Speaker 1: School of Humans. On January eighteenth, twenty twelve, a contractor
Speaker 1: was walking along a road in Dover Township, Pennsylvania in
Speaker 1: York County when he noticed a plastic bag. The York
Speaker 1: Daily Record newspaper, who did a great investigative series on
Speaker 1: this case, by the way, interviewed the guy who found
Speaker 1: the trash. His name is Anthony. He was talking about
Speaker 1: how he got pulled into a real life horror story
Speaker 1: super randomly. Basically, he stopped to pick up a piece
Speaker 1: of trash and he was going to throw it into
Speaker 1: the back of his truck when he picked up this
Speaker 1: white plastic food Saber grocery store bag. The bag was sealed,
Speaker 1: it was heavy, and it had a weird kind of
Speaker 1: liquidity consistency. At first, he said he thought it might
Speaker 1: be a dead animal, but then he saw the blood
Speaker 1: and what looked like long, gray human hair and skin.
Speaker 1: He called the police, and the Northern York County Regional
Speaker 1: Police Department were the ones who initially responded, but they
Speaker 1: soon realized they needed additional support, so they sent the
Speaker 1: scalp to the Pennsylvania State Crime Lab for forensic analysis.
Speaker 1: The lab confirmed that this was human. They ran the
Speaker 1: DNA and they could not find a match to anyone
Speaker 1: in their system, So the human skin and hair became
Speaker 1: a John Doe case officially. Unofficially, detectives called it the
Speaker 1: food saber bagcase. So that bag and that strip of
Speaker 1: skin remained in the crime lab and that's where it
Speaker 1: stayed until five years later. This would lead detectives to
Speaker 1: a sixty seven year old, diminutive grandmother who looked like
Speaker 1: a sweet little lady, but who was guilty of pathological lies,
Speaker 1: a horrific murder, and who some people believe could even
Speaker 1: be a black widow potential serial killer. I'm Catherine Townsend.
Speaker 1: Over the past five years of making my true crime podcast,
Speaker 1: Helen Gone, I've learned that there is no such thing
Speaker 1: as a small town where murder never happens. I have
Speaker 1: received hundreds of messages from people all around the country
Speaker 1: asking for help with an unsolved murder that's affected them,
Speaker 1: their families, and their communities.
Speaker 2: If you have a case.
Speaker 1: You'd like me and my team to look into, you
Speaker 1: can reach out to us at our Helen Gone Murder
Speaker 1: Line at six seven eight seven four four six one
Speaker 1: four five. That's six seven eight seven four four six
Speaker 1: one four five.
Speaker 2: This is Helen Gone murder line.
Speaker 1: So let's go back to late twenty eleven. Shortly before that,
Speaker 1: passerby made the gruesome discovery of a scalp in a
Speaker 1: food saver bag. According to the criminal complaint, the bag
Speaker 1: quote contained bloodstained items, skin and hair. There were other
Speaker 1: things in that plastic bag that had blood on them.
Speaker 1: One of those items was a piece of queen sized
Speaker 1: bed sheet, But detectives had no idea where the bed
Speaker 1: sheet came from. They didn't have a body, they didn't
Speaker 1: even have a head. Meanwhile, across the country, a woman
Speaker 1: named Kim Villa had not heard from her father, Thomas HAYDENR.
Speaker 1: In a long time. She told The York Daily Records.
Speaker 1: She and her dad were not super close, so it
Speaker 1: wasn't unusual for them not to talk for a while,
Speaker 1: but it had been years. At this point. Kim had
Speaker 1: not really talked to her father since two thousand and five.
Speaker 1: She was wondering what to do now. I bring this
Speaker 1: up because inevitably some people will say, well, she hadn't
Speaker 1: really talked to her dad in years, How does that happen?
Speaker 1: How did she not know something was wrong? Unfortunately, in
Speaker 1: this situation, I've seen it over and over in families.
Speaker 1: Someone might not realize their loved one is missing for
Speaker 1: months or sometimes years, and there are reasons why this happens.
