Speaker 1: The following podcast contains explicit descriptions of violence, including sexual violence,
Speaker 1: that some listeners may find upsetting. Continue at your own risk.
Speaker 1: In the nineteen nineties, it seemed like serial killers were
Speaker 1: really having a moment. For whatever reason, the public was
Speaker 1: fascinated by them. We couldn't get enough think about it.
Speaker 1: One of the most successful movies of nineteen ninety one
Speaker 1: was Silence of the Lambs. It even went Best Picture
Speaker 1: and pretty much everything else at the Oscars that year.
Speaker 1: And then over the next few years we got inundated
Speaker 1: with serial killer movies Jennifer Aids California and Natural Born Killers.
Speaker 1: Then in nineteen ninety five you had two big serial
Speaker 1: killer movies in theaters at the same time, Copycat and Seven.
Speaker 1: Serial Killers were box office gold. The more sick and twisted,
Speaker 1: the better. And then there was Real Life inteen ninety four.
Speaker 1: The same year, the Milwaukee cannibal Jeffrey Dahmer was beaten
Speaker 1: to death in prison by another inmate. The notorious killer
Speaker 1: clown John Wayne Gacy was put to death by lethal injection.
Speaker 1: And then you had your active serial killers of the nineties,
Speaker 1: like the Green River Killer and the I ninety five Killer.
Speaker 1: In addition to our own personal hometown horror, the Domino
Speaker 1: Beach Killer living in a serial killer's hunting ground. At
Speaker 1: the time of all this serial killer fever was a
Speaker 1: bit surreal.
Speaker 2: See.
Speaker 1: It was also a time when the Internet was just
Speaker 1: starting to catch on in a big way, and we
Speaker 1: were all getting exposed to what goes on in the
Speaker 1: darkest corners of the darkest minds of our fellow men
Speaker 1: and women, well mostly men. The early adopters of the Internet,
Speaker 1: the first people to figure out how to build and
Speaker 1: publicize these new things called websites, seemed to love two
Speaker 1: things above all else, celebrities and serial killers. By the
Speaker 1: fall of nineteen ninety five, as I was learning to
Speaker 1: navigate this new and incredible resource, my research led me
Speaker 1: to theories about the Domino Beach Killer from all over
Speaker 1: the country, all over the globe for that matter.
Speaker 3: A lot of the.
Speaker 1: People behind these theories wanted the killer to have some
Speaker 1: kind of Hollywood gimmick, like the way Kevin Spacey was
Speaker 1: using the Deadly Sins to make statements about his victims
Speaker 1: in seven, or how the guy in Silence of the
Speaker 1: Lambs was trying to make himself a suit out of
Speaker 1: human skin. The most common fantasy I found was that
Speaker 1: the murders were part of some ritual intended to subvert
Speaker 1: the apocalypse that was destined to befall our planet at
Speaker 1: the dawn of the millennium. But that kind of thing
Speaker 1: was everywhere you looked back in the nineties. It's true
Speaker 1: the Domino Beach Killer had written about the imminent end
Speaker 1: of the world in his second letter to me, but
Speaker 1: I never got the feeling he was on some kind
Speaker 1: of a holy mission or whatever. As far as I
Speaker 1: could tell, he had no adgea and no greater calling.
Speaker 1: It was just a monster, a monster that I had
Speaker 1: become convinced was the rich, privileged son of the most
Speaker 1: powerful man in town. I'm Courtney Barnes, and this is
Speaker 1: the Murder Years, Episode six, Only Happy when it rains.
Speaker 1: We the jury and the above and title action find
Speaker 1: the defendant, Orenthal James Simpson not guilty of the crime
Speaker 1: of murder. November nineteen ninety five, one month after O. J.
