Speaker 1: Place your left hand on the bay of Bible and
Speaker 1: raise your right hand and repeat after me. I solemnly
Speaker 1: swear the jury trying to get defended. The process continued
Speaker 1: this weekend in Ferguson and around the country, resisting you.
Speaker 1: It makes no sense. If it doesn't fit, you must
Speaker 1: equit judge. You are the last line of reason in
Speaker 1: this case. Every one of us took out all the
Speaker 1: office and we're scorn to uphold the Constitution. From Tenderfoot
Speaker 1: TV in Atlanta, this is sworn. I'm your host, Philip
Speaker 1: Holloway in Turner County. If somebody's got a problem with you,
Speaker 1: they're probably gonna go up and say it to you,
Speaker 1: but it's not necessarily going to lead them to kill
Speaker 1: an entire family and burn their house down m M.
Speaker 1: In the last episode, I spoke to John Dawes, a
Speaker 1: cold case expert, who felt that greed and money are
Speaker 1: almost always the motivation for murder. Also, the majority of
Speaker 1: murders are committed by someone or a group who knows
Speaker 1: the victims personally. He said that if this were his
Speaker 1: case in his hands, he would typically start with the
Speaker 1: family who had something to gain here. Also, because Melissa
Speaker 1: was eight months pregnant and nearly ready to give birth.
Speaker 1: He said he would definitely look into the father of
Speaker 1: our child. In just a minute, Meredith goes to talk
Speaker 1: to Ben Baker at the Wiregrass newspaper in Ashburn. But
Speaker 1: before we get to that, there was a strange development
Speaker 1: in the case. Some very sensitive information came our way.
Speaker 1: We cannot share all of it with you, but we'd
Speaker 1: like to play you a short clip. M H. Why
Speaker 1: am I interested in? What are the alibi that night
Speaker 1: for the prime suspect in the murder case? Do you
Speaker 1: understand what I'm telling you? They were his only alibi.
Speaker 1: Early on in our investigation, we received this phone call
Speaker 1: about the Wideman murders. By all accounts, it seemed credible.
Speaker 1: The source was close enough to the case that the
Speaker 1: story made sense, but disconnected enough that there was no
Speaker 1: reason for the individual to lie. We'll get back to
Speaker 1: this later, but for now, let's go to the Wiregrass.
Speaker 1: It was firing the festival weekend. I don't remember the year,
Speaker 1: but that was, of course the whole talk of the town.
Speaker 1: The next morning, That's when I found out about it.
Speaker 1: I was said the Wideman's were murdered and the house
Speaker 1: they were in was burned down. My impression was I
Speaker 1: didn't have one. I was just too numb to think
Speaker 1: about it. I was too stunned. This has been Baker.
Speaker 1: He's been the editor of the newspaper for twenty three years.
Speaker 1: When do you think it's set in gradually over the
Speaker 1: course of the next few months. It took a while
Speaker 1: for me to realize that Tommy Joe was gone, the
Speaker 1: other ones were gone. I was more of a friend
Speaker 1: to Tommy Joe than his daughter and his wife. And
Speaker 1: it was firing festival weekend, and I'm the general runaround
Speaker 1: guy at the festival. Something he needs to do it,
Speaker 1: and they holler at me to do it. So I
Speaker 1: really didn't have time to process it until the week
Speaker 1: after the festival, because when we got done with the festival,
Speaker 1: then I had to both cover the festival and cover
Speaker 1: the Wideman case for the newspaper. All my energies at
Speaker 1: that time were directed to getting everything into the paper.
Speaker 1: And you've been a reporter for as long as I have,
Speaker 1: you learned to distance yourself emotionally from the subject at
Speaker 1: hand because you've got a job to do. You just
Speaker 1: get it put out and then the next week, Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's when he hit me. He was gone, You don't.
Speaker 1: Ben's office is in the center of Ashbourne, but the
Speaker 1: streets outside aren't exactly bustling. As we said, it's a
Speaker 1: very quiet place. There's an eclectic mix of stuffed animal
Speaker 1: heads mounted on the walls and services. Inside of his office.
Speaker 1: There's also stacks and stacks of papers, periodicals and books.
Speaker 1: You can tell Ben's been in the business for a
Speaker 1: long time. When you're in my line of business, you
Speaker 1: need to know things that don't get published, and people
Speaker 1: tell me things. I'm the newspaper editor. I'm also a
Speaker 1: minister here and for some reason, people just tell me stuff.
Speaker 1: And depending on how and why and when they tell me,
Speaker 1: it can be confidential or it can be passed along.
Speaker 1: And as I tell people, if you tell me something
Speaker 1: as a reporter and it's important, of eventually it's going
Speaker 1: in the paper, but it does have to be properly timed.
Speaker 1: So I need to know things so that I can
Speaker 1: look for stuff and keep some things out of the
Speaker 1: paper that simply don't need to be there. Some people
Speaker 1: are gonna say, we've got a right to know this, Yeah,
Speaker 1: you do. Is your right to know outweighing the good
Speaker 1: to the community. In my eyes, been a somewhat of
Speaker 1: an expert on Turner County. Being the editor of the
Speaker 1: local newspaper, it's his business to know what's going on,
Speaker 1: and he's clearly very well connected. I asked him who
Speaker 1: he had talked to in regards the Wideman case. Talked
Speaker 1: to the e M S Director. I talked to the
Speaker 1: fire chief in the Sheriff's department. Was there anyone that
Speaker 1: wasn't very willing to talk or they shared with me
Speaker 1: on the record everything they could talk about at the time.
Speaker 1: And since then there have been many more conversations, many
Speaker 1: more conversations as in information that wasn't disclosed before or
Speaker 1: wasn't known before. Well, there's been some stuff that wasn't
Speaker 1: known that day that were talked about, and there's been
Speaker 1: some stuff that I mean, why do you need to
Speaker 1: know the caliber gun they were killed with? One? I
Speaker 1: asked Ben about the general public feelings in Turner County
Speaker 1: regarding the Wideman case. There are some people that swear
Speaker 1: they know who did it. You ask them, they'll tell
Speaker 1: you the individual's name. Well, how do you know this?
