WEBVTT - Hell and Gone Murder Line: Paul Loyd 0:00:46.480 --> 0:00:51.960 School of Humans. Helen Got Murder Line actively investigates cold 0:00:52.040 --> 0:00:55.360 case murders in an effort to raise public awareness invite 0:00:55.400 --> 0:00:58.760 witnesses to come forward and present evidence that could potentially 0:00:58.840 --> 0:01:02.960 be further investigated by law enforcement. While we value insights 0:01:03.000 --> 0:01:06.160 from family and community members, their statements should not be 0:01:06.200 --> 0:01:09.960 considered evidence and point to the challenges of verifying facts 0:01:10.040 --> 0:01:14.000 inherent in cold cases. We remind listeners that everyone has 0:01:14.080 --> 0:01:17.160 presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. 0:01:17.960 --> 0:01:20.840 Nothing in the podcast is intended to state or imply 0:01:21.040 --> 0:01:23.600 that anyone who has not been convicted of a crime 0:01:24.120 --> 0:01:27.120 is guilty of any wrongdoing. Thanks for listening. 0:01:31.120 --> 0:01:35.600 Sometime between seven and eight am on Saturday, January fifteenth, 0:01:35.680 --> 0:01:39.560 nineteen ninety four, in Hot Springs, Arkansas, thirty one year 0:01:39.600 --> 0:01:42.600 old David Ferrell knocked on his roommate Paul's door. 0:01:43.840 --> 0:01:46.200 Six year old Paul Lloyd was in bed. 0:01:46.000 --> 0:01:48.400 With a woman named Glenna Jones, who he had been 0:01:48.480 --> 0:01:52.720 hanging out with and dating. Paul and Glenna had partied 0:01:52.760 --> 0:01:55.480 pretty hard the night before and had not gotten home 0:01:55.600 --> 0:02:00.040 until late then they crashed. David's knocking woke them up. 0:02:00.880 --> 0:02:03.600 David told Paul that his mom was on the phone 0:02:03.840 --> 0:02:06.080 and that she wanted to know why Paul wasn't at work. 0:02:06.720 --> 0:02:08.960 Paul tried to get David to talk to his mom 0:02:09.000 --> 0:02:11.840 for him, but David told him he needed to talk 0:02:11.880 --> 0:02:15.000 to her directly, so Paul got up and spoke to 0:02:15.000 --> 0:02:16.080 his mom on the phone. 0:02:16.760 --> 0:02:19.120 Paul told his mother that he would call her back later. 0:02:20.000 --> 0:02:23.360 Shortly after that phone call from Paul's mother, at least 0:02:23.400 --> 0:02:26.600 according to one version of this story, David left for work. 0:02:27.760 --> 0:02:29.400 David worked at Stroop Tires. 0:02:29.760 --> 0:02:32.880 His shift started at seven thirty am, and he later 0:02:32.960 --> 0:02:36.280 told police he spent that day working on an Arkansas 0:02:36.280 --> 0:02:40.600 State Police vehicle. David claims that after he left work 0:02:40.640 --> 0:02:43.640 that day, he went to babysit his two sons, who 0:02:43.760 --> 0:02:47.920 lived with his ex Mona Harris. Mona worked nights, so 0:02:48.080 --> 0:02:50.600 David claimed he slept in the living room at her place, 0:02:51.320 --> 0:02:54.320 and when he eventually got back to his house, Paul 0:02:54.480 --> 0:02:58.920 and Glenna were gone. A few months later, on June first, 0:02:59.120 --> 0:03:02.040 nineteen ninety four, a couple was walking through the woods 0:03:02.160 --> 0:03:05.480 in Hot Springs County. They were kind of lost near 0:03:05.520 --> 0:03:08.160 an area called Jack Mountain, and they saw a piece 0:03:08.160 --> 0:03:11.520 of tape attached to a tree written on that tape 0:03:11.640 --> 0:03:15.840 where the words pack all rats together, they walked a 0:03:15.840 --> 0:03:19.600 little bit further into the woods and saw a human skeleton. 0:03:21.120 --> 0:03:24.120 I'm Catherine Townsend. Over the past eight years of making 0:03:24.160 --> 0:03:27.360 my true crime podcast, Helen Gone, I've learned that there 0:03:27.400 --> 0:03:30.400 is no such thing as a small town where murder 0:03:30.480 --> 0:03:33.920 never happens. I have received hundreds of messages from people 0:03:34.000 --> 0:03:37.000 all around the country asking for help with an unsolved 0:03:37.040 --> 0:03:41.560 murder that's affected them, their families, and their communities. If 0:03:41.600 --> 0:03:43.280 you have a case, she'd like me and my team 0:03:43.360 --> 0:03:45.360 to look in two. You can reach out to us 0:03:45.400 --> 0:03:47.680 at our Helen Gone Murder line at six seven eight 0:03:48.000 --> 0:03:51.440 seven four four six one four five. That's six seven 0:03:51.480 --> 0:03:55.440 eight seven four four six one four five, or you 0:03:55.440 --> 0:03:59.000 can send us a message on Instagram at Helen gonepod. 