[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. - Hey, it's Ryan Reynolds, and I'm here with Keith, co-star of my upcoming film, If. Only in theaters, May 17th. Do you wanna tell people the big news? All right, I'll do. Sign up now, and you'll get unlimited for $15 a month in six months of Paramount+ essential plan on us. mintmobile.com/switch. - Up from payment of $45 equivalent to $15 per month, unlimited over 40 gigabytes per month, face lower speeds, videos at 480p, active mint customers by 531-24, get six months of Paramount+ essential plan, auto-renews after six months, offer ends May 31st, 2024. Separate Paramount+ registration required, terms and conditions apply, if rated PG. - With AAA's legendary roadside assistance and access to hotel, concert, and restaurant discounts, members can expect something more. As a member, AAA roadside assistance has your back if you're stranded on the side of the road. You're covered whether you're locked out of your car, have a dead battery, need a tow, or run out of gas. Plus, roadside assistance isn't just for your car, it's with you wherever you go 24/7/365. And this piece of mind can be yours for about $5 a month. Offer's terms, conditions, and policies are subject to change without notice. Visit AAA.com/memberfor details. (upbeat music) (upbeat music) - Hello everybody, and welcome back to Small Town Murder Express. - Yeah, choo choo. - Oh, yay indeed, Jimmy, yay indeed. My name is James Petrogallo, I'm here with my co-host. - I'm Jimmy Wiseman. - Thank you folks so much for joining us today. We have another crazy, this is a lot of murder stuffed into an hour here, so buckle up everybody, it's a wild one, very quickly at the top of the show here, shut up and give me murder.com. Definitely May 31st Durham, North Carolina, Raleigh, Durham, Triangle area, get your asses in there. Let's do this, we're doing a North Carolina episode. - Right. - You try to entice you, so get in there, sell out the last few tickets. Nashville the next night, you are sold out, so get in there and then also get your tickets for later on in the year. Minneapolis, Kansas City, we added extra tickets, there was another year that we opened up, so you can get tickets to that now. Oklahoma City, get your tickets, few left in New York and that's in December, so be careful, get your tickets there, and also Boston too in December, get your tickets there. - Oh, so close, so unbelievable. - Yes, so definitely get them now. Minneapolis, you're gonna be our biggest show ever if you sell out, so let's do it Minneapolis, let's be partners in this, I can't wait. - Let's do it together. - You also want Patreon, patreon.com/crimeinsports is where you get all of the bonus material that we do. Anybody $5 a month or above, you can either get a cup of coffee somewhere that could be bad in mediocre or you can get hundreds of back bonus episodes, you've never heard immediately and new episodes every other week, one crime in sports, one small town murder, and you get it all, baby. - You get it all? - Get it all, this week we're gonna talk about for crime in sports, we are gonna talk about the O.J. Simpson trial now. - Great, not the cultural stuff around it, not like what we were all talking about and what people were saying, none of that stuff. - Not a low speed chase. - No, none of that stuff, we're gonna talk about the actual trial, how do you go from DNA, blood evidence and all this stuff to an acquittal? - Slam dunk. - I watched all 496 parts on YouTube of the trial, and I'll tell you exactly why, it's pure incompetence and we'll get into all of that and how that happened. And then for small town murder, inside Ed Gaines house, let's do it. - Oh, let's see. - Yes, that's gonna be fun stuff, what a day in the life of Ed Gain and all the weird creepy weird stuff he has in it. - Had to smell crazy in there, right? - Oh, had to be disgusting, yeah, just his sheets had to smell nasty, this guy wasn't doing laundry, it had to be-- - He was gross, right? - He was absolutely disgusting, and his aversion to bad smells is hilarious because he had to stink, oh yeah, we'll talk all about it. Patreon.com/crimeinsports, but we gotta do this first. Let's get to this episode, 'cause man, is it crazy stuff. Let's see here, we have, I think it's time to, we gotta take a deep breath everybody, what do you say, to get ready for this, and let's all shout-- ♪ Shout out and give me murder ♪ Let's do this everybody, let's go on a trip, shall we? - Okay. - Yeah, right, we are going to North Carolina. - Right. - In both spirit and in body soon as well here, we'll be going there, so we're going to Cherryville, North Carolina. - Cherryville. - Cherry andville, just like it's normal two words, put together here. - So nice. - It is in South, kind of central, western North Carolina, South, west of Charlotte. - Nowhere near the coast. - Nowhere near the coast, it's about 45 minutes to Charlotte, two hours and 45 minutes to Durham, where we will be May 31st, live with small town murder, see you there, and about an hour and a half to Clemens, North Carolina, which is our last episode, episode 451, Turd boy, satanic killer. - That was wild. - One of the craziest episodes ever. - Gross. - Oh man, median household income here is almost 20,000 below the national average, about 51,000. - Oh no. - Dollars here, and then median home price also lower $230,300. - That's great. - That's pretty good. - It's a real, this place is kind of a, insular kind of a place, and it's changed recently because now it's, you can drive to Charlotte from it. So, you know, more people have gone, but it was really a small, insular town where-- - How far from Charlotte though? - 45 minutes. - 45 minutes. - Oh 45, 45 minutes. - Oh 45, 45 minutes, yeah. - So, yeah, it's one of those motto here, where life blossoms. - Oh yeah, 'cause it cherries and shit, you know what I mean? - Not on this show, it doesn't. On this show, this town is where life goes to-- - It's where it sunsets, am I? (laughing) - It's not great, it's not great. So, little bit of history of this town. It's been agriculture for a long time, was the base here. - Of course, tobacco? - That's where it's tobacco, exactly, where it started. - Hey! - North Carolina is one of those places where the stereotype is true. They are growing tobacco all over this bitch. - Yeah. - But during the 1800s, the late 1800s, the textile industry started booming here. They had a lot of mills and things like that. So, July 13th, 1966, trains number 45 and 46. - Uh oh. - This is gonna be-- - Uh oh! (laughing) - Of the seaboard airline railroad hit head on. - How the fuck does that happen? (laughing) - Just don't send two trains going opposite direction on the same track, and it's otherwise physically impossible for that to happen, unless someone really fucks that up bad. - Yeah. - Wow. - The crazier part is just like, you got as an engineer, seeing that coming down the line, you gotta be like, I mean, nobody can, this is the worst game of chicken ever. - Yeah, nobody's moving. - Nobody's moving anywhere. - No. It's not like somebody was drunk and they swerved. - Yeah. (laughing) - They're on a track. - Cross the yellow line didn't happen. - This killed one and injured three, which seems like it's way less than-- - A miracle, yeah. - Yeah, absolutely. Reviews of this town, here is five stars. I really like how Cherryville is a small town and it's pretty. Okay, it has every store you may need. For example, Walmart, Dollar General, drug stores, and even small business sit down restaurants, along with some fast food chains, everything you'd need. - I got no stream, I need way more than that. - Than the Dollar General, yeah, Jesus. A little bit more I'm looking for. Two stars, I've lived here since I was 11, by the way, S-I-N-E-S is since. - Sunnis. - Sunnis, I was 11. Not really much to do here, the less common here, like you're listening, (laughing) has a little, Sunnis, has a little skate park in town and the New Year's shooters is always a cool thing to go down to town for during New Year's. - The what? - New Year's shooters. We'll talk about it. - No. - We got things to do. That's where a lot of older people bring their muskets out and shoot gunpowder powered. Gun powered, it says, in the air for New Year's. That's the thing that they do. A couple of small stores no one really goes to, just a small town with nothing to do, but quiet and calm and never feel like I'm in danger being anywhere in the town, okay. - Except for on New Year's. - Except for on New Year's when all the old men have their muskets out. Then it's watch your mouth that day. - What a town. - So, things to do, first of all, the Cherry Blossom Festival, obviously you knew that was coming. You can be there for the Miss Cherry Blossom pageant. Gotta have that. And of course, food and all that shit. And a band here, the Dirty Grass Soul is the band. - Dirty Grass Soul. - Dirty Grass Hole. Which, yes, exactly. That's why I said it. I wanna make sure you got the connotation that they're saying your asshole is filthy. (laughing) Dirty Grass Soul, not fucking, that's funny as shit. Okay, and it bounce houses. And then the New Year's Shooters, which is, I guess this is a tradition they've been doing for hundreds of years where to celebrate New Year's, I'm sure back then drunken bands of guys would go through from house to house, which these houses weren't close back then. They was like farms. So, they've all come with their muskets and they chant and yell until you came out of the house with your musket and fired it off and then join the party to the