Murder at the Bike Shop | Ep. 8 – Watch Out for Snakes

That's the music for your order. You're not going to get a job or a job or a job. We're going to talk to a employee of the bike shop named James Long. He was the last one that we know of to see Earl alive.

After Earl of Burn was murdered, James Long never returned to the bike shop.

He and his long-term partner Jimmy Connell ended up leaving Michigan all together. And by chance, moved to a small town in Alabama not far from where Scott's girlfriend Stacey had ended up moving. So Kevin and Jacinda were in Alabama hoping to talk to both of them.

“Stacey is an important figure in this case for obvious reasons.”

But we had started to think James Long might be important too. Detectives had never considered him to be a suspect, but we knew that two of his co-workers had thought from the very beginning that he could have been the one to kill Earl. James had not been interviewed in person in this case since 1988. Police reports from the cold case team noted they struggled to make contact with him at all, but they'd finally spoken to him on the phone. And although he'd testified at Scott's trial, he'd done that over the phone as well from his home in Alabama.

So I was hoping that Kevin and Jacinda were going to be the first investigators to speak to James Long face to face in a very long time. They had let me know they were on their way to his house, so I waited for them to call with an update. I don't think we're going to be able to talk to James Long. Why not? Because he's dead.

Oh no. Yeah. Wearing.

“It seems like as long as five or six years ago.”

That's crazy. He's a liar all day basis. James Long would have been 80 years old at that time. But there was no obituary, no record of death, so I'd allowed myself to hope that he was still alive. Though I knew his long-term partner, Jimmy, had recently died.

Jimmy did have no obituary, and mentioned all his family had died before him, and that quote he never married.

The house where James and Jimmy had lived together was now empty. Yeah, I mean clearly it's some kind of abandon or just nobody's been in it since the other James, Jimmy Connell died five or six months ago. Kevin and Jacinda spoke to several of James and Jimmy's neighbors, hoping to learn anything about them that they could. We knew almost nothing about their lives, but the neighbors hadn't no much either.

“Not even the couple who'd lived next door, and who'd been given James and Jimmy's house.”

And it seems to be that they were deep at the house simply because he had nobody else to leave it to. They didn't even know James Long's name. Did they know they were gay? It, it no. No, they didn't.

It never been confirmed for them.

The other, the other neighbor that said that he'd been described to him that they were friends. But the, the wife of the neighbors that got the house, she said that there'd actually been a domestic dispute. That was pretty much all they knew about James Long. He'd always just kept to himself. They said that James Long, who they never spoken to,

basically he just sat on the porch smoke and cigarettes all the time. He looked there for two decades. Yep. But he didn't talk to his neighbors. Ever.

It's like he's a ghost. At no point did we suggest to them that James Long could be the killer, or that Jimmy could be the killer? I think they had their suspicions. Because the mom was like, my kids were little

James would sit there and watch them play, and it creeped me out. I was really scared. Oh, that's just an old guy sitting on a porch smoke and cigarettes staring at kids.

and a few months too late to speak to his partner, Jimmy.

“Kevin and Jacinda had asked if they could go into the house, look around.”

The neighbors who owned it now told them they were concerned the flooring might fall through. So that was the end of that. They had to leave without getting any real answers. A disappointing result. But the trip was not over yet, because they still had to go back and speak to Stacey.

There were some unanswered questions we still had for her. I am Susan Simpson, and I'm Jacinda Davis. I'm an attorney and investigator. And I'm a true crime TV producer. And this is proof season three, murder at the bike shop.

Proof is a red marble media production and association with Glassbox Media. New episodes are released on Mondays, and on Thursdays you can catch our sidebar episodes, where we talk about the case, talk to guests, and tell you more about what's going on behind the scenes. This is episode eight. Watch out for snakes.

Kevin and I spoke to Stacey twice.

She was the first witness we spoke to when we began investigating Scott's case.

And we went back to speak to her again, months later, surely after Scott had died. Stacey had already heard about it. She'd seen his online obituary. Yeah, I mean, I hate to hear anybody pass away. Honestly, you know, I feel like Scott did what he did. I can't change it.

I just know what he told me. I know what I went through and what I witnessed. That's all I don't, you know.

“Because the only thing I was trying to do was the right thing.”

What I thought I should do. You know, it just, it sucked that his whole life was wasted like that. By the time of our second interview with Stacey, we had been to Kalamazoo, had talked to more witnesses, and gone through many more case files.

There were a lot of inconsistencies in Stacey's story,

but she has always been adamant that she's telling the truth.