Speaker 1: Kim said. The reason this happened in her case is
Speaker 1: because Thomas's wife, his second wife, Virginia, who he had
Speaker 1: married in nineteen ninety eight, was telling Kim that Thomas
Speaker 1: was there, that he was sitting right there, but that
Speaker 1: he just didn't want to talk to Kim because of
Speaker 1: things that had happened in the past. Kim had believed
Speaker 1: Virginia for a long time. Kim told the newspaper Tom
Speaker 1: was not a perfect man. It seemed like Tom had
Speaker 1: had a pretty rough childhood. She said that her own
Speaker 1: childhood had involved physical and verbal abuse at times from
Speaker 1: her father. Thomas was originally from Maryland. He married Kim's
Speaker 1: mom his first wife, when he was young. They were
Speaker 1: married for twenty years. He worked several different jobs, so
Speaker 1: the family moved around the country a lot. They eventually
Speaker 1: settled in Gonzales, Louisiana, for a while he worked as
Speaker 1: a police officer, Then the family moved to Virginia. At
Speaker 1: some point, Thomas was working for the Postal Service and
Speaker 1: on that job, he got injured. After that, he was
Speaker 1: eligible to receive Social Security disability. By the mid nineties,
Speaker 1: Thomas had divorced his first wife after twenty five of marriage,
Speaker 1: and he was ready to date again. So he got
Speaker 1: a friend to help him get online and try chatting
Speaker 1: to women. That's how he met Virginia Fogel. They ended
Speaker 1: up meeting in real life and they started dating. Thomas
Speaker 1: and Virginia married in nineteen ninety eight. Now this part
Speaker 1: is interesting because multiple media sources say neither of their
Speaker 1: families neither Thomas's or Virginia's knew about the wedding until afterwards, which,
Speaker 1: let's be honest, is never a great sign. Kim told
Speaker 1: the newspaper she didn't like her stepmom. She did not
Speaker 1: trust Virginia. She was suspicious of her pretty much from
Speaker 1: the start. She felt that she was kind of insincere.
Speaker 1: I know this is something I've said before many times,
Speaker 1: but it is very difficult to be in that position,
Speaker 1: the position of being suspicious of someone that a family
Speaker 1: member is dating, because sometimes in those situations when you
Speaker 1: try to warn the family member, people do tend to
Speaker 1: shoot the messenger. I've been there myself, and it could
Speaker 1: be really difficult to walk that fine line between telling
Speaker 1: someone the truth, telling them the information you feel they
Speaker 1: should know, and not alienating them. I don't really have
Speaker 1: any great advice to give about these situations, by the way,
Speaker 1: I just want to let people out there know it
Speaker 1: does happen, and actually I've been there myself. Virginia was
Speaker 1: born in nineteen fifty one. It seemed like from what
Speaker 1: The York Daily Record said, her own family said that
Speaker 1: she was kind of a pathological liar growing up. Her
Speaker 1: children said they never really knew their mom. They never
Speaker 1: really knew what was going on. Virginia had some weird
Speaker 1: stories about her background. For example, she said her biological
Speaker 1: mother traded her to someone else. Another couple things like that.
Speaker 1: The children basically never knew what was true and what
Speaker 1: wasn't true, which meant that when Virginia did tell crazy stories,
Speaker 1: even if sometimes they were true, people tended not to
Speaker 1: believe her. This will become important later. Long story short,
Speaker 1: Virginia's own children did not know much about her, or
Speaker 1: about really their own family background. A lot of it
Speaker 1: was a mystery. After Thomas disappeared, Kim, his daughter, and
Speaker 1: the rest of her family found out something else. They
Speaker 1: found out that their dad was not Virginia's first husband,
Speaker 1: or even her second husband, like many of them had assumed.
Speaker 1: Thomas was Virginia's third husband. Virginia had been married twice before,
Speaker 1: and both of her husbands had died very suddenly. Virginia's
Speaker 1: first husband, I say first, but with the caveat that
Speaker 1: it's the first that we know about. Knowing her proclivities,
Speaker 1: I would question everything as far as we know. Virginia's
Speaker 1: first husband was a man named Edward Claba. He was
Speaker 1: a janitor at Sykesville Middle School in Maryland. Virginia and
Speaker 1: Edward were super young when they got together. When they married,
Speaker 1: Virginia was still high school age. They divorced in nineteen
Speaker 1: seventy three. Virginia's daughter Carolyn told The York Daily Record
Speaker 1: they split up because Virginia was having an affair, and
Speaker 1: then tragedy struck. Virginia's ex husband was found hanging in
Speaker 1: the school gym on November twenty first, nineteen seventy four,
Speaker 1: less than a year after they were divorced. It was
Speaker 1: determined that he had taken his own life. Virginia then
Speaker 1: married her second husband, Floyd Fogel, shortly after that, also
Speaker 1: in nineteen seventy four, Virginia was about twenty three. By then,
Speaker 1: Floyd was a lot older, and they had a little
Speaker 1: bit of a scandal to start with. Apparently, Virginia was
Speaker 1: the babysitter for Floyd Fogel. They started to have a
Speaker 1: sexual affair, she got pregnant, and eventually they got married.
