0:00

Murder Holmes is a production of iHeart Podcasts.

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There are many sounds a human being might hear

0:07

in the last minute of their life as a murderer

0:09

closes in the sound

0:11

of unfamiliar tires on a gravel driveway,

0:16

the hurried sound of footsteps and the dry

0:18

leaves around your home, the

0:22

creak of your bedroom door opening while

0:24

you sleep, the

0:26

sound of a pistol being cocked and

0:29

placed against your head. Or this

0:31

this too, This

0:34

is what's Seventy seven year old Carl Halsey,

0:37

a retired poetry worker, heard as he stepped

0:39

out of his trailer in Canton, Georgia, one

0:41

bright morning in the late spring of nineteen

0:43

ninety one, and he was familiar with

0:45

the billy goat that was staring at him with a

0:48

penetrating sky blue eyes and

0:50

tan curling horns. His name

0:52

was Snowball, and Carl Haolsey owned

0:55

him and beat him regularly

0:57

with a stick across his horns, mostly

0:59

in an attempt to turn him into a creature that would

1:01

chase other critters off his property. And

1:04

on this particular morning, before Karl

1:06

had even begun his daily rounds of the farm

1:08

and the deep woods off Rampley trail. Snowball,

1:12

as far as he was concerned, was provoking

1:14

him again. He picked up a stick,

1:17

the same stick and smacked it hard

1:19

on his horns.

1:19

Again.

1:23

This is murder, Holmes. I'm Matt Morinovitch.

1:33

If there was one thing Karl was famous for,

1:35

it was his work ethic. He was a dogged

1:37

worker, and after he had retired from the poultry

1:39

plant, he still made coffee at dawn

1:42

while his wife slept, and then he went about

1:44

the upkeep of his land the way all

1:46

retired men find something to do. But

1:48

if there was one thing Karl Halsey detested, it

1:50

was a freeloader. And as far as he

1:52

was concerned, Snowball, his

1:54

billy goat, wasn't earning his keep. Since

1:57

Karl couldn't afford to own a guard dog on his

1:59

poultry life savings, he had made

2:01

a fatal mistake, taking a

2:03

shortcut that would come back to haunt him. He

2:06

had tried to turn Snowball into a watchcoat.

2:09

Despite his charming name, the billy goat

2:11

had horns, so there wasn't any reason he

2:13

couldn't be taught to scare off any critter or a human

2:15

who encroached on the property, and after

2:17

munching Carl's grass day and night, the

2:20

goat now tipped the scales at around

2:22

one hundred and ten pounds. Late

2:24

at night, when Carl sipped cheap

2:27

whiskey and stared up with the stained ceiling of their

2:29

trailer, his wife listened to him griping

2:31

about that deadbeat goat. She gently

2:33

suggested that they just slaughter the ungrateful

2:35

creature and freeze the meat. Carl seemed

2:37

to consider this for a second before switching

2:40

the lamp off and turning in for

2:42

the night. As

2:44

far as Carl was concerned, if it was a battle

2:46

of wills, the goat was going to be in for a long

2:48

year. He turned the stubborn, docile

2:51

animal into a watchgoat if he had to whack

2:53

his horns with a stick every day. And

2:57

this morning, like any morning, Snowball

2:59

just stood there with his cloven hoofs

3:02

and his alarmingly blue eyes and pinkish

3:04

lips, his mouth moving sideways

3:06

as he masticated a last clump of grass.

3:09

Son of a bitch, Carl Halsey said,

3:12

or something to that effect. Because

3:14

there's no recording of this particular encounter,

3:16

no fishy ring camera capture the

3:18

whole event. It's nineteen ninety

3:21

one, George H. W.

