Joel Guy Jr.

Summary

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True Crime All The Time: The Joel Guy Jr. Case

Podcast: True Crime All The Time
Hosts: Mike Ferguson & Mike Gibson
Episode: Joel Guy Jr.
Release: June 15, 2026 (Patreon original, recorded 2020)
Case Date: November 2016
Location: Knoxville, Tennessee

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Episode Overview

This episode delves into the chilling and gruesome case of Joel Guy Jr., who brutally murdered and dismembered his parents, Joel Sr. and Lisa Guy, in their Tennessee home over Thanksgiving weekend, 2016. The hosts explore the context leading up to the murders, the meticulous (and ultimately flawed) planning by the killer, and the trial that followed. Focusing on financial stress, family dynamics, and premeditation, Mike Ferguson and Mike Gibson balance an informal, conversational tone with the gravity of this true crime story.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

Background: The Guy Family ([06:35]–[13:30])

• Family Composition & Dynamics

  • Joel Guy Jr.: Born 1988; only son to Joel Sr. and Lisa Guy; three sisters (possibly half-sisters).
  • Joel Sr.: 61 at time of death, former engineer; Lisa: 55, worked at engineering firm.
  • Six grandchildren; close-knit, middle-class family.
  • Joel Jr., 28 at the time, spent nearly a decade in college, never graduated or held a job.
  • Parents financially supported Joel Jr. for years—paid tuition, living expenses, legal trouble bail-outs.

• Financial Strain & Future Plans

  • Joel Sr. loses job; Lisa’s salary insufficient to support family and Joel Jr.
  • Plans to sell family home, retire in Rogersville, TN; Thanksgiving 2016 intended as a last family gathering in the house (emotional significance highlighted).

"They were paying for the whole thing... for nine or 10 years." – Mike Ferguson [10:14]

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Lead-up to the Crime ([15:23]–[21:25])

• Joel Jr.'s Situation
  • Lived in Baton Rouge, LA, supposedly attending LSU but unclear if enrolled.
  • Family’s decision to cut him off financially became the key catalyst.

"There were a lot of sources that said Joel Senior losing his job... was a determining factor in Joel Senior and Lisa coming to the conclusion that they had to cut Joel Jr. off." – Mike Ferguson [16:28]

• Thanksgiving Gathering
  • All family reunited; dinner described as pleasant—“A good time was had by all” ([20:15]).
  • Sisters returned home after the holiday; Joel Jr. stayed behind for the weekend.

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The Murders ([21:26]–[26:06])

• Timeline & Details
  • Attack occurred Friday night–midday Saturday after Thanksgiving 2016.
  • Brutality: parents stabbed, possibly tortured, dismembered; remains found throughout the house.
  • Particularly gruesome details:
    • Lisa Guy’s head found boiling in pot on the stove.
    • Joel Sr.’s hands on bedroom floor.
    • Torsos in acid-based solution in plastic bins in the bathroom.

“...he found Lisa Guy’s severed head in a pot of boiling liquid on the stove… Joel Guy Senior’s severed hands on the floor, and both torsos in plastic containers in the bathroom.” – Mike Ferguson [26:06]

• Motive
  • Hosted posit financial motive: desire to access parents’ life insurance money due to his impending cutoff.

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Investigation and Evidence ([32:51]–[48:35])

• Investigation & Arrest

  • Lisa fails to attend work Monday; employer pushes for welfare check.
  • Police discover the crime scene, quickly identify Joel Jr. as prime suspect.
  • Joel Jr. arrested outside his Baton Rouge apartment by a multi-agency task force by Tuesday.

• Physical Evidence

  • Joel Jr. sustained hand wounds (presumably while struggling with his father).
  • Authorities discover detailed notebook left at the crime scene outlining:
    • Plans for the murders, destroying evidence, and how to profit from life insurance.
    • Instructions as specific as “wear gloves” to staging fake alibis.

• Premeditation & Planning

  • Detailed notes demonstrate weeks of premeditation, including balance sheets of expected financial gain.
  • Notable planning errors: left the notebook at the scene, did not destroy the house to cover tracks as planned, failed to fully dissolve bodies.

"If you’re a killer and you want to leave evidence of premeditation, just do what this guy did. Just write down in a notebook every single thing that you plan to do and save it." – Mike Ferguson [46:16]

• Life Insurance Claims
  • While in jail, Joel Jr. attempted to claim his parents’ insurance payout.
  • Argued he was entitled since he had not yet been convicted.

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The Trial ([51:05]–[61:18])

• Delay & Procedure

  • Trial delayed until late 2020 due to legal wrangling and the pandemic.
  • Joel Jr. initially sought to represent himself to demand execution, but public defenders handled the trial, contesting evidence but offering little defense.

• Key Evidence

  • The notebook: prosecutors used its entries to match with physical evidence (knives, sledgehammer, chemicals).
  • Testimony from sisters, forensic evidence, and shopping receipts for chemicals and equipment.

• Prosecution Argument

  • Emphasized greed, lack of employment, reliance on parents, and motive for financial gain.
  • Asserted calculated and emotionless nature of the crime; timeline traced back to Nov 7 based on shopping activity.

"The motive is pretty apparent in this case… Half a million dollars in life insurance proceeds. That’s what this case is about." – Mike Ferguson [55:38]

• Defense Approach

  • Minimal counter-argument, questioned forensic testing, highlighted normal family interaction at Thanksgiving.

• Verdict & Sentencing

  • Jury finds Guy Jr. guilty on all counts after only three hours of deliberation ([59:39]).
  • Automatic life sentences for two murders, consecutive rather than concurrent—effectively no chance of parole.
  • Additional four years for abuse of corpse.

“This is the most extreme abuse of a corpse case I’ve seen in 25 years. And I hope it’s the most serious that I’ll see in my career.” – Judge Sword, via Mike Ferguson [62:14]

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On the brutality and cold planning:

  "It’s just so callous... The way that he wrote it was, you know, ‘kill her,’ ‘do this to him.’ Very cold.” – Mike Ferguson [47:06]

• On parental sacrifice and betrayal:

  “His parents gave him so much opportunity… And for whatever reason, he never seemed to quite get there. And then at the first inkling that, OK, they’re not going to help me anymore, instead of...putting on his big boy pants, he went...‘what’s the shortcut?’ ... the shortcut involves killing your parents.” – Mike Ferguson [66:14]

• On the judge’s reaction:

  “He showed absolutely no remorse or despair over seeing what he had done… you look like you’re kind of proud of what you’ve accomplished.” – Judge Sword, via Mike Ferguson [63:07]

• Dark humor relief after grim details:

  “Just watch out when you reheat your leftovers.” – Mike Gibson [68:01]

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Timeline of Significant Segments

• [06:35] – The Guy family background & dynamics
• [16:28] – Financial strain & impending cutoff
• [21:26] – Thanksgiving, murder timeline, and initial discovery
• [26:06] – Crime scene details
• [32:51] – Arrest of Joel Jr. and evidence gathering
• [42:10] – The notorious notebook of premeditation
• [49:31] – Joel Jr.’s attempt to claim life insurance
• [51:05] – Trial proceedings start
• [55:38] – Prosecution’s summation and evidence tie-ins
• [59:39] – Verdict delivered; sentencing explained
• [62:14] – Judge’s scathing remarks
• [66:14] – Broader reflections on waste and tragedy

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Overall Tone & Style

• Conversational banter and humor provide levity to an otherwise grim topic.
• Deeply analytical in places, especially regarding motivation, family support, and the psychology behind premeditated murder for financial gain.
• Compassionate for the victims and incredulous at the audacity and coldness of the killer.

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Conclusion

The episode underscores not only the horror and calculated nature of Joel Guy Jr.'s crimes but also the senselessness of the act in light of all his parents sacrificed for him. Despite the grisly subject, Ferguson and Gibson make the case accessible, weaving in societal reflections and personal anecdotes, while never losing sight of the tragedy’s emotional core and its cautionary lessons.

Final thought:

“Such a waste... The sad thing is the shortcut involves killing your parents—these people who have been behind you your whole life. And that’s your first thought. It’s unbelievable to me.” – Mike Ferguson [67:10]

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Transcript

[Mike Ferguson]

You know folks making that decision to start a podcast or really any type of business, it's scary. It was for Gibby and I as well. What if no one listens? What if we make fools of ourselves? And it can be really hard to get over that doubt, but choosing to make that leap was one of the best decisions we've ever made. Another great decision was picking Shopify to help with our podcast merge. It really does help when you have a partner like Shopify on your side. Shopify is the commerce platform behind millions of businesses around the world and 10% of all e commerce in the US. From household names like Gymshark to True Crime all the Time to brands just getting started, there is a lot to love about Shopify. I love the fact that they're now packed with helpful AI tools that help you write product descriptions and even enhance your product photography. You can easily create email and social media campaigns and if you get stuck, Shopify is always around to share advice with their award winning 24. 7 customer support. It's time to turn those what ifs into with Shopify today. Sign up for your $1 per month trial today at shopify.com tcat go to shopify.com tcat that's shopify.com tcatt Ryan Reynolds here from Mint Mobile with a message for everyone paying big wireless way too much. Please, for the love of everything good in this world, stop with Mint. You can get premium wireless for just $15 a month. Of course, if you enjoy overpaying. No judgments.