next house. - Oh my. - So, now they still do that and now they do it also in the town square. They all just fire their guns off. Muskets, though, you know. - Why do you have a musket? - For this night. - For this, yeah. - It's for this night. You gotta have a musket. - Keep her all lubed for January one. - Black powder only and without bullets. It's just a report. - Yeah, there's no, yeah. - They're not firing fucking, you know. - Still frightening. - Yeah, not firing lead balls into the air, luckily, but still frightening. You don't know who's packing. - Yeah, yeah, you don't know what. - What you packing in that musket? - Yeah. - But somebody thinks it's funny to throw an M&M in there. - Yeah, I don't know. Ow, Jesus Christ. It melted on my face, not in your gun. That's not right. - Somebody throw a paintball or a jawbreaker in there. All of a sudden, there's a problem. - There's an issue. All right, that said, let's talk about some murder, shall we? Okay, a bit about Sherryville here in this time. This is from a Washington Post article from February 29th, so a leap year article here. 1992 by Kent Jenkins, Jr. And there's several pieces of this article that we use for information, so definitely wanna give credit to that. So it says, quote, "Even by the standards of rural America, "Cherryville's 5,000 residents are uncommonly close knit "and impervious to the world at large." - Impervious. - Impervious, this is a close knit town. - Yeah. - That's it. - We're like that tribe in the Amazon. - Pretty much, yeah, we've never seen people and we don't cover our dicks. (laughing) Sorry. Leave our dicks swinging free. That's such a, "Cherryville, our dicks swing free." Early this century, when industrialization invaded the Carolina Piedmont, thousands of subsistence farmers abandoned their land for the mill villages that seemed to spring up like dandelions. Kept poor and powerless by their employers, 'cause that was back in the days of company Scripp and company housing and all that. They came to depend on profoundly, depend profoundly on each other, developing community ties almost as deep as blood. A few years ago when sociologists published a study of mill town life, they titled it like a family. "Cherryville Police Chief Johnny Wehunt" has been on the job for more than a year, but it's still universally known as the new chief. He came from Morganten about 30 miles away, and while he's as open and accommodating as he can be, he's still working his way into the town's graces. And he said, "People around here are clannish "and they always have been." Let's not use that word. Let's not say that. That is a very-- - So soon, your last name is Wehunt. - Yeah, Wehunt, that is, and they've always been. Oh boy, I keep asking, "How long do I have to be here "before I'm not the new chief?" And I've been told, "I don't know how many times, "I don't care how long you're here, "you'll never be from Cherryville." - Oh no. - So that's the town we got here. It's a-- - It's not even, it's, being insular is fine, but like-- - This is just pushing people, like, you know what I mean? Not even accepting and welcoming? - Proud to be terrible hosts is not a good thing. - Yeah, that's not a good look. - That's not a good look at all. - Especially when, even to your chief of police? - That's what I mean. He's gonna help you if you have a problem, and they're like, "Well, don't carry ain't from here. "I'm down." - Fuck you outside. - He's from 30 miles away, too. It's not like-- - He gets from Morgan. - It's not like he's from Paris, France, and he came over here with a fucking beret on going, "Hey, we, what are you doing over here, people? "You should have allergies in the street, "and a church, why are you doing--" It's not him. - Yeah, where he's from has the same weather as we do today, so the same storm came through. - Still shit, at the same time, we're getting the same exact problems. - All right, let's go to 1991. So that's the same error that was written, okay. July 28th, 1991. Let's talk about William Fred Davis. Apparently everybody calls him Fred. - Okay. - Oh, Willie Fred. Oh, Billy Fred here. He was born, well, he's 68 years old in 1991, and he's got a wife named Margaret Schuford Davis. Schuford's her maiden name. She is 67 years old. They've been married for, you know, 40 years or something. They've long time, and William Fred was in World War II in the Army Air Corps. - Oh, Lee. - I mean, yeah, fought Hitler, this guy. - Before it was the Air Force, for Christ's sake. - Yeah, yeah, the Army Air Corps, if you ever watch "All in the Family" shit, that's where Archie Bunker was in the Army Air Corps. That's-- - Really? - They were, yeah, they were like the ground guys that helped supply the, helped keep the airplanes going. So, then he worked for the North Carolina Department of Transportation as a mechanic, and he also always was farming as well. - It's a man. - He had a day job and also was a farmer, which is a lot of work. That just sounds like-- - That guy doesn't quit. - No, he gets up at 4 a.m., farms for three, four hours, then goes to work all day, comes home, farms a while, goes to bed, that's a-- - And made it to 1991, 68 years old, crushing it. - That's pretty good. Margaret worked at Jenkins Food. She worked at the, what they call a mush house, locally. - What is that? - A sausage making plant. - Let's not call it that way. - There's literally just a thing, you don't want to see how the sausage is made, that's an idiom. So, you really don't want to see how the sausage is made, and this lady fucking makes the sausage. - Do they call it the mush house? - The mush house. She makes it. Both her brother and sister live within a mile of them, everybody kind of lives here. They have an old house where everybody, like the house she grew up in, is also right on the same area, and that's where their daughter lived. They renovated the house for her daughter. She's got, they have a daughter named Ruth, and a son named Stephen, and now they're retired. And they, a long time friend said, "I grew up with them, and no one ever had anything "to say against them. "If the church door ever opened on a Sunday morning, "and Fred Davis wasn't there, "I never heard about it." They were as fine as any people who ever lived around here. - That was a long way to go to say, he was at church every Sunday. - Yeah, nice church going people. That's all it's, he's trying to say with all of that shit. So, like I said, they have a daughter named Ruth that they redid this house that the mother grew up in, that Margaret grew up in, and Ruth has a husband named Joey James Melton. So, Joey Jimmy. - Yep, JJ. - Old Joey Jimmy here. He's 29, and he's a high school dropout who Fred and Margaret vehemently opposed the wedding to. - Yeah, he didn't help redo this house, he's useless. - Yes, and now he's moving in, and they later had to help the couple financially. The parents did, they set them up in a mobile home, that's about 150 yards away from the house, which will come in majorly later. And also then provided them the house that Margaret grew up in that they did, but they did not like Joey Jimmy at all. No good. Neighbors and family say that Joey Jimmy had problems, that-- - Is that what they called him? - No, that's what I'm calling him. - Oh, Jesus Christ, go do that. - They called him Joey, they called him Joey, but his name is-- - How did Joey Jimmy? - I like Joey Jimmy a lot, that's just sounds. Hey, Joey Jimmy, yeah, I think it's got a good ring to it. - Joe Jimmy, it's so bad either. - No, Joe Jimmy, yeah, Joe Jim is good too. But that kind of sounds like toe jam, I don't know if you want that. - I like that. - I like Joey Jimmy, so he had a lot of problems, Joey Jimmy, and used to attract the attention of law enforcement officers, shall we say. He underwent psychiatric treatment multiple times in the 1980s, and all the neighbors said that he used to use a lot of drugs, but he doesn't seem like he's doing it lately. - What, do we know what happened to him? - No, he's just a, he's a local, just a general, ne'er-dwell shit- - Run of the mill, don't give a fuck. - Run of the mill, yeah, I dropped out, I do a bunch of drugs, I'm a fuck up, I get arrested all the time. You know, they don't know what's wrong with me, they send me to a psychiatric center, they go, you're a drug addict, stupid, and they kick 'em out, and that's that. - Why don't you wanna do anything and make a living? That seems hard, yeah. - Yeah, it seems like the guy. - I like doing drugs, it's more fun, okay, well yeah. Point taken, you are correct, it is more fun, but. - We get it. - So Sunday, July 28th, 1991. Now Fred and Margaret Davis were at church, obviously, and they were given a ride home from church and dropped off. Mrs. Davis, Margaret was carrying a light beige pocketbook with some money inside of it, and later that day, their daughter-in-law, Kathy, Stephen's wife, spoke with Margaret and also saw Fred when Fred stopped by her home to deliver some vegetables that he'd been growing. The son of a gun grows vegetables and grows too much and gives 'em away. - Oh, I gotta give 'em to the kids, they need vegetables. So Ruth here saw her father that afternoon in a field near his home, and also spoke with Margaret at the home as well. Then the daughter-in-law, I guess, oh no, another person here, another neighbor, stopped by the house around 6 p.m. to borrow a vacuum cleaner. No one was home, but the back door was unglocked, so she just went in, grabbed the vacuum cleaner and left. Okay, now, at some point in the night here during this evening, someone broke into