Speaker 1: Simpson was found not guilty by a jury of his
Speaker 1: peers for the murders of his ex wife Nicole Brown
Speaker 1: and her friend Ron Goldman, was when the Domino Beach
Speaker 1: Killer struck one final time. The victim was Trudy Masterson,
Speaker 1: the twenty eight year old singer, songwriter and rising star
Speaker 1: in the music world who was doing a week's worth
Speaker 1: of performances at Triple B's, the most popular bar and
Speaker 1: music venue in town. November wasn't normally a time of
Speaker 1: year that attracted notable performers to Domino Beach, but Trudy
Speaker 1: was just on the cusp of breaking out in a
Speaker 1: big way. She had recorded an album that was due
Speaker 1: to come out in March of ninety six, and had
Speaker 1: been invited to take part in a big New Year's
Speaker 1: Eve show at the Wiltern in Los Angeles that featured
Speaker 1: a bunch of major nineties rock bands and folk singers.
Speaker 1: She was amazingly talented. I saw her play myself three
Speaker 1: nights before she died. But hold on, let's back up
Speaker 1: a second last episode. I told you how I began
Speaker 1: to suspect Connor Langford was the Domino Beach killer months earlier,
Speaker 1: in late April nineteen ninety five.
Speaker 4: To be honest with you, Connor Langford was one of
Speaker 4: the first people I looked at way back in fall
Speaker 4: of ninety two.
Speaker 1: That's Damon Stokes, retired Sheriff of Delsall County.
Speaker 4: Some things about his original story just seemed a little
Speaker 4: too coincidental to me. First of all, I found it strange,
Speaker 4: with his history with a victim, that he and his
Speaker 4: friend were the first ones to find Virick Hendrick's body.
Speaker 4: He claimed he saw what he thought was some trash
Speaker 4: over by the rocks, and that's why he came over
Speaker 4: to investigate.
Speaker 5: But far as I could tell.
Speaker 4: You couldn't see her body until you got right up
Speaker 4: on the rocks. And he said he spotted her from,
Speaker 4: you know, maybe two hundred yards away. Now, it's true
Speaker 4: that the body had been knocked around by the waves
Speaker 4: a little before I got there, so it's possible he
Speaker 4: saw something I didn't. But then when he told me
Speaker 4: I knew her, and later when I found out that
Speaker 4: he'd had sexual relations.
Speaker 5: With her, I mean, I don't know. It just didn't
Speaker 5: sit right.
Speaker 4: But he did seem genuinely saddened by her death, and
Speaker 4: maybe that's how he was able to convince me of
Speaker 4: his innocence.
Speaker 6: I don't know.
Speaker 1: I'm sure you never had any reason to question him.
Speaker 1: In the nineteen ninety three death of Billy Boy Reeves.
Speaker 1: But what about the ASU students in ninety four? Was
Speaker 1: he ever questioned?
Speaker 4: Well, sure, he'd been seen at those girl's house that week.
Speaker 4: He even admitted to being there the night that they
Speaker 4: were murdered. But you know, about two or three other
Speaker 4: dozen people were there, you know, And Connor answered all
Speaker 4: my questions.
Speaker 5: To my satisfactions.
Speaker 4: I didn't suspect him of those murders any more than
Speaker 4: I suspected Stan Majors, who ended up taking the charges
Speaker 4: for them posthumously.
Speaker 1: As you say, you know, and Angela Bowers. You may
Speaker 1: remember Angela Bowers from episode four, the only person to
Speaker 1: ever escape from the Domino Beach Killer with her life.
Speaker 4: I brought in just about every white male between the
Speaker 4: ages of twenty one and thirty five I could get
Speaker 4: my hands on to put in a lineup who would
Speaker 4: say the words. Angela remembered him saying.
Speaker 3: Scream and you die right here, and now yeah.
Speaker 5: Those other ones.
Speaker 4: Unfortunately, she was not the greatest witness in the world.
Speaker 4: I mean, she identified eight people before she admitted, I say,
Speaker 4: realized she just couldn't remember what the guy sounded like.
Speaker 1: Was Connor Langford one of the men in those lineups?
Speaker 4: No, I tried to bring him in, but his father
Speaker 4: got him out of it.
