Speaker 1: School of Humans at.
Speaker 2: The this is where It's hiking me.
Speaker 3: Were headed down to Sabine County, Texas, to the place
Speaker 3: where on December thirteenth, twenty twenty, there was a massive
Speaker 3: explosion on Toledo Ben Lake. The houseboat belonging to sixty
Speaker 3: four year old Doug Janis, a well known commercial cat fisherman,
Speaker 3: at three point twenty two Echo Ridge went up in flames.
Speaker 3: Firefighters and paramedics rushed to the boat, but it was
Speaker 3: too late. By the time they got there, the walls
Speaker 3: had caved in and the boat was reduced to some
Speaker 3: floating debris, a pile of ashes, and the charred remains
Speaker 3: of a man. Doug Janis was found dead inside that boat.
Speaker 3: At first, police assumed that it had been some kind
Speaker 3: of freak accident, maybe a propane leak, but then the
Speaker 3: medical examiner found the two bullets in the back of
Speaker 3: Doug's head. Doug Janis had been murdered. His much younger wife,
Speaker 3: April May Janis, was nowhere to be found. A witness
Speaker 3: told police that they saw April in her blue truck
Speaker 3: leaving the scene shortly before it blew up. And as
Speaker 3: we also said last week, we found out that April's mother, Anna,
Speaker 3: had died of a fatal gunshot wound to the head,
Speaker 3: another mysterious death that was never fully explained.
Speaker 4: When we reached out to people about.
Speaker 3: Doug Janis's death, a lot of them said they wanted
Speaker 3: to talk to us, but they were scared. They told
Speaker 3: us that people kept dying around them and places kept
Speaker 3: burning down, and that no one was arrested or charged.
Speaker 3: They said that right there in Sabine County, people were
Speaker 3: getting away with murder and they didn't want to be next.
Speaker 3: My research assistant Amy and I headed down to East Texas.
Speaker 3: This was going to be a wild ride. I'm Catherine Townsend.
Speaker 3: Over the past five years of making my true crime podcast,
Speaker 3: Helen Gone, I have learned that there is no such
Speaker 3: thing as a small town where murder never happened. I
Speaker 3: have received hundreds of messages from people all around the
Speaker 3: country asking for help with an unsolved murder that's affected them,
Speaker 3: their families, and their communities. If you have a case
Speaker 3: you'd like me and my team to look into, you
Speaker 3: can reach out to us at our Helen Gone Murder
Speaker 3: line at six seven eight seven four four six one
Speaker 3: four five. That's six seven eight seven four four six
Speaker 3: one four five, or you can send us a message
Speaker 3: on Instagram at Helen Gonepod. This is Helen Gone Murder Line.
Speaker 4: All right, one more time.
Speaker 3: We wake up in Sabine County, Texas. We stayed on
Speaker 3: the Louisiana side the night before. We're trying to find
Speaker 3: leeds on the witness.
Speaker 2: This is the bridge that divides Texas and Louisiana across
Speaker 2: the water. And if you believe that April committed this crime,
Speaker 2: she would have had to cross this bridge, and the
Speaker 2: fire department would have had to cross this bridge as well.
Speaker 4: And it's a long bridge.
Speaker 5: Yeah, And looking out over the lake, it reminds me
Speaker 5: of driving over the bridge at Mobile, Alabama, where you're
Speaker 5: looking out over the bay, because it is the biggest
Speaker 5: lake I've ever receive.
Speaker 2: So he was murdered on this side. Yes, he was
Speaker 2: killed in Texas, and she lived on the other side.
Speaker 2: She lived in Louisiana, Okay. And is this the only
Speaker 2: way to cross this? Is that one of the things
Speaker 2: we're gonna ask her. I believe, So look at all
Speaker 2: these trees on the middle of the water.
Speaker 5: That's true, And I believe there was only a limited
Speaker 5: number of ways that you could leave where he actually lived.