their house and threw a back window. And basically, what happened was, Margaret was attacked first. - Oh God, they were home. - Someone came in with an axe handle. - Oh boy. - And beat Margaret to death with it. - Wow. - In the home. Now Fred, that was in the bedroom. Now Fred was in another room watching TV. He's, Fred's mostly deaf and he had no idea this was happening in his house. - Oh boy. - He couldn't hear it at all. Happened, so. - And he's got the TV turned on to the god awful level. - Probably blaring like great old people anyway, and if he's hard of hearing on top of it, Jesus Christ, it's probably blaring. He wouldn't have heard it even if he wasn't hard of hearing. And he didn't know that this attacker was sneaking up behind him and attacked him from behind with an axe handle and beat Fred. I mean, he beat Fred unfucking mercifully and Fred never even saw it coming. So it's like that he could have done nothing to cause this ire, you know what I mean? He didn't even see what happened. - Whoever did this new, they were gonna have to give him hell 'cause that is a tough man. He's not gonna be able, you're not gonna overpower that guy. - These old farmers are tough. He's an old fucking World War II for Christ. So Fred is just beaten horribly. Now they lay there, they're both killed. They lay there till the next day when their daughter Ruth comes over to see them and discovers them. Now there's no clear motive. Nothing is stolen except just her purse is stolen. That's the only thing stolen. - The beige pocketbook. - That's it. And there's no evidence of sexual assault, although they said that Margaret was found partially disrobed, but not assaulted. That's weird, I don't know. So the autopsies to find out exactly what happened here, they're conducted, there's six major lacerations on the scalp and face of Margaret. An internal examination revealed contusions, hemorrhaging into the brain and multiple skull fractures. Also wounds to her left elbow and right hand could have been defensive wounds. She probably saw her coming. They said, "Or could have been a result of a fall." We couldn't, don't know. - That is a nasty axe handle, huh? - It's fucking brutal. Must have been tempered or something here, so. - Just thick. - For Mr. Davis for Fred, they said that an external examination showed blood and brain tissue on his head, face and clothing. - Wow. - Both of his eyes had been black and he had bled into the substance of his left eye. His skull bones had been thoroughly fractured and pressed inward into his brain. They said that he was beaten so hard about his head that his brain was pulpitified. - His skull chewed up his brain. - Yeah, they pureed his brain with a fucking axe handle. - My God, man. - And they said there was blood spattered on the ceiling everywhere. I mean, it was a fucking brutal, brutal attack. - A 68 year old man. - 68 year old man with no enemies, too. These are just, not like they have all, they've had huge beef with these people over here. They're not the Hatfields and the McCoy's, they're just old church people that farm. So there were 12 lacerations to his face and scalp. His dentures were protruding from his mouth. His left little finger was, a pinky, was torn almost completely off of his hand and his left ring finger had scrapes and cuts on it. The wounds to his hand could have been sustained as he tried to defend himself or been caused by the hand resting on top of his head when the blows were inflicted. Might have scratched his head or something. They said the nature of the injuries to both were consistent with being caused by a blunt instrument such as an ax handle. - Tour a finger off with something blunt, man. - That's hard. - That's aggressive. - Somebody's, there's a lot of anger in this. - That's yuri. - Especially with no other, didn't rob the place, didn't go through a jewelry box, didn't make the old late, didn't do any of that stuff. So it doesn't make any sense. So the purse that evening, by the way, is spotted on fire by a local resident who calls the sheriff's department, but by the time the resident and the deputy get back to the spot where the purse was, it's gone. Not burned up, somebody took it, it's just gone. - Wow. - But they do find in that area, the dress that Margaret was wearing that day. Yeah, they find that, but the purse is gone. So that's interesting. Now, the first thought everybody has is, let's all talk to Joey Jimmy. What do we say? - Probably, yeah. - Out of everybody in this town, he's the only one that's had any beef with these people. - Yeah, they don't like him. - They don't like him, he doesn't like them. It's just the way it is. So they, really, the Rutherford County sheriff's go after Joey Jimmy. I mean, they're fucking, they said basically it's like a parade of police cars to his house all the time. They're just camped out on a street. - Yeah, just hanging out of them. We're gonna get ya. We're gonna get you talking to him. Also, the gossip spreads from there. - Oh boy. - And everyone in town goes, "Well, he's the only person that had any beef with them." So he obviously did it. No one else fucking did it. This is ridiculous. It's a, plus where the house is, it's like rural. It's not even in a place somebody would wander by. - He wouldn't just stumble on it. - No, someone had to be doing this. Floyd Terry, who runs the grocery store, Terry's groceries, he said they were all over the place and all over him, meaning Joey Jimmy. I asked him straight out after it happened. And he said, "I couldn't do nothing like that. "I couldn't." And if I did, I wouldn't be crazy enough to let my wife go back there the next day. That's not the response you want either, by the way. - And if I did. - Couldn't isn't what you want. Didn't is what you want. - Right. - Some wouldn't, wouldn't didn't. - Wouldn't and couldn't is what OJ said. - Right. - You know what I mean? - Two point. - Couldn't is bad. It should be didn't and wouldn't. That's what you'd say. And to say like, and if I did, I wouldn't be crazy enough to do that is usually a bad sign too. So that's weird. But as the weeks go by here in the summer, through the end of July and through August, they find no physical evidence and no evidence linking him to these killings. - Nothing. - They have nothing to go on. So they're trying to figure out how to trip them up here and make them confess or something like that. But when they do, he won't crack. So they have nothing to do. So the pressure kind of eases up on Jimmy Joey, or Joey Jimmy a little bit. So September 8th, 1991. Okay, this is another Sunday, by the way. Another Sunday evening. We have E.Z. Willis. E.C. - Is that right? - That's his name, E.Z. Wider Willis over here. - Does it? - And yeah, and his wife Sarah. So E.Z. is 71 and Sarah is 67. They live on a farmhouse on Flint Mill Road. - Oh, no. - And he is retired from his job at an auto repair shop. And he walks with a cane now. But he's still very active. These people are very active. Like he's retired and walks with a cane, but that week, the week before, he was up on top of the garage patching the roof. - Yeah, he walks with a cane 'cause his legs are sore from pickleball, James. - It's like a lot going on. There's sore from going for the elderly squat thrust record. Hey, everybody, just gonna take a quick break from the show to tell you a little bit about curology. Let's get our skin nice. - Oh, yeah. - Curology is the thing that can do it. We are excited. I know that much because we are getting sent these products here. - Yeah. - And we're very excited. Curology makes personalized prescription skincare products. - Wow. - Fantastic. Their prescription skincare uses a combination of three clinically researched ingredients, making it way more effective than non-prescription cleansers and moisturizers alone. It's really easy to you. Just fill out a quiz about your skin, share photos, and a provider will prescribe a personalized formula based on your skin's unique needs. 'Cause everybody's face is different. - We're all different. - Everybody's skin is way different. So, curology products give you everything you need and nothing you don't need without fragrances or parabens. I'm waiting for mine. I can't wait, I know yours is on the way. I'm very excited. - Get your skin treated. - Yeah, get it nice. - That's what I'm saying. All you need to do is visit curology.com/smalltownmurder for a special offer. That's curology, c-u-r-o-l-o-g-y.com/smalltownmurder. Offer only applies to your first box, subject to consultation, new subscribers only. (upbeat music) 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. - Yeah, 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. 