MURDERED: Angela "Mischelle" Lawless

[00:00] Hi, Crime Junkies, it's Britt, and I have big news. One of my favorite seasonal shows, CounterClock, is back with a brand new season, and it is wild. Host Delia D'Ambra is digging into the 2008 Lane Bryant murders. I mean, this isn't just a recap. It is a reinvestigation. She's talking to law enforcement, people from the community, even sources who have never spoken publicly until now. And you know I love a show that asks all the questions. Listen to CounterClock Season 8 now, wherever you get your podcasts. [00:30] Hi Crime Junkies, I'm Ashley Flowers. And I'm Brett. And you guys, everyone is so psyched about the store. I love you guys so much. Again, there's so many stuff you can get on there. It's the reason we took last week off. The store is going to be open for two weeks. So get in there, get your Crime Junkie merch, your window cleans, your water bottles, your coffee mugs, and obviously all the apparel. It's awesome. Oh, and if you are one of our $10 or $20 level patrons, you can use your [01:00] will only be open until July 15th. So check it out soon. So you guys, I think that's our only order of business. I think we should jump right into the episode because this is a long one. We kind of tried to make up for taking last week off. But before that, we're actually going to play a promo for a show we think you guys will really enjoy. Diabolical. [01:23] Vengeance. [01:25] Betrayal. Bad hair. [01:28] Leaning. Hi, everyone. This is Kimberly. And this is Katie. And we have a weekly podcast called A Date with Dateline, a recap of Dateline episodes. We talk about important issues like grainy surveillance footage, cell phone towers, Andrea Canning's white jeans, and Mankey's hankies. We delve into the details of any victim who's ever loved life or lit up a room. So find us on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, and iTunes to make A Date with Dateline. And remember, don't watch alone.

[01:58] hosted by two professional amateur true crime TV experts with no formal training but evidence lockers filled with snark and uninformed opinions. [02:05] Thank you. [02:36] All right, Britt, today I'm telling the story of a girl named Angela Michelle Lawless. And our story starts in the early morning hours of November 8th, 1992, shortly before 1.25 a.m. to be exact, in the small town of Benton, Missouri. A couple is driving down the highway when they see a car pulled over with its headlights on, the car is running, and the dome light is on. [03:03] When the couple sees this car, they pull up beside it and the husband offers to get out and check, but his wife insists that he doesn't. And I feel like maybe she had some crime junkie instincts because all of this scene feels really wrong. Yeah, definitely. Right. So when they pull up, they didn't see anything specific. It just felt weird. So they decide the safest thing to do isn't to go exploring Hardy Boy style and do their own investigation.

[03:33] And they're just about getting off their shift. So the two decide to go check out the car themselves. [03:49] Rick Walter pulls up and parks in front of the six-year-old Burgundy Buick, and the scene is nothing like what he expected to find. He finds that the vehicle hasn't been abandoned at all. Inside the car is a girl slumped over in the driver's seat. His partner that's with him, Roy Moore, popped the door open with two fingers, and the two men shouted a couple of times, [04:19] but they get no response. Then Rick Walter shines his light in, trying again to maybe startle the person or see what's going on. And... [04:29] They think for sure, yeah, this couple's right. This girl's just passed out. The driver's drunk until they see [04:36] The blood. Lots and lots of blood. The girl didn't appear to be breathing, so Rick Walter radios in for an ambulance at 129 in the morning. [04:46] While he's making this call, another person comes in to report this scene to the sheriff's station. A man named Mr. Abbott arrives and tells the officer that he found a white female in a vehicle down by the Benton exit off the highway. Now, when I say Mr. Abbott, you might be picturing an older man, maybe someone who could be like a dad. But this was actually kind of a young guy, maybe Michelle's age or slightly older in his early 20s, like tops.

[05:16] she had been shot. At first, Mr. Abbott says that he told the officer he thought that maybe she was drunk like the other people had thought. And he said that he leaned through the window, which he said was rolled down all the way. [05:28] And he grabbed the girl by the waist, trying to sit her up when he saw all of the blood. And at the time that he's reporting this, they're obviously getting the same call about the same thing from one of their own officers. So since they didn't see any blood on this man, [05:43] They don't hold him for questioning and the man leaves the station. [05:47] Back at the scene, Rick Walter and Roy Moore are taking in more of the scene as they wait for help. And here's what they observe. [05:55] And all of this is going to be super important later. The driver's side window was rolled down five to seven inches. [06:02] The victim, who they identify to be a woman, doesn't appear to be wearing any rings. She just had socks on her feet and her shoes were somewhere else in the car. And it looked like there was grass and weeds on the bottom of her socks. [06:17] They're thinking that she had gotten out of her car at some point. And to back this up, there appeared to be drops of blood outside of her vehicle. [06:25] About the time the first responder comes responding to Rick Walter's call, he checks for a pulse, but there is none. However, her body is still warm and clammy, so they know that she had to have died shortly before they arrived. This first responder also takes note of the girl's grassy socks and the blood outside of the car.

