Murder Is Life - Lancaster, Texas

Summary

Podcast Summary: Small Town Murder – "Murder Is A Way Of Life - Lancaster, Texas"

Introduction

In the episode titled "Murder Is A Way Of Life - Lancaster, Texas," hosts James Pietragallo and Jimmie Whisman delve into a chilling story of violence and its aftermath in the seemingly peaceful suburb of Lancaster, Texas. Through meticulous research and a blend of serious discussion with their characteristic comedic flair, the hosts unravel the complex case of David Martin Long—a man whose troubled past culminated in a series of brutal murders.

1. Lancaster, Texas: A Historical and Demographic Overview

James and Jimmy begin by painting a vivid picture of Lancaster, Texas, emphasizing its nickname, the "City of Trees," and its historical roots dating back to the mid-19th century.

• Founding and Development: Lancaster was originally settled between 1841 and 1844, primarily by families from Kentucky, Illinois, Missouri, and Tennessee. In 1852, Bledsoe, a key figure, purchased 430 acres of land from Roderick Rawlins' widow and modeled the town after Lancaster, Kentucky.

• Notable Events: The town was the site of a Bonnie and Clyde bank robbery on February 27, 1934, where Bonnie waited in the getaway car as Clyde and Raymond Hamilton stole over $6,000—which equates to approximately $144,000 in today's dollars.

2. Crime in Lancaster: An Alarming Statistic

The hosts discuss the crime rates in Lancaster, highlighting that both property and violent crimes are approximately 25% above the national average. They present a mock array of fictional town reviews to humorously underscore the disparity between Lancaster's peaceful facade and its underlying issues.

• Notable Quotes:
  • James Pietragallo [08:20]: "Banks have a lack of security."
  • Jimmy Whisman [09:15]: "Drunk drivers. They haven't gotten Uber here yet."

3. The Troubled Life of David Martin Long

Delving into the heart of the episode, James narrates the troubled early life of David Martin Long, born on July 15, 1953, in San Angelo, Texas.

• Childhood Struggles: David endured a tumultuous childhood with both parents battling drug addiction and alcoholism. The death of his mother when he was ten exacerbated the instability, leading to neglect and abuse. By age twelve, David exhibited violent tendencies, including the strangulation of a fellow student.

• Adolescence and Early Adulthood: His rebellious behavior landed him in multiple reform schools and foster homes. Throughout his youth, David struggled with various addictions, including methamphetamine, cocaine, and heroin, and committed numerous petty crimes.

4. The Murders: Lancaster's Dark Chapter

James recounts the specific murders committed by David Martin Long, detailing two primary incidents:

• 1978: The Killing of James Carnell

  • Incident: On November 28, 1978, in San Bernardino, California, David, under the influence of alcohol, got into an altercation with gas station attendant James Carnell over a $16 tire repair charge.
  • Action: Fueled by anger and intoxication, David brutally beat Carnell with a tire iron and a broom handle, ensuring his death by stuffing the broom handle down Carnell's throat.
  • Aftermath: Despite confessing, the Matagorda County grand jury dismissed the case due to insufficient evidence, allowing David to evade justice.

• 1983: The Arson and Murder of Bob Neal Rogers

  • Incident: On December 20, 1983, David visited his boss, Bob Neal Rogers, in Bay City, Texas, after being fired for misusing a company vehicle.
  • Action: Finding Rogers passed out drunk, David set Rogers' mobile home ablaze, resulting in Rogers' death. He attempted to leave without a trace but was arrested, though the grand jury again cited insufficient evidence.

5. The 1986 Murders in Iran, Texas

The narrative intensifies with the gruesome events of June 11, 1986, in Iran, Texas.

• Victims: Four individuals—Gail Allison (25), Elizabeth Belew (24), Bill Willis, and Ernest Ray Willis—were found brutally murdered in Donna Sue Jester's household.

• David's Involvement:

  • Initial Arrest: On the night of September 27, 1986, David was arrested for a DUI in Buffalo, Texas. During custody, he confessed to the murders, claiming they were the result of delusions and his deteriorating mental state.
  • Confession Details: David described a conflated narrative involving his grievances, substance abuse, and delusional beliefs that Donna Sue was conspiring against him.

6. Trial, Conviction, and Appeals

The trial of David Martin Long is depicted as a case riddled with procedural anomalies and questionable judicial decisions.

• Trial Proceedings:

  • Behavior: During the trial, David exhibited erratic behavior, including standing and declaring, "I'm guilty as hell," disrupting the defense's insanity plea.
  • Legal Representation: His defense attorney, with minimal experience in capital murder cases, struggled to present a coherent argument amidst David's disruptive actions.

• Psychological Evaluations:

  • Defense: Dr. William Hester diagnosed David with extreme antisocial personality disorder, suggesting a possible psychotic episode during the murders.
  • Prosecution: Dr. James Grigson, renowned for his role in securing death penalties, testified that David was sane and manipulative, dismissing insanity claims.

• Conviction and Sentencing:

  • Verdict: Found guilty after only two hours of jury deliberation, David was sentenced to death on August 4, 1987.
  • Appeals: Over the years, various appeals highlighted procedural flaws, including the improper admission of autopsy photographs and mishandling of his confession.

7. Exoneration and Aftermath

After 17 years on death row, significant developments led to David Martin Long's exoneration.

• Investigative Breakthroughs:

  • Pro Bono Investigation: In 1991, a New York law firm conducted a thorough investigation, uncovering inconsistencies in the original arson evidence and questioning the validity of David's confession.
  • Witness Corroboration: Testimonies from former associates and new forensic analyses undermined the initial case against him.

• Exoneration:

  • Recognition: By October 2004, David was officially exonerated, marking him as the eighth Texas death row inmate to be freed since 1982.
  • Life Post-Exoneration: Reunited with his wife, whom he had remained loyal to throughout his incarceration, David moved to Mississippi. Despite attempts to rebuild his life, he and his wife separated in 2007. David later died on January 7, 2021, outside of prison and not by state-sanctioned means.

8. Conclusion

The episode underscores the profound miscarriages of justice that can occur within the legal system, especially in cases involving mental health issues and substance abuse. James and Jimmy highlight the importance of thorough investigations and the dangers of relying solely on confessions, particularly from individuals with troubled backgrounds.

• Notable Quotes:
  • David Martin Long [113:15]: "I deserve death and desired death."
  • Jimmy Whisman [143:18]: "He never even fucking cares."

Final Thoughts

"Murder Is A Way Of Life - Lancaster, Texas" serves as a sobering reminder of the complexities surrounding criminal justice, mental health, and the possibility of redemption. Through their engaging narrative, James and Jimmy encourage listeners to question and reflect on the systems that govern punishment and rehabilitation.

Transcript

[James Petregallo]

This week in Lancaster, Texas, a cruel and bloody triple murder leads to a suspect with a long history of violence who has a lot to say about these murders and a few others too. Welcome to Small Town Murder. Hello everybody and welcome back to Small Town Murder.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yay.

[James Petregallo]

Oh yay indeed Jimmy. Yay indeed. My name is James Petregallo. I'm here with my co host.

[Jimmy Wissman]

I'm Jimmy Wissman.

[James Petregallo]

Thank you folks so much for joining us today on another absolutely insane edition of Small Town Murder. We have a big announcement we're gonna make right before we start the show here and we'll repeat it a little later on. But before we get to that, quickly shut up and givememurder.com get all your merchandise, get all your tickets for live shows in the fall. A lot of them are selling out so get them right now. Free Philly and D.C. in December, Seattle in November and I believe we released a few for Grand Rapids. Don't know if there's still any left though. So check those out. Shut up and give me murder dot com. Listen to our other two shows also Crime in sports which we're doing a multi part series on the i5 killer of Randall Woodfield. So you'd good stuff. No sports involved there at all. We're onto nothing but crime. So check that out. Check out your stupid opinions where we get people's the they're reviews of things from all over the Internet and we make fun of them. So check that out. But get yourself Patreon is what you need to do.

[Jimmy Wissman]

There it is.

[James Petregallo]

Patreon.com crimeinsports Just like the other show that you should be listening to. P A T R E O N. That is where you get all the bonus materials. Anybody $5 a month or above you are gonna get the entire back catalog. All the stuff, hundreds of episodes immediately upon subscription to binge on then new ones every other week. One crime in sports, one small town murderer and you get it all. And I'm going to buzz through this because there's something else you're going to get that we're going to talk about for crime and sports. We're going to talk about Jeff Alm had a crazy as a football player had an insane ending to his life. That's pretty wild. We got to talk about then for small town murder we're going to talk about people who marry prisoners, serial killer, you know, wives of serial killers, that sort of thing. Yeah. And all that kind of stuff. And you also get something else included in the $5 a month that's the. You can't beat the deal. Best on the Internet. You're gonna get ad free shows now on Patreon ad free. You're up to ads. Five bucks a month, bonus episodes and ad free everything. We're fucking crazy. Take it. We're insane. We don't want to make a living. Everybody.

[Jimmy Wissman]

We don't take anything from you. We only give more.

[James Petregallo]

We only give more. So definitely get yourself ad free. And that's for crime and sports, for small town murder, for your stupid opinions. Ad free. Free content as well.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Honestly, thank you guys for supporting this. Supporting, supporting everything we do.

[James Petregallo]

Absolutely.

[Jimmy Wissman]

That's why we don't. That's why we work on trying to make things happen the right way. Because you guys are what make this happen.

[James Petregallo]

So anybody, anybody was mad at us and said that we sold out, we did the opposite.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Crazy.

[James Petregallo]

We took, we took less money than we could have to own our own ad free. That was the point. And because we didn't want to make you guys subscribe to some app where you. This, at least you get all of our stuff, which is great. So I don't know. There you go, everybody. That is Patreon Sober up crimeinsports. And I don't care if you're sober or not. Click on that and go ahead and do it. I don't care what you got running.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Through yourself from the Internet when you're that fucked up.

[James Petregallo]

That's right. That said, disclaimer time. This here is a comedy show. We're comedians. We are going to make jokes and people are going to die. But the thing is we do it very tastefully.

[Jimmy Wissman]

We're.

[James Petregallo]

What you do hear is we never make jokes about the victims or the victims families.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Why, James?

[James Petregallo]

Because we're assholes.

[Jimmy Wissman]

But.

[James Petregallo]

But we're not scumbags. That's how it works. It's real simple like that. So, I mean, I think we're. I think if you give it a chance, you're gonna find that we tell the craziest murder stories around and nothing in the stories in the best ways, nothing in the story is, you know, embellished for comedic effect or anything like that. That's the sad part is nothing has to be embellished. The world is that messed up. So people are crazy out there. So, yeah. That said, I think it's time everybody. Well, actually, if you think true crime and comedy shouldn't go together, maybe you shouldn't be here. Maybe you should. But you might not. You might like it. You might not. No complaining later. That's all we have to say. That said, I think it's time to sit back, clear the lungs. Let's all shout. Shut up. Give me murder. Let's do this, everybody. Okay, let's go on a trip. Shall we have to do it? We are going to Texas this week.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Oh, do we have to down to Texas?

[James Petregallo]

We do. We're going. It's. It's hot. Hot. Well, you're. It's, you know, I mean, Phoenix, it's a. It's a wash probably, but it's always. Yeah, it's always hot and humid. We're going to Lancaster. Except in the winter when it's freezing. It's, you know.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Except for in the winter when it still sucks.

[James Petregallo]

That's right. This is in Lancaster, Texas, which is just outside of Dallas. A Dallas suburb, which Dallas again, extremely hot in the summer and pretty damn cold in the winter. It's a rough weather city. Dallas. This is just outside Dallas. About 25 minutes to Dallas and about three hours to San Saba, Texas. Our last Texas episode, which was the first family of murder and pecans, if you remember correctly. That was a fun one. This is in Dallas County. There's a bunch of different area codes, so we won't even go into that. There's like five different area codes for this place. It's not that big of a town, but there's a lot of intersection here. The nickname of this town and we've heard. I think this is maybe the fifth town we've heard this nickname. And that is the City of trees.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Is it?

[James Petregallo]

We hear it all the time. City of trees.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Are there that many trees down there?

[James Petregallo]

I think they probably planted some trees at some point and they were like, see that?

[Jimmy Wissman]

Imagine this. Imagine there's trees.

[James Petregallo]

City of trees. Everybody look at us.

[Jimmy Wissman]

We're the ones with them.

[James Petregallo]

We're the ones. So a little bit of history about this joint here. About 600 families originally settled here in what was known at the time as Peter's colony. This is 1841 through 1844. Now, they advertised heavily in Kentucky, Illinois, Missouri and Tennessee. So most of the people who came at first were from those areas. Oh, back then you'd open up a. An area for population. You'd start a town. There's no Internet or anything. No one knew about it. So you'd have to literally send flyers back to civilization and distribute them. You'd have salespeople and that sort of thing. So that's what they did. The first group to settle in the area was the Roderick Rawlins family. Here they came from Illinois and they arrived in 1844. And they were kind of one of the founders of the town basically here how that goes. Now, apparently they stake there's a guy named Bledsoe here who moved in, had some business, had some business stuff for a while, and he ended up staking the original town of Lancaster. In 1852, he purchased 430 acres of land from Roderick Rawlins widow. And he modeled it after his hometown in Kentucky.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Got it.

[James Petregallo]

And then laid it out the same way.

[Jimmy Wissman]

And then he injured his knee and a guy named Lancaster came in and reassessed the place.

[James Petregallo]

I bet he's from Lancaster, Kentucky or something. Probably. So in 1934, this is the site of a Bonnie and Clyde bank robbery also.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Oh, that's fun.

[James Petregallo]

2-27-34, Bonnie waited in the getaway car while Clyde and Raymond Hamilton walked into the Lancaster, Texas bank. Walked out with over 6,000. And that is equal to about 144,000 in 2025.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Unreal.

[James Petregallo]

So not a bad haul for five minutes of work. Reviews of this town. Let's see here. We have a few here. Here's five stars. They range too. There's a big range in reviews here from. I love it. To get me out of here now before my head explodes. It's really five stars.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Banks have lack of security.

[James Petregallo]

Great security at these banks. Five stars. I strongly believe that Lancaster is an excellent area for my family and me. Adding new places in our area has created interest from more people to move here. In the seven years I've lived here, everyone I have met has been incredibly friendly and peaceful, making it an ideal place to live. Utopia. Lancaster is a utopia. Everybody. Peaceful people. They just come up to you. They start say namaste, and then you all sing Kumbaya together.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Peace offering of bread, usually.

[James Petregallo]

Well, yeah, that's what you do. Three stars. Living in Lancaster has its ups and downs. I love the town. School system is good. The major problem in my area is. I'll let you guess. What do you think it is?

[Jimmy Wissman]

The schools? I don't know.

[James Petregallo]

He just said the school system is good.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Oh, right.

[James Petregallo]

Drunk drivers.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Well, close, I guess. Alcohol is drugs.

[James Petregallo]

How many drunk drivers are there to where you would notice it?

[Jimmy Wissman]

Well, they haven't gotten Uber here yet.

[James Petregallo]

This is like, imagine how it would have to be where you're like, there's just so many drunks on the road. All it's like you wouldn't notice. I would love to get the problem under control. That would make the area safer for kids to Play in the yard again.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Oh, it's drunk.

[James Petregallo]

Two in the afternoon. Yeah. Three in the afternoon. The streets are just teeming with drunks crashing into kids playing in yards. Not even in the street. In the yards. They're running them down in the grass. Wow. Now parents are afraid to allow kids to be kids because of that problem. Stay in the house, little Stevie. There's drunks outside. That actually happens. Wow. I think that person's being a little overdramatic. Probably.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah. Maybe exaggerating a bit.

[James Petregallo]

I hope a little bit. If it's not, wow, it's just bumper cars over there.

[Jimmy Wissman]

I mean, I've driven in Texas. They stop you for speeding when you're.

[James Petregallo]

Not speeding when you're not speeding. They did to us. We've told that story a few times.

[Jimmy Wissman]

How do you get drunk driving? Just done.

[James Petregallo]

You're going 87. Well, my cruise control set on 75. You were going 87. Okay. I guess I was. Even though I haven't touched the gas in 30 miles. Yeah. Two stars. The businesses lack good customer service. The floors are always sticky. The town's floors are sticky. Everyone.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Whole town. It's a sticky place.

[James Petregallo]

There have been shootings at night, but I'm not sure if it's target practice or actually murder. Well, we'll find out. What? I don't know. What's that? Drunks run kids down during the day and people have target practice at night. This is a weird thing.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Or they're murdering.

[James Petregallo]

Or there's obviously murdering. But everyone's so peaceful. I don't understand how there could be murder. Then one star. There is absolutely nothing to do here. I am always bored.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Well, start drunk driving and target practice. It sounds like everybody else is doing that shooting drunk.

[James Petregallo]

That's a good time.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Jesus Christ. What a town.

[James Petregallo]

I mean, if everyone's so drunk, maybe they're just bucking shots out the window of joy. You know what I mean? Like, yeehaw. Pow, pow. Maybe that's a good one.

[Jimmy Wissman]

They're very happy people.

[James Petregallo]

Yeah. Who knows how many happy people are in this town? 41,057 happy people.

[Jimmy Wissman]

A good amount. Yeah.

[James Petregallo]

Yeah. It's grown a lot in the last, like 30 years. Like a lot of these suburbs of these kind of big cities. This is a weird stat for so many. Usually when we get like out of whack stats, it's because there's like 400 people in the town.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah.

[James Petregallo]

For 41,000 people, everything kind of averages out around the averages. There is 55.5% women here.

[Jimmy Wissman]

That's heavy.

[James Petregallo]

That is the highest I've ever seen in a town. Over a thousand people. So guys, if you're, you know, where's all the women?

[Jimmy Wissman]

30,000 women here?

[James Petregallo]

Lancaster, Texas. That's where all the women are. Knock yourselves out. Median age here, 32.5. It's about 45% married, a lot more single with children. People here. So the divorce rate isn't that much different though. Race in this town, 10.1% white, 67.9% black, 0.3% Asian, 19% Hispanic. So there we go. 62.7% of the people here are religious and Catholic actually is the highest. Is the Hispanic population gonna take the Catholicism up there. 19.6% are Catholic with Baptist real close behind. Nipping at the heels. Unemployment here, slightly above average, but nothing too crazy. Median household income here is. Well in the rest of the country it's about 69,000 and change. Here it's 59,952. So not too far off. And the cost of living here, 100 is regular average in the United States Here it is 100.2. So it is exactly average.

[Jimmy Wissman]

The grand less cash every year too. That's not very good.

[James Petregallo]

No, no, but exactly the same. Now the housing is a little bit cheaper than the median. So median home cost here, 260,400 bucks. So not. Not terrible. And maybe we've convinced you.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah, maybe.

[James Petregallo]

Maybe we've all the peaceful talk of peaceful people and maybe you're curious. You want to see if it's target practice or murder. You want to give it a shot and look into it. What we have for you, the Lancaster Texas real estate report. Average two bedroom rental here is pricey actually, which the housing is a little bit cheaper, but the rental, two bedroom, $1,530 which is well above the national average. That's a lot. Here is a one bedroom, one bath, 724 square foot house.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Nothing.

