Speaker 1: Hello, how are you doing, uh At, Sam William Phelps, Matthew, Yes,
Speaker 1: how you doing, Matthew? Good to talk to you. Same here.
Speaker 1: That is the voice of a man who played a
Speaker 1: very small but extremely pivotal role in getting the Stevenson
Speaker 1: investigation moving toward a viable suspect. He's asked me not
Speaker 1: to use his name because despite the events having occurred
Speaker 1: nearly forty years ago, there is still an understandable fear
Speaker 1: of being connected to a deadly aftermath that played out
Speaker 1: years after the Stevenson murders. At the time, was the
Speaker 1: youth leader at a church and uh I had taken
Speaker 1: the the youth on a canoe trip and we went
Speaker 1: to canoe the Whitewater. He's referring to the Whitewater River
Speaker 1: in Indiana, just about an hour's drive from Bethel, Ohio.
Speaker 1: And as we were canoeing down the river, we saw
Speaker 1: a bag floating in the river, and you know, canoes
Speaker 1: turned over, people lose stuff. We thought somebody had lost
Speaker 1: their bag, so we picked it up, put it in
Speaker 1: the canoe, finished out the trip. When we got back,
Speaker 1: we had opened the bag and we saw the name
Speaker 1: and the phone number inside the bag, so we started
Speaker 1: calling and it just ring, ring, ring, no answer. Later
Speaker 1: that evening I was at home watching the news, and
Speaker 1: the news flash was there was a family that was
Speaker 1: killed and and burned in a in the house. And
Speaker 1: the name was the same as the name us calling.
Speaker 1: That name was Linda Stevenson. It was July, just two
Speaker 1: days after the fire when Linda's leather handbag was found
Speaker 1: floating in the river, stuck on a large branch. Inside
Speaker 1: the bag was a rolled up twenty dollar bill tucked
Speaker 1: in the corner, and some loose papers, no keys, no wallet.
Speaker 1: What stands out to me is the location seventy miles
Speaker 1: from the crime scene, a person the water, and Linda's
Speaker 1: name found inside. As I've said before, there are no
Speaker 1: coincidences in murder, only connections. So I called the police
Speaker 1: station right away, told them what happened. They came right up,
Speaker 1: got the bag to me, pour ride down the police station,
Speaker 1: question me about it. Then the next morning some detectives
Speaker 1: called me back and asked me if I would be
Speaker 1: willing to take the day and go with them to
Speaker 1: the white Water and show show me the approxate location
Speaker 1: where I picked it up. How did you feel about that?
Speaker 1: Finding that bag of It was a little scary, yeah,
Speaker 1: because you know, I didn't know what my involvement really
Speaker 1: was finding it, and you know how how that was
Speaker 1: going to involve me with murderers or something like that.
Speaker 1: But I was glad I did it. It was a
Speaker 1: any good person or a decent person would know it's
Speaker 1: the right thing to do. The handbag being found in
Speaker 1: another state could have meant the killer or killers cross
Speaker 1: state lines sometime after committing the homicides, which in turn
Speaker 1: is what activated the FBI's involvement. While keeping in mind
Speaker 1: the bags certainly could have floated a great distance. The
Speaker 1: White Water River travels nowhere near Betheville, Ohio. That said,
Speaker 1: the Claremont County Sheriff's Department had a new rather promising
Speaker 1: focus Brookville, Indiana, previously on paper ghosts. There was some
Speaker 1: pretty bad blood going on for a while. It was
Speaker 1: getting out of hand. And that's god damn punk threatening
Speaker 1: us with guns and ship. And now you can look
Speaker 1: down on the floor and you can see the outline
Speaker 1: of where her body was to the point where I
Speaker 1: could see that she raised a hand. I could see it.
Speaker 1: And what's interesting, I think is there's two different caliber bullets.
Speaker 1: You guys begin finding right. What does that tell you?
