[MUSIC PLAYING] Hey, everybody. Just going to take a quick break from the show to tell you about one of our favorites, Audible. No Audible.com or that lovely app. I love the app, and I love it all. Audible is my favorite. Audible keeps me sane on the road. It is the best. Audible, what it does is let you enjoy all of your audio entertainment in one app. One stop, shop, you'll always find the best of what you love, or something new to discover, because they're putting up new stuff constantly. They offer an incredible selection of audio books across every genre, from bestsellers and new releases to celebrity memoirs, mysteries, thrillers, motivation, wellness, business. I'll tell you one that I am checking out at True Crime when it's very interesting. It's called Chaos by Tom O'Neal. And if you join as an Audible member, you can choose one title a month to keep from the entire catalog, including latest bestsellers, new releases, right to you, no charge. It's beautiful. New members can try Audible free for 30 days. Just visit audible.com/smalltownmurder or text Small Town Murder to 500-500. That's audible.com/smalltownmurder or text Small Town Murder to 500-500. Now back to the show. This episode is brought to you in part by June's Journey. Picture it, the glamour of the roaring 20s wrapped in a mystery that only you can solve. Dive into June Parker's captivating quest to uncover scandalous family secrets. With your keen eye for detail, find hidden clues and solve mind-boggling puzzles. It's all about observation, intrigue, and drama. But beware, each clue leads deeper into a thrilling storyline filled with danger and romance. June needs your help, detective. Download June's Journey for free today on iOS and Android. Your adventure awaits. - Man, that sunset is gorgeous. - Crill, patio, sunset. Hard to get better than that. Unless you're browsing Carvana's inventory while you soak it all in. - Oh, burger time. - So sit back, get comfortable. Carvana's got thousands of cars under $20,000 just waiting for you. - I can stay here forever. - Carvana, where car buying meets comfort, meets convenience. Download the app or visit Carvana.com today. (upbeat music) - Hello, everybody, and welcome back to Small Town Murder Express. - Yay, and two, too. - Oh, yay, indeed, Jimmy. Yay, indeed. My name is James Petrogalo. I'm here with my co-host. - I'm Jimmy Wissman. - Thank you, folks, so much for joining us all aboard the murder train. Pulling away from the station. We got some wild stuff for you as usual. If you listen often, you understand that the Express episodes, we pack it in tight. It is 10 pounds of lightning and a two pound bag. So we're gonna get to that very quickly. First off, shut up and give me murder.com. - Oh, yeah. - Tickets for live shows, May 31st. Durham, North Carolina, that is up next. Get your tickets right now. You are on deck, tickets are almost gone. So get them while they're still there. The next night, Nashville sold out. So Durham, you're the one, get those tickets, and get them for the rest of the year, 'cause they are going fast. A few shows are sold out already that are way later on. Minneapolis, you can be our biggest show ever. Get your tickets for Minneapolis. Also, Austin, get your tickets. New York, get your tickets. All these places. Kansas City. - Oklahoma City? - Oklahoma City. Yeah, got to open it. So do your tickets, get them now. Shut up and give me murder.com. And also, there's a bunch of merch there, so enjoy that. - Yes, either. - You definitely want Patreon. Patreon.com/crimeinsports is where you get all of the bonus material. - So much. - So much, you might say, what's crime in sports. That's our other podcast you should be listening to, by the way. And you should also listen to your stupid opinions if you want to laugh hysterically for an hour, 'cause it's hilarious. Patreon though, patreon.com/crimeinsports. Anybody $5 a month or above, you get everything, whole huge back catalog of bonus stuff that you've never heard before, hundreds of episodes, and new ones every other week. One crime in sports, one small town murder, and you get all of it. - You get it all! - You get it all this week, which you're gonna get. For crime in sports, we're gonna talk about, oh, it's another one of our famous theme park disaster episodes. These are so much fun, and they're really crazy, and they'll make you think twice about roller coasters. And for small town murder, we are gonna talk about some of the craziest execution methods in history. 'Cause people got real creative with that shit a long time ago, so we'll find out what's the wildest things that people have thought up to do to other people. That is patreon.com/crimeinsports is where you get all that, and you get a shout out at the end of the regular show, where Jimmy will try to pronounce your name correctly, and probably fail. But that's okay, because he's trying hard. That said, I think it's time, everybody. Let's get right into this. I think it's time to clear the lungs. What do you say, everybody? And let's all shout, shut up and give me murder. Let's do this, everybody. All right. Let's go on a trip, shall we? Okay. We are going somewhere very pretty this week. We are going to Hot Springs, Montana, and-- Is it nice? Oh, it's nice. It's in Western Montana, all the way over by Idaho. In the mountains, it's all, it's in a valley, and it's just all beautiful picturesque mountains around, and yeah, it's-- I don't think I knew the hot springs up there. There is, apparently. We'll talk all about it, and we'll get into the actual hot springs, because some stuff happens there. This is in Northwestern, Montana, near the Idaho border. It is about an hour and 20 to Missoula, Montana. That's the closest place. About four hours to Manhattan, Montana, which was our last Montana episode, episode 429, a clean-cut serial killer. And yeah, nice, nice, upstanding young man that loved to kill lots of people. Not real. Yeah, this area code here is 406. Population here, 618. So it's a very small little town. Like I said, it's all-- You've got to go around mountains to get to things. And yeah, median household income here, $19,659. How? It's brutal. I don't understand it. It's difficult. There's a lot of older people here. Yeah. I don't understand how anyone-- 19 grand? For a household income. That's, I mean, a lot of social security, but I mean still. Yes. I don't know. Median home-- $500 a year? Yeah, median home price is $224,100, which is lower than the national average. But if you make $20,000 a year, I don't know how you're going to-- I don't know how you do that. The motto here, and it'll make sense when we explain it, is this is weird. Limp in, leap out. And that is where the properties of the hot springs, yes. So there are stories about how-- and I'm sure they're apocryphal, but there's stories about how people came in in wheelchairs and left sprinting, running out of the place, cheering and running like they just won a race. After they wheeled in with their legs completely limp and not moving for 20 years, there's stories about that. One dip in the hot springs and they were fucking-- They're great. They won a bronze at the Olympics that year. That's probably like-- I can't think of anything recently, but there's a lot of snake oil that's been sold over time. Yeah, totally. Absolutely one of them. The hot springs will fix all kinds of ailments, because they're everywhere. And that was a very common thing. There's one in Arizona that JFK used to go to. They're in the middle of nowhere, too. So you've got to get people to want to go there. So it's something to draw them here. So it was founded. This town was founded as the settlements of Pineville and Camus in the 1890s. It was incorporated in 1929. Previously, it was known as both Camus and Camus Hot Springs for the Camus plant, or Camus plant. I don't know how you say that. That grows all over the place. It's part of the Asparagus family. This plant, yeah, I don't know. The town itself started as Pineville, and it was right next to Camus or Camus there. The Hot Springs Post Office opened in 1913, and all the people went to Hot Springs and not Camus or Camus, so that shrunk. But 1918, fire destroyed pretty much all of Main Street, because, oh, as happens. That's if you're doing a small town murder drinking game, fire destroys the town is definitely one of the things. Like, that'll happen. That's a freebie, though. That's right in the middle. It's gonna happen. And then in 1931, it all burned down again. Yeah, they rebuilt it, and they were like, "No, no, dry wood is still fine." It was, and it burned to the ground again. Drowned drive, we see we've already put fire on it. Wow, yeah, it's fine now. It's like a forest. It's all burnt down now, the soil's rich. The sawmill also burnt down, and the hospital was closed at that point, so. Perfect. That's not a good sign here. The, I guess, after the Hot Springs Mercantile burned to the ground later on in the '80s, 1980s, then cattle prices went down as well, and logging was curtailed, and everybody of the town just dropped like crazy. It was down to 400 people by 1990. Wow. Yeah. Review of this town, one review of this town, 