Lynette Barnett and Tina Gonzales | Hybristophilia #2

0:15 I walk straight line. Shackle change, Oh someome gird, it's calling my name. There is no mercy and it's been a tentery juice as the hill stream game Wrangle three. Come here, be by me or die inside these walls, inside the wild and went the walk as I'm Bloody.

1:31 Hey everyone, and welcome back to Bloody Angla, a podcast one hundred and forty two years in the making, the complete story of America's bloodiest prison. I'm Jim Chapman, and today I'm bringing you another episode from the High Bristophilia series and the subject of today's episode is Lynette Barnett, who, on August twenty ninth of nineteen ninety nine, while I employed as a prison guard at Crossroads Correctional Center, not only assisted in the escape, but went on the run with a convicted murderer by the name of Terry Banks.

2:14 So that's what we're going to be talking about today. Let's get right into it, and I'm going to give you a little bit of background on Lynette Barnette. She was twenty eight years old when everything I'm about to tell you about went down, and she had kind of a different path than most early on in life. She met her husband, David, when she was sixteen years old and working at a grocery store as a cashier. And at that time David, he was working in the produce department of that same store. He was five years older than Lynette at twenty one years old, and as I said, she was sixteen at the time, and they fell in love just a year later at seventeen. So David was pretty controlling of Lynette after they married, and Lynette wanted to return to school and graduate, but David was worried she would meet someone else and he just wouldn't let her do it. So she decided to get her ged instead, and that's just what she did, and it's kind of off with life. David gets a job as a case worker at what was known as Western Missouri Correctional Center, and Lynette, she worked several different jobs. She's trying to find her footing in life, right, She's much younger than David, So she takes a job at a shoe factory. She becomes a nursing aide and a nursing home and eventually

3:44 a job opportunity comes up at Crossroad Correctional Facility as a correctional officer Now, this job intrigued Lynette. She thought it would help strengthen her marriage because of her husban David, as well as her father in law, both worked in corrections and her employment was close in proximity to David's. Crossroad Correctional Center and Western Missouri Correctional Center were actually just next door to each other. So she certainly thought this new job would help. But the marriage stayed bad for these two, and it really was bad the whole time. Lynette, as a matter of fact, leaves the marriage several times throughout the ten years that were married, but each time her husband would say he was going to change, et cetera, and she would go back to him. However, in nineteen ninety nine, the relationship reached a breaking point when Lynette caught David cheating on her and she left the marriage. Now, for the record, David, he denies any cheating allegations, and he claims it was Lynette who was the one that was controlling. But she there's a lot of family that backs up her claim. And so it's the single life for Lynette, and life at this time was really bad for her. She ended up moving in to her mother's boyfriend's home, she was sleeping in a plane utility basement

5:17 and stopped making her car payments all together. She was struggling, and it's at this point in her life she starts kind of opening up on her relationship while working at the correctional center, and specifically to a particular inmate by the name of Terry Banks. So let's talk about Terry real quick. He had a pretty rough childhood himself. His dad, Charlie, was in and out of jail constantly, and they moved. Around a lot. In nineteen ninety two, they landed in Joplin, Missouri, where Terry's brother lived, and it was at this point that Terry, who was nineteen, fell for a seventeen year old by the name of Sheena Eastburn. Now Sheena, although young, had already been married and divorced, and this girl totally hated her ex husband, who she described as a drug dealing loser, and she made claims to Terry that he had also raped her, and Terry, along with Sheena and their friend Matt Myers, they concoct a plan to rob and kill Tim Eastburn, her ex husband, So they go to his home inside a trailer park and Sheena goes into the home, and she's acting like she wants to reconcile with her ex husband Tim. Right, she gets him by the window where Terry fires a single shot through that window and

6:52 takes down Tim Eastburn. So Terry and his friend Matt, they then go inside of the home and they steal everything they thought was of value, and on the way out Matt myers. He notices Tim move and appears. To be breathing. He's not dead yet, so Matt fires another shot directly into Tim's head and kills him. Police investigate. They talk to the ex wife, as you would imagine, that's the first person they wanted to talk to, and as you would expect, she gives up both Matt and Terry and tells police of this plan.