[James Petregallo]

I will turn them nothing monitor towards you and geez. It's just, just a little box.

[Jimmy Wissman]

It's like an easy up with walls.

[James Petregallo]

Yep. It's like. I think it could be technically a tiny home, I think.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah.

[James Petregallo]

Built in 19. Built in 1945. It would be considered like a bungalow if it was in la, you know what I mean?

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah. And a cabin if it's in like.

[James Petregallo]

A mountainee area, the north woods in Wisconsin or some shit. Yeah. Not a big lot either. $174,000 for that. I mean it's like clean and stuff and nice on the inside. But that's a tiny little place, man. For any kind of money. Here is a three bedroom, two bath, 1158 square foot house. Now this from the outside looks pretty nice because it's like a brick house, see? Yeah, that's nice. But inside it's really those little houses.

[Jimmy Wissman]

When you put a two car garage on, they look like usable. And then you get inside and you're like, oh, 1100 square feet ain't shit.

[James Petregallo]

Yeah, this house is half garage. Shit inside. It could use some updating for sure. As you can see the cabinets. Backyard. Nice swing set in the backyard. It's cute. A lot of grass. This house. $210,000.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Fucking wow.

[James Petregallo]

So yeah, I mean it's a. You could put your kids in there, but it's going to be small. And then here's a three bedroom, three bath, 1991 square foot house here, but comes with 10 acres.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Oh yeah.

[James Petregallo]

There's the house and here's the acreage that you have. All of that is yours leading up to such nice tree line over there. Not too bad here. Looks like there's a horse thing here too, one of those.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Corral of some sort.

[James Petregallo]

It used to be fenced in.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Is it fenced? So is that a fence?

[James Petregallo]

That's a fence around the horse thing, the horse area there. This house, $1.4 million though.

[Jimmy Wissman]

What?

[James Petregallo]

Yeah, that's a little. I didn't expect that. That was like 600 grand maybe. Nope, that. That acreage of really what looks like just flat nothing. Land is expensive as shit. That's not a lot going on.

[Jimmy Wissman]

It's going to take a lot of fucking work.

[James Petregallo]

You got to know that shit. And I guess if you have horses, you need it. So there you go. Things to do here, this town for being like right outside Dallas and things like that. You would imagine this town would have a lot popping off. Yeah, there is extremely surprising little to do in this town. It's so weird. It's strange. We got sparks in the park, which is the fourth of July celebration.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Oh, okay.

[James Petregallo]

Get your asses out there.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah, I thought maybe it was where you drink a bunch of those old sparks drinks from 2004 and then you.

[James Petregallo]

Drive your car, drive your car, try to hit kids playing in the park. Sparks in the park.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Did you ever drink those things, those sparks?

[James Petregallo]

No, no.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Oh, they were vile.

[James Petregallo]

No, I'm not an alcoholic. I didn't drink that.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah, that's who they're for.

[James Petregallo]

That's who they're for. Yeah.

[Jimmy Wissman]

They're so gross.

[James Petregallo]

I don't like when I was a teenager I drank like 40s and drink, you know, gross shit. But like outside of that as an adult, I'll only. I don't need to drink that bad. So if it's not really good, something really good that I like, I don't need to drink it. I'm good.

[Jimmy Wissman]

It was a disgusting drink. It was like. I remember it at the beginning of the Four Loko.

[James Petregallo]

It looked like an energy drink. It didn't look like a beer, it looked like an alcohol.

[Jimmy Wissman]

And calling Sparks made it seem like that's what it was.

[James Petregallo]

Yeah, put it with the orbits and you're good.

[Jimmy Wissman]

I think it did have some sort of energy tinge to it. I think there was something with that, but it was fucking vile. And it was like 9% booze. It was crazy hot.

[James Petregallo]

Jesus, that's expensive. That's a lot of booze. I almost said that's expensive. It's gonna be expensive to pay for what you damage up there. You should put it right next to that energy drink that had the little balls in it. Remember the little fucking.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Balls? Huh?

[James Petregallo]

They had little fucking balls. They look like little plastic ball. You like Boba? Yeah, they had like that. It was a weird looking drink. So Sparks in the park here. Get ready for an unforgettable Independence Day experience at Sparks in the park on July 4th in Lancaster community Park. It's a family friendly event. Of course, it's only adults. Hey, we're having a fireworks show. But keep them fucking kids at home. We don't want none of them running.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Around here getting out of adults mouths.

[James Petregallo]

That's it. We know how to get out of the way of a drunk, okay? They don't. So we have a lineup of entertainment including live performances by Neo soul artist Music with a Q Music Soul Child.

[Jimmy Wissman]

What's a neo? Neo what?

[James Petregallo]

Neo soul. I don't know, I want to say like Isaac Hayes and shit like that. From the early 70s, late 60s, I guess. Just the new version of that. Of whatever. I don't know. An R and B powerhouse, seven streeter.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Powerhouse.

[James Petregallo]

Powerhouse. Wow. Must be some Dallas shit. Food trucks. A dedicated kid zone where, you know, they have walls around it so no one can hit them with cars. Stunning fireworks display at 9:30. It's gonna be wonderful. Okay, Stunning. Then they also have sirens and smiles. This is literally the only thing going on in this town. Fourth of July. Yeah, it is. You bring your kids in and they get to look at fire trucks and shit. It's a touch a truck thing that they do. Yeah, my little brother has to take his kids to all that shit because they're obsessed with anytime there's a touch, anything with an engine, he's gotta get up at 7 o' clock in the morning and load his kids into fucking booster seats and drive over to it so they can ask questions about.

[Jimmy Wissman]

I love that the has to was in there.

[James Petregallo]

No, it's not a choice, he has to do that. It's not a choice. No, he has to, on his day off, do that. So they're gonna. Of course he can't do it when he's working on his day off. Gotta do that on his day off. He doesn't have to go down to the city at 4 o' clock in the morning. It's not appealing at all. Having little children is awful. It's an awful, awful thing. It's bad.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Touch a drug. My brother has to do this.

[James Petregallo]

He has to. That's how it breaks down, my friend.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Put tiny asses in booster seats and fucking smile.

[James Petregallo]

Head over to a fire department a half hour away to go fucking stare at a truck.

[Jimmy Wissman]

No weed, no booze. Just go do this sober.

[James Petregallo]

Just do it. Crime rate in this town, what we are interested in here, property crime about 25% above the average. So pretty crimey in terms of property crime. Then violent crime, murder, rape, robbery and of course, assault. The Mount Rushmore of crime is about 25% above the average. So there's definitely a violent overtone here. Now when we're going to go back to this town, it's going to be back when there was like maybe 8,000, 10,000 people here. There was very different town back when we're going to talk about it, and that's only in the 80s. It really has blown up since the mid-90s as a lot of places have. So that said, let's talk about a murder.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Let's do it.

[James Petregallo]

Let's get into this. Okay, here we go. Let's talk about a man first here. A man born into some not great situations. David Martin Long, all regular spellings, a real standard name here. Now, David is born on July 15, 1953. He is from San Angelo, Texas, and he's born right into just a cauldron of shit, basically. Sure, he's got a lot of older siblings, from what I can gather, at least two older brothers and an older sister. And the closest one to him seems to be about four years away from him. Four years older. His sister's like seven years older. And so there's a bunch of kids and I think there's more, by the way. Those are the only ones I could confirm. So there's at least four kids and both parents are drug addicts and alcoholics.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Fantastic.

[James Petregallo]

Great. Right. And this is in the 50s, you had to work to be a drug addict in the 50s. Like, you had to really work at it. It was hard. Yeah. Yeah. You had to work like. Yeah, it was not easy. You had to be like in the jazz scene or something to be able to be a drug addict. Otherwise you just wouldn't know anybody who had drugs. So. Although I bet you could get a doctor to prescribe you anything back then, probably.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah.

[James Petregallo]

Anything at all. What do you. What do you feel? Sure, let's give you some of these. Yeah, they'll make you feel better.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Something real hard.

[James Petregallo]

Yeah, real hard. So obviously if both of your parents. It's bad enough if one of your parents is a drug addict and an alcoholic and the other one's just a codependent or whatever this is. Both parents are a complete disaster. And that's tough. So that leads to him suffering a lot of neglect. Plenty of abuse, by the way. Lots of abuse, lots of neglect, lots of being, you know, this person's watching them and who knows what they did to him. And yeah, the more hands you pass a kid in, the worse the better. The chances of something bad happening to them are essentially when they're little. So no stability in his life at all for anybody. It's weird, but it seems like the kids, rather than kind of, kind of team up, kind of voltron themselves up to be able to withstand the storm, you know what I'm saying? If they all huddle up together, maybe the body warmth will keep them all through the night.

[Jimmy Wissman]

A 7 year old, a 12 year old, a 6 year old and a 5 year old. That's a 26 year old. Right?

[James Petregallo]

Yeah. Altogether, you could form them together in a ball. They seem to kind of go their own ways instead and handle this however they can handle it. It's every man for themselves kind of a thing. So that's what it seems like. Now his mother dies when he's 10 years old as well. 1963, his mom dies and that further absolute, whatever little string and thread of stability that was in the house is just blown apart by his mother dying. Because, dad, if you're a drug addict and an alcoholic anyway, and now your wife dies, oh, boy. I mean, that's gonna send you into a spiral, I would assume, of being worse.

[Jimmy Wissman]

And you've also got double the drugs, double the.

[James Petregallo]

Yeah, you're drugging for two now also is the problem. And you have four kids to deal with, because I think the oldest one was, like, 17 at this point. So you have a lot of kids going on, at least four kids. So at this point, he's gonna end up being shipped through a series of reform schools and foster homes, which we all know how that works out for kids. A lot of times that's pretty good. When they're shipped around, it's a great result. They reform schools and, you know, multiple foster homes, really always the best thing for a kid, obviously, you know, so that's terrible. That's not good. And especially back then. This is before, like, the. Like in the late 60s, actually. Geraldo Rivera did a bunch of exposes on when he was, like, a real reporter still. He did a bunch of exposes. I mean, before he was, like, digging in Al Capone's vaults and all that shit. Like, he was. He was going into all of these, like, mental institutions and, like, where they would house, like, severely handicapped people. And he was exposing these.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Exposing the mistreatment.

[James Petregallo]

Yeah, he helped change that entire system, which is really, really impressive. And along with that, kind of the ripple effect was the foster care system and the reform school system was also kind of in that wave of shit. But this is. Well before that. This is in, like, the early to mid-60s when it was just. You threw a kid in there and God knows what the fuck happened to him. So.

[Jimmy Wissman]

And I mean, I've only seen that one documentary on Netflix. Was it Cropsy or whatever?

[James Petregallo]

The Cropsy, Yeah. There you go. Fucked up that picture that. In every state, in every city, all over the place, that's what.

[Jimmy Wissman]

They had a man that was just. They misdiagnosed him, and he just. He knew everything they were doing to him, and he's just inside himself just screaming, God damn it, this is fucked up.

[James Petregallo]

Dude. That shit was the.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Unbelievable.

[James Petregallo]

That's the most terrifying thing ever. To be thrown into a place like that. That's insane. That's. That makes prison look good.

[Jimmy Wissman]

So zero opportunity to fight back or nothing. Scream for help.

[James Petregallo]

They just drug you and let you wander around. That's what they did back then. So David's brother Gary, who's four years older than David here, and his sister's name is Linda, she's seven years older. They both say that David himself changed after their mother died. Like, whatever little scrap of innocence was left in him was gone at that point by 10. So that's not wonderful. They said that their father's alcohol Abuse got much worse after that, and the neglect of the two younger boys got much worse. Much worse. And that's when they started putting him in institutions and foster homes because they'd just be, like, wandering the streets at night and shit. So back then, they just pick you up and throw you in a room. So they also said when their mom became sick, even before she died, their father would go out drinking and leave the children alone. Mom's in the hospital, and dad would still go out drinking and leave all the kids alone. One time, their father brought a woman home from the bar. You see where this is going? And had sex with her in front of the children. In front of the children. Let dad show you some technique now. Yeah, we'll visit mom in the morning. Don't worry about it.

[Jimmy Wissman]

I mean, I've been drunk and horny.

[James Petregallo]

Not that drunk and not that horny.

[Jimmy Wissman]

If there's eyes, any eyes, regardless of how old they are, I don't want to do it.

[James Petregallo]

Your erection should disappear magically if a child walks in the room, like, because it's. Oh, this is all over with. Damn it. I mean, I've never seen anyone like. You got your notebook out, son. Watch this now.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah.

[James Petregallo]

See, there's an angle you really want to hit now. Come on.

[Jimmy Wissman]

There's too many heartbeats in this room.

[James Petregallo]

Wow. Now, I just pictured it dark in there with four sets of eyes just staring and him shouting out, like, you know, things that he's done and instructions. Yeah, yeah. Horrible, horrible, horrible. Shit. Hey, everybody. Just gonna take a quick break from the show to tell you about the most comfortable night's sleep you're ever gonna have. With cooperation, Coop.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Sleepgoods.com Absolutely.

[James Petregallo]

Coop is amazing. I don't care how you sleep. If you sleep on your face, if you sleep on your back. I sleep terribly, no matter what position I'm in, except when I have my Coop pillow. And now I'm not sleeping without it, because these pillows are amazing. First of all, they're adjustable. That's one thing. They are amazing to have an adjustable pillow, because every pillow, I have a bad neck. If you have a bad neck or back, every pillow's too high or it's too small or it's too flat or it's too puffy. This. It's adjustable. So you can take stuff out, put stuff in to make it just how you like it. I actually found something that fits for my neck. The cooling gel running through it. We're both sweaty sleepers.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Both sides are the cool side.

[James Petregallo]

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[Jimmy Wissman]

Back to the show.

[James Petregallo]

So now by the time he's 12, David's a mess. Of course, from 10 to 12, everything falls apart because he's also in foster homes and things like that. He's pretty much an alcoholic by 12, drinking all the time, displaying some real weird behavior that nowadays we know we should. If a kid displays this behavior, there needs to be some intervention.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Start talking to him.

[James Petregallo]

Yeah, somebody needs to talk to this kid. Like including. He would kill small animals. What? Not in a hunting way, just in a.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Just fuzzies.

[James Petregallo]

Yes, just in a. Hey, it's cool to kill things and see what's inside of them. And he even, this is when he's 12, strangled a fellow student to unconsciousness. He thought he, David thought he was dead. He thought he killed him. Once he went unconscious, he was like, there you go in the movies. That's how it works. He's like, they struggle, then they go, ah. And then they're dead. Well, this kid passed out, so he let him go, but he was only unconscious. But he tried to murder him.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Thought he finished.

[James Petregallo]

Thought he murdered him.

[Jimmy Wissman]

I don't know how long it takes.

[James Petregallo]

Yep. So he ends up in reform school around 12. And basically in reform school, they believed that he had serious mental problems and a substance abuse problem. This is at 12.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Fantastic.

[James Petregallo]

Mental, you know, mental problems coming out of his ass and substances.

[Jimmy Wissman]

It doesn't take long to fuck a kid up.

[James Petregallo]

Oh, no, it doesn't. You could fucking get up with one instance of something. But if it's years of steady bullshit that gets worse so things do not get better. During his teen years, shockingly enough, he's going to all sorts of different institutions, jails, reform schools, this place, that place. He also has to battle several other addictions and including alcohol. There's also addictions to methamphetamine, cocaine and heroin as well.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Okay.

[James Petregallo]

So basically, whatever he can get his hands on, he does and gets into. So he's constantly juggling. I Picture like spinning plates, like all these different drugs and alcohol and all this type of shit.

[Jimmy Wissman]

It's youthfully getting after it.

[James Petregallo]

Absolutely. And he would end up just going between Texas and California all the time. Just got back and forth. He'd live in California for a minute, he'd go back to Texas, he'd go back to California. Tons of petty crimes, thefts and things of that nature. Vandalisms and stealing and whatever the fuck, tons of shit like that going on. But he starts to become increasingly violent the older he gets. Again, not surprising. Right. So by the 70s, he is really. He's a powder keg. I mean, he's just a mess. He's on every drug you can imagine. He's a drunk, he's angry as all shit and has reason to be probably.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Completely unaware that he's this far gone at this point.

[James Petregallo]

I'm sure. Yeah. When he's a young man, probably because we're going to jump to 1978. He's only 25. He probably. He's not had a minute to sit and think about what the hell's going on and just kind of figure out, get a consensus of what's happening to himself and what he's doing and how to fix it.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah, sure. Doesn't know who he is.

[James Petregallo]

Yep. They said his pattern would always be the same. There'd be a small attempt at stabilizing.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah.

[James Petregallo]

I'm with a girlfriend, we're gonna get a place. I got a job now. I'm settling down. And he would be fine for a month and then he would just spin out. He'd start drinking, he'd start doing drugs and then he'd start being violent and get fired from his job. Yeah. And next thing you know, here we go. And now he's drifting again and going back to Texas or back to California.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah, well, Norman, normal jail, there's. I mean, you have a goal of having that successful normal life, but then once you get it, sometimes it's like, this isn't the one that I wanted or.

[James Petregallo]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. But I mean that's if you've worked for something and achieved it and then realized that wasn't even what I wanted.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah.

[James Petregallo]

This is like a three week attempt at getting a shit together. You know what I mean? Like, well, now everything's going to be fine. Even though I'm a hardcore drug addict and alcoholic, I can just quit and be fine. And I'm moving in with this chick and I got a job and so we're going to be, you know, we're going to be Ozzy and Harriet now. Everything's going to be great.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Wow.

[James Petregallo]

Not really like that. Then he'd end up doing something dumb. Beat the girl up or something. And he'd end up in jail. So that's how it worked. November 28, 1978. He is in San Bernardino, California. At this point he's living in California. He's out driving shit face that day. That's nice. Which by the way, he's always driving shit faced. Like I grab a water before I get in the car in case I get thirsty. He's like, oh, I forgot my roadie. And just like he's getting booze.

[Jimmy Wissman]

I imagine he's probably just fucked up all the time and fucked up. Sometimes he has to drive.

[James Petregallo]

I think it's like I don't drive well unless I'm fucked up. I think he's one of those guys. It's like I drive much better when I'm drunk. I have no idea. So while he's doing this, he jumped a median. Not on purpose. And flattened two of his tires.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah.

[James Petregallo]

So he goes to a gas station. This is fucking crazy. He goes to a gas station where a gas station attendant named James Carnell, who was 54 years old, was working. Now Carnell repairs the tires. Okay. Fixes him up and says, okay, let's settle up the bill. And he charges David $16.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Wow.

[James Petregallo]

Right? Pretty great deal even in 78. Not a great deal. Not a bad deal, right?

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah.

[James Petregallo]

David is apoplectic, furious over this.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Over $16.

[James Petregallo]

That's a rip off. You rip me off, you didn't charge me. That's not $16 worth of blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. So they get in a fucking argument. Okay, all right, well, you know what? Let me let him explain it in his own words of exactly what happened. He said, quote, in approximately 1978, I had been at a party to celebrate a wedding. You know, a wedding reception usually is what they are called, but that's fine. Party to celebrate a wedding in San Bernardino, California. I was run off from this party for smoking marijuana.

