Speaker 1: One of the deputies went out to the residence and
Speaker 1: when he went inside he discovered the body. The level
Speaker 1: of violence in this homicide was astonishing. She'd been shot
Speaker 1: five times, stabbed deeply five times, and vigorously beaten with
Speaker 1: an aluminum baseball back. When he exited the house, he
Speaker 1: actually threw up. It was kind of crazy.
Speaker 2: The murder of Genora Guillery sent shockwaves through her small
Speaker 2: Louisiana town.
Speaker 1: Everybody was scared, especially if you were a woman. You know,
Speaker 1: it was the summer of fear.
Speaker 2: Today we're in Clinton, Louisiana, for the case of Genora Guillery,
Speaker 2: whose unsolved murder became a talking point among local politicians.
Speaker 2: I'm Sloan Glass and this is American Homicide. Just a warning,
Speaker 2: this episode contained some graphic content. Please take care while listening.
Speaker 2: Before we go into the story of Genora, we have
Speaker 2: to talk about Louisiana. It's not trite to say that
Speaker 2: it really is a melting pot, a mix of so
Speaker 2: many different ingredients that come together to create something really
Speaker 2: unique and beautiful. The food, the music, the environment, the weather.
Speaker 2: It's thick in the air. It actually reminds me of
Speaker 2: the dish that they are best known for gumbo combination
Speaker 2: of different types of meat are seafood and celery, bell peppers, onions,
Speaker 2: all coming together for this party.
Speaker 3: Stew gumbo being one of the spicy, fantastic dishes of
Speaker 3: South Louisiana Cajun Land.
Speaker 2: Elbert Gillary is a lawyer and former state senator in Louisiana,
Speaker 2: where gumbo isn't just the official dish, it's a culture.
Speaker 3: We call ourselves Gumbo people, a blend of of French, French, Catholic,
Speaker 3: particularly African, and a lot of Native American.
Speaker 2: That blend of culture is what makes Louisiana so unique.
Speaker 3: This is the most fascinating place in the world. The
Speaker 3: most fantastic food, the best music, and greatest dancing will.
Speaker 2: Cities like that in Rouge and New Orleans get the spotlight.
Speaker 2: Elbert believes it's the many small towns that make up
Speaker 2: the fabric of the state.
Speaker 3: We call ourselves the real Louisiana. People are much warmer,
Speaker 3: much more open. Our food is better, our music is better.
Speaker 3: It's just a whole different world. It's a much more
Speaker 3: integrated world in the country than in the city.
Speaker 2: One such integrated place is the town of Clinton. Clinton
Speaker 2: says about thirty miles northeast of Battle and Rouge. The
Speaker 2: rural community of about twelve hundred residents dates back to
Speaker 2: the early eighteen hundreds. Today, its population is nearly split
Speaker 2: equally among black and white residents, but is still working
Speaker 2: to overcome its racially fraud history. For years, residents argued
Speaker 2: over a giant, thirty foot statue of a Confederate soldier
Speaker 2: that stands in downtown Clinton. It's been there since the
Speaker 2: early nineteen hundreds, and despite numerous efforts to remove the
Speaker 2: controversial monument, it remains there today.
Speaker 3: This is America. There is racism in America, and that's
Speaker 3: just a part of life. We've come a long way
Speaker 3: during my lifetime, and we still have a few more
Speaker 3: yards to go before we reach the finish line.
Speaker 2: Back in two thousand, Elbert's sister in law, Genora Gillery,
Speaker 2: was living on a large ten acre lot in Clinton.
Speaker 3: She lived down a country road. There were only two
Speaker 3: residences on that country road. She liked the fact that
Speaker 3: it was far out in the country.
Speaker 2: Genora, or Miss g as her neighbors called her, was
Speaker 2: a single career woman whose love for the country was
Speaker 2: only surpassed by her affinity for animals.
Speaker 3: She loved horses and had horses. She loved dogs and
Speaker 3: had some dogs, and particularly one. Cleo was her absolute
Speaker 3: favorite and lived in her home with her. They were very,
Speaker 3: very close.
