Nov. 27, 2024

Part 2 | Cold Blooded Killer: Felix Vail

Part 2 | Cold Blooded Killer: Felix Vail

In this episode of Bloody Angola, Jim continues exploring the dark story of Felix Vail and the events leading to his arrest for the murder of his wife, Mary. Highlighting journalist Jerry Mitchell's role in reopening the cold case,  Jim delves into...

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Season 7

In this episode of Bloody Angola, Jim continues exploring the dark story of Felix Vail and the events leading to his arrest for the murder of his wife, Mary. Highlighting journalist Jerry Mitchell's role in reopening the cold case, Jim delves into Vail's history of manipulation and violence.
Through testimonies from those affected, Jim reveals the hidden darkness behind his charm and how a mother’s relentless quest for answers trying to locate her missing daughter played a crucial role.

#bloodyangola #podcast #prison #felixvail #louisiana #louisianastatepenitentiary

Timestamps
05:37 Rose's Relentless Pursuit
11:29 A Dangerous Relationship
12:23 The Voice of the Victims
16:08 Connecting the Dots
21:21 The Search for Justice
31:39 Witnesses and Their Accounts
38:38 Uncovering the Truth
42:39 Arrested and Charged

Early release, commercial free episodes plus bonus content and more can be found by joining us on Patreon by Clicking here:

For Louisiana Local Advertising inquiries or to book appearances please email BloodyAngola@gmail.com

WEBVTT

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I walk straight line.

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Shackle change. Oh weesome, Girdie, it's calling my name. There

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is no mercy and it's been a tentery juice as

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the huge stream game Rango three.

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Come here by me to die.

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Inside these walls, inside the wild.

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And went no girl as I.

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Hey everyone, and welcome back to Bloody Andngola, a podcast

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one hundred and forty two years in the making, the

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complete story of America's bloodiest present. I'm your host, Jim Chapman.

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I'm dropping this episode on Thanksgiving Eve, and hopefully you're

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out there with family and friends you're cooking it up

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and maybe even listening to Bloody Andngla. I'm absolutely thankful

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for every single one of you who, like me, share

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a unique interest in history, prisons, the criminal mind, and

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all that encompasses that. So from me to all of you,

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thank you so much for hanging in there and staying

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with me.

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Now today I'm continuing.

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With the story of Felix Veil. In the last time

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that I left you, Felix Veil had finally been arrested

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for the murder of his wife Mary, which occurred some

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fifty years prior to his arrest. On May eighteenth, of

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twenty thirteen, and Felix was seventy three y'all at the

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time of his arrest. Now, Veil was arrested in Kenyon Lake, Texas.

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Undercover cops actually waited for him outside of his home.

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They were doing kind of a stakeout, but when he

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didn't arrive there, they put out an APB and he

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was actually arrested at a local post office. And his

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statement upon his arrest was, I don't know why this

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is happening, that's all he said. He actually waived extradition

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to Calcashu Parish, Louisiana, and they drove him straight there

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from his arrest. And that arrest was significant. This was

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to be the oldest prosecution of a serial killer in

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a cold case in the entire history of the United States. Now,

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what prompted his arrest is an interesting story in and

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of itself. An investigative reporter for a Jackson, Mississippi newspaper

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called The Clarion Ledger. His name was Jerry Mitchell, and

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he started investigating this case again kind of on his

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own in twenty twelve. That investigation led him to publish

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a special report titled Gone in that local paper, and

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that in turn prompted authorities to open a case up

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of their own. So I cannot overemphasize how big of

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a role that Jerry Mitchell played in this case. As

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a matter of fact, were it not for Jerry Mitchell

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and that report, Felix Veil would have never been arrested

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or convicted in his wife Mary's death. And another large

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bit of credit goes to a nets mother, Rose, who

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never gave up on her own pursuit of justice after

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her teenage daughter had went missing while being married to Veil.

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So what was Veil up to between the years of

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nineteen eighty five where I last left you in episode

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one and twenty thirteen when he was finally arrested. Well,

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I'm going to give you the rest of the story

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through the eyes of the guy who really deserves all

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of the credit, and that is Jerry Mitchell in his

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account of the details. And I'm going to pick up

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in nineteen eighty seven in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Now, Rose at

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this point is fed up with the lack of of

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progress in her daughter's death. She had spent thousands of

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dollars by this time on private investigators, and she was

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trying to start a new life. She had just started

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a new job at a bakery. She fired all these

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private investigators that seemed to lead nowhere, and she decided

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to look for Veil herself. So she put some information

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out there, she's looking for this guy, and she actually

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got tipped off. Someone told her he was staying at

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a house, and she got her friend and they go

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to that house and they actually see him sitting outside.

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Imagine that, after all these years of looking for this guy,

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there he is sitting outside on the front porch of

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a house. So she walks up to him and she says,

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where did that go? And he said Mexico? And she

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said where in Mexico? And Seveil told her that he

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and a Nette had made a pact that they would

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contact each other after five years. He never looked up

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at her, he never stood up, He never looked her

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mother in the eye, and shocks. She just walked away,

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shaking her head in disbelief. She didn't believe a word

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of what he had said. Now they'll became fast friends

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with a native of Tulsa, Oklahoma, by the name of

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Scott Porter, and he was an expert in martial arts.

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Had like a ton of black belts, and they'll believed

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he was a martial arts expert too. After practicing flying

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kicks into a mattress. Each morning, he and Porter they

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would work out. They would left weights together before hitting

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a Chinese buffet over lunch. VLL had shared with this

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guy that he had never felt he was bound by

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society rules. As a matter of fact, Porter recalled, he

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dropped his silverware and began eating with his hands like

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a caveman. And at nights the pair would play pool,

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they would drink beer, and they would sometimes visit strip

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clubs in Tulsa. Porter was quoted as saying, Tulsa has

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more churches than gas stations, but also more strip clubs

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than anywhere else I've lived. The two men reminisced about

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the women missing from their lives. Veil at forty five,

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had been married to a Net just eighteen, if you'll remember,

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and Porter, at twenty eight, had dated.

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Rose, who was thirty six.

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That's right, they dated mom and daughter at one point

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in their lives. Porter had driven Rose to California before

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returning home alone, and he said, my heart was absolutely broken.

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She needed to move on, and I didn't now. Not

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long after, a Net had vanished. Rose telephoned Porter and

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shared some of her suspicions that Veil had something to

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do with their daughter's disappearance. Porter began examining each word

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his friend spoke while he discovers his hopes of reuniting

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with Rose. He noticed Veil never mentioned the possibility of

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reuniting with a net One night, Val seemed more open.

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He was crying like a baby, Porter recalled, angry it

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didn't work out differently, They'll explained that Annette wanted to

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recreate herself and that she didn't want any contact with

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any portion of her past life. She wanted to totally

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break with herself now. While Veill talked of breaking with

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the past, Porter he was busy searching for his He

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had been adopted and decided to move to Minnesota to

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reconnect with his birth parents, and while there he met

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his future wife, Jenny. Returning to Oklahoma with a small

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son and another on the way, he renewed his friendship

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with Veil, who was so kind. He later watched the

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boys while the couple went out on dates. Once, during

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a discussion of fidelity, Porter said, Veil shared that he

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felt nobody could ever be fake to one person. Months later,

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Val started hitting on my wife, Porter said. Upset about this,

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he took Veil on a walk and confronted him, and

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of course Val denied it all. Porter recalled, He said, no, no,

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she was hitting on me. As they crossed the Arkansas

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River bridge, of fleeting thought ran through his head. I

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wanted to throw Felix off that bridge and was wondering

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if I'd get away with it now. After these incidents,

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Val began dating someone by the name of Beth Field.

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She was attracted to its intelligence, and the pair grew close.

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Then during a December nineteen eighty seven argument, he became

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so violent he ruptured her ear drum. She told Val

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there was no justification for physical violence, and she said

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He replied, if you quit behaving like a whore, I'll

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quit hitting you. She recalled. Discussing this with a therapist,

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I finally told this woman, it's all very nice, but

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one of us is going to be dead before this works.

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Field eventually took the advice of a close friend and

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attended an intensive ten day mediation course in August of

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nineteen eighty eight on Colorado's Western Slope. To her surprise,

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Veil came to after the course, she received a telephone

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call from Rose sharing details about the disappearance of her

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daughter Annette. From that point forward, Field said she began

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to examine Vale's words more closely, realizing the probability that

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he had taken Annette's life.

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He told Field he.

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And a Nette had gone camping and that she wanted

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to get away from her mother, and that he had

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helped her set up an opportunity for her to change her.

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Name and move on.

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Veil denied to her any involvement in Annette's disappearance. Then

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one time she recalled, he said, what if I said yes.

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Four months after the mediation course, he entered her home unannounced,

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Already drunk, he accused her of imagined promiscuity. According to

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the court order, he slapped her, he struck her, and

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he threw across the bedroom. She asked if he was

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going to kill her, and he said, it depends on

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what you tell me. So the judge here in all

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this information. He gave her a protective order and he

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required Veil to keep his distance. Two weeks later, the

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sheriff reported that Veil was nowhere to be found. Field

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said she was caught in a sick, addictive relationship, and

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it took quite some time to fully unrival. Over time

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her attachment to him it began to fade, and while

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Field was visiting a mediation center again in Texas, this

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was in nineteen ninety, Vail arrived and chastised her. She

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felt the same anger and defensiveness rising up as before,

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she said. She walked away to compose herself, and when

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she returned, she sat down next to him. I told

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him there is a part of you that goes off,

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and it's sick and it's dangerous, she said. He looked

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at her and said, really, yes, Really, this time the

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message seemed to sink in. Vail left the next day,

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and with a single exception of about five years later,

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she never saw him again. Now Mary Rose, she moved

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to Ashland, Oregon. This was in nineteen eighty nine, and

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she was working as an administrator for a private school.

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She was hoping for a quieter life, obviously than the

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one she had in California. More than a year later,

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she goes and she visits a psychic and she asked

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if she could talk to her daughter a net. The

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psychic put her hands over her forehead and spoke, oh

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my gosh, this is not something I usually talk about

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when I see images like this. She never shared what

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she saw, but Rose knew her daughter was dead and

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that she needs to get to the bottom of it.