[Jimmy Wissman]

I was asked to leave.

[James Petregallo]

He got kicked out of a wedding reception. That takes a lot.

[Jimmy Wissman]

He was too much fun at a wedding reception.

[James Petregallo]

That's crazy. My first marriage, the maid of honor was projectile vomiting all over the place. And we didn't ask her to leave. Oh, yeah, yeah. This is like 8 minutes after the ceremony. She was done for the night.

[Jimmy Wissman]

I had three kegs and giant vats of mojitos and some other. These people drank everything. And then Left. And I never heard from them again. It was like animals. Everybody was fine.

[James Petregallo]

Animals.

[Jimmy Wissman]

I think they were still sober. They drank it all and left.

[James Petregallo]

That's hilarious. So he said I was drunk. I decided to go to a bar. As you do when you're drunk already. Sure. And high and high. I went in a bar called Clyde's on the southeast corner of Waterman Avenue. And I tend to. I left the bar very intoxicated and jumped a median with my car, which resulted in two tires being blown out. I went ahead and went to the Union 76 gas station on the northwest corner of Waterman and I10. So he was lucky, at least. He just had to go to the other side of the intersection. I had the flats repaired. I was already feeling angry about what had happened at the party. And the gas station attendant overcharged me for the tire repair, which I still don't think that's overcharging.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Seems pretty good.

[James Petregallo]

That's any kind of a tire. Any kind of auto repair, if it's less than $20. I feel like you're making out. Even in the 70s.

[Jimmy Wissman]

I mean, when I was a kid. Look, late 80s. I vividly remember four tires for 100 bucks.

[James Petregallo]

Yes.

[Jimmy Wissman]

@ the. At the tire place.

[James Petregallo]

They were terrible tires, but not tires.

[Jimmy Wissman]

No, no, no, no, no. Well, actually BFGS. BFGS were $300 for all four. I remember that very well.

[James Petregallo]

For a good, decent tire.

[Jimmy Wissman]

For good times. 16 bucks to replace. To repair two of them would be a dream rather than $300.

[James Petregallo]

Yeah. Fucking fantastic. So this guy. $16. So he's already feeling angry. He said. I went to the car and took out a tire iron from the back.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Wow.

[James Petregallo]

And followed the attendant into the parts room where I proceeded to beat him all over the head with the tire iron.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Attempted murdered him.

[James Petregallo]

Not attempted.

[Jimmy Wissman]

What.

[James Petregallo]

I then took a broom and stuffed the handle of it down his throat to be sure he was dead.

[Jimmy Wissman]

He was dead. He beat a man to death over $16?

[James Petregallo]

Not even.

[Jimmy Wissman]

No. Because he said he was overcharged.

[James Petregallo]

Overcharged to pay $6? Maybe. Had expected to pay 10.

[Jimmy Wissman]

4. What did you expect?

[James Petregallo]

Less than $10. Less than $10. He killed this man for.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Wow. And that's it. He's in jail forever for that.

[James Petregallo]

No, he's not. That's not. Definitely. And thank you very much, everybody. That's been this episode of Small Town Murder. Have a good time.

[Jimmy Wissman]

A great day.

[James Petregallo]

Yeah. Stuck a broom handle down his throat to make sure he was dead. Think about how cold that is.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Can't even. Can't imagine that. I mean, to make sure that you didn't. What the fuck?

[James Petregallo]

And imagine who finds that a broom sticking out of something that's horrifying. That's some horror movie shit. Like that's how Jason Voorhees would leave you.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah.

[James Petregallo]

For someone to find. So he's done this and then he says a car pulled up to get gas.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Uh oh, oh no.

[James Petregallo]

I acted as the attendant and pumped the gas. How you doing, sir? Can I check your fluids?

[Jimmy Wissman]

David, Mitch blood green.

[James Petregallo]

He says he blood greened him. He's like, I'll just work here now. And I'm sure he pocketed the cash for the gas. I mean, he's not going to go put it in the register and then wait for another customer to come by. The customer produced a credit card, but I did not know how to work the machine. So I told him we didn't take credit cards after 10 o' clock and to come back tomorrow. To come back tomorrow and pay.

[Jimmy Wissman]

So he didn't even take any money?

[James Petregallo]

No, no, he just pumped the guy's gas. He's like, yeah, just get me back tomorrow.

[Jimmy Wissman]

It's fine, settle up, then it's on your credit.

[James Petregallo]

He left and then I left.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Wow.

[James Petregallo]

He said the only thing I took from the attendant was his keychain to make change for a customer. Meaning the little one with the little pumpy change thing on it. After I left, I threw the keychain in a field. I killed him because I was pissed about him overcharging me. This is who we're dealing with. This is a live wire who's capable of literally anything at any time. I mean, if he'll kill a man for $4, presumably, it's got to be. And in this cruel way, too.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Right? Right. And not just the kill. It's not just the murder of a man. It's the celebration of the murder. And didn't care. And to make sure of. Wow.

[James Petregallo]

Cold as ice. That's cold.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Creation of a man.

[James Petregallo]

Yeah. To do all of that and then be. And then two seconds later to have the wherewithal to go. How you doing today, sir? Pump your welcome. Yeah, five gallons of leaded, no problem. Like that's fucking crazy.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Premium irregular.

[James Petregallo]

Whoa. That is. We're dealing with a dangerous, dangerous person here, certainly. So December 20, 1983. So five years later, he never gets caught. He takes off. That's that. There's no security cameras or anything in 78. If no one saw you do it and you didn't leave anything behind, you get away with a gas station. But December 20, 1983, there's a man named Bob Neal Rogers. Bob, Bob and Neil, which is Andrew Dice Clay joke. That's terrible. That's what I mean. You have to tell your comedic brain. I'm sitting here telling my brain. No, no, no, that's not where we are. No. BOB Neil Rogers, 37 years old. This is in Bay City, Texas, outside of Houston. Okay. Now, Bob is David's boss at a cable television company. So they're installing cable and this is when cable was really blowing up. So these companies had a lot of work to give so much. So they'll even hire this asset.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Anybody.

[James Petregallo]

Anybody they'll hire. Literally. Can you hold a clipboard? Great. Let's go.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah. Can you operate some dykes or Kleins? Get in here.

[James Petregallo]

Get in. So Bob accuses David of misusing a company vehicle and he fires him.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Okay.

[James Petregallo]

Which is worth well more than four to six dollars. So you can imagine how upset David is.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Pretty upset, yeah.

[James Petregallo]

So he's super mad. And oh, by the way, he is under the influence of heroin at this point.

[Jimmy Wissman]

At the time.

[James Petregallo]

At the time, you would imagine, by the way, a guy on heroin would be a little more chill. Just a little more chill, you know what I'm saying? You know, junkies are a little calmer usually.

[Jimmy Wissman]

So it's one of the more chill.

[James Petregallo]

Drugs, I would say. And also some other drug to fen, metrazine, which is a stimulant he's on as well, which is an over meaning. Yeah, there's some fast gonna speed your shit up. Yeah. So that's. That has been on the market at the time, since 53. So I think you can get that like in a store. So he's on like, he's on like trucker speed and heroin at this point.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Essentially like Sudafed, where you got to mix it with like a car. No, no, this is already mixed. It's ready to go back.

[James Petregallo]

Then the doctor just give it to you and go. You'll be driving all night if you take that. Don't you worry about it. 20 hours straight on through to Long Beach. Yeah. So David visits Bob Neal Rogers, his trailer. Okay. Comes over, I don't know if to the boss's trailer. We don't know if it's because he's pissed off, if it's to try to get his job back, whatever it is. He shows up at the trailer. Now he finds his boss, Bob Neal over here. Rogers passed out drunk. He's shit faced and passed out. So David. Says here, he describes this as the way he puts it, snapping. Said he just snapped so angry that he saw him. Seems like he snapped before he came over because. Yeah. So what he does is he sets the mobile home ablaze. What? Oh, yeah. While the guy's passed out drunk inside of it. Which burns him alive inside or asphyxiates him and then burns him, however, whatever the order of shit went. And he also stole his money, but he said he stole all but $20 because he didn't want it to look like a robbery. So if he left $20, it wouldn't look like a robbery.

[Jimmy Wissman]

I don't think that. I don't think that wallet's gonna stick around. When you light a fucking mobile home.

[James Petregallo]

On fire, Crispy fucking mobile home, you're gonna find a 20 in it. So that is fucking crazy. He's arrested actually for this, David. But the Matagorda county grand jury said there was insufficient evidence for an indictment.

[Jimmy Wissman]

What?

[James Petregallo]

Yes.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Fingerprints on a gas can or something.

[James Petregallo]

Don't know. I don't know what insufficient evidence there is. Don't worry. Later on we'll hear all about it. Yeah. Okay, let's head to June.

[Jimmy Wissman]

So this man's murdered two people?

[James Petregallo]

At least.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Wow.

[James Petregallo]

Oh, at least. I mean, if he'll snap that easily. Do you think there was nothing going on in that five years between those two murders or. That's real interesting. So now let's jump to June 11, 1986, where shit gets even weirder. This is in, I guess, Iran, Texas. I R A N Texas.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Okay. Just an extra A, but probably the same.

[James Petregallo]

Extra A. Probably, I would think, or Iran, Texas. There's two ways. You really got to stretch it out. Iran, Texas. So there's a house here. Inside of this house are four people. Gail Allison, who's 25 years old. Elizabeth Belew, B E L u e, who's 24 years old. And then there is Bill Willis and Ernest Ray Willis. Okay? They're all in this house together. Now, a little bit about Earnest here. Little background on Earnest. Now, Ernest, trust me, this all ties in. You're like, who the fuck are these people? Now, believe me. So Ernest here, or Ernie, as he went, He's a big 6 foot 3 guy. He is called a soft spoken, hard headed, good looking roughneck. Which sounds like a movie character.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah, Yeah.

[James Petregallo]

A soft spoken, hard headed, good looking roughneck heads into the wilderness to find his true love who's been kidnapped by bears and held hostage in a cave. So he would. I guess he would. He worked in the oil fields of eastern New Mexico and West Texas. That's what he did during the day and then at night he was Mr. Party Time. Let's tie one on. Let's find me a lady. I mean, he's a real kind of a. An old timey guy that there's not a lot of these guys exist anymore. Go out in the fields and I'll work all day in the oil fields and then party all night, meet the ladies. So that's his kind of deal. Now he got in trouble sometimes, but only because he's a drunk.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Okay?

[James Petregallo]

He's a real drunk. I mean, he likes to party, likes.

[Jimmy Wissman]

To drink, and he's Matthew McConaughey in Dallas buyers Club.

[James Petregallo]

Except working hard in the Texas sun all day before. Yeah, before that one part. Before that problem. Yeah, that little problem he encountered. So he had three DWIs. I kept calling them DUIs, but in Texas through DWIs and another place it's oui.

[Jimmy Wissman]

And some other places it's some other acronym, but it's a dui. God damn it.

[James Petregallo]

It's a dui. It's a dwi. You're driving fucked up either way. So he also got in trouble for making a couple of obscene phone calls. For some reason he got arrested for that.

[Jimmy Wissman]

What? That's a lot of phone calls to get arrested.

[James Petregallo]

And he got arrested for. And I don't know if this is aggressive or just okay, if you're 16, this is like good clean teenage fun. If you're 33 and drunk, this is aggressive and scary to whoever's on the other side of the drive through window. But he was naked. Showed up naked at the drive through window of a fast food restaurant.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Oh, sir.

[James Petregallo]

Just came to the window, knocked on it and was like, huh?

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah.

[James Petregallo]

So obscene phone calls, naked drive thru, fast food visits. Like I said, if a 16 year old did that, it would be on a dare from his friends and they'd go, you little bastard, get out of here. And there'd be kids laughing. But if it's a drunk oil field roughneck, I think it's a different connotation, right?

[Jimmy Wissman]

Well, if he's handsome, it's.

[James Petregallo]

I mean, you never know.

[Jimmy Wissman]

That's not so bad.

[James Petregallo]

Go on and stick that thing through the window. Let me take a good look at it. So that's what he's doing here. So by the time he gets to odessa, Texas in 1986 when this whole thing takes place, he's 40 years old, he's an alcoholic with six ex wives. That is what his life has brought for him. 40 years old, 6 ex wives.

[Jimmy Wissman]

I mean, wow. I know a guy.

[James Petregallo]

I know you do. I feel like he's on track for nine, this guy.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah, he's going to beat my dad at that point. 67 and he had nine. This last one he had for fucking seven years. So that's like a seven. That's like a ten. What is that, a tenth of his life? That's pretty good.

[James Petregallo]

This guy's averaging, we'll say. Even if he started getting married at 16.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah.

[James Petregallo]

He's averaging a wife every four years.

[Jimmy Wissman]

That's incredible.

[James Petregallo]

That's insane. Think about. That's from 16.

[Jimmy Wissman]

You piss somebody off enough to make them leave every four years.

[James Petregallo]

Wow. And then you find someone else. Well, he doesn't have half his shit. We didn't take half his booze.

[Jimmy Wissman]

He had half of nothing.

[James Petregallo]

Jesus. One of my boots. I don't think so. You get the left one, I get the right one. Fuck.

[Jimmy Wissman]

You flush half a toilet, baby.

[James Petregallo]

Yeah, it can't do it, my friend.

[Jimmy Wissman]

So that's funny. Every four years you've got to meet somebody, make them love you enough to marry you and take them off enough.

[James Petregallo]

To leave, meet, marry, divorce, and then start cycle over again every four years.

[Jimmy Wissman]

In like 12 full moons.

[James Petregallo]

That's amazing. That's impressive, man.

[Jimmy Wissman]

That's very good. Yeah.

[James Petregallo]

So by 86, he's a 40 year old alcoholic with six ex wives and a really fucked up back as well.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Fuck, man.

[James Petregallo]

So he's a mess. Now the fucked up back isn't just from having six ex wives. It's actually, it's not like psychosomatic where he's just like, oh God, my life.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Throwing six wives.

[James Petregallo]

No, he got in a car accident in 1970 and had four back surgeries. And these are 70s back surgeries too. So there's no lasers or anything.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Chisel.

[James Petregallo]

Yeah, there's actual. There's like nails in there now. You know what I mean? Not even screws. We didn't even do that yet. They just like masonry nails they just put in them.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Attack hammer beating you up your back.

[James Petregallo]

So by June 10, 1986, he's living in a trailer with his cousin Billy Willis. And the two of them, this is wonderful. What they do for a living at this point is they make and sell the manufacture and sales of quote, bathtub speed.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Okay. Meth.

[James Petregallo]

Meth, yeah. But like worse, bathtub speed. I'm picturing these two fucking hillbillies just over there making bathtub speed. This here's a good Batch.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Oh, yeah, it is like that oar that.

[James Petregallo]

Yes, that's my picture of Chopper's mom.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Used.

[James Petregallo]

The whole time you're talking, I've been stirring with two hands like a witch with a big ore. About to add eye of newt to this fucking batch of bathtub speed.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Any minute now, one of them opens Sudafed caplets with his teeth and spits.

[James Petregallo]

It in and sprinkles them on in there. Pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop. From the bottom.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Jesus Christ. That one was in the back of my throat.

[James Petregallo]

Nasty. So they found themselves at a party in Iran with two women they just met. Yeah, I'm sure they're selling bathtub speed. And if you get some women who like speed and you got speed, you're going to make fast friends.

[Jimmy Wissman]

They might be kind about it. Yeah.

[James Petregallo]

Yep. So at some point, Ernie claims he took off his eel skin boots.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Eel skin?

[James Petregallo]

Eel skin? Yeah.

[Jimmy Wissman]

I don't think I.

[James Petregallo]

From the water? Who makes boots that are from the water? That's just weird.

[Jimmy Wissman]

I mean, I've seen fish. Fish skin, but I've never seen those, like diamond ones or squares. I don't know. They put them on the boot to where it's like. It's.

[James Petregallo]

I don't know, but I just remember in Suicide Kings, the guy tells them what they're made of and the guy goes, you got fish boots? I thought it was very funny.

[Jimmy Wissman]

It's not like a fucking trout. It's some other big.

[James Petregallo]

Well, I hope not. It's not a mackerel. They don't skim 300 mackerels and fucking put them on there.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Hello, Raymond. Rainbow trout boots might look fucking.

[James Petregallo]

They look pretty sharp. That's shark skin. That's what. They'd be different in different lights. That'd be pretty good. So he said he took off his eel skins and he passed out on the couch.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah.

[James Petregallo]

Now, early the next morning, the house catches on fire. Oh, and Ernie and Billy here, the cousins are going to make it out alive, but both women are going to die in the house of. From the fire.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Oh, no.

[James Petregallo]

Okay. It engulfed the homes and the Allison and Baloo are both killed while the Wilson cousins, their cousins, the Wilsons, they managed to escape. Now, the authorities right away suspect arson. They cite burn patterns and they say that suggests the use of some sort of accelerant, a flammable liquid of some kind. Here. Now, they also said that Ernie was the first to exit the burning house and was the least injured and therefore became the prime suspect for starting this fire. Obviously, now, he first raised suspicions, not only because he was less injured than everyone else, but his behavior at the fire scene. Everyone else is like, you know, coughing and, like, you know, they're being treated for burns and stuff. Like, not everyone else. It's just Billy, his cousin. The other two aren't being treated for anything because they're dead. They said that while this is all going on and while the firefighters are still extinguishing the fire, he's just standing there next to him, smoking a cigarette, having a smoke. They were like, can you not smoke where we're trying to put out a major blaze?

[Jimmy Wissman]

Just, you know, this one's under control, y' all.

[James Petregallo]

I'd love to see him turn around and hit him with the hose while he's doing that, Sir. It's farts. Yeah. I always get mad at when it's places where you're not allowed to smoke that don't make any sense. This makes perfect sense. Don't smoke while we're putting out a fire. You know, things are dry. That's just keep fire away from fire is all we're saying here. So he also said he didn't seem to have inhaled very much smoke. And his feet.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Marlboro.

[James Petregallo]

That's. Yeah, he's just. Except for with nicotine in it. And his feet weren't as burned as they thought they should have been.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Oh, yeah. It should have been a big. Much more rager by the time he was trying to get out of there.

[James Petregallo]

Because he didn't have his shoes on. So, like, how'd your feet not get burned? You must have got out of there pretty quick, huh? That's weird. Now, Ernest's story is that he awoke to the smell of smoke around 4am on June 11, and he and Billy were able to get out of the house, but the flames had pushed them back when they tried to rescue the other two, the girls, the women tried to rescue them. They said, the flames pushed us back. We couldn't get back in. And they just died in the fire. I don't know what happened. So they went, okay, that sounds good. Well, why don't you come in for a polygraph examination? And he says, no problem. And he fails it miserably. Not good. So he's arrested on October 22, 1986, and charged with capital murder.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Of the two women.

[James Petregallo]

Two women charged with capital murder up for the death penalty.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Oh, my God.