3:23

Bush is in office, Nirvana has a hit

3:25

single titled Smells Like Teen Spirit,

3:27

and people still pick up on wieldy things

3:30

called telephone receivers when they want to make a

3:32

call. But you want to know what happened

3:34

next, I've dug deep

3:36

and these are, according to most people, the

3:38

facts. Snowball

3:41

is in despite his name, a more dominant

3:43

mood this late spring day. Maybe

3:45

it's the months of abuse. But

3:47

as soon as Karl picks up the usual stick

3:49

and marches toward him, the goat

3:51

is filled with fury. As Carl

3:54

raises the stick to strike him, Snowball

3:56

lowers his head. The sound the goat

3:58

makes this time is bah more

4:01

bad. Carl

4:03

thought about striking Snowball again, and

4:05

then, like most bullies, when confronted, figured

4:08

he'd give it a rest. He tossed the stick

4:10

away, but glared at the goat anyway, just

4:12

to let him know his boss. Snowball

4:15

lowered his head even more and a lurked toward

4:17

Carl just enough to

4:19

nick the pant leg of his overalls. Carl

4:23

didn't like it one bit, ever, since he'd own

4:25

Snowball. The one thing that could be kind of on

4:27

was that there was at least one creature on earth

4:30

who feared him, one living thing that

4:32

depended on him and would be taught to respect

4:34

him. But now Snowball jumped forward

4:36

again, his head dipping even lower. Carl

4:39

was on the move, now glancing behind him as he

4:41

danced up to make shure wooden porch that led

4:43

to the door of his trailer. Snowball

4:45

was right behind him, his hoofs sharply echoing

4:48

off the wooden boards. His head bowed again.

4:51

Every tendon in his carpeted back, flexing

4:53

as a ram Karl from behind, sitting

4:56

and flying into the screen door. Probably

5:00

an encyclopedia Carl could have read in his

5:02

spare time about what moves not to make

5:04

with certain animals, but with goats

5:07

you don't turn your back, especially after months

5:09

of abusing them. We talked to animal behavior

5:11

psychiatrists and pet trainer Amanda

5:13

Frey to try to understand what might have

5:15

been going on through Snowball's head at that moment

5:18

and why Carl Hall had put himself at risk.

5:21

I guess my first question is if I had

5:23

a goat and I wanted him to be

5:25

aggressive and kind of like watch my

5:28

property, like say, dog wood. Is

5:30

that even the remotest

5:32

possibility with a goat.

5:34

Well, the first thing that we have

5:36

to kind of look into is goats

5:39

are innately semi aggressive,

5:41

particularly when they are isolated

5:44

from other goats. And I couldn't find

5:47

whether or not he had other goats. I'm assuming

5:49

he didn't, just because it seemed like probably

5:52

that wasn't the situation. Yes,

5:55

when they're not around other goats,

5:57

their quartersol levels are actually increased,

6:01

so that means that they have

6:03

a lot more emotional stress,

6:06

which oftentimes leads to further

6:08

aggression. Okay, I mean I think

6:10

it would be possible in

6:13

a way, But at the same time,

6:15

I think in that situation, the

6:17

goat would just be aggressive in general.

6:19

On the day of the murderer Snowball,

6:23

we don't know if he's been beaten again. I'm

6:25

assuming something must have triggered Snowball

6:28

to follow Karl Hilsey up the

6:30

steps of his

6:33

house, up up to the porch.

6:35

Well, I mean, if this man was beating

6:37

him on the regular, he

6:40

was constantly in conflict with this goat,

6:43

which once again in their social settings.

6:46

When goats are constantly at conflict,

6:49

one of their natural reactions to that is

6:51

rearing up, lowering their head, and

6:53

then striking the threat, even if it is conspecific,

6:57

meaning one of their social partners.

7:00

So I don't think it's surprising

7:02

that that happened.

7:05

That's interesting that Laura in the head. I know nothing

7:07

about goats, so except that I think they're cute

7:09

and they don't have premeditation.

7:12

Right, It's not like Carl's coming out of the house and

7:14

I this is the day I'm going to get him.

7:16

No, I mean not in the way that we're thinking

7:18

about it. He would have a history

7:21

of behavior with this man, so

7:23

it is possible that he was like today, I

7:26

feel like a little bit of a bigger goat

7:28

than this guy, essentially, and

7:31

he decided that he was going to show

7:34

him his social status, just like Carl

7:36

had been showing him his in the past,

7:39

and see who the winner is.

7:41

But like a goat wouldn't stand up and start trying to paw

7:44

at me with its cloves or like turn

7:46

around and buck me like that. The way it's going to attack

7:48

is whether it's horns, head lower.

7:50

Yeah.

7:51

Yeah, they tend to face what they see as their

7:53

attacker or the threat.