[06:55] a grassy embankment and at the bottom was a bloody scene where they believe that she was severely beaten and hit over the head. They could tell this not only from the scene but from her wounds. What wasn't obvious at first though but becomes clear after officers take a harder look at the car was that the girl had not only been covered in blood from her two blunt force trauma wounds [07:25] realized that she had actually been shot. [07:29] Starting a new business can be intimidating. I mean, the amount of tasks you have to juggle can get overwhelming quickly. And it's like you have to be an expert in everything all at once. I mean, you think when I started Crime Junkie, I thought I would be running a merch store one day? I know. But when that day came, before I could even hire help, I had to expertly run a merch store. [07:50] And I did it with Shopify. [07:52] And you know what? It doesn't matter how big we've grown, how many team members we have who are actual experts now. We still use Shopify. Shopify drives e-commerce, whether you're a household name like AudioCheck now or if you're a creator just getting started like I was eight years ago. The platform acts as your built in business partner and simplifies all your tasks. [08:22] seconds. You can even create email and social campaigns with ease. So start your business today with the industry's best partner, Shopify, and start hearing. Sign up for your $1 per month trial today at shopify.com slash crimejunkie. Go to shopify.com slash crimejunkie. That's shopify.com slash crimejunkie.

[08:44] so what they pieced together and what they think happened is that this girl was driving down the highway and they think that someone somehow got her to pull over there was nothing wrong with her car so their best guess is that was someone that she knew or someone that got her attention and would make her feel comfortable enough to pull to the side of the road near the exit and [09:08] And there had to have been some kind of altercation that either made her run down the ramp or maybe she followed someone down that grassy embankment. But there is where she was beaten. And they think that she was likely... [09:21] hit over the head a couple of times and knocked unconscious, and then carried back up over the hill, over the guardrail, put back in her car where... [09:32] Either she was shot while unconscious or some people believe that maybe she regained consciousness. And this is what scared the person. They shot her three times point blank range, once in the face, once in the back of her head and once in her back. While they are processing the scene, Roy Moore sees a white car, a hatchback or station wagon coming towards him. [10:02] So Roy stops the car and the driver speaks Spanish and asks where he might be able to get some gas. So he directs him basically says, everything's closed right now, dude, just like go home. Just minutes after this first encounter, Roy sees another vehicle pass by, then loop around. And a man actually approaches Roy directly. And Roy says, you know, can I help you? And this man asked, is she dead? Oh, my God.

[10:32] talking about like this guy doesn't isn't supposed to know anything about the scene and he said the girl i'm the one that found the girl and this man goes on to tell roy moore that he was mr abbott and he tells him about how he had gone into the sheriff's station to report finding the body but actually going to the police wasn't his first move he kind of tells roy moore [10:52] A slightly different story. He says that he had come upon the scene, tells the same story about finding her, reaching in the window, trying to help her up, realizing she was shot. So then he says he drives to a nearby payphone, tries to call 911, but for some reason the phone didn't work or he couldn't get through. So that's when he drove into the station. [11:11] Roy Moore actually calls in to verify this story. And he asked the person in the sheriff's office if he wanted the guy to come back in. And he said, no, you know, we got everything we need from him. You can let him go too. [11:23] As they continue their investigation, they find that the victim is a 19-year-old college student [11:30] Angela Michelle Lawless but she goes by Michelle the first stop they make is around 3 a.m to Michelle's parents house where they have to make the notification and start to try and piece together Michelle's last known movements who might have wanted to hurt her who was she acquainted with who was she hanging out with that night and here's what they learn about Michelle and what she did in the evening hours of November 7th and the early morning hours of November 8th at around 7

[12:00] around midnight she drops her friend off at home and she tells her friend that she plans to go home too now we know for sure she doesn't go home because she ends up murdered on the side of the road at 1 30 in the morning but we also know for sure that she isn't murdered on her way home because her body was still warm when officers arrived on the scene so we know that she had to have gone somewhere else and according to her on again off again boyfriend of three years named [12:30] his house during that missing time. And he said she came over around midnight, they had sex, and then she left around 1am. Now, Michelle and Leon were on again and off again, because like, A, they were teenagers, and like, woof, dating was the worst in high school. Not for all of us. Yeah, not for all of us who married our high school sweethearts, but woof. So apparently, [13:00] or jealous if he saw her hanging out with other guys. So even if it was just... [13:04] friends i mean it caused a ton of fights so that's why they were so tumultuous on again off again [13:10] Leon told the police this about their relationship, but police also confirmed this story from Michelle's diaries that they were on again, off again, but she did really love him. So, again, according to Leon, around 1 a.m., Michelle leaves. And as she's leaving, she says again to him that she's going straight home. He did say, though, that there was something in her that was reluctant to leave, like she was kind of lingering.

[13:40] you [13:40] if she knew she was heading somewhere else that she didn't want to go to. [13:44] We know that by 1.25 in the morning, Michelle's car is on the side of the road and she is either mid-attack or has already been attacked. Leon is given a polygraph and passes, so police continue to look for new suspects. All of Michelle's friends say that she didn't have an enemy in the world. She wasn't afraid of anyone before her death, so they felt like... [14:06] They had absolutely nothing to go off of. This brings us to November 9th. They circle back and talk to the same guy that found her, Mr. Abbott. And things get a little wonky with Abbott. They interview him about that night, his actions, his movements, and what he might have seen. And here's what he tells them. Well, here's what he tells them the first time. He walks them through finding Michelle again. He said, I see the car. [14:36] Maybe she was drunk. And so I reached into the window to, like, grab her by her waist and help her up. And that's when I realized she's covered in blood and had been shot. And he said the scene was so bloody that he only knew she was a woman because she had all these rings on her hand. What? [14:55] Didn't the responding officers notice that she wasn't wearing any rings? Right. So a little bit of a red flag. And this time when he's telling the story, he has something new to add. He says that as his truck was approaching the exit near Michelle's car, he saw a man who looked like a hitchhiker wearing a gray sweatshirt and light colored jeans jump off into that ditch alongside Michelle's car. So this is where we get him saying like he has the first sighting of somebody.