7:34 So they go speak to Matt. Matt says the same story, and they wanted to pretty much nail Terry in Sheena more than Matt, so in exchange for a lesser charge. When it's all sudden done, Sheena and Terry get life in prison and Matt gets sixty seven years with a parole chance because he agreed to testify against the other two. And that was in nineteen ninety two. So back to nineteen ninety nine. Lynette, as I told you, she's in a really bad spot in life. She's struggling financially, she just got a divorce, and she's confiding in this inmate who she's pretty sure is into her. He flirts with her constantly. And Terry worked in the food warehouse of this prison and Lynette that's where she was assigned to guards, so they would see each other every single day. Well, one day, after talking back and forth and her confiding in him, and him being kind of the shoulder to cry on, Terry goes for it. He pulls her behind a stack of boxes where no one would see and kisses her, and she reciprocates, And so it begins with these two. And quite honestly, Terry caught Lynette at a weak time in her life. She was dawn, and she was susceptible to a male figure coming in and trying to be the

9:04 strong person for her, even if it was an inmate. Right, that's all they got is time to do in prison, and their whole goal is to try and con people. To them, that's what it's all about. It is just a game to them, and she played right into Terry's game. Now, this prison, it's a pretty big prison. There are a lot of places you can get lost in there. You can get in a corner where the cameras can't see you, and you can have some time with someone pretty easily, and they would take advantage of that. In her as a correctional officer, she knew where those dead spots, if you will, in that prison were, and they would have sex, they would do all kinds of things in these dead spots.

9:54 She was absolutely infatuated with Terry. And this continued for months. And as I've told you in the past, it's present and inmates are the nosiest people in the world, and it didn't take long before they noticed something was not right with these two. They got so bold, y'all. They would hold hands at some points away from cameras and sometimes in front of the cameras, and the inmates would see them, so they knew something was up. And as you would imagine, about two months in the rumors start circulating and Terry starts telling Lynette that they need to hatch a plan to get him out of there before the relationship is discovered. Now, when he's talking to her about this, he's saying, I don't want this relationship to end.

10:46 The only way that we can be together is if you can break me out of here. Look, this guy is just looking for his freedom, but that was his story to her. He's playing on her heartstrings and all those sorts of things, and they start hatching a plan. So on October twenty ninth of nineteen ninety nine, Lynnette takes her prison issue badge to a place called the printing Center and she tells the clerks that her boyfriend had lost his ID card and he'd getting a bunch of trouble if he has to go tell the bosses at this prison that. So she asked them if they would make a copy of that badge, and the clerks they say, no, we can't do that. They make the right call, right, But she is undeterred and she goes to a second stop called Discount Printing and they said, sure, we can make you one. That same day, Lynnette also charges eighty dollars worth of men's shirts and jeans on her JC Penny credit card, and her credit card statement also showed that she stopped at a gas station filled up, then drove thirty five miles home and stopped to top off the tank. So she's making plans to go somewhere with a dude. So later that evening she shows up for work, but unbeknownst to her colleagues, she's wearing two sets of correctional officer uniforms. She takes one set off

12:17 in a bathroom and she hides that in the stall and she leaves with the uniform she had underneath on. Terry then goes into the bathroom and he does what you think he's gonna do right here, he puts on the other set, and at the end of her shift, Terry, who's now in a correctional officer uniform, and Lynette they proceed to the security gate to leave. So Lynette Barnett, she slaps her ID card through the swiping machine at the security gate at Crossroads Correctional and incidentally, y'all, this is in Cameron, Missouri. Then she swiped it again for a man for behind her, which was Terry, and they stroll out into the parking lot, but the controlled tower guard stops the man behind Barnat because he didn't recognize that man, and the guard asked the man who is Terry, to take off his black baseball cap and hand over his ID card, and I'm sure Terry at this point is shitting a brick, but he does as he's told.