0:03:59.760 --> 0:04:48.280 This is Helen Gone Murder Line. After the couple found 0:04:48.280 --> 0:04:51.520 the body in the woods on June first, police recovered 0:04:51.520 --> 0:04:54.680 the remains, but they didn't have a lot of other 0:04:54.720 --> 0:04:58.200 forensic evidence. The body was dressed in cowboy boots, but 0:04:58.240 --> 0:05:01.280 the remains were scattered over a range of about thirty yards, 0:05:01.760 --> 0:05:04.480 so far that they could not even determine how the 0:05:04.520 --> 0:05:09.080 victim had died. Police found four empty shell casings near 0:05:09.120 --> 0:05:12.720 the body and bullets in the soil. Based on that 0:05:12.920 --> 0:05:15.120 and on the fact that the shirt and jacket near 0:05:15.160 --> 0:05:18.880 the skeleton each had three holes in them, police believed 0:05:18.960 --> 0:05:22.680 that the victim had been shot. Eventually, they were able 0:05:22.720 --> 0:05:25.600 to use dental records to identify the remains. 0:05:25.400 --> 0:05:26.320 As Paul Lloyd. 0:05:27.760 --> 0:05:30.840 Let's back up to January fifteenth, nineteen ninety four. It 0:05:30.960 --> 0:05:34.200 was a Saturday. Paul Lloyd's mom called the house where 0:05:34.200 --> 0:05:35.280 he lived with David. 0:05:35.880 --> 0:05:38.800 They talked on the phone and Paul said he would call. 0:05:38.720 --> 0:05:42.560 Back, But after that call, Paul Lloyd didn't show up 0:05:42.560 --> 0:05:46.080 at work that day. Paul's brother Kenny, reported him missing 0:05:46.120 --> 0:05:49.160 a few days later, on January twenty first, nineteen ninety four, 0:05:49.680 --> 0:05:52.320 after he failed to show up and pick up his paychecks. 0:05:53.600 --> 0:05:57.320 Paul's brother Kenny talked to police. He told them that David, 0:05:57.400 --> 0:06:00.840 Paul's roommate, had introduced Paul to a man named Wayne Hortman, 0:06:01.120 --> 0:06:05.240 who dealt and took methamphetamines. David had been selling drugs 0:06:05.240 --> 0:06:09.320 for Wayne. Kenny also told police he had kind of 0:06:09.360 --> 0:06:13.120 started doing his own investigation, which included stopping by Paul's 0:06:13.160 --> 0:06:16.240 house to talk to David Ferrell. He told police that 0:06:16.400 --> 0:06:20.720 David was very unhelpful when he asked about Paul. According 0:06:20.720 --> 0:06:24.440 to police documents, Kenny said the last time he saw Paul, 0:06:24.880 --> 0:06:27.120 Paul was on his way to meet with David and 0:06:27.160 --> 0:06:31.000 Wayne Hortman because he was planning to trade his motorcycle 0:06:31.040 --> 0:06:33.000 to them in exchange for drugs. 0:06:33.640 --> 0:06:35.560 But David later claimed. 0:06:35.400 --> 0:06:38.440 He wasn't even there that day, that he merely introduced 0:06:38.440 --> 0:06:40.920 Paul and Wayne, and that they were planning on doing 0:06:40.920 --> 0:06:45.480 the motorcycle for drug trade themselves. So the Hot Springs 0:06:45.520 --> 0:06:48.880 Police Department started looking into Paul Lloyd's case, but they 0:06:48.960 --> 0:06:52.120 weren't making a ton of progress at first because since 0:06:52.120 --> 0:06:55.400 they hadn't found Paul's body, it was still being investigated 0:06:55.440 --> 0:06:58.440 as a missing person's case. But then in March of 0:06:58.520 --> 0:07:02.120 nineteen ninety four, they were questioning Wayne Hortman about something 0:07:02.120 --> 0:07:05.880 else when he said he had information about what had 0:07:05.920 --> 0:07:09.840 really happened to Paul Lloyd. Wayne said that about two 0:07:09.920 --> 0:07:13.600 weeks after Paul went missing, David told Wayne that he 0:07:13.720 --> 0:07:17.320 had a gun, an SKS rifle that he was nervous about. 