Speaker 2: Cleo was Genora's protector. She would bark at almost anyone
Speaker 2: who came near her. Genora used to joke that none
Speaker 2: of her outfits were complete without Cleo's dog care, or
Speaker 2: hair of any of the twenty or so dog she
Speaker 2: kept in a large kennel behind her home.
Speaker 3: She loved the idea that she would be able to
Speaker 3: have her animals there in an undisturbed fashion.
Speaker 2: It was undisturbed all right. Genora's farmhouse style home sat
Speaker 2: on a huge parcel of land off a dead end road.
Speaker 2: In the distance were several tall trees and a cemetery.
Speaker 2: It would be a scary place for anyone to live,
Speaker 2: especially a single woman. Genora felt grateful to have neighbors living.
Speaker 4: Up the block.
Speaker 3: There was a trailer about a half city block down
Speaker 3: across the little street, and it was occupied by a
Speaker 3: family named Skipper, Mister Skipper, his wife, and their children.
Speaker 2: The Skipper's trailer may have been an ice work, but
Speaker 2: having Philip and his wife Amy Skipper as neighbors was
Speaker 2: a welcome site for Genora. She was a single career
Speaker 2: woman who lived alone. Her job in Baton Rouge kept
Speaker 2: her away most of the day, so she relied on
Speaker 2: the Skippers for help.
Speaker 3: Mister Skipper assisted with the animals, who made sure that
Speaker 3: they were fed and received water and those kinds of things.
Speaker 3: Missus Skipper was employed by Genora as.
Speaker 2: A housekeeper, but it was more than a working relationship.
Speaker 2: The Skippers and Genora were very close, especially because Genora
Speaker 2: depended on them for so much. If she ever needed
Speaker 2: help at home, she knew she could rely on the Skippers.
Speaker 2: You see, Genora was very successful. She worked for a
Speaker 2: major insurance company and would leave for work early in
Speaker 2: the morning and return late at night. But on the
Speaker 2: morning of Monday, June twenty six, two thousand, the lights
Speaker 2: in Genora's Baton Rouge office were off and her desk
Speaker 2: sat empty.
Speaker 1: Her coworkers got worried about her because she didn't show
Speaker 1: up for work.
Speaker 2: Detective Joel Odam worked for the East fully Siena Sheriff's Department.
Speaker 1: They called the Sheriff's office and asked to do a
Speaker 1: check on her house and a welfare check.
Speaker 2: With no sign of Genora and a constant busy signal
Speaker 2: on her landline phone. A patrol car was dispatched just
Speaker 2: after ten am.
Speaker 1: Clinton is pretty quiet. It's a small community. Most everybody
Speaker 1: knows everybody. Not much goes on up there.
Speaker 2: It took about thirty minutes for the squad car to
Speaker 2: make it to Jenora's home in Clinton.
Speaker 1: When he first arrived there, he saw that the door
Speaker 1: was open to the residence.
Speaker 2: That's where Jenora's dog Clea was found tied to a
Speaker 2: railing near the carport. Cleo was upset and barking. She
Speaker 2: even tried to bite the officer as he quickly squeezed
Speaker 2: past her.
Speaker 1: And when he went inside, he could see blood basically
Speaker 1: all over the living room, the phone, the kitchen.
Speaker 2: Then they walked into the bedroom. A broken lamp lay
Speaker 2: on the floor next to an overturned end table. Blood
Speaker 2: spatter covered the walls, along with bullet holes above the bed,
Speaker 2: and the body of Jenora Guillery lay on the floor.
Speaker 1: She'd been shot five times, stabbed deeply five times.
Speaker 2: It was awful. This entire story gives me such a
Speaker 2: stomach ache, and this is where the details get really hard.
Speaker 2: Bruises covered her entire face. Genora's skull almost looked flattened
Speaker 2: by whatever was used to hit her.