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So in the summer of nineteen ninety one, she removed

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the back seats from her Toyetta vann and put in

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a makeshift bed for sleeping. She actually made curtains to

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hang over the windows. She had previously taught by phone

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with Felix Veil's sister, Sue Jordan, who now lived in

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Canyon Lake, Texas, so Rose decided to drive more than

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two thousand miles there, hoping she might find out more

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in person. So Jordan answered the door, She invited her in,

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and the two women they sit in the living room

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and Jordan recalled the last time she saw a Net.

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That was in October of nineteen eighty four, when the

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family attended a fair in Sulfur, Louisiana. She said Veil

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was there and a nut, and she told Annette's mom

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that Felix was giving a Net a hard time. He

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criticized the way she was dressed. He was just very

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rude to her. Days after the fair, the couple left

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again in a few days after that, Vale returned alone.

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He looked extremely distressed and he was drinking a lot.

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Jordan also said that Val told her and Nette had

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wanted to leave, and that he took her to a

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bus station and that she left with some Mexican men

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heading to Mexico. Jordan also mentioned that VAL's first wife

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had drowned, which Rose by this point did not know,

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and before she left, Jordan said, oh, you know, there

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was another woman that disappeared. I remember her mother calling

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my mother for years, checking to see if they had

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heard from her. I think her name was Sharon. Now,

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after this conversation, Rose sits down at a typewriter and

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she basically logged every word she could remember from that conversation,

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knowing she may need it later. She also called a

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public library in Lake Charles. That librarian remembered the nineteen

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sixty two drowning of Vale's first wife, Ma, and that

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library recalled that he had taken out life insurance policies

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on his wife prior to her drowning. She also said

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the insurance companies were suspicious and didn't pay the full value.

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The library made some copies of the newspaper articles and

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actually mailed them to Annet's mother. After reading them, Rose

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reached out to Mary's family in Louisiana and she spoke

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to Will Horton, which was Mary's brother. He shared the

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suspicions he had about Vail, and also a copy of

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00:15:32.320 --> 00:15:36.960
a nineteen seventy one National Inquirer article. When she read it,

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00:15:37.120 --> 00:15:40.919
she knew that Sharon's last name was Hensley, so that

231
00:15:41.080 --> 00:15:45.159
solved one problem, but created another. Where was Sharon Hensley from?

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00:15:45.639 --> 00:15:49.039
She didn't have any idea, she had never heard of her.

233
00:15:49.720 --> 00:15:53.039
In nineteen ninety four, she read in the newspaper about

234
00:15:53.159 --> 00:15:58.600
Delores Strullo's disappearance from Medford, Oregon, seven years earlier. Police

235
00:15:58.600 --> 00:16:01.600
had just arrested her husband thanks to the work of

236
00:16:01.639 --> 00:16:04.639
a detective by the name of Terry Nele. So she

237
00:16:04.720 --> 00:16:07.720
got an idea. She figured, if this guy could do that,

238
00:16:08.000 --> 00:16:10.840
maybe he can help me. She contact Noll and he

239
00:16:11.000 --> 00:16:15.200
was able to help her find the family of Sharon Hensley.

240
00:16:15.320 --> 00:16:20.399
So when Rose dialed Hensley's family, Sharon's mother, Peggy answered

241
00:16:20.559 --> 00:16:23.360
the first question. Rose asked, do you happen to know

242
00:16:23.399 --> 00:16:25.000
who Felix Vale is?

243
00:16:25.799 --> 00:16:26.919
You bet? I do?

244
00:16:27.440 --> 00:16:33.320
Sharon Heinsley's mother said back, and Rose replied, we need

245
00:16:33.360 --> 00:16:36.200
to talk now. At this time, Vale was living with

246
00:16:36.279 --> 00:16:40.480
his mother and father in their home in my Pelier, Mississippi.

247
00:16:40.600 --> 00:16:43.600
During the day he will work some on the family farm,

248
00:16:43.720 --> 00:16:47.320
and he also tinred with his Fiat which is a

249
00:16:47.399 --> 00:16:51.159
car for you young people out there, and used his

250
00:16:51.399 --> 00:16:56.080
gravity boots to hang upside down in the barn. One day,

251
00:16:56.120 --> 00:16:59.360
he actually chased off a three legged hound dog. He

252
00:16:59.399 --> 00:17:01.759
wrote in his journal, Remember I told you he liked

253
00:17:01.759 --> 00:17:05.079
the journal. The next day he wrote, I shot the

254
00:17:05.119 --> 00:17:09.000
three legged dog and cleaned up the garbage. He detailed

255
00:17:09.039 --> 00:17:12.279
in his journal about winning pool games and screwing women,

256
00:17:12.759 --> 00:17:16.880
sometimes having sex in a grain bend, an old bus,

257
00:17:17.160 --> 00:17:20.400
or their homes while their husbands were away. This was

258
00:17:20.440 --> 00:17:25.039
in nineteen ninety two. Also in nineteen ninety two, Robinsinclair,

259
00:17:25.240 --> 00:17:29.200
she telephoned a Mississippi newspaper wanting to buy an advertisement

260
00:17:29.359 --> 00:17:32.240
to remind Veil that he had a daughter he had

261
00:17:32.279 --> 00:17:35.000
never met. The newspaper put her in touch with Vel,

262
00:17:35.160 --> 00:17:37.880
and the two began writing letters back and forth and

263
00:17:37.920 --> 00:17:41.000
talking on the telephone. In one note, Vel stated he

264
00:17:41.039 --> 00:17:43.000
had never gotten over me.

265
00:17:43.440 --> 00:17:44.200
She recalled.

266
00:17:44.400 --> 00:17:47.799
She felt confused by his words, she said, because she

267
00:17:47.960 --> 00:17:50.359
said she was already living with a man who made

268
00:17:50.359 --> 00:17:54.000
her happy and who would be her future husband. When

269
00:17:54.079 --> 00:17:57.039
Vail arrived a few months later, she said, the same

270
00:17:57.119 --> 00:17:59.880
magic she had felt with him more than twenty years

271
00:18:00.119 --> 00:18:04.119
earlier had vanished. I realized that he was a fraud,

272
00:18:04.359 --> 00:18:08.680
of bomb and kind of a joke. So during this time,

273
00:18:08.759 --> 00:18:12.559
Mary Rose she had contacted everyone she could think of,

274
00:18:13.160 --> 00:18:16.440
even the FBI and the detective who had helped her before,

275
00:18:16.640 --> 00:18:20.759
Terry Noll. He contacted Jim Bell, a national expert in

276
00:18:20.839 --> 00:18:24.200
serial killings who actually worked for the FBI, and when

277
00:18:24.319 --> 00:18:27.599
Rose talked with Bell, she felt like she had hit

278
00:18:27.799 --> 00:18:31.319
the jackpot. He was interested in working on Vale's case

279
00:18:31.519 --> 00:18:35.000
if he could swing the time he was busy. Serial

280
00:18:35.119 --> 00:18:38.119
killers seemed to be active during that time in history.

281
00:18:38.319 --> 00:18:41.519
Now Vail's son Bill, he told Rose that he was

282
00:18:41.599 --> 00:18:45.480
willing to testify as long as authorities provided protection to

283
00:18:45.599 --> 00:18:49.359
his family. Both the Tulsa Police and the District Attorney's

284
00:18:49.359 --> 00:18:53.279
office in Lake Charles they revived their investigations into Vail,

285
00:18:53.480 --> 00:18:58.079
now considered a suspected serial killer, and Bell suggested the

286
00:18:58.160 --> 00:19:02.759
victim's families gather with authorities at the FBI Academy in

287
00:19:02.880 --> 00:19:06.799
Virginia to share that information on Veil. He was unable

288
00:19:06.839 --> 00:19:09.720
to work on the case and left the FBI in

289
00:19:09.880 --> 00:19:14.720
nineteen ninety five. The meeting in Quantico never materialized in

290
00:19:14.799 --> 00:19:20.200
the case involving Veil grew cold yet again. So obviously

291
00:19:20.400 --> 00:19:23.799
Roses devastated. She had worked so hard to make something

292
00:19:23.880 --> 00:19:27.240
happen and nothing had happened. She knew that other families

293
00:19:27.279 --> 00:19:28.559
felt devastated too.

294
00:19:28.839 --> 00:19:29.039
Now.

295
00:19:29.079 --> 00:19:32.559
In the men nineteen nineties, Veil began dating a woman

296
00:19:32.680 --> 00:19:36.039
in Mississippi. At the time, he was fifty five and

297
00:19:36.200 --> 00:19:39.759
she was forty four. In ten years, I never saw

298
00:19:39.799 --> 00:19:43.640
a temper, the woman said. She recalled Veil taking care

299
00:19:43.680 --> 00:19:46.960
of his parents before their deaths, and she described him

300
00:19:47.000 --> 00:19:49.799
as very attentive. She said he was just a kind man,

301
00:19:50.200 --> 00:19:53.359
although he never worked a job. She said he was

302
00:19:53.359 --> 00:19:56.400
the most frugal person she had ever met. He could

303
00:19:56.440 --> 00:19:59.519
probably live off three hundred dollars a month. He got

304
00:19:59.599 --> 00:20:03.319
rental money from a house in Tulsa, and all that

305
00:20:03.599 --> 00:20:08.440
is a nets house that he fucking stole from her.

306
00:20:08.960 --> 00:20:12.519
One day, she tried to step across the swollen creek

307
00:20:12.640 --> 00:20:15.680
in front of her house, knocked off her feet. She

308
00:20:15.839 --> 00:20:19.200
got dragged downstream, and she said, if I had died

309
00:20:19.240 --> 00:20:21.440
in the creek, I would have been added to the

310
00:20:21.480 --> 00:20:25.680
list of people that Felix supposedly killed. And she actually

311
00:20:25.680 --> 00:20:27.720
brings up a good point. There would have been another

312
00:20:27.759 --> 00:20:33.319
strange death, and she's using that as a example of

313
00:20:33.359 --> 00:20:34.480
how that shit can happen.

314
00:20:35.200 --> 00:20:35.839
I don't buy it.

315
00:20:36.119 --> 00:20:39.000
She knew of the allegations that Veil had something to

316
00:20:39.079 --> 00:20:42.440
do with the net Veil's disappearance, but she was unaware

317
00:20:42.480 --> 00:20:46.880
of Sharon Hinsley's disappearance or the suspicion surrounding Mary Horton.

318
00:20:47.119 --> 00:20:50.160
That man, she insisted, was not the man I know.