When I went to court, you know, they asked about what I was doing, what the derives, they asked about my lifestyle. I never lied to him. I told, I said, fine, you want to know everything here it is. Because the whole thing is, I'm just trying to do the right thing,

and I get slammed left and right. Oh, you did this and you lie on that. And I'm like, well, here I still stand. You know. But even if she is telling some version of the truth,

Stacey's story has changed over time. Like when and where Scott confessed, when she went to the police, what Scott brought in through the window that night,

these crucial details have changed.

It's a pattern we've seen so many of the Kalamazoo cold case witness testimonies,

“timelines shift and important details change,”

always in a way that hurts the defendant. Is that what happened here? After repeated conversations to Stacey's memory, somehow as Detective Workham, I once put it awakened. I don't think I was led in that way.

You know, I was convinced anyway that he did it. They definitely weren't showing me things to say he didn't. But I didn't feel like they were trying to change my or change me. I mean, because I had told him from the beginning, I was sick with the truth.

One of the major inconsistencies in Stacey's story we learned to ask her about was her testimony under oath that Scott Baldwin had not confessed to her until one year after Earl Uburn's murder. I pulled up her transcripts to show her which she had said before. It was a year later.

No, it was not a year later. It was like shortly after. So your polygraph was on June 23rd of '89. That was the polygraph. Oh, that's what they did that day. Yeah, and the murder was June of '88.

No way, I didn't wait a year. I just don't wait a year. It was right after. That doesn't make sense to me. So this is the statement you sent to the cold case.

Right. It was 43, 44 pages. Yes. This 40 plus page statement was written by Stacey at the request of the cold case team in December of 2000.

She started off by writing down all her memories of Scott. And the night she says he came home covered in blood

So around page 17, you stop and you say, "I'm tired. I'll finish this tomorrow." And then you say, "Well, it's later." I talked to the detective on the phone. I told him about writing this last night in this morning

and about the things I remembered. So we know you talked to the detectives halfway through the statement. The statement. Yeah. So this is after you've talked to Rich Madison.

You said, "I realize now that it was almost a year after the man was killed, that Scott actually told me he had done it.

I'm glad I finally got that straight in my mind.

It was really bothering me." See, that sounds like that. Her son was like, "They were manipulating me." Because I knew it wasn't. No, year I was saying it in that paper.

But then I talked to them. And it's like they re-arranged my timeline. So I'm not saying they did. It seems like they might have been able to slowly change things or something or like nudged me in some way.

Because it seemed to me like I was convinced the same way I was now that it was a few days and then they called. And then I was like, "Well, they clarified that. It was a year or later." I don't know if that was something much bad to me.

Or if that was really a year later and time just went by and a blur because it was just crazy through that time. I was sure just like I am now. And then all of a sudden it says I talked to Rich and he clarified all these days.

I do think that the cold case team had a problem with the jury.

“And I think the problem was the following.”

And this is just my speculation. Everyone is saying, "Well, this woman is trying to do the right thing. But why is it that she's waited a year before she's come forward?"

Yeah, and I never knew they thought that.

And so the cold case team had their solution right here. The solution is very tidy. The solution is that he doesn't confess to you until a year later. Yeah, which just isn't true. I could definitely see where that would.

Where they would help them, you know, if they just were trying to get somebody, you know. What you were just saying there, that it feels like there are moments where maybe they were manipulating your timeline. Do you feel that that happened during other times during your discussions with them? I honestly never thought about it until listening to you read that.

How was I not clear, and then suddenly I talked to them, and then I was like, "Oh, that's, you know. I never felt like they pushed me, but maybe I was just so naive. They didn't have to really push me."

“I think we're going to call it a technique called Awakening a Memory.”

Yeah, well, it's a little different, a re-wagging than to plant a memory. That might not be right word. Just by reading that statement, it does feel like that there was some sort of manipulation. But it's not just the timeline of Stacey's story that changes after her conversation with the cold case team. In the first part of the statement, you talk about a bank bag.

In the second part, now you remember the color of the bank bag.

Yeah, it's fascinating, from somebody that's never looked at the possibility that he didn't do it.

But the idea that 13 years later after you talked to the detective, suddenly you remember the color of the bank bag and what's written on it. And honestly, I can't say that they might have totally put it in my head. You know, those are my words. I'm listening to the statement, and now it's like, "Oh, I talked to them, and this is, and now all of a sudden,

you know, and I hear that," and I'm like, "What was I that manipulated and didn't even know it?" It is so easy to end up influencing a witness when you speak to them. It's unavoidable, really. And most of the time, it's not anything intentional. It's not something interviewer is trying to achieve.

It's just how human memory works. Best you can do as an interviewer is to be aware of it and try to minimize it.

“That's why the first time I spoke to Stacey, we hadn't shown her any records or told her anything we knew at the case.”