Speaker 1: As a cop? Uh let lens? Thank to shooters. My
Speaker 1: name is and William Phelps. I am an investigative journalist
Speaker 1: and author of forty four true crime books. This is
Speaker 1: season two of Paper Ghosts Burned. Now past the forty
Speaker 1: eight hour mark. In the investigation, the police went back
Speaker 1: to what they could confirm who was at the Stevenson's
Speaker 1: house that night. After a successful July four weekend in
Speaker 1: fireworks sales, the Stevenson family returned from a celebratory dinner
Speaker 1: to their home around ten thirty pm. After saying goodbye
Speaker 1: to her stepdad Billy, mom Linda, uncle Lettie, and her
Speaker 1: five year old brother, Billy Jr. Carol Thompson recalls what
Speaker 1: happened as she and her young daughter were about to
Speaker 1: head out. As I was getting ready to leave and
Speaker 1: I was gathering Shannon off. I was getting ready to
Speaker 1: walk out the door, and as I got to the foyer,
Speaker 1: the doorbell rang or they knocked. I don't remember how
Speaker 1: it went down, but opened the door. Ron Thomas is
Speaker 1: standing there. Ron Thomas was a close family friend of
Speaker 1: Billy and Lynda Stevenson. Billy had known the guy for
Speaker 1: at least ten years, having bought and sold silver and
Speaker 1: gold and other types of jewelry from and with him.
Speaker 1: He was Steve's befriend. Hello, I remember Incoln, you know.
Speaker 1: Ron was like one of the coolest guys I've ever met.
Speaker 1: I remember and bouncing little Billy you know on his knee. Um.
Speaker 1: Ron was a good guy. Ron was a big duke
Speaker 1: six three or so. He had the seventies porn style mustache,
Speaker 1: brown hair, solid build. He, Billy and Linda often hung
Speaker 1: out at the house together, along with Ron's wife, and
Speaker 1: he stayed in the doorway. That's nothing unusual, you know,
Speaker 1: nothing unusual. So I haven't you know, step in, come in.
Speaker 1: But what is unusual in my mind, okay, is there's
Speaker 1: a man behind him with him, steps in with him.
Speaker 1: I was told it was uncommon for strangers just to
Speaker 1: pop in at the Stevenson house, though when invited over,
Speaker 1: Billy and Linda opened their home and their hearts close friends.
Speaker 1: This is my mother's house, okay. I wouldn't bring a
Speaker 1: stranger to my mother's house, me her own. And you
Speaker 1: don't remember anyone calling and saying they were coming over
Speaker 1: while you guys were there. Definitely didn't never Ron. That
Speaker 1: would be normal for Ron to just show up, that
Speaker 1: would be normal. I found it odd that he brought
Speaker 1: this guy. But I find out later that this guy
Speaker 1: has been with Ron a couple of times at various shops,
Speaker 1: mostly my dad's, and supposedly this guy's his bodyguard. But me,
Speaker 1: I don't know this. And and even even so, Ron
Speaker 1: showing up unannounced does not surprise me at all. He's
Speaker 1: a friend, a very close friend, but the stranger to me,
Speaker 1: just that just rocked my world to the point where
Speaker 1: I needed a point of saying hi to the guy
Speaker 1: because I wanted him to speak. I needed, you know, something,
Speaker 1: I don't know what I needed, but I needed something.
Speaker 1: Ron comes in and I'm like, hey, Ron, has it going?
Speaker 1: Hey Mom, Ron's here, And I'm like Hi to the guy,
Speaker 1: and the guy says hi to me, and then I'm
Speaker 1: almost like, okay, guys gotta go kind of attitude like
Speaker 1: I'm going to pass them and going out the door,
Speaker 1: right but Ron stops me. It's almost it was weird. Really,
Speaker 1: he stops me and start talking to me, and all
Speaker 1: of the BLUEY asked me, how's Jim, how's Jim doing,
Speaker 1: which I found so weird. But now that these two,
Speaker 1: you know, have this little pot thing going, I guess
Speaker 1: that's normal, but I still found it very weird. The
Speaker 1: gym that Carol's referring to as her husband, James Dean Thompson.
Speaker 1: And what she meant by this little pot thing was
Speaker 1: that Ron Thomas and her husband were quote business partners.
Speaker 1: Ron provided a product, Jim sold it. Nonetheless, Carol mentioned
Speaker 1: this short, stocky guys being Ron's bodyguard. So the question
Speaker 1: then becomes, why would Ron Thomas need a bodyguard? So
Speaker 1: Ron wasn't the type of guy to ask you how
Speaker 1: your husband? God, No, absolutely not. Now he was my
Speaker 1: parents friend, he wasn't mine. So like I could see
Speaker 1: him saying how are you? It just as a common courtesy,
Speaker 1: but no to really know. But he did. He he
Speaker 1: stopped me literally because I was going to go out
Speaker 1: the door. And did this guy say hi back to
Speaker 1: you his buddy. And I don't remember it exactly, to
Speaker 1: be honest with you, but I remember him replying. I
Speaker 1: think it was a gruff hey with a nod of
Speaker 1: the head. I remember had the kod of the head.
