Episode Transcript
Transcripts are displayed as originally observed. Some content, including advertisements may have changed.
Use Ctrl + F to search
0:01
Just going to take a quick break from the show everybody
0:03
to tell you a little bit more about one of my
0:05
favorite things in the world, Audible. Audible
0:08
lets you enjoy all of your audio entertainment
0:10
in one app. You'll always find the best
0:12
of what you love or there's new stuff
0:14
to discover all the time in Audible. The
0:16
incredible selection of audio books across
0:18
every genre from bestsellers to new
0:20
releases to celebrity memoirs, mysteries, thrillers,
0:22
motivation, wellness, business, they got it
0:25
all here in Audible and you
0:27
can have it all too. Audible
0:29
is the destination for thrilling audio entertainment
0:32
including small town murder, crime and
0:34
sports and your stupid opinions with
0:36
highly anticipated new releases and next
0:38
listen recommendations to habituate every type
0:40
of thriller listener. And
0:42
you can keep your heart rate up
0:44
month after month with this pulse pounding
0:47
collection you can't hear anywhere else. The
0:49
true crime stuff they have is amazing.
0:51
Right now what I'm listening to is
0:53
The Family by Ed Sanders and it
0:55
is a full complete retrospective on the
0:57
Manson Family, kind of all of what
0:59
they were doing to set their weird
1:01
stuff up. It is amazing and incredibly
1:03
detailed, great stuff and there's so much
1:05
more on there. And as an Audible
1:08
member you can choose one title a
1:10
month to keep from the entire catalog
1:12
including bestsellers, new releases, latest stuff, you
1:14
got it, it's all there. New
1:17
members can try Audible free for 30 days.
1:20
Visit audible.com/small town murder or
1:22
text small town murder to
1:24
500-500. Now
1:27
back to the show. Thanks
1:57
for watching. and
2:00
Dr. Depp ad-free as well. They
2:02
also have favorite shows like The
2:05
Daily, Pardon My Take, and Up
2:07
First, all without ads. You know
2:09
what this means. Uninterrupted listening, so
2:11
no more cliffhangers. Amazon Music
2:13
offers the most ad-free top
2:15
podcasts, so we know they
2:18
definitely have something for you.
2:20
And it's already included in
2:22
your Prime membership. To start
2:24
listening to Small Town Murder
2:26
ad-free, go to amazon.com/Small Town
2:28
Murder. That's amazon.com/Small Town Murder,
2:30
or download the Amazon Music
2:33
app for free. It's just that easy. Looking
2:35
for a fun and
2:38
relaxing way to unwind?
2:40
Download Two Dots, the
2:42
free puzzle game with
2:44
over 5,000 unique levels.
2:46
Connect Dots to solve
2:48
colorful puzzles and collect
2:50
rewards. With different gameplay
2:52
modes like Scavenger Hunt
2:54
and Arcade, there's always
2:56
a new adventure. Don't
2:58
want a game alone?
3:00
Connect and engage with
3:02
the larger Two Dots
3:04
community to match up
3:06
your skills. If you're
3:08
looking for the perfect
3:10
game to help you
3:12
relax but also keep
3:15
you engaged, download Two
3:17
Dots for free on
3:19
Android and iOS. Hello
3:21
everybody and welcome back to Small
3:23
Town Murder Express. Yay choo choo!
3:25
Oh, yay indeed, Jimmy. Yay indeed.
3:27
My name is James Petrogal. I'm
3:30
here with my co-host. Great,
3:32
I'm Jimmy Wisman. There you go. He almost
3:34
forgot. He almost lost you there for a
3:36
second. Thank you folks so much
3:38
for joining us all aboard the murder train.
3:41
Here it is. We got some wild stuff
3:43
today. Just a crazy guy with doing some
3:45
crazy stuff. So we will get to that
3:47
very quickly. First off, shut up and give
3:50
me murder.com. Get your tickets for live shows.
3:52
If you're listening to this in early release,
3:55
like right when it comes out, you can
3:57
still get to either Sacramento or San Francisco.
4:00
San Francisco the next night more likely. If
4:03
you're listening to it regular, then don't worry about those
4:05
shows. They're already over, but you want to strap in
4:07
and get ready for the 4.20
4:09
virtual live show. It's going. April the 20th, it's a
4:12
Saturday night, and you can get it for two weeks
4:14
after that. You can watch it a hundred times. You
4:16
can do whatever you want with it. Just
4:18
like a live show, except you're in your
4:20
living room anywhere in the world. We have
4:22
these weird costumes because we're doing a whole
4:24
4.20 theme thing. I have a weird smoking
4:27
apparatus for Jimmy to get freaked out by.
4:29
It's gonna be so much fun. Shut up
4:31
and give me murder.com is where you get
4:33
all of that. Then also patreon.com slash
4:36
crime in sports, which is the name of
4:38
our other podcast that you should be listening
4:40
to because it's great. You don't have to
4:42
like sports. Check it out. Crime in sports.
4:44
Also check out your stupid opinions. Oh! Or
4:46
other podcasts, which is the funniest hour that
4:48
exists in podcasts. So check that out. But
4:51
Patreon, anybody $5 a month or above,
4:53
you are gonna get the whole back
4:55
catalog, hundreds of episodes, immediately. New episodes
4:58
every other week. This week, we're gonna
5:00
talk about for crime in sports on
5:02
Patreon. The trials and tribulations of Hulk
5:04
Hogan. Hulk Hogan. We've all heard of
5:07
Hulk Hogan. His kid killed
5:09
people. He called people the n-word. He's got... He
5:12
sued Gawker for a hundred million dollars. His
5:15
best friend recorded him and sold his sex
5:17
tape. He's had a weird life. We'll talk
5:19
all about that stuff. Then for small-town burger...
5:21
Burger? Small-town burger. Small-town burger. Small-town murder. Back
5:24
by popular demand, we are gonna do small...
5:26
weird small-town festivals because those are so much
5:28
fun. It's been a long time since we've
5:30
done one because they're a real pain in
5:32
the ass to put together, but we're doing
5:34
it this week. It doesn't
5:36
matter. I'm gonna do it there. That's patreon.com/crime
5:38
in sports and you get a shout out
5:40
at the end of the regular show. That's
5:43
sad. I think it's time everybody. Yeah. I think
5:45
it's time to sit back. What do you say
5:47
people? Let's settle in. Let's all clear the
5:50
lungs, arms to the sky and let's all
5:52
shout. SHUT
5:55
UP AND GIVE ME MURDER!
5:59
Let's do this. this. What do you
6:01
say everybody? Let's go on a trip, shall
6:03
we? Let's do it. Let's get in the
6:05
car, Jimmy. We're headed this week to Woodward,
6:07
Oklahoma. Woodward? Woodward,
6:09
Oklahoma. This is
6:11
in western Oklahoma. It is the
6:14
county right before the panhandle starts.
6:17
So if you kept driving, you go right
6:19
into that Oklahoma panhandle there. They don't want
6:21
to say that part of that panhandle. No,
6:23
but they are. They're close enough. It's close
6:25
enough. And based on the behavior of this
6:28
man, there's the panhandle behavior, in this area,
6:30
boy. So this is about two
6:32
hours and 15 minutes to Oklahoma City. It's
6:35
about four and a half hours to
6:37
Gans, Oklahoma, which was our last Oklahoma
6:39
episode, episode 435, laughing, torture, and lies,
6:41
which that was a wild one. Oklahoma
6:44
always has crazy murders. This is the
6:46
home of Phillips, Oklahoma, which
6:48
is one of the craziest cases
6:50
we've ever done ever. Episode 60
6:53
or 61 something. It's insane. Check
6:55
that out. This is Woodward County,
6:58
Oklahoma. The household income here, median
7:00
household income is about $50,000 per
7:02
year, which
7:05
is less than the national average by about 20,000.
7:08
Median home price though, super low, $143,600.
7:12
Now you're talking. That's a lot. And the
7:15
motto here, energy for life. Yeah.
7:17
Yeah. It comes from the sky
7:20
in a twisty fashion. Yeah.
7:22
If we have something to capture
7:24
that power, we'll get it. Yeah.
7:27
Power homes have wings. All
7:29
of they should be easier. That's what we do.
7:31
Rather than build them more sturdy and closer to
7:33
the ground and all that, just put wings on
7:36
them. Just make them aviation.
7:38
And make property just like a shifting thing.
7:41
You know what I mean? Like wherever, if
7:43
you land somewhere, that's yours now. And if
7:45
somebody landed on your lawn, that's theirs now.
7:47
And it's fine. Reclaimable. Yeah. It'll be fun. You know
7:49
what? Then it'll be like, oh, it's an adventure. Where
7:51
are we going to end up, kids? What school district
7:53
are we going to end up in? A good one?
7:56
Let's talk. Fingers crossed. We might get a nice one.
7:58
We might get a better one. might
8:00
get a better neighborhood. I
8:02
bet they have better lunches over there. Oh
8:04
shit, the city of Woodward was established in
8:06
1887. Yeah. This was at
8:09
the junction of the Fort
8:11
Reno military road and the
8:14
southern Kansas railway. By
8:16
the military road and the railroad?
8:18
The railway on the south bank
8:20
of the North Canadian River, which
8:22
is nowhere near Canada or the
8:24
north. I don't understand any of this.
8:28
So it became a big place to
8:30
load cattle to be sent to eastern
8:32
markets from all around there.
8:34
Here Woodward has served as the
8:37
county seat of Woodward County. In
8:39
1893, it was known
8:42
as one of the wildest towns in the West. Wildest.
8:45
Wildest. At one time, this is a small
8:47
place that had 23 saloons and 15 brothels
8:51
on one street. Tombstone
8:53
existed. Nowhere near this much.
8:55
And this place is it.
8:59
23 saloons and 15 brothels. This is
9:01
it. Because Deadwood's like we're a mining
9:04
town. We also want to people want
9:06
to drink and have brothels. This is
9:08
where this is. This is we drink
9:10
and sell women here. That's our nothing.
9:12
That's the industry. That's it. One
9:17
resident said in 1944 that
9:19
Woodward's eastern aggressiveness and Western
9:21
hospitality combined to enthrall you
9:23
with the fact that, quote,
9:25
Woodward is the town you've
9:27
been wishing for, dreaming of,
9:29
and looking for. The
9:31
town is a grudge fuck. That's what it
9:34
is. Yeah, you're gonna get that. You're gonna
9:36
get it lacking. Big fuck. So
9:39
reviews of this town. Let's find out what other
9:41
people think. Five stars. I love
9:43
living in Woodward. I mean, it's definitely a
9:45
small town compared to Enid or OKC. Well,
9:47
if you're gonna throw Enid in the mix,
9:49
obviously. No, who's bigger than
9:52
Enid? Yeah. But that's
9:54
what I love about it. I love that
9:56
we started having events on Main Street. I
9:58
love all the little shops. downtown. They're
10:00
owned by some really good people. Are
10:03
they? I bet they are. That's great. Three
10:06
stars. This is, or two stars, this is
10:08
a long one so I'm gonna skip around
10:10
here. Where I am from
10:12
is perhaps one of the hottest spots in the
10:14
nation as far as drug trafficking goes. Oh!