0:07:18.280 --> 0:07:22.400 Wayne claimed David had handed him this SKS rifle and 0:07:22.520 --> 0:07:25.960 told him to do something with it, so Waine said 0:07:26.000 --> 0:07:28.520 he took David's gun back to his place he was 0:07:28.560 --> 0:07:31.760 living with his mother at the time. But then Wayne 0:07:31.800 --> 0:07:34.440 said David was at his house a few weeks later 0:07:34.560 --> 0:07:37.400 and saw the gun there. He noticed that Wayne had 0:07:37.400 --> 0:07:39.560 not gotten rid of the gun, so at that point 0:07:39.800 --> 0:07:43.320 Wayne claimed that David got very angry and first tried 0:07:43.360 --> 0:07:45.800 to destroy worry the weapon by slamming it against a tree, 0:07:46.240 --> 0:07:49.400 and then when that didn't work, David told Wayne to 0:07:49.480 --> 0:07:52.640 drive him to the Highway to seventy Bridge over Lake Hamilton. 0:07:53.080 --> 0:07:55.960 So Wayne said he did, and he claimed that when 0:07:56.000 --> 0:07:58.760 they got there, David got out of the vehicle and 0:07:58.840 --> 0:08:03.000 threw the gun into the lake. Wayne wasn't the only 0:08:03.040 --> 0:08:07.160 one under investigation. The Bureau of Tobacco, Alcohol and Firearms 0:08:07.400 --> 0:08:11.000 was investigating David Ferrell on a matter unconnected with Paul's disappearance, 0:08:11.640 --> 0:08:14.640 so an ATF agent named Glenn Cook did some checking 0:08:15.120 --> 0:08:17.320 and found out that the year before, in March of 0:08:17.400 --> 0:08:22.080 nineteen ninety three, David had purchased an SKS rifle. So 0:08:22.560 --> 0:08:25.880 divers from Garland County went into the area near where 0:08:25.920 --> 0:08:29.360 Wayne claimed that gun was, and on May twentieth, nineteen 0:08:29.400 --> 0:08:32.440 ninety four, an investigator went into the water on the 0:08:32.480 --> 0:08:35.720 side of two seventy West Bridge and found a piece 0:08:35.800 --> 0:08:40.320 of an SKS the barrel receiver assembly, basically the core 0:08:40.360 --> 0:08:46.720 component of the gun. Investigators from the ATF matched the 0:08:46.760 --> 0:08:49.040 serial number of the pieces of the rifle they pulled 0:08:49.040 --> 0:08:52.280 from the lake to an SKS rifle that David got 0:08:52.320 --> 0:08:53.920 from Monny's Pawnshop in Hot. 0:08:53.760 --> 0:08:54.680 Springs, Arkansas. 0:08:55.160 --> 0:08:59.040 Investigator Cook also matched the document signatures of David to 0:08:59.240 --> 0:09:03.440 the pawnshop receipts. They confirmed this was David Ferrell's gun 0:09:04.040 --> 0:09:07.640 and they believed this could be their murder weapon, but 0:09:07.880 --> 0:09:12.520 they still were suspicious of Wayne Hortman. Police arrested Wayne Hortman, 0:09:12.800 --> 0:09:16.160 and on June second, they charged him with Paul Lloyd's murder. 0:09:17.360 --> 0:09:21.440 Then Wayne Hortman told him something else. He claimed he 0:09:21.480 --> 0:09:24.360 had not only seen the possible murder weapon thrown into 0:09:24.360 --> 0:09:29.520 the lake, but he had witnessed Paul Lloyd's murder himself. 0:09:41.120 --> 0:09:46.240 Wayne Hortman admitted to police that David killed Paul, not him. 0:09:46.680 --> 0:09:49.240 He said he had been at David's home on South 0:09:49.280 --> 0:09:53.240 Patterson Street on January fifteenth, and that David shot Paul there. 0:09:53.880 --> 0:09:56.960 Wayne said that David's girlfriend at the time, Regina, was 0:09:57.000 --> 0:10:01.480 also present, so police searched the house on South Patterson Street. 0:10:02.120 --> 0:10:05.160 They cut out three sections of carpet that were stained 0:10:05.160 --> 0:10:07.760 with blood and they sent them to the crime lab 0:10:07.880 --> 0:10:12.120 for testing. The results came back and found that the 0:10:12.160 --> 0:10:16.680 blood was not human blood, and yet they continued to 0:10:16.720 --> 0:10:21.240 build a case against David Ferrell. David claimed that on 0:10:21.280 --> 0:10:23.920 the day of Paul's murder, he wasn't at home at all. 0:10:24.200 --> 0:10:26.520 He said he was at work all day at Stroop 0:10:26.600 --> 0:10:30.360 Tire in Hot Springs, and after that he was babysitting. 