'cause there's not a lot of people here. Four stars. I've lived in this town for most of my life, and I would love to see the town cleaned up. There are so many wonderful people here, but the small size of our community makes the drug problems and poverty really stand out. And we'll find out, too, this area, there's another town called Ronin that's like 20 minutes away where a lot of these, our participants are from, an Elmo in this area. A lot of these people have serious drug and alcohol problems around here. And I guess if you're making 19 grand a year in your household, that would make you wanna drink. You got a drink about that, right? Yeah. Yeah. Things to do here, the Montana Baroque Festival. You know. The what? The Baroque Festival, 'cause that's what you expect. From Europe to Baroque. Oh, B-A-R-O-Q-U, yeah. Yeah, yeah. You expect Spanish music in the hills of Montana. I thought you were saying, we are baroque. Baroque music festival. It's free. (laughing) Nope. Make an instrument and try to play it, 'cause we are baroque. Shoe box with some strings on it for a guitar. (laughing) You make when you're free. (laughing) So yeah, that's what it is pretty much. It's three nights of classical music performed by renowned musicians. That those people are probably like, "What the hell are we watching?" (laughing) And it's weird, 'cause there's a lot of Native American people in the area, but the town is 90% white, though. Really? Yeah, so it's a strange, but there are like reservations around, so. Sure. It's a strange area. Also, there is the 75th annual homesteader days, of course. Oh boy, yeah. They're like frontier days, same thing. You got a car show, live music by the 406 band, and also The Good, the Bad and the Ugly. Oh. Which was a great movie. Terrific movie. Not that, yeah. Leonie, terrific, wonderful, but I don't know about the band. They just play that. (humming) Over and over again. So, Marconi songs. Yeah, bao, bao, bao, bao. Also, the Skunk Alley, the one, the one, what happened? I think that was a different movie anyway than I'm whistling. Oh. I don't know if that, I think that may have been Sundae's kid. I was doing a different song than you were doing. Okay, yeah, I'm doing, yeah, no. Skunk Alley fun run, they're doing. Yeah. Oh, gotta have that, that's like. Do we all stink afterwards? It's, well, you're gonna stink anyway. Might as well call it out. The kitty parade, and I don't mean kitty like cats. I mean, kids, parade 'em all out. And they're looking good, damn kids, parade 'em out there. A horseshoe tournament. A yellow rubber ducky race. Yeah, I see it. Okay, cornhole tournament, that seems pretty, pretty omnipresent, and then. No, that looser is a big looser. That's tough, man, yeah. And then finally, something that sounds terrifyingly dangerous. An open rodeo. Does it mean anybody can? Open. Do whatever you want. I think it's anybody can enter, which sounds, you should have to qualify in some way for that, right? Does he make sure you're not gonna kill yourself? Otherwise, you just get tossed off. So there are people that were at this. Here is Wade Wonderlick, guy who was driving through the area and saw the festival. We've stopped here once before when we came to Montana and had a good time. Him and his wife, Angie, were traveling, and he said they seem to have added a lot more than when we came here before, and we were having such a good time. We set up the trailer and stayed the night, so. We were just passing through. Yeah, and said, damn it, let's have a hold down. So there you go. That said, let's talk about some murder here. Here we go, yeah. Okay, let's get into this. We don't have to go back too far here. 2013, this is gonna take place in. Oh boy. So relatively recently, let's talk about a man. Big guy, his name is Melvin Madplum Jr. Madplum? M-A-D-P-L-U-M-E. Madplum? Madplum? Yeah, but I think that's Madplum from what I've seen in all the coverage, Junior. He wants you to make sure that he knows you know it's Junior and not Senior, so do I. And Madplum is not a nickname? No, no, no, Madplum is his nickname. That's his last name. He has a nickname here. He's 29 years old in 2013. His nickname, this is in the family. He's got a huge family. And his nickname is Uncle Bug Bug. Uncle Bug Bug, 'cause he has bugs, I think, is the point as we get into him. He, from what I found here, in 1991, he has like six brothers and sisters, Melvin. And we know they're poor because I found a court action here where they're talking about Melvin Senior having can't pay his rent and he's trying to request that like he not get kicked out and there's a court thing. It's saying he lost his job and has seven children to support. Yikes. So that's what he's coming from, Madplum here. Okay, that's senior. Now in 2003, he has a problem with a family member here. Okay, or a friend, Melvin Junior now. Melvin Junior, he has a good friend of his and he rented his friend's Ford Ranger pickup for $20. For the day? I suppose, yeah. It's like a... For a time. Like an Uber without the driver. Just, here's the car, go ahead. So there was no discussion of driving it, but it was understood that the truck was not insured. He didn't say where he was going, whether he just needed to do some stuff. He's renting out his non-insured truck, which is always a good thing to do. That is balls. That's ballsy. That's one of those reckless things I've ever heard of. Yeah, if you have a non-insured truck, you can't charge for that. No. This person could get a pulled over and get arrested for that, for grays sake. So the owner had to have the truck back by 7 a.m. the following morning. That was the rule. He has to go to work. So he got to have the truck back. So Melvin, Uncle Bug Bug, it takes the vehicle. And then he said he got word that his grandmother was very ill in the hospital in a town called Browning. So he said he tried to locate his friend to ask permission to keep it a little longer, but he couldn't get a hold of him. So he just went to Browning to see his grandma with this guy's uninsured truck that he needs at 7 a.m. Yeah. I was expecting that. He's not getting at 7 a.m. Not getting it. So I guess he was trying to. He leaves the hospital as this is all his story that we don't know if it's actually what he did. And I don't think it is what he did, because he's trying to get back by 7 a.m. And he's driving back after being up all night. And he fell asleep at the wheel and crashed the pickup truck and destroyed it beyond all repair. Oh my God. Total does uninsured truck. So his friend got $20 to have his truck destroyed with no recompense whatsoever from that shit. And he's not getting back at 7 a.m. nor any other 7 a.m. No, he's standing out front with like his lunchbox. Like a thermos in it, looking at his watch every couple minutes, looking down the road and he hears a car. Is that? Oh, nope, that's not it. Okay. So there you go. - May as well. May as well just start eating this lunch. - Yep. And Melvin heard himself as well in the crash. - Yeah, he fucked it up pretty good. So for seven months, he kept promising he'd pay for the truck. - Seven months. - And so finally, this guy filed charges on him. - Yeah. - This friend. And I guess it was like a joy riding statute based on a file report here. So he said he paid for the truck that he totaled and no criminal charges should have been filed. That's what he said. I paid $20, he was found guilty of violating these laws. And the trial court found that the value of the wrecked vehicle was $2,500 and sentencing was deferred provided he made restitution in that sum by August 11th, 2004. - They valued it at $2,500. - $2,500. So, you know, what, like a hundred rentals. - Yeah, it's a bad truck. - A hundred rentals you can pay for. It's not a great truck. So that's who we're dealing with. Melvin is not the most responsible guy in the world and he's kind of a mess. So he does love the Hot Springs, though, in Hot Springs, Montana. Oh, yes, he does. In mid-May, he goes to them to sit and relax. In mid-May, 2013 here, we'll talk about here and we'll talk about the Hot Springs a little bit. Mad Plume and his friend, Bassu Aeneas, go to his cousin's house, his cousin's name is JB and his cousin is 40 years old. And he says, "Hey, would you drive us to Wild Horse?" Which is the Wild Horse Hot Springs, which is where you go to sit in the Hot Springs. And everybody's cousins here, by the way. We got three cousins, okay. Now the Hot Springs, by the way, was developed in 1913, the Wild Horse Hot Springs. A well-driller hit 128 degree water. - Wow. - It went, "Holy shit, yeah." So the place now, they say it has private plunges, but little else, basically has hot tubs that are fed by the Hot Springs. So it's naturally hot water. So it was originally known as the Camp Aqua Bath House. That's the Wild Horse Hot Springs. But the person who found it was Molly Bartlett in 1912. Just, there was- - A gal did it. - Well, she wasn't personally drilling, but she's a rich lady who was having people drill. But yeah, she's drilling a well for drinking water and they say this is a little hot to drink really here. - You're gonna have to buy some ice. - She was the daughter