10:17
I doubt that. There is a San
10:19
Diego, so I've calmed down. Yeah, a
10:21
few years back many of the police
10:23
were involved in a scandal where many
10:25
of them were smuggling drugs and firearms
10:28
back into the street from the evidence
10:30
locker. That's because they make $38,000 a
10:32
year and live in a small town.
10:34
Yeah, that's not one of the hottest
10:37
spots. Via the evidence locker, that's your
10:39
that's your fucking haul? This gets better.
10:41
Yeah, well they did that in the
10:44
70s. They sold all the the pizza
10:46
connection heroin, pounds and pounds of heroin, when
10:48
they went back to look at it years later,
10:50
it was all flour. Cops had stolen it and
10:52
sold it all. That's what they do. It's normal.
10:55
But it's not a fucking,
10:57
it's not Fort Knox of heroin.
10:59
You know what I mean? Eventually
11:01
that runs out. Yeah,
11:03
but while it's there you can always get
11:05
more. You bust people with more? They're gonna
11:07
sell it to somebody. This person says, my
11:09
father, who's a local attorney, had shown great
11:11
concern over this matter, which others tended to
11:13
ignore. Our house was set
11:15
afire. Jesus!
11:19
And calls were made to our house giving death
11:21
threats to my father and myself. Holy
11:25
shit! That's wild. When our house was set
11:27
afire, we were returning home from a football
11:29
scrimmage of mine and we were able to
11:31
put out the fire after we called 911.
11:35
Holy shit! That same year our house was
11:37
broken into numerous times and my father taught
11:39
me to be vigilant and aware of my
11:41
surroundings at all times. At this
11:43
at this point in my young teenage life,
11:46
the last thing I wanted to worry about
11:48
was police in my hometown, who I had
11:50
never done any harm to, wanted to now
11:52
hurt me and my family. Holy
11:55
shit, man. That is wild. And then
11:57
finally, two stars, Small oil-driven
11:59
town. That isn't seeing It's best days
12:01
of Quality of Life in recent years. Deaths.
12:05
The out with declining found was a
12:07
lot of your ah things to do
12:09
here. okay I'll mail about it. Well
12:11
I found something to do The sand
12:14
The Plum Festival. Sand. Flops.
12:16
Why the fuck I love aplomb. I love upon
12:18
their juicy. They're delicious. Why the fuck would you
12:20
put the word sand in there? Which now makes
12:22
it sound like they're sand and it. And it's
12:24
not dry and delicious. It's. Really
12:27
stupid San plums and coal apples and
12:29
gallon a nice coal apple I like
12:31
a dirt tater he likes them. entertainers
12:33
is is full of their and about
12:35
it opened dirt comes out side I'm
12:37
berries who they're as a beginner as
12:40
got buried or that's a significant at
12:42
this fucking gross I like it is
12:44
mel and law for you open it
12:46
it's pretty disgusting. it smells like bleach
12:48
and are they but it is just
12:50
delicious and that a lot of feeds
12:52
you wouldn't be think there was more
12:54
seeds in there. but see this season
12:56
so is. His all seed real saw the
12:58
see? how does that not as we're. Who
13:03
says celebrate the sweet flavor of
13:05
the Sam plummet? The sand prolonged
13:07
celebration here. I'm a competitor. A
13:09
column every competition, pageant races all
13:12
in celebration of this native fruit.
13:14
Now. There's. I after the
13:16
races the Slack A Sand Plums
13:19
Scoot, Five K and Ten K
13:21
sampling scoops. After the races stop
13:23
in to see the Miss San
13:25
Plum pageants That's a to on
13:28
be I Miss San Plumps judge
13:30
Some girls were entrance of all
13:32
ages compete to be named Miss
13:34
San Plum Queen and Miss Sam
13:37
Plum Princess. Quilters can
13:39
choose to answer their latest raisins as
13:41
well. And. Run a quilt
13:43
competition obvious that the other and also you're
13:45
going to see there's some bands here who
13:48
is out here. Let's.
13:50
See the quilt show. Gotta get there for
13:52
the quilt showcase. Looks like it's all good.
13:54
It's. all gonna in a common
13:56
a pair of at seven o'clock with
13:58
dax perry a concert Yeah. Dax
14:01
Perrier. He's a
14:03
big star. Mr. Sandplum over
14:05
there. So, that
14:08
said, let's talk about a murder now that we know
14:10
where we are. We're in a small, small
14:12
Western Oklahoma town. This is crazy podunk
14:14
America. Yeah, not a lot of people
14:16
here at all. It's very low. So
14:19
let's talk about this right now. Go
14:22
back to 1974. Oh my. For
14:24
this case. Okay. It's September of 1974.
14:29
Which so this is like the real
14:31
West back then. Yeah. It's
14:34
hot. I mean, it's a different time. It's
14:36
50 years ago, for Christ's sake. Let's
14:39
talk about the Thrasher family, just
14:41
like Thrasher, like the magazine. Mervin
14:44
Thrasher, he's the dad and the husband here.
14:46
He's 28 years old. He's
14:48
got a 27 year old wife named Sandra. Really?
14:52
He does. They
14:54
have two children. Now
14:57
one is five year old. I've seen
14:59
her listed as both five and seven.
15:01
I'm not sure. But more places say
15:03
five. So five year old Penelope goes
15:05
by Penny. So Penelope
15:07
Thrasher and little 18 month
15:09
old Robert Thrasher. So they have a nice little
15:11
family, a boy and a girl. I mean, it's
15:13
just, you know. She has the
15:16
last name. They're doing, and they're the
15:18
Thrashers man. We fucking Thrasher. Bad fucking
15:20
name. As of
15:22
late August, 74, they have only lived
15:24
in Woodward since January. They're new to
15:27
the area. He worked for
15:29
the Michigan, Wisconsin Pipeline Company, which
15:32
somehow has worked in Oklahoma. In Oklahoma. It
15:35
makes no sense. Gibran. Yeah,
15:38
maybe they're taking oil from here. I have no
15:40
idea how it's working. That's why it's energy for
15:42
life, because it's oil in those places. So
15:45
in late August, Mervyn
15:47
reports a rifle stolen from
15:50
his house. Oh shit.
15:52
Yeah, 22 rifles. Someone
15:54
entered the house during the day when nobody was
15:56
home and took the rifle and a few other
15:58
things that we'll talk about. about as well, especially
16:01
some silver dollars. Okay. Now,
16:05
so he's pissed off at that. He's like, I moved
16:07
to a fucking small town and I'm getting my shit
16:09
stolen. He had just got, he's been there less than
16:12
a year. You're already getting your house broken into what
16:14
kind of shit hole place is this? He's thinking. So
16:16
he reported the rifle stolen to the police, reported the
16:18
break-in and everything. So
16:20
September 2nd, 1974, he
16:23
there's, he's got his boss
16:25
at work named Bob Petit,
16:28
P-A-T-E-E. And I
16:30
guess he, this Bob
16:32
had called Melvin Thrasher to come to
16:34
work. First time he called him was
16:36
4.30 in the morning and told him to come on down
16:39
to work. If you
16:41
call me at 4.30 in the morning and ask
16:43
me to be anywhere, I'm going to crack up
16:45
hysterically and then hang up on you. Here's the
16:47
thing. I'm not answering at 4.30
16:49
in the morning. I might be up, but I'm about
16:51
to go to bed. So we'll
16:53
talk later. We will talk later. Melvin
16:56
though got up and went to work. Wow. To help
16:58
him. It was Labor Day weekend. So this is all
17:00
overtime. This isn't even, he doesn't even have to be
17:02
there. He's just saying, I need help. Will you come
17:04
in and help me? So he does. He
17:06
went to work and helped him repair an engine and then
17:08
came home again. Okay. So
17:10
he comes back home again. Then at
17:13
8 AM, he called again. My
17:15
Christ, I just got home. Come
17:17
on back here. So
17:20
Melvin told Bob that he couldn't come in for
17:22
a couple of hours. Yeah. You can't get there
17:24
right away. I got some shit going on here.
17:26
I'm tired. Between 5 and 8 AM, some stuff
17:28
came up. Remember I was
17:31
working earlier with the end? I've already been there
17:33
at 4.30. He never
17:35
shows back. It never shows up though. But
17:37
it's Labor Day weekend and
17:39
the employees are not required
17:41
to work overtime. So
17:44
he's asking a lot of people to come in and they're
17:46
like, not coming in or maybe I'll come in and they
17:48
don't, they don't have to be there. So Bob
17:50
said he didn't find it particularly unusual that he didn't show
17:53
up. He was like, I don't know. He didn't have
17:55
to be there. So he
17:57
does find it unusual though, when Melvin doesn't
17:59
show up. up for work the next day. Oh,
18:02
where the fuck is he? It's it's work day
18:04
now. Um, so he also
18:06
calls and no one answers the phone.
18:09
Yeah. It was like, okay, if Bob's not, or
18:11
if Melvin's not at work, he
18:13
should be at home and he's not answering the phone. So
18:16
Bob decides to after
18:18
work that night, he's going to stop by their house
18:20
and make sure he's okay.
18:22
The boss just pops by. Pops,
18:24
but calls it four 30 in the
18:26
morning or just pops by, which seems
18:28
way intrusive, way intrusive. And
18:31
he, he doesn't get there until 10 30 PM. Jesus.
18:35
He's working all day. He's working all fucking day.
18:37
Yeah. That's crazy. And at the same time, you're
18:39
going to go knock on someone's door as an
18:41
18 month old at fucking 10 30
18:43
PM. Are you out of
18:45
your mind after you've worked for fucking at least
18:47
16 hours? Um, yeah. Imagine
18:49
they just got the kids to bed. You knocked
18:52
on the door, the dog barks, the kids are
18:54
up. That guy's wife is going to stab you
18:56
in the face. And I'm quitting those. Yeah. I'm
18:58
going to be like, Bob, what the fuck bro?
19:00
Jesus Christ. We're not, we're not brothers
19:03
dude. Yeah. Have a relationship
19:05
that's equivalent here. This is crazy. Yeah. I'm fucking,
19:07
I didn't show up either fire me or I'll
19:09
be there the next day. What do you want
19:12
from me? Like this isn't, you don't get to
19:14
investigate it. So he does this.
19:16
This is September 3rd, 1974. And
19:19
the house is dark. It's all dark in there, which it's 10
19:21
30 at night. You got a guy that's ready
19:23
to go to work at four 30 in the morning that seems normal.
19:26
This guy gets a flashlight out.
19:30
Yeah. Think about this. He's not home. He's
19:32
looking in my window. Looking in your windows
19:34
with a flashlight now. No.
19:37
This isn't, yeah, this is too much for
19:39
a boss to be doing. Looking through
19:41
the windows. And then he sees Mrs. Thrasher,
19:45
Sandra lying on the floor. And
19:48
he goes, uh-oh, that's not good. Lying
19:51
on the floor. You deserve this, Bob. This
19:53
is the opposite of minding your own business.
19:55
You couldn't be. You earned this. You
19:58
sought this out hardcore. You
20:01
like really fucking wanted this bad. You
20:03
looked for the monster
20:05
and you found it. You said I'm gonna go
20:07
see if they're all dead. That's what you said.
20:09
Maybe they're all dead and I'll find their bodies.