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The killer has a tire iron, but easy has a cane. - Yeah. - And they know, as we'll find out later, for a fact that he got a couple of shots in with this cane. - Really? - Yeah, he was fighting and defending himself here, but apparently though, they were brutally, just unmercifully beaten with a tire iron, both easy and Sarah. - A cane's no match for a fucking tire iron. - It's not, and especially a 71 year old man who needs the cane to walk. So that means he's not real sturdy on his feet. Well, he's swinging the fucking thing either. So you knock him down once and then you pommel in the death with a tire iron. She's probably exhausted from working at the mill. - She just punched out for Christ's sake. - Yeah, so the next day is when their daughter, Sheila, comes over, so again, it's the same exact thing. I'm exacted the Sunday, the Monday morning, the daughter finding it, the daughter lives next door. That's the thing, all of these little places all have, the families all live in like, it's almost like a holler that's not a holler. You know what I mean? - Right, they just wait until the house next door goes up for sale and great, my family needs a home. - Yeah, or generations ago, 'cause these families have all lived here for generations. - Right, they just have plot to land and they just build houses on them. - Exactly, so she discovered the bodies of her parents on Monday morning. She said, you can't imagine what it was like. I haven't been back to the house since this was a little later on, I can't go in. Things like this don't happen in Sherryville. Apparently they do. - It's happened twice. - So the police are saying, okay, this seems related. Both couples lived in rural areas, both over 65. Neither home was ransacked, nothing was taken from this home at all, by the way. - What is that? - The willaces, the home of the Davises is only 30 miles from the willaces. The Davises live in Ellenborough, the willaces are in Sherryville. They said everything is just exactly the same. When you have 10 or 11 coincidences, it may not seem like a coincidence anymore. - Yes, somebody just likes killing, man. - Yeah, both houses undisturbed, robbery didn't appear to be the motive. The killings occurred sometimes Sunday night or early Monday in isolated rural homes, each about a mile from the Cleveland County line, by the way. Both couples were beaten to death with a blunt object, different objects, but still beaten with blunt objects. And in both houses, the TV sets were left blaring afterwards. Now, we don't know if that's coincidence of just old people listening to the TV loud when they were on, when he came over, and then they stayed on, or if-- - Or if they flipped them on. - Cranked them up to maybe cover the screams and wails, I don't know. Both of the couples were no enemies, well respected, church going, nice people that lived in the community all their lives. They were neither of them, you know, came in recently, yeah. Both of these couples were last seen on a Sunday night and found dead the next morning by their daughters. The Davises actually, it wasn't even their daughter who walked in first. It was their seven year old grandson who walked in and found grandpa's quote, "pulpified brains." - Yikes. - That's fucking disturbing. So yeah, that's pretty crazy. So the poor daughter who had to find him, they said they're gonna compare the cases with similar ones around the state. They have one case from 1990 where a retired tobacco farmer and a 76 year old wife were found stabbed to death in their home, which was in a rural area. Nothing was taken except a woman's purse as well, and there was no sign of struggle there. So, but the problem is this is in Alamance County and they had just charged a man with killing them. - Oh. - Now this man had known the couple and is being held without bond, but they don't think that he's the guy that was over here. Number one, because he was in jail already while one of them happened, so. - That'll be, yeah. - Yeah, so they think there's at least one other person doing this. Now, as soon as these bodies are discovered, this town is bonkers back shit hysteria at this point. - How could you not? - It's nothing happens here. They all know each other. It's the viciousness is horrible. Also, it's obviously one person doing it, which is scaring people as well. So, they're really freaked out, everybody. The day after the willaces are discovered, easy in Sarah, Joey Jimmy, writes a suicide note, puts a shotgun to his chest and blows himself away. - What? - Commit suicide. - Gone. - Gone. - It worked. - Yeah, he didn't do it though. - What? - It wasn't Joey Jimmy, that's, that's. - Did you do what? He didn't do any of us. - He didn't do any of us. - No, he killed himself. He didn't do murders. - Okay, he did, wow. - So, he's found dead in his living room sofa at 5.15 a.m. by Ruth, who then had to find her parents and then her husband, a fucking month later, that is horrible here. - Horrible. - Ruth said she heard a crashing sound in the living room of her house and came in there and saw his, you know, his inside spread up on the wall. - Damn it. - He left a note, but she wouldn't reveal the contents of the note, but yeah. They said he shot himself in the abdomen with a 12-gauge shotgun. They said authorities were uncertain if he had any connection to the death of any of that stuff. They said we've had so many similarities between the two investigations, we certainly couldn't brush this aside. We're not taking it into consideration now, but at some point we may have to, is what the police said. Ruth says she doesn't want to talk about anything anymore. She moved out of her house immediately and just like left the area. She doesn't want anything. Like everybody's been murdered that she's close to here. And they're all like in the same neighborhood too, so. - We're all so close, yeah. - So close. So at this point, they know they had, they never found any evidence that Joey Jimmy did this shit. And so they were upset. The people in town are pissed off at the cops. - Thinking that they blew it? - For forcing him to do this and leaving people. Yeah, the Sherry Terry, that's a person's name. Sherry Terry is the daughter of the local grocer and she said that she sees Ruth in the store and says she's doing the best she can, raising her kids. You should see her little boy. He looks just like his father, who's now dead. So. - What does that mean? - He's very bloody. He's got brains all over the place. Or it would be intestines probably. The sheriff said he doesn't want to say much about Joey Melton's death largely because there's been talk that Ruth Melton may file a civil suit charging the department with harassment over this. Said she's talked to us several times and I think she's settled down now. I think she understands what happened in this case was unavoidable. Other people don't though. A guy named Sebert McKee was a retired farmer. He said, quote, the law killed that boy. They killed him, yes sir. That's what he said. - The law. - The law. He also, then Sherry Terry said the boy had his troubles but he didn't do what they said he did and he didn't deserve what he got. I still think about Joey killing himself. I reckon he felt everybody thought he did it but if he could have just held on a couple more days. - A couple more days. - We'll find out why. 'Cause in a couple of days we find out. All we needed was 48 hours to clear the spoy. Oh god damn it. - Everybody by the way, the gossip. These are horrible murders. I just gave you the actual facts but the rumors that spread around town of what happened is crazy. The rumors are everybody tells the daughter, oh I heard your mom was raped, I'm real sorry. She was afraid. - Oh for heaven's sake. - At a hall, one of the local papers reported that both the willesses and the Davises had houses with semi-circular driveways. So soon people were saying in town it took two days for people to start going it's the work of a cult and their semi-circular driveways are literally, that's what they were doing. - Everybody start paving your driveway straight. - Yup, they said the shape of the driveways was some kind of symbol. That's what it was. One of the police chiefs said everyone was buying guns. He said our officers became genuinely concerned about being shot themselves. When you go out at two o'clock in the morning and someone's walking around a house with a gun you don't know if it's a prowler or the homeowner. We finally had to tell our callers to stay inside till we got there. We'll knock and then you come out. Don't fucking do that cause it's dark too. This is a rural, rural area. So the sheriff wrote an article for the paper asking gun buyers to think seriously whether they're actually mentally prepared to take a life. Think about this before you're doing this. - Dude that is such a great point. - I don't think everybody thinks about that. - Yeah, nobody thinks about that. - He said the burglar alarm salesman came from all over the place. And the guy at the hardware store said people came in for locks, dead bolts, all sorts of shit, the bullets they couldn't keep bullets in. I don't know if they thought an army was coming to their house to. You probably only need one or two if someone's coming in to murder you by themselves. - Three, four, but certainly not five thousand. - Yeah, but I guess, you know, whatever. So one guy here said that he knew, this is Jimmy Terry is his name. All these terries. Yeah, he said that he said many people in the community believed that Melton was somehow involved in the Davis deaths because police had questioned him and because of problems he had with the family. But Terry said that after the Davis killings, quote, this is about Joey Jimmy, he got real quiet. He used to be outspoken. Everyone thought he was hiding something. But I don't think he was capable of getting involved in something like that. Who might be? Well, let's talk about someone who could be. - Was it boy Terry? - Philip Lee Engel, I-N-G-L-E. By the way, Wayne and Lee as a middle name, huge red flag for murders. He's born in 1961, so he's 29 at this point in time. He's married and has two little girls. - Really? - Eight years old and one year old. - Uh-huh, brand new. - The Engels are three generations deep in Cherryville. He's a local guy. He's had a tough life. Everybody said his mother and father split up soon after he was born. And that she was only around periodically when he was growing up. And