319
00:20:50.720 --> 00:20:54.319
So let's get into after that article I told you

320
00:20:54.359 --> 00:20:59.480
about gone was written by Jerry Mitchell, and I'm gonna

321
00:20:59.519 --> 00:21:02.839
pick up with his account of that. He starts trying

322
00:21:02.839 --> 00:21:06.400
to find Veil hisself in twenty twelve, and he finds

323
00:21:06.440 --> 00:21:10.440
out that where Veil was living, he had sold all

324
00:21:10.559 --> 00:21:13.759
his acreage he had like seventeen acres from his parents

325
00:21:14.640 --> 00:21:17.440
and he shut up there and there was just a

326
00:21:17.559 --> 00:21:26.119
storm damage trailer, etc. But no contents whatsoever in that trailer.

327
00:21:26.279 --> 00:21:30.119
So he calls Veil's brother, Ronnie, and Vale's brother Ronnie said,

328
00:21:30.279 --> 00:21:30.880
I don't.

329
00:21:30.680 --> 00:21:31.519
Know where he went.

330
00:21:31.640 --> 00:21:36.319
He probably doesn't want anyone to know where he is. Ronnie,

331
00:21:36.319 --> 00:21:39.079
who had work for the US Army Corps of Engineers

332
00:21:39.119 --> 00:21:42.240
for twenty two years, told him that when he had

333
00:21:42.240 --> 00:21:46.079
heard the allegations of the disappearances of these women, he

334
00:21:46.200 --> 00:21:49.400
was as shocked as anybody else. So the reporter asked him,

335
00:21:49.440 --> 00:21:54.039
did the FBI ever interview know? And I'm surprised they haven't,

336
00:21:54.160 --> 00:21:57.240
he said, And then he picks up. After my story

337
00:21:57.279 --> 00:22:00.559
on Felix veil Gone appeared in The Clearing Life on

338
00:22:00.640 --> 00:22:04.720
November eleventh, twenty twelve, I traveled to my failure to

339
00:22:04.799 --> 00:22:08.119
meet a man who had telephoned me. Wesley Turnage grew

340
00:22:08.240 --> 00:22:11.039
up with Val and recalled a conversation he had in

341
00:22:11.079 --> 00:22:15.240
the month following his nineteen sixty three graduation from high school.

342
00:22:15.720 --> 00:22:17.920
He said he had car trouble one day, and Val

343
00:22:18.039 --> 00:22:21.880
gave him a ride to the Nickenbacker Manufacturing Company in

344
00:22:22.400 --> 00:22:25.839
nearby West Point, where they both worked. During that drive,

345
00:22:26.039 --> 00:22:29.319
he said, Val talked first of his son Bill and

346
00:22:29.359 --> 00:22:33.079
then of his deceased wife, Mary, calling her his ex wife,

347
00:22:33.720 --> 00:22:36.920
a word that kind of stuck with Turnage as strange,

348
00:22:37.000 --> 00:22:39.519
since the two were not divorced at the time of

349
00:22:39.559 --> 00:22:43.160
her death. He said, the longer Veil spoke, the angrier

350
00:22:43.279 --> 00:22:46.559
he got. You could see the rage in his eyes.

351
00:22:47.319 --> 00:22:50.799
Val referred to Mary as a bitch, saying that she

352
00:22:51.039 --> 00:22:55.279
thought another child would help solve her marriage problems. Turner's recalled.

353
00:22:55.720 --> 00:22:58.960
He quoted Val as saying she wanted to have another kid.

354
00:22:59.160 --> 00:23:01.880
I didn't want the one I got. I told her

355
00:23:02.519 --> 00:23:05.799
I fixed that. Sorry, bitch, she'll never have another one.

356
00:23:05.960 --> 00:23:08.440
Time marched on, but he said he never forgot what

357
00:23:08.559 --> 00:23:10.799
Veil told him. It's like nine to eleven.

358
00:23:10.839 --> 00:23:11.240
He said.

359
00:23:11.480 --> 00:23:15.240
Some things just stick in your mind. So the reporter

360
00:23:15.359 --> 00:23:19.640
returned to Lake Charles, puzzled by how Veil dided an

361
00:23:19.640 --> 00:23:23.599
indictment in that nineteen sixty two death of his wife.

362
00:23:23.759 --> 00:23:27.359
Her brother Will Horton joined me in the Calkashu Clerk's

363
00:23:27.359 --> 00:23:30.240
office as I poured through stacks of records trying to

364
00:23:30.240 --> 00:23:33.319
find out more information about the grand jury that met

365
00:23:33.319 --> 00:23:36.759
on the case. Flipping through the pages, I noticed a

366
00:23:36.799 --> 00:23:40.799
lot of criminal cases had been dismissed in nineteen sixty two.

367
00:23:40.960 --> 00:23:43.960
When I added them up, I realized the district attorney

368
00:23:44.319 --> 00:23:47.599
had the judge dismissed eight hundred and eighty two cases,

369
00:23:48.200 --> 00:23:51.559
which were more than three cases for each working day.

370
00:23:51.920 --> 00:23:55.200
Mary's brother told me the original detectives in the case

371
00:23:55.279 --> 00:23:58.799
told him that the judge would not allow them to

372
00:23:58.839 --> 00:24:02.880
present evidence that they had collected against Vail that match

373
00:24:03.119 --> 00:24:06.240
the stories I had heard from the grand Jerry's families.

374
00:24:06.559 --> 00:24:10.359
Mary's brother left while I continued to dig. A half

375
00:24:10.400 --> 00:24:12.599
hour later, he called me to let me know he

376
00:24:12.680 --> 00:24:17.160
was talking with District Attorney John Derozer. He's from Unice,

377
00:24:17.319 --> 00:24:21.759
just like me, Horton said. I walked over and met Deroza,

378
00:24:21.880 --> 00:24:25.119
a Vietnam veteran. He viewed himself as the guy wearing

379
00:24:25.160 --> 00:24:28.079
the white hat and battling the bad guys. He even

380
00:24:28.200 --> 00:24:32.200
kept a life size cutout of John Wayne in his office.

381
00:24:32.319 --> 00:24:34.880
He said he would be willing to reopen the case

382
00:24:34.960 --> 00:24:39.000
if there was enough evidence. Afterwards, I telephoned a retired

383
00:24:39.079 --> 00:24:43.240
lawyer who had known Frank Salter Junior, who was the

384
00:24:43.240 --> 00:24:48.359
then district attorney in nineteen sixty three. The cheerful, white

385
00:24:48.400 --> 00:24:52.039
haired man who built boats and model airplanes greeted Horton

386
00:24:52.160 --> 00:24:54.720
and me at the door and invited us to join

387
00:24:54.799 --> 00:24:58.839
him at the kitchen table. A talented attorney in both

388
00:24:58.880 --> 00:25:03.119
civil and criminal courts. Russell Tritticko, Senior, had won a

389
00:25:03.279 --> 00:25:08.079
nineteen eighty civil judgment forcing chainsaw manufacturers to put chain

390
00:25:08.160 --> 00:25:11.359
brakes on their products. The eighty four year old retired

391
00:25:11.440 --> 00:25:15.400
lawyer recalled the corruption of those days. He worked back

392
00:25:15.480 --> 00:25:19.160
then under his uncle Joe, who represented the then sheriff

393
00:25:20.000 --> 00:25:25.440
Ham Reid, accused of taking bribes but never convicted. Triticko

394
00:25:25.599 --> 00:25:28.160
said the sheriff was so paranoid he stayed in his

395
00:25:28.200 --> 00:25:31.079
patrol car and he never answered the telephone at home

396
00:25:31.319 --> 00:25:35.400
unless he heard the right sequence of rings. He described

397
00:25:35.440 --> 00:25:39.960
Salter as a longtime prosecutor whose close friends were mostly

398
00:25:40.039 --> 00:25:44.079
what I called hoodlums. In the nineteen fifties, Salter began

399
00:25:44.200 --> 00:25:47.640
his legal career as an assistant DA for then District

400
00:25:47.640 --> 00:25:52.000
Attorney Ed Shannon. When the senior prosecutor saw reelection in

401
00:25:52.119 --> 00:25:57.160
nineteen sixty, Salter ran against him. Triticko said the major

402
00:25:57.319 --> 00:26:02.599
issue Salter raised was Shanahan had just dismissed too many cases.

403
00:26:03.160 --> 00:26:06.799
Then Frank became DA and he does the same thing.

404
00:26:07.079 --> 00:26:11.799
Dismissals became business as usual in defense. Lawyer's showered office

405
00:26:11.799 --> 00:26:16.319
secretaries with gifts, especially at Christmas. He recalled, it was

406
00:26:16.400 --> 00:26:20.279
easy money. Of course, the victim might not be happy.

407
00:26:20.440 --> 00:26:23.680
He knew about the nineteen sixty two death of Mary

408
00:26:23.720 --> 00:26:27.240
Horton Vale. When his uncle Joe ran against Salter in

409
00:26:27.400 --> 00:26:31.920
nineteen sixty six, her death became a political issue. The

410
00:26:31.960 --> 00:26:34.880
candidate shed a photograph of her body after it was

411
00:26:35.000 --> 00:26:39.200
recovered from the river as proof of Salter's political favor.

412
00:26:39.400 --> 00:26:43.519
I asked Triteco about the City's Service, and he told

413
00:26:43.559 --> 00:26:46.200
me the company was like the General Motors of the

414
00:26:46.319 --> 00:26:50.720
late Charles Louisiana area. I knew Veil's uncle, Thomas Finney,

415
00:26:50.799 --> 00:26:54.000
had worked there as a supervisor and had arranged for

416
00:26:54.119 --> 00:26:58.920
Vale's job. In searching for Salter's obituary, I had run

417
00:26:59.000 --> 00:27:02.160
across the one for his father, who had also worked

418
00:27:02.200 --> 00:27:05.680
at City Service. When I visited Vinnie's ninety four year

419
00:27:05.720 --> 00:27:10.440
old widow, Virginia, she confirmed the couple's friendship with the

420
00:27:10.559 --> 00:27:15.039
district attorney. I shared what Vell said about troutline fishing

421
00:27:15.119 --> 00:27:18.759
that night, and Tritiko shook his head. The longtime fisherman

422
00:27:18.960 --> 00:27:22.000
questioned why Vell would have traveled so many miles up

423
00:27:22.000 --> 00:27:25.119
the Calkashi River when he could have laid trout lines

424
00:27:25.200 --> 00:27:28.359
not far from where he kept his boat. You just

425
00:27:28.440 --> 00:27:32.440
don't run trout lines in deep water, he said. So

426
00:27:33.359 --> 00:27:37.599
where had Felix Veil gone? He had just disappeared, like

427
00:27:37.680 --> 00:27:41.519
the women he professed to once love. I telephoned more

428
00:27:41.559 --> 00:27:44.920
of his relatives and friends. They were just as clueless

429
00:27:44.920 --> 00:27:48.920
as me. Weeks after Gone was published, I received a

430
00:27:49.039 --> 00:27:52.440
telephone call from a man who had read my nearly

431
00:27:52.759 --> 00:27:57.559
nine thousand words story online. We discussed Veil, the case

432
00:27:57.599 --> 00:28:01.279
against him, ain't his disappearance before? The man volunteered. I

433
00:28:01.400 --> 00:28:02.240
know where he is.