[15:25] Not a half an hour later, he gives a more detailed statement to another deputy. And in this version, he finds Michelle in the car. He heads straight for the payphone at the small convenience store and the store is closed. But he tells police that he dialed 911 from the payphone anyways. And as he's doing so, a small white car rolls up and a man with dark complexion, who he described as Hispanic, asked for a ride claiming he was out of fuel. [15:55] sense this version because you'll remember there was a guy that pulled up kind of matching that description and talked to the officer Roy Moore so police okay maybe they can believe this one well when pressed [16:08] He said it was too dark to give any more detail about what this guy looked like. And in another, [16:14] Totally different statement to police. Abbott says that the car's interior was so dark, it was difficult to tell how many people were inside, but it could have been as many as six. [16:25] So first there's this hitchhiker jumping over the guardrail. Then there's this Hispanic guy who asked him for a ride near the scene. Then there's maybe six people in a car. [16:34] that he talks to. So there's a couple of things wrong with Abbott's statements or his ever-changing statements, things that stuck with Rick Walter for decades. And the first was his statement to that deputy the first time that he went in saying he found a woman who had been shot. Now, when Rick Walter went to the scene, he remembers saying that, you know, I had no idea what happened to her. I

[17:04] those shell casings. So he thinks it's strange that this person who had little to no interaction with her would have known her cause of death. The second thing that he finds really strange about his statements is the fact about the window. So when the police officers, the deputies, pulled up to the scene, the window was only rolled down five to seven inches. Abbott's telling them the window was rolled down enough that he actually got his body into the car and tried to pick her up [17:34] So he's saying that if he actually did put his body in the car, he would have broken the glass. There wasn't enough room and it wouldn't have made sense that the window was rolled down and then he rolled it back up. So that's not flying either. And then the third thing was exactly what you pointed out. Those rings. Mr. Abbott said that he only knew it was a woman because of her rings. But if you remember from the beginning of the story, she wasn't wearing any and all of her rings were found in the center console of her car. [18:04] sense but it would make someone think that maybe this mr abbott guy had seen michelle at some point that night with her rings on yeah i'm with rick walter there's a lot that doesn't add up here right so he is got his eye on him he doesn't feel right but again he's just a part-time deputy like on the reserves he's not an official investigator so this is not his case now i'm not sure if you [18:29] The fourth thing [18:30] I need to mention that is probably the wonkiest of all. I don't know why I keep using the word wonky, but the weirdest of all. And police knew about this confusion right away.

[18:42] but I wanted to get all the other facts out there first, so no one was distracted by it. When Mr. Abbott approached those deputies on the scene, [18:51] He introduces himself as Mark Abbott. When police called in to the deputy to verify his story about coming in to report the scene, the jailer there said the man identified himself as Matt Abbott. [19:05] Why would he give two different names? That doesn't make any sense. Because it was two different guys. Mark and Matt Abbott are identical twins. What? Yes. And to this day, there is still a ton of confusion about who reported it, who was actually on the scene. I guess these guys had a history of like, [19:28] taking each other's places. When they were younger, they would like do each other's schoolwork or play pranks on people. And one person would pretend to be someone that was actually the other. So. [19:38] No one is really buying their story. [19:41] The story that the boys are sticking to is that the whole time everything was Mark and Matt had nothing to do with it. But the deputy at the sheriff's station says, no, I wrote down Matt Abbott. Why would I write like why would I write that down? That's who he said he was. So. [19:56] This has just been a red flag the whole time of why are these two boys both at the scene, but not being honest about like I could even see one found her and like sent their brother. I mean, I think you could. [20:07] write this off pretty easily, but they're sticking to the story that everything was Mark and it's just a red flag that I can't get rid of. And both of these boys did actually know Michelle. They didn't know her well, but she had mentioned the boys to her friends saying she thought they were cute and she had mentioned them in their diary. So it's possible, it's speculated that at some point she may have dated one of them, but it's not known for sure which one or when. The deputies

[20:37] at Mark and they do identify other suspects though. Her boyfriend for one who was last seen with her, a man named Todd Mayberry who Michelle's friend saw her actually fighting with at a Halloween party just a few weeks earlier but none of these men could be conclusively linked to her murder. [20:54] For decades, some cold cases have been reduced to files in a cabinet, but not anymore. I'm Ashley Flowers, and me and my team on the deck have been traveling across the country to report on these forgotten cases. And in some instances, it's resulted in these cases being solved after decades. [21:14] Join me every Wednesday as we revive these stories one card at a time. Listen to the deck now. [21:21] wherever you get your podcasts. [21:24] The officers bring Mark back in again and have him take a polygraph. He gives yet another story about when he was making that 911 call. This time, he talks about meeting that man who ran out of gas and needed a ride. But he says now that this is a man that he had met earlier that night at a party. He said he gave police that name just 10 days following the crime. But this man's name was never released. So I have to assume that he was cleared already. [21:52] or more likely never existed because Mark is bananas. [21:56] The department continued to identify more people of interest, but a month into the investigation, deputies still had not... [22:04] A single idea on what the motive would be or why she would have pulled over her car. I mean, they had more questions than answers. And even a month into the investigation, they didn't have a single idea.