of Robert B. Smith, who was the third governor of Montana. What's why? - Oh. - Saying, I don't think she's out digging many deep holes, probably. - No, I'm just gonna have a shovel. - No. So she raised money for a project named the Montana Warm Water Project for Crippled Children in 1941 to construct a polio treatment center for children named Camp Aqua. And that's where this came from, this place. And then they built a public resort later. And in the '80s, it was funded by a Montana Renewable Energy Grant. So that's what's going on. Changed its name to the Wild Horse Hot Springs in the early 1990s when the property changed owner, changed owners, and it shifted from public ownership to private ownership. - Got it. - Somebody bought it from the government here. So the hot springs are fed by the mother dragon geyser. And the content, mineral content of the water includes bicarbonate, calcium, carbonate, iron, manganese, manganese, and magnesium. - That's some heavy ass water, man. - That's heavy fucking water. Yeah, all also potassium, silica, sodium, sulfate, and then others too. - Yeah. - The mineral water goes from about 100 to 128 degrees. - It can't be very clear, right? - That's fucking hot, too. - Apparently it is clear because yeah, that's from down there and the water's pure-ish, you know. - It's not like dirty. - It doesn't have like, all right. - So Melvin here, Melvin and Uncle Bug Bug, Madplume, and his cousin, who he's asking for a ride, Melvin's 29, his cousin's 40. The Basu guy, the other cousin, is still, he's a teenager. So we got a very, it's like 16, 29, and 40, and they're all hanging out. So Madplume explained that he and his teenage cousin have been drinking all day. And we need a sober driver to take us to the hot springs. We're never gonna make it, we're shit-faced, which is actually probably a step up in responsibility. - Yeah, not destroyed cars when I was sleeping. - That's what I mean. Oh, he was probably up drinking all night based on Melvin's and alcoholic. So I think that's why he crashed the truck probably. So this guy really didn't wanna go, but he said, I guess, I mean, I'd rather have that than you guys fucking do that. Take my car. - No, it's Madplume's car. He shows up with his own car and just says, it's like a half hour drive, and he's like, we can't get there, man. So will you just drive my car here? And he said, all right, fine. They all go outside, they're farting around for a minute, and then they end up taking off. And Madplume's like, I'll just drive. He showed up for the express perp. That's how drunk he is. - Dagging for a ride. - He forgot why he was there to begin with, which was to get this guy to drive. He ended up driving. So Madplume kind of really pressures JB here, the cousin, to the 40 year old to have two shots of whiskey. Come on, drink some whiskey. Come on, let's go. Come on, have shots. This is in the car on the way there. - That's great whiskey. - And they also began drinking beer on the way also. So everyone's drinking beer and whiskey in the car. They arrive at the wild horse, the wild horse hot springs. JB notices that no one's working at the front desk. - There's a front desk. And so yeah, you check in and you pay and you go and you have a certain amount of times for soak time and all that kind of shit. And this place is still, we'll talk about it, but there's-- - And 128 degrees, James. You shouldn't be in that for very long. - Well, no, it cools to about 108 once it gets into the plunges, it says. So it's underground. Yeah, that's what a bath would be. - No way. - Fuck yeah, a bath. Your body temperature-- - Are you serious? - Your body temperature's 98. So anything lower than that, it feels cold. So if it feels warm-- - Right, but Jacuzzi is like 101 and that shit's hot. - Yeah, no, that's 104 to 108, it says here, it cools too. So I mean, that's hot, but I think that's why you're going there, it's a hot spring. People go and say this, yeah, it's not my thing, but it sounds hot. So they get there, no one's working at the front desk. JB said, well, I didn't want to go inside 'cause there's no like, buddy to check in with, we're just gonna walk in. And Madplume here, Uncle Bug Bug says he reserved a room, don't worry about it, let's go. So three of these drunken people had been to room four, and it features room four, features a private plunge room and a sauna. - Oh, so it's got a room around it. - Yes, they built it around-- - Wow. - What they've pumped it into. So the plunge room houses a sunken cement hot tub filled with water piped in from the hot springs. - Awesome. - It sounds pretty cool, and the tub is situated against two walls in the corner of a room. So it's in the corner. - Okay, yeah. - Okay, there's a high metal railing that wraps around the tub's two open sides and down seven concrete steps into the tub. - It's deep. - So it's deep, yeah, it's very, very fucking deep. So because of the railing, the steps are the only way in and out of the tub 'cause otherwise you're blocked by the railing. A short ledge along one wall is where the seating is. That's where you can sit over there. Okay, now in the corner of the plunge room, opposite the tub, there's a metal door with a glass window that leads to a small sauna. - Okay. - So we all have a picture of this in our brains here. - Yeah. - His room four will come up often. So JB here, he didn't wanna go into the hot tub with Melvin and Bassu here because he's a diabetic who recently had two toes amputated on his foot. - Oh my God. - And he was self-conscious and also worried about getting an infection from the hot water. - Right, right, yeah. - It's not chlorinated or anything like that, so. - This was wild water. - There could be bacteria in there, yeah. So he said that he told Melvin that he didn't wanna go because it was too early. He's like, it's too early to go in there. I don't wanna go in there right now, I got my thing. So Melvin kept saying get in the water, get in the water and all that kind of thing. Melvin said, I'm a CNA 'cause he used to work as a CNA, which is a healthcare person. - Which is useless. - Which is a guy, you're, that's not useless. They do stuff. I mean, you wanna clean sick people's bedpans 'cause that's what they do. - That's what they do. They don't fucking, they don't know. - They don't know, let it scribe shit. - No. - I wouldn't go to them for medical advice. - No. - But, you know, it's definitely a handy job to have. - Sure, in this situation. - Shrounding it on a shit. - With a guy with a wound, you see-- - He doesn't know shit. - No. - No shit about it. But he says, no, no, no. I'm a CNA, no problem. He said the hot water's good for your foot. - Yeah. - It's a hot, strange water possible back to it. Good for your foot, don't worry about it. - It's the warmer it is, the more it breeds, right? - Yeah, that's generally how it works. There's a, there's a real like a, like the golden zone, really, where like life really goes. And it's, that's right in the middle of it. - It's right in it, yeah. - It needs a boil to kill shit. - You gotta get up to like, yeah, like, that's like where they keep like a Hollandaise sauce. That's why it always gets you sick, you know? It's right in the sweet spot for bacteria to live. - Yeah. - So they're in this Hollandaise pool. And yeah, so he's telling him that. And when he finally, Mad Plume just insists, you gotta come in here, you gotta come in here. So finally he says, okay, fine, fuck me, I'll come in here, Jesus Christ. Then he, Mad Plume begins pestering JB. Let me see your foot, let me see your foot up close. I wanna see your foot. Let me take a fucking gander at that bad boy. Like, and he's like, no, I don't wanna show it to you. 'Cause it's, I don't know, he's something. - It's embarrassing, I don't know. - Yeah, he's like, yeah, let's get those bandages off. Let's really see the wound. Can you see bone? So finally, this JB is not, he's not real sturdy in his convictions though, because he didn't wanna go, and here he is. He didn't wanna drink, and he's drinking. He didn't wanna be-- - To the little water. - The water. - He's in the water. - Here he's in the water. Now he doesn't wanna show this guy his foot, and here he is saying, I guess here's my foot, and lifting it up and letting him show. So Mad Plum is very insistent. Melvin, while he's doing this, he rubs JB's inner thigh. Okay, which JB interprets as a sexual advance and kind of jumps back a little and pushes them off him. Number one, it's his cousin, and number two, nobody here is like a gay man. Everybody here is purportedly likes women, so it's like, what's going on here? Jesus Christ, how drunk are you? You know what I mean? So at that point, Melvin turns to the teenager, the other cousin, Bassoo, and tells him to leave the room. Leave the room. (laughing) This guy better hope that limping, leap out motto is fucking right, because it is toes. - Yeah, even a-- - It's one of my toes. (laughing) - But a star fish the shit out of this foot. - Oh, wow. (upbeat music) Hey everybody, just gonna take a quick break from the show to tell you a little bit more about Aurifrains. - Oh, Aurifrains.com, a-u-r-a-frames.com. - They're the best, it's the best stuff. Looking for the perfect gift to celebrate your mom this year? - Oh yes, it's Mother's Day. - Oh man, Aurifrains are the thing. Beautiful, Wi-Fi, connected digital picture frames. You can share and display unlimited photos, easy to upload and share photos with the app, and if you're giving Aur as a gift, you can even personalize the frame with preloaded photos. Load 'em up with pictures of the kids. - Hey, I'm goin'. - I'm tellin' you people love this. 