Speaker 1: School of Humans.
Speaker 2: We're in Sabine County, Texas, walking around the area where
Speaker 2: Doug Janis was murdered. All I can think about is
Speaker 2: a passage from Bob Thompson's book, the part where he
Speaker 2: was talking about the wildlife that hide in these woods.
Speaker 2: Bob said that the Fish and Game Department released a
Speaker 2: couple thousand rattlesnakes back into the wild in Sabine County,
Speaker 2: apparently to control the rodent population. That was a while ago,
Speaker 2: but presumably they're still out there. One of Doug's neighbors
Speaker 2: lived in a house on a nearby property, but he
Speaker 2: has since passed away. The house is abandoned, and there's
Speaker 2: a porch with a really good view. The wood looks
Speaker 2: like it might be rotten, but I decide to give
Speaker 2: it a shot anyway. I climb up on a ladder
Speaker 2: and from here we have a clear view of Doug's houseboat,
Speaker 2: the one that burned to the ground. We've talked a
Speaker 2: lot about April and Doug's relationship, the one that went
Speaker 2: on for years and was very intense and complicated. But
Speaker 2: what I wonder is, if April did kill Doug, why
Speaker 2: did she choose that day? December thirteenth, twenty twenty. What
Speaker 2: was her motive? What happened? I think that solving Doug
Speaker 2: Janis's murder starts with figuring out what really happened to
Speaker 2: April's mother, Anna Thompson on the night she was fatally
Speaker 2: shot in the early morning hours of September fourth, two
Speaker 2: thousand and four, the night when April went to the races,
Speaker 2: and the night when Anna told her friend Yvonne that
Speaker 2: she had found out that April was being molested by
Speaker 2: Doug Janis. Last week we heard from April's father, Bob,
Speaker 2: who gave his version of what happened on the night
Speaker 2: his wife was fatally shot. Yvonne has a very different
Speaker 2: version of what she says went down that night.
Speaker 3: I have, you know, conversations I had with Anna. Let
Speaker 3: me write up to the day, you know, and she
Speaker 3: was that night than wee hours of the morning. He
Speaker 3: came over and begged us to take her and watch
Speaker 3: her because he was so tired and he needed sleep,
Speaker 3: and that he was afraid to go to sleep around her.
Speaker 3: Were called over there the night she was killed, and
Speaker 3: after like that was a setup itself. You know, maybe
Speaker 3: what I should do is just tell you in the
Speaker 3: very get go here that I believe that there were
Speaker 3: several people involved in all of this, and I believe
Speaker 3: that it all had to do with April. I believe
Speaker 3: she was being I know, to being molested, and I
Speaker 3: believe she might have been being trafficked by people with
Speaker 3: prominent positions in that town, and that Anna was pretty
Speaker 3: much taken out because she was probably gonna blow the
Speaker 3: lid off of it. And I think Bob knows.
Speaker 2: I'm Catherine Townsend. Over the past five years of making
Speaker 2: my true crime podcast, Helen Gone, I have learned that
Speaker 2: there is no such thing as a small where murder
Speaker 2: never happens. I have received hundreds of messages from people
Speaker 2: all around the country asking for help with an unsolved
Speaker 2: murder that's affected them, their families, and their communities. If
Speaker 2: you have a case you'd like me and my team
Speaker 2: to look into, you can reach out to us at
Speaker 2: our Helen Gone Murder Line at six seven eight seven
Speaker 2: four four six one four five. That's six seven eight
Speaker 2: seven four four six one four five, or you can
Speaker 2: send us a message on Instagram at Helen Gonepod. This
Speaker 2: is Helen Gone Murder Line. Before we get to the
Speaker 2: night of Anna's death. We have to go way back
Speaker 2: back to when Yvonne first met Bob and Anna in April.
Speaker 2: Yvonne said she was not originally from Sabine County, but
Speaker 2: when she lived there she got to know Bob, Anna
Speaker 2: and April well. She said that Anna was around forty
Speaker 2: when Yvonne first met her. We know that Bob was
Speaker 2: much older than his wife, so by that time he
Speaker 2: would have been in his mid sixties. Yvonne said that
Speaker 2: to her, Anna seemed childlike with very little experience of
Speaker 2: the world, and that her daughter April was the same way.
Speaker 2: Yvonne said that Anna and April seemed very close.
Speaker 3: You know that she definitely didn't get out much at all,
Speaker 3: I mean her whole life. Okay, So that's just very naive, gullible. Okay,
Speaker 3: that's the way. And I know for a fact that
Speaker 3: because of how long ago that was, and that myself
Speaker 3: I even felt like it was gullible and naive in
Speaker 3: that part of the world, in that town, in that scenario,
Speaker 3: like the things that happened there, I never would have
Speaker 3: dreamt could have happened in America, And at that date,
Speaker 3: I just it blows my mind still does. So I'm
Speaker 3: just saying that she was just naive to the way
Speaker 3: the world. I don't think she's ever had a job.
Speaker 3: I don't think she had ever I don't know how
Speaker 3: long I'm trying to remember how long they had been married.
Speaker 3: But it was almost as if he was like her father.
Speaker 3: That's the way it seemed to me, you know, the
Speaker 3: way their relationship was.
Speaker 2: Yvonne said that from the beginning she was uncomfortable with Bob.
Speaker 2: Though he was friendly, she said he would make very
Speaker 2: sexually explicit comments in front of her and her partner
Speaker 2: at the time. She and her partner, Jay, agreed Bob
Speaker 2: was creepy and they didn't want to make a habit
Speaker 2: of socializing with him.
