Speaker 1: Previously on Paper Ghosts. I wanted to torture Ron. I did.
Speaker 1: I'm not gonna lie. I wanted to torture the man.
Speaker 1: There was enough talk beforehand during her phone calls for
Speaker 1: Irene to figure out that this was not a spontaneous attack.
Speaker 1: This was a planned thing. It was something that Ron
Speaker 1: had thought of for weeks at least before he carried
Speaker 1: it out. It was not in the heat at the moment,
Speaker 1: so he was put in a facility that cared for
Speaker 1: people that were like vegetables. How Chief and naggled the
Speaker 1: system to be able to remarry at him in his
Speaker 1: condition is beyond my imagine. Nation. My name is m
Speaker 1: William Phelps. I'm an investigative journalist and author of forty
Speaker 1: four true crime books. This is season two of Paper
Speaker 1: Ghosts Burned. When you have spent as many decades as
Speaker 1: I have investigating cases of the missing and murdered, there
Speaker 1: can sometimes be an overwhelming numbness to the information you discover.
Speaker 1: I'm no longer shocked by the ways in which people
Speaker 1: commit murder, nor am I disillusioned when justice is never
Speaker 1: fully realized. It's a sad reality in my line of work,
Speaker 1: yet one that is unfortunately common in cases that have
Speaker 1: gone cold. By September, two months after the Stevenson murders,
Speaker 1: Dick Weston and Drusilla Merita were indicted by a federal
Speaker 1: grand jury, but not for murder. The FEDS nailed Dick
Speaker 1: for crossing state lines carrying a six thousand dollar diamond
Speaker 1: ring believed to have belonged to Lynda Stevenson, Drusilla for
Speaker 1: her help, and hiding the ring. As for Ron Thomas, well,
Speaker 1: the guy was an anomaly. He had escaped legal recourse
Speaker 1: and was no longer the feds priority. Carol Thompson, Billy
Speaker 1: and Lynda Stevenson's daughter, wasn't sensed by this. It felt
Speaker 1: as if Ron had not only been given a free pass,
Speaker 1: but that law enforcement had just written him off and
Speaker 1: forgot about him. Yet, as Carol tells me, when you
Speaker 1: know in your gut someone responsible for taking your family
Speaker 1: away from you is walking around a free man, the anger, anxiety,
Speaker 1: and pain accompanying that reality impairs your ability to function.
Speaker 1: I'm constantly in her face about Ron. You know, what's
Speaker 1: gonna happen, What's gonna happen, What's gonna happen? You know,
Speaker 1: And we're gonna Getti. We're gonna get Hi, We're gonna
Speaker 1: get him, were gonna We're gonna move forward with Weston.
Speaker 1: We've got plenty of evidence on him. We're moving forward,
Speaker 1: and we're gonna get wrong too. I mean, that's what
Speaker 1: I was told the whole for a good time. They
Speaker 1: never did. Nearly three months later, the trial for Dick
Speaker 1: Weston Andrew sillimare Rid his sentencing began in an Indiana
Speaker 1: federal court. That wasn't enough for Carol. Dick's demise was
Speaker 1: a victory, yes, but there was still that overwhelming feeling
Speaker 1: of being ahead at halftime and knowing you're going to
Speaker 1: ultimately lose the game. The cops weren't moving fast enough.
Speaker 1: They were let him get away. In my mind, and
Speaker 1: and I'm pissed. More than a dozen witnesses were summoned
Speaker 1: to testify during the trial, including Ron Thomas. I'm ready
Speaker 1: for the court case, but the night before, I'm pissed.
Speaker 1: I'm pissed this man murdered my family and Ron is
Speaker 1: out there. So I decide that I am going to
Speaker 1: take a gun to court the next day and I'm
Speaker 1: going to kill Ron on the courthouse steps. The amount
Speaker 1: of grief. Carol was a experiencing it can change who
Speaker 1: you are, turn you into a person willing to do
Speaker 1: just about anything to take that pain away. Add some anger,
Speaker 1: and you're like a powder kick ready to explode from
Speaker 1: the smallest spark. Carol's father in law noticed her frantic
Speaker 1: behavior and suspected she had something planned. He reached out
Speaker 1: to Clarence Pennington, the chief of detectives for the Claremont
Speaker 1: County Sheriff's Department at the time. So next thing I know,
Speaker 1: Penny is knocking on the door. Penny comes in and
Speaker 1: he's talking to me, sitting down and at the table
Speaker 1: he's talking on I don't know why he's there, but
Speaker 1: me and Penny had gotten really close over the time,
Speaker 1: and I'm thinking, well, maybe he just wants to talk
Speaker 1: to me about tomorrow, you know, because I do have
Speaker 1: to testify and I'm scared now I'm never testified anyway.