when she was, everybody would wish she was gone 'cause she caused- - You only had dad? - No, dad took off a long time. - So where are the, how are they? - How are they doing this? - Relatives, just getting kicked around. He's got a sister to talk about it. They said that there was a cousin of his that sexually molested him during his childhood. And yeah, he also had psychiatric problems, treated several times in the '80s. He was described by his sister as a tortured child. And when he was, grew into an adult, his nickname around prison whenever he was in jail was Psycho. That's nice. - Great. - In prison, that's your nickname. Those guys consider you nuts. - Yeah, I get it if you work at like, you know, it's an accounting firm and you're the, you know, you're the wild one, a psycho. - Do it on a coffee tossin'. - He's, this is in jail. - Yeah. - He's like, his sister said that he never knew his real father and his mother was a drug addict and would constantly torment her. They said that the family dog got much more affection than the kids. She said that sister said, I can't tell you how many times she went to the hospital for overdoses. He himself here, Philip, tried to hang himself twice from the age of six to nine. - Wow. - How the fuck does a six-year-old try to hang themselves? That's terrifying. - Also, that'd be tough. You're a very light guy. - No shit. Yeah, you'd have to have that shit high. You need a big drop. - Yeah, you got a jump. - I'm impressed though, 'cause a lot of six-year-olds can't tie shoes. This kid's making a noose. - He says tie a noose. - It's pretty impressive stuff here. He also attempted suicide by shooting himself in the abdomen with a rifle as well. Soundin' a lot like Joey Jimmy, right? - He did it, huh? - This is regular and got it. - Yep, and didn't die. He repeatedly tried to crash his car once he became a teenager to kill himself. Another occasion when he was 19, he said he wanted to kill himself. That's when he shot himself in the stomach with a rifle. And then there was another time when he went out in the highway we'll talk about later and tried to get hit by cars. - He's given it his best. - Yep, his sister said, "We both wish we were never born." That's what his sister said. Holy shit, they said her mother, Juanita, would swallow painkillers by the handful and yell at her children and insult them. She said that once when he wasn't old enough to drive for some reason he was driving and he ran over the family dog by accident. - Oh my God, no. - And he felt horrible, but the mother went crazy on him and said, "I wish it was you, I wish it was you who died." Which is, I don't know what I'm more horrified about of any of this, this is horrifying. - We can get another talk, but-- - Fuck, I wish it was you. - I wish it was you. - Wow, he had numerous head injuries as a child, including one when he was bludgeoned with a long stick during a fight, repeatedly bludgeoned with a long stick. And also a neighbor, in addition to their cousin, a neighbor molested both her and him. Not a great life. So she also said he's got some odd religious beliefs, including the idea that demons can possess people all the time and control their actions. - Okay, yeah. - Yeah, he has pleaded guilty to charges of DUI and simple possession of marijuana in the 80s, so low level stuff. But one woman said that he has a big temper when he drinks. She said he came to our house once and tried to pick a fight with my brother for no reason at all, just drunk. So a week or two prior to the Davis murders, the first murders, Fred and Margaret, he had been involved in a huge argument with his grandmother. So there's later on, there'll be psychiatrists who think there's a link between seeing the site of elderly people pissing him off and triggering a psychotic episode 'cause he was mad at his grandmother, but for some reason, could kill his grandmother. - Just the sight of old people just sets me off. - Look at him, old. - Keep that man away from the cracker bear. - Just all old, look at him. Kind of come out and fire his musket off. - What a wild thing to trigger you. - And the other thing is the nearest resident, the resident's the mobile home that's located 150 yards from the Davis' house. He rented it from them in 1987. - Oh boy. - Yeah, Philip did. So he knows them well and lived on their property. They were slant more. - He rented from them. - He rented from them. As of August '91, this is before the Willis' got murdered in September. He was working in a mill doing second shift at the Dora Mill. - What mill is that? - I don't know, I think they do some, probably-- - Is it not the one that Sarah wants? - It's not the same one, different one, different one. But we find out that easy Willis is his third cousin. - For fuck's sake, are you serious? - I think in this town, a lot of people are third, fourth cousins, but just 'cause it's not. - Yeah, probably makes your first cousin. - Yeah, but third cousins with these people, but he didn't know that at the time, by the way. So-- - Really? - Yes, now when everyone was in a panic when he was at working at the plant, the women didn't want to go anywhere alone. So when they would run a wanna ride to work or be walked to their cars, he'd be the guy that would do it, you know, 'cause he's such a good guy. - I'll walk you ladies to the car, make sure nothing happens to you. Say from that psycho out there. - Then he went to a party one night, this is after the murders, and this is after the Davis murder, but before the Willis's murder, and talked to a long haul truck driver friend to his and said, "Man, I killed two people, I beat 'em to death." So he told this guy, and the guy, and then he asked his friend if he needed anyone killed. - Oh, I'm for hire. (laughs) - So the guy was laughing and he pointed at his neighbor's house going, "Yeah, those assholes over there." And so then the Phillips started asking the guy questions about his neighbor. So he said, "Bro, I'm just kidding. "I didn't actually want my neighbors killed." 'Cause he was like, "Oh, yeah, well." That's literally, he was asking them like that. Like, "What's their schedule like?" You know, do they have dogs, like shit like that. I'll run them over if they do. So he said, "I'm just kidding." He said that he wanted, he said, "You know, I didn't want my neighbor armed." And he said, "Also, my neighbor's a real big guy, "and he's heavily armed." So don't go over there, he'll shoot you, man. - Well, he Phillips said this in return, quote, "That doesn't matter. "They'll never see me coming. "All I need is an axe handle." And then the guy said, "Don't worry about it. "Don't worry about it." And Phillips said, "Well, man, I wouldn't be telling you this, "but I know I can trust you." - Yeah, so-- - Apparently not, 'cause I'm giving you his quotes, so-- - Right. (laughs) - Don't trust me too much, I'll tell everybody. - Yep, the friend ended up leaving on a trip to truck. And he said he wasn't thinking twice about that. He said he was just drunk and he thought he was running off at the mouth, trying to act like a tough guy. But then when he returned and found out another couple had been beaten to death in their homes, he went, "I should go to the police here. "This isn't good." - Wow. - So he goes to the police and then they find out that there's a set of palm prints at the Willis's house on their window sill, you know, as you'd boost yourself through a window and they match angles 'cause they have angles from his arrests back in the day. So this, they figure out to cross-reference it with angles because this guy says he heard this guy doing it. So then they check against the prints and they go, "That's our fucking guy, holy shit." - That's the only reason they got him. - Yep, a palm print and this guy's drunk and bullshit. - And a whole loud mouth. - Yep, that's it. So was anyone even looking at angle? Well, he showed up for work that Monday, the Monday after the Willis's were killed, easy in Sarah, with a gash on his face, you know? Like if you got hit in the face of a cane, yeah. He told his friends and coworkers that he slipped while jumping on a trampoline. Those sharp trampoline edges, we all know about those, they really caught you. If he had his arm in a cast, you'd say, "I fell off a trampoline," not, "I've cut on your face." - If he came in with a torn meniscus, that would be a trampoline. - Limping. (laughs) And then they found out that he used to rent the trailer from the Davises as well. They look at his, you know, they said, "All he does, he drinks a little bit." He's had some marijuana charge. He had a breaking and entering charge. That's something that's close, but nothing violent. He kept up steady work. He paid his bills for his wife and his two daughters. So no one really ever looked at, no one was looking at him at all. They would have never thought to match these prints up with him because he couldn't run it through the computer and get a big thing like that back then. So 19, talk a little bit more about Philip here. Two weeks after the Davis murders, he, the first set, he tried to check himself into the state mental hospital. Doctors examined him, told him he should seek treatment for alcoholism and send him home. - Really? - Yeah. So that's a problem here. They said in the system, it's very difficult because basically the substance abuse people and the mental illness people don't diagnose each other crossways very well or treat each other. So if you go to a mental institution and you say, I have, and you have a substance abuse problem, they go, "Oh, you do that." Then if you have