So we could try and hear her story while influencing her as little as possible. What you've heard from Stacey on this season so far actually comes from two separate interviews we did with her. The first at the very start of our investigation, and the second towards the end, after we'd made several trips to Kalamazoo to speak to witnesses there. And the second time, Kevin and Jacinda spoke to her, they asked her about some of the records in the case.

Like the polygraph she took in 1989, when she'd been asked what kind of person would make up a story like the one she'd told about Scott, and she told them, probably someone who was angry with their boyfriend, or somebody who wanted to reward money.

That and I was a dancer, you know, because the reward had reached a high amount. Well, I couldn't convince them anything else. You told us last time that we met that both your brother-in-law and yourself were given silent observer money as I write. I wasn't given silent observer money. He was. As he told us her brother-in-law, who had called in that silent observer tip, was given reward money for Scott's conviction.

There is no publicly available record of where silent observer funds go, so we don't know if Stacy is right about this. But if he did get reward, then he wasn't the only one. I got money from Rich, and my work from a personally, they said they can't at me like we felt like you deserve it. They paid you after you testified.

Yeah, it was after I never knew anything about it.

Until after everything was over, and I just came and gave me a check, and so we pulled us together and thought you could use it. And I was like, okay. And I did feel like it came from their heart, so I did take it. Do you recall how much it was? I did $5,000.

At trial, prosecutor Stuart Fetton had stressed to the jury that Stacy had no financial incentive to testify the way she did.

“That's why they could believe her. She had no personal interest in the outcome of Scott's trial.”

But Stacy was paid after the trial, so the jury never heard about the $5,000. That wasn't known until 2009 when a private investigator working for Scott's attorney went to talk to Stacy. The PI recorded that conversation. Here's what Stacy said back then. But there's no math confusion, it's like there's nothing else.

You know, there was some reward money.

You probably reward money, I call it work money.

Yeah. But I felt like I deserve what happens. Yeah. I don't want to do what I did, anything. But you know what I'm saying?

If you didn't do it, I wish it was the best one. Yeah. If you did, I wish it was the best one. Maybe the more so.

“The only thing I can't come from silent, I'm very hurt and I thought I wouldn't tell you.”

It came from silent, I'm certain. And so you could be able to figure it out there. But, you know, figuring out this, you know, cash or check and when you are paid would be, you know, kind of helpful. That's like, that's your job to figure it out.

But it's, I don't, I don't feel like it's my job to help you. If I'm trying to say maybe I knew what, why are you even asking about this money? Even that money. And I don't even know what different that would mean. There's reason to think though that a key witness getting paid money in Scott's case

would have made a big difference had the jury known about it. Because we talked to a juror at Scott's trial and asked him what he thought.

But we, the first jury found by chance we get the jury farmen.

Did you hear about Stacy getting the reward? Would that have made a difference if you had known? It was like, yeah, I might have. He actually, not only did he say it.

“He might have. He said it probably would have.”

Yeah, probably would have. That would have changed things. Because the exact wording was like that would give you a reason to lie. He very quickly said it wasn't like he had to think about, he's like, well, no. Yeah, that would have.

So it was really, I had known that could have changed things. He was like, how much did you get five thousand? He kind of nodded, he was like, oh, yeah, that was changed things. What did he say? It wasn't like that.

If the jury had known it's Scott's trial, that Stacy stood to gain five thousand dollars, if Scott was convicted, that might have made a difference back then anyway. It's exactly what Scott was guilty, but he had no doubts. He was like, me and one other guy were hit silly. Of course he's guilty.

No doubt whatsoever. The jury foreman told us that when the jurors began their deliberations, he'd already been certain of Scott's guilt. He saw no reason to doubt Stacy's story. Other jurors had not been quite a certain.

But it hadn't taken long before everyone was convinced of Scott's guilt, the foreman said. You said initially, they were quite a few old, you know, four jurors that weren't buying it, and eventually all came over. The jury foreman told us a few other things too. One of which, in a different case, would have been a bombshell.

It would have had strong potential to overturn Scott's conviction all by itself. Because the jury foreman told us he'd been a bike shop customer decades before, and had seen where Earl and Johnny had kept some of their money. Money that Scott could have easily stolen if he'd been inside. And the jury foreman shared that knowledge with other jurors to convince them of Scott's guilt.

So yeah, anyway, that's a big deal if Scott had enough time for an actual legal claim.

The jurors can't take outside knowledge and bring it to deliberations.

“That's a big no-no, but they just cannot do that.”

But, Judge, you about it. Judge didn't know about the money. He said he told the judge. He said he'd been there as a customer at the time. He maybe didn't tell the judge about the jar of the money.