Speaker 1: In defense of the retired sheriff, Angela did tell me
Speaker 1: when I was interviewing her the morning after her attack,
Speaker 1: that she didn't think she'd be able to identify the
Speaker 1: man who tried to abduct her. She never got a
Speaker 1: good look at him, and all she could remember about
Speaker 1: his voice was that he was disguising it. But what
Speaker 1: if Connor Langford had been forced to go into the
Speaker 1: sheriff station stand in a lineup with a bunch of
Speaker 1: other guys his age, and read that line in a
Speaker 1: gravelly voice like everyone else Sheriff's Stokes brought in. Would
Speaker 1: that little light bulb have gone off for her? Would
Speaker 1: Angela have been able to identify him? Would one Fsice
Speaker 1: and Trudy Masterson still be alive? We'll never know. It's
Speaker 1: easy to blame Sheriff Stokes for missing what he missed,
Speaker 1: especially with the benefit of hindsight, But I'm equally to blame.
Speaker 1: My own investigation into Connor Langford wasn't exactly turning up
Speaker 1: any new evidence. In fact, all I had was my
Speaker 1: gut telling me it was him, and after a few
Speaker 1: months I was starting to doubt myself. I didn't dare
Speaker 1: share my thoughts with anyone, not Sheriff Stokes and certainly
Speaker 1: not my editor or anyone else at the Soochul Journal.
Speaker 1: If it had gotten back to Counselman Langford that I
Speaker 1: was investigating his son for multiple homicides, it would have
Speaker 1: been very difficult for me to continue living and working
Speaker 1: in Domino Beach. So much to my regret, I kept
Speaker 1: my mouth shut, and my cowardice may have cost Trudy
Speaker 1: masters in her life.
Speaker 6: I saw her last show, you know.
Speaker 1: Speak of the Devil. That's Connor Langford himself, the man who,
Speaker 1: in November nineteen ninety five, at the time of Trudy
Speaker 1: Masterson's death, I believe to be the Domino Beach killer.
Speaker 6: I was working as.
Speaker 7: A bar back in Triple B's, you know, washing glasses,
Speaker 7: changing out the kegs.
Speaker 2: Big change for you. Back in April of that year.
Speaker 2: You were performing at Triple B's with your band.
Speaker 6: That wasn't my band. My band died months before that.
Speaker 7: Those guys just thought I'd help pull in some extra
Speaker 7: bodies to hear them play. But I guess I turned
Speaker 7: out to be more trouble than I was worth. They
Speaker 7: kicked me out of the band in early July. Can
Speaker 7: you believe that what a pain I must have been
Speaker 7: if they were willing to lose their singer and guitarists
Speaker 7: at the peak of the summer tourist season.
Speaker 2: Although tourism was down that year, well, the.
Speaker 7: Peak is still the peak, even if it's not as
Speaker 7: high as it used to be.
Speaker 2: What made you want to get a job as a
Speaker 2: bar back?
Speaker 6: I was fucking broke.
Speaker 7: I was still crashing at my parents' poolhouse, but my
Speaker 7: dad had frozen me out. I could get my mom
Speaker 7: to slide me a little cash every now and then,
Speaker 7: but that all went towards weed and.
Speaker 1: H strange to witness. Honor Langford had been everyone's favorite
Speaker 1: surfer dude in Domino Beach for years, but in late
Speaker 1: nineteen ninety five he was already washed up, and he
Speaker 1: wasn't even thirty years old.
Speaker 7: I'd sold almost everything I owned for drug money by
Speaker 7: that point, even my guitar. The only thing I held
Speaker 7: on to was my surfboard, and I don't even know why.
Speaker 7: I never surfed anymore. I never did anything. They gave
Speaker 7: me that job at Triple Bee's out of pity, you know,
Speaker 7: I had never had a job in my life before
Speaker 7: that fucking pathetic man Christ would a goddamn mess I was,
Speaker 7: I guess I don't blame you for believing I was
Speaker 7: some piece of shit serial killer like Ted Bundy or whoever,
Speaker 7: although those guys usually have a pretty serious sense of
Speaker 7: self importance, right, and I think it should have been
Speaker 7: obvious to anyone that I lacked any kind of ambition.