[22:16] prime suspect. And four months pass before the sheriff's office gets the big break that they've been waiting for. Several inmates at a county jail say that there was a 17-year-old boy from Illinois who was being held in a Missouri county jail very briefly on an assault charge. And while he was there, apparently he had confessed to killing Michelle to these other inmates. And this boy's [22:46] So they put together a photo lineup and they go back to Mark Abbott, who's clearly like the most reliable witness. [22:54] Wink, wink, sarcasm. No, he's not. Yeah. [22:57] And this is the beginning of a lot that goes wrong in the case against Josh. [23:03] First, I mean, the fact that they're going to Mark at all when he's changed his story so much to me is crazy. But when they put this photo lineup together, they basically do one sheet and they tell Mark that the person they think did it is in this lineup. And Mark then picks out Josh and says that he looks like it could be the guy that he saw in the car that night. OK, I have to explain Josh to you because I just realized this is audio and you can't see anything. Josh is this like blonde hair, blue eye, white boy. [23:33] And he said that the guy he saw in the car was a dark-skinned Hispanic man. [23:38] I'm not sure why this like [23:40] adds up to anyone, ever. [23:43] Yeah. I mean, I'm a light-skinned Hispanic person. So, like, mistaking me for Hispanic? Sure, that's what I am. Mistaking me for white? Sure. But not if you're blonde-haired and blue-eyed. Like, I don't think anyone would mistake me for you. Exactly.

[23:59] So... [24:00] This statement, though, this lineup combined with the statements from the jailhouse informants is all police need. And they end up charging Josh with Michelle's murder. And everyone is stunned. Her friends, her family never had heard Josh's name before. Josh says he's never met her. They weren't friends. He isn't mentioned in her diaries. And everyone feels just lost. Was she just at the wrong place at the wrong time? And she ran into this stranger. [24:30] really make sense because what they can't figure out is like something someone made her pull over and she wouldn't have pulled over for a guy she'd never met before even the investigators that were first on the scene thought that she pulled over for someone she knew and she did not know josh but in the sheriff's mind this was but a minute detail in the sheriff's mind josh fit the profile [25:00] even sleeping on the streets and he had plenty of run-ins with the law by the time he found himself in the county jail at age 17 and by the time he is charged with her murder he is only 18 but then can be charged as an adult. Now Josh says there was no way he was anywhere near Missouri when Michelle was murdered. He said he was 350 miles away in Illinois living with his dad at the time

[25:30] sheriff and the prosecutor charge him with the murder. They say, you know, we can't prove you were here, but we can't prove you're away. So that's really not a hang up for us. [25:39] And when they go to trial, Josh is a little nonchalant about the whole thing, because in his mind, I mean, he's still a kid. He still probably believes in the justice system, because growing up, you think, or at least some of us think that police are honest, and you think that the whole reason we have this justice system and proven innocent until guilty is because that's how it actually works. And in his mind, there's no way he's going to get convicted of the murder of a girl he [26:09] where he was. [26:10] Yeah, that reminds me a lot of Damien Echols from the West Memphis Three case. He was kind of nonchalant about this trial, too. Yeah, it was. I remember it being one of the things that actually the jury convicted him on or it added to everything because they just didn't like him. They thought he wasn't taking the trial seriously. And when he was interviewed years later, he was like, [26:31] Of course I didn't take it seriously. I thought like I had never met these boys. I didn't do anything. And I thought the justice system would realize that. [26:38] that there was nothing tying me to these boys. [26:40] So there's no way I'm going to go to prison for it. And it was just like all this. [26:44] act basically that we had to get through but the jury read it as no remorse cold-hearted yeah and it flipped on him so not only is josh feeling confident because he knows he didn't do it there is actually evidence pointing away from him to other suspects that are used in the trial there wasn't any prints of josh in her car there was no motive by the prosecution for why josh

[27:14] at the time of her murder. And the biggest thing of all, I think there was blood under Michelle's fingernails and the blood type did not match Josh. Really? It didn't match him and they still took it to trial. Right. Does it match anybody? Did they test it? At the time, I'm not sure they were able to. This was 1994. So DNA was really new. And if one thing I've learned, the more I've learned [27:38] done this podcast, looked into wrongful convictions. A lot of times, if you don't have honest prosecutors and you don't have honest detectives, they will actually choose not to test evidence if they think there's any chance that it's not going to point to their suspects. They consider it bad evidence. So I think that's what they did in this case. They tested it for a type to see if it matched Josh. And when it didn't, they didn't push any further because [28:08] convict. Exactly. And they kind of tried to write it off being like, well, the DNA, the stuff under her fingernails doesn't have to be a result of defensive wounds. Like, [28:18] Even if she was defending herself, she could have grabbed the guy's shirt. I mean, the stuff under her nails doesn't mean anything, which to me is kind of crazy. [28:26] the DNA under your fingernails when you're murdered. And she did have marks on her right hand and her wrist that were consistent with defensive wounds. So we know she fought. This seems like a key piece of evidence to me. Definitely. So Josh is thinking, okay, not only is there no evidence pointing directly at me, there's also evidence that could be pointing at someone else.