434
00:28:02.599 --> 00:28:07.079
You do, Canyon Lake, Texas? He said. Would you like

435
00:28:07.160 --> 00:28:10.000
his po box? You bet? I said.

436
00:28:11.039 --> 00:28:15.880
Back In Jackson, I telephoned Insign Yassek of Boston, the

437
00:28:15.960 --> 00:28:21.200
founder of the Serial Homicide Expertise and Information Sharing Collaborative.

438
00:28:21.519 --> 00:28:22.920
That's a mouthful.

439
00:28:23.640 --> 00:28:26.759
No matter what questions I had about serial killers, he

440
00:28:26.880 --> 00:28:31.039
had the answers thanks to a huge database he had amassed.

441
00:28:31.279 --> 00:28:34.519
My search for answers in the Veil case led Yazak

442
00:28:34.640 --> 00:28:40.519
to contact Arman Showalter, acting chief for the FBI's Behavioral

443
00:28:40.720 --> 00:28:47.000
Analysis Unit, which specialized in serial homicide investigations. He also

444
00:28:47.119 --> 00:28:50.319
shared a copy of Gone with Showalter, who in turn,

445
00:28:50.519 --> 00:28:55.799
contacted Kaal Kashu Parish Deputy Randy Curtis, now taking on

446
00:28:55.880 --> 00:28:59.160
the Veil case. Curtis telephoned me, explained that he was

447
00:28:59.200 --> 00:29:02.640
a twenty year law enforcement veteran who had been transferred

448
00:29:02.680 --> 00:29:06.519
from the Violent Crimes Unit to the Forensic Cold Case Division.

449
00:29:06.799 --> 00:29:09.839
After reading gone, he caught me back wondering if I

450
00:29:09.920 --> 00:29:15.200
knew where Veil was these days, Canyon Lake, Texas, I said.

451
00:29:15.559 --> 00:29:19.079
Days later, the deputy telephone with news that the FBI

452
00:29:19.119 --> 00:29:24.119
had discovered Veil purchased property on Shady View Drive in

453
00:29:24.240 --> 00:29:28.359
Canyon Lake, and on January eighteenth of twenty thirteen, Curtis

454
00:29:28.359 --> 00:29:32.440
decided to confront Vail. He found the suspected serial killer

455
00:29:32.559 --> 00:29:35.920
at that address, living in a storage shed so large

456
00:29:36.000 --> 00:29:38.160
that it could be a home. Curtis said he read

457
00:29:38.240 --> 00:29:42.480
Veil's rights before asking him about the death and disappearances

458
00:29:42.559 --> 00:29:46.319
of the women, and Veil refused to say anything, accusing

459
00:29:46.440 --> 00:29:50.000
families and the Clarion Ledger of lying about him. The

460
00:29:50.039 --> 00:29:57.160
whole time, Veil couldn't stop smirking, and that's his major arrogance.

461
00:29:57.279 --> 00:29:57.559
Y'all.

462
00:29:57.960 --> 00:30:00.799
The sight of that smirk and angered Kurk, who worked

463
00:30:00.920 --> 00:30:05.000
days nights and weekends on that case. One day he

464
00:30:05.079 --> 00:30:08.720
called me to tell me he found something big, and

465
00:30:08.799 --> 00:30:12.960
not long after this call, Will Horton shared the number

466
00:30:13.079 --> 00:30:15.839
of his cousin who was in the same rosary group

467
00:30:15.920 --> 00:30:20.000
with a caretaker for ninety year old Isaac Sunny. Abshire.

468
00:30:20.799 --> 00:30:23.079
I drove to Lake Charles and sat down with the

469
00:30:23.119 --> 00:30:26.200
man who was finishing his lunch in front of the television.

470
00:30:26.400 --> 00:30:29.839
He remembered Vail well. The pair had worked together at

471
00:30:29.839 --> 00:30:33.240
a chemical plant next to the City Service refinery in

472
00:30:33.319 --> 00:30:38.359
nearby Sulfur, Louisiana. Abshire described Vel as my helper and

473
00:30:38.400 --> 00:30:39.119
a good worker.

474
00:30:39.400 --> 00:30:40.079
I liked him.

475
00:30:40.240 --> 00:30:43.319
Vale was looking for a place closer to his girlfriend,

476
00:30:43.400 --> 00:30:47.079
Mary Horton, who was living in Lake Charles. Needing the cash,

477
00:30:47.200 --> 00:30:51.519
Abshire offered him a room for rent. He accepted, and

478
00:30:51.599 --> 00:30:54.279
Mary became a frequent visitor. I was kind of like

479
00:30:54.319 --> 00:30:56.720
a big brother to her. He said. She was a

480
00:30:56.759 --> 00:30:59.960
sweet little girl. After the couple decided to get married,

481
00:31:00.559 --> 00:31:05.079
Val moved out. At work, his disposition soured. He talked

482
00:31:05.079 --> 00:31:08.079
about how ugly his wife was when she was pregnant,

483
00:31:08.119 --> 00:31:11.680
and that he didn't like his baby. Even a dog

484
00:31:11.880 --> 00:31:16.160
loves their children, Abshire said on the friday before drowning,

485
00:31:16.200 --> 00:31:20.480
the couple visited, bringing their infant son Bill. Mary confided

486
00:31:20.519 --> 00:31:23.720
in Abshire asking if he thought Val could take her

487
00:31:23.759 --> 00:31:28.119
baby away. Two nights later, word came that Mary had

488
00:31:28.240 --> 00:31:33.480
drowned in the kal Kashu River. Deputies contacted Abshire's father

489
00:31:33.720 --> 00:31:36.799
to help in the search, so Abshire and two fellow

490
00:31:36.839 --> 00:31:39.440
workers they went out the next day to drag the river.

491
00:31:39.599 --> 00:31:43.759
The next morning, October thirtieth, nineteen sixty two, he returned

492
00:31:43.799 --> 00:31:47.599
with one of them, Jimmy May, to continue dragging. While

493
00:31:47.599 --> 00:31:51.920
they're talking, something popped up. A guy with binoculars asked,

494
00:31:52.039 --> 00:31:54.920
does she have blonde hair? I said, yes, that's her.

495
00:31:55.319 --> 00:31:58.119
They were covered the body and Abshire could not forget

496
00:31:58.160 --> 00:32:01.519
what he saw. Her body was rigid and a scarf

497
00:32:01.680 --> 00:32:05.240
was wrapped around her neck before going into her mouth,

498
00:32:05.480 --> 00:32:08.240
and had a big old knot in it, he said.

499
00:32:08.960 --> 00:32:12.400
The deputies on the boat boiled in anger, all voicing

500
00:32:12.480 --> 00:32:16.160
the same opinion Veil had killed Mary. They believed it

501
00:32:16.200 --> 00:32:19.119
was foul play just by looking at the body. A

502
00:32:19.200 --> 00:32:22.759
deputy shared copies of the photographs taken that day, and

503
00:32:22.799 --> 00:32:26.039
Abshar had held on to them ever since, placing them

504
00:32:26.079 --> 00:32:29.599
in a folder he marked, keep you hung onto these

505
00:32:29.599 --> 00:32:34.079
photos for fifty years? I asked, yes, he replied, he

506
00:32:34.200 --> 00:32:37.319
told me. He gave the photos to Deputy Curtis. He

507
00:32:37.440 --> 00:32:40.240
also handed over a copy of the nineteen sixty two

508
00:32:40.359 --> 00:32:46.160
Sheriffs Support, which listed fifteen points suggesting Vail's guilt. Despite

509
00:32:46.319 --> 00:32:49.599
being behind on major bills, Veil had managed to pay

510
00:32:49.599 --> 00:32:53.519
an entire year's premiums in advance for a fifty thousand

511
00:32:53.599 --> 00:32:56.759
dollars life insurance policy on his wife. He had a

512
00:32:56.799 --> 00:33:00.279
second life insurance policy on her for eight thousand dollars,

513
00:33:00.279 --> 00:33:03.400
which promised to pay double if she died by accident.

514
00:33:04.200 --> 00:33:07.880
Deputies reported that witnesses said Veil told them he didn't

515
00:33:07.920 --> 00:33:10.400
love his wife and that she was stupid and she

516
00:33:10.640 --> 00:33:16.319
looked vulgar. Deputies also reported that Veil had sexual relationships

517
00:33:16.359 --> 00:33:20.599
with other females and at least one male. Most witnesses

518
00:33:20.720 --> 00:33:24.640
they talked to felt like he was capable of killing

519
00:33:24.680 --> 00:33:28.599
his wife. Val told deputies that his wife was wearing

520
00:33:28.640 --> 00:33:31.799
an off white leather jacket when she went into the water,

521
00:33:31.960 --> 00:33:35.839
but she wasn't wearing the jacket when her body was recovered.

522
00:33:36.279 --> 00:33:40.160
Inside his boat, deputies found two life preservers, Mary had

523
00:33:40.200 --> 00:33:43.920
not been wearing one, despite her fear of drowning. As

524
00:33:43.920 --> 00:33:47.960
for that troutline, deputies found it coiled inside.

525
00:33:47.440 --> 00:33:48.720
Veil's tackle box.