Speaker 2: So can we get back to Trudy's final show?
Speaker 6: Yeah? Yeah, sorry.
Speaker 7: He was quiet that night, even quieter than usual. I mean,
Speaker 7: the bar was practically empty. They didn't really need me there,
Speaker 7: but then again, they never needed me. Trudy was up
Speaker 7: on stage with her acoustic guitar. You know, she was
Speaker 7: way better than I could have ever hoped to be.
Speaker 7: She was a real musician. I was just playing at it.
Speaker 6: She just had a.
Speaker 7: Presence, you know, just her and her guitar, and somehow
Speaker 7: it felt more full and complete than.
Speaker 6: Like a five man band. She had a soulful voice,
Speaker 6: kind of husky, full of emotion.
Speaker 2: Sounds like you were jealous of her.
Speaker 6: God damn right, I was jealous of her.
Speaker 7: But I can't even imagine who would want to take
Speaker 7: someone like her away from the world. She was gonna
Speaker 7: be a star. So at the end of the night
Speaker 7: she started playing a few popular songs, but not like
Speaker 7: the ones I.
Speaker 6: Played in that cover band I was in.
Speaker 7: We were trying to sound just like whoever you know,
Speaker 7: Nirvana up Pearl Jammed the Chili's.
Speaker 6: We were trying to replicate their sound. Not Trudy.
Speaker 7: She took a song and she made it her own
Speaker 7: and it was usually better than the original. Fucking amazing
Speaker 7: how she could do that. The final song she did
Speaker 7: that night, well ever, I guess, was this slow down
Speaker 7: acoustic version of Only Happy When It Rains by Garbage.
Speaker 6: Remember that one?
Speaker 2: I remember it?
Speaker 7: Good song I'm too bad? You never heard it played
Speaker 7: by Trudy Masterson. It was fucking haunting.
Speaker 1: So here's what happened after Trudy wrapped up her final show.
Speaker 4: According to Jeffrey Franklin, the owner of the Triple B's,
Speaker 4: Prudy Masterson finished her set just after eleven pm on Thursday,
Speaker 4: November sixteenth, nineteen ninety five.
Speaker 6: Jeff tried hitting on her every night, even though she
Speaker 6: made it crystal clear she was playing for a different team, you.
Speaker 2: Know, So you're saying she was gay, How did you know?
Speaker 6: It wasn't like it was a secret.
Speaker 7: I mean, I talked to her a few times, and
Speaker 7: it's not like she ever told me. But she could
Speaker 7: have given a shit about me or any other guy
Speaker 7: in the bar. But if there was a cute girl there,
Speaker 7: Judy was eyeing her and smiling at her through her
Speaker 7: whole set. But Jeff must have missed that, because whenever
Speaker 7: she got to the bar, or right before she left,
Speaker 7: he'd find some reason to go over and talk to
Speaker 7: her and try to flirt.
Speaker 6: You know.
Speaker 7: That night he was asking her if she mightded playing
Speaker 7: more covers, you know, because tomorrow's Friday and there'll be
Speaker 7: more customers and people like music they already know. And
Speaker 7: like I said, that garbage cover she did with some
Speaker 7: fucking next level shit. So while I was cleaning up
Speaker 7: behind the bar, I watched her and Jeff talk for
Speaker 7: a while, and she's smiling and nod along, but it's
Speaker 7: so obvious she just wants to get out of there
Speaker 7: and go back to her motel. She couldn't pack her
Speaker 7: guitar away fast enough. She was out the door by
Speaker 7: eleven twenty eleven thirty latest.
Speaker 4: Mister Franklin said that within minutes of Trudy masters and
Speaker 4: leaving the bar, he told Connor Langford to clock out.
Speaker 7: Yeah, I'd broken a couple of glasses and he got mad,
Speaker 7: told me to go home and sleep it off.
Speaker 2: You were high.
Speaker 7: I don't even remember. I was always either high or
Speaker 7: chones in back then. I just don't remember which I
Speaker 7: was that night.