a substance abuse problem with mental illness, which a lot of times helps cause and foster substance abuse, then they go, "Well, go get mental illness, to help." So it's tough. They said unfortunately, one of the things that happens in drug and alcohol abuse is that drug and alcohol abuse can mask pathology. So mental illness people don't see it. - They shake each other's hand. - Yeah, and the other thing about Philip Engel, both his mother and grandfather were schizophrenic as well. - Really? - Which is a problem, yeah. So he comes back September 12th here, the guy, the long haul truck driver houses his name. He said that his, Philip came back to his house on September 12th, so a couple days after the easy and Sarah Willis murders, and he had a black eye. And he said that he fell and hit a doorknob. - Oh, he did that old chestnut. - Yeah, he did that. I mean, I fell down the stairs. I mean, his friend didn't believe him and said, "I don't believe you." - Yeah, I think your wife's kicking your ass at home. - Yeah, what's happening here? Ruth Beaten, or not Ruth, her name's Stephanie, I think, Stephanie kicking your ass. You getting beat up by Stephanie again? So she said, then he brought up again, Engel says, "You're still having trouble with that neighbor, I'll take care of him for you." He said, "I'll kill his whole family. - Oh my God. - I'll get a stick, I'll beat them to death." Then he said, "I love to watch people dying in agony, pain, suffering." Okay. - What a weird conversation. - Now, he still hasn't been arrested yet. I'm giving you the background here. They're discovering this all as we speak, okay? - Wow. (upbeat music) - This show, "Small Town Murder" is sponsored by BetterHelp. - BetterHelp.com. - Absolutely, and there can be stress everywhere, everybody. We know it, we all carry all these different stressors, big and small. - Things you can't control. - Yeah, things you can't control. There's stuff going on with your family, like us, we are on the road, we're traveling, stuff goes on at home. These are stressors, you can't, it's hard. It's really difficult out there. And when we keep 'em bottled up, it will start to affect you negatively. - Sure. - Your mental health. - Certainly yourself. - Physical health, it's just not healthy for you. 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Another cool fact, you can get short-term health insurance for a month, or just under a year in some states. UnitedHealthcare's short-term insurance plans are designed for people who are between jobs, coming off their parents' plan, or turning a side hustle into a full-time gig. Underwritten by Golden Rule Insurance Company, they offer flexible budget-friendly coverage with access to a nationwide network of doctors and hospitals. Get more cool facts about UnitedHealthcare's short-term plans at uh1.com. Rakuten's big-give week is back with 15% cashback. It's a festival of savings at hundreds of stores, including Rayban, DermStore, and Verbo. Prep for summer and save on sunglasses, sun protection, vacation rentals, and more. It's one of Rakuten's biggest cashback events, and it's on May 6th through May 13th. Join today for free and get an extra 10% cashback boost. Go to Rakuten.com or download the Rakuten app today. That's R-A-K-U-T-E-N. Shoppers, get it. - Now, September 19th, 1991. Douglas Shank Tips. They call him Shank, that's his nickname, T-I-P-P-S. He's 84, and his wife Elizabeth Tips is 81. Okay, they live about 20 miles outside of Cherryville in a mobile home. They have no telephone or indoor plumbing. Now, Old Shank is a character. He is what they called in this area, what the sheriff called a nightclub entrepreneur. - What is that? - Well, quote, "He had an old house, and he stuck a jukebox in it, and he brewed up a little squeezens to sell out there. A little squeezens. He brewed up some squeezens, Jimmy. Somebody out there, you guys brewing up some squeezens tonight? - He's got a jukebox and homemade hooch. Come on, hooch. - Well, because this, think about it, he was born in 1910, so he's doing this in the '30s in the middle of nowhere in Aurora. - He's brewing up orange slices. - He's making a juke joint, basically. - Yeah, sure is. - And he's got, he said, quote, "It wasn't exactly legal, but it's accepted in this part of the country." That's what the sheriff said. So in their trailer, they had a television, and they had heard all about the murders and gotten terrified this couple, 'cause they fit the exact profile of people who've been murdered. So, so much so, that old tips, old shank tips started sleeping with a loaded rifle by his bed. So one night, on September 19th, he heard a noise and felt a hand on his leg, so he grabbed the rifle and started firing off into the dark, and struck his wife with a bullet and killed her. - Oh my God. - She was coming back from using the shit pot. - Oh, don't worry, baby, it's just me and he shot her? - Shot her to death. - Oh my God. - And then he's alone. He's just horrible. - Just him and his squeezens now. - So him and his squeezens, that's six dead now in this tale, including Joey, Jimmy, and her. - Is that a justified? - Wow, these sheriffs said, shanks a good old feller. And he, that's literally what it says, and I didn't put that in there. Good old apostrophe feller. I didn't say good old feller. Good old feller, and he was extremely remorseful. He had just seen all this stuff on TV. I think he'd seen something that same night and he just got spooked. We used to go over to his place and break up a few fights now and then, but that shank never meant nobody, no harm. I think he meant when it was a juke joint. - Yeah. - He was still living over there in that trailer by himself. The whole thing's just a shame and that's about all there is to it. - Didn't you? (laughing) - What is going on? - Yep, he was terrified. This fucking town went nuts. They went nuts. - So they just go no harm, no foul? He murdered a woman. - But it was in the dark at night and they thought it was an accident. He said he was sitting there. - Like, yeah, like it's gotta live with that. - Sitting there with, yes. Tears coming down his face, his wife's blood all over him going. - I thought she was, I, I saw a thing on the news. - I thought she was gonna kill us all. - He might've just been smart and been like, - Yeah. - I know of an excuse that'll get me out of. - Maybe he didn't like her. - That's what I mean. They were married for, I wanna say like, 68 years or something. He might've just got tired of her after a while. - 68 years of shit. - Yeah, 64 years or something. He just lost it. So they bring in. - Oh, my. - Phillip Lee angle for a questioning session. And according to this, he immediately confesses to everything when they bring him in. - Really? - Not even a second of trying to hide it. - He knows he's fucked, right? - Dave gave a detailed account of what happened at both crime scenes, directed police to the tire iron. He used to kill the willaces, which conveniently was still in his car. So you could just get it right up there. Kept it. He said, they go, why'd you do this? Did you hate the Davises? Did they fuck you over? And he said, no, I like them. They're nice people. - What the fuck? - He said, I rented a trailer from them and they were nice. And he said, also after the willaces died, I learned they were my third cousins. So, you know, I had no beef with them. Yeah, he's, and his aunt, well, this is all going on, his family's like, well, no one would help him when he needed help. So yeah, his aunt said he needed help. He went to Brownton, which is the mental institution two weeks ago and they sent him home. So the Davis murders, yeah. He said, yeah, I used to rent from him, but he said, also the Davises, he lived in the mobile home park across the street from the church they went to. Or that's what the willaces, I'm sorry. That's how he found the willaces. So he said between 6 p.m. and 845, this is what the Davises, the first murders, he was driving around the area of the Davises home, between 6 p.m. and 845 p.m. He knew the Davises from renting the mobile home. He went to the house and drove his car around to the back of the house. He parked his car, he took an axe handle from it and entered the house through the unlocked back door. Walked right in. Mrs. Davis was in the kitchen. He approached her from behind and began to beat her on the head with the axe handle until she fell to the floor. After doing this, he went into the den where Mr. Davis was sitting in his recliner watching TV. Because he was hard of hearing, television was blaring and he had no idea he was even there. He moved to the den, attacked him. He said he beat him over the head with the axe handle. And that was that. He said he then left the house, taking the pocketbook and the floral pattern dress that belonged to her. So that question answered there. He went on, he said to an area about three miles away from the house, threw away the dress and set fire to the pocketbook. He then departed the area. But then he returned to the same area to pick up the pocketbook 'cause he said I should probably get rid of this. Says ID and shit in it. So he then threw the pocketbook and the axe handle into the creek. He led law enforcement officers to the spot where he threw them out, but they said it was, the pocketbook is discovered on the bank of the stream, but the axe handle's never found. It's who knows how far. - It's in the bottom of the water somewhere. - So police searched some fields where he said he dumped an axe handle he allegedly used, but nothing had been found here. They found traces of the Willis's blood in the treads of the tennis shoes he was wearing when they were interviewing him. - Still wearing it. - Still fucking wearing them. He told the police that they'd been his landlords and he's fine. He said he got to know the Davis is very well. So he knew them. He said, if he had any quarrel with the couple, it was nothing he knew about. As we said, don't know. He said, this is what the cops said. Ingle told me he was glad we caught him. He told me, I quote, I would have killed again. - Yeah, I believe that. - Glad you caught me. He said, I'm totally convinced he would have. At one point, he said that he thought they were demons with glowing red eyes also. That was a problem. - The cops? No, the old people. - No, the old people. He killed while he was killing them. 