13:27 And the name on the card, Chad Matthews, was on the prison employee cross reference less. So the control tower guard gives the ID back and says, you know, have a nice day. There was five hundred employees at this prison. You just can't keep track of every one of them. And during shift change about one hundred people would leave and a hunter would come in, so it was a little chaotic. But they do get out and Terry follows Lynnett out into the parking lot. He climbs in her truck and they take off down the road. Now, as far as Lynette was concerned, no one was expecting her home that day. She had told her mother and her mother's boyfriend that she was going forty miles north to her grandmother's house. This was in Bethany, Missouri, and she told them she was taking a five day weekend so they wouldn't get suspicious of her missing for at least five days. In her mind. Now, all that was missing from Lynette's room was a toothbrush, toothpaste, deuterant in her seizure medication. So the prison, and this is a stroke of bad luck for these two. They do a prison count like ten minutes after Lynette and Terry leave, and of course that count comes up one man short. What happens then they recount, and upon that recount they conclude that Terry Banks is in fact missing. So at that

14:59 point they place all the inmates in lockdown and they start going through security footage, and sure enough they see that whole incident transpire when Terry and Lynnette were leaving the prison, and to that point, an arrest warrant gets issued for Terry Banks and Lynette. They weren't sure at this point whether she was being forced to do this or not, but they went ahead and did an arrest warrant in the event that she wasn't forced, but they weren't quite sure yet. However, that wouldn't last long because the FBI gets called in and they discover that upon leaving the prison, Lynnette stops at a liquor store outside of the prison and cash is her fourteen hundred dollars paycheck rather than just bringing it to the bank. So, unbeknownst to police FBI, Lynette and Terry their drive drive driving and They're three hours away, heading sound to where Terry's dad lived with Terry's dad's brother.

16:05 His name was Charlie Banks. He had moved in with Terry's uncle just a few weeks prior to the escape. And of course they tell him that Terry's broke out of prison and we need you to hide us. And Charlie said that he knew some people that leved in Victoria, Texas and he would help them, but he'd like to go on the run with them. As I told you, Charlie Banks was bad news. Always had been his whole life. So the apple didn't fall far from the tree there. So they had to Victoria, Texas, and that's only about one hundred miles from the Mexican border, which was the ultimate goal for the fugitives. And they're on the run for about a month. It turns into December of nineteen ninety nine and the police they have no real leads as to where the hell these people are.

16:57 So police decide to contact a very popular national TV show called America's Most wanted to feature the case, and they're hoping that this is going to provide some leads. Now, one thing they knew was because the three of them were on the run together. The chances were pretty good that someone may recognize at least one of these three guys. The more people you have, the higher those chances increase. Now in the meantime, on December tenth, police do find Lynette's truck near Joplin, Missouri, and police discover that Charlie Banks had sold it to an individual for two thousand dollars cash, and that America's Most Wanted episode airs, and police receive over sixty tips as to the whereabouts of that trio. On December seventeenth of nineteen ninety nine, a man in Victoria, Texas calls the tip line and he said he recognized Terry and Lynette in that they were traveling with an older individual. And he said he remembered the tattoos that Terry had on his hands and a scar that was mentioned in the episode on America's Most Wanted.

18:16 But what was most interesting to police with this particular tip is on America's Most Wanted, they didn't mention anything about those two traveling with an older gentleman. They didn't say anything about Charlie, and that was on purpose because they knew if someone mentioned those two traveling with an older man. There's no way they would have known that, and it would be a good tip. So police are fired up. They're pretty sure, hey, we've got a really valid tip coming out of. Victoria, Texas. And the tipster he even gave the address where he met them at. Investigators go to that address and sure enough, there was a couple that lived there. That's the description of Terry Banks and Lynette. The apartment manager brings them up to the apartment. The police opened the door and it's completely empty, no one there. Police would discover later on that in between the time that authorities have received that tip in them showing up at the apartment, Terry Banks had been approached by someone else who lived in that complex, and that person told Terry in a joking manner that he looked just like the guy from an episode of America's Most Wanted, and of course Terry was like, holy shit. He goes in, he tells Lynette, and they got the hell out of there. And what they actually did was they packed their shit and they had to

19:49 Charlie's hideout. He was hiding out in a I guess you could say unmarked trailer park. No one could trace it back to him, and that became the hotout for Terry Andnette and police. They had no idea where they were at, but they knew they were close. They knew they were hot on their trail. So another tip comes in from someone else, but this time that person recognized Charlie, who police had at this point made public, and they pointed out to police where this guy's trailer park was, where this particular trailer was, and police start surveilling it. Now FBI agents and officers from the Victoria Police Department, the Sheriff's office, the Texas Department of Public Safety. They all show up conveniently at one of the officer's house, which was up on top of the hill and it overlooked that trailer park, so they could watch the comings and goings literally from this officer's house. And sure enough, that afternoon they see Terry and Lynette walking with their dog, whose name was Oreo, through the trailer park. Charlie gets home that afternoon and they start drinking beer, smoking cigarettes, watching TV, etc. And when night fell, the officers start kind of moving in. And there was a fifteen acre cornfield that separated that trailer park and the highway and