0:10:29.720 --> 0:10:30.720 His two boys. 0:10:31.200 --> 0:10:35.480 But David was charged with capital murder. If convicted, he 0:10:35.600 --> 0:10:40.320 faced the death penalty. David told police that Wayne killed 0:10:40.360 --> 0:10:43.360 Paul Lloyd. He said Wayne was dealing drugs and also 0:10:43.440 --> 0:10:46.720 worked undercover with the police, and that meant Wayne could 0:10:46.720 --> 0:10:49.280 cut deals with the police and with the prosecutor to 0:10:49.280 --> 0:10:53.440 stay out of jail. Wayne did tell the police that 0:10:53.600 --> 0:10:57.160 he in an associate of his name, Freddie McCaslin, had 0:10:57.240 --> 0:11:01.640 been involved in major methamphetamine trafficking in Arkansas for eight years. 0:11:02.560 --> 0:11:05.080 Wayne explained every two weeks he would fly to Bell 0:11:05.160 --> 0:11:08.600 Gardens in California, which was near Los Angeles, to buy meth. 0:11:09.400 --> 0:11:11.000 Waine would then strap. 0:11:10.760 --> 0:11:13.920 Pounds of this methamphetamine to his belt line and fly 0:11:14.040 --> 0:11:18.080 back to Hot Springs to meet with Freddy, his contact. Meanwhile, 0:11:18.200 --> 0:11:21.160 Wayne was also talking to the police and he kept 0:11:21.280 --> 0:11:24.680 changing his story. First he said Paul Lloyd had been 0:11:24.760 --> 0:11:27.840 killed at David's house. Later he said Paul was killed 0:11:27.840 --> 0:11:31.160 at Crystal Springs Lake, then at a gravel pit, then 0:11:31.320 --> 0:11:35.640 along a highway between Hot Springs and Malvern. Finally, Wayne 0:11:35.760 --> 0:11:39.480 said Paul had been murdered on Jack Mountain, near where 0:11:39.480 --> 0:11:44.240 his remains were found on June third. After Wayne confessed 0:11:44.280 --> 0:11:47.240 about the shooting at Jack Mountain, Wayne Hortman cut a 0:11:47.280 --> 0:11:51.000 deal so the state dropped the capital murder charges against him, 0:11:51.040 --> 0:11:54.160 and in the end, he was only charged with hindering prosecution. 0:11:54.800 --> 0:11:58.480 In return, he promised to testify against David at trial. 0:11:59.680 --> 0:12:03.120 David was arrested in charge with capital murder and transferred 0:12:03.120 --> 0:12:04.160 to the Hot Springs. 0:12:03.800 --> 0:12:05.120 County Jail to await trial. 0:12:06.000 --> 0:12:08.720 As David's attorneys prepared for this trial, in July of 0:12:08.800 --> 0:12:12.440 nineteen ninety four, they filed motions for discovery. A lot 0:12:12.440 --> 0:12:14.760 of the discovery involved the physical evidence that had been 0:12:14.800 --> 0:12:18.520 taken to the state crime lab and they waited, but 0:12:18.720 --> 0:12:23.520 nothing ever came. The Arkansas State Crime Lab had long delays, 0:12:23.960 --> 0:12:27.960 and those delays actually almost derailed the trial entirely. In 0:12:28.000 --> 0:12:31.840 February of nineteen ninety five, Judge Sheeran threatened to dismiss 0:12:31.880 --> 0:12:35.160 the charges against David entirely due to the State Crime 0:12:35.240 --> 0:12:39.360 Laboratory's delays in evidence testing. He said the delays could 0:12:39.440 --> 0:12:43.200 potentially stop David's defense attorneys from having adequate time to 0:12:43.240 --> 0:12:46.840 prepare his case. The right to a speedy trial is 0:12:47.000 --> 0:12:50.120 required by Arkansas state law, which means most of these 0:12:50.160 --> 0:12:53.680 cases had to go to trial within a year. The 0:12:53.800 --> 0:12:56.640 judge set a timeline of February ninth for this evidence 0:12:56.680 --> 0:13:00.120 to be produced, and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and 0:13:00.160 --> 0:13:04.360 Firearms produced the tests in time to hit that deadline. 0:13:04.440 --> 0:13:07.800 The trial started and the state produced nine witnesses. Now, 0:13:07.920 --> 0:13:11.400 all of them said they heard David Bragg about shooting Paul. 0:13:11.960 --> 0:13:15.280 The prosecutor, Dan Harmon, said that his theory was that 0:13:15.400 --> 0:13:18.640 David killed Paul because David believed that Paul was a 0:13:18.680 --> 0:13:22.800 drug informant for the police. Again, these stakes were high 0:13:22.880 --> 0:13:25.800 for David. If convicted, he faced the death penalty. This 0:13:25.960 --> 0:13:30.880 was a capital murder charge when David's trial finally started 0:13:30.920 --> 0:13:33.840 in nineteen ninety five, and this is something I've never 0:13:33.880 --> 0:13:36.880 heard of happening. One of the other weird twists in 0:13:36.920 --> 0:13:39.400 this case was that the trial took place not in 0:13:39.440 --> 0:13:43.160 a courtroom, but in an industrial complex in Hot Springs. 