Under different circumstances, what we'd learned from the jury foreman would have made for a strong post-conviction claim. jurors cannot bring outside knowledge into deliberations.

It violates the constitution's requirement that a defendant be able to confront all the evidence used against them.

And in this case, the evidence the jury foreman had shared with other jurors was factually wrong. It was about money he'd seen when Earl's brother Johnny was still alive.

“But that money was no longer there after Johnny's death.”

What the juror told us he had done could have been enough by itself to overturn Scott's conviction. It could have brought Scott home. But resolving such a claim would have taken many months and more likely years. So yeah, good work just enough. We just found some poor evidence that it's a matter of all. Don't say that. We don't know.

Scott will not live long enough for that. We don't have our own Scott yet. It was in fact too late for this new information to matter at all. The day we interviewed the jury foreman was the day before Scott's release from prison. We had no idea then he'd be dead before the week was over.

We have no idea what to do. We have no idea what to do. We have no idea what to do. Welcome to the I can't sleep podcast with Benjamin Foster. If you're tired of sleepless nights, you'll love the I can't sleep podcast.

I help quiet your mind by reading random articles from across the web to worry to sleep with my student voice. Each episode provides enough interesting content to hold your attention. And then your mind lets you drift off. Find it wherever you get your podcast. That's I can't sleep with Benjamin Foster.

When beloved family patriarch Gary Ferris went missing, his family looked everywhere on their property. Until they came across something horrifying. It's a homicide. Absolutely. The blame game in this family went round and round.

This is bloodesticker, the Ferris wheel. I would don't see how anyone can look at this story and think they were happy. Follow and listen to Bloodesticker, the Ferris wheel on the free Odyssey app or wherever you get your podcast. One of the reasons jurors have been certain of Scott's guilt was because they believe Scott's friend, Lloyd McGruder and his girlfriend Melissa Missie Jarsma corroborated Stacey's story.

According to Stacey, they too had seen Scott painting his Jeep while he was burning his bloody clothes and tossing around a bloody stick. So while we were in Kalamazoo, we'd wanted to speak to Lloyd and Missie for ourselves. We wanted to know what had they actually seen that day over at Scott's house. What we'd learned from them is one of the reasons we knew we needed to speak to Stacey again, and to hear what she would have to say about it.

So, we just spoke to Lloyd McGruder. He didn't want to record but he talked to us for a while and it's all a question. He seemed like a nice guy. Maybe he didn't fight us on the deck for a beer.

Yeah, he basically is a guy who once saw his friend spray paint his truck.

And for the next almost 40 years has ran with people to his door and asked him about it. I know we were not the first. He's like, I just thought this would go away.

“He's like, why want to go away? Why is this so important?”

Lloyd didn't want to record his interview with us. But he has talked to other investigators in the past. And some of those interviews were recorded. It's November 3rd, 2009. I'm going to see Lloyd McRuder. Oh God, why is this key calling me?

17 years ago, an investigator for Scott's Defense talked to Lloyd McGruder.

You know, I saw spray paint his Jeep black or gold marms.

“He seemed like he was acting weird, aside from just spray paint his Jeep.”

He didn't. He didn't. He seemed like another day, he meant what's up. Yeah. Like, he even told the prosecutor it wasn't unusual for Scott to do things like that. Nice guy. He'd do anything for you.

But he was just a doctor. I mean, he'd like us to do off the wall things at times. And I know Scott's soul, he didn't admit it in court today. He didn't from time. I know it, he knew it, but as far as I'm a person, he would. Lloyd told the investigator that to him, Scott painting his Jeep black with gold rims,

hadn't seemed like evidence of anything. That was just the kind of thing Scott did. And nothing else had seemed unusual to him. Lloyd did not see anybody close or a burn barrel or a bloody stick,

“or any of the things that Stacy describes.”

In fact, he didn't see a Stacy either. Stacy was nowhere to be found when I saw him painting his Jeep. She was nowhere to be found. It was Scott and I. It's not just Stacy who wasn't there when Scott was painting his Jeep, Lloyd said his girlfriend, Missy, also wasn't there.

I never saw him in his clothes. I never saw anything except the Jeep being painted.

Which according to Stacy's testimony, very vividly gone over carefully with the detectives, all happened the same day. A trial when Lloyd testified, he'd seen Scott spray painting his Jeep that it seemed to corroborate Stacy's testimony. Because no one thought to ask Lloyd the next logical question.

Which is, were Stacy and Missy there, too? Because of Lloyd had been asked that. What the jury would have heard was, no, they weren't. Lloyd did not see them or any other thing Stacy testified about. I went over there on my own because in my girlfriend, I mean, she worked everywhere.