[James Petregallo]

Now, during the trial, he's portrayed as a remorseless killer, and they were emphasizing that he had a very emotionless demeanor during the trial say, look at him. He won't even fucking look over here. Nothing. You saw autopsy photos of burned corpses, and he didn't even flinch. You see this guy smoking, sat there just. And it's the 80s. He probably was.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Probably was smoking a corpse.

[James Petregallo]

I just sat there smoking away. See this? He's still smoking.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah.

[James Petregallo]

So there was no physical evidence against him, obviously, but the prosecution's theory was that he set the fire. The poor patterns on the show, on the floor, show to use some kind of accelerant. Now, while he sat in jail, he was given high doses of two different antipsychotic medications, Haldol and. Whoa. Perfenazine.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Both sound amazing. Haldol. He's getting Haldol.

[James Petregallo]

Imagine those with a glass of wine. Oh, baby, what a Sunday. Oh, man, let me tell you something.

[Jimmy Wissman]

I can already hear fucking that blonde lady singing Sunday Night Football. Let's go.

[James Petregallo]

Totally. Let's do it. Because I don't even know if it's Sunday, but I hear her singing it.

[Jimmy Wissman]

That's how I know that there she is.

[James Petregallo]

I don't even know. It could be Thursday, but Wednesday, but she's singing.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Hockey players. Sing it, lady.

[James Petregallo]

I hear her singing. This is going to be good. Yeah, definitely. That's. Any drugs that say, you know, do not take with alcohol, that means that'll. You'll get really fucking. You'll feel great if you take that with a little bit of alcohol.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Try a beer.

[James Petregallo]

Just a glass of cabernet, Nothing crazy. Not shit face. So that is. Once the trial started, the prosecutors used that to their advantage because they said that's what gave him the doped up look where he just sat there staring because he was on two heavy antipsychotic drugs. They referred to him as having cold fish eyes. Okay, okay. Now his not feeling. I don't know. Well, fish eyes don't show emotion.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah.

[James Petregallo]

They don't portray anything.

[Jimmy Wissman]

It's the eyeball you see in the fish case.

[James Petregallo]

Yeah. Just staring dead at you. Now, Ernie, you know, trying to mount a defense here. He's got a defense attorney who has four years of legal experience, which is. That is a really new lawyer to be doing a capital murder case.

[Jimmy Wissman]

He's got more experience in school than he does in law in the courtroom.

[James Petregallo]

Yeah, yeah. And like, you have to get, like. I know now you have to be like, death penalty qualified to be a lawyer in a death penalty case. They have to qualify the lawyers, too, for this shit. So I don't know how the hell that happened, but he never Tried a death penalty case before. He's like, this will be my first, but I'm feeling good about it. I read a lot of books and I just got out of law school, so it's fresh. I passed the bar.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Don't worry.

[James Petregallo]

Don't sweat it. He rarely objected to anything, by the way. And neither the DA's office nor the jail officials ever gave an explanation for why they drugged him so much. I think we know why. So he would look like that in court. So he is found guilty of capital murder and it took the jury one hour to come back and sentence Ernie to. You, sir, may fuck off. Death penalty.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Goodbye, sir.

[James Petregallo]

Ernie is in deep shit here. It's August 4th, 1987. He is sentenced to death here. And like I said, he. He said he didn't even know he was being given the antipsychotic medication, which. I don't know if they were putting it in his food or what, but seems like you would have to know something about it, right?

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah. At least something. Yeah.

[James Petregallo]

I mean, they're giving you something. Did they tell you it was Tylenol? I mean, what were they telling you exactly?

[Jimmy Wissman]

Did they just say, eat this?

[James Petregallo]

I don't know. Did they put it in his food? Who knows? Whatever it is. But he said it was without his knowledge. So that's why they were trying to. In the penalty phase. They were trying to say, like, he was given drugs without his knowledge. So. And a lot of that contributed, said.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Eat it or else.

[James Petregallo]

But no. So he is going to prison. Okay, so that was June of 86, that fire happened.

[Jimmy Wissman]

That's good.

[James Petregallo]

Now, late summer, 1986. All right, while the, you know, while Ernie is failing polygraph tests and all that kind of thing, David here, David Long, our original fucking jerk off, here, he is at a low point in his life, which is saying something for him. Yeah, for him, that's low. He has just gotten out of a voluntary alcohol treatment program at Serenity House in Little Rock, Arkansas, gets out of rehab and just begins hitchhiking because he has nothing else going on. Now, during this time, by the way, we find out a little bit about his previous mental problems in all of the hospitals, reformatories, jails he's been in. He's had quite a few psych evaluations, and he's been previously diagnosed with. Here we go. Toxic psychosis. Superimposed residual schizophrenia.

[Jimmy Wissman]

What is that?

[James Petregallo]

I think that is like drug psychosis. Basically, you have fried your brain with drugs.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Say it again.

[James Petregallo]

Toxic psychosis. So right away, that's a Drug thing. Superimposed. Residual schizophrenia.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Superimposed.

[James Petregallo]

I don't know what the. Maybe that made the schizophrenia become a permanent thing, not just schizophrenic while he's on drugs. I'm not positive, but.

[Jimmy Wissman]

And imposed sounds. Yeah. Like a photo, but it's like. Yeah, yeah.

[James Petregallo]

I think it might mean induced basically.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Right, right.

[James Petregallo]

In a medical sense.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Forcing this on him.

[James Petregallo]

Exactly.

[Jimmy Wissman]

He was not born this way. This is chemically altered.

[James Petregallo]

Yeah, yeah. And they said that results from drug or alcohol ingestion, so that makes sense. And catatonic schizophrenia, like Cameron, I guess from Ferris Bueller, when it's fucking dad's car crashes, I assume he just fucking.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Dead face it and stare. Oh my God.

[James Petregallo]

Once in a while you get to see a broad, tits like that, you never know, you know what I mean? Didn't he get to see her change or something? Cause he was catatonic. Yeah. Okay, so. Which they say that's a severe condition manifested by almost total withdrawal from reality, borderline delusional thinking and paranoid ideations. So he has been diagnosed with some serious mental illness.

[Jimmy Wissman]

No shit.

[James Petregallo]

Those are. No shit. Take them seriously. You can't walk off that. Catatonic schizophrenia. I don't think you walk that off. No, not good at all. Here he's described though, this is the thing. When he is not on drugs, which is very rare, he's definitely described as a completely different kind of guy. And he's also described as strikingly handsome by every woman that encounters him. Even the guys will go, he's a real handsome guy. Ladies man, fucking guy. Yeah. Which is so weird. He's got like real blue, blue eyes, like ice blue eyes. And you know, it is fascinating what.

[Jimmy Wissman]

What blue eyes can do for a man. Anybody really, but for a man specifically.

[James Petregallo]

Because you could be a woman we don't care about.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Eyes have blue eyes and people are like, oh you're so handsome.

[James Petregallo]

Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. Or green eyes. You see criminals, they got green eyes and women are like, oh that mugshot, he's speaking to me. No, he's just got green eyes, you fucking idiot.

[Jimmy Wissman]

If he closed those, you'd be talking about.

[James Petregallo]

Yeah, you'd be terrified. Let me. Hey, close your eyes now. Let me tell you what he did. Tell me if you're still. Yeah, tell me if you're still fucking wet over here or what. So he's described as a former. By a former co worker on one of his many, many, many, many, many jobs that he's had. He said he has a dangerous drug habit that's his main problem. He said he had a habit of doing speed, which becomes a habit. Yeah. This is when he worked in. This is the cable television company that he worked for in Bay City, where he burned his boss's trailer and killed him. He said when he wasn't on that stuff, he was okay, but when he was on that stuff, he was a terror. No matter what you did, it wasn't right.

[Jimmy Wissman]

He was on that stuff.

[James Petregallo]

He gets meth. Grumpy women said, oh, man. One woman said, He's 6 foot tall, 180 pounds, sexy. The one woman said, quote, I remember his ice blue eyes. And said he was, quote, real good looking. And another woman said, if you ever saw Dave, you'd remember him. It was the way he carried himself, right? You know, a fucking asshole.

[Jimmy Wissman]

The way he carried himself.

[James Petregallo]

But he's the bad boy. And some women, that's what they're looking for now. So he's just got out of this rehab. It's September 2, 1986, and he is hitchhiking along a Texas highway. He has, by the way, is not hitchhiking with any particular destination in mind.

[Jimmy Wissman]

It just says anywhere else but and, but or bust.

[James Petregallo]

That's it.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Whatever.

[James Petregallo]

Gone or bust. That's all.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Not here or bust.

[James Petregallo]

It's almost like a guy. Like back in the day, like, people would just, like, if they could afford a subway token and they were homeless, they just ride the train all night. Yeah, because it was, like, safer than being on the street and less cold or hot or whatever. That's almost like what he's doing. He has nowhere to go, so he's just like, hitchhiking until he comes across something he doesn't even know. Otherwise he'll just stay on the road. So he's got nowhere to go. And a woman pulls over to pick him up. Her name is Donna Sue Jester. That's with a J. Jester. She's 37 years old and her whole entire life, pretty much, is being a good Samaritan. That's what she does in her house. She has a constant rotating lineup of people she found on the street. People who are down on their luck.

[Jimmy Wissman]

She's a collector.

[James Petregallo]

Yeah. She comes in, they move in for a couple months, they get their shit together, she gets them out. She just has this thing where she loves helping people and will help anybody. Literally. If you're on the side of the road, she'll pick you up and go. You need a place to stay.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Jesus.

[James Petregallo]

So a really, really kind woman here. Like I said, 37 years old and she's well liked as well. She worked for 17 years at the Southwestern Bell Telephone Company until she retired in March of 86. She's 37. Retired, retired at 37.

[Jimmy Wissman]

I'm just going to help people from now on.

[James Petregallo]

Yeah, I don't know. She got a job at 17, worked 20 years and was eligible for some kind of pension or what, but holy shit, 37 and retired. So she opened her home up to strangers. She'd give shelter to homeless people or people who are just passing through or whatever it was. She was known throughout town. The Lancaster police chief said that she was well known in town for bringing in stray dogs and had a habit of picking up, quote, down and outers. The old down and outers. So she finds David and he's a fucking mess when she picks him up. I mean, he's been on the road for days.

[Jimmy Wissman]

He's a down and outer.

[James Petregallo]

He's as down and out as it gets. Like, she sees him, must have saw halos and glowing around him like, oh, that's the down and outer I need right here. So she heard, she picks him up, he looks like shit and he looks like he's been living on the road. She hears about his horrible circumstances and he just got out of rehab and he's trying to make a go of his life. So she said, I'll tell you what, you can stay at my house if you just do household chores for me. Fix shit, you know, do stuff. He said, I'm pretty handy. And she said, well, great, you're in.

[Jimmy Wissman]

A down and outer at my joint, that's all.

[James Petregallo]

Sweep the floors and fix a fucking, you know, fix an electrical socket when it needs it. That's it.

[Jimmy Wissman]

There it is.

[James Petregallo]

So now at her house already is her mother, adoptive mother, that's the other thing. She was adopted Donna, which a lot of times will make people want. And she was raised by a good mother who treated her well. So she's trying to pay it forward or pay it backward or whatever the fuck. Pay it somewhere.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Make the world the place that she wants it to be.

[James Petregallo]

Yeah.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Wishes her was.

[James Petregallo]

Yeah. She lives with her 64 year old adoptive mother, Dalfa Lorene Jester. She's 64 years old. She is completely blind and bedridden, requiring constant care and the aid of a walker just to get to the bathroom, of course. And she's bumping into the wall still because she's blind.

[Jimmy Wissman]

That's not good. Yeah.

[James Petregallo]

There's one other person living at the house too with that, who is that nothing like the other, like any of the other three. Laura Lee Owens, a 20 year old pretty young lady.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Oh, no.

[James Petregallo]

Yeah. She was homeless as well. That's why Donna took her in. I don't know. During the time there, you know this, she was, Laura was a runaway, basically. Not even a homeless. She ran away and she worked at a fast food restaurant in Lancaster. And now her family's been looking for her. She ran away when she was younger, but she has been looking for her mother, which is a mess. This is what she's doing. She's out looking for her mother who she took off on her and her family's looking for her. So she's just going around the country looking for her mother while people are.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Showing up as she leaves looking for her.

[James Petregallo]

Yeah, exactly. It's what it is. They said. And she's always been like this. They said for years she hitchhiked. She ran away from home and did whatever she wanted to do. That's what her father said. Her father said she started running away from home when she was 16, 15 or 16 years old, because. And not just running away, gone for two days and come back, you'd have to go find her ass and drag her back. She was gone. She said that the daughter, he said his daughter could never accept his strict discipline and resented authority. Which is interesting because really the only 99% of the time, the only time kids run away and try to stay away is when they've been abused. That's it. Beaten.

[Jimmy Wissman]

It's abuse. Yeah.

[James Petregallo]

Yes. And so him saying she couldn't handle my strict discipline means he beat the shit out of his daughter, probably, and she ran away. I mean, we don't know if that's true, but it sounds like it. The proof is in the pudding. And if she's hitchhiking, moving in with strangers in Texas or something, it doesn't sound like, you know, sounds like that's what happened. He said I couldn't really control her. He said he was often awakened by calls from the cops because she'd been brought to the the station for wandering on the beach in Florida. That's where she's from. She's not even local. She's from Florida. She would be wandering on the Naples beach in the middle of the night when she was 15. So the cops would pick her up. So he said that she was hard to control, but she was never involved in drugs or alcohol. She just took off. Outside of running away, he said she never did any wrong. When the cops would call, it was just because she was out, not because she did something to get in trouble. So he said that she would often talk about, and this is what everybody that knew her said that she would often talk about searching for her natural mother with her father and her stepmother. She wanted them to help her search. And the father said. It always bothered me that her mother didn't want to have anything to do with the kids. And she never found her mother. She's 20 years old. She's still looking for her mother. So this is. She's fucking sad. Yeah, this is very sad. So she moved into this house in the end of August. So she's only been there a couple. Few weeks anyway. But she got a job at a fast food joint and she's living here now. David moves in to the house. Okay. But not into the house initially. Initially, he sleeps outside in Donna's car like a dog. Not even a dog. You build a dog a little house, you don't tell him to go sleep in the car.

[Jimmy Wissman]

This one's already built.

[James Petregallo]

Wow. And this is in September in Texas. It's hot.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Oh, Jesus.

[James Petregallo]

It's fucking hot outside of Dallas in September. It's early September, mid September. It doesn't cool off there until goddamn Halloween, I don't think so. Anyway, he would sleep outside in the car. And then after a little while, after a few days, he ends up moving into the house with the three ladies.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Okay.

[James Petregallo]

And he immediately starts up, from what Donna says in her journals.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah.

[James Petregallo]

A loving and sexual relationship with Laura, who's. Yeah. 17 years or whatever. No, he. At 13. Yeah, he's about 13, 14 years younger than him, which is fine, I guess. She's 20, but.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah, it's. It's certainly legal and perfectly fine. But not fine because she's got a lot of problems in your.

[James Petregallo]

She's got problems.

[Jimmy Wissman]

You know it. Yeah.

[James Petregallo]

And she's looking for a guy like him.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah. Somebody take care of her? Somebody.

[James Petregallo]

Not even. Someone to take care of her. Someone to be an abusive asshole or that.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah.

[James Petregallo]

I mean, she doesn't know that's what she's looking for. But if she's running away from her dad because he's an abusive asshole, she's probably going to go find another abusive asshole without even knowing that's what she's doing, you know? So this is how the arrangement works here. Okay. And it works for a minute. David repaired work, all did repair work around the property, began a romantic relationship with Laura. For a guy who was on the side of the road with nothing, he really stepped in some shit. Here? Yeah, he got picked up. And she said, would you like a place to live in a 20 year old to have sex with? Come on. And she's pretty too, Laura. I've seen a picture. She's pretty. Like it's weird as shit. So David and Laura are, you know, they're both happy that Donna's doing this and being generous and basically they have a real weird kind of a family unit going on for a couple weeks. It's very strange. Donna kind of treats them like they're her kids, even though David's her age and they have the blind grandma there and all this type of shit. So it's a little family unit though. Now, Donna also agreed, this is also part of the deal, not only like room and board, but part of the board is she agreed Donna to supply David with if he does all these repairs, cigarettes and Mad Dog 2020. No shit, Mad Dog. Now if you don't know if you're not complete trash and if you weren't like a street urchin when you were a 16 year old, mad dog 2020 is terrible wine that comes in fruit flavors and it comes in a bottle that looks like a flask.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah. And yeah, that is the crazy part, the shape of it.

[James Petregallo]

Yeah, because I had a friend that, I mean, he was all about, he loved the grape. We used to drink that shit like crazy. It was gross.

[Jimmy Wissman]

It was actually Maryland didn't even stand for Mad Dog. It was Mogan Date David. I think it's the maker of the drink. And we just all called it mad.

[James Petregallo]

You all called it mad.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Gross.

[James Petregallo]

Everyone knows of it as Mad Dog 2020. So in court records they say MD2020 known as Mad Dog, which is hilarious.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah, it's Mad Dog. And it was 20 ounces of 20% alcohol. That's why it was the 2020.

[James Petregallo]

Fuck you.

[Jimmy Wissman]

It was 20 ounces, you guys, of 20%. If you get a tall boy 24 ounce beer, that's 5 to 6% and people consider that person gross.

[James Petregallo]

This is 20%. If you get an IPA, it's 8.7%. This is 20%. Wine is like 12, 14, 12 to 14 regular wine.

[Jimmy Wissman]

None of it's 20%.

[James Petregallo]

20% is strong.

[Jimmy Wissman]

80% is the highest wine content I've ever had. That's too stout.

[James Petregallo]

It's strong. That's fucking strong. So that's what he, that's what he's working for. Everybody's working for the Mad Dog, including him. So he's working for the Mad Dog for the Mad Dog. That's exactly where I was going with that.

[Jimmy Wissman]

It's crazy. And it is eerily shaped like a flask.

[James Petregallo]

It looks just like a flask. Like a big flask. Like a giant flask.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah, a taller, skinnier flask, man.

[James Petregallo]

So shit is going on now. In Donna's journal, she wrote that Laura and David here, by the way, she describes him as strikingly handsome. And she said that they hit it off, the two of them. Donna or not Donna, Laura and David hit it off. Now, David's mental state through all this. Remember all of his diagnoses.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah. All that forced.

[James Petregallo]

Yeah. You can't just ignore that shit. No, it's a serious problem.

[Jimmy Wissman]

It's lingering and it makes things awful.

[James Petregallo]

And his mental state starts to deteriorate a bit here, where he becomes a little disturbed. He started saying that. Then later on he'll say the house had a foul smell that agitated him. And this is why. It's fucked up. And it's just a delusion in his head. He said it. It's. It made him. It's the same smell that was around when his mother died.

[Jimmy Wissman]

He said, oh, that's the worst. When you. When a smell creates a. Brings back a memory, and that memory is not positive.

[James Petregallo]

Yeah.

[Jimmy Wissman]

I don't know what that smell is, though. They got rotting.