[28:46] All they have at this point... [28:47] Against Josh is those jailhouse informants and Mark Abbott's testimony that he saw him that night near the scene. And Josh's lawyer was desperately trying to discount Mark's statement, saying that he was, quote, wholly unreliable as a witness, which, let's be honest, he legit was the worst. But he was able to testify anyway. And the prosecution did present some evidence they say is proof of a crime. [29:17] signs of blood when they did some luminol testing. But to me, again, it still doesn't feel like strong enough evidence because it's not like they tested it and it was Michelle's blood. They just said that there were some like spots that showed up. Their case to me was still really lacking. But just before the trial ends, another witness comes forward and provides prosecution exactly what they need to put Josh away. [29:45] This witness provides a motive. [29:48] A friend of Michelle's named Chantel comes forward with a story that is a very familiar story. Chantel says that there was a man... [29:57] At a Halloween party... [29:59] that Michelle was arguing with. Like Todd Mayberry? [30:03] Well, no. So when investigators did their investigation, they found that she fought with a Todd Mayberry at the Halloween party. But Chantel says now this man was actually Josh that she fought with. She said that Josh is at the party and he kept asking Michelle out. Michelle kept saying no and he got really ugly and it got heated. And then he gives up on Michelle, comes up to Chantel and asks her out. And Chantel's like, are you kidding me? You've been asking my friend out all night.

[30:33] of the head. And even though this sounds super made up because there was someone before who said that guy wasn't Josh, the prosecution is like... [30:42] This is what we are looking for. Finally, a motive. So they are going to use it. They say, OK, he was angry at Michelle for rejecting him. He clearly is violent because he smacked Chantal in the back of his head when he didn't get what he wanted. This is it. And really. [30:58] It was the piece that they were missing. It was all they were missing and all the jury needed because with this new witness, the jury deliberated and found Josh guilty of second degree murder and sentenced him to 60 years in prison. [31:12] Literally the day after the trial was over, another friend, Dawn, who actually had hosted that Halloween party, read about Chantal's testimony and came forward and was like, nah, she spoke to Josh's attorney and said she knew everyone at her party and Josh was not there. [31:31] It was too late to use her at this point. And the case was over. So Josh goes to prison. [31:37] sentenced to 60 years, and he was sent to one of the deadliest prisons in America, which has now been closed. [31:45] A few years after he had been in prison, Josh's mom happens to meet a private investigator named Jim Sullins. He comes into a diner where she's serving as a waitress and they get to talking about her son and how he's in prison for something he didn't do. And this private investigator gives her his card, probably just as like a nice gesture. And she shows up though, weeks later at his office with boxes of materials. And when he looks at Josh's case, and this is 1997 now, he spent the

[32:15] actually trying to prove that he did it he wanted to see what the prosecution saw what did they know that makes so much sense that made them so sure of his guilt that they could send this kid to prison for 60 years and he's like i want to find this so i can show josh's mom and maybe put her mind to ease that maybe he's where he belongs but he couldn't find it not only could he not find a single thing connecting josh to the murder he couldn't find any proof that he had even been [32:45] which is what Josh had been saying the whole time. Multiple family members in Illinois remember seeing him the night of November 7th, 1992, less than two hours before Michelle was murdered. From where he was in Illinois, it would have been physically impossible for him to get to Michelle and kill her even if he had known her or had a motive, which by the way he still did not. This case was slowly eating away at the private investigator. He said it bothered him more than [33:15] he had worked because he couldn't make any kind of connection and he couldn't figure out why the sheriff would have focused in on this guy with no motive and no connection to the crime when there were other suspects. Eventually, he packed up [33:31] all of his research, everything that he had gathered, and turned over about 50 pounds of paperwork to the then governor, basically pleading and saying, listen, you have somebody in jail who shouldn't be there. And the governor's office doesn't even dignify his efforts with a response.

[33:49] and he doesn't hear anything about his efforts [33:52] until 2004 when he's contacted by a woman named Jane, who was a volunteer social worker in the prison where Josh was housed. She had gotten to know Josh and taken an interest in his case. And although she had no legal background, you didn't need one to see that this kid got a raw deal. So she actually works on his behalf to get a lawyer to take on Josh's case pro bono. [34:22] file for appeals, do anything they can to give Josh a second shot at a fair shake. While they're working all of their angles, everyone is surprised when a new sheriff comes to visit Josh in prison. [34:36] For decades, some cold cases have been reduced to files in a cabinet, but not anymore. I'm Ashley Flowers, and me and my team on the deck have been traveling across the country to report on these forgotten cases. And in some instances, it's resulted in these cases being solved after decades. [34:55] Join me every Wednesday as we revive these stories one card at a time. Listen to the deck now. [35:02] wherever you get your podcasts. [35:06] It's 2006 now. And remember Rick Walter, the first guy to be on the scene who went to go check out Michelle's car after work? Yeah. Yeah. [35:15] Well, he is sheriff now and he has never formally met Josh because, again, he wasn't an investigator. He just arrived on the scene and someone else took over. But he has a sit down with him in prison and he asked Josh if he trusts law enforcement. And Josh basically says, listen, all I know is I don't trust the Scott County sheriffs. And that's when Sheriff Walter drops a bombshell. He says, listen, I'm on your side.