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The weather's getting a little warmer, time to kind of put down the jackets, maybe get some shorts and some t-shirts and stuff like that. I went and I got, see, I'm smart too. I got a jacket next year. - Look at you. - I got a sweet leather racing jacket. Amazing, it was $199. It was $199 and they're way more than that in the store because I bought jackets like that. Mine was kind of worn out, so I'm gonna get myself a real nice one. - Get it in the off season too. - That's what I'm doing, that's what I'm doing. Now I'm going back, I'm gonna look for some summer stuff. That's how you do it here. 'Cause Quince, they have it all. They have all the seasonal must-haves, like 100% European winning shirts from $30, performance polos and versatile flow knit activewear. They got it all, upgrade your wardrobe. Go to quince.com/smalltownmurder for free shipping on your water and 365 day returns. That's q-u-i-n-c-e.com/smalltownmurder to get free shipping and 365 day returns quince.com/smalltownmurder. - So he does, Basu is, he leaves. - Wow. - The kid takes off. Once he's gone, Madplume says to JB, totally apropos of nothing and they've known each other their whole lives and nothing like this has ever come up. So it's not like, Oh, Melvin's always trying to fuck everybody. Like this never came up before. So now Melvin is telling JB that you were leading me on. What's going on? JB's like, what the fuck are you talking about? - You've been flirting with me all night? - You've been flirting with me since 1987. Like what? - Okay. - JB's like, you're out of your fucking mind, bro. Like you're out of your mind, what are you talking about? - I've done none of these things. I'm leaving now, so he gets up and tries to leave, but he's a combination of the fact that he's been drinking for three hours and the fact that it's really, really fucking hot in there and the fact that he just had foot surgery makes him all woozy on his feet. So he's not able to like really take off. He's just kind of stumbling around. Madplume here, Melvin blocks the steps out of the hot tub and pushes JB back into the water multiple times. - Oh my God. - Which is terrifying if, number one, this guy, so he's a pretty big guy, Melvin. Hey, and he's very drunk. And also, this guy doesn't have like, he's missing, he just had toes removed. So he's not at his most physically virile to fight somebody off. - He's not in a fucking championship boxing match shape. He's also 40 and 40 and just had surgery is no good either. - Not at all, no. It's, it's, it takes longer to recover. So, eventually, after this back and forth, this happened like multiple times, he tries to get out, he pushes him back in the water. Madplume just comes right out and says it and says, "Turn around and drop your trunks." - Oh God. - Like we're at the doctor now. Like, this is, I am a CNA, remember. I'm gonna, you know how to do the rectal examination. So his cousin said, why? - Yeah. - I think it's pretty obvious why. I think you need to say what he wants. - And Madplume said, you know what I mean. - He just found out about this, huh? - Yeah, that's, so then he tries to get out a couple more times and he said the second time he pushed him back in the water after they drop your trunks remark. His cousin here, JB, said the second time I was getting kind of scared. He wanted to rape me. He's like prison gay. - Prison gay, yeah. - He gets jacked up and he wants to fucking dominate people as nothing to do with what hole they have. I don't think, you know what I mean? Because otherwise he's with women sometimes and there's not a, wow, he doesn't like, you know, and like I said, they've known him his whole life. This has never come up before. So. - Yeah, this is, if he's not gay, even if we're not, this is absolutely the worst way to find out your cousin has homosexual proclivities at all. - Well, yeah, I mean, I guess there's no, yeah. Unless, otherwise you wouldn't care at all. Why would you? - Right. (laughing) - Like, you know what I'm saying? Like even people who don't really like gay people will say like, well, I was not trying to fuck me. I don't care. You know what I mean? Like he's literally trying to fuck him. So whether he's gay or not is not the concern. The concern is, I don't want you to fuck me. - He wants to rape me. - That's exactly what it is there. Terrible way to find out he wants to rape me, I think is the perfect way to put it. (laughing) So eventually, JB pushes past him and says, this is, I'm getting the fuck out of here. Fuck you, puts his shoes on and takes off. He's like, I'm getting the fuck out of here, walks out of the room. - Got out. - Now, he finds, JB finds the other of the younger cousin, Basu, outside and tells him what happened. And he said, this fucking guy was, he told me to drop my fucking drawers and turn around. Like this is crazy. He said, don't be alone with him. You know, just be careful. But the problem is, there's no cell service in this area at all. So their phones are completely dead and they have no way to get out of here, except for... - His car. - His car, he's the one who drove them there. So they're like, fuck, this is, this is terrible worst. They gotta get in this car. Mad Plume eventually comes out and offers to drive them home and they're like, we gotta take it. There's nothing else to, what else are we gonna do? - Oh my God. - Not only is he shit-faced, I don't know what's scarier. The fact that he's been drinking whiskey all day or the fact that he just tried to have sex with me in the, a forcible sex with me in the fucking sauna. - He drove me all the way to the woods for this. - Yeah, this is scary. So the ride began with Mad Plume speeding toward the highway. He was drifting from side to side across the dirt road leading away from the wild horse. Like, shh, shh, shh, doing one of those. - Yeah, I'm sliding it. - Once they got to the highway, instead of turning left toward JB's house, Mad Plume turned right toward Hot Springs, the town. So Mad Plume then sped past a cutoff road to Ronin, which got him where they wanted to go to. So JB started getting mad and said, pull over! Goddamn it, you fucking idiot, pull over right fucking now. I'm getting out of this goddamn car. You're driving like an asshole. You're not going where we need to go. So Mad Plume stopped and JB gets out and starts walking. - Yeah. - There's a convenience store a few miles down the road. He starts heading toward it. So about 20 minutes, and Mad Plume just drove off. So about 20 minutes later, Mad Plume comes back again with, I don't know if the younger cousin was like, "Dude, he just had two toes removed. He's can't walk, this is crazy." - Look guys, on eight toes out there. - So he pulls up and he says, "Come on, get back in, I swear I'll drive you home. It's all fine, everything's fine." He gets back in the car, starts driving crazy again all over the road, but eventually takes JB back to his house. - Wow. - Quite the harrowing experience here. - What a day. - What a fucking day that's been, right? - Oh boy. - So May 25th, 2013, about two weeks later, Mad Plume wants to go back to the Hot Springs again. Okay, he wants to go again. He purchases two bottles of rum for the day to go there. And heads over to his cousin's mother's house, so I guess it'd be his aunt's house, for a late breakfast this day. His cousin is Lawrence Kenmill, K-E-N-M-I-L-L-E. His nickname, everybody calls him La, like La. I guess La, like Larry Lawrence, La, so. - His Larry's real hard. - Yeah, it's hard to just get that second fucking syllable out. Like Susie calls Larry David on fucking Kirby enthusiasm. So he's 27, Lawrence Kenmill here. He's married to a woman named Terry and has four kids. That's a lot for 27. - He sure is. - A wife named Terry and four kids is a lot for a 27-year-old, that's at least a 44-year-old. - It's also fascinating that all of these cousins and nobody has the same name. - No, no, no, no, they're all. - Well, I've got a lot of cousins with different names. - I mean, it could be a lot of women that were married. You know what I mean? - Yeah, that's, yeah. - A guy has a bunch of daughters. They're all gonna, - They can marry dogs and make a bunch of cousins as well. Yeah, that's probably what happened here. - But I'll bet it's a lot of divorce, too, that does this. - Yeah. So I also hear Lawrence is part of the Elmo-based chief cliff drum group and they said he's a great singer. Everybody says he's a real great singer. He sings for the drum group and all that kind of shit. So at the time, Lawrence is staying at his mother's house where Melvin has come to eat breakfast. So mad plume talks to them, eats