'Cause, you know, beforehand, they were fine. - Yeah. - So also, right after this, he went to a highway one night after killing the Davises and tried to kill himself. That's where he was trying to get people to hit him with a car where people were swerving out of the way. So that episode landed him in a state mental hospital, but they released in the next day, saying his problem was substance abuse and they kicked him out. So if they would have kept him, he obviously wouldn't have killed the other people. So his stepfather, ZF Ingle here, he said that Philip kept to himself and he often suffered blackouts when he drank too much, but he never seemed the violent type. He said, we just don't understand it. I weep for him. So there you go. Now, some of the members of the Ingle family gathered at the home of his grandmother, Maxine Willis, who her husband is EZ Willis's first cousin. - Wow. - Yeah, they're all related in a way. A relative said, we're confused. I'm fucking confused by the family tree, first of all. - That confused by all the lineage around her. - If I'm confused, you gotta be confused here. Yeah, so the farmer, Sebert McGee, who said the law killed that boy about Joey Jimmy, said, quote, they ought to give him a fair trial and then hang him. That's what they said. - Yeah, twice about Joe, Jimmy. - The Davis's friend, Jim Davis, everyone's name is Jim or Joe or something here. - There's a Jim around here. - He said, they're gonna get that boy out of this somehow. They're gonna get him a lawyer and make him out like he's crazy. And it ain't right. He killed four good people. You can't kill him but once. - Okay, now the daughter, Sheila, who found her parents, she says that she's opposed to the death penalty. She said, I used to think the death penalty didn't do any good, but if you had seen your parents the way I saw mine, that's what he said. So Ingle's family has called and said he was suicidal when they locked him up and they say he doesn't know why he did it and he wants my forgiveness, Sheila said. I told him it's not my forgiveness, he needs. So the Davis trials up for six men, six women jury, death penalty on the table. - Hell yeah. - He admits to everything. It's all right there. He's obviously convicted. There's no real trial. - What are we gonna do? - They just go over the evidence and they go over his statements saying, yes, I beat them with an axe handle. It all matches up. - Should we kill him? - Sentencing comes around and the prosecutor said, there's never been a more clear cut case for a death penalty here. - Yeah, this guy's gonna kill more. - He said, if this isn't the case, then there's never been one and there never ought to have been one in the past. He said that his only motive was blood lust and perversions. - Yeah. - That's it. That's just, yeah, that's to put some extra stank on it. He said, Philip Engel authored and wrote his own death warrant. We're simply asking you to affix your signature to the warrant. He wrote with the choices he made and the life he had. Philip Engel should never be allowed to make those choices again. Enough is enough. The defense attorney said, uh, he said, - You heard what that guy said, shit. - That was pretty convincing. I don't know. But let me try. - I say don't affix your name. - All right. - He said, don't. He said, it's not a question of whether Philip will be punished. It's a question of how he's gonna be punished. This man has been punished from the day he was born and then cited all of his things. What child tries to hang themselves when they're six? That's a bad life. It's bad. Psychiatrist testified that he had borderline personality disorder that could have been the result of a psychiatric trauma experience as a child. Testified that the psychotic episode experienced at the time of the murders was a feature one would expect to see associated with what he's got going on here. He said that the defendant told him that he looked in the window at the Davises before entering the house. After doing so, he returned to his car to retrieve an axe handle and they said that that could have been the grandmother thing, could have, whatever. Either way, jury takes three hours in deciding here 'cause the mitigating circumstances are that he confessed and helped them find the person, all that. Also that as a child, he saw his mother try to kill herself on multiple occasions by cutting her wrist, saw his mother overdosed on drugs multiple times and he tried to hang himself as a child and all that kind of thing. And he has daughters that are nine and two at this point. So, and they say, you sir, may fuck off two death sentences. - Two of them. - Having a deuce here, that's two. - Holy. - It's the first death sentence delivered by a Cleveland County jury since 1963. - That's a long time. - It's almost 30, it's 30 years at that point. Tina, his sister, while leaving the courtroom scream, "They're murderers too." Now, at the Willis trial, he pleads insanity. He pleads insanity. Now they're saying he skits a phrenic here. And they show in this, they show one of the things is they show a videotape of the kitchen where they found the victims here, the Willis's. And Sheila, the daughter, said that was the cane my daddy made himself that was on the ground. - Oh, for God's sake. - As she grasped, she had it with her. They let her out. - Oh, damn it. - It's during the trial, so it's evidence. So, but she allowed to touch evidence, I guess, once it's there. She said, "That's when I started screaming "when she saw that." They tried to get the videotape put out of the case, but the judge said, "Well, that's as gruesome "as it looked on the scene, so that's what it is." So the case here, it's obvious they have a ton of evidence. They have the tire iron even in the car. They have a palm print, not looking good here. All they have to depend on is a psychiatrist who says that he has hereditary schizophrenia, said that he goes over the same thing, tried to kill himself, tried to hang himself. He, Engel, talked about demons and Lucifer's army around the time that he was killing people. But they said that he did make numerous references to demons during the interviews as well. Very much into demons. - Really? - Yeah. They said that he often referred to his belief in an army of devils controlling the world, and that he blamed his violent impulses on voices in his head. - Fascinating, fellas. - Yeah, they said these are symptoms of schizophrenia, and they said both his mother and his maternal grandfather had been diagnosed with the same illness, and that his prison nickname is psycho. Come on, that's what they said, literally. They said, "The people that live with you all day long "sometimes are better diagnosticians than anybody." Getting the prisoners. - Yeah, they're pretty good at this. "Prosecution closing said he shouldn't be able "to avoid responsibility for what he's done "by saying I'm sorry and claiming insanity." They said they're seeking the death penalty again, and that's what they want. The defense said, "If the prosecution had been reading "your life, had been reading you the life story "of Philip Engel, he would have only read you "the last two or three pages of the last chapter. "You're gonna have to read the whole book." Said he grew up with the mother with, you know, all the things we told you about. He said Philip Engel was in a psychotic state. He had an obsession with demonology. He did not understand the quality and nature of his actions. He didn't know the difference between right and wrong. Philip Engel's life was a perfect recipe for disaster. He's crying out for help. So that's what they said. They said guilty as fuck is the verdict. I mean, it's obvious he's guilty. It's just whether they say not insane too, just guilty. - Yeah, he knows right and wrong. He told the man I'll kill people for you. - I love watching people pay and suffer in agony. - He knows it's not right. - I'm only telling you because I trust you. - This is one of those things where it's so fucked up. Obviously this guy had no control over the horrible things that happened to him when he was younger, but at the same time, as a society, we also can't have him just walking around. - Yeah, yeah, you're a master of your own being. You have to absorb the consequences of your own behavior. - Whether or not we should kill crazy people is a whole separate argument that we definitely don't have time for because we're wrapping this up. - An entirely fucked life. And I'm not hurting people. That's, yeah, and then you go, "Well, this, who knows?" So they say, "You, sir." They fuck off two more death sentences. - Jesus. - So he's got four. There's the initial appeal that's the law that you have to do, that's factual stuff, that just to see if they didn't railroad you. Then he refused any post-conviction