Speaker 1: He point blank says to me, You're not taking a
Speaker 1: gun tomorrow. You're gonna behave You're not gonna do this.
Speaker 1: I know what you're thinking. I'm not stupid. I'm I'm
Speaker 1: a policeman. Know exactly where your head is. And yet
Speaker 1: you're not doing it. And I just said, Pennington, I
Speaker 1: need to do this, and he's like, no, Carol, this
Speaker 1: is not the time. I'll get him for you give
Speaker 1: me a little more time. I promise you I'll get him.
Speaker 1: He goes and and Carol, I'll tell you what. He
Speaker 1: didn't even be there tomorrow, So you are just it's
Speaker 1: not gonna happen. He's not evenna be there, absolutely one,
Speaker 1: He's not gonna be there. Pennington wasn't lying. Carol was
Speaker 1: scheduled to be the first witness on the stand to testify,
Speaker 1: and Ron Thomas wasn't due to appear until later in
Speaker 1: the week. Well, they put me in this little room
Speaker 1: and they said stay in the little room. You're sequestered,
Speaker 1: right and yeah, okay, So I'm off running around the courthouse.
Speaker 1: So they tell me again, stay in the little room. Okay.
Speaker 1: I don't know why they're so insistent that I stay
Speaker 1: in the little room, but they want me in the
Speaker 1: little room. So I get up to leave the little
Speaker 1: room again and my father all jumps up and he's like,
Speaker 1: what are you doing? Come on, what are you doing.
Speaker 1: I'm I'm thirsty. I'm gonna go find a pop machine.
Speaker 1: So he's like, okay, fine, if you're going though, I'm
Speaker 1: going with you. And as I'm about I'm about halfway down,
Speaker 1: and in front of me, coming up the staircase is
Speaker 1: Ronald Thomas. I got nowhere to go. I can't go up,
Speaker 1: I can't go down, And all immediately I feel my
Speaker 1: father in law arm. You know, he's got he's got
Speaker 1: his hand on my arm and he's holding me pretty
Speaker 1: tight because I'm sure he was terrified. He probably didn't
Speaker 1: know what I was gonna do. Well, you know, I
Speaker 1: didn't have the gun though, So there goes that dream
Speaker 1: out the window. So Dad tugs at me and we
Speaker 1: head down and Ron keeps coming up. He gets right
Speaker 1: to me, and you know how when you run into
Speaker 1: an old dear friend, they stopped and that means you're
Speaker 1: supposed to stop. He did that. He literally stops like
Speaker 1: he's gonna talk to me. Yeah, and I mean, my
Speaker 1: mine is blown. And Ron says, hey, Carol, how's it
Speaker 1: going up there. I'm not saying anything. I'm just I'm
Speaker 1: just looking at him, you know, And I say the
Speaker 1: first thing that comes to mind, you know, Ron, I
Speaker 1: don't now, why don't you go up there? And ask
Speaker 1: those cops who asked them. And then Dad tugs me
Speaker 1: back down the steps. So I get to the bottom
Speaker 1: of steps, and you can imagine I'm doing, you know,
Speaker 1: a hundred miles an hour to my father in law.
Speaker 1: Oh my god, Oh my god. I can't believe he's here.
Speaker 1: Oh my god, he's here. He's here. Pennington lied to me.
Speaker 1: He's here. And I have no way to do anything.
Speaker 1: I can't do anything. And I'm just going on and on.
Speaker 1: I knew I could get him, now, I knew I could.