breakfast, goes around, farts around in the neighborhood, talks to people, there's friends and family that he knows in this neighborhood. He talks to everybody and he and Lawrence at that time, Lawrence, another cousin named Eusta Aeneas. Eusta, we'll call him here, and his 16-year-old, oh no, he's the 16-year-old brother of the other guy. Okay, this is very confusing. So mad plume, Lawrence, I have gone over this a hundred times today. I was still confused on the cousins 'cause it's a family tree that I really could use a picture. A visual would help me out a lot here. Mad plume, Lawrence, his cousin, Eusta, there you go. Eusta is 16, by the way. And he's the younger brother of the other one that was up there with the last guy. Exactly, he's the younger brother of that guy. So they all go to the wild horse again. They go into the wild horse hot springs. According to the employees, they showed up, the three of them, about three o'clock, and already had been drinking rum. Yeah, hammered. Hammer'd, and mad plume has more rum with him, so. Of course he does. The employees noticed that Lawrence Kenmill was boisterous at first, but as the day went on, he became more shit faced and more quiet. He's the type that the booze takes him down. It doesn't make him go up, so that's it. He's 16, man. No, Lawrence is not 16. Oh, he's a 29-year-old. Yes, yeah, Lawrence is 27. Eusta, Eusta's the 16-year-old. But Lawrence is the one, yeah. He starts coming down and sort of shit. So yeah, later in the afternoon, an employee noticed that Lawrence's speech was slurred, and he was leading on walls for support. You know, when you ask people to leave an establishment when they're like that. Yeah, at the point when they're ready to be removed. They're waiting for him to throw up on himself so they can ask him to leave. They said that mad plume seemed normal. Didn't seem that shit faced. Mad plume is an alcoholic, too, is the other thing. He's one of those guys I think he's a functional alcoholic. I think he can be drinking and you don't notice. So around 5 p.m., they make their way to room four again. Same room. Same room here. So mad plume and Lawrence put on swim trunks and get into the hot tub, but Eusta, maybe it's 'cause he heard what happened to his brother. Yeah, he knows. He said he was feeling sick and he's gonna wait in the lobby. Okay. I'm feeling like I don't feel like getting raped by my cousin, so I'm gonna wait in the lobby. I'm also feeling like I'm not, I'm not feeling like I wanna be asked to leave a room so that my other cousin can be raped by my other cousin. All of this cousin rape and is really too much for me. So over the course of the evening, though, Eusta made several trips back to room four to ask the two mad plume and Lawrence if they're ready to go yet 'cause he's fucking bored. He's just sitting in the lobby and there's no cell phone service even. So he can't even, you know, he can't even play it. It was a 2013, he can't even play Angry Birds. Like he's got nothing. So the second time Eusta checked in on him, he said Lawrence seemed barely awake and his eyes were closed and his head was down but above the water. So he just got shit on the chest. Had too much to drink. - Yeah, that's all. - So Eusta was like, is he all right? And mad plume's like, he's fine. He's just shit faced, it's all good. And he said, we'll be done soon. You know, we'll see in a minute. So okay, back in the lobby, Eusta tells one of the employees of the Wild Horse about Lawrence's condition. Like, man, my cousin's fucked up in there. He's like passed out with his head down. The employee said, I'll check on him. So then Eusta went looking for something to eat. And he, like if they have a machine, a snack machine or something. So he passes room four along the way. He glanced through the window and saw mad plume hunched over as if he was carrying something. But he didn't concern him. He didn't enter the room to see what was going on. He just continued down the hall there. So the final time Eusta went back to the room. He saw Lawrence sitting naked next to mad plume in the hot tub. He said that he was naked. He saw. - Okay, he could tell. - Yeah, he could tell so he could see his dick bobbing above the water, I guess. So mad plume said, no, we're all right. Everything's still fine. It's all good. But Eusta said, I don't know. I worried a little bit mainly because the water around Lawrence seemed to be tinted red a bit. You know, with blood. - Like blood. - A little bit of concern there. He also saw the glass in the door to the sauna was broken and shards of glass on the floor appeared to have blood on them and be speckled with blood. - Oh boy. - Mad plume just says, Lawrence slipped and fell earlier, but he's fine. He's just, he said he's just faking being asleep too. He's not even asleep actually. We're talking and he's just being dead. - He's just faking it. - He said he's quote, quote, messing around and playing possum. He's playing possum, just pretending to be passed out. What's the joke here? - Yeah. - You know what I mean? So he said, yeah, there's no problem. There's no problem. Now he said at that point, Mad plume said, yeah, he's talking right now. He's talking to me. The kid didn't hear him talk, but he's like, all right, I guess if he's fine, he's fine. Then he went back to the lobby again Eusta and told one of the employees, have you checked on them? Yeah, he should really check on them. Check on my cousin. And so he said, all right, fine. So Derek Smith is working at the Wild Horse, him and his father, Dave Smith. Derek goes and checks on Lawrence, enters the plunge room and asked if they needed anything. Okay, you guys need anything? You know, one of those. Derek noticed that Lawrence was in the corner of the hot tub leaning forward with his face in the water while Mad plume sat next to him patting him on the back. He said, his face is in the water. Yeah. And he said, no, we're good. We don't need anything. And Derek just went, okay, and left. Didn't say, is that guy okay? Wait 20 seconds to see if he comes up. How's that? Like after a while, he needs to breathe. I mean, beat around the bush a little. Are you sure you don't need towels or like anything? I got coffee in there. I could bring some coffee up if you guys want some coffee. You know what? I got a bottle of Captain Morgan under my fucking, what do you think of that? You know, something. If you don't like that, I got bottled water though, 'cause sometimes people sit in this water and they need a water. They want another water. So at some point in the afternoon, his dad, Dave, reported hearing glass breaking in the direction of room four, as well as a noise that he described as the sounds of men roughhousing and laughing. So one of the owners of the Wild Horse then walked by the room to see if the front window was broken in that room, but didn't go inside the room to see if glass was broken elsewhere. It was like, okay, this window's intact, fine. He didn't break anything. So then, that was the first and the second time after they noticed blood on the broken glass, that's Derek goes back again here. And during that check-in, he said, he asked Mad Plume, or a Mad Plume asked him if he would help pull Lawrence out of the tub. He's real fucked up. Can you help me pull him out? So Derek said that the water in the tub was murky as if someone had vomited in it. That's what he said. - Ew. - Looked like that. So he had some shit in it there. Mad Plume pushed Lawrence to a spot where Derek and used to could reach over the tub's railing and help pull him out. As they were moving him, Mad Plume's grip slipped and Lawrence's face sank under the water, but he didn't like, he just limply went under the water. He didn't like, oh, pop up, not being able to breathe or anything, which is weird. So after they moved Lawrence from the tub, Derek, the employee, notices bruising on Lawrence's shins. So Derek went back to the lobby to get his father. Lawrence is laying unresponsive and blood began to pool under the back of his head as he's laying there. - Oh shit. - So now they're like, holy shit. So now Mad Plume used to Derek and Dave are trying to figure out what to do. They're sitting around looking at this person bleeding out on a floor going, what do we do? - Is there not 911 at the front desk? - No, well, they end up, at first, they decided to try to put him in Mad Plume's car to drive him to the hospital. So this is how much time is wasting. They pick him up, they bring him outside. They try to put him in the car, but his legs are, his knees are already too stiff to bend. And he's too fucking tall to fit in the back seat unless he's bent up to lay down. - And he's riggering already. - He's riggering, so they pull him out of the car and then they call 911. They didn't call 911 ahead of time. - Say we're on our way, nothing. - Nothing and used to start at CPR on a man who's too stiff to move already. - He's dead. - Yeah, so the ambulance arrives and takes him to the hospital where he arrives dead. - Yeah. - Here in nearby planes, Mad Plume drives away with Eusta to quote, "Follow the ambulance," he said. But when they arrived in planes, Mad Plume drove past