Speaker 2: There's the neighborhood in one mile. The destination is on
Speaker 2: your left the lake house.
Speaker 3: We saw in April's arrest affidavit, which was the one
Speaker 3: piece of information we were able to obtain through a
Speaker 3: foyer request, that there had been at least one witness,
Speaker 3: a person who said they saw April leaving the crime
Speaker 3: scene on the night of Doug's murder. We also saw
Speaker 3: on social media that a first responder who had gone
Speaker 3: to the scene posted about another witness, someone else who
Speaker 3: said they saw a vehicle speeding away from the houseboat
Speaker 3: right before it basically blew up. Today we're meeting someone
Speaker 3: someone who lived in the same neighborhood as Doug in
Speaker 3: April and had known April since she was ten years old.
Speaker 3: This person had a family member who saw the fire
Speaker 3: on the houseboat. That family member called the witness, and
Speaker 3: I'm not sure I've ever heard about anything like this before.
Speaker 3: The witness watched on FaceTime the houseboat while it was
Speaker 3: burning down, so they actually saw the fire. They called
Speaker 3: the police, but considering everything that has happened since then,
Speaker 3: they're scared. Our witness would only talk to us in person.
Speaker 3: They said they wanted to look us in the eyes first.
Speaker 3: They were open about the fact that they're scared of
Speaker 3: April and whoever else may have been involved in Doug's
Speaker 3: unsoul murder. We're meeting at a tackle shop where Doug
Speaker 3: went every day to have lunch. It's a place where
Speaker 3: he was happy and he had a lot of friends.
Speaker 3: We were finding out more and more information about April Janis.
Speaker 3: Like Doug, a lot of her background was kind of
Speaker 3: a mystery, and there seemed to be huge pieces of
Speaker 3: missing time, huge gaps in her story. April grew up
Speaker 3: just a few doors down from Doug Janis. Doug didn't
Speaker 3: move to the area until around two thousand and three.
Speaker 3: She lived with her father, Bob Thompson, and her mother Anna.
Speaker 3: Bob Thompson wrote a book which he self published, called
Speaker 3: A Different Ballgame Now. In that book, he described in
Speaker 3: detail what happened the night April's mom was shot, and
Speaker 3: his version of events. We'll get more into that later,
Speaker 3: but we've talked to some of the other people who
Speaker 3: are around that night, and let's just say we will
Speaker 3: be taking everything that Bob says with a massive grain
Speaker 3: of salt. Bob passed away in twenty twenty three. So
Speaker 3: these are direct excerpts from the book. They're his words
Speaker 3: being read by an actor. Bob starts his story when
Speaker 3: he moved to the area of Toledo Bend in nineteen
Speaker 3: seventy four. In this story, basically, Bob blames everything that
Speaker 3: happened to him on what he described as the shady
Speaker 3: characters who live there. Back then, he had gotten into
Speaker 3: a motorcycle accident which caused permanent nerve damage to his
Speaker 3: left arm. Eventually he had the arm amputated because of
Speaker 3: the pain he was going through. This earned him a
Speaker 3: reputation locally as a one armed motorcycle man, which he
Speaker 3: seemed to relish. He was married, but that marriage ended.
Speaker 3: Then he said he married a second time. He claims
Speaker 3: that that marriage fell apart when he found his wife
Speaker 3: with a sixteen year old boy in a motel room.
Speaker 3: Now again, and I can't stress this enough. This is
Speaker 3: his version of events. This is Bob's version of events.
Speaker 3: So as we go on, I think you'll see a
Speaker 3: pattern of him taking zero accountability.
Speaker 4: It seems like.