20:11
Why else would he not be there? You should
20:13
have showed up on Tuesday, Bob, and called the
20:15
police and said I've got a missing man and
20:17
he hasn't answered his phone at all. Let them
20:20
go knock on the fucking door. That's all. He's
20:22
missing. Can't get a hold of him. They go
20:24
put their flashlights through the door and that's their
20:26
job. This guy goes I'm gonna look into it
20:28
myself. So the investigation,
20:30
he goes right to the police, this guy,
20:33
and they come over. The cops come over. He said
20:35
I think I saw my employee's wife dead on the
20:37
floor. So you might want to go look into this
20:40
shit. So they do. They come over. That's
20:43
the thing too. I've been there. He
20:48
does that. The cops come into
20:50
the house and right
20:52
away they find both Melvin and Sandra
20:55
lying face down on the bedroom floor.
20:57
This guy was looking in a dark
20:59
bedroom with a flashlight in
21:01
the bedroom. What if she was sucking him off
21:03
at the time? Right. I can't go down with
21:05
my fucking wife in my own house without you
21:07
going get out of here, Bob. Cool
21:11
looks and people. Or even worse, bedrooms. Yeah.
21:13
What if you catch me and I
21:15
like foxtail butt blood? Yeah. I like that
21:18
you're stupid opinions. Now what? Now
21:20
I gotta show up on the job site and you know that?
21:22
I don't want you knowing that. First sticking out
21:24
of my butthole. I don't need you
21:27
to do that, Bob. Don't look at my bedroom window. Licking
21:29
my wife's asshole, you son of a bitch.
21:31
Either I'm dead and it's none of your
21:33
concern. Or I've got a
21:36
foxtail butt plug. I'm jerking off eating my wife's
21:38
ass. I'm doing some private shit. I'm not in
21:40
your concern. I'm doing some private
21:42
shit. Do you understand? Okay,
21:45
Bob. I'm into pegging. Are you happy with that?
21:47
Did you want to know that, Bob? Did you
21:49
want to know that I have my wife ram
21:51
things up my ass? No, you didn't, Bob, but
21:53
now you do. I hope you see this every
21:55
time you blink for the rest of your life.
21:57
That's it. I hope you see it all. Me
22:00
making eye contact with you through the fucking
22:02
window. Flipping you off, you son of a
22:04
bitch. But no, they're both dead
22:07
in there, so it's actually good that he did
22:09
this. We're making fun, but honestly it's good. They're
22:11
both lying face down on the bedroom floor. Mervin's
22:17
feet were tied together,
22:20
and his hands were bound behind
22:22
his back as well. Oh no. Yeah, he'd
22:24
been shot in the head three times. Jesus.
22:28
Yeah, this is... That's a lot. You better show
22:30
up for work next time, motherfucker. This is setting
22:32
an example. Bob's
22:34
fucking pissed. We don't miss shifts around
22:36
here, boy. This is... Wow. Make me
22:39
work 16 hours today alone.
22:41
Fuck that. Sandra was
22:43
also tied up with hands
22:46
tied and also feet tied, but her feet were
22:48
pulled up and tied to her hands. The hog
22:50
tied. Oh, damn it. So she was
22:52
hog tied. She'd been shot twice in
22:55
the head. Okay. Okay.
22:58
They figured out based on the scene that
23:01
Mervin and Sandra were
23:03
bound back to back in chairs before they
23:05
were shot. Wow. They got shot and fell
23:07
out of the chairs. Yeah. They were... That's
23:10
crazy. That's grimy, man. That's some grimy
23:12
fucking shit, man. Dark. But
23:16
Bob says they have two kids. Where are the
23:18
kids? Yeah. So
23:21
now the cops have to go through the rest of the house, and
23:24
the kids are both in the same room in bunk
23:26
beds. Oh, no. And they both
23:28
have been murdered also. What the
23:30
fuck? In their fucking beds. Yeah.
23:34
This is worse than in cold blood. It's
23:36
fucking... Oh, it's way worse than in cold blood.
23:38
Way worse. Yeah. They didn't indiscriminately kill an 18-month-old
23:40
baby there. Wow. What they did here. 18-month-old
23:43
shot twice in the head. Twice.
23:45
Twice, and five-year-old poor little Penelope in
23:48
the upper bed of the bunk shot
23:50
three times in the head. Wow.
23:54
That's fucking... All you can hope is that they
23:56
were sleeping and didn't know that this was happening, and
23:58
just never woke up. But that's fucking... horrific.
24:01
That's horrific. That's 10 shots. Yeah. They heard it,
24:03
right? They had to have heard it, I would
24:05
think. If someone heard something, I would hope. But
24:07
we do tons of stories where kids
24:09
don't wake up through gunfire. Yeah. How many
24:12
stories have we done? 10s a lot. 10s
24:15
a lot. But the problem is too, it was
24:17
with a 22. Yeah. Which
24:19
are not allowed as to fucking guns either. It's not
24:22
like a .357. It's still
24:24
a loud pot, but who knows? The
24:26
murder weapon here is not on
24:28
the scene either. There's no 22 on the scene. They
24:32
find shell casings in
24:34
the bedroom, though.
24:36
They match that with shell casings
24:38
that they found in the yard
24:40
of the Thrasher's old house they
24:43
were doing target practice with. So they match
24:45
those together. It's their own gun. Oh,
24:48
my god. So whoever broke in a week
24:50
ago and stole their gun, came back and
24:52
murdered them all with it. With the gun.
24:54
With the fucking gun. What the fuck? That
24:56
is disturbing. That was in Guymon,
24:58
Oklahoma, their old house. They
25:00
said all four were fully clothed, but
25:03
there were indications that
25:05
Sandra had been raped as well.
25:07
Yeah, of course. This is
25:09
disturbing as fuck. The worst. The
25:12
state crime bureau put up roadblocks all
25:14
around the town, and through the night,
25:16
they searched every vehicle coming out of
25:18
town for everybody on the
25:21
road. Get the fuck out of the car
25:23
looking for guns, looking for blood, looking for
25:25
anything. This was not civil
25:27
liberties be damned there. This is like, we've
25:29
had a small town slaughter here. This is
25:31
fucked. There's a 10 month old dead. Get
25:33
out of your car. Yeah. Get the fuck
25:35
out now. Don't care. That
25:38
is very, very disturbing. So the
25:41
state's medical examiner said during the autopsies
25:43
that all four died of gunshot wounds,
25:45
obviously to the head. The
25:48
daughter sustained three wounds,
25:50
Sandra two wounds, 18 month old Robert was
25:52
shot in the tip of his nose and
25:54
in the base of his head. Fucking
25:57
disgusting, man. They hear Here's
26:00
a weird thing. Mrs. Thrasher, Sandra
26:02
was still wearing her diamond ring when
26:04
they found her. No theft, huh? And
26:06
all sorts of other family valuables are
26:08
found in the house and accounted for.
26:10
Jewelry box, not rifle. They
26:12
just hated. Nothing. Hated.
26:15
Yeah, this is...you better show up for your shift, motherfucker. I'm
26:17
telling you. This is all Bob, man. I've
26:20
picked three diesel engines today alone. So
26:23
yeah, the officials and everybody in town, they
26:25
just moved there. They haven't had time to
26:27
make any fucking enemies. Yeah. They
26:29
just got here and they said they knew
26:32
no reason. They were described as a nice
26:34
church-going family. There's no enemies. They don't do
26:36
anything. They don't do drugs. They don't... Jesus
26:38
Christ. They're not in a satanic sex-slinger cult.
26:40
They have nothing going on. So
26:43
they decide someone
26:46
they'd like to talk to that might know
26:48
something. And that is a young man named
26:50
Bobby Wayne Collins. Another Bob. Fucking
26:53
Wayne. Bobby Wayne. See, middle
26:55
name Wayne. Bobby Wayne Collins is 19
26:58
years old. What's he doing? Very
27:00
young guy. Well, he's a jerk-off. He's
27:02
from Ardmore, Oklahoma, and he works at
27:04
the 24-hour gas station slash truck stop.
27:06
That's what he does. And Mervyn was
27:08
a customer there. Mervyn would have get
27:11
his gas there all the time. So
27:13
they knew each other. He and Mervyn
27:15
did. They decided to talk to
27:17
Bobby for a very specific reason here, by the
27:19
way. How do you pick this guy out of
27:21
your ass to talk to? Well,
27:23
the undersheriff Donnie Crane said
27:26
he investigated a burglary at Thrasher
27:28
home on August 28th and
27:30
a rifle and a number
27:32
of Eisenhower silver dollars were among the
27:35
items missing. These are before the JFK.
27:37
Oh, the JFK was 50 cent pieces.
27:39
That's right. JFK is 50 cent. The
27:41
silver dollar is now Sacagawea. Yeah. Yeah.
27:43
It was Eisenhower there. So they
27:46
said that two people who worked
27:48
with Collins at the service station,
27:50
truck stop, said that they were
27:53
involved, that he was involved in
27:55
some coin transactions with them on
27:57
August 29th. He had- silver
28:00
dollars. Won
28:03
a Klein Beverly line, that's a guy,
28:06
said that he gave Collins three
28:09
greenbacks for three silver dollars. He
28:11
traded them three greenbacks like it's
28:14
the Civil War. I
28:16
traded him some script for his ... I
28:19
traded him a few clams, you know what
28:22
I mean? Wow. I traded
28:24
him three bones. And Eva McDowell, who's a
28:26
cashier at the truck stop where he works,
28:28
said her and her husband sold him, Collins,
28:31
a 1960 car,
28:34
and he gave her six silver dollars
28:36
as a down payment. How
28:40
much did that car cost for six dollars as
28:42
a down payment on it? How
28:45
much? What the fuck is happening?
28:48
He bought six silver dollars and a little
28:50
bit of bread. Actual bread,
28:52
not even bread. Actual bread, not even bread.
28:54
Not greenbacks either. Bread. Wonder
28:57
bread to be exact. So they
28:59
said, well, that was odd. They said, did he have
29:01
like before in the past, has he been around with
29:04
silver dollars all the time? They said, never
29:06
saw him with a silver dollar before, now he's just paying
29:08
for everything in silver dollars. Okay. Weird.
29:11
Also, they look at his record and they go,
29:13
oh my, okay. His record
29:15
really paints this picture here. Social
29:18
workers and parents and psychologists all agreed
29:20
that he had problems. Bailey,
29:23
they found out that when he went to prison for
29:25
the first time. He's 19, by the
29:27
way. Oh, but for the first time. He
29:30
was sentenced in 1971. This
29:32
is three years ago. When he was 16,
29:34
he was sentenced to three years in prison.
29:37
For what? Why, you may ask
29:40
as you did, attempting to rape
29:42
a 69-year-old woman. A
29:44
16-year-old woman. A
29:46
16-year-old boy attempted to rape a 69-year-old woman.
29:50
Oh my. Which is, wow.
29:53
I don't even know. In the 70s, they looked
29:55
69. In 1971. Yeah,
29:57
oh Christ, she probably looked 100. looks
30:00
great. She can look, she could work out, she could
30:02
be together. Back then a 69 year old, you're
30:05
like, why aren't you dead yet? They were
30:07
so old back then. That's crazy. Hey
30:11
everybody, just going to take a quick break from
30:14
the show to tell you a little bit about
30:16
the safest sponsor that's ever been Simply Safe. Oh,
30:19
simply safe.com. s-i-m-p-l-i-safe.com.