526
00:33:49.160 --> 00:33:52.799
That's why Abshire told me. That's why they thought it

527
00:33:52.880 --> 00:33:55.960
was fishy. When he returned to work, he told his

528
00:33:56.079 --> 00:34:00.079
coworkers what he witnessed were spread, and he said his

529
00:34:00.160 --> 00:34:02.960
boss hauled him in and told him to stop sharing

530
00:34:03.160 --> 00:34:07.640
what he saw. Eventually, Abshire faced off with Vel. He

531
00:34:07.640 --> 00:34:09.760
said he had lawyers that were ready to see me

532
00:34:09.920 --> 00:34:13.440
for everything I had, for all I was saying about him.

533
00:34:14.000 --> 00:34:16.480
Get your lawyer ready, I told him I want to

534
00:34:16.480 --> 00:34:19.639
get on the witness stand and tell everybody what had happened.

535
00:34:20.519 --> 00:34:24.559
After some time past, Abshire said, Val telephoned him, asking

536
00:34:24.599 --> 00:34:27.559
if he still wanted to tell everything to the lawyers.

537
00:34:28.119 --> 00:34:31.800
Get them, Abshire said, He replied, I'm still ready to talk.

538
00:34:32.280 --> 00:34:34.000
I want to get on the stand and tell him

539
00:34:34.000 --> 00:34:38.760
what I know. Not long after Vell left town, I

540
00:34:38.800 --> 00:34:41.559
asked him if he believed thell had killed his wife.

541
00:34:41.719 --> 00:34:46.159
Oh my god, yes, he said. I then met with

542
00:34:46.320 --> 00:34:49.559
Steve Horton, who talked about his aunt Mary, whom his

543
00:34:49.800 --> 00:34:52.960
family adored so much that he and his wife had

544
00:34:53.039 --> 00:34:56.920
named their daughter after her. He showed me her nineteen

545
00:34:57.000 --> 00:35:01.400
sixty two death certificate, signed by the corner doctor Harry Snattick.

546
00:35:01.559 --> 00:35:04.880
The certificate said she fell from the boat while fishing

547
00:35:05.000 --> 00:35:09.000
and accidentally drowning. Horton detailed the many errors Snattic could

548
00:35:09.000 --> 00:35:11.960
put down, the wrong date of her birth for example,

549
00:35:12.159 --> 00:35:15.679
the wrong date of her death, the wrong occupation. He

550
00:35:15.760 --> 00:35:19.440
pointed to the neat signature William Veil. It looked nothing

551
00:35:19.559 --> 00:35:23.960
like the handwriting William Felix Veil typically had. He then

552
00:35:24.039 --> 00:35:27.519
directed me to the date of veil signature October thirty

553
00:35:27.760 --> 00:35:31.199
first of nineteen sixty two. That was the same day

554
00:35:31.199 --> 00:35:33.920
at the funeral, he said, which was in Yennie. How

555
00:35:33.920 --> 00:35:37.679
could he have signed this in Lake Charles. Horton shared

556
00:35:37.760 --> 00:35:41.079
other documents which showed Veil had failed to pay any

557
00:35:41.119 --> 00:35:44.320
money towards the one thy fourteen dollars bill for his

558
00:35:44.440 --> 00:35:48.159
wife's funeral, or her headstone, or even her burial plot.

559
00:35:48.480 --> 00:35:51.400
Dear sir, I would have contacted you sooner if I

560
00:35:51.440 --> 00:35:54.880
would have known anything definite about when I can pay you,

561
00:35:55.239 --> 00:35:58.840
Veil wrote order On's funeral home in nineteen sixty three.

562
00:35:58.960 --> 00:36:00.920
Thank you for your patience and I'll be in your

563
00:36:00.960 --> 00:36:05.119
office in the first part of April to settle the bill. Yours, truly,

564
00:36:05.519 --> 00:36:11.039
Felix Veil. Bell never showed, never paid, despite receiving thousands

565
00:36:11.039 --> 00:36:14.599
on two life insurance policies that he took out on Mary.

566
00:36:14.800 --> 00:36:17.519
The funeral home won a judgment of thirteen hundred and

567
00:36:17.559 --> 00:36:21.400
six dollars in Mississippi against Vail, and he still didn't pay.

568
00:36:21.800 --> 00:36:24.800
It was during a bridge game in nineteen sixty nine

569
00:36:24.880 --> 00:36:27.559
that Mary's mother larned Veil had never put a penny

570
00:36:27.599 --> 00:36:30.960
towards the funeral. She was so embarrassed she went in

571
00:36:31.119 --> 00:36:35.079
and paid it herself. I spoke with the funeral home operator,

572
00:36:35.199 --> 00:36:39.239
Jeane Ordworn. He remembered Mary as a beautiful girl. They

573
00:36:39.280 --> 00:36:42.519
had a marriage not made in heaven, but made in hell,

574
00:36:42.960 --> 00:36:45.960
he said. So I decided to take a trip to

575
00:36:46.079 --> 00:36:49.119
Kenyon Lake, and when I drove into the Canyon Lake

576
00:36:49.159 --> 00:36:54.039
neighborhood where Bell lived, I saw a deer grazing the lawns.

577
00:36:54.320 --> 00:36:57.920
Paperwork I copied at the courthouse prior to my trip

578
00:36:58.000 --> 00:37:01.639
showed David Thomason and d need his property to Veil

579
00:37:01.800 --> 00:37:05.880
after he paid the back taxes. So I dug into

580
00:37:05.920 --> 00:37:09.480
Thomasin's background, and I discovered that he and Vales shared

581
00:37:09.519 --> 00:37:13.400
something in common. Each of those guys had a wife

582
00:37:13.480 --> 00:37:18.320
who died in an accidental drowning, so I decided to

583
00:37:18.480 --> 00:37:23.119
dig deeper. Thomasin's estranged wife, Kathy, she had drowned in

584
00:37:23.239 --> 00:37:24.079
Kenyon Lake.

585
00:37:24.199 --> 00:37:24.920
This was on.

586
00:37:24.960 --> 00:37:28.559
July third of two thousand and five. Her family still

587
00:37:28.599 --> 00:37:32.480
had questions. Her mother, Kathy Simon, who still lived in

588
00:37:32.559 --> 00:37:35.079
Kenyon Lake, told me her daughter tried to get away

589
00:37:35.079 --> 00:37:39.559
from Thomasin, who was charged twice with assault but never prosecuted.

590
00:37:39.920 --> 00:37:43.039
She was terrified of him. On the back lot of

591
00:37:43.119 --> 00:37:46.840
Vale's property, I could see the boat Kathy supposedly fell

592
00:37:46.880 --> 00:37:50.920
from and drown Friends told me Thomasin was out of

593
00:37:50.960 --> 00:37:53.599
town at the time. If he did take out a

594
00:37:53.639 --> 00:37:56.480
life insurance policy on her, I couldn't find it, but

595
00:37:56.559 --> 00:37:59.400
I did find insurance companies. Shelled out more than a

596
00:37:59.400 --> 00:38:03.079
half million dollars in preseeds to him, including two hundred

597
00:38:03.079 --> 00:38:05.840
and fifteen thousand dollars for a house fire that the

598
00:38:05.880 --> 00:38:10.400
fire marshal thought was suspicious. Vale now lived on this property,

599
00:38:10.400 --> 00:38:12.679
and when I pulled up outside his home, I noticed

600
00:38:12.719 --> 00:38:16.519
there were no windows. The padlocked fence had barbed wire

601
00:38:16.679 --> 00:38:19.480
across the top. I called out his name and told

602
00:38:19.559 --> 00:38:22.639
him I was interested into speaking with him about the

603
00:38:22.639 --> 00:38:23.400
missing women.

604
00:38:23.719 --> 00:38:24.920
There was no answer.

605
00:38:25.320 --> 00:38:28.559
On March tenth of twenty thirteen, I received an email

606
00:38:28.679 --> 00:38:32.400
from someone by the name of Gina Fretzel, a redheaded

607
00:38:32.480 --> 00:38:37.440
private investigator whose colleagues nicknamed her Batgirl. She was obsessed

608
00:38:37.480 --> 00:38:40.480
with serial killers. She had already read the e book

609
00:38:40.639 --> 00:38:44.599
version of Gone before going online to discover Felix. Vale

610
00:38:44.639 --> 00:38:47.719
was now living in Kenyon Lake. That was only an

611
00:38:47.760 --> 00:38:50.960
hour and a half away from her home in Kerrville, Texas,

612
00:38:51.119 --> 00:38:54.719
where her grandfather had been chief of police for twenty years.

613
00:38:55.000 --> 00:38:57.920
I'm a licensed pis, she wrote me. Let me know

614
00:38:57.960 --> 00:39:01.199
if you need any help. I promised I would later.

615
00:39:01.320 --> 00:39:03.719
I sent a second email saying I'd like to find

616
00:39:03.719 --> 00:39:07.559
out more about the suspicious burning of David Thomason's house

617
00:39:07.599 --> 00:39:08.840
on the property.

618
00:39:08.400 --> 00:39:09.880
Where Veil now lived.

619
00:39:10.679 --> 00:39:14.000
On April third, she tried to talk to thomasin and

620
00:39:14.079 --> 00:39:17.039
when she was unable to, she telephoned and said she

621
00:39:17.239 --> 00:39:19.800
was going to see Veil. He won't talk to you,

622
00:39:20.119 --> 00:39:22.880
I told her, want to bet. She called back later

623
00:39:22.960 --> 00:39:25.920
with the news that vel had indeed talked. She told

624
00:39:26.000 --> 00:39:29.239
him she was an investigator looking into the Thomasin fire

625
00:39:29.480 --> 00:39:32.840
and he had spoken almost non stop to her. She

626
00:39:33.000 --> 00:39:37.199
returned several more times, recording each of her conversations with Vel.

627
00:39:37.360 --> 00:39:40.280
He shared details about his life and lectured her about

628
00:39:40.320 --> 00:39:44.239
the dangers of ego, even as his own ego overwhelmed

629
00:39:44.280 --> 00:39:47.800
their conversations. He told her he had a genius level

630
00:39:47.880 --> 00:39:51.800
IQ surpassing one pin forty, and talked to memories from

631
00:39:52.159 --> 00:39:55.000
the wound, saying he could fill the sunshine on his

632
00:39:55.119 --> 00:40:01.079
mother's belly. Wow I shared the information him from Frenzel's

633
00:40:01.320 --> 00:40:05.519
visits with the expert Yazzi. He provided many more hours

634
00:40:05.599 --> 00:40:08.480
of advice and insights, saying Val seem more in line

635
00:40:08.519 --> 00:40:11.800
with a cult leader than a suspected serial killer. For

636
00:40:11.880 --> 00:40:15.800
more than a dozen hours, Vale spouted off to frenzle

637
00:40:15.880 --> 00:40:20.320
about diet. He talked about his adventures, which included motorcycling

638
00:40:20.400 --> 00:40:23.719
with a Dutch woman across the US and bicycling with

639
00:40:23.800 --> 00:40:28.599
a teenage boy across California. Val regaled her with stories

640
00:40:28.639 --> 00:40:32.960
of his sexual exploits, having talked of having sex with hundreds,

641
00:40:33.000 --> 00:40:37.480
maybe even thousands of women, before adding that he didn't

642
00:40:37.519 --> 00:40:39.719
consider himself promiscuous.