Speaker 1: He's just that kind of a person. You've got some evidence,
Speaker 1: let's talk about it. You said his car was parked there,
Speaker 1: or his truck, or his motorcycle or his bicycle was
Speaker 1: parked there that night. Okay, we got something to work with.
Speaker 1: You say he was riding around that night over in
Speaker 1: that neighborhood. A little bit more tenuous. You just say
Speaker 1: you just simply know, because he's that kind of a person. No,
Speaker 1: you don't know that. Ben's right about this. Innocent until
Speaker 1: proven guilty, and without evidence, people can speculate all day
Speaker 1: bodies and then they were shot, and there was some
Speaker 1: talk about tire tracks, but there was also the issue
Speaker 1: of all the public safety there, so they weren't sure
Speaker 1: because the tire tracks, you're gonna be any good. Where
Speaker 1: were the tire tracks there in the yard, up the
Speaker 1: driveway or just think in the day is right there
Speaker 1: at the property. I am not certain if there was
Speaker 1: a motive or not. Just beyond Hey, here's the house.
Speaker 1: Let's go see who's here and rob women kill him.
Speaker 1: You're gonna say that just simply doesn't happen. Oh yeah,
Speaker 1: hell it does too. You talked to the sheriff's department,
Speaker 1: in the police department, we have smash and grab robberies frequently.
Speaker 1: Because we're on the interstate. This might sound plausible, but
Speaker 1: to be candid, there's no evidence that this was a burglary.
Speaker 1: Local law enforcement and never suggested that they had any
Speaker 1: reason to believe that it was. We had a gentleman
Speaker 1: who went missing. They found his car. He popped up
Speaker 1: in a pond a week later. That's still a mysterious death.
Speaker 1: We asked about what the chief of fire had personally
Speaker 1: reported to pen what he described to you about the scene.
Speaker 1: He said it was bad and the house was burned
Speaker 1: completely down by the time they got there, was fully engulfed.
Speaker 1: You look around the room in here. You see my
Speaker 1: fellow dear, You see my elk on the other side.
Speaker 1: I got a bison. I got two little bucks. Over there,
Speaker 1: I kill one shot. There's the buffalo skull. I know
Speaker 1: people that can come walk through that door right there
Speaker 1: and look at this and have a panic attack and
Speaker 1: pass out on the floor. You're not prepared to see
Speaker 1: this kind of scene. I don't care who you are.
Speaker 1: We've got firemen who were in the military, who were
Speaker 1: in Vietnam, who were in other places, and they've seen
Speaker 1: bodies blowing the pieces you're not prepared to see that
Speaker 1: kind of thing. I don't care who you are unless
Speaker 1: you're a complete psychopath and you have no human emotion,
Speaker 1: emotional connection. You just don't have any empathy whatsoever. Then
Speaker 1: you look on it every day and say, huh, I'm
Speaker 1: ready for a ham sandwich for lunch. I think we
Speaker 1: asked Ben who owned the property now that the house
Speaker 1: had been burned down. He told us that to his
Speaker 1: latest knowledge, it still belonged to the remaining members of
Speaker 1: the Widman family. So we asked who that was. Charles
Speaker 1: Henry is here and his sons ship I think they both.
Speaker 1: Charles Henry and No lives in Rebecca with Diane, and
Speaker 1: I think Chip lives in Rebecca or Fitzgerald all. Are
Speaker 1: they still working in the community Chips an insurance salesman.
Speaker 1: Charles Henry. I don't know if he's still working or
Speaker 1: not an insurance or if he retired. I don't remember
Speaker 1: about how many times do you think he wrote about
Speaker 1: the Wideman case? Up to about a dozen? I believe
Speaker 1: when's the last time you personally wrote something. It's been
Speaker 1: several years since I've written about it. Christie used to
Speaker 1: work for the those Settle Star would write about it
Speaker 1: every year on the anniversary. But she was related to
Speaker 1: the family. So unless you're connected to it, you never
Speaker 1: think about it. But there's nothing else to report. What
Speaker 1: are you gonna say, well, it's still under an investigation. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we know that. All that's gonna happen by me reporting
Speaker 1: on it now is remind the remaining family that this
Speaker 1: is unsolved and it's going to renew the pain they have.
Speaker 1: Is the public's right to know that it is not
Speaker 1: solved more important than not making that family hurt anymore.
Speaker 1: It ain't been solved the minute he gets solved, the
Speaker 1: minute they arrest somebody we're talking about on her headline.
Speaker 1: In that way, it's newspaper and breaking news. I may
Speaker 1: put out a special edition. Sure, its department has got
Speaker 1: a pretty high and police department got a pretty high
Speaker 1: rate on solving cases. But as our farmer, Sheriff Wesley
Speaker 1: five said, a law enforcement man ain't no better than
Speaker 1: the information he gets. The only way this thing is
Speaker 1: going to be solved, to my way of thinking, is
Speaker 1: if somebody comes forward and says, hey, I know about this,
Speaker 1: here's some information, or somebody's on their deathbed and they
Speaker 1: confess we've exhausted the physical evidence. Fire is an awesome
Speaker 1: way to cover your tracks. I had qualms about even
Speaker 1: talking to you guys for this podcast thing, but I
Speaker 1: have to weigh again respect for the families versus they're
Speaker 1: wanting to get some closure on this. Y'all reach a
Speaker 1: much different audience than I do. I can write about
Speaker 1: this freaking Wideman case every week for the rest of
Speaker 1: my life if it's not solved, and it's gonna be
Speaker 1: going to the same people. Y'all have a very different
Speaker 1: audience than me. You might can reach somebody I can't.