[35:45] And now that I'm in charge, I promise you I'm going to find the truth. You guys. I know. I got like really happy full body chills. Like this is so magical. It's so rare. I mean, we can go into this a little bit later, but... [36:00] to [36:00] overturn a case that's already been closed [36:04] I mean, there's there's like financial repercussions, there's political repercussions. What this guy's doing is not popular. [36:12] For every bad prosecutor and bad investigator, it is so heartwarming to know that there are a couple of good guys out there who... [36:22] know that people make mistakes and won't stand for it just because they're part of a system. Like, I have such a cop crush on Sheriff Walter right now. Seriously. Also, cop crush, we need to, like, [36:32] Brand that or something. Cop crush. Hashtag cop crush. [36:36] So 15 months after Sheriff Walter met Josh and 27 months into the new investigation, [36:42] Walter and his team began to question every piece of evidence, every testimony, every alibi, and they start from scratch. Like the PI before them, they found nothing that connected Josh to Michelle's murder. Sheriff Walter hires a full-time investigator to work on the case, and naturally, the first place this investigator wants to start is with Mark Abbott. What he finds is that Mark's changing stories didn't stop when Josh was convicted and sent to prison. [37:12] to tell new changing stories. In 1997, there was an entirely different

[37:19] version that he told police. Now, Mark and Matt both were in jail at the time for manufacturing meth. And Mark offered up a new story about Michelle's homicide, hoping that maybe he could get leniency in his drug case. [37:34] The story he tells this time is that a man named Kevin Williams, who was a friend of his, committed the murder and Mark was there. Mark said: [37:43] that Kevin Williams had been having an affair with Michelle and that Michelle claimed she was pregnant with his child. Apparently, Kevin wanted to talk to her that night to try and calm her down. So Kevin and Mark followed her in their car. And Mark said they were able to flash their lights from behind Michelle to get her to pull over, which, again, kind of makes sense. We were saying all along it would be somebody that she knew. If they flashed their lights, they would get her to pull over. [38:13] when it's really dark all you see is headlights i don't know how you would know that it was someone you knew trying to pull you over but he says that it worked [38:22] She pulls over and her and Kevin start to argue for a short time. And Mark says the next thing he hears is gunshots. He said then that Kevin Williams took off on foot toward a mobile home sales lot. And after Mark then went to... [38:35] report the homicide to the sheriff's office, he said he later swung back around to pick up Kevin. Now, this story makes some sense, but there's even holes in this one. Michelle was not pregnant at the time of her murder, and this story doesn't really account for her going over the guardrail down that embankment. But the story does offer up a new suspect, this Kevin Williams guy. And by the

[39:05] that this information was given to investigators in 1997 when Mark came forward. [39:11] And when the guy who took it, like the narcotics officer who was working with Mark on his drug case, went to the sheriff's office who investigated Michelle's murder and says, hey, I have this new story. Like, you might want to hear this. They basically were like, no, we don't need that. We already got a conviction. Like, you can just keep your stories. [39:28] Ugh, this is so frustrating. They're literally just saying, "We have our conviction, and now the guy's saying it's someone else. We don't really care. [39:37] our statistics look better without this information. Yeah. And it's really hard for me to wrap my mind around because [39:43] one of their key witnesses. I mean, [39:45] Mark Abbott was the guy who puts Josh at the scene. And now the same guy is saying it's not even like you have like a random person saying like, oh, I heard somebody killed this guy. You're like, no, we got a conviction. It's almost like he's recanting. Exactly. And this isn't the only time Kevin Williams name is brought up in this reinvestigation. A witness gave a statement saying that he and his wife were in the car with Kevin Williams shortly after Josh's conviction when the subject of Michelle's murder came up. [40:15] trailer sales lot that Mark said he had run to. And Kevin tells a slightly different version. And he basically says, uh, [40:24] that [40:25] He had something to do with it, and that trailer sales lot is where it all started. [40:30] If that isn't enough, a third witness comes forward, not someone saying he heard something, but someone saying he saw something. A man named Dallas Butler says around 1 a.m. the night of Michelle's murder, he was riding his Honda motorcycle along Interstate 55 in Benton, Missouri. He got to the exit where Michelle's car was.

[40:51] And he saw two vehicles pulled to the side of the road, a small dark sedan. And so we think this is probably Michelle's car and a lighter colored Ford truck parked near the exit. So he pulled up to see if maybe they needed help. [41:04] When he got close, he saw a woman in the driver's seat. She had her head bowed and both of her hands on the steering wheel. But he said that she seemed fine. She didn't look to be injured or disheveled in any way. And a man was with her. And Dallas described this man as being about 160 pounds, slender, and wearing a red hat. And he was standing near her car. And when Dallas pulls up, he kind of waves him off. He's like, listen, everything's fine. We don't need help. Like, you should go. [41:34] thought the girl might have had car trouble and was upset or maybe had too much to drink and then [41:39] that this man was trying to help her. But he said something about the whole situation was just nagging at him and it didn't feel right. Dallas, trust your instincts. I know. And I'm sure it nags at him. And he said the man seemed super nervous and anxious. And he kept thinking about that girl, even as he drove away. And the next morning, he actually saw a television broadcast reporting that a girl had been killed at the same exit ramp that he was at. So just a couple of [42:09] scott county sheriff's office to report what he saw and he gave a statement to the girl at the front desk and the girl told him that a deputy would be in contact with him but he never heard anything back so he assumed that the sheriff's office didn't need his story or they kind of looked through it and it didn't fit or it wasn't relevant to what happened but looking back it seems so relevant the description of the guy could have matched kevin or mark or matt and mark

[42:39] like the one he described and in 2015 Dallas ends up picking Kevin out of a lineup as the man he saw that night now granted this is 20 years later but this lineup was actually legit and they showed him a couple of mugshot sheets and they didn't tell him if their suspect was even in any of them and of all the pictures he points out Kevin Williams as the man he saw standing next to Michelle's car [43:09] or Kevin confessed to them in one way or another, or they would say that the wrong man is in jail, or that they took care of her. But again, in the reinvestigation, these two were not the only suspects. Sheriff Walter wanted to have all of the physical evidence retested, and the DNA under Michelle's fingernails was not the only suspect. And the DNA under Michelle's fingernails was [43:29] her clothing, [43:31] anything in that car. [43:33] And there was blood evidence at the scene. Apparently there was a bloody paper towel that didn't match Michelle and it didn't match her boyfriend and it didn't match anyone else. [43:42] didn't match Josh, and this likely could have been the killer's blood and they needed to get it tested. [43:48] The type of DNA analysis required was a technique involving a low copy DNA where only a few cells are analyzed. It was something that the lab that they normally used didn't do in 2006 when he started this reinvestigation. So, [44:04] they would typically refer clients to the Marshall University forensic science center in West Virginia. Well,