Speaker 1: They had a daughter together named Connie. Virginia was very
Speaker 1: close to Connie, and Virginia and Floyd were married for
Speaker 1: about sixteen years until nineteen ninety that's when Floyd died
Speaker 1: of a massive heart attack. That would mean when Floyd died,
Speaker 1: Virginia was thirty nine, still young and looking for love again.
Speaker 1: As we said before, she married Thomas eight years later
Speaker 1: in nineteen ninety eight. She was forty seven. Thomas was
Speaker 1: five years younger. Virginia and Thomas sold their properties. They
Speaker 1: bought an RV together, and it was hard for his
Speaker 1: family to keep track of him because Virginia and Thomas
Speaker 1: crossed the country. They moved around a lot. Again, in
Speaker 1: these cases, the family dynamic can be very tricky. Some
Speaker 1: family members had their own issues with Thomas, and they
Speaker 1: didn't realize that the rest of the family was not
Speaker 1: able to locate him. The last time that Kim spoke
Speaker 1: to her father was in two thousand and five, and
Speaker 1: then for the next couple of years, as we said before,
Speaker 1: she didn't speak to him at all. She would call,
Speaker 1: Virginia would answer, and Virginia would always have an excuse
Speaker 1: for why Thomas couldn't come to the phone. Kim blamed
Speaker 1: herself since she had had a minor argument with her
Speaker 1: dad the last time they spoke. It seems like Virginia
Speaker 1: kind of used that as a reason why her dad
Speaker 1: apparently didn't want to talk to her. Kim got frustrated
Speaker 1: with this. She started asking Virginia basically for proof of life.
Speaker 1: She wanted Virginia to send her a photo of her father.
Speaker 1: She said she wanted this even if he wasn't up
Speaker 1: to talking to her. She wanted to know he was okay,
Speaker 1: but Virginia refused. Then Virginia told her Thomas didn't want
Speaker 1: to have anything to do with her at all. She
Speaker 1: said Thomas had called Kim a greedy little bitch. This
Speaker 1: blew Kim away because she had never known her father
Speaker 1: to talk about her like that. Later, Virginia told her
Speaker 1: her father hated her, hated the rest of the family,
Speaker 1: and didn't want to see any of them. Kim was
Speaker 1: growing more and more concerned. She wanted to know what
Speaker 1: happened to her father, and Kim started to figure out
Speaker 1: it wasn't just her. Her brothers had not talked to
Speaker 1: her dad either. Then Thomas's brother passed away and twenty fourteen,
Speaker 1: Thomas did not even come to the funeral. After that,
Speaker 1: pretty much the whole family knew that something was very wrong.
Speaker 1: So then one day Kim told the newspaper she got
Speaker 1: a call out of the blue. It was Carolyn, one
Speaker 1: of Virginia's other daughters. Carolyn asked Kim if she had
Speaker 1: talked to Thomas recently. Kim said no, and Carolyn said
Speaker 1: she was worried about Thomas, who was her stepfather. She
Speaker 1: said she had not spoken to him since the fall
Speaker 1: of twenty eleven. She had been close to Thomas. Carolyn
Speaker 1: said she was surprised that her stepfather never showed up
Speaker 1: to her Christmas party that year, and then she never
Speaker 1: saw him again. So now Kim has gone from being
Speaker 1: concerned about her dad to having the terrifying feeling that
Speaker 1: her dad was gone and never coming back. What happened
Speaker 1: to Thomas? How could he just disappear so suddenly? And
Speaker 1: how did Virginia explain that to everyone? It turned out
Speaker 1: that it depended on who you asked. She told some
Speaker 1: people that Thomas was in Mexico taking care of some
Speaker 1: mystery medical condition. She told other people that he had als.
Speaker 1: When Carolyn asked her mother about Thomas, Virginia said Thomas
Speaker 1: was gone, but that he left a note for Carolyn.