30:23
Springtime's coming here, so you got the
30:25
spring, you got fresh air, fresh starts,
30:27
and you clean your house, that's all
30:29
fresh. It's also the perfect time to
30:31
give a fresh look at Simply Safe
30:34
home security. Make sure your newly cleaned,
30:36
nice house is secure. That's important. Well
30:38
protected, yeah. It's the only security system
30:40
that Jimmy and I will use, and
30:43
we recommend it highly. We
30:45
both have it on not only our
30:47
studios, our houses, anything we have
30:49
that needs protection, Simply Safe is the way
30:51
to go. It's so easy to install that
30:53
even we can do it. You guys will
30:55
love it because you'll feel secure. You will
30:57
not be small town murdered in your own
30:59
home, is what it is, if you
31:02
have Simply Safe, because they're going to
31:04
protect you. They're trusted by experts. It
31:06
was named the best home security systems
31:08
for 2024 by US News and World
31:10
Report and Newsweek awarded Simply Safe the
31:12
best customer service in home security. Simply
31:14
Safe has given us and our many
31:16
listeners real peace of mind, and I
31:18
want you to have it too. We
31:20
want you to feel good. Get 20%
31:22
off any new Simply
31:24
Safe system when you sign
31:27
up for fast protect monitoring.
31:29
Just visit simply safe.com/small. That's
31:31
simply safe. S-I-M-P-L-I safe.com/small. There's
31:34
no safe like Simply Safe.
31:36
Now back to the show.
31:41
This show, Small Town Murder, is
31:44
sponsored by BetterHelp. betterhelp.com.
31:47
Absolutely. And maybe your social battery.
31:49
How are you monitoring that right
31:51
now? You drained down
31:54
too much socializing from holidays. Not
31:56
enough. Maybe some people hole up
31:58
in the winter. Sure. Therapy is
32:00
the thing. Therapy can help give you some
32:02
self-awareness so you can build a social life
32:05
that's not going to drain you or leave
32:07
you wanting more here. So we
32:10
totally are 100% advocates of
32:12
therapy here. We... It's
32:15
great for you. There's a million things it can
32:17
help you with, and this is one of them
32:19
because social stuff is something that we all... It's
32:21
really hard not to struggle with nowadays, especially even
32:24
social media mixed in the mix. It's
32:26
difficult. It really is. Overwhelming. Therapy can
32:28
help, and if you're thinking of starting
32:30
therapy, give BetterHelp a try. We very
32:33
much recommend it entirely online, designed to
32:35
be convenient and flexible. It's suited to
32:37
your schedule. You fill out this brief
32:40
questionnaire. They very quickly match you with
32:42
a licensed therapist, and no
32:44
additional charge you can switch therapists at any
32:46
time, which is a big deal because that's...
32:49
Sometimes you're not vibing with somebody, and you need
32:51
to vibe with somebody. No additional charge for that
32:53
at all. Find your
32:55
social sweet spot with
32:57
BetterHelp. Visit betterhelp.com/Small Town
33:00
Murder today to get 10% off
33:02
your first month. That's
33:05
betterhelp.com/Small Town Murder. And
33:07
now back to the show. So,
33:11
yeah, he got sentenced for that. Shit.
33:14
The prosecutor who prosecuted
33:17
him at the time said that
33:19
when he was in prison, he was
33:21
mentally unstable. Everybody found out. And
33:24
that he was, quote, in great need of
33:26
psychiatric aid. That's the prosecutor that said that
33:28
after he went to prison. He
33:30
was to serve the maximum term of
33:33
the maximum term, which, by the way,
33:35
the maximum term would the last
33:38
day of incarceration would have been September 3rd, 1974.
33:43
He would have been in jail that day.
33:45
Could have done it. That was the day he would have still
33:47
been in prison. Or at a minimum,
33:49
July 24th, 1973, barring parole. He
33:55
waived parole consideration when the subject came up in 1972,
33:57
but the fact that he was in prison was
33:59
not a good thing. following December, he
34:01
was discharged from the state reformatory seven
34:05
months before the minimum expiration of
34:07
his sentence and nearly two years
34:09
before the maximum expiration. Wow. Yeah.
34:13
At that time, they looked at his background
34:15
and they did it as like a mercy
34:17
thing. Yeah. They said he did.
34:20
He's 16, set the time 17. He was
34:23
the product of a, he was very
34:25
poor, came from a
34:27
very poor home environment, they
34:29
said. Broken marriage, father gone,
34:32
quote, a promiscuous brother who bore
34:34
her last two children out of
34:37
wedlock. Oh. Oh, which is just
34:39
a single mom, but in 1971, she
34:42
was the biggest whore in six counties at
34:44
that point, if you fucking, God forbid. So,
34:47
and she also had this, some bad
34:49
emotional problems and mental issues and people
34:52
thought she needed help as well. A
34:55
local juvenile officer told
34:57
her that told
35:00
the mother that Bobby was arrested
35:02
for breaking into a neighbor's home and
35:05
trying to set fire to a bed
35:07
in which the neighbor was sleeping, currently.
35:10
When? When he was
35:12
like a teenager, 14. Jesus Christ. He
35:15
broke in and tried to burn a
35:17
person alive in their own bed. Trying
35:19
to barbecue a person. Can you,
35:22
and then two years later rapes an
35:24
old lady. Can you? Attempted. Attempted to
35:26
rape an old, I'm shit, that's close
35:28
enough. You know, he's on
35:30
track to just really be
35:32
a menace. Before 18, he's
35:34
doing that shit. Acceleration like nobody's
35:36
business. Wow. Holy shit. So, since
35:39
he got out of jail, he
35:41
bounced from job to job. He
35:44
had jobs. First, he tried to sell vacuum
35:46
cleaners. He couldn't,
35:49
he couldn't move a vacuum. Couldn't move a
35:51
vacuum. He couldn't, he couldn't remember to
35:53
bring a pocket full of dirt to dump on the floor.
35:55
He kept forgetting, kept fucking forgetting. He
35:57
couldn't do it. And
36:00
empty that mother. Yeah, there you go. Squeeze that
36:02
out. He
36:05
drove a delivery truck for a
36:07
while. That didn't work out. And then he
36:09
worked at a gas station. No. He couldn't
36:11
move things to places. Nope, couldn't do it
36:13
at all. Southern vacuum cleaners, driving
36:15
shit. And then he worked, got a job
36:17
at this gas station. In the summer of
36:19
74, he almost got married. He
36:21
was like a week away from marriage, but the
36:24
girl backed out. Imagine
36:27
the bullet she's done. Imagine her
36:29
after this whole thing going, wow,
36:31
holy shit. So
36:33
it was at that point in the summer that
36:36
Collins moved to Woodward. He's brand new here. That's
36:39
where he found another job pumping gas again
36:41
at the gas station. He
36:45
apparently used to like to burglarize
36:47
and steal shit, too. And on August
36:49
28, 1974, he burglarized the
36:52
home and he took the silver dollar. He took the
36:54
22 rifle. It's
36:57
amazing though. Yes, September 3rd would have been his
36:59
maximum term. So if he stayed for the maximum,
37:01
he wouldn't even have been out to be able
37:03
to do that that day. Yeah, it would have
37:05
taken a few more months for these people to
37:07
die. Yeah, absolutely. Or somebody else would have got
37:09
killed. So they said he
37:11
had, at the time they were saying, well, he
37:13
has no police record. In Woodward, he had no
37:16
record. Then they looked out further and they went,
37:18
oh my God, Jesus Christ. It gets way worse.
37:20
This is exactly the guy we're looking for, a
37:22
guy with priors like this, breaking into people's houses
37:24
and attempting to commit violence upon them. That's what
37:27
we have here. He had his Asper's on fire.
37:29
Yup, that's fucking
37:31
wild, man. So
37:34
the other thing is, in 1974, so
37:39
we got the rape that he attempted rape he
37:41
went to jail for. Then we have, he tried
37:43
to burn a person alive in their bed. Then
37:46
he got arrested again in 1973
37:49
after he'd been released for
37:52
raping a lone Grove woman, a woman from
37:54
lone Grove for actual rape, not attempted rape.
37:57
He was acquitted by a jury in that case.
38:00
case in early 1974. He
38:03
was acquitted on rape charges. So he
38:06
is 19 fucking years old. He's
38:09
beaten a rape. He's gotten a rape.
38:12
He's got a murder. This guy's bad
38:14
news. He is a fucking nightmare. So
38:16
whoa. Now,
38:19
August 27th, six days before the crime took
38:21
place, he had borrowed a car from his
38:23
cousin and gone to Enid in an attempt
38:25
to find a job. The
38:27
cousin said, though, he didn't loan the car to him that
38:29
day. So I don't know what he's talking about because that's
38:31
his story. Bobby Wayne has said, on the 27th, I went
38:33
to Enid. And his
38:35
cousin said, I didn't loan him a fucking car that day. I don't
38:37
know what car he took. Maybe he just admitted
38:40
to Carthas. Well, no, he's saying it
38:42
was my cousin's car. And he said, no, I did go
38:44
to Enid. And on the way back from Enid, I picked
38:46
up a hitchhiker. His
38:48
name was Jerry, the hitchhiker. He
38:52
said, I learned that his last
38:54
name was Prowess, P-R-O-W-E-S-S, like having
38:56
a prowess for something, by
38:59
looking at the identification card on his backpack. Because
39:01
he had some kind of ID card on his
39:03
backpack. The hitchhiker asked to
39:05
spend the night at his house, which
39:08
Collins agreed to. Because that's
39:11
what I do. Not only give rides, I
39:13
go, hey, I'm also offer lodging to strangers.
39:15
Do rides stay over? Sure.
39:17
Wow. So this
39:19
is the crazy part, too. He
39:22
claims, Bobby claims he dropped the hitchhiker,
39:24
Jerry Prowess, off at his house, at
39:26
Bobby's house, and then brought his cousin's
39:28
car back to him, then went to
39:31
work at the truck stop, working the
39:33
night shift. That's a lot
39:35
of shit to do. He said, yeah, just go in
39:37
my house and live there. I won't be there, but
39:39
no problem, stranger. He said
39:41
the next morning he returned home, and
39:43
Jerry Prowess was gone. He's
39:45
gone. He said he just went
39:47
to sleep, Bobby did, but was awakened at noon
39:50
by Jerry Prowess, saying, hey,
39:52
man, quote, let's come with
39:55
me to go look at a house. He's
39:57
in the real estate market, possibly. He's now
39:59
buying. buying. So the two of
40:02
them went to a rural residence just outside of
40:04
town, went through the back door, which was unlocked.
40:06
This is a Thrasher residence in late
40:08
August. They stole a number of
40:10
items he admits, including a rifle, and then
40:13
started back to town. He
40:15
said they hid the rifle so they
40:17
wouldn't be seen walking through town with
40:19
it, obviously. You know, you don't walk
40:21
around town with a rifle. Yeah, so
40:23
that evening he said Prowis left and
40:25
took some of the stolen items, and
40:27
he said I never saw him again, including
40:30
the gun he took with him too. He had the .22.
40:34
So they said, well where were you on September 3rd? He
40:36
said, well I got off work at 6.30 a.m.