Speaker 3: There was just some weird comments. My fiance and myself
Speaker 3: we both agreed not to go back. That we didn't
Speaker 3: really want to go back over there for dinner or anything,
Speaker 3: and we were going to start trying to put distance,
Speaker 3: you know, we didn't want to because of the weird conversations,
Speaker 3: like there were sexual eu windows made about a lot
Speaker 3: of different things that were unnecessary, and it made myself
Speaker 3: and him feel very uncomfortable. Although Anna would start laughing
Speaker 3: and he would start laughing, and they would also make
Speaker 3: these comments in front of their daughter, who was twelve
Speaker 3: at the time, which is April. Yeah, and so we're like,
Speaker 3: oh my gosh, what are they did. It was just strange.
Speaker 3: She's not your normal child. She just wasn't because I
Speaker 3: felt like she was just saying she was twelve years old,
Speaker 3: but she was so isolated, just like her mother, very
Speaker 3: isolated there with just Bob. And that's how I felt.
Speaker 3: And even though she went to school, they immediately started
Speaker 3: telling us how the kids are mean to her.
Speaker 2: Yvonne seemed to pick up on the same thing that
Speaker 2: I did. Bob seemed to be playing the victim in
Speaker 2: his book, blaming everything in his life on outsiders. But
Speaker 2: Yvonne said that at the time, Bob and Anna seemed
Speaker 2: to have a solid relationship, and so did April and
Speaker 2: her mother.
Speaker 3: They were together all the time. It was almost as if,
Speaker 3: like I said, like they were friends because I feel
Speaker 3: like they were both isolated, and so they played together.
Speaker 3: They and Anna was so April was the only kid.
Speaker 3: It's like she was out there, the old one armed
Speaker 3: geezer for a husband. It's like I think Anna was
Speaker 3: April was her only outlet, you know, of a fun
Speaker 3: and smiling and laughing and having a good time. And
Speaker 3: so I saw them do a lot of things together
Speaker 3: like that, get along really well, giggling, laughing, very childlike
Speaker 3: both of them.
Speaker 2: But that closeness between Anna and April stopped when Doug
Speaker 2: Janis came along. Remember that Doug was married at the
Speaker 2: time to a woman named Terry, but Terry was living
Speaker 2: in Silsby. We reached out to Terry after we were
Speaker 2: talking to some people close to Doug Janie. They suggested
Speaker 2: we give her a call. And even though this involves
Speaker 2: painful memories for her, she clearly cares a lot about
Speaker 2: Doug and wants to see justice done. This is Terry
Speaker 2: telling me how she met Doug.
Speaker 4: I met Doug somewhere in the late seventies or early
Speaker 4: eighties in Silsby, Pardon County, which is about ninety miles
Speaker 4: from Houston. I had gone into the local Farm Bureau
Speaker 4: insurance office to get car insurance and he was the
Speaker 4: person that I talked with first, and he became my
Speaker 4: insurance agent. Back in those days, he was a very
Speaker 4: popular insurance agent, had lots of customers all over Hardin County.
Speaker 4: People liked him, they respected him, He was outgoing and friendly.
Speaker 4: He just kind of always had a smile, was upbeat
Speaker 4: and positive. He was my insurance agent actually for several years,
Speaker 4: and the only time, but the only time I really
Speaker 4: saw him was when I needed to paint something on
Speaker 4: the policy or I had a claim to file, which
Speaker 4: was not often, and when those occasions arose, if I
Speaker 4: went to the local Farm Bureau office. He was always
Speaker 4: polite and professional, very personable, well groomed. And I was
Speaker 4: married to somebody and he was married to someone else,
Speaker 4: So we were both married to other people at the time,
Speaker 4: and we had no personal relationship, but that was initially
Speaker 4: how I met him.
Speaker 2: Terry said that she took a teaching job in Galveston,
Speaker 2: so she moved away from the area. But a few
Speaker 2: years later, in nineteen ninety three, after she moved back
Speaker 2: to Sillsby to help take care of her grandmother, Terry
Speaker 2: ran into Doug again by chance at the local post office.
Speaker 2: By now they were both divorced, and that's when they
Speaker 2: started a relationship.
Speaker 4: He reached out to shake my hands, same as he
Speaker 4: always did when he was my farm Bureau agent, but
Speaker 4: this time he just kind of held my hand a
Speaker 4: little bit longer, you know, and so within the next
Speaker 4: few weeks he began to drop by my grandmother's house.
Speaker 2: Terry said she noticed the same thing that everyone else
Speaker 2: seemed to notice about Doug. He was kind and charming.
Speaker 4: She said.
Speaker 2: She and Doug fell in love and got married, and
Speaker 2: for a long time things were good, but eventually Doug
Speaker 2: and Terry grew apart. What happened is that Doug started
Speaker 2: spending a lot more time in the Toledo Bend Lake area,
Speaker 2: where he had bought his property in himple at the
Speaker 2: end of a dirty cove. At the same time, Terry said,
Speaker 2: their lives were taking them in different directions. Though they
Speaker 2: were around the same age, both in their mid forties,
Speaker 2: they had different life goals. Terry was an educator who
Speaker 2: wanted to continue teaching at a higher level and progress
Speaker 2: her career, while Doug was much more interested in heading
Speaker 2: into retirement, slowing down and spending time on the lake
Speaker 2: and on his houseboat, the same boat he later died on.