Speaker 1: Carolyn looked at the note that Thomas had supposedly left behind,
Speaker 1: and she noticed it didn't seem to make a lot
Speaker 1: of sense. First of all, it started out Dearest Carolyn,
Speaker 1: which Carolyn said was not the way that Thomas talked.
Speaker 1: It felt very unnatural. The language was way too flowery,
Speaker 1: and the letters said that he was never coming back.
Speaker 1: So she was probably asking herself if that was how
Speaker 1: he felt, why he didn't just tell her, or at
Speaker 1: least text her or call her and tell her that
Speaker 1: she knew something was up. So that's when Carolyn called Kim.
Speaker 1: Carolyn and Kim joined forces. They were determined to figure
Speaker 1: out what really happened to Thomas. In twenty sixteen, Kim
Speaker 1: hired a private investigator, The investigators started surveillance on Virginia.
Speaker 1: By this time, Virginia had moved into her own apartment.
Speaker 1: The PI interviewed neighbors and people who interacted with Virginia
Speaker 1: on a regular basis. Even though she was a pretty
Speaker 1: private person, on occasion, she did like to talk about herself.
Speaker 1: When people asked if Thomas was gone and what happened
Speaker 1: to him, she told them that Thomas was in Mexico. Again.
Speaker 1: She told some people that he had als or lou
Speaker 1: Garry's disease. Apparently, she also told some people that Thomas
Speaker 1: was dead or some combination of those three excuses. None
Speaker 1: of the stories matched, but no one figured that out
Speaker 1: for a long time. The PI told Kim that Virginia
Speaker 1: was telling people that Thomas had left her suddenly sometime
Speaker 1: in twenty eleven. On January twenty first, twenty seventeen, Kim
Speaker 1: called the Pennsylvania State Police to perform a welfare check
Speaker 1: on her father. They went to the apartment and talked
Speaker 1: to Virginia. She told them that her husband had left
Speaker 1: her in twenty eleven. She said he had gone to
Speaker 1: get medical treatment in Mexico and that he never came back.
Speaker 1: They asked her well, how did he leave the house
Speaker 1: without a vehicle. She said that his brother, Spencer, had
Speaker 1: picked him up. But police found Spencer, they talked to him,
Speaker 1: he said this was absolutely not true. He never picked
Speaker 1: his brother up. He never took him to Mexico or
Speaker 1: anywhere else. Police were obviously very suspicious, but they needed
Speaker 1: more evidence. Now, I do want to call out the
Speaker 1: really good work of the police department, because in so
Speaker 1: many of these cases, people call me literally almost every
Speaker 1: week with a story about how a family member has
Speaker 1: disappeared unexpectedly. They believe someone's lying about it, but often
Speaker 1: police do not investigate further. In this case, the police did.
Speaker 1: They really took the time to build a case and
Speaker 1: put the pieces together. They followed the paper trail on
Speaker 1: the house. They found out that on November fourth, twenty thirteen,
Speaker 1: Thomas Hayden had sold his share of the condo he
Speaker 1: owned to his wife for one dollar. That transaction happens
Speaker 1: a lot between husbands and wives, so that part is
Speaker 1: not necessarily a red flag. But the next part to
Speaker 1: police absolutely was. Because they looked at the person who
Speaker 1: would notarized this transaction. They found out this signature was
Speaker 1: Connie Pender Virginia's daughter. Police later pulled in a handwriting expert.
Speaker 1: The expert's opinion was that Virginia Hayden had signed Thomas's
Speaker 1: name to that document, according to the criminal complaint. The
Speaker 1: next year, Virginia sold the condominium to someone else. The
Speaker 1: buyer paid one hundred and thirty five thousand dollars. Police
Speaker 1: tracked down the guy who had bought the condominium from Virginia.
Speaker 1: He said when he bought the place, he bought it
Speaker 1: basically as is. He said a bunch of furniture and
Speaker 1: other stuff was included as part of the sale, but
Speaker 1: he said he noticed that when he moved in, a
Speaker 1: couple of tho items were missing, including a queen size
Speaker 1: bed and a large rubber mat that had been in
Speaker 1: the garage on the floor. They asked him if Virginia
Speaker 1: had mentioned her husband. The buyer said Virginia told him
Speaker 1: her husband was dead. But when police asked Virginia about this,
Speaker 1: about these conflicting stories, she always had an excuse, and
Speaker 1: by now she was telling everybody Thomas had been abusive.