Speaker 1: She took a blow to the spinal column that severed
Speaker 1: it straight from the back of her neck. You can
Speaker 1: imagine how much damage of blow like that would dig.
Speaker 2: If what happened to Jenora Guillery wasn't already bad enough,
Speaker 2: there were also signs she was sexually assaulted. It was
Speaker 2: a horrifying scene for a small town police officer, or
Speaker 2: anyone for that matter.
Speaker 1: And this was a violent homicide, probably more brutal than
Speaker 1: most homicides you'll ever see. I believe when he exited
Speaker 1: the house he actually threw up.
Speaker 2: Think about that for a second. The scene was so
Speaker 2: bad that it sickened the deputy.
Speaker 1: We have murders up in Clinton, but nothing that was
Speaker 1: the level of this. It's heartbreaking. Makes me feel sorry
Speaker 1: for the family to know their loved one had to
Speaker 1: go through something like that.
Speaker 2: Detective Don McKee arrived a short time later and began
Speaker 2: to piece together what happened to Genora Guillery.
Speaker 5: She was laying in the back corner of the bedroom.
Speaker 5: She had stabs in her hands in her arms, so
Speaker 5: you could see that she was trying to fight back.
Speaker 5: It was just obvious that this was a homicide.
Speaker 2: Detective searched the house and they didn't find anything missing.
Speaker 2: They also didn't find any major clues.
Speaker 5: At that point, we secured the sing with Kyle for
Speaker 5: Louisiana State believed the crime lab to come and process
Speaker 5: the scene. While we was there waiting for that to occur,
Speaker 5: we talked to the Skippers.
Speaker 2: As Janora's Bonnie was taking out in a body bag,
Speaker 2: her neighbors and good friends, Philip and Amy Skipper, were
Speaker 2: standing outside. A very pregnant Amy stood on the edge
Speaker 2: of the driveway with her husband crying.
Speaker 5: Amy was just really upset, she was hysterical and they
Speaker 5: shook up. I mean, they just couldn't understand why this
Speaker 5: would have happened to her.
Speaker 2: Amy and Philip were two twenty somethings who lived in
Speaker 2: a mobile home with their children. They explained to detectives
Speaker 2: that Genora, or Miss g as they called her, was
Speaker 2: the most generous person they had ever met.
Speaker 5: Was talk about how big of a heart she had.
Speaker 5: She would pick up stray dogs and bring them to
Speaker 5: the vet and get him checked out and take care
Speaker 5: of them.
Speaker 2: And the Skippers provided detectives with their first clue. They
Speaker 2: said Genora's dogs never worked at night time. However, the
Speaker 2: previous morning they heard Genora's dogs barking around two am.
Speaker 5: That's when we noticed scratches on both of their arms
Speaker 5: and then question about it.
Speaker 2: Philip Skipper's arms were all scratched up, but he had
Speaker 2: an explanation. He said that he and his stepson, John
Speaker 2: Balllyo had been horsing around in the yard.
Speaker 5: He said it was wrastling in the yard and so forth.
Speaker 2: It the Skippers were the only ones who lived nearby,
Speaker 2: and those scratches for something detectives couldn't ignore. So in
Speaker 2: order to rule them out a suspects, they had Philip
Speaker 2: Skipper and his stepson, John Balllyo take a polygraph test.
Speaker 5: Admitted to a polygraph test, and both of them passed that.
Speaker 2: After they passed with flying colors, the detectives were back
Speaker 2: to square one.
Speaker 4: Genora lived in a nice house out in the middle
Speaker 4: of nowhere. I mean it's down at the end of
Speaker 4: this gravel road.
Speaker 2: Journalist Chuck Hussmeyer covered the story.
Speaker 4: Well, the door was open to the house, it wasn't forced,
Speaker 4: which is a clue right there that she likely knew
Speaker 4: the killer.
Speaker 2: Based on her autopsy, the police determined Genora died sometime
Speaker 2: in the very early hours of Sunday morning, and given
Speaker 2: the severity of her injuries and the fact that nothing
Speaker 2: was taken from her home, they wondered if Janora's killer
Speaker 2: may have held some sort of grudge towards her.