Speaker 2: But there was another reason why Doug was spending more
Speaker 2: and more time away from Terry April Janis, who he
Speaker 2: met in two thousand and three. Looking back, Terry said
Speaker 2: there were signs that her husband's relationship with April might
Speaker 2: not have been appropriate, but she said that at the
Speaker 2: time she could not believe that Doug would get involved
Speaker 2: with a teenager.
Speaker 4: Doug had begun to go to their house occasionally. They
Speaker 4: were playing dominoes or playing cards, and on the weekend
Speaker 4: said I was coming up. He wouldn't go over there,
Speaker 4: since I was only their limited time. He was trying
Speaker 4: to safeguard our privacy, so he wouldn't go. But I
Speaker 4: did notice though, that the mobile home park that they
Speaker 4: lived in weren't well kept up. At first, he would
Speaker 4: honk at them as he drove by. He would wave,
Speaker 4: you know, just honking away and keep going. Well, I
Speaker 4: noticed that on the weekends that I was up there,
Speaker 4: that all of a sudden he stopped doing that. And
Speaker 4: one time I honked when I was driving, he says,
Speaker 4: don't fool with those people. Leave those people alone.
Speaker 1: So it's like he began to not want me to
Speaker 1: have contact with them. It took a while for me
Speaker 1: to catch on.
Speaker 2: Terry wasn't the only one. Yvonne and others were noticing
Speaker 2: that Doug appeared to be a little too interested in April.
Speaker 2: Yvonne said that while she was uncomfortable with April's father,
Speaker 2: Bob's comments and generally tried to steer clear of him,
Speaker 2: she felt sorry for Anna. She felt like she was
Speaker 2: Anna's only girlfriend. Yvonne remembers when Anna first told her
Speaker 2: about her concerns about her daughter, April and Doug Janis.
Speaker 3: So her and I we did talk. She did bring
Speaker 3: it up and ask me. She said, do you think
Speaker 3: Doug pays April too much attention when he's around? Because
Speaker 3: there'd been a couple of times when we've been over
Speaker 3: there and he would be there, or he'd pull up
Speaker 3: and just join in. And I told her, yes, I do.
Speaker 3: I said, but you're her mother. I said, you know
Speaker 3: you need to be the one to watch and see.
Speaker 3: I said that. Then she told me a couple of
Speaker 3: things she had said to April, and she said, do
Speaker 3: you think that that's normal for a man of his
Speaker 3: age to say that to a twelve year old girl?
Speaker 3: Because I'm telling you, Anna had no nothing to base
Speaker 3: anything on. So she was asking me, because she was
Speaker 3: so protected, does that make sense? Because she was ungworldly,
Speaker 3: she didn't even know. I guess too, because in a
Speaker 3: way I was trying to make her stand up for
Speaker 3: herself a little bit, like to educate her, like, hey,
Speaker 3: you don't have to put up with this, Like, hey,
Speaker 3: can you have a voice? You know, not realizing though,
Speaker 3: she didn't like, He's not at all that I just
Speaker 3: because I didn't realize the severity of what was going on.
Speaker 2: Yvonne said that her boyfriend Jay told her about something
Speaker 2: that concerned him. He was down at the lake talking
Speaker 2: with a friend of his when he saw April and
Speaker 2: Doug and Bob.
Speaker 3: He said, you know, today I'll walk down. He had
Speaker 3: walked down to the lake and he was going to
Speaker 3: talk to Jimmerson, but he said he saw Doug and
Speaker 3: Bob pulling up in a boat and that April was
Speaker 3: sitting in the back of the boat with Doug all
Speaker 3: snuggled up and Bob at the front of the boat. So,
Speaker 3: you know, he's like, you can't tell me this man.
Speaker 3: You know, That's what Jay's tell me. He's like, you
Speaker 3: can't tell me this man doesn't know that guy's doing
Speaker 3: something with his daughter. He's like, what idiot would not know.
Speaker 2: Yvonne said that she was growing increasingly concerned about April's
Speaker 2: relateationship with Doug, but then something happened something that changed
Speaker 2: everything they thought they knew about Doug Janis. In April,
Speaker 2: one day, Yvonne and Jay were walking in the woods
Speaker 2: and they saw a Doug in the woods. He was
Speaker 2: with a woman, but not with April. Doug was with
Speaker 2: her mother Anna. Yvonne said that she and her boyfriend
Speaker 2: Jay were walking deep in the woods one day when
Speaker 2: they saw Anna and Doug Janie and that they were together.
Speaker 3: Who is that? And because this was pretty much like
Speaker 3: part of our property, you know, so we're like, what's
Speaker 3: going on? Because Anna did not live close enough to
Speaker 3: walk there, like she would have had to have driven
Speaker 3: or somebody brought her there or something. And so we're
Speaker 3: just standing there listening and it's Doug and Anna. And
Speaker 3: by the conversation that we heard, I mean, I can't
Speaker 3: pay the details. At this point, Jay and myself both
Speaker 3: knew that Doug was messing with Anna, that they were
Speaker 3: having an affair. So we're both in shock. We both
Speaker 3: just back out of there as quiet as we can
Speaker 3: and get back to our house.
Speaker 2: After that, Yvaughn said that she and Jay thought maybe
Speaker 2: they had gotten it wrong, maybe Doug was being nice
Speaker 2: to April because he was sexually involved with her mother.