0:13:44.160 --> 0:13:47.280 The reasons for the weird location were because there were 0:13:47.280 --> 0:13:51.600 supposedly renovations happening at the Hot Springs court It ended 0:13:51.680 --> 0:13:55.320 up being just another strange set of circumstances in an 0:13:55.360 --> 0:14:01.000 already very odd case. The state's case against David's seemed weak. 0:14:01.120 --> 0:14:04.680 They had no fingerprints or physical evidence tying David to 0:14:04.720 --> 0:14:07.200 the crime scene at all. They didn't even have a 0:14:07.200 --> 0:14:10.440 definite cause of death. But they had the bullets and 0:14:10.480 --> 0:14:15.040 the shell casings. A firearms expert, Joseph Mason, testified in 0:14:15.120 --> 0:14:18.400 court that he could conclusively match three of the four 0:14:18.440 --> 0:14:22.360 shell casings two David's SKS weapon, and although he said 0:14:22.360 --> 0:14:24.840 he was unable to make a definitive match between David's 0:14:24.840 --> 0:14:27.800 SKS and the bullet fragments found, he said that the 0:14:27.840 --> 0:14:30.680 bullets came from the same type of weapon as the SKS. 0:14:31.880 --> 0:14:35.320 Doctor Charles Kocus, the medical examiner, did not perform the autopsy, 0:14:35.800 --> 0:14:39.520 but he testified due to the decomposition of Paul's body, 0:14:39.920 --> 0:14:42.080 he could not conclusively determine. 0:14:41.720 --> 0:14:42.400 The cause of death. 0:14:42.880 --> 0:14:46.880 However, he did observe Paul's wounds were consistent with death 0:14:46.920 --> 0:14:51.240 by gunshot. The jacket and shirt that Paul Lloyd had 0:14:51.280 --> 0:14:54.320 been wearing each had three small holes in the back, 0:14:54.680 --> 0:14:58.040 which doctor Koca said were consistent with bullet entry, and 0:14:58.240 --> 0:15:00.960 an expert from the state crime Lab found traces of 0:15:01.040 --> 0:15:03.240 lead around the holes in the jacket and shirt, which 0:15:03.360 --> 0:15:08.480 he believed indicated bullet entry. Later in David's appeal, David 0:15:08.520 --> 0:15:12.120 made another incredible claim that the body found at Jack 0:15:12.160 --> 0:15:15.160 Mountain wasn't Paul Lloyd's at all, but that the prosecutor, 0:15:15.280 --> 0:15:19.480 Dan Harmon had substituted another John Doe body for Paul Lloyd's. 0:15:20.680 --> 0:15:23.480 Dan Harmon had a lot of issues of his own. 0:15:23.800 --> 0:15:26.520 He ended up resigning as a prosecutor a year after 0:15:26.600 --> 0:15:30.360 David Ferrell's trial after Dan Harmon was arrested on assault 0:15:30.440 --> 0:15:36.040 charges and Dan Harmon's illegal activities ultimately impacted David's overall case. 0:15:36.960 --> 0:15:38.680 But David couldn't. 0:15:38.320 --> 0:15:41.120 Prove Dan Harmon had planted a body and the skeleton 0:15:41.240 --> 0:15:43.640 in addition to having pieces of clothing nearby with whole 0:15:43.840 --> 0:15:46.480 in them that a firearms expert and testified could be 0:15:46.480 --> 0:15:49.800 bullet holes, was also wearing a belt with Paul written 0:15:49.840 --> 0:15:54.240 on the back. David also claimed that the people who 0:15:54.320 --> 0:15:57.280 said they had heard him confess to Paul's murder had 0:15:57.320 --> 0:16:01.320 been coerced or even threatened by Dan Harmon even after 0:16:01.360 --> 0:16:04.400 hearing those witnesses. Though the bulk of the state's case 0:16:04.480 --> 0:16:08.080 rested on one person, the alleged eye witness, Wayne Hortman, 0:16:08.720 --> 0:16:12.280 and as we said before, Wayne Hortman changed his story 0:16:12.480 --> 0:16:16.600 several times. In David's petition, he pointed out that quote, 0:16:16.880 --> 0:16:19.960 depending on which statement you read, Paul Lloyd was killed 0:16:20.000 --> 0:16:22.360 either at David's house, at Crystal Springs Lake, at a 0:16:22.400 --> 0:16:25.800 gravel pit along a highway between Hot Springs and Malvern, 0:16:26.360 --> 0:16:29.320 or