[James Petregallo]

When is. That's. I mean, it just. It's. This is not. This is like a. You know, this is a delusion, I believe. I don't think this is real. Yeah. Because it's the only. The death. Not like, you know, I could see if this is what my mother's hospital room smelled like. She was in there for two months or this is what. Whatever. It's not that. She's just got a weird thing. So the. He also said the home was filthy, which, I mean. Well, clean it, motherfucker. That's why you're here. That's your job.

[Jimmy Wissman]

You. You don't have to pay for this.

[James Petregallo]

No. Drink your mad dog and mop the floors, asshole. Like, that's your job.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Good day. Yeah.

[James Petregallo]

Yeah. And your job is to do housework, so do it. Get cracking, big guy. So he said the home was filthy and smelled of dog hair and feces from several dogs who roam freely through the home. Remember, she takes in strays. So during this week in September, he starts to think that his thoughts turn a little different to where he says, oh, my God, I know what Donna's doing, and I know what that smell is.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Okay.

[James Petregallo]

That smell is rotting flesh.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Oh, boy.

[James Petregallo]

Oh, boy is right. She said that Donna, this lady, she pretends she's nice, she picks people up and then she takes them here and kills them and buries them in the backyard. That's what I'm smelling. The backyard is full of hitchhikers.

[Jimmy Wissman]

It's a whole graveyard.

[James Petregallo]

Hitchhiker, graveyard full of hitchhikers. And he said, I'm fucking next. She's gonna get like, I'm going to repair everything and the next thing you know, I'm going to be planted in the yard. Wow. So that is very, very interesting here. He also said that there was a lot of bickering in the house. A lot of bickering. Donna would complain about him drinking Mad Dog and that caused him to, quote, cut it down to about 2/5 a night.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Oh my.

[James Petregallo]

Cut it down to 2/5, cut it.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Down to 2 mad dogs.

[James Petregallo]

Think about that. Cut it down to 40 ounces of 20% wine. Think about that. That's a lot. That's a cut down.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Oh my.

[James Petregallo]

Now he's also sharing a bed with Laura and being drunk. He said the bickering continued. Later on he'll say bickering about my sex with Laura and about my drinking. That's mainly the bickering. How loud are they fucking in there? Also, keep it down. There's a blind lady, she can hear everything. Her sense of hearing is really enhanced.

[Jimmy Wissman]

It's heightened. Yeah, May as well have a fucking. A bullhorn to her ear.

[James Petregallo]

Yeah, May as well be shouting into.

[Jimmy Wissman]

A hostage negotiator's bullhorn.

[James Petregallo]

Just into a sick blind old lady's ear. Fuck me harder. Fuck me harder.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Open your mouth.

[James Petregallo]

On my face. So as of September 27, he's sitting around being angry, drinking Mad dog. Okay, Monday, September 29th comes around. All right, Donna's boss at work comes looking for. Because she had gotten another some part time thing that she was doing. But she didn't show up on Monday, which is she never not shows up. And she didn't show up. This lady came over to the house looking for her and noticed the front door was open, so she called the cops to do a wellness check. Thought that was weird. So police arrive and they're called in and a sergeant here arrives for the wellness check. And his quote is the front door was open. There was about three steps down from the front door to the round to the round. And laying there was what I thought was a bundle of clothing. As I got closer, I realized it wasn't a. Wasn't about a little clothing. It was a human being whole thing. Whole Thing she had a very large gash on the back of her head. Of course, I called for backup right away. I didn't know if the perpetrator was still in the house. And I had no idea that I had no idea. And the hair was standing up on the back of my neck. He says, so another cop comes in and they said, we notified the dispatch that we were entering the building. Or you could see to the last. Where you could see to the last living room and to the bedroom where the door was open. So in the front yard they find Laura's body outside. What? In the front there's multiple bodies. That's. Let's get into this here. Laura, the young woman, the 20 year old, she's in the front yard where Donna and Dolpha, mother and daughter there, are found lying on the bed in the back bedroom of the house. They have been brutalized. Why? And in the sink they find both a steak knife and a hatchet. What? Both rinsed off and wrapped in a towel in the bathroom sink. Okay. Now, mother and daughter there, Donna and Alpha were found in a room. Wow. Inside the house where. I'm sorry. Laura was found on the back porch, not the front yard. So the cops didn't see her when they came at first. All victims had suffered multiple knife and or hatchet wounds to the head and neck. This is a just a scene of butchery. Yeah, but I mean, a hand hatchet just going to work on people. They said, we feel like the steak knife was used first and that the hatchet was used as a weapon of convenience. Yeah, they speculate. Yeah, they speculated the three women were killed between 6 and 10pm on Saturday the 27th.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah.

[James Petregallo]

And are here now? Probably. Yeah. They said, we feel like Laura was not at the house at the time and that only Donna, sue and Ms. Jester were there. We believe that Laura was coming into the house after they were killed and was confronted and confronted the killer and that she turned to escape and was caught outside because Laura, they find out, got off work at the fast food restaurant at 5pm so they think it happened right after that because they think she got off work, came home and it happened. Never even got really in the house enough to even put her purse down. So they were attacked with a camping hatchet that had a three inch wide blade. Jesus. The wounds on Donna's hands indicate she was also stabbed with a steak knife. And like I said, both weapons are found. In total, Donna suffers 14 blows.

[Jimmy Wissman]

What?

[James Petregallo]

14 blind stabbings, hatchetings, everything. A blow thing.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Is an injury.

[James Petregallo]

14 blows. Dalfa had five wounds to the head and neck. Jesus Christ. And Laura had 21 blows to the head, neck and hands.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Why were they so mad?

[James Petregallo]

This is overkill. This is like years of shit and an explosion. This is crazy. So in the investigation here, there's no one else in the house. Just the three of them.

[Jimmy Wissman]

What the fuck?

[James Petregallo]

So they're like, we don't know what the hell happened here. So police find her journal, Donna's journal, which she is a meticulous journaler. Meticulous. So they start trying to piece this together and figure it out. Now they discover her diary, and in it they documented all of her nice things that she's done. Pick this person up. This person moved out. She talks about eight days ago. Picking up a hitchhiker named David Martin Long and letting him stay there. So they're like, okay, we'd love to talk to this guy.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Name? Yeah.

[James Petregallo]

I mean, he could have left the next day. But she didn't write it down. So usually she writes it. So they said Donna said in the diary, too, that Laura and David hit it off and were sleeping together and everything like that. So this gives them some kind of lead here, something. By the way, they said the journals, they were a collection of notebooks, all the same size and brand and everything like that, numerically organized by year.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Wow.

[James Petregallo]

Meticulous with her journaling. That is impressive, right? Yeah, that's really impressive. They said they were concentrating on the five notebooks written in 1986. She's gone through five notebooks. It's only September.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah.

[James Petregallo]

Wow. So they said. Initially, the diary leads them to another man, the last name of Thomas, who had broken up with Donna a few weeks earlier. And she referred to him in her diary as her common law husband. So they were like, let's find that fucking guy. But they later found out that he was in Georgia when the murders occurred and had a dead, rock solid alibi. So he's probably in jail in Georgia, I'm sure, or something. So. No, he was at a military base, actually. So they know where those guys are anyway. And so this was corroborated by base command. No way he could have done it. Not. Not a chance in hell. So they're like, what? What the fuck happened here? Then they realize that, oh, we have fucked up huge.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Why is that?

[James Petregallo]

The cops have fucked up huge. Because we remember David. Our friend David Long there. Well, he was arrested Saturday night, September 27, the same night the murders happened. He was arrested on the night of the murders. For driving while intoxicated.

[Jimmy Wissman]

What?

[James Petregallo]

He was driving Donna Sue's stolen wood paneled station wagon.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Sure.

[James Petregallo]

And he was. But it hadn't been reported stolen because they're dead. He was found heading north in a. North in a southbound lane on the.

[Jimmy Wissman]

I45 in the family truckster.

[James Petregallo]

He's taking the truckster on the wrong way. The wrong way fucking lane. Wow, that will stand out. A wood paneled station wagon going 80 miles an hour the wrong way up and on ramp is fucking scary.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Fall asleep behind the wheel.

[James Petregallo]

Holy shit. This is about 100 miles south of Lancaster, by the way. Officers reported seeing David run several cars off the road. Then when they finally pulled him over, he was, quote, ranting and raving about God or Jesus or something. And in Texas, that's usually welcomed. So you really got to be doing some weird shit for them to be like, it was strange.

[Jimmy Wissman]

We just didn't recognize the passages. All.

[James Petregallo]

Yeah, we were like, I mean, I'll speak in tongues, but this is real weird shit. I don't even know what the hell, Matthew. Maybe. I don't even know. Then he gets arrested and he is banging his head on the inside of the police car as well. So they said he was possibly high on drugs and definitely very drunk.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Possibly drugs too.

[James Petregallo]

Possibly drugs. Here is police. This is in Buffalo, Texas, by the way.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Of course they got one.

[James Petregallo]

Of course they have one. Police officer, Jerry Broadhead said he seemed crazed. He was cussing and ranting and raving about Jesus and God or something. He kept banging his head against my squad car until he cut his head while screaming about Jesus. Now they also in the car, the car contains property that belongs to Donna Sue. Oh yeah, they have her car, but they don't know that it's stolen. They don't know that anybody's been killed. They take him to the police station and during all of this, basically he says they put him in a jail cell. And he starts telling the jailer, I killed three women up in. Up in Lancaster. You know, that's the point. That's why I was driving. Because I killed three women up in Lancaster. And start saying, I think this woman was killing hitchhikers, burying them in her backyard. Oh, I saved lives all this time. I'm just for the future, for the young drifter out there to be safe. He said that? Yeah, the filth in the house, the smell hurt me. That adversely affected me. He said he did repairs on the house that day and didn't consume any alcohol until Donna and Laura arrived home from their Jobs. He said that night, Donna and Laura went into the back bedroom to talk with Dolpha. And he said, I know what they were doing back there. They were conspiring against me. They're agin me and I know it. That's what he said. He said he became convinced that these dead bodies were buried behind the house and that these three women were conspiring first to destroy his relationship with Laura and then to get Laura on their side to kill him and bury him in the backyard.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah, obviously.

[James Petregallo]

So on that day, he said he did repairs, like we said. Now Dalfa stays in her home, confined to the bed, and the other two came home from work. And he said there was bickering. He said he heard bickering and he couldn't stand that anymore. So he said he was drinking. Drinking. And the women's complaints about his alcohol consumption made him madder, made him resentful. And he said, I've got something in my head that just clicks sometimes. It just goes off.

[Jimmy Wissman]

What is that?

[James Petregallo]

I think that's when you burn a man to death for firing you. I think that's the thing that clicks.

[Jimmy Wissman]

It just goes off when someone charges.

[James Petregallo]

You six extra dollars for tires.

[Jimmy Wissman]

When I'm overcharged. Not just charged.

[James Petregallo]

Overcharged? Yeah, it's amazing. He was. Wow, that's crazy. So, yeah, he said he was establishing this romantic relationships. And he said there was a series of complicated reactions and interactions between me and them. What, you're a drunk drug addict? There wasn't nothing as complicated or. Yeah, I just got tired of hearing all the bickering. He said. Yeah, he said that the only scream was from the old lady. The other two didn't know what hit them. I'm not into torture, so I got it over with pretty quick. This is what he tells the fucking jailers.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah.

[James Petregallo]

So you assume they're like, where is this? Let's go into investigation mode. Give me an address. Where'd this happen? What are their names? Well, not really, actually. Because again, the women's bodies have not been discovered yet, not till Monday evening. And the fact that they don't know the car stolen or anything else. So his confession was dismissed as the drunken ramblings of a drifter.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah, yeah.

[James Petregallo]

Drunken ramblings. A jailer heard it and woke up the sheriff. Actually had the sheriff woken up. Sheriff Royce Wilson. Gotta know his name. Cause he's a fucking dummy in this story. The sheriff said, nah, forget about it. Don't even worry about it. He's a drunk. Don't sweat it. Now the sheriff will later deny he was told about any murder confession. So they release him from jail. On Monday morning, they have him in jail. He confessed to the murders. They release him from jail.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Oh, boy.

[James Petregallo]

Yeah, which is crazy. They said he told inmates about it. He told the jailers about it. He told everybody about it. Bob Gresham Jr. A Leon county sheriff's dispatcher, said, the jailer said that some guy out there was talking about killing somebody in a past tense. But people say that sort of thing all the time.

[Jimmy Wissman]

All the time they're talking about killed people.

[James Petregallo]

Y' all need to just making confessions.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Is that what they do?

[James Petregallo]

Also, the inmates who he told are telling the jailer, dude, that guy serious. There was blood on his boots when he came in here, man. There was blood all over his fucking boots. Yeah, check this dude out. And they were like, they do it all the time.

[Jimmy Wissman]

They're trying to get drunks, not fuck with them in here. That's what. That's what he's doing it for.

[James Petregallo]

It's probably ketchup. Y' all don't worry about it.

[Jimmy Wissman]

He sprayed that. So y' all leave him alone.

[James Petregallo]

So Monday morning, He is fined $589, but released without paying it or posting bond or anything.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Oh, boy.

[James Petregallo]

Without anything. Which, by the way, is a violation of state law that he's released with. No anything. Yeah, he's supposed to pay a bond at least. So he's. Despite he didn't have enough money to retrieve his impounded vehicle as well or post the bail. The DUI charge was, by the way, his second, making it a felony. But they never checked his records even. They just thought he was some drunk.

[Jimmy Wissman]

What is going on?

[James Petregallo]

They don't check to see if he's had other DUIs. They don't check to see if his murderous tales are true. Yeah, get him in, get him out. And they said, well, there's only eight cells in this. So it's. We got to get people in and out.

[Jimmy Wissman]

You know, we got. We got people arrest because they're driving the Cadillac with PIT at Pennsylvania plates.

[James Petregallo]

Wow. The one police chief, Lancaster police chief said they released this individual on his own recognizance.

[Jimmy Wissman]

His own.

[James Petregallo]

He also said they bought him a bus ticket to Houston. Then he got out on the highway and hitchhiked. After cashing in the ticket, he took the cash. He took the cash. He went down to the bus station.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Turned his ticket door number two.

[James Petregallo]

The sheriff, who, by the way, denies that he ever heard about the murders, even though the dispatcher also said that this cop was basically. That he was patched through the dispatcher to the sheriff. He also denies giving him a bus ticket to Houston, which we know is true, which is hilarious. This guy said, well, I didn't ignore a murder confession and buy a murderer or a bus ticket.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Hell, no, we didn't do nothing.

[James Petregallo]

So, yeah, later on, once they release him, then Wilson said, my understand. Wilson is the sheriff who's obviously not very good at his job. My understanding is that he told some prisoners in the jail that he killed some people. Yeah, he said that the Lancaster county police came down or the Lancaster Town police came down and talked to inmates about the confession. But Wilson denies reports that a sheriff's employee heard the confession and shrugged it off as ranting, or that he didn't, you know, that he ignored it here. They said they released him. The investigators say they believe the suspect here, whom they describe as a transient, was welcomed into this home and that he killed the women in a weekend rampage that grew out of a, quote, fight or fuss with one of the victims.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Just a little fuss created murder.

[James Petregallo]

Don't use the word. Don't use the word fuss. If it result. That's. That's like when O.J. would talk about beating up Nicole and he'd say, we tussled. Yeah, that's not a. You beat the shit out of her. That's not a tussle. She had black eyes, black and blue. Her face looked like Mitch Green after he encountered Tyson in the street. And you're like, we had a tussle. I don't think so. O.J.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Did you see that? Ahmad Rashad had him and.

[James Petregallo]

Yes. Yes, that's been out for years. Yes, that's been out for years. Oh, my God. That's hilarious. Now that's been out for years.

[Jimmy Wissman]

That's unbelievable.

[James Petregallo]

As soon as Bill Cosby got in trouble, that was, like, the first thing that surfaced. Like, Ahmad, dude.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Damn. Ahmad. The worst judge of character in history.

[James Petregallo]

In history. So this is fucking funny. They said, yeah, they released this individual on his own recognizance. He didn't pay nothing. They even bought him a bus ticket to Houston. So the sheriff Whitehead from Lancaster there, or Police Chief Whitehead, said he was angry with the way the Leon county authorities handled the case. He said this dipshit had a DUI or DWI already. The second offense should have been treated as a felony, and he should have remained in jail till he posted a bond. Yeah, which we would have come down, picked him up, taking him here for murder. And the fucking story's over. But now he's out there who knows where, getting hitchhiking again. So they said the station wagon driven by him was stolen contained property that belonged to her. One of the cops said a lady's purse was found in the front floorboard of the car and it did have one of the victims names on the medicine bottles.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Oh, my.

[James Petregallo]

They couldn't have had more to go on.

[Jimmy Wissman]

They had all of it.

[James Petregallo]

Than to just check on this stuff real quick.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Oh, my.

[James Petregallo]

So now there's a manhunt, of course.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah.

[James Petregallo]

And the cops say they believe that Long sped south on the I45 where he was jailed about 100 miles away. On there, they said that he got out 36 hours later. And they said they put out an all points bulletin with his description and the description of the stolen car, which by the way, they released to him even though he couldn't pay for the. To get it out of impound. The man had been released from jail. They Describe him as 6 foot, 190 pounds with a mustache and described as a, you know, a murder suspect, basically. And they said his driver's license shows a Bay City address. Now, the cop said he was seen, he spotted in a Houston employment office where he once worked as a laborer.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Okay, but.

[James Petregallo]

So the cops came back there and did several stakeouts, but he never came back to there again. Okay. Now, by October 5th, an article here says, police scale down search for slaying suspect.

[Jimmy Wissman]

What?

[James Petregallo]

Yeah, yeah, they said that scaled down after police decided that a reported sighting of the man was incorrect. They're like, okay, we're running in every direction, someone sending us.

[Jimmy Wissman]

He's not here. He done left it. We can scale it back.

[James Petregallo]

He said people make mistakes. And at this time, we believe the sighting was erroneous.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah.

[James Petregallo]

So they thought they had him, but then they didn't have him. October 24, 1986.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah.

[James Petregallo]

Imagine if you're that sheriff in Leon County. You should feel so fucking stupid as every day goes by that this guy's out there possibly murdering his way across the Southland. Wow. This time he's in Austin. David's in Austin, Texas, and he's arrested for public intoxication.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Really?

[James Petregallo]

Yeah. In Austin, Texas? Yep. He'd been hitchhiking when he passed out in someone's vehicle, causing the driver to call the police. That's what happened. The driver's like, I want this guy out of my car.

[Jimmy Wissman]

There's a driver asleep. I was just giving him a ride here where I told him we was going and he's still asleep.

[James Petregallo]

He said, sure, get him. And then he passed out. So he's arrested for public intoxication. That's the charge here. 17 year old Lonnie Daniel Manning picked him up somewhere between Austin and Houston. When he got to Austin, he pulled into a gas station and called police because the guy wouldn't wake up. Now they wake Long up and Long tells cops, they say, what's your name, pal? And he said, aaron Sanders. And they went, oh, who the hell's that? We thought you were David Martin Long. And he said, I'm Aaron Sanders. Pulls out a birth certificate to prove it.

[Jimmy Wissman]

He has a birth certificate.