Speaker 3: Then like I said, you know, this is so foreign
Speaker 3: to us. Okay, so we're talking. We're like, well, that
Speaker 3: blows that theory. Apparently he's not messing with April, it's Anna.
Speaker 3: So that's what we're thinking at this point. Never, never
Speaker 3: in a million years, did it dawn on me. He's
Speaker 3: messing with both of them.
Speaker 2: So now this brings us to the night of September third,
Speaker 2: two thousand and four, the night Anna was shot. Anna
Speaker 2: and Bob had allowed April to go to the stock
Speaker 2: car races with a family friend, a prominent man in
Speaker 2: the community named Chester Cox. By the way, when Bob
Speaker 2: Thompson talks about the Butts family in his book, he's
Speaker 2: referring to the Cox family. These were the powerful friends
Speaker 2: of Doug Janis's who he was concerned about.
Speaker 3: So Anna called Von and I said, what's going on?
Speaker 3: And she said, I found a letter between Doug and
Speaker 3: April and he's messing with my daughter. And I was like,
Speaker 3: are you serious And she said yes, and she said
Speaker 3: and that is it. She said, I told him, don't
Speaker 3: you ever come over here again. You will never And
Speaker 3: this is exactly what she told me. Her words, she said,
Speaker 3: I told him over my dead body, will you ever
Speaker 3: see her again? She said, he will not be back
Speaker 3: over here. And I said, Anna, are you talking? Have
Speaker 3: you talked to Bob? She said, he pap won't even
Speaker 3: listen to me. She said, I don't know what's wrong
Speaker 3: with him. And I'm thinking, well, I do, because he
Speaker 3: knows about it, you know. I mean said, I can't
Speaker 3: really say that to her, you know, I'm just trying
Speaker 3: to calm her down. And I'm just like, well, Anna,
Speaker 3: you need to talk to Bob. Y'all need to be
Speaker 3: on the same page. Y'all need to make sure she
Speaker 3: stays away, and you need to talk to Bob. And see,
Speaker 3: what are you gonna do. You're gonna call the police?
Speaker 3: I mean, you've got to tell you you have to
Speaker 3: report this. You can't just not say anything, you know.
Speaker 3: And I said, I was trying to kind of educate her,
Speaker 3: say come and tell her. You know, Anna, if you
Speaker 3: don't say anything, I mean, if she goes and tells
Speaker 3: somebody else about anything, you could be in trouble. Like
Speaker 3: you need to say something, right, And she was like, okay,
Speaker 3: I am, I am, I'm gonna talk to Bob whatever.
Speaker 3: So we get off fun. That's the last conversation I
Speaker 3: had with her.
Speaker 2: On the night when Anna was fatally shot. She told
Speaker 2: Yvonne that she was going to talk to her husband
Speaker 2: about April's relationship with Doug. We know from Bob's description
Speaker 2: of what happened that night that when April came home,
Speaker 2: Anna started screaming at her and all hell broke loose.
Speaker 2: Yvonne said that later, after three am, Bob called their
Speaker 2: house and asked her and Jay to come over. She
Speaker 2: will never forget what happened when she got to that
Speaker 2: house and found Anna covered in blood on the couch.
Speaker 2: In the book, Bob wrote that April had told him
Speaker 2: there was an intruder at the house, but Yvonne insists
Speaker 2: that's not what Bob told her that night. Yvonne said
Speaker 2: that when she and her boyfriend got to the house,
Speaker 2: Bob told her that Anna had accidentally shot herself while
Speaker 2: trying to shoot a raccoon or maybe a possum that
Speaker 2: had been coming up to the door.
Speaker 3: He said that April told him it was an intruguer.
Speaker 3: That's a lie. That's that is not what he told us.
Speaker 3: He said she was trying to shoot a raccoing her possum,
Speaker 3: that they had been they had been coming up to
Speaker 3: that door for a while, and that she was probably
Speaker 3: trying to shoot when she tripped over that cord, shot
Speaker 3: herself and went got on the couch. Yeah, exactly what
Speaker 3: he told me. I mean, I believe you that is
Speaker 3: just not what he and you've read his book, so
Speaker 3: you know, but yeah, that's a lie.
Speaker 4: See.
Speaker 3: Here's something that I've thought about is I don't think
Speaker 3: he had time to think up a story. I think
Speaker 3: he was sleeping when it happened. I don't think he
Speaker 3: had time to think up a story, because that's not
Speaker 3: a story Bob would have thought of. Both a smart
Speaker 3: Bob was not stupid. He was sharp, and so I
Speaker 3: think he would have thought up something better than what
Speaker 3: he said. You see what, well, he obviously did. He
Speaker 3: thought of a different one for the book, and he
Speaker 3: thought of a different one apparently that he told other people,
Speaker 3: because that's not the story he told me. And I
Speaker 3: of course, I'm like freaking out, and I'm just like,
Speaker 3: have you lost your mind? I mean, because I'm still
Speaker 3: not registering that he did this to her, you know,
Speaker 3: or that somebody in that house did. I'm like, are
Speaker 3: you crazy. I said, she didn't go anywhere. I said,
Speaker 3: you think she shot herself and walked back to that
Speaker 3: couch if you lost your freaking mind. I'm just like,
Speaker 3: there is no way. And at that point he said
Speaker 3: me why, I don't know. I had to h and
Speaker 3: he's Sam Will and I'm like, where is April? And
Speaker 3: then April comes walking out of her bedroom and she's
Speaker 3: just kind of walking around like a scared mouth and
Speaker 3: a cold sweat.