7:54

Would there be anything about attacking a human

7:57

from behind, that's a little bit of a cheap shot.

7:59

I have a feeling he was like maybe testing to

8:01

see what would happen if he would turn around and

8:03

he would fight him. M hm, because

8:05

that was the history of this human's behavior

8:08

in his eyes, and.

8:09

Then he and then he turned around, and then then he

8:11

lowered his head.

8:12

Then it's a fight.

8:14

But that's just a split second. Snowball's

8:17

eyes as blue as the clear, cloudless

8:19

day that Carl Halsey is never going

8:21

to live to see. The rest of seemed

8:23

to turn even icier, and as the

8:25

goat slowly lowered his head even more to

8:27

make sure that the needle sharp ends of his

8:29

horns had maximum impact, Carl

8:32

yelled out his name one more time. It

8:34

only gets halfway through it before the goat lurched

8:37

forward and sunk his horns into Carl's abdominal

8:39

cavity, setting him hurtling off the

8:41

porch. He landed on

8:43

the ground with a bone breaking thud, the

8:46

blood from his punctured stomach leaking out

8:48

slowly, his wife showing

8:50

away the spent goat and carrying out

8:52

rag after rack to try to stem the bleeding.

8:56

The scene must have been a little surreal, Carl

8:58

groaning and cradling the stema as his wife

9:00

tended him with the bloody rags, and

9:03

Snowball flicking his tail again and munching

9:05

grass just a few yards away. At

9:08

least human killers usually have the good grace

9:10

to leave after they disembowed you. Snowball

9:14

had forgotten all about Carl Halsey even

9:16

before the hearse arrived, carting his torture

9:18

away for the last time. And then

9:20

animal controls showed up, expecting a raging

9:23

billygoat, but he was captured

9:25

without much of a fight and led into a

9:27

van, and that would have been the

9:29

end of the story and Snowball, because

9:31

Cherokee County Animal Control was going to euthanize

9:33

the goat after all. An embalmbed Carl

9:36

Halsey was now lying in a coffin in Norman

9:38

Susserby's funeral home, but

9:40

local reporters had gun winned the murder

9:42

and the story went national for a few weeks.

9:45

The kind of local news anchors find it difficult

9:47

not to chuckle about before moving on to harder

9:50

stuff. But animal

9:52

rights advocates also got wind of the story,

9:54

and soon Cherokee County Animal Control

9:56

was being flooded with calls and death

9:59

threats. Authorities

10:01

finally relented and release Snowball to

10:03

the Noah's Ark Animals Sanctuary in

10:05

northern Georgia. Snowball was

10:07

sedated, placed on a metal table,

10:10

and castrated, and then

10:12

he was dehorned. He was renamed

10:14

snow I asked the man that what you thought

10:16

about this? They changed

10:19

Snowball's name to snow and

10:21

they newter and DeHorn Snowball.

10:25

Right, first of all, how do you feel about that?

10:26

I don't love dehorning because it is like

10:29

a bone, you know, so it can be very painful,

10:31

especially later on in life. But in

10:33

order for him to be

10:35

safe, probably around other people, and

10:37

in order for him to live out his life, that

10:40

was probably something that needed to happen. So

10:42

it's kind of like you got to choose your

10:44

battles.

10:45

Do you feel just that snow is

10:47

a more gentle name than Snowball.

10:50

I wonder if they changed it for like, to

10:52

keep him like a little bit more undercover's

10:56

that would be my guess, since they wanted

10:59

they didn't want people to knowing that it was him,

11:02

but at the same time, like it's not that

11:04

different of a name, so I

11:06

don't really know.

11:07

That's just a little like witness protection

11:09

and like it's like.

11:12

Witness goat protection.

11:16

When I recently went to the goat cheese

11:18

farm with my daughters, I mean, they were adorable,

11:21

smaller, small, smaller

11:23

creatures. I missing something, No.

11:26

Absolutely, I mean they range in size

11:28

for sure. And also you know, obviously

11:30

when you're going to a situation like a goat

11:32

cheese farm that's catered towards family

11:35

and children, they're not going to have like

11:38

big scary coats.

11:41

With horns.