the hospital into a wooded area. - Yeah, I'm not going to the hospital. - He drove into the woods and they said he sped up like as soon as he saw the hospital, he gunned it, past the hospital and into the woods instead. He said he was driving 90 miles an hour at one point. - Very normal. - When they passed a police officer who had another car pulled over on the side of the road. Okay, so as they approach Thompson Falls, Eusta literally says, "I will grab the steering wheel and crash this fucking car if you don't turn it around." - Yeah. - Fuckin' we're going back there. That's crazy, we gotta see if our cousin's dead, like this is nuts. So Mad Plume finally turns the car around, but on the way back to planes, the officer they passed earlier catches up to them and goes, "Oh, you're the assholes we saw, perfect. Thanks for turning around." - Yeah, seem to rip in a minute ago. - Pulls him over and arrests Mad Plume for reckless driving. - Yeah. - So, they bring him in. - I'll tell you why. - Well, that probably too, I'm sure. But I mean, it was the driving, you were going to jail anyway. Oh, you're drunk too, stupid, that would explain it. So Lawrence arrives at the hospital and he's pronounced dead when they get there, obviously. So, he is sent for an examination, post-mortem here. They find in the examination, upon examining Ken Meals' body, the medical examiner noted that Lawrence had multiple contusions to both the front and back of his head, as well as abrasions on his face and nose. Also, a large deep gash on his right arm extending from the elbow to the wrist and multiple bruises on the front of both shins. Okay, he said that the findings say that this wasn't consistent with a single fall. This is a lot of falls, if it's a fall, 'cause it doesn't look like that. They said there's blunt force injuries to the head abdomen and extremities and hyperinflated lungs fluid in the sinus and froth in the airways. So he drowned. - Drowned, yeah. - They said that he was drowned, the finding is that he was drowned violently. He wasn't an accident. Somebody fucking drowned him. Weird thing here, they also, they find, they note anal dilation, rectal bruising and two internal elacerations consistent with being forcibly penetrated. - Wow. - As well. Okay. - Did he hold him under a while? - I mean, dude, we don't know here. - Anything's possible. - Anything's possible. This guy's clearly a little fucking, you know, Von Joe are here, he's gone off the deep end, so. - Bad man. - Bad guy. So they already have Melvin in jail. So they bring him in, have a chit chat with him here. Let's see what you got. So he denied having any sexual interest in Lawrence, at all, and that never happened. He said, 'cause that's what they asked him at first, do you guys have any kind of like, you know, sexual relationship? And he said, "No, God, no." We both like women, he's married with four kids. What are you talking about? He also was surprised that his cousin was dead. He said, he was in rigor, he didn't notice that. I never noticed. He said, "I'm completely in shock." That's what Mad Plume said to the cop. I didn't know anything was wrong. I didn't know anything was wrong with him. - You had to get him out, man. - Blood pouring out, not breathing. Someone doing CPR while an ambulance screeches up. Had no idea anything was the matter. Yep, he said I didn't know anything was wrong with him. And then he said, "The sad thing is I ain't gonna be able "to be at his services or anything." - No, you're not. - That's what he said. That's the sad thing. I ain't gonna be able to go to his services or anything 'cause I'm in jail here for the student's sake. - Hey, I got arrested for reckless driving. - Yeah, some stuck here. Hey everybody, just gonna take a quick break from the show to tell you about the safest sponsor ever. Simply safe. - Simply safe.com, S-I-M-P-L-I, safe.com. - You know, and as a small town murder listener, you know the world can be a dangerous and unpredictable place. - There's some danger out there. - Let's be realistic. If you're listening to a story right now at small town murder, you're going, "Oh, good, that's mine." You might need a little security, you're thinking about it. With every case we have studied here, we learn one thing that your best line of defense is your own vigilance and preparation. That's why we cannot recommend Simply Safe Home Security Enough. 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So therapy is a great place to get these things off your chest. Try to maybe help you figure out how to work through what's weighing you down, and in the end, try and feel better. That's the oral after here, so. If you're thinking of starting therapy, give better help a try, it's entirely online. It's designed to be convenient and flexible, it's to your schedule, you just have to fill out a brief questionnaire, get you matched up with a licensed therapist. Here's the best part, you can switch therapists at any time with no additional charge. - No extra fee. - That's huge. And it's, you can keep, yeah, you find someone that you can vibe with, and then you're gonna be much better off. So get it off your chest with better help, visit betterhelp.com/smalltownmurder today to get 10% off your first month. That's betterhelpHELP.com/smalltownmurder. - What makes a life a good one? Is it the adventure you have? Or the friends you find along the way? Maybe it's pursuing you passion, while striving to protect, defend, and save what you believe in every single day. So, what makes a life a good one? In the Coast Guard, we think it's all of the above and more. But you'll have to find out for yourself. Visit gocoascard.com to learn more. - So they said, "Well, what happened? "How did he get in this condition?" 'Cause he was with you and you were the only person with him, and he said, "I honestly blacked out." And he said, "I don't remember everything. "I'm very confused about what I remember." I don't even know what I remember. That's how little I remember. - Yeah. Some of the memories, I don't even know what they are. - Yeah, one of the questions he said, "I don't know about that. "I black out when I'm really drunk. "I'm one of those alcoholics "who will drink till I black out." And the scary part is, a lot of times you can't even tell those fucking people are drunk. - Yeah. - You can't even tell. They seem fine. And there was, I was watching "Unpatrol" and this lady had went before her turn. She turned into a fucking ravine instead. She took that as the turn. And her car was like sitting up and she was this like 55 year old lady who lived right. I mean, she lived 100 yards from where this fucking happened. And she's like, "Oh gosh, geez, that's terrible." She kept saying, "Oh geez, oh my gosh, oh no." - I can't believe I did this, yeah. - She said, "I just, I guess I wasn't paying attention. "I come here on this road a million times. "I was at the Home Depot and I went here." Turns out her blood alcohol was 0.345 or some shit, which most people, people will die with that much alcohol. - Yeah, that's dangerous. - You couldn't even tell she was fucking drunk. They didn't, they only did the test 'cause they were like, "We have to 'cause she crashed. "So something must be wrong." But they didn't even notice that she was drunk. She didn't smell of alcohol, nothing. But she'd been drinking all day. - She's perfected it. - Yeah. - She got strings to have vodka for the most amount. - Yeah, that's an alcoholic. Just, you can't even see it. So, I mean, it was like fucking seven o'clock at night too. Like wherever it was, it was crazy. - My uncle got one at two in the afternoon making a right hand turn. He just, you know where it is. It's a 24 string cactus. He just didn't turn hard enough and he fucking hit the car, turned and left. - Oh God, yeah. - And then he got out of the car and they made the cops breathalyze. They're like, "You don't smell that on him?" And then they breathalyze them and it was way, way, way, way. - Well shit. - Well shit, Jesus. - And that's what he is. He was a black out drunk. - So, the sheriff here, the under sheriff, told Madplume that your cousin has injuries indicating he'd been hit on the head not once, not twice, not three times, but four to five times. And not all at the same time, either over a period of longer times. - Oh, rap now. - Yep. - So you should happen in a rap now. - He said, "I don't know where that came from." Even though I was the only other person in the room. He said, "Well, the medical examiner found rectal bruising "and lacerations on him." And Madplume's response was, "That surprises me." - I didn't even know he was gay. - I didn't see him stick anything up his ass, weird. Yeah, no idea. He said, "I had nothing to do with that." So that's pretty fucking fine. I had nothing to do with that at all. He had total surprise because I don't know what you're talking about. He said he's never engaged in any gay, any type of quote, homosexual activity, he said, but he couldn't remember whether he made a pass at a different mail at the hot springs the weekend before. 