Speaker 1: That's why I'm even talking to you today, because you
Speaker 1: might can get somebody who knows something. If I thought
Speaker 1: you couldn't, I said, I say, you can't talk to you.
Speaker 1: You got four people dead. We need some closure, hair, folks.
Speaker 1: Somebody needs to be held accountable for this. The person
Speaker 1: who did this keeps her mouth shut and takes it
Speaker 1: to the grave, never be solved in this life. Person
Speaker 1: who did it talks about it sold of course. In
Speaker 1: addition to the local newspaper, the case caught the eye
Speaker 1: of larger media outlets such as local television stations. Even
Speaker 1: though this was a small town crime. It really was
Speaker 1: a bone chilling trip homicide, and so it got coverage.
Speaker 1: As it turns out, Rebecca is not really far from Albany, Georgia. Albany,
Speaker 1: Georgia has a larger media market and it includes a
Speaker 1: television station known as w A LB TV. I've got
Speaker 1: a friend w A l B KD. Fowler is an
Speaker 1: anchor and reporter, and as it turns out, my friend
Speaker 1: Cade has covered the Wideman case very closely and has
Speaker 1: reported on it many times. I was actually looking on
Speaker 1: the g B i's website and they had a list
Speaker 1: of cold cases on there, and uh, scrolling through and
Speaker 1: and on there it will list the location where the
Speaker 1: crime occurred. And I saw Rebecca pop up and I said, Rebecca,
Speaker 1: Rebecca that so that's in that's in Turner County. And
Speaker 1: this was like in twenty twelve, I believe when I
Speaker 1: when I did this story U and I was like,
Speaker 1: how did I not know about this? And it has
Speaker 1: sort of, you know, not hit my radar. I guess
Speaker 1: I just didn't know about it, and I heard a
Speaker 1: lot of talk about it, and so that's when I
Speaker 1: started looking into and started making some phone calls and
Speaker 1: try to, you know, pick back up on it and
Speaker 1: see if there was any new leads we could track
Speaker 1: down on on our end in terms of trying to
Speaker 1: get some people to talk. My name is Kate Fowler.
Speaker 1: I'm a reporter an anchor at w A l B.
Speaker 1: I started there and in two thousand and seven covered
Speaker 1: a lot of crime and uh, you know, specialized in
Speaker 1: reporting on on cold cases and stuff because there's a
Speaker 1: number of them in South Georgia. Is there still a
Speaker 1: lot of public interest this what fifteen years later? Actually
Speaker 1: there is. And you know, I'll give I'll give credit
Speaker 1: there too to the Sheriff Andy Hester. I mean he is.
Speaker 1: He has kept this out in the in the public's eye,
Speaker 1: you know, more so than than anyone else that's served
Speaker 1: in that office. And I think there's been since this happened.
Speaker 1: There were two sheriffs in office prior to Sheriff Hester.
Speaker 1: He's made a couple of sell a couple of press
Speaker 1: conferences just in the past year or so asking for
Speaker 1: more tips on this case. You have three people who
Speaker 1: are dead. You know, by all accounts, these were just
Speaker 1: people who were you know, good small town folks who
Speaker 1: minded their own business. They didn't deserve to die. I
Speaker 1: mean this young lady, she was pregnant at the time.
Speaker 1: So basically you have four, four lives essentially, you know,
Speaker 1: that were lost in this case, and that they shouldn't
Speaker 1: be forgotten. So what do we know publicly? If you
Speaker 1: can summarize that and give us background on the case
Speaker 1: and what we do know, and then what we don't
Speaker 1: know and what we still need to know. Rebecca, you know,
Speaker 1: it's a small town, probably only a few hundred people
Speaker 1: that lived there, squiet people keeping themselves in this house
Speaker 1: where the wide Emans live was off of Highway Win twelve,
Speaker 1: and it's pretty much one of those locations where you
Speaker 1: you gotta be going through it to go through it.
Speaker 1: You know, it's just out there in farmland. And so
Speaker 1: there was a truck driver that was driving down the
Speaker 1: road in the middle of the night. He ends up seeing,
Speaker 1: you know, flames coming off the side of the road,
Speaker 1: calls an on one one. They respond to it. It's
Speaker 1: a it's a house fire. So their homes engulfed in
Speaker 1: flames and they finally, you know, put out the fire
Speaker 1: and then you know, when the firefighters are going through
Speaker 1: and they're digging through the ashes, they realized that, you know,
Speaker 1: they're not dealing with just a you know, a house
Speaker 1: fire here, They're dealing with the homicide. They found all
Speaker 1: three victims inside Tommy, Joe, Deborah, Melissa, and very soon
Speaker 1: after determined that they had been shot to them, and
Speaker 1: then someone torched the house to destroy the evidence. Did
Speaker 1: they find evidence of any accelerate I've asked that question.
Speaker 1: I don't think they really went into detail about what
Speaker 1: was actually used to start the fire. I think that's
Speaker 1: probably something that there they're going to keep to themselves,
Speaker 1: at least, I know I asked that question, but you know,
Speaker 1: it's been a few years, but I don't think that
Speaker 1: they specifically explained what was used to start the fire.
Speaker 1: What else have they kept to themselves? I don't know.
Speaker 1: I mean, at this point, you know, I'm not sure
Speaker 1: they've been you know, fairly open, you know about getting
Speaker 1: some information out. I mean, we do know that they
Speaker 1: were all, you know, executed there in the home, that
Speaker 1: they were shot, and they have told us that much.
Speaker 1: And the other thing that they didn't and I will
Speaker 1: say this is, you know, despite the fact that so
Speaker 1: much was destroyed in that fire, there was really no
Speaker 1: evidence to suggest that anything was taken from the home.
Speaker 1: I think they were able to gather enough evidence to determined,
Speaker 1: you know, this wasn't probably just some random home invasion.
Speaker 1: Was there any neighbors nearby that might have seen something?