[Mike Gibson]

But that's weird.

[Mike Ferguson]

Okay, one judgment anyway, give it a [e-mail] Switch upfront payment of $45 for

[Commercial/Advertisement Voice]

3 month plan equivalent to $15 per month. Required intro rate first 3 months only, then full price plan options available, taxes and fees extra.

[Mike Ferguson]

See full [e-mail] hey everyone, it's Fergie here. I'm on vacation. Gibby's on vacation. He's in Greece. Probably eating a bunch of good food. I'm heading to Jamaica for my daughter's wedding, so I'm probably there right now. But we didn't want to leave everybody hanging, so we wanted to put out a True Crime all the Time. An unsolved episode. This True Crime all the Time is a Patreon episode I think we did all the way back in 2020. But at least you have something to listen to and for 99% of you, you've never heard it. Speaking of that, if you're not signed up for Patreon, now is a great time. Enjoy the episode.

[Commercial/Advertisement Voice]

Foreign.

[Mike Ferguson]

Hello, everyone, and welcome to our 51st Patreon episode. I'm Mike Ferguson, and with me, as always, is my partner in true crime, Mike Gibson. Gibby, how are you?

[Mike Gibson]

Hey, man. I'm doing okay. How about you?

[Mike Ferguson]

I'm doing well. You know, it seems strange to announce who we are to our Patreon folks.

[Mike Gibson]

That's right. We just should say, what, this is me, and that's him, and you know

[Mike Ferguson]

who we are, but.

[Mike Gibson]

Exactly. Right.

[Mike Ferguson]

I. You know, I'm like, I have a routine. I know if I don't do the routine, I get off track.

[Mike Gibson]

That's why you won't let me do it in reverse, because you know it's gonna throw you off.

[Mike Ferguson]

Yes. You've been asking to do that for some reason. I have no idea why. But you told me you can speak backwards, which I thought was strange. Sound like a record.

[Mike Gibson]

Yeah, kind of like my. For my dilexia or my dyslexia.

[Mike Ferguson]

Dyslexia, I should say. Oh, okay. All right, here we go. Right out of the gate. So you and I are taping the Wednesday before Thanksgiving.

[Mike Gibson]

We are.

[Mike Ferguson]

Obviously, this episode will come out Saturday night, so we can't. I can't ask you how your Thanksgiving was because. I don't know. But I will say I'm excited. My daughter's home from college, and so. And it's just the four of us. We have a lot of family that's out traveling.

[Mike Gibson]

Go make it nice.

[Mike Ferguson]

It is. It's. It's going to be really nice, just the four of us. We don't get a lot of that. So whenever we do, I'm. I'm very happy.

[Mike Gibson]

Little. Little movie trivia night or game or something.

[Mike Ferguson]

Something we don't know. Yeah, we don't know. Maybe some Hunt a killer. I got one of those upstairs. But I do want to wish everybody a happy Thanksgiving, those of you who celebrate it.

[Mike Gibson]

Yeah.

[Mike Ferguson]

Let's go ahead and give our Patreon shout outs. We had Nicole Munoz.

[Mike Gibson]

Munoz.

[Mike Ferguson]

Morbid. God.

[Mike Gibson]

What's going on? Morbid.

[Mike Ferguson]

Ayla.

[Mike Gibson]

Hey, Ayla.

[Mike Ferguson]

Karen Nix.

[Mike Gibson]

Well, thank you, Karen.

[Mike Ferguson]

Molly Powell.

[Mike Gibson]

Well, thank you, Molly.

[Mike Ferguson]

Tabitha Churchward.

[Mike Gibson]

What's going on, Tabitha?

[Mike Ferguson]

Natalie Pastura.

[Mike Gibson]

Oh, Pastura.

[Mike Ferguson]

Ryan. Hope.

[Mike Gibson]

What's going on, Hope?

[Mike Ferguson]

Lisa Marie Hawkins.

[Mike Gibson]

Hey, Lisa Marie.

[Mike Ferguson]

Georgia. Penny.

[Mike Gibson]

Hey, appreciate that, Penny.

[Mike Ferguson]

Michelle Bennett.

[Mike Gibson]

Well, Bennett.

[Mike Ferguson]

Randy Zaire.

[Mike Gibson]

Oh, it's almost like Randy Sayers. Bazairs. Yeah.

[Mike Ferguson]

Who's Randy Sayers?

[Mike Gibson]

Is that the famous football player? Am I way off?

[Mike Ferguson]

It's Gail Sayers. Close.

[Mike Gibson]

It's his. It's his. It's his third cousin from his mom's side.

[Mike Ferguson]

Randy Gail.

[Mike Gibson]

Yeah.

[Mike Ferguson]

What. What's the difference? Adam. Reeves.

[Mike Gibson]

What's going on? Reeves.

[Mike Ferguson]

Nicola. Furlong.

[Mike Gibson]

Hey, Nicola.

[Mike Ferguson]

Melanie. Hotten.

[Mike Gibson]

Hey, Melanie.

[Mike Ferguson]

Martins. Julie.

[Mike Gibson]

Well, thank you. Appreciate that. Martins.

[Mike Ferguson]

I always think, like, sometimes the names are backwards, and it could just be how somebody entered them in. Could be to the Patreon system, but I don't know. May not be.

[Mike Gibson]

May just be the first name.

[Mike Ferguson]

Could be Kelly Geiss.

[Mike Gibson]

What's going on, Kelly?

[Mike Ferguson]

And last but not least, Kimberly Dabin. That's it. The bean. Yeah, I thought there was something to come after that, but that's it.

[Mike Gibson]

The bean.

[Mike Ferguson]

The bean. Then if we go back into the vault, this week, we selected Kate Fleming.

[Mike Gibson]

Well, thank you, Kate.

[Mike Ferguson]

Yeah. We appreciate all the support. We always do. It's amazing. All right, Gibbs, are you ready to get into this Patreon episode?

[Mike Gibson]

I'm ready.

[Mike Ferguson]

We're headed to Tennessee to talk about Joel Guy junior. Yeah. This is a guy who murdered and dismembered his parents at Thanksgiving time in 2016. So, like I said, this episode comes out a couple of days after Thanksgiving, so I feel okay with telling the story. I wouldn't want people listening to it, you know, right before Thanksgiving.

[Mike Gibson]

Yeah.

[Mike Ferguson]

You know, hopefully, by the time you're hearing this, all the turkeys kind of cleaned up. Your family is gone. Yeah, they've left. And. And you can just listen to the story.

[Mike Gibson]

You're just laying on the couch, relaxing.

[Mike Ferguson]

Yeah. Now, I will say it's a pretty brutal one. There's no doubt about that. Joel Guy Jr. Was born on March 13, 1988, to Joel Senior and Lisa Guy. He had three sisters. I didn't find a whole lot about his childhood. This isn't really a childhood type story.

[Mike Gibson]

Right.

[Mike Ferguson]

But some of the sources said that, you know, he had sisters. Some called them half sisters. It was kind of hard to tell. He graduated high school, went on to college. But unlike you, Gibbs, you know, he wasn't earning his degrees at. In record time.

[Mike Gibson]

It's hard to do that, you know?

[Mike Ferguson]

Well, not everybody can be like you.

[Mike Gibson]

Absolutely not.

[Mike Ferguson]

Let's. Let's just get that out there right now. I was not like you. I was no Doogie Hauser. I will admit that.

[Mike Gibson]

Yeah.

[Mike Ferguson]

So this guy attended a few different colleges, and, you know, he spent, like, nine or ten years in college without really accomplishing what he wanted to do. That's a long time.

[Mike Gibson]

It is, but there's other people that go through that.

[Mike Ferguson]

Yeah. I Was going to say it. It happens to people. Yeah. Especially if you don't know what you want to do.

[Mike Gibson]

Yeah, exactly.

[Mike Ferguson]

Right. Going into college, number one. College can be tough for many, many people.

[Mike Gibson]

It can be.

[Mike Ferguson]

And sometimes it's really hard to figure out, okay, what do I want to do? And you might try this and you go down a path of maybe a whole year and decide, I don't like this at all. So you switch and I get four, five, six years. Now nine or ten. You know, you should be a plastic surgeon. Doctor. At one point, I think he was trying to be a plastic surgeon.

[Mike Gibson]

Some people just like to be a full time, all the time student, you

[Mike Ferguson]

know, And I, I think, okay, that may have been him, you know, bounced around a little. But it's one of the things that caused tension in, in the household because Joel Senior and Lisa, his mom and dad, they paid for his tuition, you know, the entire time.

[Mike Gibson]

Oh, well, that's. That could be a problem. I mean, look, I. I still don't know what I want to do when I grow up.

[Mike Ferguson]

Yeah, you'll figure it out. Yeah, someday. Yeah, someday. I think you should be a spokesman, maybe for aarp. That would be a good goal.

[Mike Gibson]

I could be.

[Mike Ferguson]

You could be one right now. You don't need to wait.