Speaker 3: When he's narrating, he's always the victim. In his story,
Speaker 3: Bob said he had a turbulent childhood. He discovered when
Speaker 3: he was an adult that his father had actually had
Speaker 3: a whole secret second family. So after his second divorce,
Speaker 3: Bob got a small settlement from his motorcycle accident. He
Speaker 3: was forty five years old at this point and ready
Speaker 3: to start a new life. That's when his father gave
Speaker 3: him a piece of property in East Texas at Pine
Speaker 3: Lake Reservoir. In the book By the Way, Bob uses
Speaker 3: aliases so Doug, Janie is Augie and Terry. Doug's wife
Speaker 3: at the time is Sherry. He calls April his daughter June,
Speaker 3: and his wife Anna is Barb. He said that he
Speaker 3: met Anna, April's mother at the dentist's office by chance.
Speaker 4: It was the summer of nineteen eighty nine.
Speaker 3: He had drunk some lake water and gotten a severe
Speaker 3: toothache from it. Anna was at the dentist with her mom.
Speaker 3: He and Anna started chatting. He got her phone number,
Speaker 3: even though he believed that because she was only twenty four,
Speaker 3: she was probably too young for him. But even with
Speaker 3: the twenty one year age difference, they fell in love.
Speaker 3: They started dating. Anna had just got back from training
Speaker 3: for the Coastguard, but she was rejected because she couldn't
Speaker 3: swim the required distance, even though Bob said she was
Speaker 3: very athletic, Anne a skilled markswoman.
Speaker 4: Things got serious fast.
Speaker 3: Anna found out out that she was pregnant, so they
Speaker 3: married on July fourth, nineteen eighty nine. April was born
Speaker 3: on December twenty first of that same year. So Bob
Speaker 3: is describing April's childhood is troubled. And it's interesting because
Speaker 3: he kind of described the source of their troubles as
Speaker 3: multiple issues with the Pine Harbor Property Owners Association. Mainly
Speaker 3: they seem to involve Bob's refusal to pay dues, his
Speaker 3: insistence that this was unfair and he.
Speaker 4: Believed people were out to get him.
Speaker 3: I won't get into all these petty disputes he had
Speaker 3: with the homeowners association because it is a long story
Speaker 3: and a lot of it has no real connection to
Speaker 3: Anna's death, but I do think it's important to note
Speaker 3: Bob and many others did describe some real issues with
Speaker 3: discrimination in that area. There are two sides to the subdivision,
Speaker 3: Bob's side with many modest trailer homes and the house side,
Speaker 3: with more traditional lakefront properties. On the house side amusing
Speaker 3: air quotes here, the yards are mode and things look
Speaker 3: more orderly in general, and according to to Bob, the
Speaker 3: house side people look down on the people who lived
Speaker 3: on the trailer side. Here's what he wrote in the book.
Speaker 3: They're his words being read by an actor.
Speaker 1: The associations spent their dues on the house side of
Speaker 1: the subdivision and called those trailer trash in their little
Speaker 1: board meetings. Their streets were in good shape and ours
Speaker 1: were potholes.
Speaker 3: Bob talked about how April loved to draw as a child.
Speaker 3: She was constantly making pictures and coloring. She was a tomboy.
Speaker 3: She loved riding motorcycles and helping her dad with stuff
Speaker 3: around the house. Now, I do want to say that
Speaker 3: I find it very odd reading this book that Bob
Speaker 3: spends nearly as much time talking about his tax problems
Speaker 3: with the homeowners association and weird petty financial stuff as
Speaker 3: he does about his wife's death. This, to me, is
Speaker 3: incredibly bizarre, given that he's writing this book about his
Speaker 3: daughter possibly being involved in his wife's death. That's a
Speaker 3: huge bombshell, and he kind of buries the lead under
Speaker 3: a lot of these petty tax problems. The tone of
Speaker 3: the book honestly feels like at times for me. Kind
Speaker 3: of one big pity party from Bob. Bob talked more
Speaker 3: about how April hung around the subdivision. He said it
Speaker 3: was mostly a neighborhood of retired people at that point,
Speaker 3: so he said April had a hard time finding friends
Speaker 3: her own age. He said his marriage to Anna was
Speaker 3: very happy. They were constantly together, fishing and hanging out
Speaker 3: on the lake. He also refers to using babysitters for
Speaker 3: April so he could spend some quality time with Anna.