11:42

Ray, there's a range of sides. That was actually

11:44

one of the things I was looking into. I wanted

11:46

to see what the breed was,

11:49

because the behavior berries

11:51

from breed to breed, just like it does with other

11:53

animals. I mean, I was recently

11:55

at the Sheep and Wolf Festival kind of

11:58

talking to a couple of others behaviorists

12:01

about sheep and goats. Funny

12:03

enough, right before you contacted me

12:05

about this interview, where is that It

12:07

takes place in rhine Beck in

12:09

the Hudson Valley, and they

12:12

have like all of the different goats

12:15

and sheep that they make yarn

12:17

and other fibers out of every single

12:20

breed. So it's just like a

12:22

party of goats and sheep essentially,

12:26

so you get to see all the different kinds. But

12:28

there were a couple of the older breeds that didn't want

12:30

to really want anybody near them. It all

12:32

just kind of depends on the

12:34

domestication in the beginning, and

12:37

also the social structure that the

12:39

goat is surrounded by.

12:40

Really, can I talk about the underside of the goat

12:42

community though? Because one of the producers

12:45

was mentioning, you know, Satanic rituals

12:47

and stuff like that.

12:48

Is there a.

12:49

Subculture with

12:51

goats or are there communities out in

12:53

the world that you've

12:55

heard about?

12:56

I mean, what is it Baphomet? You

12:58

know it looks like a so

13:02

yes.

13:03

But it's not like at the sheep and Goat festival

13:06

that there is no no we're

13:08

talking Oh no.

13:10

I think that that would give all the old ladies

13:12

a heart attack.

13:15

But Snowball's name wasn't the only thing nagging

13:18

at me. I was scrolling through everything

13:20

I could find about goats on the internet. Goat

13:22

murder, goat laughter, goat cheese,

13:24

goat mating, rituals, including

13:27

the fact that males try to attract females by

13:29

pissing on their own hoofs. And

13:31

then around one in the morning I

13:33

saw that famous illustration of a goat's

13:35

horned head on an nedrogenous

13:37

human body and a pentacle on

13:39

the forehead. It was drawn in eighteen

13:41

fifty six by a man named Alifus Levy,

13:44

and unfortunately, from then onwards humans

13:46

never looked at goats the same way. That

13:49

deity that Levey drew was called Bathamee,

13:52

which came up in my conversation with Amanda,

13:54

And there's a whole lot of people who look at Bethamee

13:56

and think one thing, that's the

13:58

devil. I reached out

14:00

to the Satanic Temple, which features

14:02

godhorns right there on the website and

14:05

even has a mission statement empathy,

14:07

reason advocacy. Unfortunately,

14:10

no one ever got back to me. So I suppose

14:12

to the author and scholar doctor Ethan Doyle,

14:15

who specializes in modern paganism,

14:17

I asked them to explain how cute little goats

14:20

got cut up in Satanism.

14:21

Well, I suppose it all goes back

14:23

ultimately to Agent

14:26

Greece and the

14:28

deity Pan who is typically

14:31

portrayed with goat like features

14:33

incorporated on a man's body. And

14:36

then the centuries roll on and

14:38

you have the Christianization of Europe,

14:41

and with that you have a

14:44

new conception of demons

14:47

as fallen angels,

14:50

entities who are opposed to

14:52

Christian teaching and will seek to

14:55

undermine it to encourage people towards

14:57

temptation.

14:57

And that's to hell.

15:00

And although demons are not in

15:02

the early Christian centuries necessarily

15:06

portrayed as being mixtures

15:08

of goat and human, gradually

15:11

this is an artistic representation

15:13

that comes to the fore.

15:15

And then I asked Posadoil about Alifus Leve,

15:17

the artist behind the infamous half

15:20

man half goat illustration that has

15:22

given God to such a bad name and

15:24

led to so many bad horrmonies.