Well, went school. Went over there, saw Missy spray painting his Jeep. If Scott's in this and definitely doesn't need me in there, you don't. I mean, obviously. If he's guilty, he needs to. And that was the hardest thing I had to do in my life.

Go up there and testified and court on the murder trial of somebody I hung out with for years. Who I grew close to you. At trial, Stacy testified that both Lloyd and Missy came over together that day. Missy had even come inside to talk to her before they both gone out again to hang out with Scott and Lloyd. While all four of them were there, Stacy said, Scott had begun burning his bloody clothes in the burn barrel.

Missy jars my testified at Scott's trial, too. She said she'd been over at Scott's house on the day painted his Jeep, and that she had seen remnants of burn clothes in a burn barrel. And a stick with a red substance on it that looked like blood. So who's right here? Lloyd or Missy? Scott's defense investigators had tried to figure this out.

They talked to Missy as well back in 2009. And I don't know how much you know about her current situation, but apparently she has no memory. Really? Yeah, she's had a couple brain aneurysms. Oh my God. This is what Missy told us, too, when we tried to speak to her.

She'd sent an email saying, "I am unable to help on this. I have cognitive issues due to two strokes on a brain aneurysm. My memory has been affected the most, best of luck." I'm going out about it. I'm unfaithful with Missy's brother.

And I never heard of anything of her having an aneurysm or anything like that.

“Do you remember Lloyd, my gruder? Yes, I know I remember Lloyd.”

When Kevin and just send us both to Stacey for the second time, they told her about what Lloyd had said, both to us and to the earlier defense investigators. My understanding is that it was Lloyd and Missy. Missy, he came over that day. Because I called Missy and I asked her to come over because that was freaking out.

But what Scott was doing, I didn't know her. I told her, I said, he's done something bad. I don't know what it is. When we talked to Lloyd, he remembered being over at Scott's mom's house and Scott was spray painting the cheap black. But he says, "I know it was just me there that day."

Missy wasn't there, Stacey wasn't there. No, we were. I was in the basement. He wouldn't let me come up. But now that's possible, Lloyd didn't see me. And I'm trying to think because I didn't go up maybe.

I could have just thought Missy was with him because I was talking to her that day.

“I don't know because like I said, I was afraid to come up.”

And so I don't know if he was after Lloyd left when he was burning that stuff or what time you know when he was had the burn barrel and he was stolen, sticking all that in there. I can't, I don't know. It was sometimes that day that morning. Happy talking Missy because I wondered if she said she was there.

I knew he wasn't letting me out of the basement. We were unable to speak to Missy and she sent a statement that said that she had suffered a stroke and no longer had any memory of any of the events. Oh wow, bless her, even to this day. I guess some people just choose to.

They don't want to deal with it. Well we appreciate you doing it. Well I want to know after all this time because of everything. It's definitely gotten to go and dying. What is going on?

Is it possible?

“Because this is stuff that like I said, they have never, I've never really seen this.”

And if he didn't do it, I'll help they find who did. Even if it's too late or if that person's past. But you know, it's hard to feel bad about knowing you did your best. Like I know what I did. When we spoke to Cole Case Detective Rich Madison,

he told us that before Stacy testified at Scott's trial, the reward money had never been discussed.

There was never any talk about money. Reboard money or anything else, never from us. Never mentioned it, never suggested. But yes, Detective Madison said, they had given Stacy a reward. Mike and I wanted to do something for her.

She lived under not a good circumstance in that trailer. And so when it was all done, we contacted... Take the call. Is that what it was? Yeah, it was.

But that's when we approached someone. I was over, she was home.

“And we said, "Hey, you know, maybe we should do something."”

And that's when that happened, I mean, never, never, never was mentioned.

I don't agree with all the investigative methods that Detective Madison used. On the cold cases, I don't agree with many of his conclusions. But as far as I can tell, he's never bullshit me about anything. He's never lied to me about something that happened in an investigation. And when we talked to him about Scott Baldwin's case,

we definitely wanted to ask him up the reward money, but we didn't have to. He brought it up himself. He defended their decision to give Stacy the money. He was adamant that there was no quit pro quo with her, that she was not expecting to receive the funds. And I believe him, actually.

But at the same time, I also believe this is something the jury should have known. Stacy's knowledge of the reward money and her intentions are a credibility determination for the jury to have made. She never asked for it. Nope. Nope.

