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True Crime Garage
Pendleton Quadruple Homicide /// Part 1 /// 818
00:57:00
Pendleton Quadruple Homicide /// Part 1 /// 818 Part 1 of 2 www.TrueCrimeGarage.com On Monday, November 2nd, 2015 a little after noon a call came into emergency services. The female caller described to dispatch the bloodbath they had discovered. Four people were dead, killed in their home. Amy Vilardi called in the horrific discovery. The victims were her family. It was a massacre that shocked the tiny town of Pendleton, South Carolina.
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- [00:02]
Ted Danson
Hey, friends, Ted Danson here and I want to let you know about my new podcast. It's called Where Everybody Knows yous Name with me, Ted Danson and Woody Harrelson. Sometimes doing this podcast is a chance for me and my good bud Woody.
- [00:15]
Woody Harrelson
To reconnect after cheers wrapped 30 years ago.
- [00:18]
Ted Danson
Plus, we're introducing each other to the friends we've met since, like Jane Fonda, Conan O'Brien, Eric Andre, Mary Steenburgen, my wife and flee from the Red Hot Chili Peppers. And trust me, it's always a great hang when Woody's there.
- [00:32]
Woody Harrelson
So why wait?
- [00:33]
Ted Danson
Listen to where everybody knows your name.
- [00:35]
Woody Harrelson
Wherever you get your podcasts.
- [00:41]
Ted Danson
Now streaming on Hulu. A wicked True crime. It was a kidnapping torture case. A crime of greed and cruelty. The men tortured the victim by beating tasing and burning him.
- [00:53]
Woody Harrelson
But it didn't end there.
- [00:54]
Ted Danson
And this is where it gets really horrible. The guy was cutting off my room. Made sadness. It was like a bad dream. This crime was horrific. He a psychopath. Wicked game.
- [01:05]
Woody Harrelson
Devil in the desert.
- [01:06]
Ted Danson
This was a story about greed, sadism, evil. Now streaming only on Hulu. Welcome to True Crime Garage. Wherever you are, whatever you are doing, thanks for listening. I'm your host, Nick and with me, as always, is a man who can sing Las Vegas tango way better than Gary Burton. Here is the cap.
- [02:05]
Woody Harrelson
Yeah, tango, bango. It's good to be seen and good to see you. Thanks for listening. Thanks for telling a friend.
- [02:15]
Ted Danson
This week we are very happy to be featuring Silver Shoes Stout by the fine folks at Monkle Brewing Company and beautiful Charleston, South Carolina. Silver Shoes is a Belgian stout made with lots of brown sugar, chocolate and roasted malts. And Munkle's House abbey ale yeast ABV 6.1% garage grade, 4 out of 5 bottle caps. And let's give some thanks and praise to our good friends for helping us out. First up, a double fisted cheers goes to Whit Wilson and Lacey Brown in Birmingham, Alabama.
- [02:53]
Woody Harrelson
And a big we like your jib goes out to Brian from Harbor Beach, Michigan.
- [02:58]
Ted Danson
Next up, here's a cheers to Rhonda Web. Raleigh, North Carolina.
- [03:02]
Woody Harrelson
Yeah, and you can get you some Jen from the south side of Chicago.
- [03:07]
Ted Danson
Here's a cheers to Jenna from the seacoast of New Hampshire. And last but certainly not least, we have Tyler and Amber in Kodiak, Alaska. Everyone we just mentioned went to true crimegarage.com clicked on the pint glass and filled up the old garage fridge for this week's shows. And for that we thank you.
- [03:28]
Woody Harrelson
Yeah, bwr you in beer run. You need more True crime garage for your earballs. Yes, you do, my friend. And how do you get it? Well, you can go to Patreon, or if you listen on the Apple podcast app, you can just hit subscribe and colonel, that's enough of the business.
- [03:46]
Ted Danson
All right, everybody, gather round. Grab a chair, grab a beer. Let's talk some True crime. Monday, November 2, 2015. Around 12:30pm A frantic 911 call came into the Anderson County Sheriff's office. The female caller was sobbing. She tells the dispatcher, oh my God, I need somebody out here. What's going on? Dispatch Ask caller there's four people in my mama's house and they're dead. Dispatch who are these people? Caller My mom, my grandma, my gammy and my stepdad. The caller identified herself as Amy Velardi. Minutes later, when Anderson county deputies arrived at the house located in Pendleton, South Carolina, they found a horrific bloodbath inside. Three people were found deceased in the family room. A fourth victim was found in the bedroom. Four people had been slain. It was a massacre. All of the victims had been shot. But that didn't account for all of the blood. It was pulled under the four victims. It was smeared on the walls and furniture. It was tracked through the house via foot and shoe prints. And this was no murder suicide. Which of course is what the deputies initially suspected. No weapon was found. This was a quadruple homicide by suspects unknown. What in the hell happened here? And just how long would that question plague the small town of Pendleton, South Carolina. This is True Crime Garage and this is the Pendleton quadruple homicide. The murders took place at 2217 Refuge Road. This is a rural part of Pendleton, which is a tiny town of only about 3,500 residents. The Anderson county coroner told the media, quote, this was very violent, very, very violent deaths on all four of them. End quote. The coroner is Greg Shore. He estimated that the four had died on Sunday afternoon between the hours of noon and 3pm by the time that Amy Velardi found them, they had been dead for at least one day's time. The house that the victims were found in was a modest cream colored double wide mobile home with maroon trim. It was all decorated up for Halloween with glow in the dark skeletons hanging on the trees and colorful spooky decals in the windows. In the sizable front yard sat an Adirondack chair and an ADT security sign were among the items, surrounded by crime scene tape. Whoever went into this home and killed the family, obviously they were not deterred by the notion that the security system may have been in place. All four victims lived at this home. Since no one who lived in the home was alive to give consent, the sheriff at the time, John Skipper, wisely ordered the investigators to obtain a search warrant before commencing their investigation. Captain Gaylord Major of the Anderson County Sheriff's office told the local paper, this is the Anderson Independent Mail. Quote, this is going to be a very meticulous and thorough process. We're looking for evidence, anything we can find at this point. Hair, fibers, anything.