Speaker 1: Not that I know. I mean I think this house
Speaker 1: was was really just kind of off the road. I mean,
Speaker 1: you you know South Georgia well filled. I mean you've
Speaker 1: you've been through there. You drive them along those country
Speaker 1: roads and Highway went twelve, you know, going through Turner
Speaker 1: Counties about his country as it gets, I mean you
Speaker 1: go farmland, farmland, trees, and then occasionally you see a
Speaker 1: house off to the side and the house, of course
Speaker 1: you know it was destroyed, has been raised since then,
Speaker 1: there's nothing there, but not a lot of neighbors. I mean,
Speaker 1: I think you had to actually go up a driveway
Speaker 1: to get there. The big question that everyone is asking is, uh,
Speaker 1: whether they think that it was someone local that did this.
Speaker 1: Isn't someone in the community. Is it's someone who you
Speaker 1: know knew the family? Tommy Joe he was the he
Speaker 1: was the tax assessor in Turner County, and Deborah owned
Speaker 1: a bridle shot in Ashbourne. So these are people that
Speaker 1: you know, we're you know, fairly well known and fairly
Speaker 1: well liked in the community. To my knowledge, they had
Speaker 1: they had no enemies and and I mean a tax
Speaker 1: assessor is probably not gonna win a popularity contest, you
Speaker 1: know when it comes to you know, elected officials or
Speaker 1: county officials or whatnot. But no one that I that
Speaker 1: I've talked to, you know, over the years of just
Speaker 1: talking to people back and forth and even covering this story,
Speaker 1: everyone said, you know, he was he was a good guy.
Speaker 1: I honestly believe that he didn't have any enemies. And
Speaker 1: even so in Turner County, if somebody's got a problem
Speaker 1: with either, they're probably going to go up and say
Speaker 1: it to you, but it's not necessarily going to lead
Speaker 1: them to kill an entire family and burn their house down.
Speaker 1: When's the last time you spoke to Sheriff Fester about
Speaker 1: this case? I talked to Sheriff Ester, you know, a
Speaker 1: couple of days ago. What did he have to say
Speaker 1: about it? He has really done a good job in
Speaker 1: terms of I think keeping this case in the public eye.
Speaker 1: I will say that about him. He is um. You know, Phil,
Speaker 1: you've lived in South Georgia. I mean, you know, you
Speaker 1: know how it is down here. There's a lot of
Speaker 1: red tape, and there's a lot of bureaucracy, but he
Speaker 1: is really one of those sheriffs that I think you
Speaker 1: can go and sit down and talk to. And I'm
Speaker 1: not just being a cheerleader here for Sheriff Fester, but
Speaker 1: anytime I've ever needed to reach out to him, he's
Speaker 1: been available. In fact, when I set up this story,
Speaker 1: I think he had just gotten in office, and he
Speaker 1: actually came into office after another the previous sheriff was
Speaker 1: arrested for stealing marijuana from the evidence locker and given
Speaker 1: it to a church member that he knew had cancer.
Speaker 1: So that's how the sheriff before him ended up getting
Speaker 1: out of office. So I didn't have any contact with
Speaker 1: that guy. So Sheriff Ester comes in and you know,
Speaker 1: when I called him and talked to him, he opened
Speaker 1: his office to me. We were able to sit down
Speaker 1: and have a one on one about this case. And
Speaker 1: he also brought in Asan Collins, the case agent at
Speaker 1: the time, who was you know, on top of this
Speaker 1: case for you know, for several years. And you know,
Speaker 1: we sat down and talked about this at length, and
Speaker 1: you know, you don't always get that from a lot
Speaker 1: of sheriffs, based on some folks I've worked with. I
Speaker 1: applaud him for his efforts, I really do. Did he
Speaker 1: offer to show you any of the evidence that they
Speaker 1: did have. They actually gave me more information that than
Speaker 1: I thought they would. You know, I think that there's
Speaker 1: certain boundaries they don't want to cross. I get it,
Speaker 1: I underst stand that. But to the point of telling
Speaker 1: me everything that they possibly could without jeopardizing any sort
Speaker 1: of sensitive evidence that you know, could mess up their case,
Speaker 1: they gave me as much as as I could have
Speaker 1: asked for. At that point. It's pretty well known, you know,
Speaker 1: around Turner County that somebody there knows something. This is
Speaker 1: a small town in South Georgia. Triple homicides just don't
Speaker 1: happen every day. They do sometimes, but it is very
Speaker 1: very rare to say that triple homicide's gonna happen in
Speaker 1: the middle of the night in Rebecca, where probably the
Speaker 1: only nine one one call they get at three o'clock
Speaker 1: in the morning might be a cow loose in the
Speaker 1: road or car hitting the deer. To say that someone
Speaker 1: just randomly stopped at this house probably not likely. Someone
Speaker 1: in Turner County probably knows who did this. I'm reading
Speaker 1: from in August two thousand five item on the website
Speaker 1: for w a LB TV, and it says ex Ashburn
Speaker 1: cop KINMA deputy arrested in East Georgia. And it goes
Speaker 1: on to say a suspect in an unsolved Turner County
Speaker 1: triple homicide is arrested for rape near Savannah, and that
Speaker 1: is referencing then thirty one year old Jason Walker. What
Speaker 1: do we know about Jason Walker? The answer that I
Speaker 1: got when I was looking into this, you know, several
Speaker 1: years ago, was that they didn't find any evidence to
Speaker 1: indicate that he had anything to do with it. You know,
Speaker 1: I know that that he was one of the individuals
Speaker 1: that that they looked at. And I do recall that
Speaker 1: story now that you mentioned it, but I think you know,
Speaker 1: at least to this point, he had been ruled out.
Speaker 1: How far along in her pregnancy was Melissa Wideman at
Speaker 1: the time she was murdered, You know, she was eight
Speaker 1: months pregnant, so I mean she was she was due
Speaker 1: to have that child very soon weeks after this happened.