40:38
I just bought a car three days earlier,
40:40
as we know, a top-notch vehicle. He
40:44
said, and I immediately left town with
40:46
the intention of visiting my brother in
40:48
Canadian, Texas. Yeah. Sure,
40:51
it's Canadian or some shit, but it's
40:53
Canadian, Texas. Yeah. He said, though he
40:55
wasn't very familiar with Northwestern Oklahoma, so
40:57
he took a wrong turn and wound
41:00
up near the Kansas border, because
41:02
the Texas and Kansas borders aren't very far from
41:04
each other in this part of Oklahoma. They're real
41:07
close. He said, at that point, he just
41:09
said, ah, fuck going to Texas. I'll just go back to
41:11
Woodward. He just got lost, made a
41:13
big loop, and said, ah, screw it. So,
41:16
which is possible back then. It's a
41:18
bad story, though. It's
41:20
a terrible story. Terrible. You did
41:22
a six-hour circle on a whim?
41:26
He said he got back at about 9.15 a.m.
41:28
So he said, you know, he did like
41:30
a two and a half hour tour of
41:32
Western Oklahoma. He said, at that point,
41:34
9.15 a.m., he went to Gibson's discount
41:36
store and bought a pair of tennis shoes, a
41:40
pair of sneakers. Now, here's
41:42
the problem. The tread on these sneakers
41:44
matches the shoe prints found at the
41:47
crime scene. And that's fine. I just
41:49
bought them. But he said, I
41:51
have the price tag and
41:53
the receipt from when I
41:56
bought them, which was after this happened. I
41:58
didn't have them yet. I didn't have them. them yet
42:00
when that happened. The register tape didn't name
42:02
a specific item sold, but it did show
42:04
a sale with the same price as his
42:07
shoes from the shoe department. So it's probably
42:09
the shoes, and they're brand new. They
42:11
said the store didn't open until 8.55 a.m. that morning,
42:15
so the purchase would not have been made until after the
42:17
murders were thought to be committed. Here's
42:20
the problem I have with that though. When you say, oh,
42:22
well, and that's not a guilty thing. To me, how
42:25
many pairs of the same shoes do you have? Yeah.
42:28
That tells me, oh, boy, found that
42:30
shoe he loves. He likes those. Yeah.
42:32
How many pairs of Adidas, the classic
42:34
one, or the Puma suede, or Dunks
42:36
do it? Dunks, Jesus. They got like
42:38
six pairs. Same tread. That's what I
42:40
mean. And if you just murdered
42:42
a whole family and had blood all over
42:44
your fucking shoes that you liked, you might
42:46
go buy the same shoes so it doesn't
42:48
look suspicious that you have different shoes now
42:50
also. Yeah. Because he might have went right
42:52
there. So who knows? Now,
42:54
a statement, an agent from the Oklahoma
42:56
Bureau of Investigation assigned to that case,
42:59
he said that in the course of
43:01
the investigation, Bobby gave several
43:03
different and inconsistent statements after being informed
43:05
of his rights, of course. He
43:08
said at first he did not admit to
43:10
having participated in the burglary, saying Jerry
43:12
Prowess came back to his house on the
43:14
28th with cigarettes, a shaver, and a rifle,
43:17
and then that Prowess left on September 1st,
43:19
and that's the last time he saw him. Later
43:22
on, he admits, he said, okay, fine. I
43:24
took part in the burglary. I
43:27
did. He said, I- He was in that house. Yep.
43:29
He even said that he had gone to the
43:31
Thrasher home on the day of the murders, but
43:35
left the house before Jerry must have
43:37
done anything. Oh
43:39
my God. He then said
43:41
that Jerry Prowess threatened to kill him if
43:43
he told anyone, and that he just drove, after
43:45
all this, he drove Jerry to the edge, quote,
43:47
to the edge of town and let him out
43:50
of his car. And that was that. And
43:52
he's never seen or heard from Jerry Prowess again.
43:55
Funny thing is, neither is anyone else. This
43:58
guy doesn't exist. Yeah, of course not. He
44:00
described him as a bearded long-haired hitchhiker
44:03
named Jerry prowess and That's
44:05
what he said. He said that's I got this
44:07
guy. That's his description. You all
44:10
should you all should find him I
44:12
was fine Jerry. He's dangerous five nine
44:14
hundred seventy pounds mustache short beard shoulder
44:16
length brown hair Like everybody
44:18
else in 1974 Yeah,
44:24
then that one point out
44:26
of nowhere he's in the interrogation He's they broken
44:28
him down to like four different stories. I wasn't
44:31
there at all. I don't know anything. I was
44:33
there Oh shit, Jerry was there. Yeah, Jerry was
44:35
in the house. I was outside. I heard shots.
44:37
I dropped Jerry off I don't know nothing then
44:40
he says out of nowhere. He says quote I
44:42
can see them in my sleep at night He
44:46
says my god that little girl was still asleep.
44:48
Oh You
44:50
son of a bitch the kids. I can't get
44:52
him out of my mind that little boy just
44:54
looked at the gun Get
44:57
The fuck out. He was fucking baby was
45:00
awake and woke up. I aimed at his
45:02
face Yep, and he shot him in the
45:04
nose with it. You did that You
45:07
utter piece of and shot a
45:09
sleeping little girl you fucking scumbag.
45:11
How the unreal Jesus Christ. I
45:13
hate ah Yeah, I don't
45:15
want anybody to fucking I don't want cops to
45:18
use Enhanced interrogation
45:20
techniques, but when someone admits to
45:22
murdering a five-year-old You
45:24
should be able to work them over for
45:26
a couple minutes at that point Yeah, how
45:28
many layers of skin do we have is
45:30
it seven? I mean take a couple That's
45:32
a lot right off your fucking ball bag
45:34
take something you off This guy yeah, so
45:37
fucked up man. That is fucking
45:39
wild later on. He'll deny saying that the
45:41
little girl was asleep and And
45:44
He said that he denies that
45:46
he said that the boy must have been look he said he
45:48
told him that the boy must Have been looking at the gun
45:51
And he said he said that the agent
45:54
said that to him that boy must have been looking
45:56
at the gun and he became upset And merely repeated
45:58
it back was just like my cousin I
46:00
shot the clerk. I shot the
46:02
clerk. That's what they're saying. It's a
46:04
my cousin Vinnie situation. What did he
46:06
say after he said, I shot the
46:09
clerk? Whoa, hey, that was lame. He
46:11
said, I shot the clerk. I shot
46:13
the clerk. So the
46:17
prosecutor says that his
46:19
stories contained material which nobody but anyone
46:22
who was there killing people could have
46:24
known. And the
46:26
defense contended that because of rumor, rumor
46:29
and innuendo around a small town
46:31
plus excessive media coverage, everything
46:33
that he said had been in
46:35
public circulation being gossiped and talked
46:37
about. So he could have known.
46:39
He also says that based on
46:41
the prior inconsistent statement made to
46:44
the investigating agent, which according to
46:46
the agent's testimony, the
46:48
defendant told of going to the Thrasher home
46:50
with Jerry Prowis on that day. In this
46:52
story, he says that Prowis held the gun
46:54
on the Thrashers while he tied up Mervin
46:57
Thrasher. So I just
46:59
tied him up. He said several
47:01
times, Bobby tells them that
47:03
several times he kept saying, let's get out of here.
47:05
Let's get out of here. And then
47:07
after Mr. Thrasher was tied, Prowis
47:10
told him to go get the car. At
47:13
which point he said he ran out of the house and
47:16
then he heard gunshots as he was out
47:19
in the front yard. He said that,
47:21
you know, the jury's going to believe that if
47:23
they take him to trial because this is crazy.
47:26
Why did you buy new shoes then? Yeah.
47:29
And his lawyer says, well, even if you
47:31
find him guilty, you also have to find
47:33
abandonment of scheme. Abandonment of scheme
47:35
means that he abandoned it midway through. So he
47:37
should only be charged with the robbery and this
47:39
and that, but not the murder himself. His
47:42
final story on it all, he has many,
47:44
many stories. He
47:46
said, okay, I entered the home after
47:50
Jerry Prowis told me to, obviously we
47:52
came together. Jerry went in first, obviously.
47:55
And when I came in after Jerry was in there,
47:57
I parked the car. I came in there. Jerry, well,
48:00
was holding Sandra Thrasher at
48:02
gunpoint. He
48:05
said then Thrasher appeared to be,
48:09
you know, he was there, he said he just
48:11
got, the husband just got home from
48:13
work, because he just got home from his 4.30 a.m. work shift, the
48:17
fixing the engine. He
48:19
said that Collins told the
48:22
police that Thrasher found
48:24
the front door forced open and two men
48:26
inside with his wife at gunpoint in
48:28
her nightgown, which is, that's
48:30
not a situation he wanted to walk into. Collins
48:34
said that he tied up the
48:36
parents as Jerry Prowess directed
48:38
him, and that after rebinding
48:40
Thrasher, who had been let loose to take a
48:43
telephone call to tell the boss, I'll be there
48:45
in a couple hours, that's
48:47
when he left to get the car, and he
48:49
said he heard shots outside of the house. He
48:51
said two shots, then three shots, then three shots.
48:53
That's what he heard. He
48:56
missed the set, by the way, in there. He
48:58
said then he took Prowess eight miles north
49:01
of Woodward and let him out of his
49:03
car. They said,
49:05
well, what's the last you saw? I said, last
49:07
I saw of Jerry Prowess, he had a knapsack,
49:09
and he was walking down the road with his
49:11
knapsack and the .22 caliber lever-action rifle that he
49:13
took from the home and killed the whole family
49:16
with. Really? Walking
49:18
away, yep. The guy with
49:20
a knapsack and a rifle walking down the
49:22
street. Walking away after just, I wiped out
49:24
a family, long day, it's Miller
49:26
time. Like, so, the police officer said
49:29
that fucking Bobby Collins became
49:36
visibly upset when the cop told
49:38
him, I don't believe your bullshit
49:40
hitchhiker story, Bobby. I don't believe
49:42
a bullshit hitchhiker did anything. Don't
49:45
believe any of this shit. He said, I don't believe any
49:47
of that. So he
49:49
got real upset and Bobby said, he'll
49:51
kill me if I tell. Jerry
49:53
will kill me, that's what he said. He just
49:55
met this guy. You don't know
49:57
Jerry. You don't know Jerry. Jerry's got. If
50:00
Jerry had mob connections or was with a
50:02
cartel, he wouldn't be hitchhiking. Okay, first of
50:04
all, in your $6 shit box. Yeah,
50:08
other part is you've done terrible things that you've already
50:10
admitted to. You're going to be in prison for a
50:12
long time. Jerry ain't going to find you. Jerry ain't
50:14
going to find you. You're in prison. Yeah,
50:16
he'll be in the rape wing or whatever the fuck.
50:18
I don't know. So he
50:20
said he'll kill me. Then he
50:23
says, okay, I'll give you all the details so
50:25
you'll know I'm telling the truth. He
50:27
said, Jerry Prowess just said, we're going to
50:29
burglarize that home again, the one we went
50:31
to last time. I
50:34
parked the car. Jerry, carrying the rifle, entered
50:36
the home. When Jerry entered the house,
50:38
he saw the front door facing
50:41
the floor. He saw the
50:43
front door facing on the floor. I don't know what
50:45
that means. And noted that Mrs.
50:47
Thrasher was in bed and the boy,
50:49
so now she's not in the living room
50:51
at gunpoint. She's in bed now. In
50:54
that Robert, 18 months, the
50:56
baby was on the bottom level of a bunk bed
50:58
and the girl was asleep on the top bunk.