[44:12] All of the evidence is sent there, including the nail clippings, fingernail scrapings, all the blood, the paper towel, her clothes. [44:18] Everything is properly packaged by the Southeast Crime Lab and then sent to Marshall. And this also included samples that had never been tested before. And at Marshall, scientists were able to extract a partial genetic profile based on blood evidence from a bloodstained paper towel. Now, this is compared to Josh, as well as some of the other suspects. And that profile didn't come back as any of them, but it did contain enough genetic markers required to be entered into CODIS. [44:48] So when Scott County gets this information back, they're like, OK, like we want to enter this in a CODIS. We want to see if maybe there's a suspect that's not even on our radar. But... [45:00] they are told that they cannot submit their results to CODIS. And this is kind of confusing to me, but basically the reason they're given is that because the results were sent to a lab that's not the normal one that they use, [45:15] Under the Crime Lab's recommendation, they were told basically, we won't submit to CODIS because... [45:21] We didn't do the testing. We didn't supervise the testing. And apparently there's like some kind of rule they have, which kind of makes sense. They're basically saying... [45:31] You can't like do a DNA here, then send it somewhere else and then send that to CODIS because that looks like you're shopping your DNA, which wasn't done in this case. The first lab never did it to begin with. But they weren't going to sign off on someone else's work. Exactly. And they were like, you know, if we would have known you wanted to send to CODIS, we would have had to go and supervise their methods, which we didn't do.

[45:51] Now, the team that's working with Josh and trying to get him a new trial sends some of the items to be retested. [45:58] But they can't send everything. They need like $37,000 to do all of the retesting. And it's funds that they just don't have. And again, this is early 2000s. There isn't a ton of DNA methods that are even available at a reasonable price in the U.S. But they were able to send some stuff outside of the U.S. where it was a little bit cheaper to test. But more tests were possible with touch DNA. [46:28] the crime farm. [46:30] And basically this crime farm was a place in the Netherlands. I think it was run by like a husband and wife and they were way ahead of their times. I mean, they're doing touch DNA in 2009, getting stuff off of her clothing. And basically they have this farm. I mean, that's exactly what it is set up where they would do experiments. They would run DNA. And a lot of people were sending evidence over there to get tested at a slightly cheaper rate, but where more things were possible. Yeah, it was more experimental. [47:00] Exactly. [47:01] They're getting her clothing retested for touch DNA. While this is going on, we do find out whose DNA is under her fingernails. [47:10] The DNA under her fingernails belonged to her boyfriend, Leon. Really? Yes. And when they confront Leon with this, he says basically that...

[47:23] that is not because he had anything to do with her murder. He says that it was because they had sex that night. And he said they were very passionate and sometimes she would scratch him. And I don't know what to believe about this because... [47:36] It seems strange to me that his DNA is the only one that's found. It seems to me that her boyfriend would be somebody that she would pull over on the side of the road for. And we know that he gets jealous, [47:51] very easily if she's talking to another guy or being seen with another guy. Maybe they had some kind of altercation when she came over. I mean, he admittedly is the last person to have seen Michelle before she was murdered. So he's back on the radar for police. There are even more suspects, though. Information came in during this reinvestigation that the killing may have been connected to a murder for hire plot back in 1994. [48:21] That gun has never been recovered. But they both were believed to have been a .380 caliber semi-automatic handgun. But they don't necessarily need the gun itself to conclusively tie these cases together. In the 1994 murder for hire case, a man named Richard Clay was convicted of the murder. All that Sheriff Walter needs is to get one of the bullets from that 1994 case and compare it to his to see if there is a chance that they might be connected. [48:51] who was in charge of that evidence won't release the bullet for comparison. Ballistics report shows similarities in all of the grooves, but there's no way to know with any kind of certainty just with pictures. Okay.

[49:04] Amidst all this reinvestigation, Josh is still fighting for a new trial. In 2009, he gets a hearing to see if he can have his conviction overturned. And after the hearing, [49:15] Of all of the evidence, the judge makes an incredibly unusual ruling. Instead of just overturning his conviction and granting him a new trial, he just straight up rules that Josh is innocent. And the next day, Josh gets to walk out of prison a free man for the first time in 16 years. And again, this judge gives me the same like judge crush. [49:45] system. [49:46] And instead of going through the appeals and the retrials, like if you see a gross injustice has been carried out, like let's just try and right the wrongs where we can, please. [49:56] And this makes me feel like so hopeful and so bummed out for cases like Adnan's like, I know it could happen for him, but it won't because of the elected officials involved. Yeah, yeah. A lot of politics involved. Again, this whole case, as I was researching it. [50:12] to me is so rare. [50:14] Because I feel like for every case like this, [50:16] I can find a hundred cases and, [50:19] where everyone is protecting people or they're so deep into politics that at the end of the day, the truth doesn't matter to them. It doesn't matter that there's an innocent man in prison. It doesn't matter. There's a guilty man walking the streets. [50:31] It's all about like preserving their own careers and saving face. As the investigation continues, the rest of the case against Josh falls apart. All of the jailhouse informants recant. Chantal recants her statement about seeing him at the party. And for many years, Kevin Williams' alibi was his wife said that he was at a Christmas party.