Speaker 4: Typically, in a murder case, you start with the closest
Speaker 4: circle of people to the victim. You know, husband's boyfriends,
Speaker 4: any kind of lovers, friends, things like that. And in
Speaker 4: this case, Janora had had a boyfriend, a long term boyfriend,
Speaker 4: but he had died.
Speaker 2: Two years earlier. Her boyfriend fell asleep at the wheel
Speaker 2: and got into a fatal car accident that left Genora
Speaker 2: devastated and alone.
Speaker 4: But after that, it's really digging into the history of
Speaker 4: the victim. You know, who was she who did she know?
Speaker 4: Who was mad at her?
Speaker 2: At the time, Genora was forty two years old. She
Speaker 2: worked in human resources for an insurance company in Baton Rouge.
Speaker 2: Since she handled the hiring and firing, detectives questioned her
Speaker 2: coworkers to see if there were any former disgruntled employees.
Speaker 4: You know, people like that are who you want to
Speaker 4: check out first.
Speaker 2: Her colleagues couldn't think of any disgruntled ex employees, but
Speaker 2: they did tell detectives about a suspicious male friend of Genora's.
Speaker 4: She had complained to her co workers that he was
Speaker 4: harassing her, and he was very persistent. He would stake
Speaker 4: out her car sometimes in the parking lot, catch her
Speaker 4: after work so he could because she wasn't answering his
Speaker 4: phone call, so he would go and you know, visit
Speaker 4: her so to speak in person, although she didn't want it.
Speaker 4: So he was a very viable candidate as a suspect.
Speaker 2: That man was an old friend of Genora's named Steve.
Speaker 1: They went on a date one time and he made
Speaker 1: her really uncomfortable.
Speaker 2: Detective Joel Odom investigated and learned Genora met Steve in
Speaker 2: the eighties, but the two had lost touch. They'd recently
Speaker 2: reconnected and just before her murder, they went out on
Speaker 2: a date, but things quickly soured. Genora wasn't interested in
Speaker 2: seeing him again, but Steve wouldn't take no for an answer.
Speaker 2: Genora said, Steve wouldn't stop touching her.
Speaker 1: She thought that was going to be the end of it,
Speaker 1: but actually that was just the beginning. He would call
Speaker 1: her at work multiple times, and they'd even heard him
Speaker 1: argue on the phone and she had told him I
Speaker 1: could call me. It worked.
Speaker 2: In the month before her murder, Steve's phone number turned
Speaker 2: up on Genora's home phone eleven times, including Saturday, June
Speaker 2: twenty fourth, hours before Genora was murdered. And then there
Speaker 2: was this The previous Friday, Genora told her colleague that
Speaker 2: she hoped Steve wouldn't show up at her house that weekend.
Speaker 2: That was the last time any of Jenora's colleagues saw
Speaker 2: her alive.
Speaker 1: So we started looking to him and found out he
Speaker 1: at the time was a Veton Rage City police officer.
Speaker 1: Everybody was just shocked.
Speaker 2: Although he was forty five years old at the time,
Speaker 2: Steve was a rookie cop. He had just graduated from
Speaker 2: the academy. He spent the prior twenty plus years working
Speaker 2: as a corrections officer. All of this, combined with his
Speaker 2: repeated unwanted advances, made to detective suspicious, so we felt.
Speaker 1: He was a good suspect at the time. But it's hard, as.
Speaker 2: You can imagine, questioning one of their own requires a
Speaker 2: delicate dance.
Speaker 1: There's no correct way to do it, and I was
Speaker 1: a young detective back then. I was kind of a goble.
Speaker 1: I believe with the people that were supposed to take
Speaker 1: care of the people and the public wouldn't lie to you,
Speaker 1: or would not lie to the public.
Speaker 2: No matter what. One cop investigating another cop means you're
Speaker 2: gunna step on some toes and potentially cross some unspoken lines.