- [07:59]
Woody Harrelson
Well, like you said, this property is on a little bit of land, but there's also two residents. So I think that makes the investigation a little bit difficult.
- [08:08]
Ted Danson
There are some complexities with this investigation. Right out the gate, we have no sign of a break in. And really, when you look at the evidence in the blood evidence, we have no sign of a major struggle with all of the blood that we've discussed in the trailer. That seems like an odd statement. Well, plain and simple, this was an attack. Injuries, blood, and other evidence is telling investigators that there was little in the way of a struggle or altercation, more of an attack, and these poor victims had little or no chance to defend themselves.
- [08:43]
Woody Harrelson
Well, I think the other difficult thing is figuring out the timeline.
- [08:46]
Ted Danson
Nothing seemed out of place with inside of the home. And as said, we have doors and windows that had not been pried open. And what the papers were reporting, Captain, was that the house had not been ransacked. The thought was that it was as though someone had a serious grudge against the victims or one of the victims. Right. So this was just targeted violence. And this is odd, to say the least. These victims were esteemed members of the Pendleton community. In fact, they were senior members of this community. Mike Scott, one of the victims, was 58 years old. He worked at the South Carolina Department of Transportation. His wife, Kathy Scott, was 60 years old. She stayed at home to take care of their elderly mothers, Mike Scott's mother and her mother, who both lived with them. So these elderly mothers were killed as well. Barbara Scott, who was 80. Violet Taylor, Kathy's mom, who was 82. Anderson county and most other counties don't see many octogenarians slaughtered in their homes. This is not something that happens. This is a rare crime. So who would do this? Who of the four was the target? It's hard to believe that all four of them would be the target. I can't imagine that Violet and Barbara, both in their 80s, had a long list of enemies. But what about Mike and Kathy, 58 and 60 years old, respectively. Did they have a beef with someone?
- [10:21]
Woody Harrelson
Law enforcement believes that Mike was taken out first, but he would be the threat to stop the attack. But that doesn't tell us who was the target.
- [10:32]
Ted Danson
Right.
- [10:32]
Woody Harrelson
Is it one of them or was it all of them? And then what are.
- [10:35]
Ted Danson
What.
- [10:36]
Woody Harrelson
What would the motivation be?
- [10:38]
Ted Danson
Did they owe someone money? Were there affairs or possibly drugs involved? The sheriff's detectives were determined to find out these details about the victims and about the crime scene as well.
- [10:51]
Woody Harrelson
Well, and like you said there, I don't think there was any sign of somebody ransacking the house. And. And maybe I'm wrong, and maybe you can correct me, but they're found on a Sunday, and trick or treat was on the Friday, and there was still like a tub of candy out by the door. Normally that is either emptied by the people coming to get the candy, or you eventually put that away.
- [11:20]
Ted Danson
Well, you're right. The timeline is a little bit tricky here. And you'll see the listeners will understand why as we get through the details. But they were found on Monday, November 2nd.
- [11:31]
Woody Harrelson
Monday, not Sunday.
- [11:32]
Ted Danson
Sorry, but you're. You're fine. Because the coroner was saying early in the investigation that he believed that they were likely dead by Sunday, even put the time of death early Sunday to early afternoon Sunday. Now, a lot of information was released about the crime scene. We relied heavily on some episodes of Oxygen's Cold justice show that was dedicated to this case. And in fact, they aired rather recently. These episodes kind of took over our research for the case because they ended up revealing a lot more than what was previously known about this case. So at the crime scene, like the captain pointed out, it was obvious from the blood evidence at the scene that Mike Scott was the one that was attacked first. So he was found lying face down on the living room floor by the coffee table. He's in his boxer shorts. His arm is kind of bent at an unnatural angle, and there's an absolutely massive pool of blood surrounding his head. And this pool of blood was totally undisturbed. There's no footprints or smears for the pool of blood. Based on the blood patterns and the body location and positioning of the body, Mike was believed to have been killed first. It appeared that he had been surprised while sitting on the couch with some lethal slashes and stabs to the neck and throat area. He had six sharp force injuries to the left side of his neck, with the longest being 6 over 6 inches. His throat was essentially cut ear to ear.
- [13:18]
Woody Harrelson
There's a lot of baffling things about this case. But I think the one that stood out to me is that law enforcement is telling us they believe these victims were cut first and then shot. I'm guessing they could tell this by the blood evidence. Like you said, there's these pools of blood, but they're not disturbed. We don't have footprints all over the house.