Speaker 1: And as we're talking, I'm walking because I am blown
Speaker 1: away that this man is here and this is the
Speaker 1: first time I've seen him since the murder. And I
Speaker 1: know he did it. I know he did it in
Speaker 1: my heart. No, he did it, you know. And so
Speaker 1: I'm just losing it to my father in law. And
Speaker 1: we come to a kind of like a dead end,
Speaker 1: and we spent around and guess who was behind me,
Speaker 1: Ron Thomas. He had followed me. He had literally turned
Speaker 1: around and followed me down the steps. Well, this, I
Speaker 1: think scared my father and all. So he immediately pulls
Speaker 1: me around Ron. And as he pulls me around Ron,
Speaker 1: he pulls me into a group of police that are
Speaker 1: walking just coming in and an anything happens to be
Speaker 1: in there. He brings me into them and I immediately say,
Speaker 1: pen antent, he's here, he's here, and but he's like
Speaker 1: what what what? And I'm like, Ron is here, And
Speaker 1: they're all looking around like they don't see him, you know,
Speaker 1: But they immediately put me in the circle. They've got
Speaker 1: me in case, and they're leading me up back to
Speaker 1: that little room that I was supposed to day in
Speaker 1: four decades have passed and you can still hear a
Speaker 1: level of fear and stress that is as real as
Speaker 1: it was on the day it all happened. Add to
Speaker 1: the mix of sociopath like Ron Thomas, who went out
Speaker 1: of his way to intimidate Carol at all costs, and
Speaker 1: what you have is a situation that can literally bring
Speaker 1: you to your breaking point. When I got to the
Speaker 1: top of those steps, I look back over my shoulder
Speaker 1: because I want to know where he went, because he vanished,
Speaker 1: and there's these columns. He had tucked himself into the columns.
Speaker 1: But as I look over my shoulder, he is looking
Speaker 1: up at me over his shoulder. Despite the uncomfortable running
Speaker 1: with Ron Thomas, Carol Thompson remained the prosecution's strongest witness.
Speaker 1: Dick's legal team attempted to poke holes in her story
Speaker 1: during cross examination, but Carol pointed to Dick in the
Speaker 1: courtroom and positively identified him as the mystery man who
Speaker 1: came to her family's house on the night of the murders.
Speaker 1: She also ideed her mother's purse that was found in
Speaker 1: the river near Brookville, as well as the diamond ring
Speaker 1: Drusilla Meritta had been hiding. Beyond that, Carol denied Dick's
Speaker 1: lawyers failed attempts at insinuating it was a romantic relationship
Speaker 1: between ron Thomas and her mother, Lynda Stevenson, which was,
Speaker 1: in the scope of this case, a bottom feeder move
Speaker 1: if I've ever heard one. As the trial moved into
Speaker 1: day three, another major witness for the prosecution arrived at
Speaker 1: the courthouse, Nathan Barger. She was much stronger, now, scared,
Speaker 1: but certainly unafraid to speak her truth. Didn't put me
Speaker 1: in a room to white for me to go in.
Speaker 1: Don't set me out and out. Oh why there comes
Speaker 1: round Thomas, sits damn next to you, stride cross from
Speaker 1: and what does he do? Well? How he said howdy,
Speaker 1: how are you? I said, I'm just fine. Thomas's role
Speaker 1: as an FBI informant wasn't known to anyone at the time. However,
Speaker 1: the statements she gave to the FEDS that were used
Speaker 1: to indict Dick and Drusilla were made public in the
Speaker 1: local paper a few months prior. And now there was
Speaker 1: Ron Thomas sitting across from Thomatha staring at her. I
Speaker 1: don't remember which one the officer's come down through there
Speaker 1: and I said, I need speak you and proud of
Speaker 1: so it took me back in the office. He said,
Speaker 1: you know who that is? After I said you know
Speaker 1: Ron Thomas, he said, journed not to leave this rint.
Speaker 1: That's important to leave me after in first play, for
Speaker 1: that's an ourt from my mottail over here, but my sales,
Speaker 1: not no one who's out here, not no one what's
Speaker 1: going to happen? And I okay, I mean this is
Speaker 1: what I get agreed. Up until this point, the only
Speaker 1: known interaction Tanatha had with Ron Thomas was when Drusilla
Speaker 1: brought her to Ron's house to collect money to pay
Speaker 1: Dick's lawyer. So Ron knew what Tanatha looked like, and
Speaker 1: he was aware of what she saw. Mind you, Ron
Speaker 1: Thomas wasn't scheduled to testify a trial until the fourth day.