Speaker 1: I had no idea who he was, no idea at all.
Speaker 1: Detective Tom Cooper, the lead investigator on the Stevenson murders,
Speaker 1: was in the process of tracking down Stevenson family friend
Speaker 1: Ron Thomas. They needed more intel about that other man
Speaker 1: with Ron, so Cooper showed Carol a series of photographs,
Speaker 1: like a lineup of bad guys from the area to
Speaker 1: see if she could recognize anybody. Carol pointed to one
Speaker 1: photo of a man with a mustache and said, I
Speaker 1: think this is probably him, but I'm not sure. She
Speaker 1: just couldn't remember. So the Sheriff's department approached Carroll with
Speaker 1: an idea. Was she willing to undergo investigative forensic hypnosis
Speaker 1: in order to try and recall what the man looked like?
Speaker 1: Started with we had a whole train to the darkness
Speaker 1: best the entirely the idea of doing this relates to
Speaker 1: you in hypnosis, being able to convert thanks from your
Speaker 1: subconscious never to you're conscious. According to the U. S.
Speaker 1: Department of Justice quote, the use of hypnosis to refresh
Speaker 1: memory is a widely accepted therapeutic tool in helping various professions,
Speaker 1: but its use in a forensic setting is less widely accepted,
Speaker 1: even though it can be a viable and effective technique.
Speaker 1: That said, investigative hypnosis itself is controversial. Some believe it
Speaker 1: works while others do not. In the world of law enforcement,
Speaker 1: its success has been demonstrated in many cases, but its
Speaker 1: use as a valuable forensic tool is generally debated and
Speaker 1: categorized under a banner of quote junk science. Play for you,
Speaker 1: just take a couple of real deep breaths, I just
Speaker 1: want to pluck the finger, Concentrate on the typ my fingers.
Speaker 1: My finger comes closer and closer. At some point you
Speaker 1: kind of start to feel more and more relized, and
Speaker 1: just notice the ridges, the lines, the finger grip. The
Speaker 1: problems I have seen with hypnosis as a forensic tool
Speaker 1: begin when the case winds up in a courtroom. Anything
Speaker 1: learned through hypnosis will be challenged, JE disbelieved and argued.
Speaker 1: Some states allow information obtained under hypnosis as evidence, most
Speaker 1: do not. The major concern is that because the procedure
Speaker 1: itself is leading, hypnosis can plant false memories in the brain,
Speaker 1: and the subject being hypnotized likely doesn't even realize it.
Speaker 1: What we wish to do now it's on the count five.
Speaker 1: I want you to imagine as you're now sitting in
Speaker 1: your chair, wanting to tee recording of the advance that
Speaker 1: occurred evening unt a lot of fifth qualify count Will
Speaker 1: you see everything it's possible to see? Just like that scene? Yeah,
Speaker 1: I m s. This audio from an old school real
Speaker 1: to real tape is part of a cash Carol Thompson
Speaker 1: and her daughter Shannon acquired and handed off to me.
Speaker 1: No one outside of law enforcement has ever heard them,
Speaker 1: not even Carol or Shannon. Many parts of this investigation
Speaker 1: were fully resolved before I ever came into it, but
Speaker 1: hearing the case unfold in real time gives me a
Speaker 1: unique perspective, along with an opportunity to try to find
Speaker 1: new information and answers. Unfortunately, forty years of time and
Speaker 1: temperature have taken their toll on a good portion of
Speaker 1: the tape, and the audio quality is rough as you
Speaker 1: can hear. Where do you see first? Watch? Yeah? Okay,
Speaker 1: tell me about his heris. Carol's responses are difficult to
Speaker 1: make out, but she was able to recall that the
Speaker 1: stranger's hair was brown and messed up on top our
Speaker 1: is and the length was past the nape of his neck.