- [13:40]
Ted Danson
Then we have the two older ladies. They were also sitting on the couch. And this appeared that they tried to get away. They were caught and stabbed or slashed and fell to the living room floor as well. They were found lying side by side. Violet was nearly decapitated by a massive slicing wound to her neck. She was also shot twice. And she did have some defensive wounds to her left hand. Barbara had the most wounds of all. She had been stabbed six times in the neck, chest, and left shoulder. And as we had said, going through the gruesome details here, Mike, Barbara, and Violet all had their throats cut.
- [14:27]
Woody Harrelson
Yeah. Wasn't the mother found in a different room?
- [14:31]
Ted Danson
Yes. So Kathy was. And it's interesting how they piece this all together. This is all very blood spatter evidence to tell them, to kind of show and tell the story to the investigators of what may have happened and how everything went down. Because Kathy, it's believed that she was in the living room, too, when the attack started. She was barefoot. What happened is she got up and ran to her bedroom. And we know this because it's on her pathway to the bedroom. She stepped in blood on the way. Right. So there the attack had already started. And that's why things are pointing to Mike and Barbara and Violet being attacked first. Kathy has the opportunity to actually get up and run. And when she does, so she steps in the blood on her way. Bloody bare footprints staining the oak floor of the trailer showed that her trajectory as she turned and sprinted away from what was going on, the attack in the living room.
- [15:34]
Woody Harrelson
Didn't they believe she was trying to get to the bedroom to possibly get a weapon to defend herself?
- [15:40]
Ted Danson
Correct. Yeah. And what they figured out is that someone caught up to her. She was stabbed just once. This was in the right lung and fell to the bedroom floor. The blade went in several inches deep. Kathy had a bruise in the shape of a knife hilt at the top of her chest. Kathy was found dead on the bedroom floor. She was partially on her left side, her right arm, like up over her face. But it wasn't the stab wound that killed her. She was alive when she was shot in the face and head. Two shots, double tap. Each of the victims had been shot in the face or head, at least one Barbara's was a close contact wound with stippling and gunshot residue behind her right ear. But Barbara, Mike and Violet were already dead when they were shot. The knife was the murder weapon. The gunshots seem like a final fu. Or maybe a fail safe to make sure that they were dead. Right, like the captain's pointing out here. And sorry that I'm going in a roundabout way of getting to it, but Kathy and Mike, who were technically the homeowners, right, Their mothers were older, they're in their 80s, they're living with them, and Mike is out working, and Kathy's at home taking care of them. And they were known to own several guns. What Cole justice would. Would say is that it was determined from an empty holster found under the bed that Kathy likely tried to retreat to this bedroom to get a hold of this.38 caliber revolver to defend herself. It looked like the killer or the killers beat her to it. According to the show, the gun holster was found under the bed near Kathy's body. It was empty. The revolver was missing. The holster had a small drop of blood on it. And this is perhaps from when Kathy was stabbed. So you can kind of see this playing out. She gets up to run. She lucky or unlucky enough. You can look at it either way. But it appear. It appears that Michael is attacked, blindsided, right? And then the two older ladies at least have the opportunity to start to get up, but they're stopped. They're attacked. And then Kathy goes running for this gun. Killer goes after her, stabs her in the lung. She drops. Killer grabs the gun and then is now using the gun. It looked to me like the. The killer used their own gun on these people.
- [18:14]
Woody Harrelson
So the question I was going to ask is, do we have information? Is it the same knife used on all the victims? Is it the same gun used on all the victims?
- [18:24]
Ted Danson
I don't have a lot of information on the gun, but the short of it, it appears that this gun, this.38 revolver that was found missing from the scene with a drop of blood on the holster likely was used. And as said, three of the victims were dead before they were even shot. As far as the knife goes, here's a fact. We know that the killer used a knife on all four of the victims and then used a gun believed to have been lifted from Kathy or from her room. So the first thought is the investigators were wondering, were there two people involved or, you know, first, the lethal slayer who's unafraid to use a knife up Close and personal on these people. And then someone with enough angst or vitriol to. Enough to shoot all of them for good measure. But as far as the knife goes, what we know about the knife is that the hilt marks. So it left when. When the victims were stabbed or attacked with this knife. It left bruising in the shape of a rectangle near the. The cuts and the stab wounds. And what that was telling the investigators was this wasn't like somebody just grabbed a steak knife out of the block in the kitchen and used it on him. This would have been a hunting or military style knife.
- [19:51]
Woody Harrelson
Yeah.
- [19:52]
Ted Danson
And you're correct, Captain. It's believed that that one knife was used on all four victims.
- [19:59]
Woody Harrelson
Law enforcement has a reason to believe that whoever did this is trained to do this.
- [20:07]
Ted Danson
Yeah. Some other information about the crime scene. And this is a significant clue. Partial shoe prints in blood. Bloody shoe prints were believed to have been made by the killer. So someone wearing sneakers had chased after Kathy. We have her barefoot prints and then we have the shoe prints. Drops of blood on top of the prints show that the prints were made by someone who was there when the murders were happening. When the attack was going down.
- [20:38]
Woody Harrelson
Right. Not by the daughter that found her.
- [20:42]
Ted Danson
Correct. The prints were confirmed to have been left by someone wearing a man sized. We don't get. We don't get a size here. We just. It's a man's shoe, they believe. And the make is Asics Speed Star running shoes. As said the house, the police say that the trailer was not ransacked. We have Kathy's jewelry box that was sat undisturbed. It appears that the. The murders were the intended outcome here. But one thing that we learn beyond the no force entry to the trailer, in one of the. In the bedroom closet, there's a shelf that was off kilter. Investigators would learn that that shelf at one time held a safe. That safe was not there when they are pouring over this crime scene.