Speaker 1: She said Thomas had been so abusive to her that
Speaker 1: he was dead to her, and that's why she was
Speaker 1: telling people he was dead. So after Kim made the
Speaker 1: missing person's report and the welfare check happened, the information
Speaker 1: was shared with the Northern York County Regional Police, and
Speaker 1: a detective there remembered the food Saber case. They pulled
Speaker 1: up Thomas's driver's license. When they saw him, and they
Speaker 1: saw his long gray hair, they wondered if he might
Speaker 1: be the person they'd been trying to id from that case.
Speaker 1: Forensic testing indicated that Thomas's DNA was a match to
Speaker 1: the scalp they found in the food Saver bag. Those
Speaker 1: remains had been sitting there for six years. Finally, Thomas's
Speaker 1: family knew what happened to him. Detectives believed they knew
Speaker 1: what happened to Thomas too. They absolutely believed Virginia had
Speaker 1: killed him. Detectives had a lot of circumstantial evidence here.
Speaker 1: They also have stories that don't match, and, as we
Speaker 1: have seen on so many cases, stories that don't match
Speaker 1: our huge potential red flags. But Virginia was a good liar.
Speaker 1: She had an excuse for that. She said she made
Speaker 1: stories up because she was embarrassed about the fact that
Speaker 1: Thomas left her. She told other people that he had
Speaker 1: been so abusive. She was trying to forget so even
Speaker 1: though they caught her in lies, it was difficult to
Speaker 1: prove they still didn't have a body. In July twenty seventeen,
Speaker 1: police interviewed Virginia. She told them a bunch of different stories. First,
Speaker 1: she said she was embarrassed about Thomas leaving her. That's
Speaker 1: why she said that he went to Mexico. Then suddenly
Speaker 1: she said she actually had seen Thomas since he disappeared.
Speaker 1: She said she saw him in Puerto Rico while she
Speaker 1: was visiting there in twenty fourteen or twenty fifteen. She
Speaker 1: said Thomas was abusive. He was physically abusive. She was
Speaker 1: terrified of him. She said that's why she hadn't said anything,
Speaker 1: because she had been so scared when she saw him again.
Speaker 1: Police knew by this point she was full of it.
Speaker 1: There was no evidence that Thomas was ever abusive to her. Finally,
Speaker 1: they took a picture of the scalp in the plastic
Speaker 1: bag and they showed it to her, But detectives noted
Speaker 1: she didn't really have any reaction to that. In fact,
Speaker 1: she didn't have much of a reaction to anything. She
Speaker 1: seemed totally emotionally flat. So while all this is going on,
Speaker 1: police are trying to find people who can shed some
Speaker 1: light on Virginia's real character. They did find one person
Speaker 1: who she was close to, her grandson, Mike Harris. Police
Speaker 1: talked to Michael and he said he and his grandma
Speaker 1: would joke all the time about the best ways to
Speaker 1: get rid of a body. He said that Virginia used
Speaker 1: to joke about how feeding a body to pigs with
Speaker 1: the perfect disposal method, because apparently pigs would eat everything
Speaker 1: except the hair and not leave behind any traces. Her
Speaker 1: grandson said they would watch true crime shows together. He
Speaker 1: described her as cool. He said she also told him
Speaker 1: if you wanted to get rid of a body in
Speaker 1: a body of water, you had to stab it multiple
Speaker 1: times to make sure that it would sink. Side note.
Speaker 1: This part was especially freaky to me and I'm sure
Speaker 1: to many true crime fans because real talk. I make
Speaker 1: these kind of jokes all the time. My mom and
Speaker 1: I watch true crime shows together. It's always been our thing.
Speaker 1: So the idea that someone would joke about this not
Speaker 1: because the humor deflects some of the dark thoughts or
Speaker 1: the horror of what is happening, but because she did
Speaker 1: this for real is absolutely terrifying. It's like Patrick Bateman
Speaker 1: from American Psycho in the body of this innocent looking grandma.
Speaker 1: Police tried to figure out if Virginia had had a
Speaker 1: grain of truth in those comments. They did find out
Speaker 1: that shortly after Thomas vanished, Virginia did some housework. She
Speaker 1: did some home improvements. One of those was pouring down
Speaker 1: some concrete for a new patio in the backyard. This
Speaker 1: is crazy and dark as well. She and her son
Speaker 1: in law Michael, actually joked about that patio. She made
Speaker 1: a comment about how there could be a body down there.