Speaker 1: For Detective Tom Cooper, what he hoped for from Carol's
Speaker 1: forensic hypnosis examination was not evidence per se, but just
Speaker 1: a clue to locating that mystery man. The background room
Speaker 1: atmosphere on the hypnosis tape has this eerie, espionage like
Speaker 1: interrogation vibe to it. I'm going to touch your left shoulder,
Speaker 1: which will assist you in relaxing and also assist you
Speaker 1: in performing to zoolands. It's as if I am listening
Speaker 1: to something nobody outside of those involved was ever supposed
Speaker 1: to hear. One to M three. As the tape continues,
Speaker 1: the audio doesn't improve much, but Carol continued to recall
Speaker 1: physical details about the stranger. She described them as white
Speaker 1: with a dark complexion, in his late thirties early forties,
Speaker 1: between five nine and five eleven, with wavy, medium brown hair,
Speaker 1: a mustache, brown eyes, pudgy nose, heavy build, with a
Speaker 1: big belly. Eyewitness testimony is often scrutinized for this very reason.
Speaker 1: Carol looked at this man close up as she was
Speaker 1: walking out the door, yet describes him differently in several
Speaker 1: documents and my interviews with her. What I think is,
Speaker 1: at times her memory is combining both men she saw together. Now,
Speaker 1: I want you to see that you're able to see
Speaker 1: any clothing. Comparing what Carol told law enforcement immediately after
Speaker 1: the murders, what she said during her hypnosis session, and
Speaker 1: what she said to me over the years is so important.
Speaker 1: Describe that man for me. Okay, he's supper munches shorter
Speaker 1: than Ron. Now I know for a fact Ron six too,
Speaker 1: So I'm gonna peg this guy. It's pretty short, so
Speaker 1: I'm gonna pay him in like five nine. And he
Speaker 1: has brown, unkept hair, so it's very messy, and it
Speaker 1: was a little overse ears and dark skin and husky
Speaker 1: a husky build. The in hypnth Highs was really weird.
Speaker 1: I mean, is really weird. Um. The only thing I
Speaker 1: can really say about him being hypnotized, it kind of
Speaker 1: makes you release any kind of fear. A fear Errol
Speaker 1: had to let go of at the time was her
Speaker 1: initial suspicion and accusation toward her family's business rival, Jim Riley.
Speaker 1: Despite investigators being initially interested in Jim Riley as a
Speaker 1: major suspect, the guy had an alibi. His wife, Wanda,
Speaker 1: assured police he was at home with her the entire night.
Speaker 1: I was so so ashamed of myself really for even
Speaker 1: thinking that, but it really was. I'm trying to justify it,
Speaker 1: but it really was because of the phone call. If
Speaker 1: I hadn't gotten that phone call from him telling me
Speaker 1: that he was gonna come over, and you know, and
Speaker 1: just the way he said it, I guess threw me off.
Speaker 1: And to this day I feel terrible. I've never I've
Speaker 1: never seen James since then. But if I if I
Speaker 1: ran into him, if I recognized him, I would apologize.
Speaker 1: I really would, because I really did believe it's him.
Speaker 1: I would have laid down my soul that it was him.
Speaker 1: As firefighters waged battle against the flames engulfing the Stevenson's house,
Speaker 1: a patrol officer working the overnight shift in Amelia, a
Speaker 1: neighboring town to Bethel, pulled over two men in a
Speaker 1: pickup truck speeding down Route One. At the time of
Speaker 1: the stop, nothing from the encounter seemed off to the
Speaker 1: officer two men speeding, routine traffic stop, but nine days later,
Speaker 1: giving no reason why he waited so long, that same
Speaker 1: officer contacted the Claremont County Sheriff's Department with information that
Speaker 1: would change the course of Tom Cooper's investigation. In one
Speaker 1: of the unearthed audio recordings I've obtained, you can hear
Speaker 1: the officer recall how the events unfolded that night. I
Speaker 1: had a huge standard next to the watching the rally.
Speaker 1: They said he was really when on the street, and
Speaker 1: I think I said to ring Or twice and went
Speaker 1: on fifty five and went twot two. I think I
Speaker 1: wanted in two. The patrol officer stopped the truck, which
Speaker 1: had kept driving for about a quarter mile before finally
Speaker 1: pulling over, which makes me wonder what were they doing
Speaker 1: during that time? And then when I got out, I
Speaker 1: didn't call it in it in writing down. It came
Speaker 1: right out of truck back guys, So I got out
Speaker 1: so I could be staying at up based. Basically, in
Speaker 1: light of today's policing standards, this would seem absurd, dangerous,
Speaker 1: and out of touch with the reality of police work.