actually on Jack Mountain, near where his remains were 0:16:29.320 --> 0:16:34.120 found end quote. The jury found David guilty of Paul's murder, 0:16:34.680 --> 0:16:37.400 but they did return with the recommendation of a lighter 0:16:37.440 --> 0:16:41.640 sentence than death, life without the possibility of parole, and 0:16:41.760 --> 0:16:46.760 Judge Sheeran agreed with the record commendation. In twenty ten, 0:16:47.240 --> 0:16:51.160 David's attorneys filed a writ of habeas corpus. David stated 0:16:51.160 --> 0:16:53.960 in his appeal that he believed that he was entitled 0:16:53.960 --> 0:16:56.760 to DNA and blood type testing. He claimed that he 0:16:56.840 --> 0:17:01.800 was convicted with false evidence. David stated both the State 0:17:01.840 --> 0:17:05.240 Crime Lab and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms 0:17:05.360 --> 0:17:08.440 failed to get a positive match on the bullets, shell casings, 0:17:08.440 --> 0:17:09.720 and fragments. 0:17:09.200 --> 0:17:10.240 Introduced him to evidence. 0:17:10.320 --> 0:17:14.560 Among other things, David claimed the verdict should be overturned 0:17:14.600 --> 0:17:18.800 because if the jury had known about the prosecutors behind 0:17:18.800 --> 0:17:22.840 the scenes activities, he would never have been convicted. David 0:17:22.840 --> 0:17:26.560 claimed that Dan Harmon, who along with the Prosecuting Attorney's 0:17:26.560 --> 0:17:29.880 Office of the seventh Judicial District of Arkansas ran the 0:17:30.000 --> 0:17:34.560 Seventh Judicial District Drug Task Force, coerced witnesses into saying 0:17:35.000 --> 0:17:38.640 David confessed to Paul's murder and this wasn't the first 0:17:38.640 --> 0:17:40.840 time Dan Harmon was charged with this kind of thing. 0:17:41.760 --> 0:17:44.440 In nineteen ninety seven, Dan Harmon and went to trial 0:17:44.520 --> 0:17:48.560 in federal court. He was convicted of federal racketeering, extortion, 0:17:48.880 --> 0:17:53.040 and drug conspiracy. The government charged that Harmon and his 0:17:53.160 --> 0:17:58.400 colleagues actually distributed marijuana themselves and also extorted people. Dan 0:17:58.480 --> 0:18:02.120 Harmon would blackmail them by promising not to prosecute. 0:18:01.640 --> 0:18:03.800 Them in exchange for money. 0:18:04.400 --> 0:18:08.120 One of the men who Dan Harmon allegedly blackmailed was 0:18:08.160 --> 0:18:13.680 Freddie McCaslin Wayne Hortman's meth dealing partner, and the behavior 0:18:13.880 --> 0:18:18.440 described in this federal case is truly shocking. 0:18:18.000 --> 0:18:18.720 In my opinion. 0:18:19.200 --> 0:18:22.520 In one instance, Dan told the wife of a man 0:18:22.720 --> 0:18:25.280 charge with possession of marijuana that if she spent the 0:18:25.360 --> 0:18:27.600 night with him at a hotel, they could work things out. 0:18:28.120 --> 0:18:29.280 She declined to take that. 0:18:29.280 --> 0:18:32.040 Offer, and Dan Harmon said he would drop the charges 0:18:32.040 --> 0:18:35.320 against her husband for ten thousand dollars. So the couple 0:18:35.440 --> 0:18:39.000 paid Dan Harmon and the charges were dropped. And not 0:18:39.080 --> 0:18:42.040 only did Dan Harmon make deals to extort money, he 0:18:42.240 --> 0:18:46.480 dealt drugs himself. The court alleged that Dan Harmon conspired 0:18:46.520 --> 0:18:50.240 to possess marijuana with intent to distribute, so he was 0:18:50.280 --> 0:18:54.160 involved in bringing marijuana into the house, repackaging it into 0:18:54.200 --> 0:18:57.840 one pound bags, and helping sell the marijuana. He also 0:18:58.000 --> 0:19:02.000 oversaw the collection of funds. So you have a situation 0:19:02.120 --> 0:19:06.200 where the prosecutor, the person in charge of punishing drug dealers, 0:19:06.680 --> 0:19:09.840 was not only dealing drugs himself, but was taking payments 0:19:09.840 --> 0:19:12.920 from other drug dealers in exchange for dropping charges against them. 0:19:15.600 --> 0:19:18.520 Dan Harmon was convicted of those charges plus some additional 0:19:18.560 --> 0:19:21.880 drug charges. In the end, he was behind bars for 0:19:21.920 --> 0:19:25.800 eight years. Dan Harmon was disbarred in