Speaker 1: She would have had a child in Tommy, Joe and
Speaker 1: Deva would have been grandparents. Do we know or has
Speaker 1: it ever been released who the father of the baby
Speaker 1: was That I don't know. The news article references him
Speaker 1: as a person of interest. Quote in a March two
Speaker 1: thousand two Triple Hannaside and Turner County. He's a former
Speaker 1: Ashburn policeman and Turner County sheriff's deputy. It says Walker's
Speaker 1: former girlfriend Melissa Whiderman, who was pregnant and her parents,
Speaker 1: Tommy Joe and Deborah, were murdered in their home. There's
Speaker 1: been some persons of interest that have come up, but
Speaker 1: that's just in terms of investigators interviewing these individuals who
Speaker 1: either knew the Widerman's or you know, in some way
Speaker 1: connected to them. I reached out to both sides of
Speaker 1: the family. I called. I tried to reach out to
Speaker 1: the Whiteman's side, Tommy Joe's family. I didn't hear anything
Speaker 1: back from them. The only family member that I have
Speaker 1: been able to contact and you know, speak to me
Speaker 1: on this was we had to censor this name for
Speaker 1: privacy reasons. It will be mentioned just like this a
Speaker 1: few more times in the series, but we'll explain more later.
Speaker 1: In the fifteen years since the Widemand murders occurred. There's
Speaker 1: been lots of things that have been discussed in the media,
Speaker 1: lots of interviews, but the Wideman side of the family
Speaker 1: has for the most part stayed silent. However, one name
Speaker 1: from the other side of the family has come up,
Speaker 1: and it's come up several times based on what I
Speaker 1: could find in the mainstream media. There's only been one
Speaker 1: widely suggested person of interest in this case, and that
Speaker 1: is Jason Walker. But after fifteen years, law enforcement hasn't
Speaker 1: been able to find anything linking Jason Walker to the
Speaker 1: Widemand murders. So the question is, did Jason Walker have
Speaker 1: something to do with this and cover his track or
Speaker 1: could there be someone else out there that is responsible
Speaker 1: for the Wideman's murders other than the Georgia Bureau of
Speaker 1: Investigation or the g b I. The Turner County Sheriff's
Speaker 1: Office is the law enforcement agency otherwise responsible for investigating
Speaker 1: the Wideman case. But here's the thing about the Turner
Speaker 1: County Sheriff's Office. Since the Wideman's were murdered, there's been
Speaker 1: four different sheriffs holding office in that county, and that's
Speaker 1: really unusual because especially in South Georgia. Once an incumbent
Speaker 1: sheriff takes office, they generally don't lose elections unless something happens.
Speaker 1: So I want to give you a rundown of who
Speaker 1: the four sheriffs were and then go back and give
Speaker 1: you some details that I found to be fascinating. In
Speaker 1: two thousand and two, when the Wideman's were murdered, the
Speaker 1: sheriff was a man named Randy Kendrick. Sheriff Kendrick held
Speaker 1: office until two thousand and eight, when he lost his
Speaker 1: re election bid to a man named Roy Wiley. Roy
Speaker 1: Wiley was at that time the chief of police in
Speaker 1: a small town called Sycamore, Georgia. Sheriff Wiley took office
Speaker 1: on January one, two thousand nine. Barely halfway through his term,
Speaker 1: Sheriff Wiley resigned from office and later pled guilty to
Speaker 1: the felony criminal offense of violating his oath of office.
Speaker 1: This had to do with tampering with evidence, specifically about
Speaker 1: marijuana that he removed from the evidence locker and gave
Speaker 1: a way to somebody that brings us to the third
Speaker 1: sheriff since two thousand and two. That person's name was
Speaker 1: Charles Dean. He had been Sheriff Wiley's chief deputy. He
Speaker 1: was appointed by the probate judge to be the acting
Speaker 1: sheriff until current Sheriff Andy Hester could be re elected
Speaker 1: in a special election to fill the remaining term of
Speaker 1: Sheriff Wiley. So I wanted to go back and take
Speaker 1: a closer look at the campaign where Sheriff Kendrick lost
Speaker 1: to Sheriff Wiley. In a July thirty one, two thousand
Speaker 1: and eight media report from w a LB News in Albany, Georgia,
Speaker 1: Roy Wiley says he's unhappy with the way the Sheriff's
Speaker 1: department has been handled, specifically referencing their budget. And here's
Speaker 1: the thing. He says he wants to reopen unsolved death cases.
Speaker 1: So did Sheriff Kendrick lose his office because the Wideman
Speaker 1: murders hadn't been solved? It sure looks that way, because
Speaker 1: to my knowledge, there weren't any other unsolved death cases
Speaker 1: pending in July of two thousand and eight, certainly none
Speaker 1: as high profile or well known as the Wideman murders.
Speaker 1: And according to the Tifton Gazette in December of two
Speaker 1: thousand five, Sheriff Kendrick said that officials had recently met
Speaker 1: at the gb I office in Perry to take another
Speaker 1: cohesive look at the murders of the Wideman family. But
Speaker 1: listen to this very interesting direct quote. Sheriff Kendrick said,
Speaker 1: as the investigation has never stopped, but I want them
Speaker 1: to concentrate on it more than they have been doing.
Speaker 1: They can take the case and look into it some
Speaker 1: more and follow up on some things. So it appears
Speaker 1: that Sheriff Kendrick is being somewhat critical himself of the
Speaker 1: g b I. There were two more very interesting quotes
Speaker 1: by Sheriff Kendrick. Quote. They agreed that even though the
Speaker 1: case is still being worked, an increased concentration is needed.