[Mike Gibson]

It's true. I've already hit that.

[Mike Ferguson]

I know. Went over that threshold, but, you know, as a guy who has one daughter getting ready to graduate from college and another one who's going next year. Okay. I can understand kind of the financial implications of college. I understand the equation.

[Mike Gibson]

Yeah.

[Mike Ferguson]

You know, it's. It's tough. You want to help your kids out, but daggone, man, you look at the bills of some of these colleges and you're like, who am I, Rockefeller?

[Mike Gibson]

They think you are.

[Mike Ferguson]

They think I am.

[Mike Gibson]

Yeah.

[Mike Ferguson]

But you do what you can. Right. I think that's what every parent strives to do. Okay. You can't pay for everything. Not everybody can. I get that. We try to help out as much as we can. Now, they were paying for the whole thing is. Is what I understood. Everything I read for nine or 10 years. And there'll be more that comes out about. They're probably like the financial piece.

[Mike Gibson]

Maybe this is the year. Maybe this is the year that he's going to.

[Mike Ferguson]

I'm sure every year they were thinking that. It came out later at trial that Joel Guy Jr. Had gotten into some legal trouble while he was at lsu. That's one of the colleges he went to. And his parents even took out a Mortgage to help him out of this legal trouble. So I mean they were behind him 100%. They were, you know, trying to help him succeed, no doubt. But as Thanksgiving 2016 approached, you know, there was a lot going on in the guy family. Joel Senior was 61 years old and had recently lost his job at an engineering firm. I think he had a really good job. I think he was making, you know, some good bank.

[Mike Gibson]

We had to. If he's put that university bills.

[Mike Ferguson]

Yeah. And because he wasn't the only child, there were other, you know, kids involved, you know, in the mix too. 55 year old Lisa worked at another engineering firm. She wasn't an engineer. I don't know the exact title of her job. My understanding was that she stayed home with the kids and then once they got to be a certain age, you know, she went out and she got a job. But you know, she was helping support the family as well. I just know that there was a lot in the research about the fact that she didn't make as much as he did.

[Mike Gibson]

Right.

[Mike Ferguson]

She wasn't a full blown engineer and I think he was, so. But the pair had been married for like 31 years. They had six grandchildren. Wow.

[Mike Gibson]

Big family.

[Mike Ferguson]

Well, those are expensive too. Kids are expensive. Grant. I don't have grandchildren yet. Find me some wood, please. But I know they're expensive as well. Can be. So what happened was the couple made the decision to sell their family home in West Knox county and try to retire to a home in. I think it was Rogersville, Tennessee.

[Mike Gibson]

Okay.

[Mike Ferguson]

And this was a home, I think that was in the family. Oh, maybe had been left nice to them or something.

[Mike Gibson]

Limited mortgage probably.

[Mike Ferguson]

Maybe no more mortgage.

[Mike Gibson]

Yeah. That helps out when you lose your job. That you don't have to worry about a mortgage.

[Mike Ferguson]

Well, especially if you're trying to retire.

[Mike Gibson]

Yeah.

[Mike Ferguson]

Kind of hard to retire when you got a big ass mortgage payment.

[Mike Gibson]

Exactly.

[Mike Ferguson]

That's for sure. So, you know, this family had been in the home for years. So I think Gibbs, from what I read, everything I read and what friends and family said obviously later on was that the couple was really looking forward to this 2016 Thanksgiving. I mean I, I always look forward to Thanksgiving, but this one, I think they were looking at it as kind of a really big deal.

[Mike Gibson]

The last one in the family house.

[Mike Ferguson]

Yeah.

[Mike Gibson]

Everybody together.

[Mike Ferguson]

Maybe the last time we're all going to be together. I don't know. But for sure the last time we're all going to be together in this house.

[Mike Gibson]

Yeah.

[Mike Ferguson]

And that would be a big deal.

[Mike Gibson]

It would be a lot of memories right there.

[Mike Ferguson]

Yeah. You think about the, the house that you raised, you know, all your, your kids in and. Yeah, I think about at some point selling this home and it's going to be tough. I've lived here 20 years.

[Mike Gibson]

Oh, yeah.

[Mike Ferguson]

So essentially both of my kids, it's the only house they really have ever known.

[Mike Gibson]

And I know it's rougher when you think about the six years I've been coming here.

[Mike Ferguson]

It is all those memories really what holds you back. I would be a trillionaire if I had all the money back that I've spent on your dinners for the last six years.

[Mike Gibson]

I would pay. I would, I would.

[Mike Ferguson]

You say that after the meal has already been consumed.

[Mike Gibson]

Yeah, I don't, but I just don't. I really, honestly, I don't know where my wallet is. I had it.

[Mike Ferguson]

It's never here. It's never with you?

[Mike Gibson]

Yeah, I might have left it on my kitchen counter.

[Mike Ferguson]

I think is, is the thing.

[Mike Gibson]

Yeah.

[Mike Ferguson]

So the other thing is the house was already up for sale and I think it was already sold actually.

[Mike Gibson]

Just needed to close.

[Mike Ferguson]

Yeah, I don't think it had closed yet. So like we said last Thanksgiving, you know, in this house, the kids were already out of the house. They were living on their own. So. Joel Guy Jr. Was 28 years old at this point, unemployed and living in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, where he had attended Louisiana State University. Yeah, the sources were kind of all over the map. You know, some said that he dropped out in 2015. Later on, sources said that he was a student at lsu. Some referred to him as a non matriculating student.

[Mike Gibson]

Matriculating.

[Mike Ferguson]

And I, I don't know. Was he enrolled but he wasn't take. I don't know. Yes. Yeah, he wasn't getting all that far is what it sounds like. Maybe he's.

[Mike Gibson]

Maybe he just enjoyed the campus life.

[Mike Ferguson]

Well, who, who wouldn't, you know, campus life. If mom and dad are footing the bill and you don't have any financial responsibility, really, just to speak of, who wouldn't want to stay in college? Man, college is awesome.

[Mike Gibson]

Yeah, I think there's been a few movies made about, about that.

[Mike Ferguson]

About college.

[Mike Gibson]

Yeah. About being in college for longer than the normal, you know.

[Mike Ferguson]

Okay.

[Mike Gibson]

Three to five years.

[Mike Ferguson]

Yeah, maybe. I mean, I'm thinking Animal House.

[Mike Gibson]

Oh, for sure.

[Mike Ferguson]

I'm also thinking that. What's the one where they, they don't actually go back to college per se, but they start the fraternity.

[Mike Gibson]

Oh, yeah, yeah.

[Mike Ferguson]

What is it with Will Ferrell and. And all Those guys.

[Mike Gibson]

Yeah.

[Mike Ferguson]

Vince Vaughn.

[Mike Gibson]

Vince Vaughn.

[Mike Ferguson]

It's a good movie.

[Mike Gibson]

Old school.

[Mike Ferguson]

Old school, yeah.

[Mike Gibson]

Yeah. And Ryan Reynolds is one where he plays a longtime Van Wilder. Van Wilder, sure. Yeah.

[Mike Ferguson]

So I mentioned this financial situation. Right. There are a lot of sources that said Joel Senior losing his job and really kind of everything they had going on with that was a determining factor in Joel Senior and Lisa coming to the conclusion that they, they had to cut Joel Jr. Off.

[Mike Gibson]

Yeah.

[Mike Ferguson]

a certain point, if you don't have the money, you can't do it.

[Mike Gibson]

Yeah. I mean, you say, look, son, we're coming up on year 10.

[Mike Ferguson]

Yeah.

[Mike Gibson]

We're gonna have to let you go at this point.

[Mike Ferguson]

Yeah. This. It's a very important part of the story. There are, there were some reports that there were emails maybe shown at trial that went back as far as maybe 2012, 2013, where Joel Senior was emailing Joel Junior and saying, hey, what's going on? We can't keep this situation going.

[Mike Gibson]

Right.

[Mike Ferguson]

But for whatever reason, they didn't cut it off. It went, you know, maybe three or three or four years after.

[Mike Gibson]

Strange what you do for your kids when you know that you probably should stop doing whatever you're doing, but you continue doing it because they're your kids. Your kids.

[Mike Ferguson]

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[Mike Gibson]

It's amazing.

[Mike Ferguson]

Model man 2006.

[Mike Gibson]

Yeah.

[Mike Ferguson]

Why? Why get something new? His half sisters. I. I'm gonna call him his sisters because I'm really on the fence with that. It was. It was not apparent in the reporting. They drove in for Thanksgiving as well. This is going to be the whole family together.

[Mike Gibson]

They're all there at the La Casa.

[Mike Ferguson]

And from what the sisters would later tell investigators, Thanksgiving went off without a hitch. It went well. A good time was had by all.

[Mike Gibson]

It wasn't like that movie with Holly Hunter and the guy played.

[Mike Ferguson]

Did you just go?

[Mike Gibson]

Yeah. He had a little circle on his chest. Robert Downey Jr.

[Mike Ferguson]

I have not seen a movie with Robert Downey Jr. And what is that movie?

[Mike Gibson]

Marvel with the whole.

[Mike Ferguson]

Oh, I've seen Iron Man. Iron Man?