[MUSIC] Whether or not Stacy knew an advance about the reward money, what was going on with Silent Observer and the reward money is a huge problem in general. Silent Observer is on paper anyway, a civilian organization. Private nonprofit that collects and passes information on to law enforcement agencies

and provides reward money to tipsters. In practice, though, there is little daylight between Silent Observer and law enforcement. After all, the president of Silent Observer was the Kalamazoo share of secretary. And there are other cases where it's been suggested that detective Mike Workimo had the ability to use Silent Observer as a sort of discretionary slush fund to assist in investigations.

Richard Vendaville says he was one of the beneficiaries of Workimo's payouts from Silent Observer. He talked about it at a sentencing hearing 2003 after he was convicted of committing a home invasion by breaking into a garage and stealing a purse. Here's Kevin reading from the transcript. [MUSIC]

Your honor, I would just like to say some things I might be half. The reason for area cold case crimes being solved and without that, my knowledge and help, these crimes would not have been solved. I can prove that the clues and information that I have to give to these Kalamazoo area cold case homicides with the reasons they were being solved.

There are a few issues, though.

Cold case detective Mike Workimo took me to various murder scenes and gave me information.

“I met secretly with cold case detective Mike Workimo.”

He gave me information of crimes that no one knew but police investigators and the killers. Actually, I had turned some information into Silent Observer. Workimo kind of told me by what information I turned into. How the reward would sum in a case and all of that. [MUSIC]

This is a startling claim. What Richard Vendivell told the court at this sentencing hearing, was that cold case detective Mike Workimo had given him confidential information about cold case murders. So that Vendivell could call in anonymous tips that would point investigations in a certain direction. In exchange, Workimo would pay Vendivell with reward money from Silent Observer.

If what Vendivell said was true, then in his roles in informant, he wasn't even really providing the cold case team with new information.

He was just parroting the information Workimo had given him.

Vendivell was claiming that Workimo was essentially paying him to plant leads in the case. And because Silent Observer is anonymous, there'd be no way for anyone to trace what was going on.

“Vendivell said all of this back in 2003, in court and under oath.”

But there's no indication that anyone ever looked into it further. [MUSIC] How did Workimo Vendivell connect? Workimo knew his sister who can't take her name right now. Ronda.

Ronda. But her Workimo starts talking to Vendivell and gets info. About cold cases. Getting kids giving good info. [MUSIC]

Where's this going? What's going to go? [LAUGH] Just curious actually what? Vendivell seems to have been involved in several of the cold cases giving info, and I don't trust the info he was giving.

[BLANK_AUDIO]

“Richard Vendivell wasn't just a cold case informant either.”

In May of 2002, he became a cold case suspect. So he's, you know, apparently allegedly may be involved in this triple homicide. He was the polimen case that's for your people. So after the polimen murders, before he gets officially implicated, he's talking to Mike Workimo about several cold cases and giving him info.

That's right. Like for quirky lard? I'd tell you what I went quirky lard. Quirky lard is along with Jeff Titus. One of the two cold case defendants that detective medicine believes were actually innocent.

In March of 2003, Quirky pled guilty to killing his former brother-in-law. [MUSIC] All the gold. Yep. And just a little mouse of a guy.

[MUSIC] Wally Gould worked third shift at a factory. And one day after the shift was over, he spent the morning hanging out with some co-workers. They were all drinking.

Wally drink quite a lot. He ended up giving his co-worker Tim Kissinger a ride home. Kissinger's wife saw him walk up alone to their home a little after noon that day. And Kissinger said Wally had just dropped him off, then done a quick return in driven away.

Wally was never seen again.

Anyway, he gets dead. It's found in the cemetery, not only schoolcraft, but the guy that actually found him. You know, his wife, he were out on a Sunday bike ride. And they went in, made the loop in the graveyard, and we'll saw the body over there. So he goes over and there is his sundress,

a little girl's sundress wrapped around the head, but Wally unwrapped the dress. She just part of his head is gone. And it's not there. So obviously he got dumped, it'll. See what goes on, unresolved.

Until Bendaville comes forward. Until Bendaville. As far as I understand, Bendaville's the one who. [MUSIC] How did I help it start?

So the report I seen from Mike work I'm on, is that Bendaville came to him and said "Corkylar confessed to me." Okay. Good be. Several of cold-case detective Mike work him as reports.

Describe how it was Richard Bendaville, who cracked the cold-case wide open for him. By telling him that Wally goes brother-in-law, "Corkylard" had confessed to him that he had committed the murder.

And how would "Corky" even get involved?

Like how does "Corky" even get him? He and Wally. He was next brother-in-law. But like how would he intercept him in the story? Like there's no room for "Corky" to swoop in there.

He's an out-of-know-feasward. Uh, SO tips or silence over tips. But people were saying, "That "Corky" used to go up to the cemetery where the body was and drank and get drunk and cry.