Speaker 3: And then he said this about the babysitters, which I
Speaker 3: immediately found odd.
Speaker 1: They were always hugging her and buying her prisons and such.
Speaker 3: Now this could have just been an innocent comment about
Speaker 3: some friendly neighbors, as Bob paints it, but in my opinion,
Speaker 3: this statement takes on a pretty sinister meaning given what
Speaker 3: happened next. April had a hard time at school. Bob
Speaker 3: said she was harassed by both teachers and students. He
Speaker 3: blamed the teacher who lived on the house side. April
Speaker 3: was also being bullied on the bus by other kids,
Speaker 3: so her parents ended up driving her to school themselves,
Speaker 3: and she did not always make it there. Apparently, April
Speaker 3: was absent a lot other sources have told us April
Speaker 3: was having trouble at school for another reason. By the way,
Speaker 3: this is not meant to be any sort of a diagnosis.
Speaker 3: I have never met April, and I do not know
Speaker 3: what she was experiencing, but several people we talked to
Speaker 3: said that as a child, April appeared to have some
Speaker 3: kind of learning difficulties. They believe that's why she was bullied.
Speaker 3: Bob's everyone was against his mentality means that as you
Speaker 3: read through this book, he never takes any accountability for
Speaker 3: April's welfare. For example, when he talks about April riding
Speaker 3: the bus, Bob said April was getting carsick for some reason.
Speaker 3: He said the bus driver tried moving her upfront and
Speaker 3: multiple other things, but the bottom line was April kept
Speaker 3: throwing up, so she had to stop riding the bus
Speaker 3: for that reason. As I read through this, I can't
Speaker 3: help thinking maybe she was having severe anxiety for other reasons.
Speaker 3: One Facebook commenter who was at school with April said
Speaker 3: that April used to hiss at other children. Another one
Speaker 3: said April would come to school dirty, that kids would
Speaker 3: tease her because of her hygiene. When I read those comments,
Speaker 3: my heart breaks for that little girl. That must have
Speaker 3: been so hard for her and so lonely. Bob bought
Speaker 3: April her first gun at age ten, a two twenty
Speaker 3: three caliber rifle for deer hunting. He said she was
Speaker 3: a good shot, but she wasn't much of a deer hunter.
Speaker 3: She thought the deer were too pretty and innocent, so
Speaker 3: she mainly stuck to target shooting, with occasional squirrels and birds.
Speaker 3: He and April hung out with a man in his
Speaker 3: sixties in their neighborhood, who he called Paul. Bob talked
Speaker 3: about an incident with Paul in his book, Remember He's
Speaker 3: calling April his daughter June.
Speaker 1: June told me Paul had grabbed her and kissed her
Speaker 1: and got his saliva in her mouth, and it was
Speaker 1: nasty and had a tobacco smell. I asked her why
Speaker 1: she didn't tell me then, and she said she was
Speaker 1: afraid of what I might do to him. Well, there
Speaker 1: when our friendship.
Speaker 3: Not exactly the caring father. Instead of immediately calling the
Speaker 3: authorities or doing anything to protect his daughter, he basically
Speaker 3: blamed her for ending his friendship. April never had many friends,
Speaker 3: but she did have her horses. Bob wrote that she
Speaker 3: had a natural talent for horses. They even bought one
Speaker 3: from a neighbor one that was totally wild, but April
Speaker 3: was able to ride the horse. She showed real gentleness
Speaker 3: and compassion, even after one of her horses kicked her
Speaker 3: and she broke her arm. She had a cast on
Speaker 3: that arm for six weeks, but right after that she
Speaker 3: went back to riding horses. As April grew up, they
Speaker 3: seemed to be, at least according to Bob, a happy family.
Speaker 3: People have told us that Anna and Bob were together constantly.