[Mike Gibson]

Yeah.

[Mike Ferguson]

I don't. I've never seen a movie with Robert Downey Jr. And Holly Hunter.

[Mike Gibson]

Oh, yeah, it's called. It's a Thanksgiving movie.

[Mike Ferguson]

It's. It's called. It's a Thanksgiving movie. That's what they named it. It's a Thanksgiving movie.

[Mike Gibson]

Home for the Holidays. I think maybe I'm wrong.

[Mike Ferguson]

That sounds like a Christmas movie.

[Mike Gibson]

No, it's a Thanksgiving only movie. It's hilarious. It's hilarious, man.

[Mike Ferguson]

I've never seen. I've never even heard of it.

[Mike Gibson]

Yeah, yeah. If you've never seen it, you gotta watch it.

[Mike Ferguson]

I will watch it.

[Mike Gibson]

Yeah.

[Mike Ferguson]

When I watch the incredible Mr. Limpet.

[Mike Gibson]

Oh, this is. This is. I don't know if it's better now.

[Mike Ferguson]

You're in a. A real conundrum.

[Mike Gibson]

Tough one. No, you have to catch it out.

[Mike Ferguson]

It's a real Sophie's choice. You got. You got going on there. So the big thing, right? They have the, the dinner.

[Mike Gibson]

Yeah.

[Mike Ferguson]

Everything is fine.

[Mike Gibson]

That's good.

[Mike Ferguson]

Good time had by all.

[Mike Gibson]

Yeah.

[Mike Ferguson]

And even the sisters would later say everybody was normal.

[Mike Gibson]

Everybody ate, had their stretchy pants on.

[Mike Ferguson]

They Were happy and. But they all left, right? The sisters? They all left after Thanksgiving while Joel Jr stayed behind for the weekend. The Knoxville News Sentinel reported that according to Knox County Sheriff's Office, Major Michael McClain, sometime between Friday night and midday Saturday, they believe that Joel Jr. Attacked his parents with a knife, possibly tortured them, and dismembered their bodies, leaving remains in various rooms of this 2,300 square foot home. He said that the door was left unlocked and they believed right at this time, as the reporting was coming out, that it was Joel Jr. And he drove back to Louisiana.

[Mike Gibson]

Let me think. How could I stay in college a little bit longer? Oh, I don't know. Let me take this knife and murder my parents. That's gonna let me stay in college.

[Mike Ferguson]

Yeah, we're gonna have to get into that. And, you know, this wasn't really a long, drawn out investigation. It didn't take long at all for the authorities to link Joel Guy Jr. To the murders. The Knoxville News Sentinel reported that Knox County Sheriff's detective Jeremy McCord went to the guy home after they received a report from Lisa Guy's employer that said she didn't show up for work after Thanksgiving. The Monday after Thanksgiving.

[Mike Gibson]

That's a concern.

[Mike Ferguson]

Yeah. And I think they got blown off at first. I read in one paper that they weren't happy. The police weren't taking it seriously because she had some kind of big time meeting that she would have never missed on Monday.

[Mike Gibson]

No doubt she would have been there. Yeah.

[Mike Ferguson]

So they ended up calling or going up the chain.

[Mike Gibson]

Yeah.

[Mike Ferguson]

And getting somebody that would take them seriously. And that led to this Jeremy McCord guy going out to the home and he said the for sale sign was still in the yard when he got there around noon on Monday. So still, you know, everything happening very quickly. Thursday is Thanksgiving.

[Mike Gibson]

Yeah.

[Mike Ferguson]

They believe the. The murders happened Friday. Saturday. Obviously nobody knows until Monday that anything's wrong because she doesn't show up for work. McCoy later testified that he could feel heat emanating from a doorway and he caught a whiff of chemicals in the air.

[Mike Gibson]

Not good. Potentially not good, but, yeah, I. I

[Mike Ferguson]

would say probably never good. Yeah, I. I have a real sensitive nose, so I don't. My wife likes to burn a lot of candles.

[Mike Gibson]

Yeah.

[Mike Ferguson]

Dry. And she has these plug in sense things that spray.

[Mike Gibson]

Oh, mist every now and then.

[Mike Ferguson]

Oh, my gosh. And if she puts it in a room that's too small, she put one in the laundry room a couple of weeks ago. And I thought I was going to have an attack. It was an attack on my senses.

[Mike Gibson]

Yeah.

[Mike Ferguson]

To walk to through the garage, just

[Mike Gibson]

make this place smell good. Yeah, I mean, it does smell good up there, by the way. Well, cinnamon.

[Mike Ferguson]

I get it.

[Mike Gibson]

Field.

[Mike Ferguson]

Right now, I get it. Yeah. My wife's already got the Christmas decorations out.

[Mike Gibson]

Yeah, I seen that.

[Mike Ferguson]

Sometimes it's too much, though, man. Yeah, sometimes it's too much.

[Mike Gibson]

So what I didn't see was my present, but go ahead.

[Mike Ferguson]

No, no, you won't see that.

[Mike Gibson]

Yeah.

[Mike Ferguson]

Especially now. Maybe never. This guy also said that he saw groceries spilled on the floor in the foyer. He later said in court that he was afraid something bad had happened to the guys, and so he didn't want to wait for a warrant. And, you know, obviously you can get into that whole thing of probable cause or, you know, you see something that allows you to not have to get a warrant. When he searched the home, he found what was an unimaginable scene. He said there was blood everywhere. It was on the carpet, it was up all the walls. Gibbs. He found Lisa Guy's severed head in a pot of boiling liquid on the stove. He found Joel Guy Senior's severed hands on the floor of the bedroom. And he found both of the couple's severed torsos in plastic containers in the bathroom. Wow.

[Mike Gibson]

A lot of anger.

[Mike Ferguson]

Well, yes. On the part of the person who did it. Yeah, absolutely. I also think it's kind of a tough day to be this police officer.

[Mike Gibson]

Really tough. It's going to be hard to not recall that again and again and again.

[Mike Ferguson]

Yeah, you're gonna have to live with that. He also stated that he saw scissors and clothing that appeared to have been cut from a body, as well as a large knife. He saw bottles of peroxide, bleach acid and rubbing alcohol. He said he could smell the stench of death mixed with these chemicals. It does, but it's really painting a picture.

[Mike Gibson]

Sure. Sure is. Yeah.

[Mike Ferguson]

You know, the smell. You're finding a head boiling on the stove, severed, you know, hands, torsos. Rough day?

[Mike Gibson]

Extremely.

[Mike Ferguson]

For. For this individual who, you know, was the first on the scene and. And found everything. Major Michael McLean told the Knoxville News Sentinel that Joel placed pieces of the bodies in an acid based solution in an attempt to destroy evidence.

[Mike Gibson]

Okay.

[Mike Ferguson]

He said that the solution that he used was composed of normal household chemicals and. And didn't require any special knowledge of chemistry. The type of stuff that you could buy straight off the Internet.

[Mike Gibson]

What can't you get off the Internet?

[Mike Ferguson]

Well, yes, that's true. Yeah. It's a little scary.

[Mike Gibson]

I think it's really scary.

[Mike Ferguson]

And that's not. We're not even talking about the Dark Web. I don't fully understand the dark web.

[Mike Gibson]

Oh, yeah.

[Mike Ferguson]

But only explained by what I've seen in movies and stuff. But it sounds like you can get just about anything you want. You can off there. Yeah, I don't even think he's talking about that. I just think he's talking about Amazon. You can go on Amazon, buy all these chemicals, put them together, and definitely

[Mike Gibson]

surprising what you can get off of that site.

[Mike Ferguson]

Well, but they're not made for that.

[Mike Gibson]

No, no.

[Mike Ferguson]

Obviously they have real intended purposes, but

[Mike Gibson]

if you know how to use certain things or look up on.

[Mike Ferguson]

Yeah. You can Google all just about anything, right?

[Mike Gibson]

Yep.

[Mike Ferguson]

That. That's a scary thing. The information is great.

[Mike Gibson]

Right.

[Mike Ferguson]

The ability that we have. Right. The information at our fingertips is great. The problem is if you have someone who's intent on doing something bad, they can get that information that they need pretty quickly.

[Mike Gibson]

Exactly.

[Mike Ferguson]

You know how to make a. A pipe bomb. I'm sure it's out there. I've never looked for it.

[Mike Gibson]

Yeah, it's out there.

[Mike Ferguson]

Okay, I will take your word for it. But, you know, the. The what was. The bombs they used in Columbine with the. The pressure cooker.

[Mike Gibson]

Pressure cookers.

[Mike Ferguson]

Pressure cooker bomb.

[Mike Gibson]

Boston Marathon, too.

[Mike Ferguson]

Yes. That. That type of stuff scares me out there, man, that it's all out there. But, you know, it's kind of the. The price that you pay for having the information, the good type of information.

[Mike Gibson]

Right.

[Mike Ferguson]

You're gonna have to live with that freedom of information being out there as well. The Knoxville News Sentinel reported that Lisa and Joel Guy Senior were last seen alive on Friday when they moved a boat to a relative's house. So this is the day after Thanksgiving. The house is sold. They haven't transferred ownership yet. They're still moving some stuff out.