- [21:32]
Woody Harrelson
Well, and like I said, law enforcement is saying for whatever reason, there's reason to believe that this individual knew what they were doing or these individuals, at least one of the individuals knew what they were doing. And this is when they started looking into, okay, what's the motive? Because this wasn't a home invasion to steal a bunch of stuff. There's not a bunch of stuff stolen, but possibly this safe is stolen. So is the motivation money or is it possible that somebody had a bad gambling problem or is this just out of pure hate?
- [22:10]
Ted Danson
Yeah, I, I'm looking at this thing and wonder if it's not a multitude of, of a lot of that because the way how brutal this attack and how these people were killed, how could you not hate them, right? How could the killer not have some kind of hate for them in their heart? But the, you know, you talk about motive, this is a very rural area. There's not a lot of people that live there. But, but when you see a bunch of, when you see a bunch of flashing lights and hear a bunch of sirens, people have a tendency to gather. Crowd attracts a crowd. And when you get ambulances and a bunch of police vehicles outside of this big yard, this big plot of land with the double wide on it, people started to gather around. Somebody had kind of shouted to some of the first responders, wondering if it could be a murder suicide that they were responding to. And the coroner, of course, you know, this early in the investigation, they want, don't want to show anything, right? They don't want to show their hand. They know very little at this point. So the coroner tells the crowd, or at least some of the people in the crowd, we don't know which is the perfect response for that time, right? You're not, you're not being rude to any of the people that are gathering this people that are, are a community that's concerned. You're not being rude to them, but you're also not giving up any information. And what we do know is that at that time, they did know, they did know that the killer was someone from outside of the house. They did not find the gun or the, the knife at the scene. And if had it been a murder suicide, the weapon used will be found at the scene. So the killer was someone from outside of the house. Someone whom the police believed wanted to leave no witnesses.
- [24:17]
Woody Harrelson
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- [29:05]
Woody Harrelson
All right, we are back. Tall cans in the air. Cheers to you, Colonel.
- [29:10]
Ted Danson
Cheers to you, Captain.
- [29:12]
Woody Harrelson
Well, and I think the reason why the public at first thought it could be a murder suicide is I think there was some information that three of the victims were found in one room and then the mother was found in a different area of the house. And so people kind of, I think, assumed, well, maybe the mom killed these three family members and then went off and killed herself. But what would you find? You'd find a knife or you would find a gun beside her. And we don't find those items well.
- [29:42]
Ted Danson
In crime statistics to murder suicides are far more common than what this is a quadruple homicide?
- [29:50]
Woody Harrelson
Exactly.
- [29:51]
Ted Danson
The autopsies revealed what a lot of what we've already discussed. All four victims have been stabbed in the neck, upper chest and shot. All four had defensive wounds on their hands or arms. But when we say there, there was not a great deal of struggle here. It's because they. This was a surprise attack. They had limited amount of time to defend themselves. So the defensive wounds were not like one would think that, that there would be a lot. Plus, also consider the age of two of the victims.
- [30:23]
Woody Harrelson
Right.
- [30:24]
Ted Danson
I know my. I know my age. Right. I'm not moving like I used to 20 years ago. I cannot imagine how slow the old colonel is going to be when he's 80, 82 years old. And a surprise attack as well.
- [30:39]
Woody Harrelson
Well, I'm glad you brought that up because I didn't want to mention it to you. You probably should go to a doctor.
- [30:43]
Ted Danson
I could tell you, I could tell.
- [30:45]
Woody Harrelson
You were thinking it seems like you have something going on with your back. But the. And I didn't misspeak. I think I'm correct that there wasn't really a disturbance around the blood around the victims. It was just the footprint was found leading to the mother.
- [31:05]
Ted Danson
Correct.
- [31:05]
Woody Harrelson
But you brought up something that I think is pretty fascinating. It has to be Some kind of double motive. Because if the motive, let's just say we don't know because we didn't live in that house. We don't know if that safe was stolen. We don't know if it was removed.
- [31:26]
Ted Danson
Weeks or months prior.
- [31:28]
Woody Harrelson
Exactly. We just know that there's evidence that there was something there and somebody disturbed it. Who disturbed it? What is the motivation? If the motivation was just money, then you go in the house and you shoot everybody and you leave. You don't viciously and violently attack them with a knife as well.
- [31:49]
Ted Danson
Well, and the thing here is, regarding that safe, it would have been family members and maybe even friends that would inform police. Because when you show up and there's a, there's an empty shelf, the police don't know what was supposed to be on that shelf.
- [32:04]
Woody Harrelson
Well, it's the daughter that tells them.