nineteen ninety nine. 0:19:26.520 --> 0:19:29.440 He was also accused of using his office to facilitate 0:19:29.480 --> 0:19:33.640 sexual misconduct. This is important because this is the person 0:19:33.680 --> 0:19:37.720 who prosecuted David Ferrell. In the end, hundreds of cases 0:19:37.720 --> 0:19:41.800 were dismissed due to Dan Harmon's corruption, but David Ferrell's 0:19:42.000 --> 0:19:53.400 would not be one of them. Dan Harmon was released 0:19:53.400 --> 0:19:56.760 from prison in two thousand and six. Then four years later, 0:19:56.840 --> 0:20:01.360 in twenty ten, Dan Harmon was arrested again after allegedly 0:20:01.400 --> 0:20:05.200 selling drugs to an undercover officer near a school in Sheridan, Arkansas. 0:20:06.120 --> 0:20:09.640 He was acquitted of those drug charges. Dan Harmon stayed 0:20:09.760 --> 0:20:12.760 in Seline County after that and for the rest of 0:20:12.760 --> 0:20:17.520 his life. He died on September twenty second, twenty twenty three. 0:20:17.600 --> 0:20:18.920 At the age of seventy eight. 0:20:20.200 --> 0:20:24.840 In twenty eleven, Judge Philip Shearan announced his retirement. When 0:20:24.840 --> 0:20:27.840 the Sheridan Highlight asked him about his most unusual case, 0:20:28.280 --> 0:20:30.960 he said it was the capital murder trial of David Ferrell, 0:20:31.400 --> 0:20:34.920 which he told the newspaper was of considerable interest to 0:20:34.960 --> 0:20:37.760 a motorcycle gang. He said the trial had been moved 0:20:37.800 --> 0:20:42.000 to a quote makeshift courtroom in the Hot Springs County Industrial. 0:20:41.520 --> 0:20:42.920 Complex end quote. 0:20:43.760 --> 0:20:46.520 David Ferrell argued in his position for appeal that the 0:20:46.600 --> 0:20:49.920 jury never heard the complete story. He claimed there were 0:20:50.000 --> 0:20:54.600 major inconsistencies that were never fully disclosed. This included Wayne's 0:20:54.640 --> 0:20:59.680 connections to local drug dealers, who, in turn, David claimed 0:20:59.960 --> 0:21:03.440 were connected to Dan Harmon. This is called a Brady 0:21:03.520 --> 0:21:07.520 violation when the prosecution doesn't turn over exculpatory evidence that 0:21:07.560 --> 0:21:10.960 could have helped David's case. David claimed law enforcement knew 0:21:10.960 --> 0:21:14.440 of evidence that was not disclosed to the defense. If 0:21:14.480 --> 0:21:18.320 you're interested in the legal precedent, the actual case is 0:21:18.360 --> 0:21:21.760 Brady versus Maryland. It means that suppressing evidence, even if 0:21:21.800 --> 0:21:26.080 it's unintentional, can overturn a conviction if that evidence is material. 0:21:27.800 --> 0:21:30.800 David and his attorney's claimed the state's case depended on 0:21:30.880 --> 0:21:35.600 witnesses whose testimony had been compromised, either by promised undisclosed 0:21:35.600 --> 0:21:40.080 benefits or pressure by Dan Harmon. David claimed this case 0:21:40.240 --> 0:21:43.360 was tied to a bigger network, a network involving drug 0:21:43.400 --> 0:21:46.520 actimvity informants and a prosecutor who was also connected to 0:21:46.560 --> 0:21:50.640 the Drug Task Force, and David even claimed that federal agencies, 0:21:50.920 --> 0:21:54.320 the FBI, the ATF, and the DEA were aware of 0:21:54.360 --> 0:21:58.400 what was going on. In twenty fourteen, the case went 0:21:58.440 --> 0:22:01.680 to the Arkansas Supreme Court. David was asking to have 0:22:01.840 --> 0:22:05.760 some of the evidence presented at his trial retested. In 0:22:05.800 --> 0:22:10.160 May of twenty fourteen, David lost. The court ruled David 0:22:10.160 --> 0:22:12.600 had failed to show that the trial judge in Hot 0:22:12.640 --> 0:22:15.600 Springs County was wrong to have denied his request for 0:22:15.680 --> 0:22:18.760 a new review of the evidence. So David stayed in prison, 0:22:18.800 --> 0:22:22.760 where he remains to this day. David Ferrell has always 0:22:22.800 --> 0:22:26.440 maintained his innocence, and over the years he's filed several petitions. 