Speaker 3: They said Bob seemed to adore his wife. Bob described
Speaker 3: Anna as a positive and friendly person who had a
Speaker 3: special love for hummingbirds. Apparently, they would I write up
Speaker 3: to Anna and she could get them to land on
Speaker 3: her fingers.
Speaker 4: Bob said.
Speaker 3: The family first met Doug Janis when Doug moved to
Speaker 3: their neighborhood in two thousand and three. Doug was married,
Speaker 3: but separated from his wife Terry. In the book Remember,
Speaker 3: Bob called Doug Aggie.
Speaker 1: June was out in the yard and came over to
Speaker 1: see who else was here, and they were introduced. June
Speaker 1: had started filling out as a young lady and was
Speaker 1: a pretty girl, OGGI hugged her and told her how
Speaker 1: pretty she was and how lucky mom and dad are
Speaker 1: to have such a pretty daughter.
Speaker 3: Now, I should say here, Doug's behavior with young women
Speaker 3: had already been noticed by other people in that neighborhood.
Speaker 3: We talked to another resident who wants to remain anonymous.
Speaker 3: They told us they banned Doug from their home after
Speaker 3: he saw their sixteen year old daughter and was staring
Speaker 3: at her super openly and in their opinion, being very creepy.
Speaker 3: After that, the parent told their teen they were never
Speaker 3: allowed to have Doug there without them home, and they
Speaker 3: told Doug if he shut up on that property without
Speaker 3: their premon they would shoot him on site. That's how
Speaker 3: blatant this person claimed Doug's behavior was, and that was
Speaker 3: on a first meeting. Bob seemed to notice right off
Speaker 3: that Doug had a maybe too friendly interest in his daughter.
Speaker 1: This guy had his share charisma to make everyone feel good,
Speaker 1: but he hugged our daughter for just a few seconds
Speaker 1: more than needed. A red flag should have been thrown
Speaker 1: because this guy was just too friendly. All he wanted
Speaker 1: to see my little body shop and he said he
Speaker 1: buys and sells and swaps all kind of stuff and
Speaker 1: need a repair and painting, and that he could make
Speaker 1: it worthwhile for me to do some work for him.
Speaker 1: Occasionally I said, yeah, we can do that, but it
Speaker 1: bothered me. He couldn't keep his eyes off June because
Speaker 1: he was forty six years old and June just turned thirteen.
Speaker 3: Despite Bob's reservations, he and Doug became friends. Anna and
Speaker 3: Bob would meet up with Doug to play Texas holding
Speaker 3: poker and barbecue fish and hang out on Doug's houseboat.
Speaker 3: Bob said Doug always flashed a lot of cash, but
Speaker 3: he said Doug didn't seem to have a nine to
Speaker 3: five job. Apparently, Doug supplied local restaurants with catfish and
Speaker 3: hustled a lot. Bob and others have stated that Doug
Speaker 3: Janis had powerful friends in Sabine County. One of Doug's
Speaker 3: best friends was a local Justice of the Peace. Another,
Speaker 3: according to Bob, was a judge. And according to Bob,
Speaker 3: this same JP friend, who he calls Jake Butts in
Speaker 3: the book, could take care of things for people, things
Speaker 3: like getting people out of d WI charges. Then there
Speaker 3: was the night that changed everything, and again the version
Speaker 3: of events and what went down totally depends on who
Speaker 3: is telling this story. It was September third, two thousand
Speaker 3: and four. On that night, Bob and Anna allowed their
Speaker 3: daughter April to go to the car races with Doug
Speaker 3: and another friend of his named Lester and Lester's wife.
Speaker 3: The races were supposed to be over and everyone was
Speaker 3: going to go home at around eleven PM, but April
Speaker 3: didn't come home two am. Anna was super worried. She
Speaker 3: called Lester and his wife. The wife said April and
Speaker 3: Doug had left their house hours earlier, so Anna and
Speaker 3: Bob wondered what they were doing after they left Lester's
Speaker 3: house and why they were presumably alone for all that time.