[Mike Gibson]

Right.

[Mike Ferguson]

I did talk about the house already being sold.

[Mike Gibson]

You did?

[Mike Ferguson]

They're planning on moving. Apparently the new owners, the people that bought the house, they showed up while the forensics team was processing, removing evidence.

[Mike Gibson]

Can you imagine?

[Mike Ferguson]

No.

[Mike Gibson]

Wow.

[Mike Ferguson]

You know, I. Again, I have no idea who bought this home. It could have been their dream home. Right. They're. They're moving from this or their first home. I don't know. But when you find out that not only were two people. Not only did two people die, you are there because that to me would be something to process.

[Mike Gibson]

Sure.

[Mike Ferguson]

We're talking about they were murdered. And not only that, they were dismembered.

[Mike Gibson]

Yeah.

[Mike Ferguson]

In a very gruesome fashion.

[Mike Gibson]

And found in different parts of the house.

[Mike Ferguson]

Yeah.

[Mike Gibson]

Not one central area, but unfortunately scattered about.

[Mike Ferguson]

I think. I think we got to figure out how to back out of this sale.

[Mike Gibson]

Right.

[Mike Ferguson]

And we'll find something else.

[Mike Gibson]

Yeah. Because I'll never use that oven.

[Mike Ferguson]

No.

[Mike Gibson]

Again.

[Mike Ferguson]

The stove, the bathtub. Will find out. A lot of places were. Were used. Yeah. For things that you would never want to have to think about again.

[Mike Gibson]

Enough bleach in the world.

[Mike Ferguson]

Especially every time you used it.

[Mike Gibson]

Yeah.

[Mike Ferguson]

Where every time you stepped foot in that house.

[Mike Gibson]

I just. I just wouldn't want to be in that house anymore.

[Mike Ferguson]

No. Absolutely. I. I can't imagine anybody would. Yeah. Chime is fee free Banking built for you. They are not like the stuffy traditional old banks charging you overdraft and monthly fees. Chime does things differently. They also have thousands of fee free ATMs. Why in the world would you pay to get your own money? Chime is rated five stars by USA Today for customer service. They have real humans 24, 7. And I mentioned that Chime is different. They have Spot Me which lets you overdraft up to $200 fee free. You can even get up to $500 of your pay when you want. With my pay with the Chime card, you can get 5% cash back in a category of your choice like gas or groceries. I would have benefited so much from Chime when I was younger. I can remember just not even knowing all the different fees I was paying back in the day. Chime is not just smarter banking. It's the most rewarding way to bank. Join the millions who are already banking fee free today. Head to chime.com tcat that's chime.com tcatt it only takes a few minutes to sign up. Chime is a fintech, not a bank. Banking services for MyPay and Chime card provided by Chime's bank partners. For more information on APY rates, MyPay, Spot Me and travel perks go to Chime.com disclosures optional products and services may have fees or charges.

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[Mike Ferguson]

So I said it didn't take long, right? To link Junior to the murders. By that Tuesday, the day after his mom didn't show up for work, he Was arrested outside of his apartment by Knox County Sheriff's officers. So they went down to Louisiana. That's where he was living. They were joined by members of the East Baton Rouge Parish Sheriff's Office, the FBI, Andy SWAT team.

[Mike Gibson]

They had full force ready to go.

[Mike Ferguson]

Well, they weren't messing around.

[Mike Gibson]

No.

[Mike Ferguson]

Now, when he was arrested, it was noted that he had wounds to his hands. And we'll talk about those. Well, let's talk about them now. Basically, what prosecutors later said at trial was that these wounds were slices.

[Mike Gibson]

Yeah.

[Mike Ferguson]

That he suffered to his hands while he was struggling with his dad.

[Mike Gibson]

His dad just wasn't going to give up.

[Mike Ferguson]

No. And there was a lot in the information about the fact that his dad was bigger than him.

[Mike Gibson]

Yeah.

[Mike Ferguson]

You know, his dad was not a guy that he was just going to overpower.

[Mike Gibson]

Yeah. You know, obviously probably had to take him by surprise or some, you know, type of force.

[Mike Ferguson]

I tell you what, Gibbs, I don't care. You know, 55, 60 years old. Some guys just have strength.

[Mike Gibson]

Yeah.

[Mike Ferguson]

And maybe a 28 year old poses no shot at overpowering them. Now, it can work the other way. They can easily, because we. We lose muscle mass as we. As we get older and all that stuff. But I've known some guys in their 50s, even into their 60s, who were. I call it farm strong.

[Mike Gibson]

Right.

[Mike Ferguson]

Because of where I. Where we live.

[Mike Gibson]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Mike Ferguson]

A lot of guys that I played basketball when I was young, 40s, 50s and 60s, they would show up at open gym to play with this.

[Mike Gibson]

Right.

[Mike Ferguson]

And these guys, their hands were like vices. If they got a hold of the ball, there was nothing you could do because they worked in concrete, they worked laying bricks, or they worked on the farm, baling hay or whatever it was.

[Mike Gibson]

I can crack a walnut between my middle finger and my index finger.

[Mike Ferguson]

Okay. I thought you were gonna go somewhere else with that. I can pick up a cord now. I thought you were gonna go in a completely different direction. So how does one find out that they can crack a walnut between two fingers that shouldn't be used to crack it?

[Mike Gibson]

One day I wanted to see if I could do it.

[Mike Ferguson]

All right.

[Mike Gibson]

Yeah.

[Mike Ferguson]

So you got some digit strength is what you're telling me.

[Mike Gibson]

Yeah.

[Mike Ferguson]

So, Joel Guy Jr. Was charged with two counts of first degree murder. This happened in 2016. But his trial didn't begin until late 2020. And this delay, in large part, seemed to center around a bunch of challenges by his public defenders. On evidence searches, we'll get into a little bit of what those were, but they challenged everything Right. The search of his stuff at the house where the murders occurred. He said, well, he wasn't a resident, so they didn't have any right to do it. They challenged the searches in Louisiana at his apartment. It was a battle that dragged on for years, and then, obviously, once it finally got settled, they could move forward with the trial. But, you know, even before that, prosecution came out and said that they would not seek the death penalty, even though a lot of outlets reported that Guy wanted it. He asked for it.

[Mike Gibson]

He did.

[Mike Ferguson]

We've heard that before.

[Mike Gibson]

Yeah, sure.

[Mike Ferguson]

You know, I don't understand it, other than I think there are people who just say, I don't want to spend the rest of my life in prison.

[Mike Gibson]

He was 28 years old, so, yeah, you know, that's a long time to spend in prison the rest of your life.

[Mike Ferguson]

It is at that age. It is. So a jury of five men and seven women would decide his fate. It was reported by the Knoxville Sentinel that this was one of the first trials and definitely one of the most serious ones to be held in Tennessee since the pandemic started in earlier in March. Okay, so, you know we're in that time frame, right? 20, 20. How many cases have we talked about where trials got pushed back? Got pushed back. Apparently, you know, he had tried to delay the trial, citing his concerns about the pandemic. Sure. He's. He was really worried about COVID especially

[Mike Gibson]

since he wanted to die. Die. So why would you care?

[Mike Ferguson]

But. Okay, we know. Yeah, we know what he was trying to do. And I'm not making light of COVID at all or the pandemic, but we know what this guy was trying to do. So one of his sisters came out against the delay, and according to the Tennessean, she appeared by video link in court from her classroom. She was a teacher, and she told the judge, Judge Sword, that she was back to work. Her children were attending school. Despite the pandemic, she said, the world is continuing. Why shouldn't the trial continue?

[Mike Gibson]

Good point.

[Mike Ferguson]

Y' all are affecting the lives of other people. Yeah, I mean, it is a good point. I understand. There were definitely precautions put in place, but the judge ultimately denied his request for a delay. So authorities laid out their theory before the trial even started. And basically, it was simple. Right. They said that Lisa and Guy senior told Joel Jr that they were going to cut him off financially, and so he decided to kill them and try to get money from their deaths because

[Mike Gibson]

he really thought that one through, and that was going to work out in

[Mike Ferguson]

his favor as Pure greed.

[Mike Gibson]

Right, Right. I mean, we know he's not the. I started to say, you know, he's really not the smartest guy. And I was going to say that because he hasn't. He doesn't really ever finish anything.

[Mike Ferguson]

Yeah. It was said that he was competent. I saw one word used that academically he was competent. He wasn't the head of his class. He wasn't an overachiever or anything like that. But obviously he graduated high school and went to college and. And did that stuff.

[Mike Gibson]

I called them floaters.

[Mike Ferguson]

He was a floater.

[Mike Gibson]

He was just going to float through life as long as he could.

[Mike Ferguson]

Oh, I definitely think it. By the end of this, it. That will become apparent.

[Mike Gibson]

Yeah.

[Mike Ferguson]

Yeah. There's no doubt about that. So just before the trial was set to start, he essentially fired his attorneys and he made a motion to represent himself. Oh. Which I know you always love.

[Mike Gibson]

Yeah.

[Mike Ferguson]

You get a kick out of that.