[James Petregallo]

He has a birth certificate for Aaron Sanders. So they were about to release him. They were like, okay, well, he's just a drunk. Literally. They were like, well, all right. And they took the cuffs off him and everything. And then he said, my ankle's sore. Oh, got a sore ankle right now. It's real sore. So they went, okay, since you're technically still in our custody, would you like to see medical personnel? So he said, yeah, yeah, my ankle's sore. So they took him to Breckenridge Hospital and left instructions with the hospital police that he's free to go after he receives medical treatment. And they left.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Wow.

[James Petregallo]

Dropped him off and said, have a good one, Aaron. Bye. That was that. So meanwhile, Charles Dermody, who's a police identification technician, was doing a routine check of fire fingerprints when he discovered, because this idiot stuck around the hospital, gave them hours, he discovered that Aaron Sanders prints matched David Martin Long's prints.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Actually, he got the same ones.

[James Petregallo]

Same ones. He's at the hospital going, I don't know, it's just a little sore when I move it around like that, you know? Can you put weight on? I mean, yeah, but feels bruised or something. Rather than just going off into the night, this fucking idiot stayed around and they matched up his prince. And the cops rushed back to the hospital and arrested him for capital murder. So that's wild. So good job by the fingerprint tech there. Not bad. Transferred back to face charges. So they said that all he'd been doing the last few weeks because he's ready to talk too. He doesn't give a fuck.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Sure.

[James Petregallo]

He said he's been consuming large amounts of cheap wine and hitchhiking from town to town trying to figure out a way to buy a car. Figure out a way.

[Jimmy Wissman]

It's usually with money.

[James Petregallo]

Can I buy it with mad dog vomit? Is that possible? I got a lot of that.

[Jimmy Wissman]

I got these Bottles. They're empty. Mad Dog.

[James Petregallo]

Holy shit. He said, quote, had I had I had things come together like I had wished they would have, I was going to finalize a few more vendettas. Oh, yeah. He said I felt. He said there's about five other people out there who he wanted to kill who he quote, I felt have crossed me up.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Crossed me up.

[James Petregallo]

He told not only the investigators that he told the newspaper that crossed me up. Done crossed me up. And he said I had five more people to kill about Alan and Gary. Yeah. Oh, Tim Hardaway crossed me up good, buddy. I tell you what. That baby Jordan, Harold Miner, he crossed you right up, boy. Rod Strickland done crossed me up.

[Jimmy Wissman]

My hammies are sore.

[James Petregallo]

White Chocolate done crossed me up good.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Crossed me up. Who talks like that?

[James Petregallo]

So him. This fucking guy. Drunken maniac. Fucking schizophrenics, apparently. So during the interrogation, he's going to provide all the details. All the details. He said there was a series of complicated reactions and interactions. Like I said before, he just got tired of hearing all the bickering. He said something snapped in his mind. Something snapped here. He said that, you know, Laura returned to the living room area to watch TV after she was conspiring against him. He told her to go outside because he needed to talk to her. But instead he attacked her with a hatchet.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Oh, boy.

[James Petregallo]

And he'll give a blow by blow, no pun intended. Or pun intended, whatever. So anyway, yeah, he said that Donna. But he said he killed Donna sue first. And then he killed Dalfa, who screamed and then he killed Owen when she returned from the house from work. That's what the cops said, but we don't know about that. He does tell the newspaper, quote, it doesn't really affect me. It's just like watching a movie or something. Meaning killing people. They say, do they bother him? And he said this in his confession, quote, I'm a cold hearted son of a bitch and I killed them because they threatened my relationship with Laura Lee. I killed Adelpha Jester because she knew my name and I felt she was. She was the living dead anyway.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Okay.

[James Petregallo]

The blind bedridden.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah, that's.

[James Petregallo]

That's awkward, if you needed a clarification. Yeah. Wow. My relationship with Laura Lee.

[Jimmy Wissman]

But you destroyed Laura too. Why would. Why would you do that?

[James Petregallo]

Because she's like. That's what I mean. He said that he prove of it. I don't know. I guess she didn't approve of hacking up an old blind woman, maybe with a hatchet. She was like, hey, that's not cool. So they said he's completely emotionally detached. He felt like he was watching a movie, completely disconnected with it. He said he calmly rinsed the blood from the hatchet in the bathroom sink. Wow. That's that. He said he ransacked the house, stole some money, took off in the station wagon drinking Mad Dog 2020. As he sped down the highway, he this episode of Small Town Murder, brought to you by Mad Dog 2020. Strawberry, grape. Many, many awful flavors that'll make you do terrible things that you definitely shouldn't be doing. So, yeah, he's held without bond on these charges. He said, quote, I'm a criminal. This is what he tells the press. I'm a criminal. I thought maybe I'd get better, but it appears to be getting worse. And I'm pretty much ready to call it a day with my demented personality.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Call it a day.

[James Petregallo]

Call it a day. He's got some check it out, everybody.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Real chill euphemisms for what he needs to do.

[James Petregallo]

I'm David Martin, room 666, checking out.

[Jimmy Wissman]

I'm going to call it a day.

[James Petregallo]

Demented personality. I'm not liking it. My demented. My personality.

[Jimmy Wissman]

I'm going to leave the demented personality in there and head on down the road.

[James Petregallo]

During his confession, he says, and if you don't think I am a cold blooded motherfucker, let me tell you about a couple more people I killed.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Oh, dear Christ.

[James Petregallo]

There's a guy named James Carnell, an old gas station attendant backing San Bernardino killed him. He stays at why he goes, tried to cheat me out of $16, that's why. So, wow. At the time, San Bernardino police. And even now, even though he confesses, San Bernardino police said they lack a murder weapon or a motive. Murder. And they said his statement was literally the first lead they've ever had in that case.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Is that right?

[James Petregallo]

He disappeared like a phantom. Never had another lead. And the fucked up part is if he would have known how to run that guy's credit card, they would have went and talked to that guy who would have given a description of him, and they would have had a lead.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Holy.

[James Petregallo]

He just told him, come back tomorrow. And the guy never thought twice about it. So they said that if they do decide to indict him, it could be up to two years before he's extradited to California to be, you know, to be tried for that.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Sure.

[James Petregallo]

Also remember Bob, Neal Rogers?

[Jimmy Wissman]

I remember him, yeah.

[James Petregallo]

The guy who was burned to death in his own trailer.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah.

[James Petregallo]

He says this about. About that case quote?

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah.

[James Petregallo]

Yep. On 12, 2083, December 20, 1983, at about 9pm I went over to see Bob Rogers at his trailer because he'd not been to work earlier that day. He had sent me out earlier in the day when I went to buy him a bottle of whiskey. I had noticed that he had several hundred dollars in his billfold. I at that time, had been shooting heroin on a regular basis along with preluding. I don't know what the fuck preluding is, but. Oh, that's the speed jug. No, that's the speed drug. That's the over the counter shit.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Oh, got it. Yeah.

[James Petregallo]

Yeah. That he buys. Besides that, I had a grudge against him. He had fired me and made a small matter, a big matter when I had driven a company vehicle to my girlfriend's house.

[Jimmy Wissman]

That's what it. Okay. Yeah.

[James Petregallo]

Though he had rehired me.

[Jimmy Wissman]

He brought you back.

[James Petregallo]

He brought you back. He said I still held a grudge against him even though he. What the fuck, dude?

[Jimmy Wissman]

What do you do? You're gonna. He's gonna be mad at everybody forever.

[James Petregallo]

Forever. That's what I mean. He's not rational or reasonable. When I got to his trailer that night, he passed out while sitting in a chair in the living room. I had not been there more than five minutes. Seeing him sitting there, I snapped. And first I went outside and tried to light the underside of the trailer on fire with no success. I then went into the trailer and proceeded to pour whiskey around where he was sitting.

[Jimmy Wissman]

He did the old cowboy trick.

[James Petregallo]

Yeah, he said. Everclear and whiskey he uses, he said. I then lit the drapes on fire with a Bic lighter. Then I took the money, a few hundred dollars, out of his billfold. I left a $20 bill in the billfold to make it not look like a robbery. The fire at the time was beginning to engulf the drapes, and I went to drug connections. How To a drug connections house. And shot hundreds of dollars worth of heroin. I killed him because I hated that son of a bitch.

[Jimmy Wissman]

What the hell, man?

[James Petregallo]

Whoa. Yeah.

[Jimmy Wissman]

You hated him because you got caught in his truck fucking your girlfriend.

[James Petregallo]

You hate him, you hate him and he even forgave you, rehired you.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah.

[James Petregallo]

So you really got nothing. You lost nothing except this guy said some stuff to you you don't like and now you gotta murder him. The confession was corroborated by several witnesses. An undercover law enforcement officer who, after hearing a dispatch regarding a fire at a local trailer, observed David arrive At a drug house which was also under surveillance.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Unbelievable.

[James Petregallo]

A neighbor of Rogers, the man who's been killed, identified Long from a photographic lineup and as the man he had seen running from the trailer home immediately after he'd seen the curtains in the trailer burning and heard the smoke alarm going off.

[Jimmy Wissman]

That's him.

[James Petregallo]

Another law enforcement officer stated that after he located Roger's badly burned body in the trailer, he found his wallet and billfold. And the billfold contained. You don't even need to know. $120 bill.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Wow. They found it.

[James Petregallo]

They found it because it's leather. It takes a while to burn that stuff. A wallet will protect some shit. So that. Wow. That is exactly what he said.

[Jimmy Wissman]

It's all corroborated.

[James Petregallo]

Exactly what he said. The weird part is the grand jury at this point said there was insufficient evidence for an indictment as well. They don't have evidence, so they're not going to indict him for that again. He gets away with that one. He does an interview with a newspaper at that point and says that he's pretty much ready to call it a day with his demented personality. He also said, I think I need to go ahead and leave. I like to call it being put to sleep, kind of like they do to animals. He said, put me to sleep. I'm a dog. That bit too many people, man. You know what I mean?

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah.

[James Petregallo]

Wow. So they're going to bring him to trial, obviously. And here are some psych evaluations for him because he's got quite a few psych evaluations here. Okay. His defense team, they put together an insanity plea based on his documented history of fucking insanity. Let's be honest here. Head injuries, schizophrenia, they paint a picture of a man whose traumatic childhood and substance abuse have created a psychotic individual incapable of understanding right from wrong.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah, I don't know if he's incapable of understanding it. He knows what's wrong. He just likes doing the wrong part.

[James Petregallo]

Doesn't care. He's just like, I don't care. Put me to sleep then if you don't like it. It's crazy. Defense psychologist Dr. William Hester says in court here that David had an unstable childhood accompanied by over discipline or physical abuse, as well as sexual abuse by a family member.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Oh.

[James Petregallo]

Which, like I said, you're passing someone around that much and not supervising them. Someone's gonna diddle that fucking kid. There's people out there just drooling, looking for that scenario, that open door of an unsupervised child who's had some bad shit Happen to him? I won't tell. It's fucking disgusting. So sixth sense those predators have. So this Hester diagnosed Long with an extreme antisocial personality disorder, which came in the form of the label of psychopath, he said. He opined that Long may have been operating under an alcoholic hallucination due to alcohol withdrawal at the time of the murders. And that there was a reasonable probability that Long committed the murders in a psychotic episode and did not know his conduct was wrong. However, he stated that Long also was malingering on one of the tests he was administered. So he caught him faking it.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Faking. What part?

[James Petregallo]

Psychologists have ways of trying. There's little catches in their testing to catch you faking it. Remember we did a thing about the Hillside Stranglers?

[Jimmy Wissman]

But what is this fucker faking?

[James Petregallo]

One of the tests he administered. So we don't know which one. So he said he is capable of malingering Because I caught him doing it.

[Jimmy Wissman]

I know he doesn't.

[James Petregallo]

Yeah, so he can be malingering and also insane at the same time.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Sure.

[James Petregallo]

That's the thing. In addition, Long said in a second interview that perhaps he was possessed by demons.

[Jimmy Wissman]

No.

[James Petregallo]

Okay, that's a theory. When Hester confronted him with the fact that he had not mentioned demons during the first interview, Long just dropped it and never brought it up again. He's like demons. He's just like fishing hook. Demons bite. No. Okay, just reel it in. Recast. There we go. So Hester also admitted that he previously concluded in one of his reports that there was no evidence to support insanity obtained in any of my interactions or testing of the defendant. Ultimately, Hester said that he could not render an opinion whether Long was legally sane when he committed the murders. No opinion. That's not good for him. Next up, the state psychologist or psycho forensic psychiatrist. Actually, Dr. James Grigson. He's the psychiatrist called by the state. He said that he met with Long, reviewed his medical records and previous hospitalizations, and met with the defense expert as well. Now, Grigson, this guy is famous for testifying for the prosecution in capital murder trials.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Really?

[James Petregallo]

Yes.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Famous for it.

[James Petregallo]

His nickname is Dr. Death.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Very famous.

[James Petregallo]

Because. Yeah, his testimony often leads to death penalty sentences, even for. Even for mentally retarded people. He'll go, no, they're fine. They know what they're doing. IQ is like 63, but that's okay. You know, he still knows what's up. Also, he is known for declaring defendants, quote, 100% certain. 100% certain to be future dangers to society.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Okay.

[James Petregallo]

A lot of times without ever personally examining them, really. Kind of rule of psychiatry 101 is you don't diagnose anyone and that you don't examine no matter what. You know, you'll always hear that on tv. A politician or this person or that person. What are they about? Well, I can't diagnose someone without looking at them, so. Also, his role in capital punishment and wrongful convictions has been documented many times, including. And if you haven't seen this documentary, you have not seen the grandfather of all true crime documentaries, and that's the thin blue line, 1988. Errol Morris, who does, to this day, amazing documentaries always. But this is on a guy named Randall Dale Adams. This was a police officer in Texas who was killed during a traffic stop. And they blamed a guy and put him in prison a lot, based on this doctor's testimony. And it turns out, as we find out from the documentary, he didn't fucking do that shit. So that's a great documentary. It's incredible. Have you ever seen it?

[Jimmy Wissman]

I believe I have, yeah.

[James Petregallo]

Oh, it's so fucking good. And also Innocence Project cases where his testimony was later debunked as well. Now, Gregson said he tried to examine Long, but he wasn't successful. Couldn't really. Wouldn't do it. Wouldn't talk to him. But based on a hypothetical question encompassing the facts and evidence, he testified that he would diagnose Long with severe sociopathic personality disorder. Based on everybody else and what they say, not my own eyes. He said such diagnosis coincided with Dr. Hester's diagnosis as well as test results from previous hospitalizations. Antisocial personality disorder is not a disease or defect, and there's no evidence of organic damage in his medical records. So according to Grigson, Long is not insane or suffering from a mental disease or defect and understood the difference between right and wrong. He also said that it was not unusual for an individual to exhibit behaviors fitting a wide range of diagnoses and that a sociopath sometimes does this to manipulate his doctors. Oh, he believes that Long may have done this because the later medical records reveal no evidence of schizophrenia. And he said, schizophrenia doesn't come and go.

[Jimmy Wissman]

No, it does not.

[James Petregallo]

No. It's there for the long haul.

[Jimmy Wissman]

That's a defect in the brain.

[James Petregallo]

That's in there. That shit's in there? Yeah, that's baked in. Once it's in, it's in. David himself claimed on the witness stand that he believed that he was demon possessed at the time of the killings. He'll say later on and described his actions as being influenced by Satan. Yeah, yeah. However, the state's expert, Gregson, said, nope. Severe sociopathic personality disorder. And he insisted David understood the difference between right and wrong and is legally sane. Fuck out of here. Okay. David meets with the prosecutor beforehand. They do a meeting. It's a three to four minute meeting between Long and the prosecutor talking about the death. The prosecutor wants to talk to him before he files for the death penalty.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Okay, fine.

[James Petregallo]

So Long here, David asks the prosecutor, how do you feel about the death penalty?

[Jimmy Wissman]

How do you feel about it?

[James Petregallo]

And the prosecutor said, do you mean in this case or just. Are we just talking, General? What are we talking about? And Long said, yes, this case. And the prosecutor said, I think it's a good death penalty case, meaning I think I can get it. And Long said, good, that's what I want.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Good golly.

[James Petregallo]

And the guy said. The prosecutor said, if that's what you want, we're gonna try our best to get it for you.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah.

[James Petregallo]

And then Long said, that's what I deserve because I can't live in this society, man. I just can't do it. I'm checking out. Remember I said that? There's a trial, court decides, and this is a big contentious issue, that he will be shackled throughout the proceedings, throughout the proceedings, throughout his trial. This is a big fucking deal because how you look to the jury, it's been covered by the Supreme Court a million times. And you're not supposed to look like you're already a criminal. So usually you're in street clothes, no cuffs, no anything like that. Unless you're Shabusiness and you attacked your own lawyer and you need to be putting a Hannibal Lecter fucking thing. So this is a different thing. Like in the Lori Valo Debel case, she was her own attorney and she had to wear a shock vest throughout the whole trial, but wore it under the clothes in a way where the jury wasn't allowed to see it. They even had a separate hearing about whether the jury saw it one time or not.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Oh, really?

[James Petregallo]

Absolutely. Yeah. And whether they should throw the jury out because someone in the jury saw it. So they could have told the other jurors about it.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah. Do you think they saw it?

[James Petregallo]

No, they said they didn't see it. They didn't know what. And they wouldn't even know what the hell they were looking at anyway, so they said you wouldn't see it.

[Jimmy Wissman]

I never even heard of a shock vest.

[James Petregallo]

Yeah, she had a shock vest on. They literally had A sheriff in the back with his finger on the button where if Laurie like turned and tried to attack the prosecutor, they'd have hit her with the shock vest and she'd have been like taser. She would have went and fell on the ground.

[Jimmy Wissman]

That's why it looked like that.

[James Petregallo]

Yeah, that's why she looks so bulky, cuz she's real skinny.

[Jimmy Wissman]

She's got a shock vest.

[James Petregallo]

Shock vest. And the whole time we're watching that, I'm like, please do something crazy. Please do something crazy.

[Jimmy Wissman]

I want to see you rive.

[James Petregallo]

Or I just want to see the guy be like, sorry, whoops, sorry. And she's on the ground dying, jump.

[Jimmy Wissman]

And be like, what the man? I, I, I'm sorry, I just leaned, I bumped.

[James Petregallo]

Dude, that lady blaming her fucking dead daughter for killing her son and then killing herself even though the daughter was dead a week earlier is.

[Jimmy Wissman]

She's the worst of shit.

[James Petregallo]

She's the worst, she's the worst person. The worst person. I'd rather fucking sit down and hang out with Charles Manson than her. I really would.

[Jimmy Wissman]

She's a bad guy.

[James Petregallo]

I know he's dead, but just looking for whatever.

[Jimmy Wissman]

I'd hang out with his corpse.

[James Petregallo]

Yeah, me and, me and Chuck's corpse are gonna drop some LSD together and talk about the fucking Beach Boys. I'll do it, I'll do it. Don't put it past me.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah, I'd.

[James Petregallo]

We're gonna drop a tab after, after a while I might start listening to him even if he's dead.

[Jimmy Wissman]

You know what, Chuck?