Speaker 1: I wanted to regroup everybody and put a good, steady
Speaker 1: pace to it and to look at things from a
Speaker 1: different angle. So this makes it clear to me that
Speaker 1: in two thousand and five, Sheriff Kendrick really did want
Speaker 1: this investigation to move forward. He really did want the
Speaker 1: g b I to work harder. He was pushing for
Speaker 1: the Wideman case to be solved. I've been in law
Speaker 1: enforcement for thirty nine years. I've been the elected chaff
Speaker 1: for almost twenty five. I've been very fortunate to have
Speaker 1: a career centered here in northeast Georgia. I reached out
Speaker 1: to my friend share Scott Berry be elected sheriff of
Speaker 1: o'coney County, Georgia, just outside of Athens, Georgia. Sheriff is
Speaker 1: a constitutional officer that's elected in each of the counties
Speaker 1: in Georgia. The sheriff is the chief law enforce from
Speaker 1: Officer Beach Lives counties. Even though there are counties that
Speaker 1: chose to fund a county police department and give that
Speaker 1: agency the primary investigative jurisdiction, and there's about a dozen
Speaker 1: in the state of Georgia, mostly in metro areas. There's
Speaker 1: very few in rural Georgia anymore. If you're the perpetator
Speaker 1: of crime, I think they view arson as a destruction
Speaker 1: of any trace evidence or any or maybe even a body,
Speaker 1: or maybe even a gun or whatever weapon was used
Speaker 1: in the murder case. They think it may destroy blood
Speaker 1: evidence and things like that that maybe stains in the floor,
Speaker 1: stains in a carpet, So fires can be used to
Speaker 1: destroy those things. It doesn't work all the time, that's
Speaker 1: the thing. A lot of times, a lot of that
Speaker 1: tracing evidence is still there. It may be hard to find.
Speaker 1: You may have to dig to fund it. You may
Speaker 1: have to move a lot of burnwood and furniture out
Speaker 1: and really dig down to the four boards to get
Speaker 1: what you need. But to destroy evidence is a good
Speaker 1: reason for an arson. Burning is rarely, rarely, rarely complete
Speaker 1: as people think it is. It is very unusual for
Speaker 1: particularly a body, for instance, to be burned completely where
Speaker 1: there's nothing left. That fire has to be hot, and
Speaker 1: it has to be hot for a long time, and
Speaker 1: you're not going to find that in a typical house fight.
Speaker 1: You have to have additional accelerance, additional fuel to destroy
Speaker 1: a body for instance. Now, can it destroy some bloodstains
Speaker 1: on a wall, Sure, of course it can. But is
Speaker 1: it going to get rid of all the evidence in
Speaker 1: a murder case. People might think it will, But fire
Speaker 1: is not that good at doing that. No, it can
Speaker 1: be successful in making it difficult or impossible, or to
Speaker 1: destroy evidence that in and of itself won't stop law
Speaker 1: enforcements from solving a crime. Hopefully you've got other leads,
Speaker 1: other informants in the community, other ways you can follow
Speaker 1: to help you still solve the crime. But will it
Speaker 1: destroy physical evidence? Of course it will. You've got to
Speaker 1: get people out to talk to everyone that knows your victim.
Speaker 1: You've got to do a complete victimology. You've got to
Speaker 1: go back into the victim's background. Who are their friends,
Speaker 1: who are their enemies, who are their cousins, who just
Speaker 1: got out of prison. You've got to start with a
Speaker 1: real big circle and work that circle inward, and usually
Speaker 1: statistics will bear out that usually a murder victim knows
Speaker 1: the murder. So you've got to look first off at
Speaker 1: everyone that knows knows your victims. Once you get your
Speaker 1: victims identified, you've got to start looking at everyone they
Speaker 1: have contact with, everyone that may have a reason or
Speaker 1: may have fabricated a reason to commit a murder case,
Speaker 1: and you work outwards from there. You've got to start somewhere.
Speaker 1: Those first few hours of talking to people, when you
Speaker 1: can get them when they're emotional, when you can get
Speaker 1: them when they're willing to talk to you, are so
Speaker 1: vitally important in a case like that. I asked him
Speaker 1: about how important it was to establish a motive in
Speaker 1: a crime like this. Ultimately, you want that motive to
Speaker 1: show a jury why this person was murdered. A jury
Speaker 1: of ordinary people sitting there in a jury box hearing
Speaker 1: only what evidence they're allowed to hear. They want to
Speaker 1: know why this happened. They want to know the under
Speaker 1: underlying reason for that crime. And ultimately, although it is
Speaker 1: not an element of the crime, and you're right, we
Speaker 1: don't have to prove motive, it is good when we
Speaker 1: can prove motive. Not only does it help you work
Speaker 1: towards suspects, but a jury he wants that information. The
Speaker 1: jury that doesn't have a motive is gonna sit back
Speaker 1: in that jury room and you're gonna have a hard
Speaker 1: time getting a conviction. You want to be able to
Speaker 1: put your suspect in the area of the victim at
Speaker 1: the time of the crime. There's so many different ways
Speaker 1: to do that. Now with technology. You can do it
Speaker 1: with the phone, you can do it with surveillance cameras,
Speaker 1: and you do with our witnesses. In a small town
Speaker 1: like the town I live in, people know each other.
Speaker 1: People will recognize somebody's truck, somebody's car, particularly when you
Speaker 1: live in a rural area. I mean, everybody knows what
Speaker 1: everybody else drives. They know when a car doesn't belong
Speaker 1: down there. So but you've got to get that information early.
Speaker 1: If you can't wait ten years to get that information,
Speaker 1: you want that information while it's fresh, while it's actionable,
Speaker 1: and while there's something you can do with it. I
Speaker 1: asked him how he felt about dealing with outside agencies
Speaker 1: during his investigations. Was it helpful or was it more
Speaker 1: detrimental to the case. I've got a lot of feelings
Speaker 1: about bringing in outside agencies. Sometimes you really do need
Speaker 1: to bring in an outside agency. But if you're gonna
Speaker 1: bring in an outside agency, in my opinion, in my
Speaker 1: agency where I work in my sheriff's office, you've got
Speaker 1: to have a very specific mission for them bringing in
Speaker 1: an outside agency, so you have more people drinking coffee
Speaker 1: saying now what we do isn't going to help anybody.