[Mike Gibson]

That goes so well.

[Mike Ferguson]

And so they. They went back and forth on that. But it came out in the end that he really only wanted to represent himself on one issue. And it was this motion to force the state to execute him if he was found guilty.

[Mike Gibson]

Okay.

[Mike Ferguson]

He really wanted to die if he was found guilty.

[Mike Gibson]

Yeah. Please don't make me stay in jail. Prison for a lifetime.

[Mike Ferguson]

For a lifetime. So from what I understood is the public defenders wouldn't file it. And so that's what he had the. The beef with.

[Mike Gibson]

Yeah.

[Mike Ferguson]

But once the judge kind of talked to him about it and they came to this understanding that that was really the only thing he was worried about, the judge said, okay, when it gets to that point, you can represent yourself and file your own motion. And so he allowed the public defenders to defend him.

[Mike Gibson]

Yeah.

[Mike Ferguson]

And his trial and his defense attorneys did make a bunch of motions, basically to try to keep people from testifying. His. Some of his sisters.

[Mike Gibson]

Yeah. I'm sure it wasn't going to be good for him.

[Mike Ferguson]

No, no. Because. And we'll talk about it maybe when we get to trial, but, you know, they're. They're going to say some of the things that we've already said. Their parents were going to cut him off.

[Mike Gibson]

Yeah.

[Mike Ferguson]

And. And some things like that. He also tried to keep out of evidence a recording of a jail phone call between himself and a guy named Michael McCracken. I don't really know who Michael McCracken is. The papers didn't say, you know, what relationship the two had. But on this, he supposedly admitted to

[Mike Gibson]

the murders because I guess he can't See that sign above the phones that says never. This call is being recorded?

[Mike Ferguson]

Yeah, never. People never see it. They never think about it. So I said that. Authorities originally came out and said that he decided to murder his parents after they said that they were going to cut him off when they got time for trial, though, prosecutors presented evidence that Joel Guy Jr. Had a notebook in his backpack which kind of detailed out how to commit the murders. And he had it at the time that they all ate Thanksgiving dinner.

[Mike Gibson]

Oh, so, like, they're eating dinner. He's over there, like, taking little notes, and they're like, I don't look. He's studying for it.

[Mike Ferguson]

I don't think he was writing in the journal. I just think he had it with him.

[Mike Gibson]

But.

[Mike Ferguson]

But what that means, right. Once that revelation comes out, it means that he had already made the decision to kill. Now, maybe he knew.

[Mike Gibson]

Premeditated.

[Mike Ferguson]

Yeah. Oh, we're going to talk about premeditation a lot.

[Mike Gibson]

Yeah.

[Mike Ferguson]

But maybe he already knew that his parents were thinking about cutting him off. His. His dad, for sure, had brought it up before. But later, at trial, prosecutors told jurors that Joel Guy Jr. Began to plan the murders as early as November 7th.

[Mike Gibson]

Oh, Weeks. Weeks ahead time. Yeah.

[Mike Ferguson]

Weeks before Thanksgiving. But I want to talk about this notebook. Right. It was introduced at trial. It was a huge piece of evidence. And I want to read just some of the entries from just one page of it. It's a little lengthy, but it sheds so much light. And, you know, all the papers mentioned that the prosecutors, they just kept bringing this notebook up. They called it a book of premeditation is basically what they called it in court. So these are just bullet points that he had written down.

[Mike Gibson]

Right.

[Mike Ferguson]

Minimize things I touch throughout visit. Wear gloves and socks to prevent fingerprints and footprints. Drop something down the garbage disposal to break it. Get him on the ground. Kill him with the knife. Clean up the mess from him before she gets home. Kill her with knife. Take dog with you. Place her in the shower. Turn on hot water to get rid of forensics. Remove her clothes. And take with me. Place him in plastic bin and use it to get him into the upstairs bathroom. Cut off his arm and plant his flesh under her fingernails. Place her hand with his DNA so that his DNA is not washed away by the shower, wiped down kill room. Set her phone to send me a text message on Sunday to prove that I was in Baton Rouge when she was still alive. So, again, these are just some of the ones I just cherry picked out some of the entries that he had in that he had in there.

[Mike Gibson]

Disturbing.

[Mike Ferguson]

Oh, very disturbing. I mean, according to the USA Today, there were five pages of this stuff in this notebook. The entries were very detailed and covered every little precise detail on how to commit the murders, how to dismember the bodies, how to dissolve them, and even how much he would profit from his parents life insurance policies.

[Mike Gibson]

Of course he did his homework.

[Mike Ferguson]

Yeah, he did.

[Mike Gibson]

Yeah.

[Mike Ferguson]

It's a scary thing. There were even balance sheets that kind of showed his parents assets and life insurance policies. The Knoxville News Sentinel reported that Lisa's insurance policy was structured so that her son and her husband would split the proceeds if she died first, if her husband died first, then he would get it all.

[Mike Gibson]

There you go.

[Mike Ferguson]

So you know, when I read that, it does kind of make more sense that maybe these three sisters were half sisters belonging to his dad.

[Mike Gibson]

Right.

[Mike Ferguson]

And that he was his mother's only biological child.

[Mike Gibson]

Right.

[Mike Ferguson]

When you read the structure of the life insurance policy, that does make, that does make some sense. But I just read, you know, these things right there. It's kind of a to do list. You and I talked last week about people who make to do lists and like to check them off. I think there's a couple of things that you definitely see here. One is premeditation. I think that that's a no brainer. If you're a killer and you want to leave evidence of premeditation. Just do what this guy did. Just write down in notebook every single thing that you plan to do and save it. And save it. The other thing you see is, is just how callous that this guy was.

[Mike Gibson]

Extremely.

[Mike Ferguson]

I mean as I was kind of reading those, you know, I'm, I'm. We always talk about the question, how could someone do something like this? Like what we just talked about to the a parent, their parents. How could you even sit down and write this stuff out?

[Mike Gibson]

Yeah. Three weeks ahead of time thinking that

[Mike Ferguson]

I'm going to carry these acts out against my parents.

[Mike Gibson]

Yeah.

[Mike Ferguson]

It's just, it's just so callous. And the way, the way that he wrote it was, you know, kill her.

[Mike Gibson]

Yeah.

[Mike Ferguson]

Do this to him.

[Mike Gibson]

Very cold.

[Mike Ferguson]

Very, very cold. And you know, one thing that I really found interesting is that it came out in court that investigators found this backpack at his parents house after the murders in the room where he was sleeping. So here's the part that. Well, besides murdering your, his parents, I just could not understand. When you think about this notebook, five detailed pages. This guy went through all of the trouble in planning to write down all of These entries to follow in a notebook. And you said, okay, write it all down, save it. Then after he commits the murders, he leaves the backpack with the notebook inside.

[Mike Gibson]

Why?

[Mike Ferguson]

It doesn't make any sense.

[Mike Gibson]

Does not. Right.

[Mike Ferguson]

There were even entries about burning down the house to get rid of evidence, which we know he didn't do right now. Prosecutors would later assert that the only reason he didn't follow his own entries was because of the injuries to his

[Mike Gibson]

hand from his dad.

[Mike Ferguson]

Right. He somehow got sliced in this tussle with his dad, and they thought that that was the reason why he couldn't follow through on, you know, all of the things that he had in his notebook.

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[Mike Ferguson]

it was also reported during the trial that while he was in jail, you know, he's. He's awaiting trial. He tried to collect on the life insurance.

[Mike Gibson]

Really?

[Mike Ferguson]

Yeah. He wrote to the life insurance company, I hereby assert the continuing validity of my claims to the insurance proceeds totaling $696,666.68 plus applicable interest.

[Mike Gibson]

So not only is he trying to get the money, he wants interest on top of that.

[Mike Ferguson]

Yeah.

[Mike Gibson]

Wow. Okay.

[Mike Ferguson]

While he's on trial, waiting to go on trial for the murders, and, you know, I guess he spent a lot of time corresponding with this life insurance, and it actually turned in. I didn't go into it in detail, but it actually turned into kind of a courtroom battle as well, with the insurance company saying, well, we know we got to pay someone, right? But we don't want to pay him. And what he would say Is that until I'm a convicted murderer, that rule doesn't kick in. So you should pay me.

[Mike Gibson]

Yeah.

[Mike Ferguson]

And it was a back and forth, and, I mean, they never did, but he kept pressing it and pressing it.

[Mike Gibson]

Yeah. Well, scary.

[Mike Ferguson]

So, you know, when you, you know, we're not going to get real in depth with the trial, but suffice to say, it was pretty hard for him to get out from under this notebook. Right. It was very detailed.

[Mike Gibson]

Yeah.

[Mike Ferguson]

Not only gave the reasons for the murder, but also how it was to be committed. And, you know, most of the p. The paper said that his defense team, they didn't ask a lot of questions. They didn't really present evidence.

[Mike Gibson]

Yeah.

[Mike Ferguson]

I don't know what they could have done.

[Mike Gibson]

Yeah. It didn't look good for him from the get go. So what are you going to do to.

[Mike Ferguson]

Right.

[Mike Gibson]

I don't think you want to give them anything more than they already have, and you could risk that by going too far with your.