'Cause they said, "Well, your cousin says "that you made a pass at him the weekend before." And he says, "I don't remember that. "That's crazy." He says, "But I do black out when I get drunk." That's the thing. That's one thing. So they asked him, "Well, would you consent "to an oral swab for a DNA test?" So we'll just get this over with quick. And he said that, "I feel like you're trying "to railroad me. "I'm not doing this anymore. "I want a lawyer." That was that. - Okay. - End of the interview. "You're all trying to railroad me. "You want a DNA swab." So they charged him with deliberate homicide and sexual intercourse without consent. But later amended the charges to a single count of deliberate homicide under the felony murder rule with sexual intercourse without consent as the predicate offense. So wrapped up in one rather than two separate charges kind of wrapped up in one. Different states, different laws. So before trial, he wants to have, or his lawyers want to have excluded the evidence of the prior weekend's cousin incident. - Let's not talk about that one. - Let's not do that. Generally, prior bad acts are barred from being entered into a trial. But they state intends to use the evidence to show Madplum's motive, opportunity, intent, preparation, and plan, all of which are uses specifically allowed by Rule 404, which is the law that allows. That's how this is all done. - Also his MO. - It's everything. I mean, if it's an exact replica of what he did here and shows, he had a plan the weekend before that didn't work out, he refined it. That's what it looks like. So they allow all of this evidence in as evidence of proof of motive, opportunity, intent, preparation, and plan, all that shit, which is all the things that you need. So in the trial, by the way, Lawrence's family, which is also his family, but members of the letter close to Lawrence, all wore the same shirt, which had a smiling Lawrence on his graduation day from Two Eagle River High School in Pablo more than nine years ago. And it says, "In loving memory," and it says, "La," below it. If you kill someone and the family all shows up to court wearing the same special T-shirt, you're fucked. You were so fucked. You are so fucked. You're always going away forever when that happens. You see that? Oh shit, they made T-shirts, fuck me, they're marketing. They got a marketing campaign. I'm screwed, I got nothing. So his cousin testifies the one whether they tried to go after there. And on cross-examination, they say, they get him on the fact that they said, he never specifically asked you to have sex, right? He didn't say, "I'm gonna fuck you." He didn't say, "We're gonna have sex now." He didn't say any of that, right? He said, "Turn around and drop your trunks." Well, the guy said, "Aside from the part where he told me "to turn around and pull my pants down, "no, he never touched my genitals." That's what he said. Aside from the demand for rape, he didn't. So in the closing arguments here, the prosecutor, the state asserts that the state really kind of plays on the sexual nature of the thing, which is gonna be funky later on. He said that the state asserted that wanting to hide his sexual feelings toward both of his cousins, the one he went after first, and Lawrence, Madplume brought the other two along, Eusta and Basu, in the different times, to make the other two feel comfortable. Look, it's not just us. - Look, there's children here. - Yeah, now Madplume says, his lawyers say that the state's reasoning was to design to elicit fears about homosexual men physically assaulting straight men. Madplume also, which isn't a big fear, by the way, from coming from two straight guys, how afraid of that, are you? - Very little. - Very little afraid of that, yeah. Unless I go to prison, I'm very little afraid of that. Yeah, otherwise I feel like I can hold my own fine if you're trying to fuck me, you know what I mean? So-- - I'm an adult, yeah. - Yeah, isn't it? So I mean, as a full-grown, as a 40-something-year-old man with a beard-- - I thought I could send it off. - Yeah, hey, motherfucker, what's up? And he said, "When you start to listen to..." Yeah, he's trying to make it sound like the prosecution is saying like, "This is a..." You're walking down the street, everyone's covering their butthole, everybody. You never know when it's gonna happen. He said, "When you start to listen to JB's story "and you look at what happened to Lawrence in that room, "there's really simple logical deduction here "that helps you conclude beyond a reasonable doubt "what happened. "Lawrence wasn't as lucky as JB." - Yeah. - Yeah, that's the way it is. Verdict comes in and they find him guilty of murder and deliberate murder under the felony rule, so not good for him here. He could get the death penalty, he could get life without parole or life without parole. So the separate charge of the sexual intercourse without consent was dropped, like I said, and it was wrapped up into the other one, and that's what we have now. So it's a felony, it's a real bad felony murder at this point, not good. - It's an aggravated murder, yeah. - Sentencing comes around, and both sides of the family are gonna speak. The ones who support Uncle Bug Bug there, Melvin, it is bonkers what they say in court, man. - What are they gonna say? - It's crazy, so here's Lawrence's family. This is one of his cousins, I believe. This was a horrendous crime and a calculated crime that has devastated two families and you're entirely responsible for it. They say there are days I can't even get up, it hurts so much, that's Lawrence's mother, says that, describes what it's like to talk about the father, children lost their father, a wife lost a husband, I lost my kid. One of her granddaughters, she said, is having a hard time in school, this is one of his children, having a hard time in school, and she quote, "She's fighting, fighting every day, "because she doesn't understand where her dad is. "She's hurting so bad, she's torturing everybody." Lashing out. - So we knew him out because of it. - No, no, no, this, they're saying, you've done this motherfucker, this is Larry's kids, they're having a hard time. Another granddaughter has completely just shut down. She said, "She's trying to be an adult, but she's not, "she's just a little girl." You know, these kids can't handle this. The other, another grandmother of his kids, his wife's mother, said that they don't understand it because all the kids around here, his kids included, "Love you, you're always nice to them. "They call you Uncle Bug Bug, for fuck's sake." Like, "You have a nickname, that's how much the kids like you." He said, "They don't understand because you were their uncle. "They love you, and they're scared. "You've destroyed my whole family." She said, "That's the thing there. "This guy comes over all the time, they know each other. "It hasn't like--" - It's crazy. - It's not like he hadn't seen Lawrence in 10 years, and then he showed up going, "Let's go to the hot tubs." Like, he's all hanging out all the time. He came over to eat breakfast, 'cause his mother made him breakfast. So, wow, they said, one of the kids got diagnosed with PTSD. She said, "The hurt will go on for years and years." Here, I also says, this is, wow, you took him to the hot springs, you raped him, you left him face down in the hot water, and before that, you beat him. When I asked the undertaker, he said, "Lawrence looked like he'd been in a car wreck. "You must have taken your anger for everybody "out on that young man." And he said, "Then, after he was dead, "you satisfied your own selfish needs by raping him. "You hurt a lot of people, and the only reason "was to satisfy your own perverted sexual desires. "I hope they give you the longest sentence they have." - Yeah. - All of it. So, yeah, by the way, it was, they think it's post-mortem, the rape. - Really? - Yeah, yeah. - So he was like, "Oh, God, Jesus, "he beat him up real bad." - Yeah, I don't think he thought he was unconscious or what, but yeah, so, he was definitely not conscious when it was going on, they don't think. - Good grief. - His widow gets on the stand, Lawrence's widow, and says she's no longer able to parent her children because she's too scared of everything now, she said, "The world." She said, "I can't hate you, Melvin, "I'll never hate you, but I'm really confused. "I lost myself, I lost my family, "I lost my best friend, I feel like I'm six feet under two." He's destroyed the whole family, and it's even worse 'cause it's not some stranger where you're like, "Well, yeah, that's the world, it's dangerous." Like, "We fucking know you, and you've been cool, always." Yeah, so when they asked the judge asked the widow what sentence or the county attorney asked the widow, what sentence do you think would be appropriate? And she said, "I just want him to be gone forever, "just like Lawrence." That was the response. - Okay. - Now, Melvin's sister and mother come out, and they say some way different shit pleading for him. Okay, his mother asked the judge to hand down a sentence that would offer him the opportunity to get out of prison one day, okay? And the sister Regina describes her brother as loyal, caring, loving, and giving, and the best uncle. Well, I think you can, if