21:23 that's where they kind of start moving in because that corn created natural hiding spots for these police officers. And they see Terry. He's walking back and forth to and from the trailer. So throughout the night they're positioning, they start closing off highways. They know they've got this guy, but they had heard a lot of rumors that Terry stayed armed at all times, so they weren't taking any chances. They figured we'll wait till they're asleep and then we'll go make the arrest. So, as luck would have it, at some point during the US Charlie walks outside and they take him into custody right away. At this point, Banks and Barnett they're still inside the trailer, so police decide this is the time to make our move. They get on the bullhorn and they start screaming Banks and Barnett come out with your hands up, and they do this thirteen times and nobody comes out. Finally, after what seemed like an eternity, some hands come out at the front of the trailer and it is Lynette. She immediately gets arrested, thrown in a patrol car, and still Terry is refusing to come out. Stay on that bullhorn, and then they decide, we're not waiting any longer, we're going in.

22:47 And about the seconds that they decide to do that, Terry's hands appear and there was no fight. He gave himself up and surrenders to police and they actually threw him in the patrol corps with Lynnette. So they go to the county jail. Lynnette costs her mother, and her mother even commented that Lynnette was asking how Terry was doing. Had her mother heard anything. She also called her sister, and her sister would say later that it was all about Terry and she was just defending Terry and was very concerned about him. So that shows you how much the high bristophilia was filling up this woman. So regardless, they're all in jail, and Charlie Banks he remains behind bars in Victoria County jail. He gets a bail of twenty thousand dollars and there's a lot of people that wanted to interview him and find out what was going on with these three, but the police would not allow interviews at this point. So they all had their arraiments.

23:51 They all do what you think they would do in these cases. They plead not guilty because they want to work out plea deals, right, and actually, see Charlie Banks, he had a pretty good deal. He ends up with a year in prison. After it was all said and done, Lynette Barnett, she pleaded guilty to aiding in the escape of a prisoner in court that was on October second of two thousand and the judge gives Lynette the charges maximum sentence, which was five years. And as for Terry Banks, who was serving life in prison already, he gets an additional fifteen years for the escape. So throughout this whole thing, he had nothing to lose, right, ends up with an extra fifteen years on top of a life sentence. But there you have it. And look, America's most Wanted I have reviewed a lot of these cases, and back in that time, that was like the most popular TV show in America in the nineties. So a lot of these escapes that took place in the nineties.

25:00 That's how they would catch these fools. This was kind of pre I mean, there was social media and all that stuff, but it's not what it was or what it is today. Back then that was kind of the social media. That's how you got the word out was you had to be on something like America's Most Wanted, so shout out to them. And I got a little bit of something extra for you today, a little lang yap, if you will, as we say here in South Louisiana. And it's just a real quick story. But I wanted to include this because it's pretty crazy. I thought y'all would find it entertaining. And I'm gonna tell you about Tina Gonzalez, who was twenty six years old and she began her career as a Fresno County Sheriff's correctional officer. This was in September of twenty sixteen.

25:49 Now she resigned from her job at the end of December of twenty nineteen. So, in early December of twenty nineteen, Fresno County jail staff members they received a tip that a male inmate was in possession of a cell phone and was also involved in a one year sexual relationship with a correctional officer by the name of Tina Gonzalez. Jail staff they searched the cell of this inmate and they find that mobile phone. So those allegations were passed on to members of the Sheriff's executive staff and this internal affairs unit was assigned to investigate the accused employee and the vice unit was tasked with investigating potential crimes committed by Gonzales related to all this. So both units found evidence to support these allegations. In addition to that, detectives discovered that Gonzales had on one occasion, brought alcohol into the jail. Now this charge stemmed from a separate incident from Gonzala's relationship with the inmate. The you've been screwing for over a year. So detectives come in, they interview Gonzales, and she submits her resignation to the Sheriff's office.