Speaker 2: Yvonne began to sense that something was not right at
Speaker 2: that crime scent, that things were being staged, that she
Speaker 2: may have been invited over as some kind of, in
Speaker 2: her words, set up. She noticed something else that was
Speaker 2: very odd, something about April that she said she will
Speaker 2: never forget.
Speaker 3: But the one thing I did notice is she was
Speaker 3: fresh and clean from a shower. Her hair was wet.
Speaker 3: She smelled like soap. And the reason why that sticks
Speaker 3: out in my mind is because most of the time
Speaker 3: April was dirty.
Speaker 2: While April was being held in Lufkin and questioned in
Speaker 2: connection with her mother's death, Bob said that he drove
Speaker 2: down to Texas to find Doug's a strange wife Terry.
Speaker 2: Terry confirmed part of this story She said she remembered
Speaker 2: when Bob reached out to her that she'll never forget
Speaker 2: Bob's trip to find her after April's arrest, because when
Speaker 2: he visited her, he told Terry that Doug was involved
Speaker 2: with his daughter.
Speaker 4: What tipped it off, what absolutely tipped it off, was
Speaker 4: that and I had even I had even visited the
Speaker 4: houseboat and seen a child's drawings on the refrigerator door,
Speaker 4: you know, like you put kids drawings up on your
Speaker 4: refrigerator with a magnet. Well, there were all these kid
Speaker 4: drawings up there. Most of them were horses, but there
Speaker 4: were lots and lots of pictures all over the houseboat,
Speaker 4: you know, like on the refrigerator, hanging on the walls.
Speaker 4: And I said, I asked him, I said, where all
Speaker 4: these pictures come from? And he said, oh, they're from
Speaker 4: They're from the April had gave them to me when
Speaker 4: I was over at their house. So I still didn't
Speaker 4: put two and two together.
Speaker 1: I didn't think that, Okay, there's something really creepy about this.
Speaker 1: I just thought, Okay, it's a kid, the kid drawing
Speaker 1: pictures and giving them to somebody. What's creepy about that?
Speaker 2: Right? You know?
Speaker 4: So and you know, I knew that he went down
Speaker 4: there when her parents were there, and you know, Bob
Speaker 4: and Anna they were they were.
Speaker 1: Present, and so that didn't seem, you know, anything.
Speaker 4: Out of the ordinary. But what did.
Speaker 1: Happen was that, uh, And I wish I knew the
Speaker 1: time that this had happened, of the timeline on it.
Speaker 1: But Bob Thompson drove from him Hill to Silsby and
Speaker 1: he went into the newspaper office where I used to work,
Speaker 1: and he asked for me.
Speaker 4: He remembered that I used to work for the newspaper there.
Speaker 4: I had been a reporter. Nobody believed anything, he says. Initially,
Speaker 4: like all women who are confronted with information like this, well,
Speaker 4: I didn't want to believe it, and in fact I
Speaker 4: didn't believe it. Initially I thought because it sounded plausible.
Speaker 4: I've seen where these people live, I knew kind of
Speaker 4: a little bit about him.
Speaker 1: I thought, yeah, maybe that's that's plausible. But little by
Speaker 1: little things kept surfacing to confirm that it was true.
Speaker 1: Initially I just held on to the unbelief about it. No,
Speaker 1: this is not really this is somebody's mixed up on
Speaker 1: what they're thinking. Nobody would want a person that they
Speaker 1: love and that they are have loved to be.
Speaker 4: Capable of such things, you don't want them to be,
Speaker 4: and you just you don't want to even admit that
Speaker 4: it's a possibility, that it's true, and you're hoping to
Speaker 4: God it's not.
Speaker 2: Terry and Doug divorced in two thousand and six. About
Speaker 2: a year later, she moved out of Texas to Colorado,
Speaker 2: but Terry said even after that she and Doug were close.
Speaker 2: The last time that Terry talked to Doug was a
Speaker 2: few days before he married April.
Speaker 1: I thought, okay, I'll use my I'll use my best
Speaker 1: educator skills and talk to this little girl and you know,
Speaker 1: help her to see some reality here. Well, he wouldn't
Speaker 1: let me talk to her. He wouldn't allow me to
Speaker 1: talk to her. He no, no, you don't talk to her.
Speaker 1: So they hung up, that she calls right back again,
Speaker 1: and so that's when I began to suspect there's something
Speaker 1: really going on here. There's something really happening, and there's
Speaker 1: something really going on. The realization really began to hit me.
Speaker 4: But he would not. He always denied that there was
Speaker 4: anything going on that shouldn't have been going on, you know,
Speaker 4: and this was I'd say right up until December of
Speaker 4: two thousand and.
Speaker 1: Eight that you know, here.
Speaker 4: They run off together to go get married after her birthday.
Speaker 2: Doug in April married in December of two thousand and eight,
Speaker 2: on or right after April's eighteenth birthday. Terry said that
Speaker 2: this move blindsided her, that she was shocked.
Speaker 4: I really couldn't believe that he married her. He and
Speaker 4: I had been either talking by phone or emailing, and.
Speaker 1: He gave no indication that he was about to get married.
Speaker 4: I had to wonder if he did it on the
Speaker 4: spur of the moment, if it was poor planning or
Speaker 4: no planning, or if it was something that had been
Speaker 4: in the works. I couldn't imagine why he would marry
Speaker 4: a girl who was eighteen, because that's a lot of
Speaker 4: responsibility for a man that's heading into retirement. I thought, Okay,
Speaker 4: she's gonna end up wanting children, you know. And I
Speaker 4: didn't think that that was something that he wanted. That
Speaker 4: he wouldn't have wanted that responsibility. He wouldn't have wanted
Speaker 4: to raise another family.
