent Sr. Had actually positioned them himself when he found the bodies. And so they were positioned to where Vincent's head was kind of back against the headrest, but there was blood flowing down the backside of his seat and then down to the floorboard. And then Shelly, she was either kind of leaning against him or she was kind of leaning on the. The side of the car door, like her head just kind of resting on that. Because we believe there's some blood flowing down the right side of the car door. But yes, there's a good possibility. We firmly believe that she, especially Shelly, was shot outside the car because some of the people I'd interviewed that were there helping kind of clean the scene and get the bodies, they had said that they. It looked like Shelly had possibly bled out somewhere else.

[M. William Phelps]

Anytime you have victims murdered in one location and staged in another, especially two people, one of whom is male, one female, you have to consider two or more suspects being involved. In addition, Mel also believes, same as others I have spoken to, the car was definitely moved from another location to the place where it was found.

[Mel Mitchell]

There wasn't a lot of blood for her. So they do believe that there's a possibility that she probably was placed in the car and shot outside, which maybe she was shot where that the blood was on the ground.

[M. William Phelps]

And there was also a report you got from someone about maybe a face imprint in the mud as well. Right.

[Mel Mitchell]

One of the family members was very adamant that when he had gone up there to look around himself, he really felt like he saw a face like imprint in the dirt like next to the blood pools and he really thought it was Shelly's face. He's like it still kind of haunts me where I can just still see his face in like the gravel.

[Lt. Johnny Quals]

Foreign.

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Support for the show comes from Public, the investing platform for those who take it seriously. On Public, you can build a multi asset portfolio of stocks, bonds, options, crypto and now generated assets which allow you to turn any idea into an investable index with AI. It all starts with your prompt. From renewable energy companies with high free cash flow to semiconductor suppliers growing revenue over 20% year over year. You can literally type any prompt and put the AI to work. It screens thousands of stocks, builds a one of a kind index and lets you back test it against the S&P 500. Then you can invest in a few clicks. Generated assets are like ETFs with infinite possibilities, completely customizable and based on your thesis, not someone else's. Go to public.com podcast and earn an uncapped 1% bonus when you transfer your portfolio. That's public.com podcast paid for by Public Investing Right Brokerage services by open to the Public Investing Inc. Member FINRA and SIPC advisory services by Public Advisors, llc. SEC Registered Advisor. Generated Assets is an interactive analysis tool. Output is for informational purposes only and is not an investment recommendation or advice. Complete disclosures available at public.com disclosures.

[M. William Phelps]

For Janetta Cauliflower Smith, those early days as the investigation unfolded still play like a film inside her head. Within the first few days, a Weatherford Police Department investigator who would become the Cauliflower point person, visited their home and explained to Jannetta and Ronnie what to expect in the coming days and weeks.

[Janetta Cauliflower Smith]

You know, we're gonna find them, Johnny. You know, we're gonna handle it and no, but, you know, at that moment, it's. You can't even think of stuff. You just. For days, for months. I mean, it was.

[M. William Phelps]

He lied to you.

[Janetta Cauliflower Smith]

You know, that's where I go. This is what, I mean, this is what drives me nuts. And they. I don't know why they had to tell me, but they said that it shot one of Vincent's eyes completely owed. And so of course, that puts it into, you know, I think of Sally and, you know, everything was just. So that's where I'm at.

[M. William Phelps]

You could understand a car accident, right?

[Janetta Cauliflower Smith]

Definitely.

[M. William Phelps]

You could understand, okay, it's a tragedy. But this is murder. And these are kids, good kids.

[Janetta Cauliflower Smith]

You know, if they didn't run around, you know, if they didn't run around with bad kids, they. All the people that they ran with was good kids. I mean, they didn't run around with gang type kids or club type kids. You know, these kids did nothing to anyone. They did nothing to anyone.

[M. William Phelps]

What are you hearing? In the beginning when you, when you kind of. I don't know how to put it, but come, come out of the fog maybe a week later, two weeks, what are you hearing? I mean, you must. Because grief goes from stages, right? Anger to depression to. We all know that. So when you come out of it and you're in, you know, my God, who did this? So what are you hearing about that?

[Janetta Cauliflower Smith]

Oh, I lived at the police station.

[M. William Phelps]

Tell me about that.

[Janetta Cauliflower Smith]

You know, I would go daily. Okay, what do you know? Tell me, you know, what's going on. Well, we're working on it and we're looking at some people and that's basically all that I would get. And, you know, until one day on down the line, I come in and I say, okay, what's going on? You know what's going on, Johnny, I've been told we can't question, we can't question that. It's the Mayor, something to do with the mayor. And then Chief Horse, he said, johnny, it's the mayor and we can't because they will own us. We can't question this person anymore or they, they will own us.