Speaker 1: But look in night in such a small town, cops
Speaker 1: didn't think too much of it. If someone they just
Speaker 1: pulled over got out of their car and approached them,
Speaker 1: more than likely, in fact, the cop could have known
Speaker 1: the guy. The one characteristic the officer did recall with
Speaker 1: certainty was the driver's height approximately the same as his
Speaker 1: but not quite as tall as the cops six ft
Speaker 1: to frame. He was hapty, what kind of just stressed slope.
Speaker 1: I remember, I can't remember what he was wearing, but
Speaker 1: I remember he had like Roby looked to him. You know,
Speaker 1: they can make them to the bars somewhere all that
Speaker 1: or something. Yet but he didn't be toxic you at all.
Speaker 1: I remember when he turned. Yeah, definitely had like a skinning.
Speaker 1: The Great designed something he had like like a blood blister.
Speaker 1: And but yeah, where the white people? Because I was
Speaker 1: thinking that, yeah, it probably hearts. I said that myself.
Speaker 1: You know when I seen I just asked him for
Speaker 1: Great's license. He told him what he was doing and
Speaker 1: his ascens and because I just a soon as it
Speaker 1: came back, I heard the passing your door open and
Speaker 1: clothes Okay, yeah, I thought maybe because I was gonna
Speaker 1: get out. So I kind of looked over going over
Speaker 1: around the back of the truck, kind of watched that
Speaker 1: side of this year he wouldn't coming out on or something. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I thought, I figured maybe I want to do that
Speaker 1: can of beer or something you vinent late? And then
Speaker 1: got his operator's license. I woman have a seat back
Speaker 1: in the truck. I looked at his license. I was,
Speaker 1: but I don't remember his name. I don't remember the
Speaker 1: address or anything. The officer recalled the driver's quote, messy,
Speaker 1: dark hair. He never bothered to look at the passenger,
Speaker 1: which spoke really to how routine he felt the stop was.
Speaker 1: And he could not recall the color of the truck,
Speaker 1: you know, and I can't really remember by the trump
Speaker 1: is it hid and nana tags on They're white tags,
Speaker 1: screen numbers or letters or whatever they were. And I
Speaker 1: walked back up to this truck and just told him, yes,
Speaker 1: I know, it's late, you know, in Carl the route,
Speaker 1: just trying to slow down in the games. By the
Speaker 1: time the officer got home that night, he was well
Speaker 1: aware of the Stevenson fire because he had heard the
Speaker 1: fire alarms go off about fifteen minutes before he pulled
Speaker 1: that truck over. It still meant nothing to him since
Speaker 1: it was in a different town, so he never thought
Speaker 1: to report the incident, that is until the local news
Speaker 1: reported Linda's bag had been found in an Indiana river.
Speaker 1: Something clicked. Talking to law enforcement and reading through the reports,
Speaker 1: it's clear that had the Amelia police officer followed procedure
Speaker 1: to a t that night, he would have been murder
Speaker 1: victim number five. After corroborating several details about the truck
Speaker 1: pulled over in Amelia on the night of the murders,
Speaker 1: the Sheriff's department was confident the two men were stevenson
Speaker 1: family friend Ron Thomas, and the man he'd brought to
Speaker 1: their home just hours earlier. That same man, Carol Thompson,
Speaker 1: had never seen before. What's more, the last place Ron
Speaker 1: Thomas was known to live Brookville, Indiana, the same town
Speaker 1: where Linda Stevenson's bag had been found in the White
Speaker 1: Water River. In the next episode of Paper Ghosts, I
Speaker 1: said you left eleven thirty. He said, yeah, I left
Speaker 1: the eleventh, Like, oh okay. So we get off the
Speaker 1: phone and then bam. In my head, It's just I
Speaker 1: keep hearing that in my head, What the hell? Why
Speaker 1: did you lie to me? Didn't care for My grandmother
Speaker 1: used to say, you get that good feeling, Well, when
Speaker 1: I get to do it feeling, it say it steaks
Speaker 1: waiting nine percent the time he gets the traffic like
Speaker 1: Middell Brookville and stops the traffic light. And we took
Speaker 1: him down between us and the FBI and all everything. Ever,
Speaker 1: how did that go oh it was. One person in
Speaker 1: Brookly said, I've never seen some many guns out on
Speaker 1: one time. Paper Ghosts is written and executive produced by
Speaker 1: me and 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