Speaker 2: After Anna's death, Bob claimed that he reported April and
Speaker 2: Doug's relationship to police, but he says that he was
Speaker 2: shut down. This is a theme that comes up over
Speaker 2: and over a lot of times we hear about conspiracy
Speaker 2: theories and how scared people are to report things to
Speaker 2: local law enforcement. And sometimes people do have overactive imaginations.
Speaker 2: But on the other hand, paranoid people are not always wrong.
Speaker 2: Don't get me wrong. I still think that, given everything
Speaker 2: we know about Bob and about Doug Janie, that Bob,
Speaker 2: in my opinion, did not do enough to protect his daughter.
Speaker 2: But I also wonder if both things could have been true,
Speaker 2: if Bob could have been willfully clueless, but also if
Speaker 2: there were people in power, specifically men in power who
Speaker 2: knew that April Janis was being abused and did nothing
Speaker 2: about it. A lot of people were wondering the same
Speaker 2: thing after Doug Janis was murdered. They wondered if men
Speaker 2: in power in Sabine County knew April was being abused
Speaker 2: and did nothing about it. April was arrested, charged, given
Speaker 2: a ten million dollar bond, and then released. Why was
Speaker 2: she released? Maybe it was because there wasn't enough evidence,
Speaker 2: but a lot of people close to the case wonder
Speaker 2: could it have been something else. We talked to someone
Speaker 2: who grew up with April, someone who said that people
Speaker 2: in power will never charge April with Doug's murder. This
Speaker 2: person believes it's because April, in their words, knows too much,
Speaker 2: and that the police department in Sabine County have a
Speaker 2: law under themselves so much so they say that the
Speaker 2: county is broke after dealing with sexual assault claims. We
Speaker 2: took a look into court records and I want to
Speaker 2: take a minute to talk about a case Tyson versus
Speaker 2: Sabine County because it is shocking and it makes me
Speaker 2: understand why people there, especially women, could be terrified to
Speaker 2: report anything. It started back on September eighteenth, twenty eighteen,
Speaker 2: when a man named Wade Tyson called the Sheriff's department
Speaker 2: in Sabine County to request a welfare check on his wife, Melissa.
Speaker 2: Wade said he was out of town, his wife was
Speaker 2: home alone and distressed. Deputy David Boyd called Waite and
Speaker 2: told him he would go over to their home and
Speaker 2: do a welfare check. So Deputy Boyd went to their house.
Speaker 2: Melissa was home alone. She answered the door and he
Speaker 2: introduced himself as a sheriff and quote told her that
Speaker 2: he handled welfare checks because he was a preacher.
Speaker 4: End quote.
Speaker 2: That day, Deputy Boyd told other officers not to respond
Speaker 2: to Wade's request. He said that he would be handling
Speaker 2: that call personally. Deputy Boyd left the house after the
Speaker 2: welfare check, but the next morning he showed up again
Speaker 2: alone at the Tyson home. Again, Melissa was home alone.
Speaker 2: This time, Deputy Boyd wasn't in a police cruiser, just
Speaker 2: a plain vehicle, but he was wearing a shirt identifying
Speaker 2: himself as a sheriff. Melissa reached out to shake his hand,
Speaker 2: but Deputy Boyd hugged her and asked if there was
Speaker 2: a place where they could talk privately, so they went
Speaker 2: out to a side porch. During this time, Deputy Boyd
Speaker 2: asked if she had security cameras or neighbors. She said no,
Speaker 2: no can and her neighbors were usually not home. Then
Speaker 2: he made a comment about her being lonely because her
Speaker 2: husband was gone and because she lived all the way
Speaker 2: out there on that dead end road. Melissa said she
Speaker 2: wasn't lonely, she was fine. She later testified she thought
Speaker 2: that Deputy Boyd's behavior was strange, but she said she
Speaker 2: gave him the benefit of the doubt because she believed
Speaker 2: that he was there to help her. Deputy Boyd then
Speaker 2: told Melissa he and some other officers had recently seen
Speaker 2: her at a restaurant. He repeated sexual comments the officers
Speaker 2: made about her body, saying they talked about quote what
Speaker 2: they would like to do to her if they could.
Speaker 2: He talked about her breasts and how they compared to
Speaker 2: his wife's breast and asked her if her and her
Speaker 2: husband would consider a threesome and whether her husband would
Speaker 2: allow someone to watch them having sex end quote. Deputy
Speaker 2: Boyd then allegedly sexually assaulted Melissa. He forced her to
Speaker 2: masturbate in front of him. He then masturbated in front
Speaker 2: of her and left. Melissa said she was horrified afterwards.
Speaker 2: Then it got worse because Deputy Boyd started texting her.
Speaker 2: She reached out to a friend, telling the friend she
Speaker 2: was scared that he was going to hurt her. According
Speaker 2: to court documents, quote, she began frequently seeing a psychotherapist
Speaker 2: and a hypnotherapist. Her intimacy with her husband significantly decreased.
Speaker 2: She gained thirty pounds, She started carrying a gun, She
Speaker 2: put cameras up, and she generally stopped leaving her home.