Speaker 1: They could be hiding a body. Police searched that area
Speaker 1: with ground penetrating radar and dogs, but in the end
Speaker 1: they found nothing. Luckily, according to police, Virginia did something
Speaker 1: that helped them. This always amazes me when this happens,
Speaker 1: but it happens a lot. There are a lot of
Speaker 1: narcissistic people in the world, and a lot of people
Speaker 1: who are narcissistic and who lie. It's like, even when
Speaker 1: they should be quiet, they keep talking. I think it's
Speaker 1: because they're so convinced they can lie convincingly. They've been
Speaker 1: able to deceive so many people for so long that
Speaker 1: they just think that they're going to continue their story
Speaker 1: is going to be believable. They can't see how ridiculous
Speaker 1: their own story is. If you're lucky, they will keep
Speaker 1: talking and sometimes they will shoot themselves in the foot.
Speaker 1: And that seems to be kind of what happened here. Remember,
Speaker 1: the detectives were following the money they found out about
Speaker 1: the condo, and then because remember Thomas was receiving Social
Speaker 1: Security payments, they found over one hundred and sixteen thousand
Speaker 1: dollars had been deposited in the joint account Thomas shared
Speaker 1: with Virginia. Virginia continued to take that money after Thomas
Speaker 1: was gone. Sometimes if investigators can't get someone from murder
Speaker 1: right away, they will start with fraud because the federal
Speaker 1: government will get their money. But the criminal investigation continued.
Speaker 1: They executed US search warrant on Virginia's home. They found
Speaker 1: a lock box with all of Thomas's stuff in it,
Speaker 1: including his driver's license and his passport, which, by the way,
Speaker 1: he would have needed for foreign travel to Mexico or
Speaker 1: anywhere else. It was right there. His Social Security card
Speaker 1: was there. This is something that it seems like he
Speaker 1: never would have left home. Without Also, why, even if
Speaker 1: he was planning on leaving, and especially if he planned
Speaker 1: on getting medical treatment, would he ever stop taking his money.
Speaker 1: That idea is absolutely ridiculous. It makes zero sense. They
Speaker 1: checked records. They found that Thomas's passport had never been used,
Speaker 1: so there was no evidence he ever went to Mexico
Speaker 1: or anywhere outside the US. He also had not accessed
Speaker 1: his bank account or any money since he disappeared. They
Speaker 1: were also checking out other elements of Virginia's story. They
Speaker 1: tried to verify the information that she had given them
Speaker 1: about Thomas's illnesses. They went through his medical records. They
Speaker 1: found no evidence at all of any serious illness or
Speaker 1: terminal illness, no evidence that he ever, at any point
Speaker 1: was diagnosed with als. They did find, though, that Thomas
Speaker 1: regularly saw his doctors. His last doctor's appointment in person
Speaker 1: was on September twenty seventh, twenty eleven. He was supposed
Speaker 1: to see the doctor again on October twenty fifth, but
Speaker 1: Virginia canceled that appointment. She told the doctor her husband
Speaker 1: had left town. They found out that Virginia had bought
Speaker 1: a gun. Records showed that she had bought a three
Speaker 1: fifty seven caliber handgun on October second, twenty eleven. She
Speaker 1: claimed she sold it to a private party. Police never
Speaker 1: got the weapon. They found something else that I thought
Speaker 1: was interesting. They found Virginia's day planner in her house.
Speaker 1: Next to November one, twenty eleven, Virginia wrote Tom had
Speaker 1: left for Mexico. Some investigators wondered if that might have
Speaker 1: been code for something else. And all through this process
Speaker 1: Virginia acted like she didn't care. She was actually very lackadaisical.
Speaker 1: At one point she said she would write whatever they
Speaker 1: wanted her to write. Later, she said she would admit
Speaker 1: to whatever people in her family wanted her to say.
Speaker 1: She sounded like she could not care less. She said, quote,
Speaker 1: I put Thomas Hayden in there, so be happy. I
Speaker 1: give in, so leave me alone. So there it is.
Speaker 1: That's my confession. End quote. PennLive dot Com reported Virginia
Speaker 1: had a food saver vacuum ceiling machine at home, which
Speaker 1: could have explained why the bag was sealed. Even though
Speaker 1: she was outwardly somewhat cooperative, though Virginia continued to taunt investigators.