That was a bit of information. The official story, the one Madison remembered, and that was reported in newspapers, is that the cold-case murder of Wally, Gould, was solved by a tip to silent observer in August of 2001.

Initially, investigators had believed that Wally, Gould, was killed somewhere else and later dumped in the cemetery.

“That's why part of his head was missing.”

But the cold-case teams' theory was that after dropping off Kissinger at noon, Wally had gone to drink in the cemetery with "Corky". They'd had a fight and "Corky" had killed him. In September of 2002, eight years after Wally's murder, "Corky" lard was arrested.

"Corky" story was that on that day, he wouldn't have been working for, it was a kelmosu catering and vending. And, uh, you know, the whole thing could have been resolved

if they had had the time cards, because Lance Handlobe and Wally went over there and said, "Hey, do you keep your time cards?" And, uh, they thought they had them, but they had clean something on the story. It would have cleared "Corky" in our beat.

Too late? What have cleared? Yeah, it was gone. Madison told us that when cold-case detectives were driving "Corky" to the Kalamazoo jail, he'd made a curious comment. He said to him, "After I get something,

there's something I want to tell you." Or does that mean?

“He said, "Okay." So, we talked about that,”

and they kind of thought he was going to say, "Yeah, I did it. You know." Facing a life sentence for murder, and a cold-case team that talented its perfect conviction record, "Corky made the decision to plead guilty to manslaughter

instead of going to trial." After he was sentenced to seven years, the cold-case team went back to speak to him again to find out what he'd wanted to tell them. They had to bring it up to him.

Say, "Corky, there's something he wanted to tell us." There's something he wanted to tell us, kind of with him. And he goes, "Yeah." He says, "I didn't do this. It don't ever stop looking for the person that did it,

but it wasn't me." But, the guy who's dead now, too. Kim Kissinger? Kim Kissinger? How was he cleared? I've been wondering that.

He wasn't. How was he cleared? He wasn't.

“Then why is he not the one to the charge?”

Because then the bill told, "We're coming out of that. It was "Corky, there's that way." Yeah, look at it, started it the other way. But, Kim Kissinger, like, he's violent murderer. Oh, I'm serious.

He says, "Wally, drove home, but while he didn't get home." Timothy Kissinger was Wellie Gold's coworker, and the last known person to see him alive. And he was also a suspected serial killer. He was the prime suspect in several cold case homicides,

including the murder of Wellie Gold, but he primarily targeted elderly victims, breaking into their homes and beating them viciously. In case you're wondering, yes, this does sound a lot like the Holdman murders

in the bike shop murder, but no Kissinger could not have committed those crimes. He was in prison with both happened. It certainly seems plausible, though, that he could have killed Wellie Gold.

He drove him home, he didn't get home.

I never understood what happened to make Tim Kissinger,

they're obviously a suspect, not the suspect. Yeah, and Kissinger said they went to, supposed to meet somebody at a gun range, shoot some trapping ski, and they didn't show up,

so he just had Wellie take home. The damn car was found about 300 yards. If that from Kissinger's trailer, where he lived. Right, okay, thank you.

That's a clue. Last guy seemed with him. He was right there. Four is next to his house. No one sees Wellie after he's with Kissinger.

Kissinger's history after this, although not that invisible evidence, it's a pretty good indication of coming out of his.

Kissinger was never charged for Gold's murder.

but he said then that he'd been cleared as a suspect

in the Wally Gould case after he passed a polygraph. So instead, when the cold case team reopened the investigation, they got a conviction against Corky Lord. It all began with a tip someone called in to Silent Observer. Do you know who called those tips in?

I don't know, I don't know if I did.

“You know who got paid Silent Observer money for the kids?”

I don't. What you'd been toville? Does that surprise you? No. No it doesn't.

What surprise you, he may have gotten paid in other cases too? No, I know he did. Which ones? Pull him in. He got paid in the Pull him in, guys.

He got. I'm going to go. I can't. I guess I can't say that for sure. There's no way to track Silent Observer money,

so there's no way to confirm for sure that Vendival receives Silent Observer funds for the Wally Gould case or any of the other cases. But over the years, Vendival has claimed that work I'm a paid the Silent Observer money to him.

And in the Pulled him in case, where a reward of $20,000 was being offered, we know several witnesses told detectives back in 2002 that Vendival told them he'd had a plan to get that money for himself. If Madison is right, then the plan worked.

Which wouldn't mean that the reward money and the Pulled him in murders ultimately went to the man that many investigators believed was the prime suspect. By design, what Silent Observer does is kept secret.

Which is why Cookie Lard never knew who it was

that it first accused him of killing Wally Gould. He never knew it was Vendival. Vendival, they got the case against him started. When I told him, he was like, "Fucking rich Vendival?"