Speaker 4: Franklin said he didn't think Connor was on anything that night.
Speaker 4: He said he seemed Connor high many times, but that
Speaker 4: night he was stone cold, sober. He left the bar
Speaker 4: no more than fifteen minutes.
Speaker 1: After Trudy, So maybe he broke the glasses on purpose,
Speaker 1: like he was trying to get sent home.
Speaker 5: Oh that's what I believe you.
Speaker 1: It was four blocks to the motel where Trudy was staying,
Speaker 1: and she walked to it every night after she played
Speaker 1: at Triple B's, but she didn't make it there that night.
Speaker 4: It was the same time of year as the attack
Speaker 4: on Angela Bauers in nineteen ninety four, and I know
Speaker 4: Miss Masterson had been told it wasn't the best idea
Speaker 4: to walk along late at night.
Speaker 5: But that was the thing about Domino Beach.
Speaker 4: It was clean, the streets were well lit, you hear
Speaker 4: the sound of the waves in the distance.
Speaker 5: It felt perfectly safe.
Speaker 3: Did anyone see Trudy after she left Triple Be's.
Speaker 4: Nope, no one saw, you know, no, no one. I
Speaker 4: talked too, Sar. We don't know if she tried to
Speaker 4: go straight to the motel, or if she tried to
Speaker 4: go for a walk on the beach or the boardwalk
Speaker 4: or what. But we just don't know what time she
Speaker 4: was abducted or from exactly where.
Speaker 1: What we do know is when her body was found
Speaker 1: at roughly three point thirty am on the morning of
Speaker 1: November seventeenth. Trudy was found in a small park that
Speaker 1: ran along the beach on the north end of the city.
Speaker 1: It's really not much of a park. It's a strip
Speaker 1: of grass, a few benches and palm trees, and it's
Speaker 1: right next to the main road that separates the beach
Speaker 1: from the downtown area a little further south. She had
Speaker 1: been raped, beaten, and strangled to death, just like Vera
Speaker 1: Kendrick in nineteen ninety two. Whether the killer intended to
Speaker 1: spray paint some song lyrics near the body, like he
Speaker 1: had done with Vera and Billy Boy Reeves, or whether
Speaker 1: he wanted to leave some music playing, like he had
Speaker 1: with Mary Crouch, Sandra Gerard, and Hally Blake. Will never
Speaker 1: know because this murder had something none of the others had.
Speaker 1: A witness.
Speaker 4: Henrietta Jones had lived in Domino Beach for at least
Speaker 4: ten years. She's always been homeless, at least as long
Speaker 4: as I've known her, and she was in Domino Beach
Speaker 4: before me.
Speaker 3: Did you know Henrietta?
Speaker 5: Well, yeah, pretty well, God rest her soul.
Speaker 4: I wouldn't say we always got along, but you know
Speaker 4: she never gave me any trouble either.
Speaker 5: Did you know her? I mean, you know before this.
Speaker 1: I know, not really. I kind of remember giving her
Speaker 1: change a couple of times.
Speaker 5: But you should have gotten to know her.
Speaker 4: She might have been homeless, but she was sharp as
Speaker 4: attack and she had eyes everywhere apparently, so you know
Speaker 4: she might have been useful to you as a source.
Speaker 5: I mean, you know, this wasn't the first time she'd
Speaker 5: been useful to me.
Speaker 3: I was still really young back then.
Speaker 1: I was probably scared of her, but you're right, as
Speaker 1: a journalist I should have been more open minded about
Speaker 1: the help she could offer.
Speaker 4: Well, like you said, you were young, you know you
Speaker 4: were trying to do it all yourself.
Speaker 3: I'm not disagreeing with you anyway.
Speaker 4: Yeah, anyway, Well it got cool in November, so Henrietta
Speaker 4: would set up a camp in the park, you know,
Speaker 4: where the wind wasn't so bad. And Henriette was real
Speaker 4: good at playing the game. She knew we'd have to
Speaker 4: run her off if she was too visible, so she
Speaker 4: always tucked herself away behind some bushes or trees or
Speaker 4: whatever was around. And as long as she was making
Speaker 4: an effort to stay out of sight, you know, out
Speaker 4: of side of the tourists, we mostly let her be.