Speaker 1: In another weird twist, Virginia told police if they wanted
Speaker 1: to find Thomas they should look in her second husband's grave,
Speaker 1: remember he had died of a heart attack. They did,
Speaker 1: but they found nothing there. They charged Virginia in connection
Speaker 1: with Thomas's death. They also charged her with sixty four
Speaker 1: additional counts, including forgery, conspiracy, theft, receiving stolen property, and
Speaker 1: tampering with public records. This was related to her allegedly
Speaker 1: forging Thomas's signature on that property transfer and to her
Speaker 1: stealing the almost one hundred and seventeen thousand dollars of
Speaker 1: Social Security payments. They were able to prove Virginia's daughter, Connie,
Speaker 1: had been in on this. In twenty seventeen, they charged
Speaker 1: Connie with two counts of tampering with public records and
Speaker 1: two counts of conspiracy. Still, though they had no body,
Speaker 1: they needed to figure out how Thomas had been killed.
Speaker 1: They needed to piece together a story for the potential jury.
Speaker 1: They interviewed a forensic pathologist, doctor Wayne k Ross. The
Speaker 1: pathologist examined that food saver bag. They found there were
Speaker 1: tiny sprays of blood there, so the pathologists concluded Thomas
Speaker 1: probably had been killed by gunshop. There were bone fragments
Speaker 1: in the bag that were also characteristic of gunshot wounds,
Speaker 1: there were traces of lead in one of the bone fragments.
Speaker 1: All of this pointed to being shot in the head.
Speaker 1: Police believed that Virginia probably went up to Thomas while
Speaker 1: he was lying in bed, maybe even asleep, and killed him.
Speaker 1: Doctor Wayne k Ross said during a hearing, quote, the
Speaker 1: task of dismemberment supports the conclusion that Thomas Hayden died
Speaker 1: of violent death at the hands of another individual. End quote,
Speaker 1: and this part is horrifying. The pathologists could not say
Speaker 1: for sure whether Thomas was dead or alive when he
Speaker 1: was scalped, but they pointed out if Thomas was alive,
Speaker 1: that would have been a fatal wound and he would
Speaker 1: have died shortly afterward. The pathologists believed that after Thomas
Speaker 1: was dead, his killer had dissolved the body in some
Speaker 1: kind of caustic substance, and that the only thing left
Speaker 1: was what invests stigators found in that bag. On April eighteenth,
Speaker 1: twenty nineteen, Virginia was arrested and charged with Thomas's murder.
Speaker 1: She was ready to go to trial in twenty twenty two,
Speaker 1: but hours before the trial was supposed to start, Thomas's
Speaker 1: family got word Virginia took a plea deal. Originally she
Speaker 1: was being charged with first degree murder. She ended up
Speaker 1: pleading guilty to third degree murder. Her sentence was six
Speaker 1: to twenty years in prison. Now, there were some mixed
Speaker 1: opinions about this plea deal. I can see both sides.
Speaker 1: On the one hand, some people were totally outraged. They
Speaker 1: felt like this woman clearly murdered Thomas in a brutal
Speaker 1: way and covered it up for years. I can see
Speaker 1: that outrage, but I can also see the prosecutor's point
Speaker 1: of view. You have a situation where there's limited forensic
Speaker 1: evidence tying Virginia to Thomas. Also, I really don't want
Speaker 1: to overlook the fact the prosecutors were probably thinking about
Speaker 1: the fact that Virginia was going to show up in
Speaker 1: court looking like everyone's grandma. All it would take was
Speaker 1: one juror to believe her story or even have questions
Speaker 1: about her guilt for Virginia to get an acquittle. The
Speaker 1: prosecution probably did not want to take that chance. They
Speaker 1: knew this woman is a liar. Over the years, she's
Speaker 1: gotten away with murder, and some people believe she might
Speaker 1: have gotten away with it, possibly more than once. I'm
Speaker 1: going to go back to something here. We were talking
Speaker 1: about Virginia's grandson, Michael, some of the things that he said,
Speaker 1: some of the comments.
Speaker 2: That she made.