Speaker 1: There was no reason for him to show his face
Speaker 1: in the courthouse, and technically, under the law, he wasn't
Speaker 1: even supposed to be anywhere near the building until after
Speaker 1: he testified, unless, that is, he had come to try
Speaker 1: and unnerve another key witness. Do you think he was
Speaker 1: trying to intimidate you when he sat down in front
Speaker 1: of you? Anything was possible, It just weren't easy. Feeling.
Speaker 1: Facing Dick Weston in court was difficult, but also necessary
Speaker 1: for Tanitha. You know you're gonna have to testifying court, right? Oh? Yeah?
Speaker 1: And what are you feeling about that? Well, as long
Speaker 1: as I tell all the truth, I had nothing to
Speaker 1: do with it. I could tip it out because I
Speaker 1: had kids and I weren't letting my kids down for nothing.
Speaker 1: Were you scared? Tell me about that? Well, if you
Speaker 1: you don't know where if you lay down to take
Speaker 1: a nap or lay down go to sleep, where you
Speaker 1: gonna wake up or not. You don't know where your
Speaker 1: kids is going to be, where you left him or
Speaker 1: not not. With everything that was going on, no doubt
Speaker 1: in your mind that he's guilty of this crime. I
Speaker 1: know it was. I know what today. He done it,
Speaker 1: he might undone now being downe his part at it.
Speaker 1: What was it like walking into the courtroom with Dick there,
Speaker 1: let's right at him because he done it and I didn't.
Speaker 1: I had a clear consciens. What kind of look did
Speaker 1: he give you back? It weren't nice, it was evil.
Speaker 1: If Liz had killed, he'd kill it. Tnathan was terrified
Speaker 1: of testifying. She claimed to have already lost her home
Speaker 1: and job because of her involvement in this case. In addition,
Speaker 1: her life became a whirlwind of moving her family from
Speaker 1: state to state, running scared from the fallout. If you
Speaker 1: recall on a previous episode, when I first sat down
Speaker 1: to interview her, she kept two loaded weapons within arm's reach.
Speaker 1: Her trepidation is still very much present even to this day.
Speaker 1: And they were around the news, you'd say, now, let's staff,
Speaker 1: you know it happened. I mean, if you think, well,
Speaker 1: that one in my head, I just read that. That's
Speaker 1: in a book. No it ain't. It happened to your
Speaker 1: own back accord. When it takes your everything you've ever
Speaker 1: worked for all your life, sure you are what have
Speaker 1: you got nothing? At some point during the investigation, the
Speaker 1: Claremont County Sheriff's Department offered a dollar reward for anyone
Speaker 1: with information leading to an arrest in the Stevenson murders.
Speaker 1: Based on what I've gathered, many people believe Tnathan collected
Speaker 1: the money. Somebody was asking me how much JO was
Speaker 1: getting and how much I got out of it. I
Speaker 1: said I didn't get nothing. Well said, they were just reward.
Speaker 1: Didn't you get it? I said no, I didn't get
Speaker 1: no reward. So people think you got the reward. I
Speaker 1: think I got a reward. I did not get non reward.
Speaker 1: I lay up through Hey over thirty years, and it
Speaker 1: seems like you live in fear. Still still do. At
Speaker 1: times I go through that. I am nasily something trigger
Speaker 1: around TV. Really, there's always something that reminds you of
Speaker 1: something that happened in Atlanta time. But it's this way.
Speaker 1: I don't have a guilty conscious. I just stopped to think, well,
Speaker 1: where would we have been if this hadn't happened. But
Speaker 1: right that nothing to do about it. He's over with.