51:02
He said when Mr. Thrasher came in,
51:04
his wife yelled, they've got a gun
51:06
to alert
51:08
him. So then Mr. Thrasher
51:11
was forced at gunpoint to sit on the
51:13
bed and comfort the little boy who had
51:15
woken up from that. So
51:18
he had to comfort him until he went back to sleep, the
51:20
little boy, or at least till he calmed down. Bobby
51:24
Collins, on orders from Jerry, was tying
51:26
Thrasher up with strips of toweling when
51:29
the phone rang. He
51:31
said it was, Mr. Thrasher
51:33
told them, it's probably my boss and said,
51:35
I'll get rid of him. Let
51:38
me fucking talk to him. He answered the phone and said, I can't be
51:40
at work for two hours, just like the boss said. He
51:42
was then forced to kneel on the floor
51:45
while Collins tied him. And Collins said, he
51:47
said, let's go. Noting
51:50
that, he telling prowess, let's go. Noting
51:53
that Sandra Thrasher was not tied up.
51:55
He said he ran out the back door
51:57
and while running, he heard the shots. He
52:00
was, when did he tie
52:02
up fucking Sandra then? How would she
52:04
be able to tie, that much tying?
52:06
No. Yeah.
52:08
So he claims, like
52:11
I said, that he picked this guy up. He
52:13
claimed he picked him up on a day when he didn't even have a
52:15
car, first of all. Because he claims his cousin
52:17
will let him borrow the car. That's how he found
52:19
Jerry Prowse. His cousin said he didn't borrow my car
52:21
that day. So that's out right there. Also,
52:25
all replies to any inquiries
52:27
in question to all
52:29
states in the union about a Jerry Prowse
52:32
were all negative. No Jerry
52:34
Prowse's. And inconclusive, except
52:36
for a reply from New Jersey that
52:38
said they did have a record for
52:40
a guy named Jerry Prowell with two
52:42
L's. That's not the same
52:44
fucking name. And he's dead. Yeah,
52:47
and he's 93 years old and half blind.
52:52
His defense team, Bobby Collins said that Prowse and
52:54
Prowell might be the same guy. I'm sure it's
52:56
the same guy. Just grab him. Yeah.
52:59
He said that if he knew of that, he might have
53:01
been able to track down that person who might have been
53:03
the alleged Jerry Prowse. So they said it
53:05
was disputed whether or not that he went even
53:08
to Enid that day. So they said, who the
53:10
fuck knows where he's lying and where he's telling
53:12
the truth. But one thing they do know, Jerry
53:16
Prowse doesn't fuck. He's snuffle-uffigous, basically.
53:18
No, it's not a real guy.
53:20
No, it's hardcore snuffle-uffigous time here.
53:24
Jerry Prowse becomes a, hey, big bird. Hey,
53:27
I'm Jerry. Hey, Bobby. Let's
53:29
kill a family. You time
53:31
up and I'll rape them. Jesus
53:35
Christ. Why did you choose
53:37
such a fucking unique
53:39
name? Why didn't he just use, I don't know,
53:41
a guy named Bob Johnson? Ronnie Jones
53:44
came over. There's a
53:46
lot of that probably. Oh, it's a Ronnie. Ronnie
53:48
sounds like a wild man. Ronnie Wayne Jones' name
53:50
was. We both named Wayne in the middle name.
53:52
Sounds like a guy that murders. It's
53:54
a murderer, right? Yeah. If
53:56
you're shopping while working, eating, or even
53:58
listening to this podcast. then you
54:00
know and love the thrill of the
54:03
hunt. But are you getting the thrill
54:05
of the best deals? Rakuten shoppers do.
54:07
They get the brands they love with
54:09
the most savings and cashback. And you
54:11
can get it too. Start getting cashback
54:14
at your favorite stores like Urban Outfitters,
54:16
Fenty Beauty, and Expedia, and even stack
54:18
sales on top of cashback. It's easy
54:20
to use and you get your cashback
54:23
through PayPal or check. The idea is
54:25
simple. Stores pay Rakuten for sending them
54:27
shoppers and Rakuten shares the money with
54:29
you as cashback. Download the free
54:32
Rakuten app and never miss a
54:34
deal or go to rakuten.com to
54:36
start getting the most bang for
54:38
your buck. That's R-A-K-U-T-E-N. This
54:41
podcast is supported by FedEx. FedEx
54:44
offers fast delivery, more visibility,
54:46
simple returns, and weekend home
54:48
delivery to 98% of
54:51
the U.S. population on Saturday and 50% on
54:54
Sunday. With FedEx, you get picture
54:56
proof of delivery, ensuring you always
54:58
know where your package is. Returns are
55:00
simple with package lists and paperless
55:02
returns. Plus, FedEx Ground is
55:04
also faster to more locations
55:07
than UPS Ground. See the
55:09
FedEx service guide for delivery information. So
55:11
what are you waiting for? See what
55:13
FedEx can do for your business. Absolutely,
55:16
positively, FedEx. Okay,
55:19
it's time to commit. 2024
55:22
is the year for prioritizing yourself. Begin
55:24
your new smile journey with Bite and
55:26
you could start seeing results in just
55:28
two to three weeks. Just order your
55:30
at-home impression kit today for only $14.95
55:33
at bite.com. Bite
55:36
clear aligners are doctor directed and
55:38
delivered to your door. Treatment costs
55:40
thousands less than braces. Plus, they
55:42
offer financing options, accept eligible insurance,
55:44
and you can pay with your
55:47
HSA FSA. Get 80% off
55:49
your impression kit when you
55:51
use code WONDRY at bite.com.
55:53
That's byte.com. Start your confidence
55:56
journey today with Bite. I'm
55:58
up with a better fucking murder. her name. Yeah,
56:01
Jerry Prowess. Okay.
56:04
So the Oklahoma State Bureau
56:06
of Investigation fingerprint technician, James
56:09
R. Looney, he is Looney,
56:11
that fingerprint guy, he said,
56:13
Colin's fingerprints were not found among the
56:15
prints discovered at the home. He
56:17
did say that a lot of the prints that were
56:20
taken were not identifiable. They were smudged and all that
56:22
kind of shit. So that happens a lot. Prints, it's
56:24
very rare they get great whole prints. It just doesn't
56:26
work out that way at very often. Nowadays,
56:29
they'd much rather have the oil on it to
56:31
do touch DNA than they would even fucking do
56:33
a print if it's easier. Who's to say this
56:35
dumb bitch didn't wear some gloves in this? Who
56:37
knows? Yeah, he's going over to kill in the
56:40
house he's been at before. Yeah, he knows what
56:42
he's doing. Yeah. He says that there's insufficient evidence
56:44
to bind him over on a charge of murder
56:46
in the first degree. The charge should
56:49
be reduced to murder in the second degree or
56:51
manslaughter in the first degree. He shot
56:53
a baby in the face at cold blood. A
56:55
baby in the nose, man. Wow. The
56:58
trial court erred here in overruling
57:01
his motion to quash and
57:03
dismiss the information, certain information.
57:06
Now they find no error. They said the
57:08
footprint running from the house to the road
57:11
matched his sneakers. He confessed to the burglary
57:13
in which the murder weapon had been taken
57:15
and his alibi was completely uncorroborated and also
57:18
the person that he said was there. He
57:21
said, I think we're pretty good in holding him over. So
57:23
during the trial, the defense attorney
57:25
contends that a burglar killed the
57:28
family, not Bobby. Well, Bobby
57:30
is a burglar and yes, I agree with you.
57:32
A burglar killed him. His name is Bobby Collins.
57:34
I agree. Yeah. Yes. He
57:37
said, we believe Bobby Collins had some association
57:39
with the burglar who went into the Thrasher
57:41
home and we also believe the killer or
57:43
killers are still at large. Okay, OJ. So
57:47
also he doesn't want the photos let in. Of
57:50
the scene? The photos over of
57:53
murdered children, which tends to piss a jury
57:55
off. But you know what
57:57
you do is you don't murder children and then that never
57:59
happens. I've never
58:01
been to court and had my fate be decided
58:03
by the jury looking at pictures of children I
58:06
killed or not because I've never killed any children.
58:08
So it really works that easy. Yeah.
58:11
Wow. The
58:15
rule is if they're gruesome and there's
58:17
no possibility of prejudice to the jury,
58:19
then they will not be admissible unless
58:22
their probative value clearly outweighs the danger
58:24
of prejudice. So they said in
58:26
this case here they held a
58:28
hearing outside. The defendant argues that the
58:31
matter in which the Thrashers died was not
58:33
in contention and that the photographs were not
58:36
relevant to his defense of alibi. So
58:40
they said, no, actually,
58:42
they're in. Photo mode. Yeah. Also
58:45
he says, and even if I did was there,
58:47
like I said I was, it was an abandonment
58:49
of scheme. Yeah. So he said, I
58:51
said, I wanted to get out of there and
58:53
Jerry just went crazy. Now, as we know, you
58:55
can go in to rob a store. You can
58:57
wait in the fucking car, sit in the back
58:59
seat. Somebody shoots somebody 100 yards away and you're
59:02
up for murder. Especially Oklahoma.
59:05
Yeah. Or even the guy behind the counter shoots your
59:07
friend. Now you're charged with killing your friend. Your friend's
59:09
murder. Which is a dumb fucking law. Everybody in the
59:11
car is there of their own. Everybody should be charged
59:13
with if someone else gets killed. But if one of
59:16
them gets killed, he didn't want to kill his friend.
59:18
That's fucking ridiculous. That is pretty crazy. The
59:20
storekeeper can pull people away for life
59:24
in his self-defense. That's insanity. That's the
59:26
dumbest fucking law. Not only are you
59:29
not going to jail, he's going to
59:31
jail for you murdering after him. Like
59:35
I get, you know, you don't want
59:37
to discourage armed robbery. But at the
59:39
same time, we have to have logic
59:41
in the law of some kind. That's
59:43
a fucking wild law. Yeah.
59:46
They said, though, this is without merit,
59:48
that Jerry just went crazy. Because
59:50
in order to successfully abandon the scheme, that party
59:52
must communicate to others and involves his intention to
59:54
do so. He didn't say, Jerry, fuck this. I'm
59:57
done with this. I'm getting out of here. So
1:00:00
yeah, he said that at no point he told
1:00:02
Jerry Prowess he was withdrawing, he just said he
1:00:04
followed his instruction to go to the car. Closing
1:00:08
arguments, the prosecutor over
1:00:11
the defendant's objection, the prosecutor produced
1:00:13
a material similar to
1:00:15
that which Mervin Thrasher was bound with
1:00:17
and demonstrated it was possible for a
1:00:20
person to bind himself. Like
1:00:22
if you told him to tie yourself up, you could do it. So
1:00:25
the defendant here, he argues that this demonstration
1:00:28
was an error and that the prosecuting attorney
1:00:30
went outside the record because that's not the
1:00:32
actual stuff, it's just a similar thing there.
1:00:35
They said the actual bindings were in
1:00:38
evidence. So they could have looked
1:00:40
at that. He was just showing them one that
1:00:42
he could really fuck with in court. Yeah, they could play
1:00:44
on the touch that one. Exactly. They said
1:00:46
a book could not be used in the
1:00:48
demonstration because they had been caught in order
1:00:50
to be removed from the victim. Oh, Jesus.