[M. William Phelps]

So he's basically telling you that they're

[Janetta Cauliflower Smith]

hot for in this, that he is a hot suspect.

[M. William Phelps]

That suspect she mentions, whose name I redacted, was related to a top law enforcement official at the time and was in law enforcement himself. He also drove a county issued cruiser. And Jannetta is told investigators have been blocked from questioning him. They have to stop investigating because of the mayor.

[Janetta Cauliflower Smith]

They got scared, but that's my daughter's life, you know, I'm scared too. They didn't deserve it.

[M. William Phelps]

As I began to dig into this thread in 2024, several things begin happening. One, someone in law enforcement is secretly feeding information to family members who then turn around and pass that information along to me. And two, I begin to hear about a sausage plant, a well known, very wealthy business owner and human trafficker allegedly involved in the drug trade who is deeply connected to and in bed with those names you have been hearing me bleep out. I asked Weatherford Police Department Lt. Johnny Quals, who is one of the cold case detectives looking into the murders today, what he thought initially when he looked at the case.

[Lt. Johnny Quals]

You just want to approach it with a fresh set of eyes and be open, open minded and so many theories, so many persons of interest. I don't know that I've ever seen anything like it or that I ever would. Again. I don't know if some of that had to do with them being teenagers. And Weatherford, we also got to understand Weatherford was a much different, different community. We're still a small town in some ways, but in 1983 we were much more rural. We hadn't experienced as much growth as we had to be. So it really wasn't one of those deals where everybody probably knew everybody. And then we had two teenagers shot to death. And you know, I think both of them were fairly popular in high school and fairly well known and cruising the boulevard of South Maine. So everybody knew, everybody had a theory. Maybe that's the best way to say

[M. William Phelps]

that I am not naive or ignorant. I know when a cop is kind of yanking my chain. But I left it there with Lieutenant Qualls for the time being and played it off like I was just stepping into the case and didn't know much. Soon I would go at him hard and find out why there is all this odd secrecy and shuffling of the facts that, surrounding this case. Talking to him, I wondered about Vincent Sr. Who found the kids and if he was ever looked at as a serious suspect.

[Lt. Johnny Quals]

Yeah, that was one of the names that was thrown around. Just. But I mean, if almost anyone's name in Weatherford was thrown around, you know, just to give you an idea, the initial part of it was just getting the case report and sifting through all that. And then we, we does the we at some time right around that same same time period we got with our property. So it was almost kind of, kind of similar to records is like going back to property and be like, hey, here's this case number. What do we still have that's associated with this case? And what does that evidence look like?

[M. William Phelps]

In Those years before 1983, law enforcement needed a blood stain the size of a nickel in order to extract enough DNA to even consider scientific profiling. And even at that large, DNA databases like we see today were in the earliest stages of development. In addition, the first FBI crime lab to assist in forensic profiling wasn't opened until 1988. So the tools to catch killers in 1983 were extremely limited. We're talking fingerprints and trace evidence, witness statements, and interviewing suspects. Of course, when you had a case such as this one, where the victims were shot to death, ballistics could help. Yet ballistics were only as good as having both parts, the gun and the bullet.

[Lt. Johnny Quals]

Like you said in 1983. I don't know that anyone's thinking about DNA, but, but maybe we have something in here that, that we can resubmit.

[M. William Phelps]

This has become one of my big questions in the case. Has law enforcement used modern technology, extracted any DNA from the available evidence, and sent it out to, to all the databases that exist today?

[Lt. Johnny Quals]

I can't go into, into great detail about what those things are. I can tell you that things were resubmitted. We, we, we did, we took a close look at all those, all those things, you know, what still exists today? Out of those things, what can we potentially help? Give us a lead.

[M. William Phelps]

Which brings me to several utterly vital questions I need to chase down immediately. Why in the hell haven't some of those items been resubmitted? Where are they? And who is responsible for maintaining the chain of custody for the evidence? 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 coming up in the next episode of Paper

[Lt. Johnny Quals]

Ghosts was, to me, it was a premeditated murder. It was planned. First I thought it was that they

[Robert Hardin]

were in the wrong place at the wrong time because they did a lot of drug dealing right out there in that spot.

[Mel Mitchell]

It was a dark town and boy if you ever. If you ever knew a little bit. It's just a scary town.

[M. William Phelps]

It is. A lot of us kids were high

[Janetta Cauliflower Smith]

on drugs, but what happens?

[M. William Phelps]

They pulled me in for murder. For whose murder? For those kids.

[Robert Hardin]

Word is that the man that owns the town and knew he owned a sausage horse plant or a processing plant that somehow he was involved. Then again, they're talking at that time about the the law being involved.

[M. William Phelps]

Paper Ghosts Season 5 is written and executive produced by me, M William Phelps script consulting by iheartmedia executive producer and 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.

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