0:22:27.760 --> 0:22:31.640 Multiple conflicting accounts have emerged. Some were given at trial, 0:22:32.000 --> 0:22:36.720 others years later in sworn affidavits. Some of these affidavits 0:22:36.800 --> 0:22:39.240 back up David's claims that he was not there when 0:22:39.240 --> 0:22:42.360 Paul was killed. One of them was from David's ex 0:22:42.440 --> 0:22:46.640 Mona Harris, swore in an affidavit that Dan Harmon had 0:22:46.680 --> 0:22:49.320 told her if she didn't give him the answers that 0:22:49.360 --> 0:22:52.160 he wanted, she would not be allowed to go home 0:22:52.320 --> 0:22:55.800 to see her two kids. David also as an affidavit 0:22:55.800 --> 0:23:00.640 from someone else, Paul Lloyd's girlfriend, Glenna. Now Glenna told 0:23:00.680 --> 0:23:05.520 a completely different story than Wayne Hortman did. In an Aphidavid, 0:23:06.080 --> 0:23:08.880 Glenna stated that the conviction of David had been a 0:23:08.920 --> 0:23:12.360 grave injustice, and she explained some background about what had 0:23:12.400 --> 0:23:15.920 brought her and Paul to David's house. Glenna said she 0:23:16.120 --> 0:23:19.680 originally contacted David around September of nineteen ninety three because 0:23:19.760 --> 0:23:22.120 David was an old friend of hers At the time. 0:23:22.200 --> 0:23:24.960 She said she was dating someone else, a boyfriend who 0:23:25.000 --> 0:23:28.040 was not Paul Lloyd. David said Glenna and her boyfriend 0:23:28.080 --> 0:23:30.080 could come to Arkansas to get back on their feet. 0:23:30.440 --> 0:23:31.040 She agreed. 0:23:31.680 --> 0:23:34.680 David picked Glenna and her boyfriend up at the bus 0:23:34.680 --> 0:23:37.760 station in Hot Springs. She and her boyfriend went to 0:23:37.800 --> 0:23:41.000 stay with David, David's girlfriend, Regina, who was living there 0:23:41.040 --> 0:23:44.600 at the time, and Paul Lloyd. At the time, David 0:23:44.720 --> 0:23:48.000 was making and selling meth for Wayne Hortman. After a 0:23:48.040 --> 0:23:50.600 few weeks had gone by, Paul and Glenna made a plan. 0:23:50.920 --> 0:23:53.960 Paul would drive her and her boyfriend back to Houston, Texas. 0:23:54.520 --> 0:23:57.960 But then there was some drama because Glenna said, on 0:23:58.000 --> 0:24:00.560 the night they were planning to leave, David found out 0:24:00.560 --> 0:24:02.480 that Regina was cheating on him and they got into 0:24:02.480 --> 0:24:03.160 a huge fight. 0:24:03.640 --> 0:24:05.120 Now this is where the gun comes. 0:24:04.920 --> 0:24:09.560 In because Glenna claim during that fight, Wayne Hortman asked 0:24:09.600 --> 0:24:12.960 her to take David's SKS rifle out of the house 0:24:13.000 --> 0:24:15.160 and give it to him. So she said that's what 0:24:15.240 --> 0:24:19.080 she did. She took David's gun and gave it to Wayne. Afterwards, 0:24:19.120 --> 0:24:22.040 she said, she Paul, and her boyfriend took off and 0:24:22.120 --> 0:24:25.840 left for Houston. When they got to Houston, Glenna said 0:24:25.960 --> 0:24:28.480 she and Paul dropped her boyfriend off and went to 0:24:28.480 --> 0:24:31.200 get some meth in a motel room and partied all night. 0:24:32.160 --> 0:24:34.680 Glenna said during that time, Paul was talking to her 0:24:34.680 --> 0:24:36.600 about a meth deal that he was planning to make 0:24:36.640 --> 0:24:40.440 with someone. Paul let those people take his truck. Then 0:24:40.520 --> 0:24:42.600 the people Paul made the deal with never came back 0:24:42.640 --> 0:24:45.640 with his vehicle. So then Paul called David back in 0:24:45.720 --> 0:24:49.360 Arkansas and asked for help. Then David somehow arranged for 0:24:49.400 --> 0:24:53.280 Paul to come home. Paul went back to Arkansas. Glenna 0:24:53.320 --> 0:24:56.120 stayed in touch with him. They were dating at that point. 0:24:56.160 --> 0:24:58.480 Glenna called Paul on New Year's Eve in nineteen ninety 0:24:58.520 --> 0:25:00.800 four and they made plans for her to come stay 0:25:00.800 --> 0:25:04.520 with him for a few days in Arkansas. So then Thursday, 0:25:04.600 --> 0:25:07.680 January thirteenth rolled around, Glenna borrowed a car from a 0:25:07.720 --> 0:25:10.040 friend of hers. She drove to Hot Springs and met 0:25:10.080 --> 0:25:13.680 up with Paul on January fourteenth, Friday morning, David was 0:25:13.720 --> 0:25:16.800