- [32:07]
Ted Danson
Well, yeah, but we have other family members. I mean, we have four, four people here that were murdered. So there were other family members that would have been asked similar questions. And but we should point out here, by the time that Amy Velardi found her family members killed, right. And called it into 91 1, they were all in the early stages of decomposition. So they, the timeline of when they were killed, it gets skewed a bit the more the investigators learn about the case. And but one thing that they seem to be pretty convinced of was that they were killed the day before they were found, maybe even killed more than 24 hours prior to them being found. Now, we learned a lot about the victims from NBC's Dateline and on Cold justice and from coverage in the local newspapers, the Anderson Independent Mail and the Green News. Mike and Kathy dated in middle school and then reunited decades later. They had both been married prior to other partners. Kathy's husband died of cancer, but at the time of the murders, the two had been married for nine years. It said that they lived a simple life, sharing a community garden with their neighborhood. Kathy kept horses that she loved. Kathy and Mike doted on their grandkids. So this is Amy Velardi's two children from a prior marriage. The senior couple spent a lot of time with these kids, even hosting sleepovers and taking them to church. Pam, this is Mike's sister. Mike Scott's sister and Barbara's daughter was devastated by the murders, to say the least. And she said, look, somebody took the two closest people that I have in my life. She said, my brother, this is a quote. My brother was my everything. He was the constant in my life. She told DATELINE that The two spoke every day, saying, he was always checking on me and the girls, her daughters. He was like the caretaker of the family. The last time that they spoke, she tells police, was Halloween night, October 31st. Pam said her mom Barbara, worked in the church nursery taking care of little kids and was a very godly woman and a wonderful cook. Kathy's cousin Marjorie Morgan told the Daily Mail that the victims were precious people and the family was unable to process what had happened. Quote, they were all just good people. I never would have imagined this in a million years. With regard to the four victims, there didn't seem to be any overt problems, stressors or issues in their life. As far as people being interviewed could tell. Life was simple, life was good. Mike and Kathy appeared to be happy. Violet and Barbara spent their days enjoying their leisure time. So this was inexplicable and a horrific end to people living good, simple lives.
- [35:10]
Woody Harrelson
Yeah, it makes no sense. And like you said, you have to be a saint to let your mother live with you and then on top of that, your mother in law also lives with you.
- [35:22]
Ted Danson
Shout out to the moms.
- [35:24]
Woody Harrelson
Yeah, shout out to the mom. Everybody knows that we love our moms. That would be a tough situation, but it was probably a good situation. And nobody has a bad thing to say about any of these individuals. It just doesn't make any damn sense.
- [35:38]
Ted Danson
We've been doing this a long time. I guess I'm going to be surprised by this when we do episode 1500 or if you can tolerate me long enough, episode 2000. Should we get there?
- [35:51]
Woody Harrelson
Probably not going to make it.
- [35:52]
Ted Danson
I don't know when I'm going to stop being surprised by A, what horrible shit people will do to somebody else and then B, how shocking and surprising these, these things always are. To the latter part of that, thankfully, thank God, these are rare crimes. A quadruple homicide, rare crime. Maybe it makes sense that we're still surprised when we hear about these horrible things, but we've got to learn more about what happened here. And so do the sheriff's office and of course they're going to be interviewing everybody that they can find. One of the first people obviously that's going to be interviewed is Amy Velardi. She found. When deputies responded to the scene, they found her outside crying. She's outside the house weeping. Bodies laying inside. She's traumatized by what she had seen in the house. But she was able to speak with the sheriff's office and the deputies. She's explaining to them, Kathy Scott, one of the dead Women. Inside is my mother. Violet is her grandmother. Mike was her stepdad, and Barbara was his mother. The four lived together in this double wide trailer where they had been killed. She explains that her and her husband Ross were newlyweds. They had just been married. In fact, the week prior, her and her husband Ross lived with her two kids from a previous marriage in a single Y trailer on the same property.
- [37:21]
Woody Harrelson
So not only is she shocked by what she's found, but it has to run through her mind a little bit that, hey, we're, we're on this property. Are we in danger as well?
- [37:33]
Ted Danson
Yes. And so to describe this, we said that it's a large yard and Kathy and Mike were the owners of the house and the land. The, the decedents, Amy, the daughter, her front door faced the back door of her mom's house. And the reports I have is that they were only about 50 or so yards away, these two trailers. Amy said that the kids, her kids, had spent the previous week at her husband's parents home, which is about an hour and a half away in Columbia, South Carolina. This was so that Ross and her could have kind of like a little honeymoon period. Amy told the investigators that she and Ross left town. They had to go out of town to go pick up the kids. This is on that Sunday, November 1. She said they left around 5am and they were gone all day and well into the evening. On Monday, she says that she had noticed that her mom had not let out her dog. This is a cute little chihuahua. His name is Buddy. She thought that this was very odd. So she picks up the phone, calls over to her mom's house, gets no answer. She says she left a message on the answer machine, but her message, her call was not returned. So then her concern grows greater and she decided, look, even though it's raining outside, she walks over to her mom's house and she's outside, she can hear the TV on inside. She was startled to see the back door was open. Now I think we need to describe this because I hate when, when these reports just simply say the back door was open because you go, well, you could have seen that from, from your home, right? You should have been alarmed when, when you saw the back door open from your home. But the way she describes it to Fox, Carolina 21, the day after the murder, she says, quote, when I went to knock on the back door, the door just pushed open. So I walked in, it was dark, I flipped on a light and there they were. They were just, they were just there. I don't understand why any of it has happened. I just keep thinking it's a dream. I'm going to wake up from. Whoever did this, I don't see how they can live with themselves. So she says she walks around, she checks on each of the victims and then calls 91 1. And then she also tells police that she called her husband, Ross Velardi, who was out doing errands. And she says, hey, get home asap. I need you to get home. I need you to get to our trailer and make sure that the kids are not looking out the windows.
- [40:06]
Woody Harrelson
What more information do we have on this timeline?