Speaker 1: Over the course of six days, the jury heard from
Speaker 1: the usual suspects, law enforcement and FBI agents involved in
Speaker 1: the investigation, the church youth leader who found Linda Stevenson's
Speaker 1: purse in the river, a woman who previously owned the
Speaker 1: Diamond Ring Linda always War, a man who sold Billy
Speaker 1: Stevenson the forty four caliber weapon he used to defend himself,
Speaker 1: and a number of acquaintances who saw Dick Weston at
Speaker 1: a bar hours before he arrived at the Stevenson home,
Speaker 1: and then Ron Thomas. While under oath, Ron admitted to
Speaker 1: being at the Stevenson's home on the night in question,
Speaker 1: but he said he went there alone. When asked if
Speaker 1: Dick Weston was with him, Ron said no. He stated
Speaker 1: he had never sold drugs, and admitted to funding thousands
Speaker 1: of dollars for Dick Weston's legal defense, but claimed it
Speaker 1: was merely alone as the two men were not close friends. However,
Speaker 1: after he finished testifying and began walking out of the courtroom,
Speaker 1: Ron Thomas locked eyes with Dick Weston and the two
Speaker 1: made a hello gesture to each other. Everyone saw it,
Speaker 1: including the judge and jury. After sixty five minutes of deliberation,
Speaker 1: the jury came back with a verdict. Dick Weston and
Speaker 1: Drusilla Meritta were both found guilty as charged. Drusilla received
Speaker 1: an indeterminate prison term of up to five years. Dick,
Speaker 1: on the other hand, was considered a special offender because
Speaker 1: the evidence presented at trial proved he was implicated in
Speaker 1: both the robbery and murders. The federal government sought a
Speaker 1: sentencing hearing and gave him twenty five years in prison.
Speaker 1: A separate murder trial was held, and on March one,
Speaker 1: Dick Weston was convicted and four counts of murder and
Speaker 1: sentenced to four consecutive life sentences. That psychopath was going
Speaker 1: to die in prison. It was the final chapter and
Speaker 1: many had been waiting and hoping to hear, and for
Speaker 1: season detectives like Tom Cooper, it was an end to
Speaker 1: a nearly two year search for a family and community
Speaker 1: seeking justice. It was one of the highlights on my career.
Speaker 1: Calls to get the resources to work to so we
Speaker 1: did with the FBI and the state police, always age
Speaker 1: to get him to all work together. It was just
Speaker 1: it was amazing back to it didn't always happen that way.
Speaker 1: You know, there are a lot of egos involved, and
Speaker 1: in this case, uh, there was no egos. I was
Speaker 1: really pleased with that and proud to do that. So
Speaker 1: what did it mean for the community to solve this case?
Speaker 1: You think? I think the community, especially Bethel area, it
Speaker 1: was a big relief to them that was sold, that
Speaker 1: was able to bring somebody to justice for it, because
Speaker 1: if we hadn't, I think the community itself would have
Speaker 1: been living and fear. As Dick Weston was serving his
Speaker 1: time in prison, Ron Thomas was living in South Carolina
Speaker 1: with his mistress, Irene Floyd, free from any prosecution. Two
Speaker 1: years after the questionable death of Irene's second husband, and
Speaker 1: just weeks after Ron divorced his wife of several decades.
Speaker 1: Irene Floyd and Ron Thomas were married. Six years and
Speaker 1: one child later, the two were still together and living
Speaker 1: a simple life. Ron was now working as a carpenter
Speaker 1: and partner at a roofing company. He seemed to be
Speaker 1: staying out of trouble, though from what my sources in
Speaker 1: South Carolina tell me, Ron continued to be involved and
Speaker 1: all sorts of illegal business. As Dave Bell, the former
Speaker 1: detective you heard in the previous episode explains, something happened
Speaker 1: to Ron Thomas. He was found uh in the waving around.
Speaker 1: He had been ship but he had multiple John chop
Speaker 1: moves to his right risk chest and right temple and uh.
Speaker 1: There were no signs of forced entreat of the home.