27:09 So let me tell you how this all goes down from there. On Friday, May first of twenty twenty, detectives arrest twenty six year old Tina Gonzales after that five month investigation, and she faced some felony charges including sexual activity with an inmate, possession of a controlled substance in a jail in a misdemeanor charge of possession of a cell phone with the intent to deliver to an inmate, and her bail was set at twenty one thousand dollars and she bailed out of custody after spending about a day in jail, so the Fresno County DA's office they formally file criminal complaints against Gonzales. Then, on June thirteenth of twenty twenty, Gonzala's post on Instagram under the handle and get the her insta handle is Hustled twenty three hard and she even has a slogan under there. Every Saint has a past, every center has a future, and she posted some pretty provocative photos. You can go check them out if you'd like. On Tuesday, July seventh of twenty twenty ten, and Gazalis pleded not guilty to three counts of sexual activity with a confined adult, one count of possession of a controlled substance in jail, and one count of possession of a cell phone.

28:29 With the intent to give it to an inmate. Then, on Tuesday, April twenty seventh of twenty twenty one, Gazalis pleaded no contest to one count of felony sexual activity by a detention facility employee with a consenting confined adult, one count of felony possession of drugs or alcoholic beverages in a jail facility, and a misdemeanor count of possession of cellular devices with the intent to deliver to an inmate. Now, obviously they worked a deal there, which is why she pleaded no contest, and as part of the deal, Prosecutor Vanessa Leona said, two felon accounts of having sex with an inmate were dropped, reducing her jail sentence from a maximum of five years in prison to a maximum of three years and eight months and probation was on the table.

29:17 So she eventually gets sentenced, and she admitted to three crimes, including having sex with an inmate, providing the inmate with drugs, and that cell phone in the Sheriff Steve mccunns said at that sentencing hearing that in his twenty six years in law enforcement he had seen some pretty disgusting things and had heard some pretty discussing things, but what Tiniganzalez did was at the top of his list. And get this, He goes on to say, cutting a hole in your pants to make it easier to have sex with an inmate and having intercourse in full view of eleven other inmates as something only a depraved mind could come up with. And this was the first time the public was hearing about that. Mccummus said that Gonzala's betrayed her oath even worse when she put her fellow correctional officers at risk by giving the inmate razor blades, a cell phone and critical jail intelligence. And that's the big problem with these relationships, right, is usually once that relationship is formed, it puts everybody else in the facility at risk. The prosecutor, Caitlin Drake, said of Gonzale's activity in the jail that she at times communicated sensitive information to the inmate about individuals who were entering the inmate's pod, as well as times when the pod would be searched. So Gonzale she didn't say anything at her sentencing, but her attorney claimed that her marriage was falling apart when she started a relationship with the inmate, claiming she was vulnerable and they all used

30:48 that excuse. We just covered that, right. Her attorney went on to say it was never her intention to bring any harm or danger to the employees in the jail or anyone else. Phone records are reviewed for the hearing that Gonzalez continued to have a relationship with the inmate even after her resignation in December of twenty nineteen, and the prosecutor went on to say the fact she continually calls, has sexual, explicit conversations with the inmate in question, and even boast about the crimes she carried out shows she's incapable of owning up to her mistakes, and he implored the judge to give Gonzalez the maximum punishment of three years in eight months because he wanted to send a clear message this type of crime would not be tolerated as an employee of the jail, so the judge could have sent her to jail for that length of time, but Notta she had no prior criminal history and admitted her crimes. The judge disagreed with the prosecutor and said his job was to punish her for the crimes that she committed. The judge went on to say, I think what you did was terrible, stupid. You've ruined your career, you endangered fellow officers.

31:53 But I also. Believe that people can redeem themselves. You have the rest of your life to prove that, and Gonzalez was eventually sentenced to serve seven months in jail in two years of formal probation with Time Serve credits. Pretty wild. So that's her high. Bristophilia story, and I wanted to give you a little bit extra today. I appreciate you listening and I hope you enjoyed this episode of Bloody and Gola. Check us out on the Patreon commercial free early releases, more patreon dot com, slash Bloody Andngola podcast and until next time for Bloody and Gola, a podcast one and forty two years in the making, the complete story of America's bloodiest present Peace.

33:00 A Wall Street line, shackle, chain, Oh, bluesome gird, It's calling my name. There is no mercy and it's been a tentery juice as the hill Stream game. Rangle three, I'm in by me to die. Inside these walls, inside the wild.

33:41 And when the girl, as I know, it's Boody Angle, Obody Angle, an