- [40:08]
Ted Danson
Yeah, so here we go. This some pretty detailed information here. Investigators initially believe that Mike Scott had sent a text on Sunday. This is to his boss at the Department of Transportation. And the text was pretty simple, just saying that he would be back to work the next day. He had taken off three days the previous week. I think that the initial misunderstanding of the text, date and time in which it was sent caused the confusion for the possible time of death that we talked about earlier. That came from the coroner. Remember, it was thought that this text came in on Sunday. Later they sorted out that the text was actually sent on Saturday at 1:30pm on Halloween. So now if you're basing the time of death less on science and more of circumstantial evidence like, like interaction with the victims or people that it may have seen the victims alive and well, well, if, if he's the one that sent this text, then they could have been killed as early as late Saturday. And then we also have Amy, the daughter, who says that she saw her mom and Mike Saturday evening, this around 8. And she said this is before she and Ross left for an overnight in Blytheville, South Carolina, first thing Sunday morning. Amy Velardi, the daughter, said that she saw her mom and Mike on Saturday evening. And Amy and Ross both said that everything seemed normal with the couple at that time. They noted nothing unusual. In fact, they, they said that they saw them, one of them outside doing yard work, which was pretty typical. We also have some information from one of Kathy's brothers who says that they went to the home around 3:30 on Sunday, knocked on the front door, no one answered and they, they left. So now, now we have all of this information where a text was sent on Saturday. Another relative shows up at 3:30 on Sunday. No one answers the door. We can presume that they were dead by 3:30 on Sunday. I want to clarify something here just in case any of the listeners get confused. When Amy arrived on Monday, she attempted to knock on the back door, and that was the door that just kind of came open. When the other relative arrived on Sunday, they knocked on the front door. So I don't think we should find it suspicious with anything regarding Kathy's brother. As far as we know at this.
- [42:46]
Woody Harrelson
Point, yeah, but with four victims, everybody's inner circle, every single victim's inner circle has to be looked at.
- [42:56]
Ted Danson
The quadruple homicide was the first in the county in nearly 10 years. Investigators were brought in from the FBI from SLED, which is the South Carolina Law Enforcement Division, and the forensic unit from the Greenville County Sheriff's office brought in additional help to assist Anderson County Sheriff's office who were working the case. This is Anderson County's case. The sheriff, John Skipper, and representatives from the coroner's office held a press conference a week after the murders. The sheriff admitted to still not knowing whether the murders were targeted or random. He said that they were still working to determine whether the killer was someone the slain people knew or whether they had just failed to be cautious and lock their doors. He reminded the public, quote, we have no forced entry, which gives us an indication that it was someone known. I still know a lot of people who don't lock their doors. We don't know anything along those lines, end quote. Now, the sheriff did have to do a little backtracking here because there was a spokesperson for the sheriff's office that had told the public that this was an isolated incident. And, quote, as far as we know, there was no danger to the public. The sheriff, Mr. Skipper here, admitted that he could not say that this was true. Quote, I don't know that they shouldn't be scared over this incident, end quote. I. We saw this in Delphi. We see this in most homicide cases. And of course, yes, most homicide cases, person A knows person B. Person A kills person B, and it's a targeted murder.
- [44:39]
Woody Harrelson
Right.
- [44:39]
Ted Danson
That's just the statistics. It's. It. It's the overwhelming statistic. But I always hate when someone on law enforcement is very quick to tell the news and tell the public, like, there's no reason to be concerned here. For the public at large, this, you know, this. This might have been an isolated. Now, until you figure out who did this, everybody should be concerned. Everybody should be locking their doors. Everybody should be on a heightened state of alertness. It would be silly not to.
- [45:13]
Woody Harrelson
Well, if you live in United States of America, the murder capital of the world, maybe you should just be cautious all the time. Lock your Goddamn doors.
- [45:23]
Ted Danson
True Crime Garage body armor now available on the website.
- [45:28]
Woody Harrelson
We sell mace. We sell. We sell it all.
- [45:31]
Ted Danson
Listen to this. This part might clue us into how concerned should we be about this missing safe. Right? Because until you figure out a plausible, reasonable explanation for a missing safe, it has to have everything to do with the murders. Until you figure out differently, it's Amy, the daughter that provides valuable information to the sheriff's office. She tells them, and other people knew this as well, that Mike Scott and his, you know, after work, in his free time, he was a part time dealer in valuable collectibles. Jewelry, guns, rare coins, gold. He sold a lot of stuff on ebay, Craigslist and Facebook. These items, from my understanding here, Captain, some of these he's buying and then selling these items. Some of these items he's collected and then later is selling them. But he's also selling items for like people he knows. Right. He charges them a little bit of a fee and lists their items for them on outlets like ebay, Craigslist and Facebook. Didn't include his address but his phone number on these postings. And he did prefer to deal in cash. So it would be easy, relatively easy, for a would be robber to find his house through one of these posts. We can say that based off of this fact, previously Mike had done some deals out of the house. This was until Amy and some other family members expressed a safety concern and said, hey, you shouldn't be doing this stuff out of your house. You don't know these people. So then Mike started meeting clients at different locations. This could be parking lots, even gas stations. But now we have robbery on the table. The day after the bodies were found, there was like a mini press conference that Amy was front and center for. This was from WYFF tv and she was thanking the community for their prayers, but also criticizing law enforcement for their lack of transparency. She says, quote, I understand that they have a job to do, but as family members, we want answers. Apparently Amy felt entitled to know what investigators were doing. The interviewer asked Amy what she would say to the killers if they were watching. And she said, quote, I can't say that on tv. And she gave a little smile. She also told a local paper that her husband and herself had been subjected to lie detector test on November 2, the very day in which she found the bodies.