Speaker 1: They've got to have a very specific mission. As a
Speaker 1: law enforcement leader, as the sheriff, I want them to
Speaker 1: have a very specific mission. Don't turn over anything to them.
Speaker 1: We have something for them to do. We don't turn
Speaker 1: over the responsibility for actively work in that case to
Speaker 1: another agency. Another agency comes in to assist us, if
Speaker 1: there's nothing for them to assist us doing, then we
Speaker 1: don't need them there. We take responsibility for our cases
Speaker 1: I'm the sheriff of Olconi County. I was elected to
Speaker 1: work these cases. I was elected to keep the people safe.
Speaker 1: It's my constitutional duty, it's my responsibility, and I don't
Speaker 1: delegate that to any other agency. I never turn a
Speaker 1: case over to another agency. I never will, never have,
Speaker 1: and that's just not gonna happen. I have a hard
Speaker 1: time even thinking of a reason why somebody would do that. Obviously,
Speaker 1: if you have a case, if a sheriff is given
Speaker 1: a case that involves a county commissioner or someone they
Speaker 1: have to do business with a regular basis, they may
Speaker 1: turn that over to another agency. There may be some
Speaker 1: other political reason why you want to turn a case over.
Speaker 1: If you don't think it's solvable, or and you want
Speaker 1: to have somebody to shift the blame to. You can
Speaker 1: all say listen, I call the g b I. They
Speaker 1: can't solve a case either, and that gives a chief
Speaker 1: or share of some political cover. I can see circumstances
Speaker 1: where you'd have a parallel investigation with the g B.
Speaker 1: I I'd have to be faced with that circumstance, but
Speaker 1: I would take the lead in that investigation, would be
Speaker 1: responsible for that investigation. I might with the g b
Speaker 1: I come in and help me with that. But again,
Speaker 1: a case like that in my county, I think that
Speaker 1: we would be more likely to solve it than the
Speaker 1: g b I would because we know the people that
Speaker 1: live here. I have ninety five employees. At least one
Speaker 1: of them knows the victim. It would be impossible for
Speaker 1: me to have a case like that where no one
Speaker 1: that worked for me didn't know any of the victims
Speaker 1: or their family. You bring the g b I in
Speaker 1: for a very specific reason, and not to hand them
Speaker 1: the case file. Traditionally, a lot of people that are
Speaker 1: talked to a deputy shaff or to the sheriff someone
Speaker 1: they know, won't talk to somebody they don't know. Won't
Speaker 1: talk to somebody that flashes the state badge or a
Speaker 1: federal badge. Some people are just funny about who they
Speaker 1: talked to, and they want to talk to their sheriff.
Speaker 1: They know the sheriff, They elected the sheriff, maybe they
Speaker 1: ran against them, maybe they voted against him, but they
Speaker 1: still know him, and they're gonna talk to one of
Speaker 1: these local deputies as from one of these local peace
Speaker 1: officers who live in that county who they see at church.
Speaker 1: Who they see at the grocery store, they're gonna want
Speaker 1: to talk to them, not an employee from somewhere else.
Speaker 1: I have ninety five total employees, and I think the
Speaker 1: gb I has about a hundred and fifty hundred, sixty
Speaker 1: hundred seventy agents that are working statewide. Now that doesn't
Speaker 1: include support staff, their g c I s, their computer people,
Speaker 1: doesn't include a lot of things. But that includes agents.
Speaker 1: I don't think they have any more than that. If
Speaker 1: they have any more than that, and it's just not
Speaker 1: a big agency, they don't have a lot of people
Speaker 1: to throw it a problem. Okay, So if you're a
Speaker 1: local sheriff and you don't have a especially trained arson
Speaker 1: investigator either in your office or in your local fire department,
Speaker 1: you'd bring in the fire marshal for that service. Correct, Yes,
Speaker 1: we bring in the state fire marshal for that. Why
Speaker 1: wouldn't you bring in the gb I to do an
Speaker 1: arson investigation? The state Fire Marshal is equipped and trained
Speaker 1: to do this. He can come to the scene and
Speaker 1: you know rather instantly whether or not you've got an
Speaker 1: arson or not. They're good at it. The work they've
Speaker 1: done for us is phenomenal. It's quick, it's efficient, they
Speaker 1: show up, they do what they need to do, and
Speaker 1: we've been really pleased with the services we get from
Speaker 1: the state Fire Marshal. Again, there aren't many of them either,
Speaker 1: but we're lucky to be able to get one pretty quickly. Now,
Speaker 1: if we determine we have an arsen, we would make
Speaker 1: the decision at that point whether we want the gb
Speaker 1: I crime scene people to come collect evidence to prove
Speaker 1: the arson. Again, we're talking about a very specific mission
Speaker 1: for the g b I. I'm not picked just picking
Speaker 1: up this is any kind of outside agency. Again, I
Speaker 1: accepted the responsibility when I put my name on the
Speaker 1: ballot to be the sheriff of Oakony, Kim and with
Speaker 1: that came the duty and the authority and the responsibility
Speaker 1: for me to take these cases to their life coal conclusion.
Speaker 1: I can ask for help for the FBI, the GBI,
Speaker 1: the state Patrol, the game Warden, the fire Marshal, the
Speaker 1: corner the medical examiner, the Department Corrections. I could ask
Speaker 1: for help from any number of our state partners, but
Speaker 1: I never relinquish a case that belongs to the old
Speaker 1: County County Sheriff's office. I would definitely need the assistance
Speaker 1: to work a crime scene where you have a homicide,
Speaker 1: There's no question in my mind, I would definitely need
Speaker 1: somebody to come in and help me work that crime scene.