643
00:40:40.159 --> 00:40:41.559
He asked her to have sex.

644
00:40:41.880 --> 00:40:44.800
She told him no, that she didn't know him well

645
00:40:44.920 --> 00:40:47.840
enough to have sex, and I knew that was coming.

646
00:40:48.039 --> 00:40:50.599
By now, Frenzel had begun to play the role of

647
00:40:50.679 --> 00:40:54.360
Vale's girlfriend, despite the fact that they had never even kissed.

648
00:40:55.280 --> 00:40:58.840
The conversations grew darker. He talked about how much he

649
00:40:58.960 --> 00:41:04.440
knew about killing people, murdering, pain incapacitating people. He said

650
00:41:04.440 --> 00:41:07.480
he and Thompson had enough an amenity that we are

651
00:41:07.519 --> 00:41:11.280
held in suspicion by all of our family and friends

652
00:41:11.280 --> 00:41:13.760
for being able to think of something and do it

653
00:41:13.840 --> 00:41:17.000
without looking at whether it's legal or not, or permissible

654
00:41:17.320 --> 00:41:22.280
by society or not. He talked of eating live raw meat, saying,

655
00:41:22.320 --> 00:41:24.119
if you're going to eat animals, you would have to

656
00:41:24.239 --> 00:41:26.679
kill them and drink the blood, suck it out of

657
00:41:26.679 --> 00:41:27.880
the body and drink.

658
00:41:27.639 --> 00:41:30.639
It right then that would be live meat.

659
00:41:30.920 --> 00:41:34.039
After Veil talked about a young woman who was obviously

660
00:41:34.079 --> 00:41:37.119
a net, Frienzil asked him if he had talked to

661
00:41:37.159 --> 00:41:41.039
her since his eyes got huge. She told me it

662
00:41:41.159 --> 00:41:45.639
was the most evil luck I've ever seen. Eleven days

663
00:41:45.719 --> 00:41:51.079
after Frienzill first contacted Mevel's sister, Kay Faulkner telephone destroyed

664
00:41:51.199 --> 00:41:54.519
about her younger brother Ronnie's dying.

665
00:41:54.719 --> 00:41:55.239
She said.

666
00:41:56.079 --> 00:41:58.880
I replied that I was sorry to hear that his

667
00:41:59.039 --> 00:42:02.079
body had been ra sage for years by the hepatitis

668
00:42:02.119 --> 00:42:06.239
sea he contracted during the Vietnam War. A lever transplant

669
00:42:06.320 --> 00:42:09.320
had saved his life a dozen years earlier, but now

670
00:42:09.400 --> 00:42:13.239
his second lever was failing. Faulkner told me it was

671
00:42:13.280 --> 00:42:16.719
her birthday and that she would never forget this day.

672
00:42:16.800 --> 00:42:19.920
She began weeping. I know God has a plan, but

673
00:42:20.079 --> 00:42:24.679
why couldn't he take Felix instead. After our conversation, I

674
00:42:24.719 --> 00:42:28.159
spoke with Mary Rose, mentioning it was Faulkner's birthday. It's

675
00:42:28.199 --> 00:42:31.039
my birthday too, She said, I had no idea Cay

676
00:42:31.039 --> 00:42:34.119
and I shared the same birthday. We talked about the

677
00:42:34.119 --> 00:42:38.000
case against Felix Veil, and she was worried that authorities

678
00:42:38.199 --> 00:42:43.119
might do nothing. Ever, since Vail had sold his Mississippi property,

679
00:42:43.639 --> 00:42:46.280
she had been wondering if he would also sell his

680
00:42:46.360 --> 00:42:51.039
Tulsa property, property she and Annette had once owned. Weeks later,

681
00:42:51.199 --> 00:42:53.559
she called with the news that Vail had sold that

682
00:42:53.719 --> 00:42:57.679
Tulsa house. The sale price online one hundred and forty

683
00:42:57.760 --> 00:43:00.519
nine thousand dollars. Now that he has all the money,

684
00:43:00.559 --> 00:43:03.400
do you think he's gonna run? Jerry, I don't know,

685
00:43:03.760 --> 00:43:07.480
I replied, he could be running. On April thirtieth, my

686
00:43:07.639 --> 00:43:12.199
telephone reigned that Felix Vale had now left Texas. His

687
00:43:12.280 --> 00:43:14.599
sister told me that he had shown up the previous

688
00:43:14.679 --> 00:43:18.679
morning at the Columbus, Mississippi home of their late brother, Ronnie,

689
00:43:18.719 --> 00:43:23.000
who had died five weeks earlier. Veil had skipped the funeral.

690
00:43:23.679 --> 00:43:27.400
When Ronnie's widow, Bonnie, spotted Vail, she went to a

691
00:43:27.480 --> 00:43:31.679
relative's employer, called police and told them that she didn't

692
00:43:31.679 --> 00:43:34.920
want to talk to him. A worker told Vale to

693
00:43:35.039 --> 00:43:39.280
move on. That afternoon, cal Kashu Parish Deputy Randy Curtis

694
00:43:39.320 --> 00:43:42.800
called me with more news. Val had returned to his

695
00:43:42.880 --> 00:43:47.079
brother's property again, this time when Bonnie was gone. Neighbors

696
00:43:47.079 --> 00:43:50.480
spotted him checking her mailbox, then hopping a fence and

697
00:43:50.599 --> 00:43:55.639
circling her house. Columbus police and other law enforcement officials

698
00:43:55.679 --> 00:43:58.440
found Veil in a white pickup and pulled him over.

699
00:43:58.599 --> 00:44:01.000
He told them he had come there for a funeral

700
00:44:01.119 --> 00:44:05.719
before heading to Montpelier. Curtis said Columbus police were sending

701
00:44:05.760 --> 00:44:08.960
him a photograph of Veil and his truck, and he

702
00:44:09.079 --> 00:44:14.119
could be running. Jerry, I know, I replied. Vel's sister

703
00:44:14.239 --> 00:44:18.639
telephoned again, saying she heard her brother was heading to Montpelier.

704
00:44:18.880 --> 00:44:21.559
She wondered if he was driving to the home of

705
00:44:21.760 --> 00:44:26.400
possible witness Wesley Turnage. I called Turnage to let him

706
00:44:26.440 --> 00:44:30.360
know that Veil might be headed his way if he

707
00:44:30.440 --> 00:44:33.360
sets foot on my property. Turn and said there ain't

708
00:44:33.360 --> 00:44:36.239
gonna be a trial. He called me back later, saying

709
00:44:36.360 --> 00:44:39.280
no one in mott Peelier had seen Veil. Are the

710
00:44:39.360 --> 00:44:43.559
authorities ever going to do anything? I think so well,

711
00:44:43.599 --> 00:44:47.360
they better get moving, he said. In his last conversation

712
00:44:47.519 --> 00:44:51.119
with his dying brother, Veil had confided to Ronnie, a

713
00:44:51.199 --> 00:44:55.840
one time missionary in the Philippines, what he experienced preaching

714
00:44:56.000 --> 00:45:00.519
as a teenager at the Montpelier Baptist Church, seeing a

715
00:45:00.559 --> 00:45:04.239
divine being that shimmered like the sun. It was a

716
00:45:04.239 --> 00:45:07.679
bad mistake, Veil recalled, because he was thinking I was

717
00:45:07.800 --> 00:45:11.320
touched by a demon. I called Frenzel, who speculated the

718
00:45:11.440 --> 00:45:14.679
Veil's visit has to do with something his brother had,

719
00:45:15.079 --> 00:45:18.639
and he wants it now that his brother's dead. Whatever

720
00:45:18.679 --> 00:45:21.960
it is, Felix is willing to rest, going to Mississippi

721
00:45:22.000 --> 00:45:25.000
and breaking into a place to get it. He didn't

722
00:45:25.039 --> 00:45:28.159
even resk going to the funeral. So where's Vel now?

723
00:45:28.599 --> 00:45:32.360
Columbus police didn't know. The Sheriff's office in Lake Charles

724
00:45:32.400 --> 00:45:36.599
didn't know. Even his family didn't know. Frenzid Veil had

725
00:45:36.639 --> 00:45:41.639
talked about living in Switzerland. Could this be the last goodbyes?

726
00:45:41.760 --> 00:45:42.559
Before leaving?

727
00:45:43.079 --> 00:45:46.519
At ten thirty pm, Frenzel telephoned, I'm sorry to be

728
00:45:46.599 --> 00:45:51.519
calling so late. It's okay, I'm up, I said. She

729
00:45:51.639 --> 00:45:54.400
talked of the journals she had seen the Veil was

730
00:45:54.519 --> 00:45:57.599
keeping in the plastic bins. She had been unable to

731
00:45:57.639 --> 00:46:00.440
read them so far, but she had taken photoge grass

732
00:46:00.599 --> 00:46:04.119
of the backsides of the pages. She shared the photos

733
00:46:04.159 --> 00:46:08.199
with a computer expert who analyzed them, spotting these words

734
00:46:08.239 --> 00:46:13.480
on the same line, wife, attic and divided. Could Val

735
00:46:13.599 --> 00:46:17.239
have given his brother something to keep? Perhaps stuff something

736
00:46:17.320 --> 00:46:20.679
in the attic? The next morning I spoke with Deputy Curtis.