- [48:09]
Woody Harrelson
Yeah, that seems like protocol. Protocol, yes, she found the bodies. We're going to ask if it's okay if you say yes. We're going to bring you in if you say no. Okay, that Makes sense, too.
- [48:22]
Ted Danson
Said to the paper that it made her feel like a suspect. She felt like they were being treated like criminals. She also openly complained about multiple guns having been collected by a police search of her home, the trailer at the back of the property. She said that police had confiscated a bunch of items from her home, and she willingly took the lie detector test, the polygraph examination, based on the condition that cash and her items would be returned to her.
- [48:55]
Woody Harrelson
Yeah, I have a question. And maybe you know this, maybe you don't. And if you don't, well, then you're fired. Step into my office.
- [49:04]
Ted Danson
I'm cleaning out my locker.
- [49:05]
Woody Harrelson
Fucking fired. Because we have the double wide on the property, and we have the single wide on the property, and we have this murder scene. So obviously, because there's a murder scene, boom, the police have the right to search the murder scene. But because it's on the same property, do they even need to get a search warrant for the separate unit?
- [49:30]
Ted Danson
That's a good question. Now, we know how thorough they were with searching the. The actual trailer that was the murder scene. Right? Because they. They did their due diligence and they were very smart to say, you know what? Everyone that lives there unfortunately, has been killed. We can't get consent that way. So let's make sure. Remember, we say this a lot. The best detectives out there let the evidence lead their investigation, number one. But two, Number two, every action that they do along the way during the investigation, you have to keep in mind, everything that I do, will it hold up in court? Because you can get everything right. You can find the killer in these cases, but if you don't do things by the book, you won't get a conviction. And so when they got a search warrant to search the. The actual crime scene where the four lie dead, Right. They did go and get additional search warrants. And I believe it was as many as five search warrants that were filed relatively quickly and signed off on relatively quickly and then executed. And those search warrants did include Amy and Ross's trailer as well.
- [50:43]
Woody Harrelson
Well, I just want to make an announcement that we will have a part two to this episode, because you answer that question so greatly that. That I have to let you stay on board for at least another episode.
- [50:57]
Ted Danson
Like they said, like the young lady said in Ferris Bueller's Day, off to the principal Ed, I want to thank you for your warmth and your compassion. Now here's. You want to get down into the muck and the mire of this, and, yeah, a lot of people love These kind of things. And so I want to make sure that I included it because this is where you start to go, you know, cnc, Music Factory. Things that make you go, remember, we have Amy who's talking to the newspapers openly and good for her. Right. John Walsh told us to keep all these cases in the media. And so she's talking to the media and she gets hit with a big question in a big spot. The independent Mail reporter asked Amy about Facebook posts that she had made months prior. Believes I didn't record dates for most of these posts, but from my understanding, Captain, and what I reviewed, this was from months prior to the murders. But these were Facebook posts from the daughter made about her mother, Kathy, one of the deceased. And these were not posts that were, you know, speaking highly of her mother. These older posts, in them, she publicly referred to issues she felt her mom suffered from. And she said things like narcissism and other various personality disorders. Velardi said Facebook postings in which she criticizes her mother came from years of ill feelings. She said her mother had asked her not to talk about these ill feelings. Amy went on to say that for a time, she had refused to let her mom see her kids without Amy present. But they had changed lately as the family had begun to make up. Recently, as she put it. Begun to make up recently are her words.
- [52:57]
Woody Harrelson
I don't understand people that air all their grievances. It's not. It's called Facebook, people. It's not called Festivus. And you don't need to air all your grievances to the whole world. I think my mom was a bad mom and I'm so mad at her. So I gotta go tell my 30 followers on Facebook all about it.
- [53:20]
Ted Danson
Yeah. And it sounds like on occasion she's recording stuff on her phone and I. Look, that's some low down stuff right there. Because there are people that do this that they'll have their phone recording. Look, and if you're in a situation where somebody's abusing you or someone is tormenting you or doing things that are illegal, I'm all for hit record on your phone and catch them in the act and then show it to somebody. Because sometimes that's what it takes. I mean, we've seen some stuff where people are being abused at work. Right. Being mistreated at a workplace that they can't afford to lose their job, but somebody's trying to push them over the edge and up in their face and cussing them out and things like that. That. That's A no go, man. You can't do that. But. But to just set up and hit record on your phone and do something that's there. She recorded an argument. This is just a verbal disagreement. And it was actually her husband Ross, who was in a verbal disagreement with the elderly Barbara Scott. Both are seen on the video, but the video ends with Ross saying, quote, I hope you die. So if she's trying to make this recording to make her mother or the other family members look bad, my opinion, Ross is the one that comes out looking like the. Like the total jerk here. So at some point, regardless if they've made up or not, clearly things were bad between Kathy and Amy at some point.
- [54:49]
Woody Harrelson
Yeah, just a PSA for anybody. Somebody goes missing in your family, somebody's murdered in your family, some crime happens to your family, you're a part of that inner circle. You're going to be looked at. I don't understand these family members that claim that they want a case to be solved, for justice to happen, and one, are not cooperative with law enforcement and then question why. Why is law enforcement looking at us? It baffles me every time. It's like, well, they have to look at the inner circle first. These are the pieces of the puzzle that they have. They have to start ruling people in or out or even, yes, no, or maybe categories. This is what they have to do. The more cooperative you are with law enforcement, and that doesn't mean you have to be dumb about it. If you want to get a lawyer and have the communication go through your lawyer, while that makes a lot of sense, but the more cooperative you are that they can rule you in or out, the sooner they can get to other individuals.