Speaker 1: Somewhat ironically, Henry Edta Jones had been something of a
Speaker 1: mother figure to the Killer's first victim, Vera Hendrick.
Speaker 3: She had given Vera the lay of the.
Speaker 1: Land, todd her where the best panhandling spots were and
Speaker 1: the best times to be there, you know that sort
Speaker 1: of thing. She was a friend to the Killer's first victim,
Speaker 1: and she would help make sure Trudy Masterson was the last.
Speaker 4: According to Henrietta's statement, she heard a car pull up
Speaker 4: and stop at the curb right by the park, and
Speaker 4: someone in her situation knows that when you hear something
Speaker 4: that late at night, it's best to check and make
Speaker 4: sure that it's not a threat.
Speaker 5: So that's what she did.
Speaker 4: And she had set herself up near a little island
Speaker 4: of palm trees and would have been hard to see
Speaker 4: from the road, you know. So she looks out with
Speaker 4: this little makeshift tent and she sees a light colored
Speaker 4: band sitting on the curb by the park. She sees
Speaker 4: a man, although she says she can't identify her. He's
Speaker 4: wearing a hoodie something like that. But she sees him
Speaker 4: open up the back doors of the van and pull
Speaker 4: out a naked body, a naked body of Trudy Masterson.
Speaker 3: She knew it was a body right away, Oh, she
Speaker 3: said she did.
Speaker 4: I mean, she didn't know the woman's name, but she
Speaker 4: said she knew it was a dead person. He got
Speaker 4: Trudy out of the van, grabbed her ankles, and dragged
Speaker 4: her into the grass. Well, I guess it got a
Speaker 4: little too close to Henrietta for comfort, because that's when
Speaker 4: she hit.
Speaker 5: Her air horn.
Speaker 3: Her air horn or air horn.
Speaker 6: Yeah.
Speaker 4: I mean, like I said, she'd been homeless for a
Speaker 4: while and she knew how to take care of herself.
Speaker 4: She had this nasty, rusty old knife of worse came
Speaker 4: to worse, but I never knew where to use it.
Speaker 5: That airhorn, though I'd heard.
Speaker 4: It myself multiple times if someone tried to rob her,
Speaker 4: or she saw someone she didn't like, that thing was
Speaker 4: so loud it would split the night wide open. And
Speaker 4: that's what happened.
Speaker 3: What did the killer do?
Speaker 4: She said, He froze, you know, for about a second,
Speaker 4: looked back, saw her, and did she see him his face, No,
Speaker 4: But she did hit the airhorn again, and he ran
Speaker 4: for his van and peeled off without even bothering to
Speaker 4: close the back doors. When she was sure he was gone,
Speaker 4: Henrietta went to Trudy's body, confirmed or dead, and then
Speaker 4: went to the nearest payphone called nine one one.
Speaker 1: Henrietta Jones may not have gotten a good look at
Speaker 1: the killer, but at this point she was only the
Speaker 1: second person to lay eyes on him at all and
Speaker 1: lived to tell the tale, the first being Angela Bowers
Speaker 1: almost exactly one year earlier. When Angela was attacked, she
Speaker 1: was forced into the back seat of her own car,
Speaker 1: but Henrietta saw the killer driving his own vehicle. A
Speaker 1: light colored van could be white, could be pale blue,
Speaker 1: or yellow, even beige she wasn't sure, but it was
Speaker 1: the best clue police had gotten yet.
Speaker 4: Prudy Masterson's offtopsy showed traces.
Speaker 3: Of rohypnal, the date rate drug Rufie's exactly.
Speaker 6: You know.