[50:52] But in 2015, even she changes her story to say that he left the party early that night. [50:59] In 2015 and 2016, Sheriff Walter tried to get a grand jury together, but he was denied both times by the prosecutors. The sheriff won't say which man is his prime suspect, but whoever it is, he thinks he has solved the case and has enough evidence to prosecute. [51:29] and doing what he was elected to do. [51:31] I will say though, I think his investigation is leaning towards Mark, Matt, and Kevin. [51:37] having some kind of involvement because in 2017, the sheriff polygraphed Mark and Matt again. And the same year, 2017, a grand jury finally was convened and they were able to hear 15 hours of testimony over a two month period. And the grand jury did not come back with an indictment, though, meaning that the panel did not believe there was enough evidence that existed to proceed with [52:07] that maybe would have changed their mind. So there was one guy who would have spoke to the DNA that they found that touch DNA. There was one person who was a crime scene reconstruction expert. [52:18] who I think would have testified to the fact that the way Mark says he would have picked her up out of the car by her waist, and later he even says he touched her on the shoulder, they would say that that probably didn't make sense. And the jury never got to hear from Kevin Williams' wife, who recanted his alibi for that night.

[52:35] I agree that there's a bunch of evidence, but I don't see the motive. It was hard for me, too, to kind of piece it together, so... [52:43] I think for people who believe that [52:46] Mark, Matt and Kevin had something to do with it. The motive was drug related because we know by 1997, both of the Abbott brothers were in jail for meth. And Kevin's ex-wife says that he was a drug informant. So it's possible that Michelle found out something either by accident or she actually did know these guys and she knew something that she wasn't supposed to know. It's possible that they're just really bad guys and she was kind of into one of them. She said [53:16] mixed up with the wrong crowd. That's the best motive I can come up with. Those two [53:20] I... [53:20] Again, I'm so stuck on the fact that it was her boyfriend's DNA under her fingernails, but from everything I can pull together. [53:27] I don't think that that's who the sheriff is looking at. So [53:30] I don't think we really need to talk about his motive. Again, what I'm so confused about is how they would have gotten her to pull over. [53:38] Did she know that they were following her? Were they all going somewhere together? Did something start earlier and then she drove off and they followed her? There's just a lot of holes. [53:48] Exactly. And that kind of fits in with the story that Kevin said, where they were at this trailer home sales lot, something went down, and maybe she got mad and left, and they tracked her down and got her to pull over. I also heard one theory. It's not based on anything, but someone said maybe someone was hiding in the backseat of Michelle's car. Oh. And...

[54:07] Yeah, full body chills. I don't like this. I don't like thinking about this at all. And they basically, as she was driving down the highway, got her to pull over. They had a gun, forced her to pull over, and then somebody maybe drove up, like a partner drove up behind them. Again, not sure what the motive is for that. [54:24] Cause she wasn't robbed. Y'all check your backseat. Right. So this case was crazy. I hate stories like this about wrongful convictions. I mean, it happens. You can't ignore it. It happens so often. And, [54:36] And to me, it's not even like... [54:38] I can kind of understand where a prosecutor, if there's like a little bit of evidence, something looks bad for somebody. Like we're all human and we can make mistakes and you can think somebody did it and actually believe it in your heart. But I don't know how anyone believed in their heart of hearts that Josh was guilty. And it's amazing to me that they were able to sleep at night knowing they're sentencing this kid. [54:59] to 60 years in one of the most deadly prisons. And there's a lot of other weird political stuff that happened in the background of this case where actually the old sheriff who was in charge of prosecuting Josh actually was like warning Kevin Williams when a reinvestigation was being done [55:17] So I don't know if he was doing that like as a being politically motivated. He didn't want his conviction to get overturned or what, but. [55:24] I mean, again, this case was so hard because there were so many bad guys, but it was encouraging to see a couple of good guys. [55:33] fighting the good fight, [55:34] doing the job that I would hope

[55:37] that [55:38] sheriff's officers and police officers and prosecutors should be doing. [55:42] So it gives me a little bit of hope. And I hope for cases like Adnan's and other wrongful convictions, Brandon Dassey. God, I hope that we can get a couple more good guys. [55:52] don't forget you guys our merch store is open you can go to crimejunkiepodcast.com we'll keep it open for two weeks for all of the items and if you want to follow us on instagram we are at crimejunkiepodcast and on twitter at crimejunkiepod and don't forget you guys to go patreon you can [56:22] at some of the levels, you actually get 10% off our merch store. So if you're planning on buying a ton of merch, it's a good investment. [56:44] Crime Junkie is written and hosted by me. All of our sound production and editing comes from Britt Prewatt. [56:52] including our theme, comes from Justin Daniel. Crime Junkie is an AudioChuck production. So what do you think, Chuck? Do you approve? [57:00] *Moooow* [57:05] Okay, crime junkies, you know I absolutely love a twist and a turn, especially when it comes to people who turn out to be someone they're not. That's why I have been obsessed with the podcast Chameleon. Every Thursday, host Josh Dean deep dives into a scam so bizarre, it will leave you wondering, how did they get away with that?

[57:23] It is truly one of my favorite podcasts right now, and I've been listening for years. [57:27] I think you'll love it too. [57:28] Listen to Chameleon wherever you get your podcasts.