- [56:00]
Ted Danson
Yes. So a lot of this came from early in 2015, this bad blood situation. Now, I do want to be clear here that we're basing some of this information off of hearsay. This is things that other people either related to the news or to authorities.
- [56:19]
Woody Harrelson
Yeah, but the Facebook messages, that's proof of some blood.
- [56:23]
Ted Danson
One bit of hearsay that did make its way to cold justice was that at least one person had said that Amy and Kathy had actual physical fights, not just arguing or yelling at one another, but at least on one occasion, a physical fight. And went on to say that they believe that Amy used the kids as. Weaponized. The kids. Right. Use them as weapons against her mother. The two often argued over money, in this person's opinion. And they thought that Amy would deny the grandmother seeing the grandkids when she decided that they weren't Getting along. One thing that we do know, that led to a big disagreement between the couples, right? We have stepdad and mother Kathy, and we have Amy and her husband Ross. In fact, this was before they were married, but they were. Had been living together. Mike and Kathy took the kids and they were watching them. They took them to a Fourth of July festival, church festival, and when they come home, they go to return the kids to Amy and Ross, who had a bunch of friends over, had a little gathering. And Mike and Kathy believe that Amy and Ross were both tanked when they got there and so they didn't feel comfortable leaving the kids with them. But of course, you can imagine how this plays out, right? A lot of times somebody might say, well, they're my kids. You can't tell me, you know, what to do in my house.
- [57:56]
Woody Harrelson
They're the reason that they were drunk. The kids were having kids makes you want to drink. But. But it's one of those situations where it's like the daughter and her husband, they're a little bit. Let's just call it what it is. They're a little bit losers. So they have to be somewhat dependent on her mother. But then also doesn't want the mother to have much involvement or don't tell me what I'm doing wrong. Yes, you know, help me out. I want your help, but I don't want your advice. And that's normally just not how it works.
- [58:38]
Ted Danson
Look, here's the thing, too. I want to be clear because we got a lot of. Can we do it again? Shout out to the moms. We got a lot of moms and dads out there listening, especially the ones that have younger kids. And you don't get many breaks from.
- [58:53]
Woody Harrelson
Your kids when they're young and they're drunk right now. They're all drunk right now.
- [58:58]
Ted Danson
And I love garage. So I understand, like you, when you get that rare free time, you want it, you might want to hang out with some friends, if that's a possibility. It's Fourth of July, man. I have beers on Fourth of July. Fire up the, the stereo, the. The gas grill and hand me a cold one because I'm going to be doing some eating and drinking on that day to celebrate our independence, this beautiful country. So I get it. But you also hope that somebody could be mature enough to make a quick phone call to grandma and say, look, we had some people over. Since you guys got the kids, thanks for taking them to the festival. I've had a couple drinks. Could you keep them for the night? If not no big deal. I'll. I can switch to water. Right?
- [59:42]
Woody Harrelson
Well, that's what. You're right next door.
- [59:44]
Ted Danson
Exactly, exactly. So. But what that. None of that did happen. And so when Grandma and grandpa come home and in their opinion, find Amy and Ross tanked or. Or half in the bag, they. They get into this argument. Now this is going to be on display for the grandkids, going to be on display for the potential guests that were still there for the celebration. But this seemed to be a big argument because this is when Amy says, like, you know what? You're not going to see the kids. Mom, stepdad, you're not going to see the kids. But what changed between 4th of July, that incident and Halloween was, you know, as said, Mike and Kathy were very involved with Amy's kids. They were little. They're 6 and 4 at the time. They would keep them overnight, they would take them to church, they buy them clothes, buy them toys, things like that. Like the. Very involved. And what changed here was that in late October, it appears that they made up. So we. What happened from my understanding is that at some point Grandma and Grandpa want to see the kids, the grandkids, very badly. And so Mike goes over, knocks on their Amy and Ross's trailer door and has a discussion with them and basically says that, look, we're sorry. Kind of fallen on his sword. Right. If this what it is, what it means to see the grandkids, then we'll let you guys think that we're to blame here. We'll. We'll try to be the. We'll extend the olive branch and we're sorry we won't do this. Just trying to appease Amy so that they could see the grandchildren. And I guess late October was finally when Amy apparently decided to allow her family to see the kids and she promised to bring them over on that Halloween night.
- [62:01]
Woody Harrelson
Want to thank you guys for joining us here. Here in the garage. Big shout out to all the moms out there. So much more to get to. Stay tuned for part two.
- [62:11]
Ted Danson
Until then, be good, be kind, and don't litter. Bridget Jones. It's time to live this.
- [62:55]
Woody Harrelson
Galentine's day. Make a date with Peacock.
- [62:58]
Ted Danson
I've set you up on Tinder. What? You're welcome. You can call me Rockstar Bridget Jones.
- [63:03]
Woody Harrelson
But you can call her Mummy.
- [63:05]
Ted Danson
Experience the final chapter of Bridget's unforgettable journey. By all that's holy. Bridget Jones, you are a brilliant woman. Embrace the chaos.
- [63:14]
Woody Harrelson
Enjoy your weekend, Mrs. Dassa.
- [63:16]
Ted Danson
Bridget Jones. Mad about the Boy Streaming only on Peacock February 13th.