Speaker 2: In short, the incident changed her whole life and she
Speaker 2: isn't who she used to be end quote. Melissa testified
Speaker 2: she felt forced to submit to Deputy Boyd's assault because
Speaker 2: she was isolated and alone, She was intimidated by his authority,
Speaker 2: and she was frightened that the sexual harassment would escalate
Speaker 2: if she did not comply. Basically, she was terrified, and
Speaker 2: she was also terrified to report the sexual assault to
Speaker 2: local law enforcement because, of course, she remembered the comments
Speaker 2: Deputy Boyd had made about talking to the other officers
Speaker 2: about what they all wanted to do her. This must
Speaker 2: have been terrifying for Melissa, but she did something that,
Speaker 2: in my opinion, is extremely brave. She called the Texas
Speaker 2: Rangers and later she found out that this was not
Speaker 2: the first complaint that had been made against Deputy Boyd.
Speaker 2: There were other victims out there. At least three other
Speaker 2: complaints had been made against him. In April twenty nineteen,
Speaker 2: Deputy boy was indicted by the State of Texas. He
Speaker 2: was charged with sexual assault in decent exposure and official oppression.
Speaker 2: Melissa Tyson sued Sabine County, the sheriff and Deputy Boyd. Initially,
Speaker 2: the district court ruled against her. It's a bit complicated,
Speaker 2: but we talked before about how hard it is to
Speaker 2: sue police officers because they have something called qualified immunity.
Speaker 2: It's meant to be there, so people can't sue police
Speaker 2: officers for things they do during the course of duty.
Speaker 2: But Melissa Tyson won on appeal. The Court of Appeals
Speaker 2: found even though Deputy boy did not use physical force,
Speaker 2: he used mental coercion to sexually assag Melissa. They ruled
Speaker 2: that it was psychological abuse and that he was not
Speaker 2: entitled to any kind of qualified immunity after forcing her
Speaker 2: to masturbate in front of him. This case shocked me.
Speaker 2: Imagine a scenario where people are literally more afraid of
Speaker 2: the police than the bad guys. That's what Melissa Tyson experienced,
Speaker 2: and I am sure many other women in Sabine County
Speaker 2: have experienced the same thing. April's records are sealed, so
Speaker 2: we don't know exactly what happened during the jury trial
Speaker 2: in order for them to find her not guilty of
Speaker 2: her mother's murder. So I wonder what the judge or
Speaker 2: jury knew. Did they ever know that Doug was having
Speaker 2: an affair with April's mother, and that Anna had just
Speaker 2: found out about Doug and April's relationship on the night
Speaker 2: she was killed. After Anna's death, Yvonne said that Bob's
Speaker 2: attitude toward his wife seemed to change. He went from
Speaker 2: talking about her really lovingly to being kind of cold.
Speaker 2: He didn't visit much at the hospital, and then after
Speaker 2: she died, he would talk about her in kind of
Speaker 2: a disparaging way, A complete one eighty from his attitude
Speaker 2: toward his wife before. Yvonne wondered why. She wondered, did
Speaker 2: Bob know about Anna's involvement with Doug or could there
Speaker 2: be something else going on?
Speaker 3: I feel bad rehashing this comes. I'm like, oh my gosh,
Speaker 3: I can't believe I didn't just like call somebody, but
Speaker 3: I said, who are you gonna call? I mean, anyway,
Speaker 3: this town is so weird.
Speaker 2: Yvonne said that April came over to her house and
Speaker 2: that while she was there that April told Yvonn that
Speaker 2: she had shot her mother, and Yvonne said April told
Speaker 2: her why she did it. April said that she and
Speaker 2: Doug were in love, that they were having sex, and
Speaker 2: that her mother, Anna would not let them be together,
Speaker 2: so Yvonn went to the police to tell them what
Speaker 2: she knew. But she also explained that April told her
Speaker 2: that her father had said April had to confess because
Speaker 2: she was young and if he was involved, he would
Speaker 2: go away for a long time, which led Evonne to
Speaker 2: wonder was this true. Did April do this alone or
Speaker 2: could Bob have been involved and pressured April into taking
Speaker 2: the fall due to her age.
Speaker 3: That night having sex. He has a place over in Manny,
Speaker 3: which I didn't know he had another residence. Doug had
Speaker 3: another residence on the other side of the bridge, because
Speaker 3: it was right there at the cut off, you know,
Speaker 3: at the Louisiana line, And that her mother would not
Speaker 3: allow her to see him, and that, yeah, that her
Speaker 3: mother was so mean and wouldn't let her be with Doug,
Speaker 3: and that that's why she shot her. But she never
Speaker 3: would say that Bob hadn't even know she did. That's
Speaker 3: what she said, Bob. Well, she didn't say Bob did it.
Speaker 3: She was just saying that Bob said she needed to
Speaker 3: confess to it because he would go to because that
Speaker 3: they would think he did it. Basically, you see what
Speaker 3: I'm getting that like, you never said he did it,
Speaker 3: but he did say that. He was telling her she
Speaker 3: needs to say she did it because he'll never get
Speaker 3: out of jail.
Speaker 2: I Vonn said that she told the police about Doug
Speaker 2: molesting Anna. That's when things took a turn for the bizarre.
Speaker 2: Yvonne claims the police officer she talked to was not
Speaker 2: surprised when she told them about Doug and aples relationship.
Speaker 4: He said, is he from Philsey?
Speaker 3: And I said yeah. He said, yep, yep, he sure is.
Speaker 3: He said, you know why he's here on Filido Bend.