Speaker 3: Doug finally dropped April off between two thirty and three
Speaker 3: am that night, and by the next morning, Anna Thompson
Speaker 3: was dead. On September third, two thousand and four, thirteen
Speaker 3: year old April went to the races with some family
Speaker 3: friends of her parents, including Doug Janis, but Doug didn't
Speaker 3: drop her back home until after two am. According to
Speaker 3: Bob's version of events, when Doug dropped April off, he
Speaker 3: drove away fast before they had a chance to confront him,
Speaker 3: but they did confront April about what she and Doug
Speaker 3: were doing in the woods for all that time. According
Speaker 3: to Bob, Anna turned on her daughter. She screamed at
Speaker 3: her and grounded her. This part is shocking to me.
Speaker 3: April was in those woods with a much older man
Speaker 3: and a thirteen year old girl.
Speaker 4: Cannot give consent.
Speaker 3: I am heartbroken at the way these parents treated her,
Speaker 3: especially considering that Bob claims Anna was also molested as
Speaker 3: a child.
Speaker 4: In his book, Bob wrote this.
Speaker 1: I went outside, hoping that it would end soon. I
Speaker 1: didn't realize that June might take this as me being
Speaker 1: a trader to her. From what I found out later,
Speaker 1: I guess my wife was shoving June up against the
Speaker 1: dining room wall to make June look her in the face.
Speaker 1: And the last thing I heard my wife say was
Speaker 1: if I ever catch you around that child molester again,
Speaker 1: I'll kill you. You understand me.
Speaker 3: So, from what Bob said, they believed that Doug was
Speaker 3: a pedophile, and they made it April's fault. Bob describes
Speaker 3: what he said happened next early September.
Speaker 1: Nights in Texas were sometimes in the mid eighty degree range,
Speaker 1: and this night was no exception. I went upstairs to
Speaker 1: bed and was so glad it was all over. I
Speaker 1: had opened the windows and let the breeze come through
Speaker 1: the upstairs bedroom hours before because it was not going
Speaker 1: to be long until the sun would come up. I've
Speaker 1: always been an early riser, and by now I'd been
Speaker 1: up for about twenty hours and was pooped out with
Speaker 1: all the commotion for the last three or four hours.
Speaker 1: I got undressed and just dropped on the bed. It
Speaker 1: probably didn't take me long to fall fast asleep, since
Speaker 1: it was so hot. I usually slept naked as no
Speaker 1: one could walk in the room since it was upstairs.
Speaker 1: I woke to here screaming and crying and sobbing. It
Speaker 1: was June coming up the stairs. I hollered, what's wrong,
Speaker 1: and June said, come quick, Dad, I think mom's been shot. First,
Speaker 1: I ran to the dress drawers to get some underwear,
Speaker 1: but putting my hands on the dresser and feeling for
Speaker 1: the handle, I thought, what if she's on her last breath.
Speaker 1: She wasn't making a sound. I just thought, June will
Speaker 1: just have to not look.
Speaker 4: I felt.
Speaker 1: I didn't have time to go across the room to
Speaker 1: the light switch and come back to get dressed. I
Speaker 1: ran down the stairs and Mom was lying on the
Speaker 1: couch moaning. There was blood all over her pillow. I
Speaker 1: didn't remember saying anything, but I remember the deep pain
Speaker 1: in my body of fright. I started to move her
Speaker 1: head to one side, but couldn't see any wound, but
Speaker 1: there was a lot of blood everywhere, and it was
Speaker 1: already dark and puddled. I turned around and called nine
Speaker 1: to one one and told the police to get an
Speaker 1: ambulance here fast, because I thought my wife had been shot.
Speaker 4: Bob said.
Speaker 3: After that, he ran upstairs and got dressed, and then
Speaker 3: he called a friend of his, who he called Greg.
Speaker 3: This person lived next door to Doug. Greg and his
Speaker 3: wife were at Bob's house in less than five minutes.