Speaker 4: It had been gaining popularity in the US since the
Speaker 4: early nineties, but most people weren't too aware of it,
Speaker 4: I mean, not aware to be on the lookout. Anyway,
Speaker 4: we suspect someone approached her while she was walking back
Speaker 4: to the motel, since all the bars were closed at
Speaker 4: eleven during the off season. Maybe this person convinced her
Speaker 4: to go have a drink on the beach, watch.
Speaker 5: The waves, you know.
Speaker 3: So it might have been someone she knew.
Speaker 4: Might have been, but remember she was a musician and
Speaker 4: she didn't exactly live a risk free lifestyle. Could have
Speaker 4: been that whoever approached or just charmed her.
Speaker 3: However it happened. He somehow slipped her a roofie.
Speaker 4: Right, and it doesn't take long to start feeling the effects.
Speaker 4: And she was raped, yeah, and strangled, and she was
Speaker 4: too out of it to fight back. So again, no
Speaker 4: defense wounds, no skin, hair or blood under the fingernails,
Speaker 4: nothing like that. And when he was done, tried to
Speaker 4: get rid of the body. We were working off the
Speaker 4: theory that the rape and murder occurred inside the van.
Speaker 5: Henrietta saw Pirah.
Speaker 4: Kendrick, Juan Costas, and the other three ASU students were
Speaker 4: all found where they were killed. Only the bodies of
Speaker 4: Billy Boy Reeves and now Trudy Masterson were transported and
Speaker 4: disposed of somewhere else.
Speaker 3: So you really wanted to find that van.
Speaker 5: We wanted to, and we did.
Speaker 1: The van was found the next day, roughly eighty miles
Speaker 1: north of Los Angeles on the Pacific Coast Highway. It
Speaker 1: had been driven off the road into a deep ditch,
Speaker 1: only partially hidden by branches and leaves. Some of Trudy
Speaker 1: Masterson's hair and blood was found in the back.
Speaker 4: That was the day that changed everything, November eighteenth, nineteen
Speaker 4: ninety five.
Speaker 3: Why did everything change that day.
Speaker 4: Because the day we got our first real suspect in
Speaker 4: the case. The van we found was registered to Connor Langford.
Speaker 1: It had finally happened. I started suspecting Connor Langford five
Speaker 1: months earlier. I never voiced my suspicions to anyone. I
Speaker 1: know what you're thinking. It's really easy for me to
Speaker 1: say I knew it was Connor all Along now thirty
Speaker 1: years later, But you're wrong.
Speaker 3: It's not easy. I didn't want to.
Speaker 1: Risk my job by voicing my suspicions about Connor and
Speaker 1: then having his father the counselmansue me and the paper
Speaker 1: into oblivion. And sure that might have happened if I'd
Speaker 1: have been vocal. You know what else might have happened.
Speaker 1: Trudy Masterson might still be alive. Yeah, I understand how
Speaker 1: it looked again, Connor Langford.
Speaker 7: I know why everyone believes I'm guilty. I know why
Speaker 7: almost everyone I cared about turn their backs on me.
Speaker 6: And I'm not saying.
Speaker 7: I didn't deserve the universe to throw some shit in
Speaker 7: my way. I was a fuck up, sure, but I'm
Speaker 7: no killer. I'm saying it now and I said it
Speaker 7: back then. I'm an innocent man.
Speaker 1: The Murder Years is a production of AYR Media and
Speaker 1: iHeartMedia Executive producer Elisa Rosen for AYR Media. Written by
Speaker 1: Tim Huddleston, directed by Elisa Rosen, Editing and sound designed
Speaker 1: by Tristan Bankston, Consulting producer Jean Chandil, coordinator Olive Goldberg.
Speaker 1: Audio engineering and mastering by Justin longerbein studio engineer Josh Hook.
Speaker 1: Original music by Nathan Bankston. Original concept developed in partnership
Speaker 1: with Anne, Margaret Johns, and Greg Spring. Executive producer for iHeartMedia,
Speaker 1: Maya Howard. Performances for this episode by Erica Leniac as
Speaker 1: Courtney Barnes, Tom Virtue as Sheriff Damon Stokes, Alex Salem
Speaker 1: as Connor Langford