Speaker 1: According to the county's sheriff, it was around seven thirty
Speaker 1: am on a Sunday morning when Irene Floyd returned home
Speaker 1: after visiting her her from a previous marriage. She claimed
Speaker 1: to have found her husband faced down dead on their
Speaker 1: living room floor. Ron Thomas had been murdered. They recovered
Speaker 1: two different packs of cigarettes from the crime scene. Three
Speaker 1: cigarette butts were found in an ash tray near Ron's
Speaker 1: body in the living room, one of those formal rooms
Speaker 1: nobody in the family used. Looking at the crime scene
Speaker 1: evidence left behind, it was clear to police that Ron
Speaker 1: must have been waiting for someone to come over, because
Speaker 1: there was there was no struggle in the home. It
Speaker 1: didn't appear to be whoever was in the house actually
Speaker 1: was able to spoke some cigarettes and sure were some
Speaker 1: good old Southern iced tea. And so I'm convinced that
Speaker 1: Ron Thomas new his killer, you know, and he was
Speaker 1: probably shot where the guy had pulled out that pistol
Speaker 1: and shot him. There were enough pieces of evidence to
Speaker 1: submit for DNA testing, but the chances of getting a
Speaker 1: direct hit on a suspect were slim. This was with
Speaker 1: forensic science in its early stages of development. It'd be
Speaker 1: years before science would advance to study touch DNA and
Speaker 1: those incredible breakthroughs that are happening today. On top of that,
Speaker 1: based on the condition of the body, the corner believed
Speaker 1: Ron had been dead since the previous afternoon. He was
Speaker 1: shot with either at the time they thought like forty
Speaker 1: or forty one caliber weapon. That's a rare gun. Yeah, exactly,
Speaker 1: and it may definitely back then too. So they got
Speaker 1: one bullet from the crime scene and one bullet from
Speaker 1: the victim. They out a bullet from one of the
Speaker 1: closed doors, so they had they had the bullets to
Speaker 1: do bullisting, said they ever had a weapon. No gun
Speaker 1: was ever found at the crime scene. Robbery could not
Speaker 1: have been a motive since Ron was found still wearing
Speaker 1: his watch and jewelry and nothing had been taken from
Speaker 1: the house. So you're looking into this and and you
Speaker 1: see that Ron is now connected to He kind of
Speaker 1: ran from Ohio after a quadruple murder, right. Well, I
Speaker 1: contacted the people in Brookville try to get statements, and
Speaker 1: I tell you those people were so tight lips you
Speaker 1: could get a crowbarner by their mouth open. Those people,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna tell you they were in fear to talk
Speaker 1: to me. I had one woman that was told me
Speaker 1: that she was willing to give me a written, science
Speaker 1: foreign statement on what she knew. It was viable information.
Speaker 1: And after I hung up, I was real excited. And
Speaker 1: the next day I get a phone call from her
Speaker 1: children and they said that her their mother, had changed
Speaker 1: her mind and that she would not be cooperative with
Speaker 1: us with the investigation, would not give us a statement,
Speaker 1: and fear of her life. And who was she in
Speaker 1: fear of? That's what nobody would say. The FBI always
Speaker 1: give me the impression that Ron Thomas and Richard Weston
Speaker 1: all connected to the Boffia. There's that mafia theme again.
Speaker 1: It was briefly floated during the early days of the
Speaker 1: Stevenson murder investigation. The mob was even mentioned as an
Speaker 1: alleged firework supplier when I spoke to Billy, Stevenson's business rival.
Speaker 1: But throughout my investigation, I have never found a shred
Speaker 1: of tangible evidence linking organized crime to any of the cases.
Speaker 1: So who out there? I would want Ron Thomas dead?
Speaker 1: In the final episode of Paper Ghosts. You know, this
Speaker 1: whole time, my mom's watching over her back, scared to death,
Speaker 1: her whole life, and angry. And I remember I dropped everything.
Speaker 1: I called my mom, got her out of bed. I'm like,
Speaker 1: you have got to go downstairs. I have to get
Speaker 1: this to you. You know, I wanted a mandat as
Speaker 1: spar as. Aybody called me, you know this is a
Speaker 1: cold case, and he kind of he kind of chuckled
Speaker 1: and he said, you know, you know, Caroline done. I
Speaker 1: understand that. And he said, so let me ask you
Speaker 1: a questions. Did you murder Ron Pomas? You really believe
Speaker 1: that she was the one who had a hand in
Speaker 1: Ron Thomas's murder? Oh, no doubt. There's no doubt in
Speaker 1: my mind. Paper Ghosts is written in executive produced by
Speaker 1: me Am William Phelps and I Heart executive producer Christina Everett,
Speaker 1: with script consultant Matthew Riddle, Audio editing and mixing by
Speaker 1: a Booze Afar thanks to Will Pearson at I Heart Radio.
Speaker 1: Series Theme number four four two is written and performed
Speaker 1: by Thomas Phelps and Tom Mooney. For more podcasts from
Speaker 1: My Heart Radio, visit the I Heart Radio app, Apple podcasts,
Speaker 1: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.