Speaker 1: I'm fortunate now that I have my own crime scene tech.
Speaker 1: But the g b I has always done a great
Speaker 1: job working crime scenes, and they've done it all over
Speaker 1: the state of Georgia, and they've done it for me
Speaker 1: many times. That's the value of working the crime scene.
Speaker 1: You only get one chance to do it right, and
Speaker 1: you want to make sure when you do it, you
Speaker 1: do it right. The local agency, the local deputies of
Speaker 1: local police, they know their community. They most of them
Speaker 1: probably grew up there. They know somebody that knows the victims,
Speaker 1: they know somebody that may know the suspect. And people
Speaker 1: are willing to talk to people they know and trust,
Speaker 1: where they're just not gonna talk to outsiders that come in.
Speaker 1: You know they're gonna stay for a few days and
Speaker 1: then drive off and wave again onto their next big case.
Speaker 1: There's a lot of different ways you can work that case,
Speaker 1: but you don't quit. That's what you don't do. You
Speaker 1: don't quit. You want to get that case. You get
Speaker 1: it back out. You look at it and get a
Speaker 1: fresh settlevi eyes on it, look at that evidence, all
Speaker 1: that evidence in a new light, and go back and
Speaker 1: do those interviews again. Go back and find out, Hey,
Speaker 1: you know, we tried to talk to this guy three
Speaker 1: tons and know what ever actually talked to him. Well,
Speaker 1: let's go talk to him. There's gonna be something in
Speaker 1: that case file that's been missed, and you've got to
Speaker 1: go back and follow up on that, because they might
Speaker 1: not call you with what they were told a year ago,
Speaker 1: but if you go and ask them, they might tell
Speaker 1: you they heard something at the beauty parlor in a
Speaker 1: year ago that might help you solve that cutty thank
Speaker 1: you wearing which table? Okay? Walker's Barbecue Pet is a long,
Speaker 1: narrow barbecue joint in Sycamore, Georgia, right off the railroad tracks.
Speaker 1: We visited after lunchtime. There was no one inside, but
Speaker 1: the TV in the corner played an old black and
Speaker 1: white film. A man named Frosty greeted us, I don't
Speaker 1: know what I'm Earlier in the week, I'd called Frosty
Speaker 1: to ask if we could speak to him. Been told
Speaker 1: he was a local and a family friend that might
Speaker 1: be willing to talk to us about the case I
Speaker 1: might happen if there were none Once frosting, this is
Speaker 1: what was barbeque was sitting more Georgian and I was
Speaker 1: born raised him. I've been knowing he's a new devil
Speaker 1: of all her life. She drew up. We lived next ord.
Speaker 1: These little they've been knowing Tom Joe since he's part
Speaker 1: of six team, and I knew what's the understand the
Speaker 1: daughter Melissa, Melissa all her life we had a place
Speaker 1: in Firdam that they had a place of Firndon. She
Speaker 1: always come over and see was we've been knowing. We're
Speaker 1: really good friends. And that's base. I want to tell
Speaker 1: you that was well, h I mean, they were real
Speaker 1: friend they'd like to go out and eat and go
Speaker 1: to parties and stuff like that. That was while on
Speaker 1: means and to go to Ferndon. Fernandina Beach is in
Speaker 1: Florida where Tommy Joe Wideman's mother had a house. That's
Speaker 1: where she was the night they were killed. Was that
Speaker 1: inside cooking that part of four or five o'clock in
Speaker 1: the morning. And my wife was real with their friends
Speaker 1: with Tommy Joe. She's passed away and she called me
Speaker 1: and she would really, I said, I think I said
Speaker 1: the whole everybody and then not finding night who done it?
Speaker 1: Why It's hard to believe somebody was just coming by
Speaker 1: and done that. Whoever done it had it planning and
Speaker 1: for some reason, I do not know. People told about
Speaker 1: all the time. They ain't went away at all. I
Speaker 1: mean he might go a month from not hearing it.
Speaker 1: You hit it's more but Frost, he said, conflicted with
Speaker 1: what we've been told at the Wiregrass. It seemed that
Speaker 1: some portion of the town may have wanted to move
Speaker 1: on from the tragedy, but others simply couldn't let it go.
Speaker 1: We talked to the sriff, all three sure about it.
Speaker 1: They've been three sure since it's happened. They don't say much,
Speaker 1: they said, I don't know, We're weren't on. We all
Speaker 1: know no more than what we do. Devil's family has
Speaker 1: been trying hard to find out. There's no telling how
Speaker 1: much money it's been, trying to find hard vasticators, going
Speaker 1: around talking to people like Yah, Horror, that's a person
Speaker 1: you need to talk to. He told us that he's
Speaker 1: still alive and last he knew living in Fitzgerald. He
Speaker 1: has tried hard, he can tell he part of sitting
Speaker 1: and talking to you for two of their hours. We
Speaker 1: then asked Frosty about the family members alive on the
Speaker 1: Wyman's side. His problem. His wife Dan Wyman seesusly were
Speaker 1: opened random mine. I don't know charge him? Were that good?
Speaker 1: And there's a nephew and now few he's referring to
Speaker 1: is Charles Henry Wideman, also known as Chip. His father
Speaker 1: was Tommy Joe's brother. Somebody somebody done it. One person,
Speaker 1: three people pour. We tried reaching out to Chip but
Speaker 1: got no answer. Next time, Solar players in other one
Speaker 1: county get bowled off in turn of County get killed off.
Speaker 1: We've learned a lot about how this case appeared in
Speaker 1: the public eye, and we've learned a little bit about
Speaker 1: how it was handled. And more than one person has
Speaker 1: told us that the scene seemed to have been cleared
Speaker 1: very quickly. We'll continue our investigation by getting to the
Speaker 1: center of local Turner County law enforcement. We'll also talk
Speaker 1: to someone that, besides the g B, I may know
Speaker 1: this case the best. Next time on Soorn