Like, I knew that guy kind of. The offense never knew. That's what the case had started with. So, why did Vendival accuse Cookie Lard of killing Wally Gould? We may never know for sure.

But when we spoke to Virginia Bice, rich Vendival sister, she told us that over the years her brother had mentioned that a couple of things to her about his roles and informant.

“The only thing I know is he told me that he told them about”

that case, Seren Fulton, that's the only case I know about. Rich said that he gave and they didn't follow through. His story is they tried to get him to claim that Titus confessed to him. Oh, wait a second.

Do as another one on a graveyard. That's Cookie Lard. What do you tell you? Rich said that guy wasn't guilty. He said, "Corky wasn't guilty."

He thinks so. That would make sense. I'm pretty sure he did. He said he did tell work on my dad guy. It was not guilty.

And work on my didn't believe him. He helped work about rest in there. Ah! Oh, figure. The trip to Alabama had been a partial success.

We've gotten to hear from Stacey, but we were still disappointed

that we would never be able to speak to James Long.

On their way back to the airport, Kevin and just send a call to give me an update and what Stacey had said. Did the brother look okay too, though? That's what she said.

Yeah. Let me call you back because this is an Alabama number. Okay. The call was from James Long's neighbor. What she told them made Kevin Jacinda turn around

and head back. Yeah, we're on our way back to James Long's house where the neighbors have backed up some stuff for us. It sounds like they don't go in there a lot. And the house is dangerous.

According to the wife, her husband said there were two rooms and one was James and one was Jimmy's. James being James Long. So he went in there and there was a closet.

And so he went ahead and opened the closet and just grabbed stuff that was in there.

“So instead of, I think she said it like a jacket and a hat,”

maybe a comb, maybe a toothbrush, and that he'd used gloves and bagged it up. I mean, forensically, it actually be enough. It's like a deal, but enough. And legally, I'm hoping it's enough, too.

I was being generous here. Not ideal is an understatement. Forensically, this is kind of iffy as a method of evidence collection. But it was also probably the only chance anyone would ever have to potentially maybe get a sample of James Long's DNA.

And kind of iffy chance is better than no chance at all.

I'll practice this by saying that when we were out there

“just yesterday, a huge snake went under the collar.”

So, chop, chop. They're better not be a snake in that bag. And also, the rats' snake don't hurt it. She thinks for your concern. Okay, here's the driveway.

Yeah. So, they were going to leave it on the porch for us. Watch out for snakes. Yeah, watch out for snakes. I see a bag on the porch.

So, there's a plastic bag. A garage bag full of stuff. Yeah. Operation bag pickup complete. Kevin and Jacinda bought a suitcase.

Put the bag of maybe James Long's belongings inside and flew it back home with them. We would have preferred the chance to speak to James Long for ourselves. To ask him questions about the bike shop murder

that he should have been asked long ago, but never was.

Maybe it's still possible though for him to give us some answers from beyond the grave. Because in theory, James Long's DNA probably is inside that plastic bag inside the suitcase. And maybe his partner Jimmy Connells is too.

The neighbors had never known James Long at all, but they had known his partner Jimmy a little. After James died, they had helped Jimmy out sometimes as neighbors as he grew older and could do less for himself.

“That's why he had deeded them the house.”

If Scott Baldwin was still alive, I'm not sure if anything could be done with this back of the longings. It's not the sort of DNA testing you typically see being used in a corpus eating for good reason. But Scott is dead.

This is never going to court.

And maybe there are no answers inside that plastic bag, but maybe there are. Maybe there's a lab out there that would agree to test it to find out. And because what if the DNA inside that plastic bag matches the DNA found underneath Earl of Burns fingernails?

We don't know if any answers are inside that bag. So for now, we have to keep looking for answers in other places. In the next time we went to Kalamazoo, it wasn't just for Scott's case that we were hoping to find answers.

“We were hoping to find them in the Holderman case too.”

Next time on proof. He was there. He admitted that he had written out there on a dirt bike and watched from a distance and had turned them on to it. I would die if the people would believe me if they understand

to take an innocent person, anybody in the whole entire world I would give my life to them to live in my shoes for 10 minutes inside here knowing what I know about my innocence. You know, just so we can see this seal, the hand you need, I've given my life to prove my innocence.

We're on. This is Lieutenant Workmore. You talk for Saudi-Wish Madison. This January 12th of 2007, 1040 in a morning who were about to make contact with Brandy Miller,

regarding the Holderman homicide. [ Music ] You've been listening to proof, a podcast by Red Marwill Media, in association with Glassbox Media. We'll be back next week with episode nine.

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