737
00:46:20.760 --> 00:46:23.639
He said Bonnie had given the police permission to search

738
00:46:23.679 --> 00:46:28.360
her property in case Veil had hid something there. That search,

739
00:46:28.559 --> 00:46:32.000
I told him should include the attic. He called back

740
00:46:32.119 --> 00:46:36.159
later to say the search had turned up nothing. Each day,

741
00:46:36.239 --> 00:46:38.559
I made a run of calls, and each day no

742
00:46:38.599 --> 00:46:42.719
one had heard from Veil. Six days later, Friendze called

743
00:46:43.280 --> 00:46:46.719
Val had just left her message saying he was back

744
00:46:46.760 --> 00:46:52.119
in Kenyon Lake. Elijah, he didn't leave the country. I

745
00:46:52.239 --> 00:46:54.760
telephoned Randy Curtis with the news that Veil was in

746
00:46:54.880 --> 00:46:58.840
Kenyon Lake and he sounded relieved. I talked with Frenzle again.

747
00:46:59.000 --> 00:47:02.280
She was anxious to confront Veil about the missing women.

748
00:47:02.400 --> 00:47:05.719
She was also anxious to stop playing the role of

749
00:47:05.840 --> 00:47:10.679
his girlfriend. But before she could, authorities arrested Veil, charging

750
00:47:10.760 --> 00:47:14.280
him with the murders of his first wife Mary. After

751
00:47:14.360 --> 00:47:17.880
that May seventeenth of rest, Veil wrote friends of letters

752
00:47:17.960 --> 00:47:21.719
telling her he loved her, and telephone calls from jail

753
00:47:21.840 --> 00:47:22.880
in Lake Charles.

754
00:47:22.920 --> 00:47:23.800
He shared his.

755
00:47:23.880 --> 00:47:28.000
Explanation of what happened that night on October twenty eighth,

756
00:47:28.079 --> 00:47:31.519
nineteen sixty two, on the Klikashu River. He referred to

757
00:47:31.559 --> 00:47:34.840
his first wife as a kuna ass lady, saying she

758
00:47:35.039 --> 00:47:38.039
was half kneeling on his feet when she saw one

759
00:47:38.079 --> 00:47:40.320
of his float buckets that were.

760
00:47:40.159 --> 00:47:41.159
On the line.

761
00:47:41.239 --> 00:47:43.559
He said the boat was going real slow along the

762
00:47:43.679 --> 00:47:45.760
edge of the bank when the boat hit a stump

763
00:47:45.800 --> 00:47:48.199
and it dumped her right out. Dale said he shut

764
00:47:48.239 --> 00:47:51.039
off the murder and jumped in where she had plopped

765
00:47:51.079 --> 00:47:54.960
into the water and the river had sucked her right in.

766
00:47:55.159 --> 00:47:58.480
He said, I dove around until I was exhausted, and

767
00:47:58.559 --> 00:48:01.960
came in immediately to the police station in town and

768
00:48:02.000 --> 00:48:06.239
reported the accident, and that was it. This story differed

769
00:48:06.320 --> 00:48:09.400
greatly from his story in nineteen sixty two, when he

770
00:48:09.440 --> 00:48:11.480
said his wife was sitting on top of a boat

771
00:48:11.559 --> 00:48:14.679
seat when she fell out, and not that she was

772
00:48:14.760 --> 00:48:18.559
kneeling on his feet. Back then, he said nothing about

773
00:48:18.639 --> 00:48:22.039
hitting a stump, just swerving to miss it. Vale told

774
00:48:22.159 --> 00:48:25.559
Frenzel that the case has been an avalanche coming down

775
00:48:25.559 --> 00:48:28.679
a mountain all that time, waiting to hit my head,

776
00:48:29.039 --> 00:48:33.079
and it finally has. He blamed the families in me

777
00:48:33.800 --> 00:48:37.639
an evil, shrimpy reporter for what had happened, called the

778
00:48:37.719 --> 00:48:42.039
charges fabricated, and insisted that a large amount of money, hate,

779
00:48:42.119 --> 00:48:46.480
and political ambition is behind it. At Vale's request, Frenzil

780
00:48:46.599 --> 00:48:49.519
returned his truck to his home and went inside to

781
00:48:49.559 --> 00:48:50.159
take care.

782
00:48:49.960 --> 00:48:50.960
Of you task.

783
00:48:51.239 --> 00:48:55.679
While there, she spent sixteen hours photographing all of his journals.

784
00:48:55.840 --> 00:49:02.400
More than twenty four hundred pages. She also photographed letters, documents, photographs,

785
00:49:02.480 --> 00:49:05.639
and business cards, some dating back to the sixties. She

786
00:49:05.719 --> 00:49:10.119
found a hodgepodge of women's jewelry on buttons and pens,

787
00:49:10.159 --> 00:49:14.440
and even a glass dildo. Most disturbingly, she found a

788
00:49:14.519 --> 00:49:18.480
photograph of a naked three year old girl. Frienzel later

789
00:49:18.559 --> 00:49:20.920
spoke with the girl, who is now woman, and the

790
00:49:21.000 --> 00:49:27.000
journals revealed that Veil had stalked her for years. Frienzil

791
00:49:27.079 --> 00:49:30.440
discovered the Burth certificate of a nat craver Veil, who

792
00:49:30.519 --> 00:49:34.280
had used it for previous strips to Mexico. Obviously, she

793
00:49:34.360 --> 00:49:37.239
didn't take that with her. One of her oddest findings

794
00:49:37.360 --> 00:49:41.119
was someone else's birth certificate, a man named Henry Curtis

795
00:49:41.199 --> 00:49:45.599
ware the third. Two weeks after Veil's arrest, I telephoned

796
00:49:45.599 --> 00:49:50.760
public defender Andrew Cassanet. The former prosecutor returned my calls

797
00:49:50.760 --> 00:49:54.280
and asked what I wanted. Are you Felix VAL's lawyer

798
00:49:55.440 --> 00:49:58.119
for now? Why are you calling me? I explained that

799
00:49:58.159 --> 00:50:00.800
I have been working on a story on Veil having

800
00:50:00.800 --> 00:50:04.159
a DNA test in connection with a nineteen ninety double

801
00:50:04.159 --> 00:50:08.840
homicide in Starkville, Mississippi. Where two elderly women were raped

802
00:50:08.880 --> 00:50:11.920
and killed. The crime struck me as the work of

803
00:50:12.039 --> 00:50:16.719
someone else, a double homicide, he asked. He explained that

804
00:50:16.760 --> 00:50:20.159
the Starkville police had just swabbed the inside of Bale's

805
00:50:20.239 --> 00:50:24.559
cheeks testing his DNA. He said he hardly knew anything

806
00:50:24.599 --> 00:50:28.079
about Vale's case from the district attorney because the DA

807
00:50:28.199 --> 00:50:31.719
had been too busy talking to the press. I laughed,

808
00:50:32.199 --> 00:50:36.440
you must be the investigative reporter mentioned in the arrest warrant. Yep,

809
00:50:36.639 --> 00:50:39.719
that's me, I said. I knew it had to be you. Why,

810
00:50:39.760 --> 00:50:42.440
I said, you're the only one who's called me. This

811
00:50:42.639 --> 00:50:45.760
killing happened all the way in Louisiana. Why are you

812
00:50:45.880 --> 00:50:49.639
covering it in Mississippi. Well, it's where Felix Vale was

813
00:50:49.719 --> 00:50:52.239
born and where he was living before he took off,

814
00:50:52.280 --> 00:50:56.480
I said, took off. Sometimes people just leave. If I'm

815
00:50:56.480 --> 00:50:58.559
in high school and I go to college, I just

816
00:50:58.679 --> 00:51:03.760
leave us. I replied, Do you need anything else? Nope,

817
00:51:03.840 --> 00:51:08.679
I replied, so Friendzly and I then plowed through Veil's journals,

818
00:51:08.800 --> 00:51:12.039
noticing gaps that made us believe he had purged them.

819
00:51:12.280 --> 00:51:14.960
Times when he would have been with Sharon and Annette

820
00:51:15.000 --> 00:51:18.639
appeared to have been destroyed. Throughout his journals, his main

821
00:51:18.719 --> 00:51:22.880
topic was sex, describing his exploits of women single and married,

822
00:51:22.920 --> 00:51:26.800
straight and lesbian, conscious and unconscious. Even as he hopped

823
00:51:26.800 --> 00:51:30.440
from bed to bed, he demanded monogamy, referring to women

824
00:51:30.519 --> 00:51:34.960
as whores. Sex dominated his dreams, where women from his

825
00:51:35.159 --> 00:51:39.519
past often appeared as characters. The journals also reflected an

826
00:51:39.519 --> 00:51:44.280
obsession with children. In a March twenty seventh, nineteen eighty

827
00:51:44.320 --> 00:51:47.480
sixth century, Vell described the visit of a woman and

828
00:51:47.519 --> 00:51:51.320
her daughter's in his home. The little girls were delicious,

829
00:51:51.480 --> 00:51:55.119
he wrote. We massage some, hugged and kissed some, and

830
00:51:55.239 --> 00:51:58.320
it was twelve men night, in time for them to go.

831
00:52:00.199 --> 00:52:00.559
Fucker.

832
00:52:01.280 --> 00:52:05.039
On August twenty ninth, nineteen ninety two, Vil walked into

833
00:52:05.119 --> 00:52:07.960
the Walmart in West Point, and a one year old

834
00:52:07.960 --> 00:52:11.159
white girl looked in my eyes, loving me as if

835
00:52:11.159 --> 00:52:13.960
there were no age difference between us.

836
00:52:14.239 --> 00:52:15.239
Good grief.

837
00:52:15.559 --> 00:52:18.599
On July sixth of twenty thirteen, friends will email me

838
00:52:18.679 --> 00:52:22.199
something she spotted in the photographs of VAL's wife Mary,

839
00:52:22.360 --> 00:52:26.159
taken after her body was discovered in the kayl Kashu River.

840
00:52:26.440 --> 00:52:29.519
It looks like her panties are pulled out over the

841
00:52:29.519 --> 00:52:32.400
top of her jeans in the small of her back.

842
00:52:33.039 --> 00:52:35.760
To me, this would be sign of a struggle. No

843
00:52:35.880 --> 00:52:38.440
woman on the planet would allow that to happen with

844
00:52:38.519 --> 00:52:41.159
her panties. I think it was a situation where he

845
00:52:41.280 --> 00:52:44.320
grabbed for her jeans for leverage and her panty slipped

846
00:52:44.400 --> 00:52:48.679
over the waistband. In the other photograph, her cayamegas sweatshirt

847
00:52:48.800 --> 00:52:51.800
was bunched up and her mid drift was exposed. Her

848
00:52:51.840 --> 00:52:55.920
sleep cuffs looked as if grease had been ground into them.