Speaker 2: But that didn't stop them.
Speaker 1: At the time, we didn't have anything. Basically, we had
Speaker 1: a crime saying, no murder weapon, just phone records and
Speaker 1: other stuff that we could develop.
Speaker 2: Detectives continued to look into Steve. He cooperated with their investigation.
Speaker 1: We pulled him in for question and we offered him
Speaker 1: a polygraph.
Speaker 2: At the time, Steve agreed, and the results shocked everyone
Speaker 2: in the room.
Speaker 1: He failed to polygraph and he said, I don't want
Speaker 1: to talk to you. I hold my lawyer, and that
Speaker 1: was the end of the interview.
Speaker 2: Okay, So things weren't looking good for Officer Steve, and
Speaker 2: detectives continued to look for anything that would connect him
Speaker 2: to the crime. Journalist Chuck Hussmeyer covered the story.
Speaker 4: He left a message on her answer machine right before
Speaker 4: she died that he was going to be in the
Speaker 4: area and of course, you're really not in that area
Speaker 4: unless you're going out there on purpose. But he claimed
Speaker 4: he was going to be in the area and he
Speaker 4: would stop by.
Speaker 2: That's something important to remember. Genora lived in the middle
Speaker 2: of nowhere, so you really had to go out of
Speaker 2: your way to get to her house. But Officer Steve
Speaker 2: had an alibi. He said that on the weekend of
Speaker 2: Jenora's murder, he was at his mother's house, and this
Speaker 2: part surprising. He was mayor at the time and even
Speaker 2: had a son who he dropped off at a nearby camp.
Speaker 2: He did admit to calling Genora that Saturday, but she
Speaker 2: told him she couldn't talk. He called again the following day,
Speaker 2: but he said the line was busy.
Speaker 4: He'd made Genia nervous to the point where she wouldn't
Speaker 4: take his phone calls.
Speaker 2: Detectives learned Steve sometimes stop by Genora's house and office unannounced,
Speaker 2: which obviously scared Gena. And get this, he even called
Speaker 2: Genora's colleague a couple of days after her death and
Speaker 2: asked for Genora's parents' phone number.
Speaker 4: They are just a lot of weird stuff going on
Speaker 4: with this guy.
Speaker 2: Things got even more unsettling when they visited the police
Speaker 2: academy officer Steve attended. There was a payphone there where
Speaker 2: fellow cadet said they always saw Steve making calls. Detectives
Speaker 2: got a phone long from that payphone and found thirty
Speaker 2: five phone calls placed from that phone to Genora's in
Speaker 2: rouge office. Who do you call when the police are
Speaker 2: the ones harassing you?
Speaker 4: They interviewed people that he knew, including another woman who
Speaker 4: was in the police academy with him, who said he
Speaker 4: kind of harassed her, So you know, guy's got kind
Speaker 4: of a history of harassing women that don't return his affections.
Speaker 2: Even after Steve lawyered up and stopped cooperating, detectives continued
Speaker 2: to turn up the heat.
Speaker 4: And they really went after him hard. They execute a
Speaker 4: search warrant on his house, on his car, and they
Speaker 4: didn't find anything. They couldn't link him to the crime.
Speaker 2: So this had to be frustrating for detectives. They now
Speaker 2: had plenty of circumstantial evidence, but nothing concrete. Officer Steve
Speaker 2: failed his polygraph. He admitted to phoning Genora multiple times
Speaker 2: a day, and he admitted to even showing up at
Speaker 2: Genoa's office unannounced. But all of that wasn't enough to
Speaker 2: press charges.
Speaker 4: Can't charge anybody without evidence, so they just have to
Speaker 4: either dig up another lead or wait for some kind
Speaker 4: of a break to come your way.
Speaker 2: While detectives continue their investigation, Genora's brother in law, Albert,
Speaker 2: struggled to stay positive. Here's Albert.
Speaker 3: That was not an easy time, not at all.