he has a mug that says world's greatest uncle, you can take that away now, I think. - You can turn that in. - Yeah, I think that's not gonna work. Then she says this, "He's never done anything toward anybody. "I feel this whole thing is a big betrayal on me and my family. "They, pointing to Lawrence's family with their t-shirts on, "have never accepted us because we are Blackfeet. "That's all we've ever been to them." - What is that? - It's a tribe, Blackfeet tribe. Yeah, native, they're from different tribes, I guess, in this family, it's an intertribal family or whatever, so they're saying, "How dare you fucking?" Yeah, that's what it is. So she then says, "He meant a lot to all of them Elmo people, "talking about Melvin here." Melvin's mother comes on now and says a life sentence without parole would be too harsh for him. She said, "He meant a lot to all of them Elmo people. "Now they're making a little pebble into a big mountain." He fucking raped and killed his cousin. What are you talking about? That's not a little pebble. This is a fucking mountain, lady. What are you talking about? - This is a giant one, this is a problem, yeah. - This isn't like they got in a fight and he punched him in the mouth and they're trying to put him in jail for 20 years for assault. That's a pebble made into a mountain. This is a fucking, he's dead. He's dead and he may have raped him, probably raped him after he was dead. - That's crazy. So now they're making a little pebble into a big mountain. He's a human being. Like we all make mistakes, this is a big one though. He treated them good, all of them. Now he's the worst person in the world. - Yes. - Why don't you rape and kill somebody? Guess what, your status is greatly diminished. Ask OJ what it's like when people think you're a murderer. His life wasn't the same as it was before that trial, I'll tell you that right now. - He didn't even rape anybody that we-- - No, he didn't rape Ron Goldman when he was finished with him. That would have been even crazier. People would have really been like, fuck the fuck OJ. - What kind of guy is you? - Then she goes on to say, when Mrs. Over, who else are they gonna pick on? - Okay. - Other murderers hopefully. What are you talking about? - Unrape this, yeah. - And rapists, that too. Wow. Then her, wow. Jolene Madplum, another sister said that, oh no, Jolene's the mother. She went on to say that kind of, he's not that kind of person being a psycho. He said that Lawrence's family is, quote, "making a big show out of everything." (laughing) You know, the murder trial for their dead son, making a big fucking deal out of it, a big show, and says they never looked at Melvin as a human being, ever. And they all, wow, that's fucking wild. So meanwhile, Lawrence's family all comes up and says that this is bullshit. They all said they had taken him in after his parents kicked him out. Their family has been nothing but nice to Lawrence. The morning of the murder, he went over to eat breakfast and have Lawrence's mother make him breakfast. So they didn't treat him like shit and it's bullshit. Like he's just a murderer and fuck him. So the prosecutor requests life without parole. That's his request to the judge. He said his prospects for rehabilitation are minimal at best and you have a family that does not want to have to confront this defendant again. He seems to enjoy trying to dominate and hurt other males. That's the perfect way to put it. - There you go, yeah. - Yeah, it's clear that he accepts no responsibility. He's shown absolutely no remorse today, the same as he showed at his trial. The defense says, come on, that's all you can say, really. Come on. - I mean, (laughing) - He's trying, he's trying. His defense attorney says, I think it's part of the court's many duties to temper the anger or emotion that comes from anybody and the desire for retribution in the offer and offer the opportunity for someone to come back out and be part of our society. And she added that he set out strict instructions, by the way, that the lawyer said, I gave strict instructions to Melvin on how to behave in court. So they said, if there's a sense he's not remorseful, put that on me. I told him to be stoic. Don't act like it hurts you. Melvin said, quote, I'll simply say my heart is as broken as the Ken Mills family. I doubt that. He says, I don't believe a life sentence is anywhere near reasonable. What do you think it should be then? - More. (laughing) - He is sentenced to use. May fuck off life without parole. - Yeah, there. - No parole. And he has to pay $33,634.29 in public defender fees as well. - Oh shit, really? - Yeah, that was that. This is based on that he, for a couple years ago, he got some tribal payments, and so they think he has an income. - Oh. - Yeah, so he has, if you have an income or any money, then you have to pay it back. He appeals, arguing that not only the fees, number one, the fees were imposed on him, shouldn't be because he has no way to make the money back and also that they led in the prior act of the cousin the week before. And they say, no, that's all fine. And even the state's closing argument is that they said the court, Supreme Court says, the argument did not insinuate that homosexual men are predisposed to sexually assaulting straight men. Rather, they used it as a, it was just what he tried to do the week before. Just he likes to fuck his cousins. - Right, homosexual men don't tend to do that, but this guy does. - This guy, whatever he is, is, it does it. So now he's in prison now, his appeal is denied, so life without parole. The hot springs, they found out the hot springs had been operating essentially unlicensed since about 2009. And in 2019, a woman is, she dies in the fucking, in one of the hot springs. So 2019, or 2020 that has, in 2019, there's a big article about how they're totally redoing the place, and it's gonna be wonderful, and the owners are saying, the pool in which Ken Mill died has been all sealed up. They said, yeah, they said it was all torn down and exposed the soakers to rolling hills and nighttime canvases. Now they're like kind of outside, like intense sort of things. And yeah, so he says, we wanna continue to provide the limp in, leap out motto. That's something we wanna continue, an immersive healing experience, that's what he says. So he said, we really wanna reach out to people who need a place like Wild Horse. 2020, a woman named Ann, our Carrie Ann Allison, who was 39 years old from Polson, she apparently needed the hot springs, but she ends up being, she's dead in one of the springs here. The autopsy, they said that they don't know if it was still like undetermined, whether it was homicide or just a natural death. They arrested a guy, but he was later released without charges, but what they did find out as the campground and pools have been conducting business and violation of a health department order shutting them down for years. So yeah, not great. So the Wild Horse, it was sent a notice to immediately cease operations on September 16th, 2020 by the County Health Department, because it was operating an unlicensed facility more than two years after ownership was first notified it was out of compliance. The notice of violation indicated the facility has not been licensed by the state of Montana since 2009. - Not good. - Yes. So they talk about this death, the other death, also the owner, Dennis David Larson, was arrested and charged with negligent arson after he set a wood pile on fire, a blaze allegedly that spread out of control and destroyed hundreds of feet of tire bail fence along with trailers and a vehicle on an adjacent property. - Oh, somebody else's shit too. - Somebody else's shit, yeah. Yeah, so they said they called and they said a man who answered the phone at the facility that year said the business was not currently accepting reservations but should be up and running by the weekend. The next day, a recorded message said that it was closed for repairs and upgrades and try back in two weeks. It's currently, you can go there currently. There's a bunch of reviews for it. We're gonna put on your stupid opinions. - Oh, great. - There you go. There's a lot of green, weird slime going on and shit like that. - Yeah, it's gotta be. - There you go. There's Hot Springs. - Wow. - By the way, look this up if you want. There's another murder I believe in this family 'cause it's a mad plume from the same town. I think it's Melvin's cousin named Catherine with a C mad plume. She was murdered in 2005 in a horrible triple murder that was fucking awesome. - What is going on? - I don't know what's going on up there, but that's another, it was between these two cases and I'm like, there are these people related. They're from the same fucking town. This is crazy. So anyway, there you go. That's Hot Springs, Montana. - Oh shit. - Holy shit. If you like the show, tell the world, get on whatever app you're on and just say whatever you want. We don't care. Tell us, do you prefer peanut butter and marshmallow or peanut butter and jelly? There you go, which one? Which one do you fluff or nutter or are we going jelly? 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