849
00:52:56.000 --> 00:52:59.000
The autopsy report showed she had a big bruise on

850
00:52:59.079 --> 00:53:01.679
the back of her head. Could she have been struck

851
00:53:01.719 --> 00:53:04.760
from behind and then dragged the full weight of her body,

852
00:53:04.800 --> 00:53:09.360
grinding the grease into her cuffs. That same day, Veil's sister,

853
00:53:09.519 --> 00:53:13.159
Beth Keyes died of a massive heart attack. Her obituary

854
00:53:13.360 --> 00:53:17.800
was an impressive one valedictorian of her high school, successful realtor,

855
00:53:18.159 --> 00:53:23.119
and generous philanthropists. Her obituary listed all of her siblings

856
00:53:23.199 --> 00:53:28.360
dead and living, with one exception, Felix Veil. A day later,

857
00:53:28.679 --> 00:53:32.159
fellow goenurernalist Stanley Nelson emailed me the name of a

858
00:53:32.199 --> 00:53:32.719
man I.

859
00:53:32.639 --> 00:53:33.480
Should speak with.

860
00:53:34.159 --> 00:53:36.840
The Next day, I interviewed fifty eight year old Kirk

861
00:53:36.920 --> 00:53:40.519
Germany of saucy A, Mississippi, who had worked alongside Veil

862
00:53:40.719 --> 00:53:44.880
in nineteen seventy seven. Although Veil was aloof he just

863
00:53:44.920 --> 00:53:48.039
seemed to have a strange mind control, trying to bring

864
00:53:48.079 --> 00:53:52.679
people into his world in a manipulative sense. Germany said

865
00:53:52.800 --> 00:53:57.280
he just had that Charles Manson personality. No matter where

866
00:53:57.320 --> 00:54:02.159
they went, Veil attracted women. Felix claimed he was locked

867
00:54:02.159 --> 00:54:05.480
in a Bavarian love not with this woman in Germany

868
00:54:05.599 --> 00:54:08.440
said something like eighteen errors. What the hell is that?

869
00:54:08.719 --> 00:54:09.079
He said.

870
00:54:09.119 --> 00:54:12.159
Veil also remarked that the best sex he had ever

871
00:54:12.239 --> 00:54:15.599
had was with either get this as sick.

872
00:54:15.840 --> 00:54:18.280
A two or three year old girl.

873
00:54:18.679 --> 00:54:22.159
In fall of twenty thirteen, I telephoned Lee Peck, a

874
00:54:22.199 --> 00:54:26.840
reporter for KPLCTV in Lake Charles who had aired several

875
00:54:26.920 --> 00:54:30.440
stories on Veil. He had told me before that one

876
00:54:30.480 --> 00:54:34.119
of their part time employees was working for Travelers Insurance

877
00:54:34.159 --> 00:54:37.400
when they sold Veil the fifty thousand dollars life insurance

878
00:54:37.440 --> 00:54:41.079
policy on his wife Mary. This time, Peck gave me

879
00:54:41.119 --> 00:54:46.199
her name, Jessine Brooks, whose telephone number I found online.

880
00:54:46.280 --> 00:54:49.719
She answered the call and said she remembered the death well,

881
00:54:50.320 --> 00:54:52.840
it was, she said, the first time she had ever

882
00:54:53.199 --> 00:54:58.280
read an autopsy. She described Veil as cold and unemotional

883
00:54:58.360 --> 00:55:01.199
in his dealings. Deputies told her they knew he had

884
00:55:01.280 --> 00:55:03.480
killed his wife, but they couldn't prove it.

885
00:55:03.760 --> 00:55:04.159
She said.

886
00:55:04.199 --> 00:55:07.760
Veil's wife did not sign the policy and she needed

887
00:55:07.800 --> 00:55:10.559
to sign it. The agent got in a little trouble.

888
00:55:10.679 --> 00:55:13.960
Despite being the major breadwinner, Veil didn't take out a

889
00:55:14.000 --> 00:55:18.920
policy on himself. The insurance company wound up settling the claim.

890
00:55:19.239 --> 00:55:22.199
I was surprised he got anything, Brooke said, because she

891
00:55:22.239 --> 00:55:26.360
had not signed it. Friendzil and I tracked down Kurt Ware,

892
00:55:26.440 --> 00:55:28.760
who was stunned to learn that a copy of his

893
00:55:28.880 --> 00:55:32.559
birth certificate had been found at Veil's home. The copy

894
00:55:32.599 --> 00:55:36.880
had been ordered in January of nineteen seventy three. Had

895
00:55:36.960 --> 00:55:41.800
Veil ordered that birth certificate? And if so, why was

896
00:55:41.840 --> 00:55:45.480
he going to adopt this as his new identity. Ware

897
00:55:45.559 --> 00:55:48.920
didn't recognize the name Felix Vel, but he did recognize

898
00:55:49.000 --> 00:55:52.760
Vel and his girlfriend, Sharon Hensley. After I emailed him photographs,

899
00:55:53.360 --> 00:55:55.880
he said he had met them in nineteen seventy two,

900
00:55:55.960 --> 00:55:59.079
possibly at the health food place where he worked.

901
00:55:58.760 --> 00:55:59.639
In New Orleans.

902
00:56:00.000 --> 00:56:02.480
His journals, Veil had written that they went by the

903
00:56:02.519 --> 00:56:07.079
aliases Joseph and Helene Martin, and it even married under

904
00:56:07.119 --> 00:56:10.639
those names. Where said, those names did ring a bell.

905
00:56:11.119 --> 00:56:14.800
He also said he and Vel bore a physical resemblance

906
00:56:14.840 --> 00:56:18.280
to each other and would often hang out together on Saturdays.

907
00:56:18.880 --> 00:56:22.480
He recalled Val entering a wine store, removing the sticker

908
00:56:22.519 --> 00:56:25.280
from the most expensive wine and replacing it with a

909
00:56:25.360 --> 00:56:28.960
sticker from the cheapest. He would literally spend three dollars

910
00:56:28.960 --> 00:56:31.719
and come out with the best wine, he said, aloof

911
00:56:31.760 --> 00:56:36.199
and intriguing. Val talked about grape fast where he ate

912
00:56:36.320 --> 00:56:40.119
only grapes, Where said, and he only drank this German

913
00:56:40.320 --> 00:56:45.039
wine made from white grapes. During one conversation, he said,

914
00:56:45.159 --> 00:56:48.800
Val asked him, have you ever killed someone? He felt

915
00:56:48.840 --> 00:56:52.360
to chill. The way he said it made me think

916
00:56:52.519 --> 00:56:55.559
he had killed somebody in his past. I tracked down

917
00:56:55.679 --> 00:56:58.840
Dick White, who recalled Val visiting him and his wife

918
00:56:58.840 --> 00:57:01.800
for a month in their tees Simon in nineteen ninety three,

919
00:57:02.480 --> 00:57:05.559
while working on a roof, They'll accidentally hit his finger

920
00:57:05.599 --> 00:57:08.719
with a hammer, he said. They'll then argued with his

921
00:57:08.840 --> 00:57:11.400
injured finger, you ain't hurting you, son of a bitch,

922
00:57:11.840 --> 00:57:15.000
I'll make you hurt. They'll swung the hammer and smash

923
00:57:15.119 --> 00:57:18.559
his finger a second time. During their work together on

924
00:57:18.639 --> 00:57:22.320
several projects, including building a barn, White said Veil told

925
00:57:22.360 --> 00:57:26.159
him my ego wants to talk to you. White said

926
00:57:26.199 --> 00:57:28.880
he replied Felix, I'm not dealing with you in the

927
00:57:28.920 --> 00:57:32.039
third person. White said Veil drifted in and out of

928
00:57:32.079 --> 00:57:36.800
different levels of sanity and insanity. Talk of mental illness

929
00:57:36.880 --> 00:57:40.920
didn't surprise him. I knew Vel's late father suffered from

930
00:57:40.960 --> 00:57:42.199
bipolar disorder.

931
00:57:42.239 --> 00:57:42.719
He said.

932
00:57:43.280 --> 00:57:48.320
They'll often watch television shows on schizophrenia, a popular topic

933
00:57:48.360 --> 00:57:51.440
in his journals. He told Frienzil he believes the whole

934
00:57:51.559 --> 00:57:55.400
human species is schitzo and y'all. That's where I am

935
00:57:55.519 --> 00:57:59.480
going to cut it off today and we should be

936
00:57:59.519 --> 00:58:02.159
able to the next episode will wrap this up. It's

937
00:58:02.199 --> 00:58:04.440
about to really get into it because we're about to

938
00:58:04.480 --> 00:58:09.639
get into the court testimony. But it's very important that

939
00:58:09.719 --> 00:58:12.400
I give you the history of what was going on

940
00:58:12.599 --> 00:58:14.599
prior to that so you can see how sick and

941
00:58:14.639 --> 00:58:18.480
disgusting this asshole is. So I thank you so much

942
00:58:18.599 --> 00:58:19.400
for listening.

943
00:58:19.559 --> 00:58:20.000
Again.

944
00:58:20.639 --> 00:58:24.840
Happy Thanksgiving. I hope you're spending it with family. And

945
00:58:25.079 --> 00:58:29.760
friends and loved ones, and I am sure thankful for

946
00:58:29.840 --> 00:58:33.480
all of you. And until next time, I'm Jim Chapman,

947
00:58:33.920 --> 00:58:38.000
your host of Bloody Angoa, a podcast one hundred and

948
00:58:38.000 --> 00:58:41.519
forty two years into making the complete story of America's

949
00:58:41.519 --> 00:58:43.599
bloody is President Peace?

950
00:59:00.119 --> 00:59:00.760
I walk the.

951
00:59:00.840 --> 00:59:11.800
Street line shackle change, Oh gluesome Gurdie. It's calling my name.

952
00:59:13.639 --> 00:59:20.760
There is no mercy and it's been a tentery juice

953
00:59:20.920 --> 00:59:25.719
as the hill Stream game rangol the three.

954
00:59:27.239 --> 00:59:28.480
I'm here, be.

955
00:59:30.559 --> 00:59:38.800
By, here to die inside these walls, inside the wild.

956
00:59:40.719 --> 00:59:41.599
And when the.

957
00:59:42.199 --> 00:59:45.360
Girl, as I know, it's so

958
00:59:50.760 --> 01:00:00.119
Bloody, anglebody angle o.