Speaker 2: At the time of Genora's murder, the police had lifted
Speaker 2: some DNA from under her fingernails, but keep in mind
Speaker 2: it was still the early days of DNA testing and
Speaker 2: the testing was not only expensive but slow. It was
Speaker 2: the year two thousand. It took months for the lapse
Speaker 2: to process it.
Speaker 3: There were some missteps and some broken leads, as they
Speaker 3: are in many investigations, but it would be difficult for
Speaker 3: all of us.
Speaker 2: It required a good deal of patience on all sides.
Speaker 3: We did everything that we could to be helpful to
Speaker 3: law enforcement. Families under these emotional, devastating circumstances can sometimes
Speaker 3: get under foot. They want to try the case in
Speaker 3: the press and all of that. That was not something
Speaker 3: that we would do and we did not do.
Speaker 2: Albert and Jennora's family weren't the only ones losing patience.
Speaker 2: Law enforcement was also disappointed with how long it took
Speaker 2: the lapse to process that DNA, but one arrest one
Speaker 2: year later would change everything. Detectives in the quiet town
Speaker 2: of Clinton, Louisiana, spent over a year trying to solve
Speaker 2: the murder of Genora Guillery.
Speaker 4: Normally there isn't a lot of crime in that area.
Speaker 4: I mean it's a very small town, small population, in
Speaker 4: a very rural area.
Speaker 2: Chuck Hussmeyer authored the book Unspeakable Violence about Genora's murder.
Speaker 4: I've been around a lot of crime, you know, but
Speaker 4: this one was just particularly bad.
Speaker 2: The police investigated a rookie cop out of Baton Rouge,
Speaker 2: who some said was stalking Genra, but they just didn't
Speaker 2: have enough evidence to charge him.
Speaker 4: They polygraphed him and he seemed a little shady or
Speaker 4: on the polygraph, but nothing definitive and there's just no evidence.
Speaker 4: So the case went cold.
Speaker 2: Cold, something family and friends never want to hear when
Speaker 2: describing the case of a loved one. For Elbert and
Speaker 2: Jenora's community, it felt like an answer to her murder
Speaker 2: would never come. And then a year later, the investigators
Speaker 2: got a break when a man named Donnie Fisher was
Speaker 2: arrested Donnie was brought in for beating up his girlfriend.
Speaker 2: Detectives had no connection to him and Genora, but Donnie
Speaker 2: was hoping to trade some information to get himself off
Speaker 2: the hook.
Speaker 4: He said he knew something about the Genoa Gillery murder.
Speaker 4: He said he was talking to a guy and that
Speaker 4: guy was bragging about having killed this black woman in Clinton, Louisiana.
Speaker 4: So they started digging into his story.
Speaker 2: That's when detectives learned about a local makeshift gang called
Speaker 2: the Brotherhood.
Speaker 4: The Brotherhood was, you know, three four, maybe five guys
Speaker 4: with a tattoo. They stole the idea from a cheesy
Speaker 4: b action movie.
Speaker 2: If you've seen the nineties movie Stone Cold, and not
Speaker 2: too many people have, you may have heard of the Brotherhood.
Speaker 2: The Brotherhood was a biker gang that was featured in
Speaker 2: the movie. But the Brotherhood and Clinton operated a bit differently.
Speaker 4: They were selling meth, they were fighting pit bulls, they
Speaker 4: were committing grave robbery. They were literally pulling gold teeth
Speaker 4: out of people's mouths that they dug up from graves.
Speaker 4: I mean, you got to have something really wrong in
Speaker 4: your head to decide that the best way you can
Speaker 4: earn some money is to go dig up graves and
Speaker 4: steal their teeth and jewelry. I mean, that's something really
Speaker 4: screwing in your head there.
Speaker 2: And members of this dog fighting, meths selling, and grave
Speaker 2: robbing gang sported tattoos with the letters GFBD.
Speaker 4: GFBD God forgives brotherhood, doesn't.