Speaker 3: I said, no, I don't. He said, well, because he
Speaker 3: got caught messing with some little girls and Philsney too.
Speaker 3: He said yep, he said, and mommy and daddy you know,
Speaker 3: paid them off or whatever he said. And of course
Speaker 3: he ran down and got hisself married a little quick
Speaker 3: to Terry. He said, they don't live together. I said, no,
Speaker 3: they don't. So how does this guy know all this?
Speaker 3: It's the sheriff. I never talked to him again, and
Speaker 3: they wouldn't. I looked for him and couldn't even find it.
Speaker 3: I'm telling you the truth.
Speaker 2: Yvonne said that when she tried to follow up. The
Speaker 2: officer she spoke to wasn't there anymore. Not only that,
Speaker 2: she was told there was no record of him working there.
Speaker 3: Like, I don't know where he went, how he went,
Speaker 3: I don't know. It's so bizarre. I told him his
Speaker 3: name and everything, and they were like, ma'am, he does.
Speaker 3: We don't have anybody here it works by here but
Speaker 3: a name, and I'm just like, oh my gosh, I mean,
Speaker 3: I am the hell out of here. I am like,
Speaker 3: let people at that. What I can't remember. I have
Speaker 3: to realize I didn't write any of this down at
Speaker 3: the time. It wasn't like I was planning on ever
Speaker 3: talking about it again. Honestly, I don't remember his name.
Speaker 3: I just know he was a white sheriff. I don't know,
Speaker 3: but I felt like, y'all are lying. He probably said
Speaker 3: stuff he wasn't supposed to say, and either y'all fired
Speaker 3: him or I don't know what she did with him.
Speaker 2: Yvonne said that I've or that weird incident with a
Speaker 2: disappearing sheriff. She decided to get out of town. Right
Speaker 2: before she left, she had another disturbing running with Bob,
Speaker 2: and he said this to her.
Speaker 3: Be a shame. You're after fishing in that fishing out
Speaker 3: there in the boat and a bullet flies out of
Speaker 3: the National Force and hits you in the head. You
Speaker 3: know what happens around here quite a bit. Yeah, I
Speaker 3: mean you know. And so Jason Jay just come on,
Speaker 3: we're leaving, and I get about halfway into the truck
Speaker 3: and I just just so pissed off. I just turned
Speaker 3: around and I said, yeah, but there's one big difference
Speaker 3: between me and Anna. You want to know if that
Speaker 3: is Bob, I said, I got Stanley. That gives a shit,
Speaker 3: I said, And they will be back up here so
Speaker 3: fast they'll make your head spin, and they will turn
Speaker 3: everything here upside down to find out exactly where I
Speaker 3: am and exactly who did it to me.
Speaker 2: Yvonne left the area but never forgot about what happened.
Speaker 2: Her story has never been told publicly until.
Speaker 3: Now because periodically I always think about it, you know,
Speaker 3: And I thought, whatever happened to those people? And so
Speaker 3: I google the name and it pops up, and I
Speaker 3: about fell out when I saw that Doug died in
Speaker 3: a fire on that houseboat, and that when they recovered
Speaker 3: the body, there was two bullet holds in his head.
Speaker 3: I'm like, well, there you go, there is your karma.
Speaker 4: You taught her how.
Speaker 3: To do it, she did it to you. That's really
Speaker 3: what I think. So no, I don't feel good for
Speaker 3: the man. Sorry, I don't. I feel like karma, perfect karma.
Speaker 3: But I think it's just that small town in hell.
Speaker 3: Yeah it is. Yeah, it's very weird. So I will
Speaker 3: love her somehow Anna to have justice. I know that
Speaker 3: no one's ever gonna everybody's dead now, So I'm gonna
Speaker 3: tell you because I really feel like that the only
Speaker 3: two victims out of all of it was April and
Speaker 3: her mother. I think they both are victims. But yeah,
Speaker 3: that's what I believe.
Speaker 2: Even though Doug Janis may have been imperfect, it's important
Speaker 2: to remember he's still left behind children and grandchildren, a
Speaker 2: family who loved him, and he deserves justice just like
Speaker 2: any other victim. Was April involved in Doug's murder and
Speaker 2: if so, did she do it alone or was someone
Speaker 2: else involved? Was there really ten thousand dollars on the
Speaker 2: boat or could there have been a lot more money?
Speaker 2: And what are the connections between Doug Janis and people
Speaker 2: in positions of power in Sabine County? Are there still
Speaker 2: people there getting away with murder. I'm Catherine Townsend. This
Speaker 2: is Helen Gone Murder Line. Helen Gone Murder Line is
Speaker 2: a production of School of Humans and iHeart Podcasts. It's
Speaker 2: written and narrated by me Catherine Townsend and produced by
Speaker 2: Gabby Watts and Miranda Hawkins. Special thanks to Amy Tubbs
Speaker 2: for her research assistance. This episode was sound design and
Speaker 2: mixed by Noah Cameron. Our theme song is by Ben Sale,
Speaker 2: Executive producers of Virginia Prescott, Brandon Barr, and L. C. Crowley.
Speaker 2: Listen to Helen Gone ad free by subscribing to the
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Speaker 2: are interested in seeing documents and materials from this case,
Speaker 2: you can follow the show on Instagram at Helen Gonepod.
Speaker 2: If you have a case you'd like me and my
Speaker 2: team to look into, you can reach out to us
Speaker 2: at our Helen Gone Murder Line at six seven eight
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