Speaker 1: We asked June if she had seen or heard anything.
Speaker 1: She said she heard a loud bang, and when she
Speaker 1: came in the living room, Mom was lying on the
Speaker 1: couch moaning, and she came and got me.
Speaker 2: She said.
Speaker 1: Later, when she went to the bathroom, she noticed the
Speaker 1: back door to the house trailer was wide open, and
Speaker 1: there was a gun lying in between the house and
Speaker 1: the back step. I went and looked for the gun,
Speaker 1: didn't see it, and came back to listen to Greg's
Speaker 1: wife and her questions and June's answers.
Speaker 3: So by this point, Bob said that he was waiting
Speaker 3: for the ambulance but freaking out because they were fifteen
Speaker 3: miles from town. He worried that Anna would die before
Speaker 3: they got there.
Speaker 1: I tried to talk to her again and she was
Speaker 1: just moaning. And when I tried to turn her head
Speaker 1: to get a better look, there was a pile of
Speaker 1: blood on both sides of her head and one eye
Speaker 1: was pointed in a different direction. Within the next few minutes,
Speaker 1: there were at least eight deputies all over the house,
Speaker 1: moving around looking under beds, in closets, and even in drawers.
Speaker 1: June and I were standing at the dining room table
Speaker 1: being questioned as the others were looking at everything in
Speaker 1: the house. Greg and his wife were outside standing by
Speaker 1: the garage. The emergency team of two men came in
Speaker 1: with a stretcher and let my wife's head just hang
Speaker 1: down as they dragged her off the couch. I thought,
Speaker 1: how unprofessional is this? It was still dark outside, and
Speaker 1: I heard June hollering, Dad, Dad, look what I found
Speaker 1: out in the garden. She was holding our new rifle
Speaker 1: and walked towards me to give it to me, and
Speaker 1: I said, June, you shouldn't be touching that, and took
Speaker 1: it from her using all my thumb and one finger
Speaker 1: on the front side. I took it in the dining
Speaker 1: room and placed it in a corner of the room,
Speaker 1: just outside the door. Two of the deputies came over,
Speaker 1: and one picked it up and took it in the
Speaker 1: kitchen and took the tube out of the magazine and
Speaker 1: poured all the shells out on the little cutting board
Speaker 1: table in the kitchen. I noticed a whole pile of
Speaker 1: twenty two shells come out of it, and some rolled
Speaker 1: off the table on on the floor. The other deputy
Speaker 1: picked them up and put them back in the pile.
Speaker 1: Three different deputies took turns and looked the rifle over
Speaker 1: before throwing it on top of the spare tire in
Speaker 1: the trunk of another deputy's car. It kind of got
Speaker 1: me him dropping it on the metal wheel when I'm
Speaker 1: so particular about my guns. But I had a lot
Speaker 1: more things to worry about than a little thing like that.
Speaker 3: Anna was airlifted to the hospital in Shreveport shortly after April,
Speaker 3: and Bob got to the hospital, police questioned Bob. According
Speaker 3: to Bob, police were suspicious of him. Bob was processing
Speaker 3: the fact that his wife had a horrible fight with
Speaker 3: their daughter and later on the same night, Anna was
Speaker 3: shot in the head and she was now fighting for
Speaker 3: her life in the hospital. Bob and April came home
Speaker 3: from the hospital. Anna was in a coma. The crime
Speaker 3: scene tape was still around their trailer, and at that
Speaker 3: point Doug aka Augie showed up.
Speaker 1: Oggie pulled up and got out, and June went running
Speaker 1: into his arms. He lifted her up off the ground
Speaker 1: and they were both smiling and happy. That pissed me off.
Speaker 1: Then the dog jumped in June's arms, and Aggie just
Speaker 1: kept holding June off the ground, and I said, well,
Speaker 1: aren't you going to turn loose? June dropped the dog,
Speaker 1: but he kept holding June. I gave them a hard
Speaker 1: look and said I didn't mean the dog, and Aggie
Speaker 1: let June.