15:26

As a Frenchman, of course, Levy is actually his

15:28

real name, whose real name was Alpontlouis

15:31

Constant. He had trained in a seminary

15:33

to be a Roman Catholic priest. Later

15:36

the game, heavily involved in radical socialist

15:38

politics and then begins

15:41

to get interested in a lot of esoteric ideas

15:43

as well, devising his own

15:45

framework which he which comes to be

15:47

referred to as occultism. He believes

15:49

there is this by immordial

15:52

spiritual tradition, universal

15:55

spiritual tradition coming from the distant

15:57

past that has been passed

15:59

down by various groups through

16:01

the centuries that he believes

16:03

humanity is proceeding towards a perfected

16:06

social order, and part of that perfected

16:08

social order is androgyny,

16:11

the union of male

16:13

and female, and this

16:16

is something he very much reflects

16:18

in this image. He produces

16:20

the famous Bafflet image where

16:23

you have a sort of slightly masculine

16:25

looking goat human hybrid one

16:28

which has a very phallic looking cadusius

16:31

emerging from his loins, but accompanied

16:34

with female breasts. This

16:36

is part of that androgynous

16:39

symbolism that was really important to Levy. It's

16:42

the male and the female together

16:45

and it's reflecting the sort

16:47

of the balance of forces and polarities

16:50

he thought was necessary for the

16:53

magician to

16:55

manipulate and utilize what he refers

16:57

to as the astral light.

17:00

You have to have that balance male

17:03

female.

17:04

The modern gods. Affiliation with Satanism

17:06

got a big boost in the nineteen sixties in

17:08

California when a man named

17:11

Antone LaVey published a book

17:13

called The Satanic Bible. His

17:15

proximity to Hollywood and the fact he was a

17:17

publicity hound certainly didn't hurt the cause.

17:20

LaVey is based in California, He's

17:23

appearing regularly in the media. He's a

17:25

very publicity savvy. But even

17:27

here in Britain, for example, where we have Hammer

17:29

Horror Studios prolific horror

17:31

movies from the late nineteen fifties onwards. In

17:34

nineteen seventy they related a film

17:36

called Taste the Blood of Dracula in

17:39

which the Satanic pendergram appeared,

17:42

and they do so again in the nineteen seventy

17:44

three film Satanic Rights of Dracula.

17:47

So just a few years

17:49

after LaVey is using the

17:51

goat's head in a pentagram, it's

17:53

being picked up by filmmakers

17:56

here in a completely other country. Now

17:58

that is reflective of how swiftly

18:01

this image comes to permeate

18:03

a lot of popular culture. Yeah,

18:06

it becomes a kind of quintessential Satanic

18:08

image.

18:09

Is there going to be more edgy

18:12

Satanists out there and groups, do you think in

18:14

the future, or is it going to go the way of the Satanic Temple?

18:16

You know, no, I think you're absolutely

18:18

going to see more individuals

18:21

and small groups interested in

18:23

the more extreme, transgressive

18:26

uses of Satanism. This will particularly

18:28

be the case on the extreme pos right.

18:32

We'll be back after a short break. We're

18:35

back with murder homes. I

18:38

was thinking about Canton, Georgia again and

18:40

Carl Halsey opening the flimsy door of

18:42

a single wire trailer and staring at Snowball.

18:45

If he had treated the animal better, if

18:47

they hadn't gone off on the wrong hoof, so to speak,

18:50

he might have been feeling the androgynist warmth

18:52

of Beffamet's astrolight. But instead

18:54

I'm imagining that Snowball gave him a very

18:57

steely look, and the violence

18:59

commenced. Snow was turned

19:01

out with a dozen other goats in his own private enclosure,

19:04

one of thirty eight at the sanctuary that

19:06

housed black bears, tigers, horses,

19:09

tortoises, foxes, and ostriches. The

19:11

donations from animal rights activists enabled

19:14

Noah's Ark to purchase the property. Snow

19:17

died in two thousand and six. I thought

19:19

that was all there was to the story. Man abuses,

19:22

goat, goat kills man, goat

19:24

is exonerated and lives out his days gently

19:26

tugging grass in a field. But

19:28

a newspaper quote from nineteen ninety one had stuck

19:30

with me. A man named Norman Sussesebe,

19:33

who happened to be Carl Halsey's longtime friend

19:35

and also the owner of the funeral home where Karl

19:37

was embombed, praised him as a good

19:39

neighbor and a good man. So I called

19:42

the Sussibe funeral home in Canton. Norman

19:44

Sssseb had passed away, but I

19:46

talked to a man named Casey gingerly

19:49

working myself up to the question, I'm

19:51

calling about Carl Halsey, I said. He

19:53

hesitated for a moment. Oh, the goat

19:56

man. He said, it seemed like everyone

19:58

in Canton knew the story. Most of the

20:00

people who had known Carl were dead. After

20:03

all, this happened thirty three years ago. I

20:05

was just about to hang up when he told me there was

20:07

one person I might ask. He gave

20:09

me the name of a mortician who had worked for Sussib's

20:12

funeral home at the time Carl Haouse

20:14

he died. His name was Ricky Woodhall,

20:17

and he worked for another funeral home.