Speaker 2: That tattoo was a sort of membership badge. But you
Speaker 2: had to earn.
Speaker 4: It, and the only way to earn it was to
Speaker 4: kill somebody.
Speaker 2: So who was part of this gang? Well, according to
Speaker 2: Donny Fisher, the brotherhood consisted of Philip Skipper, Genora's neighbor,
Speaker 2: and his brother in law, Johnny Hoyt.
Speaker 4: But there's no evidence of animosity between the Skippers and Jenore.
Speaker 2: The person who fed this information to Donny Fisher was
Speaker 2: his friend John Balllyo, you may remember, lived with the Skippers.
Speaker 4: John Balllyo was sort of an orphaned kid. His mother
Speaker 4: just sort of left him with Philip Skipper and Amy Skipper.
Speaker 4: They referred to him as their step son, but he
Speaker 4: really wasn't any kind of relation to them.
Speaker 2: John Ballio would have just been fifteen years old at
Speaker 2: the time of the murder. Early on in their investigation,
Speaker 2: detectives noticed that John Ballio and his stepfather Philip Skipper
Speaker 2: had a bunch of scratches on their arms and face,
Speaker 2: but both of them passed a polygraph test. So the
Speaker 2: detectives went back to question the teenager about the Brotherhood's
Speaker 2: connection to Jenora's murder.
Speaker 4: And you know, of course, John Balllyo denied that he
Speaker 4: participated in it, but he was there.
Speaker 2: John Balllyo said he was there the night Genora was murdered,
Speaker 2: but he pinned the blame on his stepfather, Philip Skipper,
Speaker 2: along with Philip's sister Lisa and her husband Johnny Hoyt.
Speaker 4: John Balllyo said Lisa shot her a couple times. Philip
Speaker 4: here with a bat and that's what killed her.
Speaker 2: John Balllyo said all he did that night was controlled
Speaker 2: Genora's dog, Cleo.
Speaker 4: John Balyo's job was to get a rope around the
Speaker 4: dog's neck. The dog was a chow and it was
Speaker 4: sort of vicious, and Genoa let that dog sleep in
Speaker 4: the house with it because there was her protector.
Speaker 2: Balllyo said it was all part of his initiation into
Speaker 2: the Brotherhood. Okay, so there's a lot to unpack here.
Speaker 2: Philip Skipper and John Balllyo passed a polygraph test right
Speaker 2: after Genora's murder, which originally eliminated them as suspects. Here's
Speaker 2: how they did it. Both of them pop some pills
Speaker 2: before the test to bring their heart rate down. But
Speaker 2: still none of this added up. Would Philip Skipper want
Speaker 2: to hurt Genora?
Speaker 4: She was extremely generous to them. Whenever they would come
Speaker 4: ask her for anything, which they did a lot, she
Speaker 4: would give it to them. She threw a birthday party
Speaker 4: at a local restaurant for their baby. She actually gave
Speaker 4: them enough money to help them buy a newer mobile home.
Speaker 4: Not a new one, but newer and nicer.
Speaker 2: As the police investigated, they learned that a month before
Speaker 2: Genora's murder, the two neighbors had an argument.
Speaker 4: The relationship between janere Gillery and the Skippers started to
Speaker 4: deteriorate over this incident involving a goat. That's a weird story,
Speaker 4: but the Skippers had a pet goat. Why, I have
Speaker 4: no idea. Somehow the goat got loose and Amy Skipper
Speaker 4: said that one of Janoora's dogs attacked a goat. Amy
Speaker 4: Skipper called Jenore at work, just cussing at her, and
Speaker 4: you know, just angry furious about the goat. You know,
Speaker 4: it turned out it wasn't really one of Jennor's dogs.
Speaker 4: It was a dog I think that the Skippers had
Speaker 4: and gave to Jenoor that got loose.
Speaker 2: So, in other words, the Skipper's own dog attacked their goat,
Speaker 2: but they blamed Genora. This skipper said the two sides
Speaker 2: had reconciled. But again, would an incident with a goat
Speaker 2: be enough of a motive to kill it seems a
Speaker 2: little ridiculous.