review, and he wanted all his appeals dropped. - Oh, let's do it then. - He told his lawyer that he wanted to help North Carolina with what he was calling their State Assisted Suicide Program. - Oh, great, okay. - His lawyer says that it's a miscarriage of justice. His client believes, belongs in a mental institution, not on death row. It goes all the way to 1995. Now, the two that led to this are the Davis murders. The Willis murders are under mandatory appeals review at this point in time, but he's still up for execution. - Well, figure that was close out later. Let's just execute. Which means, honestly, if they execute him, then those, actually, those convictions would be expunged. - Yeah, he's not guilty for that. - He wouldn't be guilty of those at that point. But I don't think they care if he's dead. - Doesn't matter. - So there's a sort of an appeal to the governor here. A 56-minute videotape is sent to the governor. Engel says that he needed psychiatric help all his life, but he says, basically, he says, what we're asking is, quote, "If possible, "after viewing this tape to consider having me placed "a mental institute lock-up board, "where I can probably get the help "that I've tried to get all my life "and was never able to get." Which he did try several times. If you are not able to have me placed a mental institute for the rest of my life, I do not want to go back out on the street. If you can't put me in a mental institute for the rest of my life, a lock-up board, I asked to be executed. - Okay, great. - He said, "I'm done." So September 22nd, 1995, execution day. That's fast. - They oblige. - Yeah, they oblige. He said, "During the last four weeks, "I felt more loved and more cared for "than I have my whole life," is what he said. He told the ward. - Oh, great. - Not the press. He told the ward and that. That they were nice to him the last few weeks, and that's been great. Wow. 'Cause I would imagine in death row, the people you're gonna kill soon, you're probably nicer to them, just 'cause you kinda feel bad. - Just for like the, and just for a person. If you're not a murderer, that'll be on your conscience. - That's what I mean. Yeah, if you're a half-decent person, you'd probably try to be nice to a guy, even though he's a piece of shit. So he said that, he told, I guess, his attorney said that if he changed his mind, the procedure was in place to get a stay, but he didn't think that'd be happening. By the way, the Supreme Court rejected a petition for a stay anyway, so the lawyer tried to file one. He said he was looking forward to his execution. Oh, his sister filed the last minute request to stop it, and they denied it. So she said that she recounted three generations of her family, including her. They all suffer from schizophrenia. She viewed her brother's choice to drop his appeals as yet another suicide attempt by a man plagued by mental illness, hallucinations, and breaks insanity and reality. And they also say that they've been keeping him calm with Xanax in prison, and he craved Xanax. That's why he wants to keep this going, 'cause he can get Xanax. If he just gets-- - It is good, man. - Until he gets executed. A lot of people have done more than that for Xanax, but I know, so. His last meal comes along. - Okay. - He gets a medium rare steak, baked potato, tossed salad, and butter pecan ice cream. Can't get along with that. - Pretty good choice. - That's a goddamn good last meal. - Goddamn, fuck man, where's your mac and cheese, and you just wrapped it up, babe? - He didn't go crazy, though. He went out like a corporate retreat at the Outback. That's what he got. Everyone can get a steak, a baked potato salad. - Let's get after it. - And here's your desserts that you're allowed to have. That's all. - I'll have the ice cream. - I'll have the butter pecan ice cream. - Good choices. - Good choices, does that cheer? I got a $100 gift certificate to the Outback meal right there. - That man just negated all, I'm insane arguments also, by having a very sane deal. - Same deal, yeah. He should have been like, I want a shoe sole, and some raccoon poop, and-- - I want a Jordan three full of cottage cheese. That's what I want. - That's what I want. I don't want to eat me a shower curtain. - All right, line it up. (laughing) - Bold, full of shower curtain rings, please. - Please, I want it served on top of a toolbox. All right. (laughing) That would have been crazy. - With only 9/16 wrenches in it. - Oh, oh my God. (laughing) Just those though, and filled to the top. - Filled. - He spent his afternoon with his wife, Sandy, and their two daughters. That's nice to bring your nine-year-old to their 10-year-old to death row to see dad. That's terrific. Dad, say goodbye to dad, kids. (laughing) They won't be fucked up or anything. Yeah, they won't be fucked up or anything. - No, never. - We won't be doing a story about them someday. I hope, Jesus Christ. Then they went outside to join the death penalty protesters after they were forced to leave. Speaking of last meals, there's a really weird thing where an inmate who was like a trustee on death row said this was in the 2000s or the early 2000s, late '90s that whenever there was an execution, they had a big staff party beforehand. They said it was a big meal, and they had extra staff on hand, so he said, "I understand that you have to feed them "and you have a big spread," but they also had a big sheet cake. Like, it's not a birthday party. It's very weird to put a cake out there. - Everybody gets a slice? - Yeah. With what do you put on it? (laughing) It's weird. What are you right on that thing? - Yikes. - So that's a good one to put right on it, perfect. - From corner to corner, just yikes. So as you're wheeling him in on the gurney to the execution room, he shouts, quote, "I'm going to heaven!" - Okay. - Then he said, "I'm not shaken," he tells the warden, "I'm not shaking, I've been put to sleep, "and I'm going to be put to sleep, "and the angels are gonna pick me up and take me to heaven." - Okay. - One of the reporters said, "Yeah, he was very chatty right up until the time "he became unconscious," which will happen. - Very talkative. - One of the witnesses said, "He kept talking about being saved." He said, "I'm saved, are you? "I'm doing this for y'all and my family and my children, "talking about the families of the victims that were there." - Oh boy. - He said, "I forgive you and everyone, "and I ask that everyone who I have trespassed against "to forgive me." He said that to the victim's families. Then he said, "Again, I want to say I forgive you all." He said, "Life without parole is worse than the death penalty." And then he said, "I love you, I love you all." And then at 2.14, he was dead. - Feels like he had a lot of thoughts. - He kept saying, and then he had a long written statement he gave the warden to. That was just the shit he was spouting as he was laying there. Just talking, that wasn't whether your last words. He was just, "That's a nervous man." So the reactions here, the sheriff, our detective R.H. Eppley said, "It's important to see justice fulfilled. "You didn't walk into that house. "If people, you didn't walk into that house. "If people who are against the death penalty "saw what happened to, or what happened to, "what happened, or what happened, "if this happened to their family, "their minds would be changed in a split second." He knew the family four or five years and lived in a mobile home they had rented out. He was riding around drinking and smoking pot and said the devil told him to kill an old couple and he came up with the Davises. He made the statement, he was glad he got caught because he made plans, had already made plans for the next victim. But this will deter crime because he won't do it again. Now, the guy outside who's a pastor or a reverend or something, who's the anti-death penalty guy, he said, "There's nothing in the death penalty "that will bring the Davises or the Willis is back." So there you go. We're not gonna solve this argument. Strange thing happened, by the way. Sheila, the Willis's daughter, was at Walmart buying Christmas presents and a woman she recognized but couldn't place came up and hugged her tightly and quote, "She asked me how I'd been "and said she was hurting for me "and said she was hurting too. "She said she couldn't know how I felt "and she said she was praying for me." After she left, she realized it was Philip Ingalls' mother. - We both lost people, oh my God. - In the wrap up here, the Joel Long is a Cherryville native and ordained minister. He works for the National Trucking Concern, the Carolina Freight Carriers there. And he says that when he drives the Cherryville streets, he says he notices little stakes with signs on them out by all the flower beds saying this house is protected by some burglar alarm system company. He said Cherryville is always armored itself against the outside world, but somebody penetrated the armor, pierced the shield. When the invisible force field we put up was broken, another one took its place. So there you go. That's Cherryville, North Carolina. That's crazy shit. That's a wild ass episode. - Unbelievable. - 10 pounds of murder and a two pound bag here. - Jesus. - If you like that, we gotta bust through this quick. If you like that, please, please get on whatever app you're on, give us a review. It helps a lot. Five stars are nice, doesn't matter what you say, just say something good. Also, shut up and give me murder.com. Tickets to live shows, Durham, North Carolina. 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