1:00:53
They had blood on them for Christ's sake.
1:00:56
So the counsel for the defense suggested during opening
1:00:58
arguments that the evidence would not support the contention
1:01:00
that one person could have done all that was
1:01:02
done and the purpose of the
1:01:04
demonstration was to show that Mervin Thrasher
1:01:06
could have bound himself. So
1:01:09
the counsel for the state did not claim
1:01:11
that Thrasher had tied himself in such a
1:01:13
matter, but only to show that it was
1:01:15
possible for a person to bind himself. Now
1:01:20
one person could have done this because Mervin
1:01:23
wasn't home. Yeah,
1:01:25
you got to control with everybody. Then when he
1:01:27
gets home, then you've got control with him. It's
1:01:29
not that hard. You
1:01:32
got the kids are asleep. They're no physical threat
1:01:34
anyway. Five and less than two. You got the
1:01:36
wife in the bedroom. You've got a wife, well,
1:01:38
I'm going to listen. You've raped and tied up
1:01:40
this wife at gunpoint in the bedroom and then
1:01:43
dude comes home and now you got him at
1:01:45
gunpoint. It's not like there was eight fucking lumberjacks
1:01:47
sitting around and you kicked the door open into
1:01:49
their breakfast and said, what's up, motherfuckers? Like that
1:01:52
would have been, yeah, that'd be hard. They all have axes. This
1:01:54
is different. So at the
1:01:56
conclusion of this case, he wants a new trial. Alrighty.
1:02:00
He said the only conceivable case the state
1:02:02
might have is a legal trespass and first-degree
1:02:04
manslaughter. That's it. No murder Imagine
1:02:07
saying that the balls on that Yeah,
1:02:09
they see teen months old dead man
1:02:12
He said it would be far greater crime
1:02:14
to bind a person over for first-degree murder
1:02:16
when the only punishment is death So
1:02:20
the judge rejects a plea deal that
1:02:22
they parade that they had there an
1:02:24
attempted plea deal They said no verdict
1:02:27
comes in guilty as shit. Yeah Yeah,
1:02:29
looking pretty guilty there And
1:02:31
a lot of trouble man. You're a
1:02:34
lot of trouble the sentencing comes in
1:02:36
even more trouble you sir Yeah, a
1:02:38
fuck off death penalty. Yeah, which
1:02:41
I think about if you asked anybody in town You
1:02:43
want to just drag him behind your truck. They'd all
1:02:45
go. I got a rope in the truck I don't
1:02:47
give a fuck about this guy we
1:02:49
can use killing children Hey, he drove
1:02:51
a man 10 miles to the side
1:02:53
edge of town. Let's just drag him.
1:02:55
Yeah About
1:02:57
here He
1:03:01
stopped responding a couple miles back, I don't
1:03:03
know if maybe yes, we'll just cut him
1:03:05
loose fuck it Yeah, fuck this guy. No,
1:03:07
you can't kill children in cold blood. That's
1:03:09
crazy No, and you can't shoot an 18
1:03:11
month old in the fucking no And
1:03:14
you can't be breaking into people's houses to rape
1:03:16
them and you can't be tying up people and
1:03:18
you can't be trying to burn People alive in
1:03:20
their bed. Fuck this guy. He's a he was
1:03:22
he was gonna get to this point One
1:03:26
way or another. Yep. Fuck. Yeah,
1:03:28
but shortly after this conviction and death
1:03:30
penalty it was ruled Unconstitutional
1:03:33
the death penalty in the state of
1:03:35
Oklahoma and a sentence was changed to
1:03:37
life in prison Due
1:03:39
to life in prison. It's not life
1:03:42
without so he gets parole hearings all
1:03:44
the time. We'll talk about Jesus. Yep
1:03:47
the the Prosecutors
1:03:49
said it's a shame to go through the work
1:03:51
to represent the people in a case
1:03:53
of the magnitude of the Collins case And have
1:03:55
it overturned like that. Yeah, so
1:03:58
in his appeal here. He wants wants an
1:04:00
appeal and he said that
1:04:03
it's all circumstantial evidence. There's no fingerprints, there's
1:04:05
no physical evidence, they didn't find a gun
1:04:07
in his possession, none of that shit. It's
1:04:09
all shit he said. They said,
1:04:12
but they said every reason, and this
1:04:14
is the court saying in a circumstantial
1:04:16
evidence case, every reasonable hypothesis
1:04:18
except guilt must be excluded before he
1:04:20
can find someone guilty. If
1:04:23
there's DNA all over the place, then the other things
1:04:25
are a little more nebulous, that's fine, but this is,
1:04:28
they got to be exact. They
1:04:30
said that factors would
1:04:32
include incriminating statements or conduct on the part
1:04:34
of the accused. In
1:04:37
this case, the circumstantial evidence implicating him
1:04:39
was taken together with the testimony of
1:04:41
the agents who said what he said
1:04:43
to them about Jerry Prowis and all
1:04:46
that kind of shit, and they said
1:04:48
that's sufficient to support the guilty verdict.
1:04:51
They said, in other
1:04:53
cases, one with a suicide, it was different, but
1:04:55
here, he next
1:04:58
to signs also error to the trial
1:05:00
court refusing his suggesting, requesting
1:05:02
instruction on murder in the second
1:05:04
degree. They
1:05:06
said that would be by Oklahoma law
1:05:08
in 74 when perpetrated without authority of
1:05:10
law and with a premeditated design to
1:05:12
affect the death of a person or
1:05:14
any other human being, but not an
1:05:17
act enumerated by in the
1:05:19
proceeding section. But he went into burglarize, so
1:05:21
he got it all. So
1:05:23
it is affirmed, but
1:05:26
with a dissent, there's a dissenting justice for
1:05:28
finding him guilty of nothing. Those are their
1:05:30
options. There was
1:05:33
evidence presented that the defendant might have been
1:05:35
guilty of a less serious crime than murder
1:05:37
in the first degree, and to that extent,
1:05:39
he was denied a fair trial by the
1:05:41
jury. They should have given the
1:05:43
jury the opportunity to believe him
1:05:46
and call it manslaughter or second degree. He
1:05:49
said regarding the demonstration by the prosecuting
1:05:51
attorney in the closing argument, cases cited
1:05:53
by the majority in this opinion, while
1:05:55
by no means binding this court to
1:05:57
allow such a demonstration do indicate that
1:06:00
In some jurisdictions, considerable latitude has
1:06:02
been allowed to the prosecutors in
1:06:04
closing arguments. That's true.
1:06:06
A lot of latitude in closing arguments.
1:06:09
His person says, nevertheless though, I think
1:06:11
the demonstration by the prosecutor was extremely
1:06:13
prejudicial to the defendant because the prosecutor
1:06:15
made it appear that it would have
1:06:18
been a simple task for
1:06:20
Mervyn Thrasher to have tied his own wrists
1:06:22
and then to have stepped over them so
1:06:24
his hands would be tied behind him. The
1:06:28
defendant was given no opportunity to discover
1:06:30
and point out to the jury that
1:06:32
the prosecuting attorney had in
1:06:34
fact practiced the demonstration in his
1:06:37
hotel room. Well, yeah, you
1:06:39
practiced your whole fucking, I would assume you probably
1:06:41
practiced a lot of what you do. You
1:06:44
probably say things. I'm going to say this. Does this sound
1:06:46
good? So it comes out of your mouth easier than you
1:06:48
say the second time? If you
1:06:50
don't practice your fucking murder
1:06:53
prosecution, you're terrible. I
1:06:56
rehearsed my fucking divorce proceedings
1:06:59
for Christ's sake. Closing
1:07:01
arguments in a murder trial where kids were
1:07:03
shot in the face? I'll fucking one take
1:07:05
Charlie and I got it. I'm
1:07:07
just good on my feet. If I know it too well, then
1:07:09
it won't come out right. It's got to be fresh. I'm
1:07:12
going to fucking wing it and I'll kill it. Like Brando, you
1:07:14
know what I mean? I do it off
1:07:16
the hip from the hip here. He
1:07:19
said, as a result, the jury may have well
1:07:21
been misled as to what the demonstration had actually
1:07:23
shown. Finally, I would like to
1:07:25
reverse on the grounds that the state
1:07:27
suppressed evidence which was exculpatory to the
1:07:29
defendant. What's that? Which is, prior to
1:07:32
the trial, the defendant properly moved to
1:07:34
compel disclosure of all evidence favorable to
1:07:36
him, including copies of all
1:07:38
memorandums, reports, and summaries used by
1:07:40
the plaintiff, the state of Oklahoma,
1:07:42
or any of its agents, representatives,
1:07:45
or assigns to determine
1:07:47
the possibility of the hitchhiker described
1:07:49
by the defendant as Jerry Prowess or
1:07:52
to eliminate the possibility of such
1:07:54
hitchhiker described by the defendant, including
1:07:56
but not limited to the following
1:07:58
copies of all form letters. blah
1:08:00
blah blah blah, copies of wire message, and
1:08:03
any and all reports dealing with
1:08:05
the investigation or inquiries made concerning
1:08:07
the existence or non-existence of Jerry
1:08:10
Prowis or any other hitchhiker. So
1:08:13
he says they didn't look into that enough.
1:08:16
He fucking made it up. It would be one thing if the
1:08:20
person existed. It would be one thing
1:08:22
if he said, Bob from down the
1:08:24
street, I know him. That would be
1:08:26
one thing. Yes, investigate. He made a
1:08:28
fucking person up, period. And
1:08:30
he said he had an ID
1:08:32
with the name on it, therefore
1:08:35
he knows how to spell it. It's not like it
1:08:37
was Jerry with a G. You know what I mean?
1:08:39
Yeah. He mumbled it and
1:08:41
said Prowis. He might have said Prowel or he
1:08:43
might have said Prowin. I don't know. No, he
1:08:45
read it. He fucking read it. I saw the
1:08:47
letters. We
1:08:49
Googled him. He don't exist. That was a dumb thing to
1:08:51
say. I knew the exact, because then he could have said,
1:08:54
well try it like this or try it like this. He
1:08:56
might have said it like this. I don't know. Eventually
1:08:59
you would have found someone with that name,
1:09:01
but this fucking idiot, not at all.
1:09:03
He's an idiot. He blew it. So
1:09:05
1977, he's trying to get the Supreme
1:09:07
Court to hear his case. Oh boy.
1:09:09
And they announced that they will not
1:09:11
hear the appeal of Bobby Wade Collins.
1:09:13
We're going to pass on that. Yeah.
1:09:15
He contended he was denied his constitutional
1:09:17
right to due process because he was
1:09:19
not allowed to see records detailing the
1:09:21
government's search for the
1:09:23
hitchhiker. Yeah. He wanted
1:09:25
to see the records of the search. They didn't
1:09:27
look for him. Right. So he argued, if they
1:09:30
honestly thought he existed and
1:09:32
was out there hitchhiking, robbing, murdering, murdering
1:09:34
their spouses like that, I feel like
1:09:36
they'd probably take a look just in
1:09:38
case. Hey, we'll get two for one here.