Speaker 4: They did get a search warrant based on what he
Speaker 4: told them, and they executed the warrant at the trailer
Speaker 4: across from Jenor's house.
Speaker 2: Now keep in mind this search happened well over a
Speaker 2: year after Jenor's murder.
Speaker 4: They weren't really able to find anything in the house.
Speaker 4: They couldn't find the gun, you know, the twenty two
Speaker 4: gun that she was shot with several times. And they
Speaker 4: did find a bat. John Ballyo had told him about
Speaker 4: a bat, but the bat had been sitting outside their
Speaker 4: trailer for like two years in the rain, so they
Speaker 4: weren't able to get any evidence DNA evidence particularly.
Speaker 2: One other notable find at the Skippers was some life
Speaker 2: insurance documents It was a life policy that named the
Speaker 2: Skippers as the beneficiary in the event of Janora's death.
Speaker 4: Her boyfriend was the beneficiary on the life insurance policy
Speaker 4: on Jenora's life, and when he passed away, she didn't
Speaker 4: cancel the policy. She saw her neighbors were in, you know,
Speaker 4: financial straits, so she just named Philip and Amy Skipper
Speaker 4: as the beneficiaries of the same twenty five thousand dollars
Speaker 4: insurance policy. And she figured, you know, if something happened
Speaker 4: to her, they would have some extra money to help
Speaker 4: take care of their baby.
Speaker 2: Well, that's certainly curious, but it wasn't a secret. Albert
Speaker 2: Gillery knew about the life insurance policy and no one
Speaker 2: had objected.
Speaker 4: Philip and Amy definitely knew about the insurance policy. Jena
Speaker 4: told them about it, So all of a sudden, the
Speaker 4: attention shifted to the Skippers and John Ballio, who lived
Speaker 4: right across the street from Jeneuguiller.
Speaker 2: Even with these suspects and a confession, the police still
Speaker 2: did not think they had enough evidence to charge them,
Speaker 2: just like with their other suspect. The comp from that
Speaker 2: in Rouche.
Speaker 4: Most prosecutors are extremely risk averse. They won't tee it
Speaker 4: up and see what the jury says. They will just
Speaker 4: drop the case rather than press forward on what they
Speaker 4: consider a weak case.
Speaker 2: The decision not to press charges created a war between
Speaker 2: the DA and Sheriff's office.
Speaker 5: So we just kind of had to sit back and
Speaker 5: look at everybody again.
Speaker 2: And the unsolved murder left the town of Clinton terrified.
Speaker 1: It was the summer of fear. Everybody was buying mace
Speaker 1: off the shelf as fast as they could get it.
Speaker 1: Here handguns say the road.
Speaker 2: I'm Sloan Glass. In the conclusion of the Brotherhood, the
Speaker 2: police learned the surprising answer to why they couldn't find
Speaker 2: more evidence.
Speaker 4: You never have that happen, And you know, that's something
Speaker 4: I would be embarrassed to try to write in fiction,
Speaker 4: But in this case, it really happened.
Speaker 2: That's next time. On American Homicide. You can contact the
Speaker 2: American Homicide team by emailing us at American Homicide Pod
Speaker 2: at gmail dot com. That's American Homicide Pod at gmail
Speaker 2: dot com. American Homicide is hosted and written by me
Speaker 2: Sloan Glass and is a production of Glass Podcasts, a
Speaker 2: division of Glass Entertainment Group in partnership with iHeartPodcasts. The
Speaker 2: show is executive produced by Nancy Glass and Todd Gans.
Speaker 2: The series is also written and produced by Todd Gans,
Speaker 2: with additional writing by Ben Fetterman and Andrea Gunning. Our
Speaker 2: associate producer is Kristin Melcurie. Our ihearte is Ali Perry
Speaker 2: and Jessica Crimecheck. Audio editing, mixing and mastering by Nico Auruka.
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