[James Petregallo]

You're right, man. So the defense counsel objected before jury selection, arguing that the shackling was inflammatory and prejudicial. The judge overrules the objection, instructing the bailiffs to use whatever you feel is in the interest of safety required for security.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Really?

[James Petregallo]

Yep. The defense counsel objected again before the pretrial hearing, noting that Long has been well behaved. And the trial judge acknowledged yes, he has but cited the seriousness of the charge and the type of trial this is as justification which that, that's extra justification for him to not have shackles on because he's up for the death penalty. So let's make this as fair as humanly possible. I feel like they said that the later on. They said appeals courts have applied established precedent requiring that shackling be justified by exceptional circumstances or a manifest need for such restraint, neither of which exist here.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Okay.

[James Petregallo]

A regular murder trial is not exceptional circumstances because it happens all the time. And a manifest need for such restraint would be like Shabusiness Attacking her defense attorney or someone he. So neither. Yeah. They said the trial judge must make specific findings supporting their decision, which then are then reviewed for abuse of discretion. They said the court distinguished, in one case. This is the Supreme Court, where defendants had demonstrated actual violence or threats. In one case, the defendant carried weapons in prison, attacked inmates, and threatened officers. In the other case, there was evidence of escape attempts and an expressed wish to die rather than face life imprisonment. So he wanted to try to go get shot. Neither of which existed in this case. Yeah. So during the testimony in the trial, February 4, 1987. This is fucking crazy. David stands up during the proceedings, out of nowhere, looks at the jury and shouts, I'm guilty as hell.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah, we know. Wow.

[James Petregallo]

Imagine the jury like, huh?

[Jimmy Wissman]

What'd you say?

[James Petregallo]

I'm guilty as hell. He then said that, I never wanted to do this stupid insanity defense. And to tell you another thing, the axe murders that I did didn't even bother me very much. Give me the death penalty. He's saying shit to try to get him to be pissed off. So the defense strategy, completely gone at that point. They're trying to figure out if they're gonna even have a trial now anymore, if this is a goddamn mistrial. So David asked the judge if he was allowed to change his plea from not guilty to no contest, and then against his attorney's advice, requested to enter a guilty plea. So the judge went, I don't know what the fuck's going on here. Hold on a minute.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Everybody calm down.

[James Petregallo]

And the lawyer said, he's saying he's not crazy, but he's been wearing the same jeans and shirt for six straight fucking days of trial. This guy is not right in the fucking head. Look at him. You know what I mean? So the judge noted the request, but didn't rule on whether or not to instruct the jury to automatically find David guilty. Yeah, he had to say, don't automatically find him guilty. They said prosecutors continued to build their case, and he wanted to plead no contest and all that. It's fucking insane. So they said, because of the MANNER in which Mr. Long has been working or not working with his lawyers, both sides, defense and prosecution, decided to proceed with the testimony with the punishment phase of the trial to come later. Everyone in this case is being extremely cautious. Say, decided. Just let it go. Yeah, just let it go. We'll just keep having the trial. Now, in the defense counsel's closing argument here, the defense said, I don't know what David Martin Long's mental state was in 1978 in San Bernardino, California. I don't know what his mental state was in 1983 in Bay City, Texas. Texas. I wasn't there. And we weren't there. And we have not had the benefit of what you have had for the last eight days. He said, you haven't heard all the details about San Bernardino. So that's. The prosecutor says that. So the prosecutor says, excuse me, Judge, we're going to object to the counsel's remark about the evidence brought in this trial. They had a fair opportunity in a time of punishment hearing to present anything they wanted to. I think it's illegal and unfair to. To the state for counsel to be allowed to argue about the facts outside the record. So he says, I haven't argued one fact outside the record. And the court said, I overruled the objection. So defense said, I think you realize that before the lawyers talked with you on Saturday, you heard five or four days of testimony that wasn't true of San Bernardino or Bay City. And as I said, I don't know what David's mental state was at the time. I do know, and you know that he's been in and out of mental incident institutions. So the prosecutor, the defense counsel suggests that. And the prosecutor starts arguing with. They have a big kind of back and forth basically about that. The defense counsel and objects to the argument from the prosecutor. And it's so small legal words that they're using going back and forth. They said, ladies and gentlemen of the jury, if there was something out there about those offenses that was important outside of those statements that were offered in evidence, you would have heard them. You would have heard them. Issue number one. The trial judge then interrupts the prosecutor without objection from the defense.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah.

[James Petregallo]

And instructs the jury, members of the jury, just in an overabundance of caution. The defendant has no obligation in the punishment portion of the trial to bring you any evidence one way or the other, regardless of the case the state brought to you with regard to the other killings, he had no obligation and is under no obligations. The prosecutor's argument characterized him, by the way, as less than human.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Oh.

[James Petregallo]

And as less of a human than any person any of you on the jury will ever have contact with.

[Jimmy Wissman]

You never seen less of a human.

[James Petregallo]

And we'll never see yet less of a human, ever. The trial court sustained the objection and instructed the jury to disregard the comment of him not being human at all.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Please never think of that again. That is incredibly.

[James Petregallo]

That's a lot. That's super wrong. Yeah. That is to dehumanize a fucking defendant is not going to really work here. Verdict, two hours of deliberations. He's found guilty.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Obviously, I'm guilty as hell. Yeah, I'm guilty as hell.

[James Petregallo]

Now during the sentencing, this is when shit gets interesting too. The defense attorney argues that he's insane. He just. This is amazing. This is his defense attorney. He's insane. He's nuttier than a fruitcake. He described his own client as nuttier than a fruitcake, then said, this sucker was mean.

[Jimmy Wissman]

This sucker that's like fruitcake a sucker. That's what you say when you reel in a big fish.

[James Petregallo]

That sucker was a fighter, huh? Woo wee sucker. He was mean. So this guy was far more lethal than Ted Bundy. He says this is his defense attorney.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Y' all got him.

[James Petregallo]

Wow.

[Jimmy Wissman]

We tried to pull the wool over.

[James Petregallo]

Your eyes, but you talk, you say it. He talks about a lieutenant who remembered sitting in the back of the car with Long as authorities drove him back to Dallas County. They talked about cars and other things not related to the killings.

[Jimmy Wissman]

What?

[James Petregallo]

And they just had a chit chat.

[Jimmy Wissman]

He just sat here.

[James Petregallo]

Well, you can't.

[Jimmy Wissman]

He said, y' all got any old cars or anything? Y' all got hobbies? And I was like, you know, I got this old Elka Mana. My dad had an Elka, Maine.

[James Petregallo]

Oh, that's pretty. 64. Wow, that's a good year.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Boy, I tell you what, look better than that.

[James Petregallo]

Well, you can't question him about the killings.

[Jimmy Wissman]

No, no. Something else.

[James Petregallo]

Talk about small talk or else not talk at all. That's all.

[Jimmy Wissman]

You chose cars, all right?

[James Petregallo]

And the lieutenant had said, quote, you looked in his eyes and there was nothing there.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Nothing.

[James Petregallo]

Nothing. So the authorities determined that he'd received care from eight to ten different mental institutions. They said one thing consistently showing up was that David Martin Long would, this is the prosecutor, would feign mental illness successfully enough to get doctors to prescribe drugs. Apparently he was getting off on them. He knew exactly what he was doing.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Don't say that. He was getting.

[James Petregallo]

Getting off on him. Yeah, getting off on him. It's all over his pants.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Jesus Christ.

[James Petregallo]

Disgusting. Sticky.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Just takes a pill and then shoots it everywhere.

[James Petregallo]

Everywhere. Unbelievable, man. So he. This is a fucking disaster. So the. They say all that David wants the death penalty and his own request. His attorneys presented no evidence during the punishment phase of the trial, which is a weird thing to do. Jury here. He also says, to the death to the jury. He says that I want the death penalty because I'll kill again.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Okay?

[James Petregallo]

He said, I don't belong in society, I'm too dangerous. He said I'll tell you what, I don't want to die, but I don't see it any other way. I don't see any other options left open to me. I need more than want, I need it more than I want the death penalty. He also said Satan is partly responsible. And he said, I'm afraid that given similar circumstances it might happen again. I'm afraid I'll kill again. He said, that's why I pled guilty. And then he also said if you give me a life sentence someday there's going to be. They're going to put an 18 year old crew cut boy in my cell down there for auto theft and I'm going to go into one of my little snits and I'll kill him.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Why's it got to be that I'm.

[James Petregallo]

Going to kill somebody, goddammit. Took them, obviously, you know their time. No, because I mean they're. It's fucking crazy. He said, I look back now and you know, I couldn't have worried about anything physical happening to me. I had a real dirty, ugly feeling, a fear that would overcome me. He said that the visions would begin with him losing all perception of colors. He said everything turns black and white and there was a big picture with blackness in the background. And I just raised the hatchet and hit Laura with it and the picture cracked.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Oh boy.

[James Petregallo]

He said with each of the other two killings the picture cracked a little bit more. He said he had taken, planned to take the hatchet with him when he left the house because he said, quote, I thought there was others. But finally the picture exploded and so then he could take off and he was like, okay, my work is done here. He said that the Pentecostal religion that he believes in has led him to believe that people can become demon possessed rather than mentally ill. And so that's my thing. I'm not mentally ill, I'm demon possessed. Only way to stop that. Kill my ass.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah, destroy it.

[James Petregallo]

Yeah, about 40 minutes. The jury says you sir, yeah may fuck off. Death penalty for you oblige. I mean he begged for it, so it's crazy. His defense attorney described him as an intelligent, charming, handsome man, but also one of the most vicious killers he's ever seen. He said he threatened to kill me once.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Really?

[James Petregallo]

Yeah. He said he's the most dangerous, cold blooded killer I've seen. Now remember Ernest Willis?

[Jimmy Wissman]

I do. From the Sizil boots? Yeah.

[James Petregallo]

Okay. Now he's on death row and he said that he figured out when he got to death row he couldn't let his anger rule him. He said, I knew if I didn't let it go, I couldn't survive. He said I let all of that go. He said that he would look around at his cells, a five by nine cell, by the way, and he'd get depressed. And then he said he'd stop going outside and playing basketball. He ate compulsively. He blew up to 300 pounds.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Really.

[James Petregallo]

The trial court kept setting and resetting execution dates, which made everything worse. He said, living with the knowledge that you didn't do it when other people think you did do it, that was the hardest part. But when in 1991, I was a few days away, the thing that went through my head was, I'm innocent. A lot of people believe I am. I'm ready for it. I built myself up. I knew my chances were slim in Texas. I made my mind up if they were going to execute me, I was just going to lay down and go to sleep. So luckily for him, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals grants him a stay at that point.

[Jimmy Wissman]

That's good.

[James Petregallo]

In 91. A year later, a commercial law firm from New York took on his appeals pro bono.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Okay.

[James Petregallo]

This firm sent five lawyers, a private eye and an arson investigator to look into the case. They found records of the jailhouse doping, so he looked all drugged out. They located a former drug partner of him as well who had some shit to say. They also located a psychologist report that found Ernie was not a future danger to anyone, unlike the one asshole said in court, Dr. Death there. And also found an arson expert who said the forensic evidence used at trial was absolutely bogus.

[Jimmy Wissman]

So what does that mean?

[James Petregallo]

Then there is a woman who's a. Check this out. Verilyn Harbin, who goes right into our Patreon this week. Right along with that, the sister of Ernie's friend and fellow death row inmate Ricky McGinn. Okay. He introduced his sister and Ernie Willis through letters. Verilyn, the sister who was from Mississippi, and Ernie be hit it off and started writing each other. And soon she was visiting him. And then they fell in love and got married.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yes, they did.

[James Petregallo]

Of course they did. They had never touched at all. They had to get married through a proxy and they only see each other through plexiglass, so they never touch. But they're married, which is crazy. She said, he's the most loving person I ever met. Okay, so 1990, he's on. David's on death row. And remember Ernie Willis fire. Well, David gives investigators a three hour videotaped confession in which he admits to starting the house fire in the west. West Texas town of Iran that killed the two women. He claimed he set the fire because he was angry at Billy Willis, the cousin, Ernie's cousin. And that's fucking wild. He said he was mad at Billy Willis for some drug thing. That's why he did it.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Wow.

[James Petregallo]

So Ernie goes to appeals courts attempting to call David as a witness during the trial, but David refuses to testify. So they're like, now what the fuck do we do? Well, they have a videotape confession of him saying it, and they admit that into court. And the judge rules that his attorneys needed to present corroborating evidence before the confession could be a significant impact on the case. His confession was found to lack credibility, but it sparked renewed interest in the fires. So the lawyer spent several years investigating, long story. And found that David knew Billy Willis because the two had engaged in criminal activity for many years together.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Right.

[James Petregallo]

His confession included specific details. And it was a lot. I mean, yeah, he said that he used Everclear and Wild Turkey to start the fire.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Nice.

[James Petregallo]

And such a. They did subsequent experiments showing a mixture could be used as an accelerant there. And it was also because the Everclear.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Not the Wild Turkey.

[James Petregallo]

Yeah, yeah, it's the everclear there. So 1991, David appeals. Okay, appeals. And there's a lot of different things here. Death penalty oppositional excuses, which is juror stuff. You know, people talking about that guilt phase arguments. He has seven instances of improper prosecutorial argument during the guilt phase. The appeals court applied the standard that reversible error results only when an argument is extreme, manifestly improper, or injects newer harmful facts, or violates a mandatory statutory provision and is thus so inflammatory that it's prejudicial. The effect cannot reasonably be cured by judicial instruction. So they said, for instance, is the trial judge sustained defense objections and instructed the jury to disregard the remarks. They found these instructions sufficient to cure harm. In two cases where objections were overruled, the court found that either the trial judges general instructions were adequate or that the prosecutor's argument were such as using a metaphor about looking for a black cat in a dark room to describe psychological diagnosis. Were proper summations.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Interesting.

[James Petregallo]

Yeah. They also talk about different states evidence. They said, I think that, you know, that the state didn't call everybody that they could have been called as a witness. And the defense objected because you can't argue facts that aren't in Court. So you can't say you have more people. If you have more people, call them. Can't just say, I could have put on so much more.

[Jimmy Wissman]

I have all the evidence.

[James Petregallo]

That's correct. So the judge. So they responded, judge, I think the record reflects that the defense called certain witnesses that the state didn't. So the trial judge says that to the jury, recall the evidence as you heard it. What the lawyers say is not evidence. So just whatever you remember is fine. Which is interesting here. Then they talk about the dark. The black cat in a dark room talking about, you know, that shit punishment phase stuff. They said, defense counsel suggests to you that there are facts that you didn't hear that are real critical. Who knows what those facts are? Who could perceive these lawyers with the means of compelling that evidence and having brought it before you? David Martin Long. So it's his fault. Photographic evidence as well. Um, the. They describe, they. Cause they always say there's. The pictures were inflammatory that they let in there. What they let in detailed confession describing the murders, his admission of guilt before the jury being guilty as hell. His testimony about wanting to avoid the trial and believing he was irreparable and should die. And the bizarre facts and circumstances of this case. Jesus. Testimony from family members about his extensive mental health issues. And they said any impact of the trial court's error in admitting these autopsy photographs were dissipated by the bizarre facts and circumstances of this case and this other evidence. The trial. The appellate court actually agrees that he. They shouldn't have shown the photos they said they were showing. Not just photos. They were showing close ups of the women's heads shaved with the gashes and shit like that. And they said that was actually inflammatory, which. That. I mean, that kind of is inflammatory. Let's be honest here.

[Jimmy Wissman]

I mean, you don't need to see it to know that they're pretty bad.

[James Petregallo]

Yeah, it's just. Come on, man, you know what you're doing so that you gotta look. I mean, I get that we want to make guilty people guilty and we want them to go, but it's so much better when it's fair. It's just so much better. And then you don't have all the. The appeals don't go on the same way. And it's just a lot better if it's fair. So, yeah, these appeals go on. The confession, the voluntariness of his confession is also a big deal. They talk about that. Was it voluntary? Was it not voluntary? Seemed pretty goddamn voluntary.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Sure.

[James Petregallo]

To me, anyway. Holy shit. So this is such A lot of shit with him. So he keeps trying to get.

[Jimmy Wissman]

He wants out.

[James Petregallo]

No, he doesn't. But his lawyers. It's mandatory appeals and his lawyers want the appeals. He doesn't really give a shit is the thing. So that's the. What the weird part is, is that he doesn't even really fucking care. So. It's strange when someone wants to die.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah.

[James Petregallo]

And you. They want to die. And apparently the. The state wants him to die.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah. Everybody wants him dead.

[James Petregallo]

Everybody wants him dead.

[Jimmy Wissman]

But like, we work hard to not kill him.

[James Petregallo]

It's real fucking weird. Right?

[Jimmy Wissman]

How do we do that?

[James Petregallo]

I mean, I guess I out of my mind here.

[Jimmy Wissman]

I think it's because we don't want the guilt of knowing that we did that or we rushed it, I guess. I think it's. I think it's just not guilty, people wanting to not be guilty.

[James Petregallo]

Yeah, yeah.

[Jimmy Wissman]

The not guilty thing going.

[James Petregallo]

Yeah. I'm sorry to go off on a little tangent on that. I'm just. That is just one of those things.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Probably hurts normal people to be like, I can't just fucking rush another murder.

[James Petregallo]

And I guess too, once you're. If you're on death row, you might just be like, yeah, yeah, great, kill me. I don't want to be here. So, yeah. Anyway, they do hold that the trial judge errored in admitting photos and other different records that were of little probative value and were very prejudicial considering their gruesomeness, quote unquote. So it is affirmed here in 91, the death penalty. 1992. U.S. supreme Court denies his request for a writ as well. September 15, 1992, two days till execution. He receives a stay of execution to pursue. To pursue further appeals. December 6th, 1999, by the way.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah.

[James Petregallo]

Execution set for December 8th.

[Jimmy Wissman]

We got a day. Yeah.

[James Petregallo]

He sends a letter, by the way, to the victim's sister.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Oh, Jesus.

[James Petregallo]

That's kind of that not too. Yeah, it's right there. During the. During this week, he said the slayings were the result of a dream he'd had years earlier. In the letter, read this quote. I was consumed by a revelation from God that what had happened was a manifestation of the dream I'd had five years before. Consumed with guilt, self loathing and utter despair. I only knew one thing for sure. I deserved death and desired death. He said God warned me in many ways and forms to leave Donna's house, but alcohol blinded me. He says that he regrets the murders to this woman. This is Donna's half sister, Janice. And she Said the letter only renewed the horror of the murders for her.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah.

[James Petregallo]

She said, why now? She said, I was devastated. It totally reopened the wound like it happened yesterday. That was literally half of my family he took. She said she has did not plan to witness the execution, but then changed her mind after receiving the letter.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Really?

[James Petregallo]

Yeah. And another relative who corresponded through the. Another relative who corresponds with him. So this wasn't. It wasn't sent directly to her. He sent a letter to somebody else who then passed it on to her. The. One of the cops here, Lieutenant Turner, said he too wants to witness the execution because it's the only guarantee that long will never harm anyone again. He said he's a monster and he will tell you he's a monster. And he's truthful about it.

[Jimmy Wissman]

He ain't kidding.