1:09:40
Yeah. So yeah, they said
1:09:43
that. Collins argued that if he
1:09:45
had been allowed to see the records, he could have shown his
1:09:48
jury that the state authorities made only a
1:09:50
superficial search for the man. Or he
1:09:53
said, I could have even tried to locate
1:09:55
him myself. Yeah, but you could. What 1974
1:09:57
resources does a 19-year-old
1:10:00
have to find somebody. Right. A
1:10:03
19-year-old who works at a gas station and lights people
1:10:05
on fire in bed. Yeah, and rapes old women. That's
1:10:07
great. So, yeah, they
1:10:09
said they've ruled that it wasn't unconstitutional.
1:10:12
Blah, blah, blah. You can go fuck
1:10:14
yourself. He has ruled, you sir,
1:10:16
may fuck off life in prison. Like
1:10:19
I said, but with parole. So
1:10:21
he's got parole. Now, 1989, he's up for parole. It's
1:10:26
15 years. Oh my God. He
1:10:29
told the parole board he did not commit
1:10:31
the murders. Uh-oh. But he also
1:10:33
said he didn't believe my arguments will sway
1:10:35
you anyway. He said, I'm well
1:10:38
aware no one here is going to grant me
1:10:40
no parole anyhow. That's what he said. Grant
1:10:42
me no parole anyhow. Anyhow. Anyhow.
1:10:46
So, 19, he's basically, I don't, he's doing a Manson. Like
1:10:48
you're not going to let me out anyway. Why am I
1:10:50
fucking here? Keep dicks. 92
1:10:53
up for parole again. He
1:10:55
asked the board to reduce his life sentence to
1:10:57
45, 60, 75, 99 years. It
1:11:01
doesn't matter. Oh, he doesn't like the torture. He wants
1:11:03
a number. Yeah. He wants
1:11:05
a number. The indefinite shit is driving
1:11:07
me nuts already. Yep. He
1:11:10
maintains his innocence. He said he does not deserve
1:11:12
to be in prison at all, but a reduced
1:11:14
sentence would put his chances of release at least
1:11:16
in his own hands. Yeah,
1:11:18
there's not no one is driving me nuts.
1:11:21
Then he broke out. I have scientific
1:11:23
evidence. Oh. Which
1:11:26
is, the parole board is not the person to take
1:11:28
that. You take that to an appeals court. Yeah. Parole
1:11:31
board wants to hear, I'm very sorry and I'm better now.
1:11:33
I won't do it again. Rehabilitation
1:11:35
story and remorse. That's what we
1:11:38
need. Yep. He said
1:11:40
the cigarettes at the crime scene showed
1:11:42
someone with O positive blood type was
1:11:45
there and the blood type of Collins
1:11:47
and all of the victims is A
1:11:49
positive. That means,
1:11:51
so he could have had someone come over smoking.
1:11:54
One of the cops could have had a cigarette. Yeah.
1:11:57
Fucking, it's Bob. Bob's cigarette? Yeah, a couple of
1:11:59
them. of cigarettes. He called
1:12:02
and said that he is a trustee and
1:12:05
for jail and has been had a
1:12:07
clear conduct, a record conduct for almost
1:12:10
nine years. He's been in jail for 20. That's
1:12:13
not good. It's not great. That's really
1:12:15
bad. And the board unanimously tells him to
1:12:17
go eat dicks again. Go
1:12:20
set your own bed on fire. 2009, he's
1:12:23
up for parole. Oh, my. And
1:12:25
the district attorney told the parole board that
1:12:27
what he did was probably one of the
1:12:29
worst crimes Woodward County has ever
1:12:31
seen. And
1:12:33
they said they're encouraging the public to write letters to the
1:12:35
parole board. If they don't want them out or if they
1:12:38
do want them out, let them know. Former
1:12:41
district attorney Jack Barton, who was there
1:12:43
for 75, said Bobby Collins should have
1:12:46
been executed. He never gave a reason for
1:12:48
committing the crimes. I'll kill him myself. I
1:12:51
mean, in retrospect, we should have lynched
1:12:54
him. But you know, we should have
1:12:56
missed. Then he
1:12:58
revealed that the rifle used
1:13:00
was found years later in
1:13:02
a pond. Years
1:13:05
after the conviction in the 80s, somebody pulled
1:13:07
the rifle out and they figured out it's
1:13:09
the fucking murder weapon. Oh, my God. So
1:13:11
it was in a pond. This
1:13:14
guy said that, quote, I don't think he should ever
1:13:16
be paroled. So he wasn't some
1:13:18
guy that wasn't eight miles out of town walking away
1:13:20
with it because it was in a pond in town.
1:13:23
So he's full of shit. The
1:13:26
Taylor, Collins caseworker has written a, quote,
1:13:29
glowing review about him recommending that he
1:13:31
should be released and that he's shown
1:13:33
good behavior while in prison. No. Wow.
1:13:37
He was at the Lexington Corrections Center,
1:13:39
a medium security prison. They
1:13:41
said, quote, the reason the caseworker is recommending
1:13:43
him for parole is because he's maintained good
1:13:46
behavior and turned in a
1:13:48
machine gun left behind by the National
1:13:50
Guard after exercises at the prison. They
1:13:52
left a machine gun in prison. Who
1:13:55
leaves? Who the fuck
1:13:57
didn't account for all the automatic weaponry?
1:14:00
And they left it in a prison. Somebody
1:14:03
sat down and scratched their balls and
1:14:05
then stood up and walked away. Maybe
1:14:07
like a second grade playground is the only
1:14:09
worst place I could think of to leave
1:14:11
a machine gun. Maybe there. So
1:14:14
you left your machine gun. Oh, thank you
1:14:16
so much. You are such a responsible movie.
1:14:18
Thank you for not killing us all and
1:14:20
trying to escape. Wow. Uh,
1:14:23
Sandra Thrasher's mother, who was
1:14:25
still alive at that point, was
1:14:27
past, still passing out flyers at
1:14:29
convenience stores, asking people, write letters, requesting
1:14:32
his parole be denied. She's, she's dead
1:14:34
that now though. So she can't do
1:14:36
that anymore. In
1:14:39
2019, his attorney, who by the way,
1:14:42
one of his appeals attorney, Dennis
1:14:44
Hartley was also Timothy McVay's attorney, one
1:14:47
of his attorney. Yes. He
1:14:49
is disbarred in 2019. Oh,
1:14:51
yeah. Um, he did
1:14:54
that. And so there's that. And,
1:14:56
uh, Hart, this is the lawyer. He said, I will
1:14:58
continue to advise against it, but I don't imagine he'll
1:15:00
change his mind. I don't think anyone's going to try
1:15:02
to persuade him to change his mind. I don't know
1:15:04
what they're talking about there. Oh, they're talking about this
1:15:06
guy doing his appeals. Okay. So that's that
1:15:09
he's still in prison. Wow. They've
1:15:11
kept him for 30 years. I
1:15:13
haven't seen him paroled and I look at the
1:15:15
last I saw was what? 2019 night. No,
1:15:19
that was when the attorney was gone. 2009,
1:15:22
he was up for parole. I mean, that was Christ.
1:15:24
He'd been in there forever. Then 15 years ago, as
1:15:27
long as he doesn't admit to shooting children. There's
1:15:29
no way to let them out. They're not letting
1:15:31
them out and they shouldn't let them out. He
1:15:33
can go fuck himself. Rod in there. Find me
1:15:36
Jerry or shut the fuck up. Yeah. That man
1:15:38
produced Jerry. Wow. James, he was 21 when
1:15:41
that happened. He was 19 when that happened. Oh
1:15:44
yeah. Holy fuck. Yeah.
1:15:46
He is now 69 years old. He's
1:15:50
almost 70. He's been in there for 40 years. He's
1:15:53
a scumbag. There you go. 50
1:15:55
years. Holy. That
1:15:58
is the Snuffleupagus murders here. Yeah.
1:16:01
That is Oklahoma, Woodward Oklahoma. If you like that show,
1:16:03
tell the world about it. Get on whatever app you're
1:16:05
on and give us five stars and say something nice.
1:16:07
Doesn't matter what you say at all. You don't have
1:16:09
to say, tell me what's your favorite flavor of gum
1:16:11
is. That's all you have to say. I'm
1:16:14
so and so. The show's great. I love
1:16:16
strawberry. That'd be terrific. I don't care. Do
1:16:18
that. Also head over to
1:16:20
shutupandgivememurder.com. Get your tickets for live shows.
1:16:23
Right. 420 virtual live show,
1:16:25
April 20th, available for two weeks after that to
1:16:27
buy and watch. You can watch it a hundred
1:16:29
times, do whatever you want with it. Anywhere
1:16:31
in the world with an internet, you can see a
1:16:33
live show. Do it and hang out
1:16:36
with us. We cannot wait for that. shutupandgivememurder.com. Get
1:16:38
your tickets for the rest of the year too.
1:16:40
Those shows are selling out. Oh boy, they're moving.
1:16:42
Yeah. If you want to come to a
1:16:44
show like New York end of the year, it's almost done. You better
1:16:47
get your tickets. That's in December. Get your
1:16:49
tickets right now. Come see us. Do that.
1:16:51
patreon.com/crime and sports, all the bonus material.
1:16:54
Five dollars a month or above. Get you everything. Back
1:16:57
catalog. New episodes, new ones every other week.
1:16:59
This week for crime and sports, which you
1:17:01
get. We're going to talk about the trials and tribulations
1:17:03
of Hulk Hogan. All
1:17:06
of his crazy stuff. He's calling people
1:17:08
racial slurs. His kid's killing people. He's
1:17:10
getting sex tapes put out in public.
1:17:12
He's suing people for a hundred million.
1:17:14
It's wild shit. Get in there for
1:17:16
small town murder, back by popular demand.
1:17:19
Weird small town festivals. We can't wait. So
1:17:22
much fucking fun. Get in there. patreon.com/crime
1:17:24
and sports. Then you get a shout out at the
1:17:26
end of the regular show. Follow
1:17:28
the show on social media at small town murder
1:17:30
on Instagram, small town pod on Facebook. Get in
1:17:32
there. Follow us. Also, you
1:17:34
want to follow us individually. You can do that.
1:17:37
Go to shutupandgivememurder.com. Drop down menu. Do
1:17:39
that. Keep hanging out with us. Oh
1:17:42
boy. Don't ever stop. Keep coming back.
1:17:44
And until next week, everybody, it's been
1:17:46
our pleasure. Bye. Hey
1:18:07
Prime Members, you can listen to Small Town
1:18:09
Murder early and ad-free on Amazon Music. Download
1:18:12
the Amazon Music app today. Or
1:18:14
you can listen early and ad-free with Wondery
1:18:16
Plus and Apple Podcasts. Before
1:18:18
you go, tell us
1:18:21
about yourself by completing
1:18:23
a short survey at
1:18:26
wondery.com. Ophthalmologist Dr. Strauss has
1:18:28
seen first-hand how the metaverse is helping
1:18:30
surgeons practice the procedures to treat
1:18:32
cataracts. Cataracts are
1:18:35
the primary cause of avoidable blindness.
1:18:37
He works with a virtual reality
1:18:39
training platform developed by Fundamental VR
1:18:41
and Orbis International to help surgeons
1:18:43
develop the muscle memory they need.
1:18:45
The result? More confident, capable
1:18:48
surgeons. And even more importantly, patients
1:18:50
who can see. Explore more
1:18:52
stories like Dr. Strauss' at
1:18:55
meta.com/metaverse impact.
Podchaser is the ultimate destination for podcast data, search, and discovery. Learn More