20:18

Now,

20:22

thank you for calling South Canton Funeral

20:24

Home and Chapel. Please accept

20:26

our apology for asking you to hold for just

20:28

a moment. Family owned and operated

20:30

with more than six decades of experience

20:33

in the industry, we provide families

20:35

throughout Canton and the surrounding area.

20:37

I listened to a lot of funeral home hold music

20:39

that day, waiting to speak to Ricky Woodhall,

20:42

one of the few people in Canton who might

20:44

have known the goat Man. Later that afternoon,

20:46

I finally reached Ricky.

20:51

This is Ricky.

20:53

Hi, Is this mister Woodhall?

20:56

Yes, it is.

20:57

How are you.

20:59

I'm a reporter. Were doing a story

21:01

that took place in Canton, like a long long time

21:03

ago, and we're just trying to get

21:06

a comment from someone who knew the deceased

21:08

Chrison for the story.

21:10

Uh huh.

21:11

The deceased person was named Carl Halsey.

21:15

Were you familiar with him?

21:17

Yeah, I mean I remember it. I went.

21:19

I actually I went and picked the man up.

21:22

You know, you picked up mister

21:24

Halsey. Yeah,

21:26

I remember. He died at the scene. I

21:29

went and picked him up.

21:31

I was.

21:31

I was working for Norman at

21:33

that time.

21:34

Did you know Carl Halsey?

21:37

Yeah, sure, sure, can you.

21:39

Tell me anything about him.

21:40

He was just a plain old country gentleman.

21:43

He's just one of them type people that kind

21:45

of lived off the land and by

21:48

nature, good old gentleman.

21:51

And with the controversy that it was very

21:53

long ago, but there was all this controversy

21:55

that some animal rights people

21:58

were saying, oh, he had it coming because he

22:00

was beating the goat and the goat

22:02

acted as a reflux. Did you have

22:04

any opinion on that.

22:06

I can't say what I had done.

22:09

I know he loved goats because the

22:11

day I went over and picked him up, there was probably

22:14

eight or ten there. Matter

22:17

of fact, three I'm jumped up in the back of the hers

22:19

when I got pulled up, opened the back door to get stressed

22:21

out.

22:22

I always thought it was just from reading what

22:24

I could on the internet, that it was just one goat.

22:27

But you're saying to hit a bunch of goats.

22:30

He had a bunch of gohats, but that

22:32

one particular billy goat, I

22:34

guess that was the billy goat he

22:36

had. The others was just a little

22:39

youngl like goats like his two

22:41

or three of the little old biddy one just jumped up in there

22:43

but that's the nature of a goat. They just there.

22:47

You give them a chance, they gonna climb something,

22:49

you know.

22:50

Asked Ricky, there has more sympathy for Carl

22:52

than snowball in Canton.

22:54

Yeah, I would say, so, okay,

22:56

Carl, he was just a man of his own.

22:59

He kept these saying if he didn't get out in

23:01

public and associate in

23:04

public a lot. I say, he's kind

23:06

of a backwoods person. He was just

23:08

a good man.

23:09

I asked for he to describe the property Carlos.

23:12

He lived on the trailer, used

23:14

a regular single white mobile

23:16

home. And yeah, they

23:18

owned quite a bit of land down in there where

23:20

they lived at probably a quarter mile off

23:22

the main road back down in there. Look

23:25

at.

23:25

I know it was very long ago, in nineteen ninety one,

23:27

but even before the internet, the internet,

23:29

there was quite a lot of the firestorm that broke

23:32

out about save the Goat, don't see it.