[James Petregallo]

So this is December 6th. Not so fast. Execution people.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Why?

[James Petregallo]

Fucking. David is found unresponsive in his. What? After taking an overdose of antipsychotic medication.

[Jimmy Wissman]

What the fuck?

[James Petregallo]

He's been storing it up for this very purpose. Yep. He was rushed to the.

[Jimmy Wissman]

What was.

[James Petregallo]

He was rushed to the hospital in Galveston, Texas, where he was placed on life support and intensive care.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Damn it.

[James Petregallo]

The medical staff said, this is fucking weird. First of all, they asked how the fuck did he have too many drugs? And one of the people said, inmates can be devious. They'll hide it. They'll hide it any way they can. And they store it up and kill themselves. Happens all the time in mental hospitals. So this is crazy. So now imagine being the medical personnel. What are we doing working our asses off to save this guy so we can hand him over to be executed? What the fuck are we doing here? Exactly.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Just don't put your mouth on his mouth. Yeah. He runs out of oxygen. Just.

[James Petregallo]

I mean, just let it go, I guess.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Breathe. Yeah.

[James Petregallo]

He said that they find themselves in the odd situation of trying to restore to good health a man with only two days left to live. What are we doing? So they said, the ethical implications are staggering, basically. This is crazy.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah. That is up.

[James Petregallo]

Yeah. I'm trying to heal this person just so I can give them to you. So you can kill them. That's not what I'm doing here. But then I. Again, I have to. To give him care. So his condition gradually improved, and by December 7, his breathing tube was removed, although he remained on oxygen. The morning of his scheduled execution, December 8, his condition was upgraded from critical to serious. So an intensive care physician was asked to sign an affidavit stating it was safe to Transport him to Huntsville for execution today. The doctors refused.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah.

[James Petregallo]

He said under no normal circumstances would this man be allowed to leave intensive care even for another day or two, nevermind go anywhere else without any constant continual medical supervision. This is crazy.

[Jimmy Wissman]

He said he's gonna kill him.

[James Petregallo]

Yeah. They said he was removed from the ventilator, but his condition has only improved from serious to critical or whatever. So he said that he still requires oxygen and care, but this puts at the time, George W. Bush, who's the governor running for president at the time, in a real sticky situation. And he was out campaigning at the time, and they said, get him out of intensive care, Bring him here and execute.

[Jimmy Wissman]

We're gonna kill him. Yeah.

[James Petregallo]

Yeah.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Wow.

[James Petregallo]

They could have just brought the needle over to the hospital at this point, put it in his iv. What are we doing? The Supreme Court rejects his final petition for a delay, which is crazy. So Texas officials took him to the death chamber in Huntsville via airplane. They had to fly him there.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Stop it.

[James Petregallo]

He had to be in a hospital bed.

[Jimmy Wissman]

We used aviation fuel for this man.

[James Petregallo]

Yep. Because the doctor deemed the move very risky, state officials used an airplane staffed by medical personnel to ensure that he arrived in good health.

[Jimmy Wissman]

The amount of money they're throwing out the window for this shit.

[James Petregallo]

Wow. So on that same day, by the way, a scheduled execution of another convicted murderer, whose accuser had recanted and whose original lawyer now admits he had a conflict of interest, was still put to death that day.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah.

[James Petregallo]

Oh, by the way, he was a juvenile when he committed the crime as well. So strike one, strike two, strike three. They still stuck him. Same month, Johnny Penry, a convicted murderer who's considered mentally retarded, is scheduled for lethal injection as well. Very nice. Very nice. That was crazy. I remember that. That was.

[Jimmy Wissman]

They did it.

[James Petregallo]

Oh, yeah, they did it. I remember the David Cross joke about it. It was fucking hilariously dark. Seatbelt for my arms. Yeah, David, that's a comedian's favorite joke, something like that. That's dark and just real nasty and crazy. And it's not making fun of the person. It's making fun of the reason why he's sitting there. That's the point. So don't get upset with that.

[Jimmy Wissman]

It's making fun of the system that's about to murder a man who says, seatbelt for my arm.

[James Petregallo]

Exactly. That's the point. So then his lawyers, David's lawyers argue. Jesus, man, that's wild. Before a state court judge that their client is no longer competent to be executed. Look at him. He's half dead, for fuck's sake.

[Jimmy Wissman]

He's not half dead.

[James Petregallo]

Lawyers for the state Attorney General, John Cornyn, who I think is a senator, now, argued the opposite. He's perfectly fine.

[Jimmy Wissman]

He said, two blades.

[James Petregallo]

Look at him. What the fuck?

[Jimmy Wissman]

He said true love. No, he didn't.

[James Petregallo]

No, he didn't. That's great. The rejections by the Supreme Court, 6 to 3 vote, and that Texas Court of Criminal Appeals, 4 to 3 vote. His appeals are all but exhausted. The State Board of Pardons and Parole had rejected his clemency application. So his last chance was with the governor. Bush was in New Hampshire campaigning. So Rick Perry, that fucking genius, if you remember that guy, and that's not political. He stood up on stage and they were like, what, three? Because he said, I want to eliminate three different departments. They said, which ones? And he went and couldn't fucking remember them. That's.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah, fire some shit.

[James Petregallo]

Pick some. And then the best was when the other candidates were trying to help him. It was during the primary. They're like, that one. And he goes, no, no, that ain't it. Just say yes. Except take the lifeline, dummy.

[Jimmy Wissman]

I like that one. That's the one I like.

[James Petregallo]

Yeah, that was crazy. So they said, under Texas law, when the board rejects clemency, the governor has two options. Reject clemency or grant a 30 day stay.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah.

[James Petregallo]

Now, the Rick Perry spokesman said Mr. Long has been convicted of these murders. The Texas Department of Criminal justice determined that transporting him from Galveston to Huntsville is not life threatening, even though the doctor said it was. He's received his court appeals, and barring any additional court actions, we expect the execution to go forward.

[Jimmy Wissman]

It shall go forward.

[James Petregallo]

One of his lawyers here, David's lawyer, said it seems like a pretty sick process when you jerk a guy out of intensive care on a ventilator. What's the huge rush here?

[Jimmy Wissman]

What are you doing?

[James Petregallo]

Yeah, we can't delay this a month. Who cares? But no, the. They refused to stay the execution. On December 8, 1999, he is flown to Huntsville, brought into the death chamber. We have no, absolutely zero word on the last meal here. And I, you know me, dude, I searched.

[Jimmy Wissman]

What do you want to ensure or something? They put in a feeding tube.

[James Petregallo]

Yeah, I don't even know if he can eat. That's the other.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Right? That's probably what I'm doing. Yeah, that's what I mean.

[James Petregallo]

He gave him an iv. That's his fucking meal.

[Jimmy Wissman]

He had a last meal of clear liquids and vitamins.

[James Petregallo]

He does give a last statement.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Really?

[James Petregallo]

He gives a final statement. He says, quote, just sorry y' all. Sorry y' all. That's a funny way to start it.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah.

[James Petregallo]

I think of. I think I've tried everything I could to get in touch with y' all to express how sorry I am. I think he's talking about the victim's family, because he did. He was doing that. I. I never was. Right after that incident happened, I sent a letter to someone, you know, a letter outlining what I feel about everything. But anyway, I just wanted. Right. Right after that, apologize to you. I'm real sorry for it. I was raised by the California Youth Authority. I can't really pinpoint where it started, what happened, but really believe that that's just the bottom line. What happened to me was in California. I was in their reformatory schools and penitentiary. But they create monsters in there. That's it. I have nothing else to say. Thanks for coming. Jack, who's his lawyer.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Hey, Jack.

[James Petregallo]

Hey, Jack. Thanks for coming, brother. All right.

[Jimmy Wissman]

So good to see you. Shit, I thought I'd never see you again. Hi, y' all. Sorry.

[James Petregallo]

Hi, y' all. So they put him to death.

[Jimmy Wissman]

God dang.

[James Petregallo]

And his sister, Linda Long later wrote an obituary that painted the picture of a man whose life of violence stemmed from a childhood of abuse and neglected. In her words, she said it should have been their abusive father strapped into that gurney that day.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah, but it wasn't.

[James Petregallo]

It wasn't. But no, he. It's his fault, probably.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah.

[James Petregallo]

You know what I mean? But still, I mean, at this point, it doesn't matter. Once you're 35. It doesn't matter what created it. It's. Here it is.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah. Certainly could have gone a much different way had I allowed it.

[James Petregallo]

So let's end on something half decent anyway. Remember Ernie Willis?

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah. In the trailer. No.

[James Petregallo]

2004.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah. Oh. What do you. How. What?

[James Petregallo]

2004.

[Jimmy Wissman]

How far did this go?

[James Petregallo]

17 years this man spent on death fucking row. No, before. In 2004, the district attorney finally acknowledged that he had been wrongfully convicted, stating that he simply did not commit the crime.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Unbelievable.

[James Petregallo]

They didn't even try to screw him and say it was a legal thing and blah, blah, blah, like they did with the trial four guy, that Doc. No, they said he's innocent. Factually innocent. His case. Wow. His case then became a significant example of wrongful conviction. And the flaws in forensic fire investigations. Modern arson investigation techniques eventually determined that there was no evidence of arson. The fire could have been caused by an electrical issue. Oh, so they have an Electrical issue and a guy admitting to doing it. Yet this guy spent 17 fucking years on death row. They said that his convention was probably. Or his confession, they said. The prosecutor said while Long's confession may have been untrue, it was the catalyst that precipitated the massive investigation that resulted in this exoneration. The DA said that new investigators labeled the fire's cause as undetermined and could not find any evidence to substantiate an arson case. He was finally, finally released from prison in October of 2004. He was the eighth Texas death row inmate exonerated since the state resumed executions in 82 and was thought to have served the longest sentence on death row among that group.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Oh, boy.

[James Petregallo]

After his release from prison, he and his wife. Remember his wife that never got to touch him.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[James Petregallo]

They finally got to be together. She stuck with him that whole fucking time. They moved to Mississippi where they kind of just kept a low profile. He started his own business hauling houses and boats across the U.S. nice. He considered writing a book about his experience, but never did. He and his wife separated in 2007. Isn't that funny? 17 years of that shit. They could be together, but three years together can't handle it. Isn't that amazing?

[Jimmy Wissman]

It's the Nelson Mandela thing.

[James Petregallo]

It is. It's so rare for those prison relationships to work out outside of prison.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Don't worry.

[James Petregallo]

Yeah. They're based on someone wanting someone else who's captive and, and.

[Jimmy Wissman]

And wanting some. An idea of somebody in that behind bars and in the letters and stuff. They fit that. Then they get out and they're not that guy.

[James Petregallo]

No. And the fucked up part is the people in prison then end up resenting the people who've been helping them because they've been helping them and now they owe them something and so they end up resenting. It's a crazy thing. Real weird. I know that from research about the. Our Patreon. So anyway, never did. They separated in 2007. He moved to Midland, Texas. They said that in 2012, the family of executed Texas inmate Cameron Todd Willingham announced that they would attempt to have Willingham posthumously pardoned. Willis attended the press conference in Austin. By that time, he got back together with his wife and they were living in Mississippi. See some time where they couldn't touch each other and they couldn't resist each other. They needed to be back together.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Right.

[James Petregallo]

Willis ends up dying on January 7, 2021, but not in prison and not from state sanctioned means. So that's a win for Him. So there's some good news in this anyway. That's Lancaster, Texas, everybody. A fucking crazy goddamn story. That's a crazy story. Just from start to finish. That's wild shit, man. I don't even know what to say about that except it's.

[Jimmy Wissman]

It's something.

[James Petregallo]

Wow.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah.

[James Petregallo]

That's a lot, man. That's just a lot. He just kept. I did it. I guess I did so.

[Jimmy Wissman]

And he killed so many people.

[James Petregallo]

So many people. I think he did it. By the way, that fire that they said probably wasn't him.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah.

[James Petregallo]

Everything else he fucking admitted to, he did. Why would he start doing that? One doesn't even make sense unless he did it. And that was like I got. He came with a three hour confession about it. I think he did it. You know what I mean? So anyway, there you go. That is Lancaster, Texas. If you enjoy this show at all, get on whatever app you're listening on and give us five stars. It helps drive the show up the charts and that helps us a lot. I'm gonna start. I usually wait to talk about Patreon, but I'm gonna talk about it right now. Cause it's a huge announcement. Patreon.com crimeinsports that is where $5 a month. $5 a month. That is not a lot of money nowadays. That is nothing. For $5 a month you get not only bonus episodes, hundreds of them in a back cat ones every other week. One crime in sports, one small town murder. By the way, this week Jeff Alm for crime in sports, a football player who had a spectacular crazy weird death. Then for small town murder, people who marry prisoners, people who marry serial killers, prisoners, all that kind of shit. Not only are you gonna get those two episodes, not only are you gonna get hundreds and hundreds of back catalog episodes, you're also gonna get all of the small town murders, all of the crime in sports, and all your stupid opinions. Ad free. Every ad free. Ad free. So people have been upset about no ad free option. This is an ad free option and you get bonus episodes. And to be honest with you, you get to support. Support the show. Us? Yeah, both of us. Damn it. We got a mortgage. So it's great. We think this is the best option because we know that before we had Wondery was our network and Wondery, they wanted our ad free so they could try to drive everybody to the Amazon app. Because Amazon owns Wondery. So that's why they wanted everybody's ad free content. And that Amazon, the Wondery app cost you $5. Now you could Also back in the day, listen on Amazon prime, ad free. We're not hooked up with Amazon anymore, so that's not an option. Otherwise we'd do it for you. I mean, we really would. So we took much less money in this deal to be able to offer the ad free in a different way because we wanted to rather than that here, subscribe to Wondering and have a bunch of shows you don't want to hear.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Throw your money at them.

[James Petregallo]

Yeah, give us your money right to the source and you get to hear the bonus episodes. You get to hear the ad free episodes. Now in the ad free you might hear some of the early episodes, might have a couple ads in them here and there that are baked in that I am absolutely not going to go through and fucking cut, edit, edit that shit out. But that's it. Just that you're not going to get. Now all the ads and all the new ones will be ad free and it's going to be fantastic. So maybe some ones from the first couple years will have a few ads in them, but that's just about it. So do that. Patreon.com crimeinsports if you wanted it, you got it. You happy, Smuckers? No, we know you're happy. Thank you for sticking with us and hanging with us through the transition of networks. Hopefully that makes everybody real happy. So there's that. And you get a shout out at the end of the show, which comes in a minute. Shut up and give me murder.com. get your tickets for live shows, people. Holy shit, they're out there. Philly and D.C. in December. Those have some tickets left. We also have Seattle running out of tickets, but there's still some there in Seattle the day after Portland, which is sold out and then I think Irvine sold out. So I think all we have, we released a few for Grand Rapids. There might be a couple of those left. That's it. Get your tickets, they're going to go fast. Get your merchandise, wear it to the show. Come hang out with us. Shut upandgivemerder.com follow on social media. Smalltown murder on Instagram, Smalltown pod on Facebook that said, Jimmy, hit me with the names of the people, the wonderful people who not only are gonna hear bonus shit but also get ad free episodes. Hit me with the names of the people who would never, ever, ever set our trailer on fire while we were inside passed out drunk. Hit me with them right now.

[Jimmy Wissman]

This week's executive producers are Destally Sassman, Gary Howard, Carrie Clark and Holly Davidson. Thank you all so Much. You're amazing.

[James Petregallo]

Spectacular bastards. We love you.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Other producers this week. Peyton Meadows, Jeff Adamski. Adam. Adam Adamski. Janice Hill. Claire with no last name. Devon Mesarosh, Dustin Wilson, Alexis Snow. Devin Grissom. Crystal Lafontaine, Celine Bray, Cody Hinkle, Adam Mears, Jenny Urbanski. Knox Aris. Brooke Jacobson. Ray with no last name. Jennifer Got, Leslie Smize, Cassie Reddington, Lisa Ann Blaser. Oh, my God. Scott with no last name. Ryan Alvaro, Elizabeth Kazad Calhoun. Stephen Morehouse, Sean Scott, Kieran Jameson, Gus Rupp, Mackenzie Collins, Edward Grabow, Angela Venegas, Dustin Wilkinson, Rebecca Wright, Chloe 1462. Terry with no last name. Carrie Isaacson, Samantha with no last name. Ashley Herring, Coach Smitty, Heather German or Herman German. Probably Nick Bergen.

[James Petregallo]

Thank you.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Iona with no last name. Patty Green, Brandon Goldsberry, Jill Bone, Jonathan Dunlap. Kevin with no last name. Teresa Reeves, Lauren Chatnick. Brendan Matthays. Matthews. Matthias Gabriel latorre. Latorre. Stephen Miller. Oh, it's Steph Miller. Steph Miller. Jennifer P. Stacy Morton. Cornelia Gustafson. Gustafson.

[James Petregallo]

Cornelia. That's a good name.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Jennifer Novoselich, Ashley Dietrich, Matt Dorr. Or perhaps Dory. Probably Dor. Eric Lazowski, Paula Dunson, Paul Clark, Pat Newton, Christopher Mentz. David with no last name. Dan with no last name. Catherine Cook, Kurt with no last name. Frank Spagnulo. Spagnolo. Hey, Spagnualo. Cody Champlin, Ryan with no last name. Seth Powers, Lynn Donnaruma K with no last name, Just the letter K. Taylor Apple. Megan Shealy, Haley with no last name. Jeffrey Reed, Megan Keys, Amanda Johnson, Billy Smith, Trevor with no last name. Vincent Santano, Jordan Grant, Brandon Hilton, Kevin Steele, Mary Lawton, Olivia Gifford, Edmiston Sahar, Arafat Ray Marco Yolo. That's fun. Amy Dickey, Jordan H. Katie Rife or Reef. Jill Anderson, Amanda Mills, Robert with no last name. Xo Rachel. Chucky Wilson, Chris Lampley. Executrix85. I don't know what that is. Kristen Miller, Andrew David, Stephanie Rice, Jim Slicer, Luda K. Bobby Wright, Kelly Ruby, Amanda Shuckert, Schukert. Jessica Crabtree, Darth Finn, Julianne Wright, Jeremy Shrepel, Lee Nisha, Lanisha. Lanisha Chisholm, Ali K. Melissa Hick, Dusty with no last name. Aaron Shanahan, Carl Glover, Dina Leister, Abby Haley, Nick Durbin, Matthew Harris, Erica Rummel. Rummel. It's probably Rummel. Reeves, Campbell, Anthony Hines, Frank Benson, Lonnie Thomas, Bridget with no last name. William with no last name. And all of our patrons. You're amazing.

[James Petregallo]

Thank you, everybody, so goddamn much. Thank you. You keep this show going, and we are. We're beholden to you because you keep the show going. And now it's even more with this whole Patreon with the ad free. We hope a lot of you will sign up for that, because that's great, great stuff. So thank you. Thank you for all that you do for us. You want to follow us on social media? Head over to shut upandgivemerder.com and there's dropdown menus that'll take you anywhere you want to go. Keep coming back, keep hanging out with us, keep doing it. And until next week, everybody, it's been our pleasure.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Bye.