Speaker 1: Michael said Virginia would joke about how you could give
Speaker 1: someone an overdose and make it look like a heart attack. Now,
Speaker 1: Virginia's second husband did die of a heart attack. She
Speaker 1: made comments about looking in his grave. Maybe these were
Speaker 1: just jokes, maybe there was nothing to it, but I'm
Speaker 1: not sure about that. If I were investigators, if I
Speaker 1: had any questions about how Virginia's second husband died, I
Speaker 1: would be looking through that autopsy report finding out if
Speaker 1: he was taking any nitro medication, which is the comment
Speaker 1: that Virginia made to her grandson. I would be looking
Speaker 1: for any irregularities. Virginia's daughter, Connie, pleaded guilty to tampering
Speaker 1: with public records and conspiracy for her role in notarizing
Speaker 1: that forged deed. All she got was two years probation,
Speaker 1: and as shocking as it sounds, Virginia may not be
Speaker 1: incarcerated for that long. She's in her early seventies now,
Speaker 1: she's doing her time in Muncie, and she will be
Speaker 1: eligible for parole in a couple of years. I'm bringing
Speaker 1: this up for a couple reasons. Number one, I feel
Speaker 1: so sad for Kim and for other members of her family.
Speaker 1: I cannot imagine how tragic it would be to have
Speaker 1: to deal with not just the fact that your father
Speaker 1: has been murdered under these horrific circumstances, then you also
Speaker 1: have to deal with the reality of knowing that this
Speaker 1: woman has lied to you for years, she kept you
Speaker 1: from your father. So not only did Kim have to
Speaker 1: lose her father, she had to live with six years
Speaker 1: of thinking that her father was mad at her, that
Speaker 1: he might hate her, that he didn't want.
Speaker 2: To talk to her.
Speaker 1: I think about the cruelty of that. It is just breathtaking.
Speaker 1: Kim reached out so many times. That was such a
Speaker 1: cruel thing for Virginia to do to her in addition
Speaker 1: to committing that murder. The second reason is if and
Speaker 1: when Virginia gets parole, I think people should be concerned.
Speaker 1: She was prosecuted for wire fraud charges for concealing Thomas's
Speaker 1: death and stealing the money from Social Security. According to
Speaker 1: a press release put out by the United States Attorney
Speaker 1: General's Office for the Middle District of Pennsylvania. The maximum
Speaker 1: penalty for those charges would have been a total of
Speaker 1: two hundred and forty years in prison. That's also mind
Speaker 1: blowing to me, by the way that someone can get
Speaker 1: a six to twenty year sentence for murdering and scalping
Speaker 1: someone and face two hundred and forty years for financial fraud.
Speaker 1: But that's the world we live in. In the end,
Speaker 1: Virginia took a pleading for that as well, and she
Speaker 1: was sentenced to just eighteen months on those charges to
Speaker 1: run concurrently with the other charges she's incarcerated for. Based
Speaker 1: on Virginia's past and the things she's been convicted of,
Speaker 1: she may have done her time when she comes out,
Speaker 1: but in my opinion, the public is at risk. I
Speaker 1: believe she's never shown any sign of remorse, and she
Speaker 1: is still fairly young. She may be in her seventies,
Speaker 1: but my mom is about her age. She looks and
Speaker 1: acts super young. It's important to remember, even though she
Speaker 1: might be a grandmother, you can't assume just because someone
Speaker 1: has gray hair and a sweet little smile that they
Speaker 1: are not up to something evil. I am not ruling
Speaker 1: out the possibility there may be other bodies and other
Speaker 1: victims out there. The most terrifying part is this woman
Speaker 1: has murdered and scalped someone and we still might not
Speaker 1: know all of the secret she's hiding. There could be
Speaker 1: more victims out there. To this date, Amas's body has
Speaker 1: never been found. I'm Catherine Townsend. This is Helen Gone
Speaker 1: Murder Line. Helen Gone Murder Line is a production of
Speaker 1: School of Humans and iHeart Podcasts. It's written and narrated
Speaker 1: by me Catherine Townsend and produced by Gabby Watts and
Speaker 1: Miranda Hawkins. Special thanks to Amy Tubbs for her research assistance.
Speaker 1: Music contributed by Ben Sale. Miranda Hawkins mixed and scored
Speaker 1: this episode. Executive producers are Virginia Prescott, Brandon Barr, and
Speaker 1: Else Crowley. Listen to Helen Gone ad free by subscribing
Speaker 1: to the iHeart True Crime Plus channel on Apple Podcasts.
Speaker 1: You can follow the show on Instagram at Hell and
Speaker 1: Gone pod. If you have a case she'd like me
Speaker 1: and my team to look into, you can reach out
Speaker 1: to us at our Helen Gone Murder Line at six
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Speaker 1: That's six seven eight seven four four six ' one
Speaker 1: four five. School of Humans