23:33

I mean, back then it was a pretty

23:36

populated thing, you know, because

23:39

goat kills man. You know, it's

23:42

just one of those things that don't

23:44

normally happen. Actually budded

23:46

him in the stomach and knocked him off

23:48

the porch. That's all I know. When Roman

23:51

was a corner and he just Norman rode

23:53

it off as an accident.

23:54

Yeah, as opposed to a homicide.

23:56

Yeah, you can't call her the homicide.

23:58

You can't call her the murder. He was always

24:01

said, she just wanted in a freak accident.

24:03

I ended the call suddenly quite confused.

24:06

Karl loved animals. You couldn't meet a nicer

24:08

man. And then I thought about my interview

24:10

with animal psychologist Amanda. She'd

24:13

said if Snowball was isolated, he might have higher

24:15

cortisol levels and be more rage prone.

24:18

I was thinking about all those friendly goats trying

24:20

to clamber into the back of the empty, dust covered

24:22

hearse as Ricky opened the back door and

24:25

pulled the stretcher out. Ricky's

24:27

showing them away, and the gurney's wheels rattling

24:29

over the dry grass as he moved toward Carl

24:31

Halsey's stiff body lying dead

24:33

next to his single wide trailer, eyes

24:36

open. But what if Ricky was right?

24:38

What if Snowball was just a mean billy goat

24:40

who had it in for Carl all along? After

24:43

all, there had been no interrogation, no grainy

24:45

footage of Canton detectives and bunch of shirt

24:47

sleeves playing good cop, bad cop

24:49

and telling Snowball that something just didn't

24:52

add up. What if Carl was in fact

24:54

a decent man who loved his goats, and

24:56

what if most of his goats, except for the one

24:59

billy goat named snow Ball, loved him.

25:01

Or what if Snowball had it in for Carl Halsey

25:04

all along and was just waiting for a frail retiree

25:06

to turn his back at the right time. The

25:09

question, according to Ricky, was answered by Norman

25:11

so Sabe, friend of Carl's and funeral

25:13

home director and county coroner, who

25:16

ruled to death an accident. So that

25:18

was that Carl Halsey, beloved

25:20

by the people who knew him, ridiculed by

25:22

an entire nation that didn't, was lowered

25:25

into the ground at Cherokee Memorial Park,

25:27

while Snowball was released to an animal sanctuary

25:30

that was flooded with donations in his name. For

25:33

a while, people came from miles to see him

25:35

flicking his tail distantly in a field or

25:38

approaching delighted children with food pellets

25:40

in their sweaty palms. But then the attention

25:43

and notoriety faded, and he would have finally

25:45

blended in with the herd on a perfect summer

25:47

day, just another billy goat living

25:49

out his days in peace. Noah's

25:51

Ark, on the other hand, would eventually be forced to temporarily

25:54

close after a federal lawsuit

25:56

alleged animal neglect. The current

25:58

president was accused of finalll greed and

26:01

seven hundred vultures drop dead of avian

26:03

flu. But there's probably another side

26:05

to that story too. And for those of

26:08

you who are having second thoughts about signing

26:10

up for Little Goat Yoga this summer, don't

26:12

let a story like this scare you off. Maybe

26:14

Ricky Woodhall said it best. A freak

26:17

accident or murder can happen to anyone,

26:19

But let's focus on all the nice goats there in

26:22

the world, nudging each other out of the way to

26:24

nibble a little treat out of your outstretched hand.

26:27

And that tasty little drum of Lysia Vroe you're

26:29

gonna buy at the gift shop. Just watch

26:31

your back. This is Murder

26:33

Holmes. I'm Mattmridovitch. Murder

26:41

Holmes is created by an executive producer

26:43

by Matt Murdovitch. Executive

26:45

producers are Jennifer Bassett and Taylor Chakoine.

26:49

Story editor is Jennifer Bassett. Supervising

26:52

producer is Carl Catel. Producer

26:55

is Evan Tyre. Sound designed

26:57

by Taylor Chakoine, Evan Tyre

26:59

and Carl Kato. Special

27:01

thanks to Ali Perry and Nicietour.

27:06

If you know of a murder Home in your neighborhood, give us

27:09

a call and tell us about it. We could be reached

27:11

at three four seven three three eight eight two

27:13

nine five. Murder Homes is a production

27:15

of iHeart Podcasts. For more

27:17

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27:20

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27:23

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