[Mike Ferguson]

Well, my. My kind of thought was you're probably not going to ask too many questions of these witnesses because you don't want to hear what they have to say.

[Mike Gibson]

Exactly.

[Mike Ferguson]

None of the questions or none of the answers, I should say, are probably going to paint your defendant in a good light. Now, you can be crafty in the questions, but you also. You have some people who can be real crafty with their answers. Exactly. So I kind of get it. I think they were. They were in a tough spot.

[Mike Gibson]

Oh, for sure.

[Mike Ferguson]

No doubt about it. Prosecutors told the jury that Joel Guy, senior, sustained 42 wounds. Lisa sustained 31. And we talked about it. Right. This was a very gruesome scene that jurors had to hear about. And, you know, that the prosecution had to lay it all out there, every single nasty detail for his family to hear. Well, yeah, I mean, but I think also you want to paint this guy truly as the monster he is.

[Mike Gibson]

Oh, absolutely. This is the time to do it.

[Mike Ferguson]

So as much as you would really hate for these jurors to have to kind of see all these pictures and hear all the details, and you kind of got to do it.

[Mike Gibson]

This is your one opportunity to put the cases forward as best as you can. Yeah.

[Mike Ferguson]

And you want them to see him as the absolute monster that he was. His sister testified against him, as did some other people. Like I said, we're not going to go into a lot of detail about the trial. I wanted this episode to be a little bit shorter just because it's Thanksgiving week.

[Mike Gibson]

Yeah.

[Mike Ferguson]

I got four things to. To Edit.

[Mike Gibson]

Right.

[Mike Ferguson]

But I also thought this was a very fascinating case.

[Mike Gibson]

It is.

[Mike Ferguson]

But again, I want to go back to the. The notebook. Right. Such a huge piece of evidence. Basically, what the prosecutors did with it is they would read entries out of the notebook, and then they would tie evidence that they had to the entry.

[Mike Gibson]

Right.

[Mike Ferguson]

So one would be like, get sledgehammer, crush bones. Well, they found a sledgehammer at the scene.

[Mike Gibson]

Yeah.

[Mike Ferguson]

So pretty easy to tie those two together. Another red get killing knives. They found the knives at the scene.

[Mike Gibson]

Everything was lining up.

[Mike Ferguson]

Yeah. And. And, you know, just, like, leaving the notebook. It seems to me as though he followed some of the instructions that he had written down, but he didn't really follow any of the instructions regarding cleaning up, disposing of clothes.

[Mike Gibson]

Get rid of the notebook.

[Mike Ferguson]

Get rid of the notebook, disposing of the bodies, you know, and. And you kind of have to think about, okay, why was that? Was it, as the prosecutors asserted, that, okay, he got his hands cut up and he just couldn't do certain things, or was it that he got to a certain point in this whole nastiness and just was like, I can't do this anymore.

[Mike Gibson]

Right. Yeah.

[Mike Ferguson]

I don't know. I don't know that he. He's ever said anything about it. He didn't take the stand.

[Mike Gibson]

So it's a possibility, though There's.

[Mike Ferguson]

I thought maybe it. Maybe it was because he would have sustained those cuts before he did some of the. The nasty things that. That he did. So he was able to. To use his hands at that point. So I wasn't sure about that. The Knoxville News Sentinel reported that prosecutors Sanchez and Nasios told jurors in their closing arguments that the guys were planning to retire and they were planning to quit paying their son's bills. Joel Guy Jr. Was then 28 years old, had never held a job, and had been taking college courses for a decade.

[Mike Gibson]

Wow.

[Mike Ferguson]

By that point, sure.

[Mike Gibson]

Yeah.

[Mike Ferguson]

So they're trying to hammer home the reason why him being cut off would be devastating to him. The guys wanted to retire, and they deserve to retire. The motive is pretty apparent in this case. It's money. Half a million dollars in life insurance proceeds. That's what this case is about. They brought up that date, November 7th, as the date when he decided to kill his parents. And they backed it up by, you know, telling and showing the jury. That's when he started going out to different stores and buying knives, chemicals.

[Mike Gibson]

Yeah.

[Mike Ferguson]

Plastic sheeting. All the stuff that dexterity would have bought. Would have bought, would have had on him. All the things that this guy would have needed to carry out his plan. And they obviously had done all the research and investigation by this point. They had the receipts. They could tie him to all of this stuff. And that's really how they came up with the November 7th date. You don't go out to buy all the stuff that you eventually use in a murder if you're not already planning on, you know, doing something, you know, pretty bad.

[Mike Gibson]

Definitely true.

[Mike Ferguson]

Now, speaking of Dexter, I think anybody who has watched that show kind of knows that Dexter went out of his way. Right. He might buy plastic sheeting here.

[Mike Gibson]

Yeah.

[Mike Ferguson]

He's gonna buy something else in a much different place at a different time.

[Mike Gibson]

Yeah. That's why Dexter was Dexter.

[Mike Ferguson]

Yeah. Part of the reason why maybe he got away with it as long as he did.

[Mike Gibson]

Right.

[Mike Ferguson]

I also think about Breaking Bad. You know, Walt kind of did the same thing he did. He wouldn't buy all of his supplies at one store, so he didn't have a big shopping cart full of everything that he needed to make the meth. He would buy a little. You know, he'd buy one thing here and one thing over here and not

[Mike Gibson]

to sit off any radars.

[Mike Ferguson]

Yeah. Yeah. Guy Junior's public defenders, like I said, they. They really presented no evidence on his behalf. Joel Jr. Didn't take the stand. Already said that. Really? All his defense team tried to do was to call into question any forensic testing and tell the jury that this wasn't a man set on committing two murders. And they. They tried to back that up by saying, you know, he was happy at Thanksgiving. Even his sisters said he was happy at Thanksgiving.

[Mike Gibson]

Yeah, but they don't know what was he thinking before he got there. Right.

[Mike Ferguson]

Yeah.

[Mike Gibson]

Those weeks that added up to Thanksgiving.

[Mike Ferguson]

Well, also, if your plan is to wait for everybody, you know, a lot of the family to leave and you're planning on doing this the next day, the day after, are you going to sit there and be sullen and nasty? No, no. You're going to put on your happy face, which is actually what the prosecutors came back and said.

[Mike Gibson]

Sure.

[Mike Ferguson]

You know, he put on an act because that's what he wanted his sisters to think. Hey, he's doing good. He's happy. He's in a good place.

[Mike Gibson]

They got his sisters to leave.

[Mike Ferguson]

I think they were going to leave anyway, but they got them not to think or, you know, question what's going on with Joel J.R. right. No, he seemed. He seemed fine, normal. We're not worried about him. But really, you know, when it comes back to the defense gives. What could they do with this kind of mountain of evidence against them? Attack the science, the testing, which defense attorneys always try to do. And then use the old. The. The old. Use his own sister's testimony kind of against him.

[Mike Gibson]

Yeah.

[Mike Ferguson]

In saying that he seemed fine at Thanksgiving. Oh, well, then he. He couldn't be a murderer. Well, but we know that's not true.

[Mike Gibson]

That's not true. Exactly. Right.

[Mike Ferguson]

His trial only lasted four days. Pretty short.

[Mike Gibson]

It is short.

[Mike Ferguson]

After three hours of deliberation, on Friday, October 2, 2020, the jury found him guilty of two counts of first degree murder, three counts of felony murder, and two counts of abuse of a court. Judge Sword imposed an automatic life sentence with the possibility of parole after 51 years for each of the murder convictions.

[Mike Gibson]

Okay.

[Mike Ferguson]

We already knew he wasn't going to get the death penalty. They weren't even going after that. But they didn't rule at the time, or the judge didn't rule at the time whether these sentences were going to be consecutive or concurrent. That's a big deal.

[Mike Gibson]

It is a big deal.

[Mike Ferguson]

Right. Concurrent stole a life sentence. You're still not coming up for parole for 51 years.

[Mike Gibson]

Yeah.

[Mike Ferguson]

He's going to be, what, 79 years old?

[Mike Gibson]

Yes.

[Mike Ferguson]

No. No. I'm sorry. Because by. No. Well, it goes back.

[Mike Gibson]

It goes back.

[Mike Ferguson]

It goes back. So 79 years.

[Mike Gibson]

Yeah.

[Mike Ferguson]

Old. 80 years, whatever. Give or take. So basically what the judge said was that he was going to have a hearing later on to determine it. That hearing, as reported by the Knoxville News Sentinel, was held on November 19, and at the hearing, the judge ruled that the life sentence sentences were to be served one after another.

[Mike Gibson]

Okay, so two life sentences.

[Mike Ferguson]

Yeah. But to me, the parole.

[Mike Gibson]

Right.

[Mike Ferguson]

Is the big deal.

[Mike Gibson]

Yeah.

[Mike Ferguson]

Right. Because now does that mean you're not eligible for 102 years?

[Mike Gibson]

That's how I look at it.

[Mike Ferguson]

Because it's not concurrent. It's consecutive.

[Mike Gibson]

Right.

[Mike Ferguson]

Either way, it doesn't seem as though this guy will probably. Barring some type of appeal or something happening. I just don't think he'll ever get out.

[Mike Gibson]

No, I don't think so either.

[Mike Ferguson]

And I don't think he should get out. You know, I would have been okay if they would have gone after him for the death penalty. If he would have, you know, ultimately been executed, I would have been okay with that. I'm totally fine with a life sentence. What I would not want is for this individual to really ever re. Enter society ever.

[Mike Gibson]

No, he shouldn't.

[Mike Ferguson]

You know, the judge also tacked on an additional four years for abusing a corpse. But he. He really chastised this guy. He called the crime pure evil. Overkill. That sounds like something you would say. I would, because you do like to talk about overkill.

[Mike Gibson]

I say it a lot.

[Mike Ferguson]

The judge said, this is the most extreme abuse of a corpse case I've seen in 25 years. And I hope it's the most serious that I'll see in my career. It was bad. I don't know how many judges have seen that type of stuff.

[Mike Gibson]

Yeah. I wouldn't want to see those photos, those videos of the crime scene. None of that.

[Mike Ferguson]

I mean, judges see a lot of really bad stuff.

[Mike Gibson]

They do.

[Mike Ferguson]

We always talk about juries. We don't really talk about judges that much because it's kind of their job. But I think it's got to be rough on them to see so much carnage and death and just bad people doing bad things. He also said, I don't see potential for rehabilitation of Mr. Guy. I was watching him during the trial. He showed absolutely no remorse or despair over seeing what he had done. Quite frankly, Mr. Guy, you look like you're kind of proud of what you've accomplished. And I thought that was a very interesting statement by the judge.

[Mike Gibson]

Sure.

[Mike Ferguson]

You know, if you think about it, the judge is kind of watching the defendant.

[Mike Gibson]

Yeah. Observing, for sure.

[Mike Ferguson]

Observing everything that's going on throughout the trial. And at the end of it, he's basically saying, you know, hey, sit. We sat here for four days. I've watched you. And not just the four days, because they had a lot of other hearings and things.

[Mike Gibson]

Yeah.

[Mike Ferguson]

He's saying you're a pos. You've been a pos. You'll always be a pos.

[Mike Gibson]

Yeah.

[Mike Ferguson]

There's, you know, whatever rehabilitation efforts there might be in prison, they're not going to work for you. No. Is essentially what the judge is saying you're. Or he doesn't believe they will.

[Mike Gibson]

Helpless cause.

[Mike Ferguson]

Incorrigible.

[Mike Gibson]

Incorrigible. What is incorrigible?

[Mike Ferguson]

What?

[Mike Gibson]

That's what it sound like to me.

[Mike Ferguson]

Who said what?

[Mike Gibson]

I don't know where. What. Who's on first.

[Mike Ferguson]

Incorrigible. Yeah. He just basically came out and say it. But, you know, we've heard that as well. The no remorse thing we hear all the time.

[Mike Gibson]

Sure. We do.

[Mike Ferguson]

Especially with serial killers, because I don't think there is any remorse. Most likely in a lot of them. There's no empathy.

[Mike Gibson]

No.

[Mike Ferguson]

Speaking of empathy, I'm watching the patient.

[Mike Gibson]

Yeah.

[Mike Ferguson]

With my wife.

[Mike Gibson]

Yeah.

[Mike Ferguson]

And we're almost done. We're like, I think we just finished episode eight. There's 10 episodes. And he talks a lot about empathy.

[Mike Gibson]

Yeah.

[Mike Ferguson]

And that, you know, that young guy, he's really good actor. He does a really good job of kind of portraying what I think kind of a serial killer or a lot of serial killers are like.

[Mike Gibson]

Right.

[Mike Ferguson]

You know, it's like he doesn't understand what someone else is going through or. And doesn't care.

[Mike Gibson]

Does not care.

[Mike Ferguson]

And you can see it. This actor does a pretty good job. I recommend it if, you know, I haven't seen the whole thing, so I don't know how it's going to end.

[Mike Gibson]

And it's good.

[Mike Ferguson]

Well, don't give it away.

[Mike Gibson]

Well, that doesn't give it away. And it's good. It's a good ending. Doesn't mean it's.

[Mike Ferguson]

Now you're giving more away. Now it's a good ending.

[Mike Gibson]

It's a bad ending. I don't know. It's an ending.

[Mike Ferguson]

Don't give anything. No, but I. I do. I. I really. I think he does a pretty good job of kind of putting it out there. Of what? At least I think.

[Mike Gibson]

Yeah.

[Mike Ferguson]

A lot of killers would be like, in real life. He's. He's a little obsessive compulsive.

[Mike Gibson]

He is.

[Mike Ferguson]

You see him every now and then, like, straightening things up, and I'm not giving anything away, but. Yeah, yeah, I got it. But that's it, man. That's it. For our episode on Joel Guy junior. I. I just found it to be such a. Such a waste.

[Mike Gibson]

Oh, for sure.

[Mike Ferguson]

You know, on all fronts. Sounds like this guy kind of just wasted his life. He was aimless. You called him a floater.

[Mike Gibson]

Yeah.

[Mike Ferguson]

His parents gave him so much opportunity. They were paying for him to try to make something out of his life. And for whatever reason, he never seemed to quite get there. And then at the first inkling that, okay, they're not going to help me anymore, instead of, you know, putting on his big boy pants and saying, all right, I got to get a job if I want to go to school, I got to get a job, pay for myself, maybe take out some loans, do whatever I got to do. No, he went, as some people do, this route of, what's the easiest way?

[Mike Gibson]

Yeah, let me take a shortcut.

[Mike Ferguson]

Yeah, where's. Where's. What's the shortcut? So that I can get my hands on a bunch of money. The sad thing is the shortcut involves killing your parents. These people that have been behind you Your whole life.

[Mike Gibson]

Right.

[Mike Ferguson]

And that's your first thought. It's unbelievable. To me.

[Mike Gibson]

It is. But like you said, all this stuff happens. It's. It's a. To me, it's just a nightmare that it happened the way it happened.

[Mike Ferguson]

Yeah.

[Mike Gibson]

You know, just.

[Mike Ferguson]

And it was like the. The judge said, going on about how one of the worst case he's ever seen, I mean, dismembering your mom.

[Mike Gibson]

Yeah. And dad and dead on the pot on the oven.

[Mike Ferguson]

Oh. Just. Just nasty stuff.

[Mike Gibson]

Happy Thanksgiving.

[Mike Ferguson]

Happy Thanksgiving. But that's why I. I wanted to do it once Thanksgiving was over.

[Mike Gibson]

Yeah.

[Mike Ferguson]

You noticed I didn't put it out last Saturday.

[Mike Gibson]

Right.

[Mike Ferguson]

You know, I didn't want people thinking about that as they were, you know, kind of going in for the turkey. Now you and I have to, because we're taping the day right before Thanksgiving. But that's just on us.

[Mike Gibson]

Just watch out when you reheat your leftovers.

[Mike Ferguson]

Exactly. But that's it. We love you.

[Mike Gibson]

We do.

[Mike Ferguson]

We appreciate everything you do for us. We'll be back next Saturday with. With our normal weekly sneak previews.

[Mike Gibson]

Yeah.

[Mike Ferguson]

And then I think the Patreon episode next month, it was probably going to come out early.

[Mike Gibson]

Okay.

[Mike Ferguson]

I think because we're trying to take a vacation. Trying to take a week off, so may try to get it done early.

[Mike Gibson]

I get to go with you now.

[Mike Ferguson]

No, you do not.

[Mike Gibson]

You just said we.

[Mike Ferguson]

We as in separately. We are taking a week off and

[Mike Gibson]

you keep, you know, changing it up.

[Mike Ferguson]

I can barely afford this vacation as it is, man. I definitely cannot afford to fly your ass all the way to Orlando and pay for your park tickets and all that.

[Mike Gibson]

You take care of all that. I'll get my own breakfast.

[Mike Ferguson]

Actually, that's, that's saying something because I don't know when the last time you were at Disney. Yeah, but the food is outrageously expensive.

[Mike Gibson]

Well, the hotel we're at, is there going to be free Continental? Oh, well, let me rethink that.

[Mike Ferguson]

No, this is not the Holiday Inn Express or the, the Clarion that you stay at all.

[Mike Gibson]

We just get a little box of cereal on some milk on.

[Mike Ferguson]

On business. One of those business hotels.

[Mike Gibson]

That's a problem.

[Mike Ferguson]

Now every meal is going to be $8 million.

[Mike Gibson]

Yeah, well, that's because the pancakes have to look like a certain, you know, personality at the park that we can't

[Mike Ferguson]

name for a trademark infringement.

[Mike Gibson]

Yeah.

[Mike Ferguson]

All right. We will talk to you next week.

[Mike Gibson]

See ya.

[Mike Ferguson]

Bye. Get that Amex gold cart ready. I'm way too tired to cook. Tonight?

[Commercial/Advertisement Voice]

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[Mike Ferguson]

Five guys.

[Commercial/Advertisement Voice]

Either of those sound good?

[Mike Ferguson]

Yes.

[Commercial/Advertisement Voice]

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