Speaker 3: Down despite his suspicions. Incredibly, Bob agreed to go to
Speaker 3: the grocery store with Doug so that Doug could buy
Speaker 3: them some food.
Speaker 1: We went into the supermarket and everyone there knew us,
Speaker 1: and June and Aggie were acting too happy in all smiles.
Speaker 1: I had to remind them, I don't know how y'all
Speaker 1: can be so happy when mom is in the intensive
Speaker 1: care and may not live. They got straight faced, but
Speaker 1: snickered at each other, not knowing I was watching. Two
Speaker 1: plus two has always equaled four in my book, and
Speaker 1: my heart sunk as I realized what must have happened
Speaker 1: to June's mother, my wife. Those two lovebirds knew exactly
Speaker 1: what happened.
Speaker 3: I cannot get over how creepy it is that Bob
Speaker 3: referred to his thirteen year old daughter and his forty
Speaker 3: something year old friend who had raped or sexually assaulted her,
Speaker 3: as lovebirds. Bob began to suspect that Doug and April were,
Speaker 3: in his words, not mine, dating, and that Doug may
Speaker 3: have been involved in Anna's murder or possibly even masterminded it.
Speaker 3: His suspicions were raised further after he talked to his
Speaker 3: friend Greg, Doug's next door neighbor, the one who came
Speaker 3: to the house that night. Bob wrote that that person
Speaker 3: told him that another resident of the neighborhood and his
Speaker 3: wife saw this.
Speaker 1: They had seen Oggy coming home the back way in
Speaker 1: a real hurry around four am the morning my wife
Speaker 1: got shot. That led me to believe Oggie did the shooting.
Speaker 1: I couldn't bring myself to believe my daughter could be
Speaker 1: so cold hearted as to shoot her own mom while
Speaker 1: she was asleep on the couch.
Speaker 3: Bob's friend's wife was very close to April. They had
Speaker 3: known her since the mid nineties and watched her grow up.
Speaker 3: April went over to the friend's house and talked to
Speaker 3: his wife, and then Bob claims that his friend's wife
Speaker 3: called him and said that April had confessed to her
Speaker 3: that she had told her in tears that she had
Speaker 3: shot her mother Anna. According to this woman, April had
Speaker 3: also allegedly admitted that she and Doug were in love,
Speaker 3: and the woman said that quote she told us all
Speaker 3: about her and Augie going parking and denied making love
Speaker 3: to him, but he did hurt her down there with
Speaker 3: his big fingers end quote. This is where things get
Speaker 3: even more weird. Bob claims he couldn't believe that his
Speaker 3: daughter could have killed his wife in cold blood. Yet
Speaker 3: at the same time, he says April wasn't allowed to
Speaker 3: talk to him on the advice of lawyers. So again
Speaker 3: we're only getting part of the story from Bob. He's
Speaker 3: definitely leaving things out here, but it certainly seems like
Speaker 3: police may have suspected maybe it was Bob who shot
Speaker 3: his wife, and certain aspects of his story are suspect,
Speaker 3: including the fact that he didn't hear the gunshot and
Speaker 3: he made such a point of explaining in his story
Speaker 3: why he was naked. There's something else we found. The
Speaker 3: neighbor who Bob mentioned. Her name is Yvonne. She was
Speaker 3: with her husband at the house on the night that
Speaker 3: Anna was shot, and she confirmed the part of the
Speaker 3: story where April told her that Doug had allegedly assaulted April.
Speaker 6: I know he's a molest in her there's no offense
Speaker 6: but about it.
Speaker 3: But Yvonne didn't confirm everything Bob said. She said there
Speaker 3: was something else that she noticed on the night of
Speaker 3: Anna's death.
Speaker 6: She was fresh and clean from a shower, Her hair
Speaker 6: was wet, she snowed like soap. And the reason why
Speaker 6: that sticks out in my mind is because most of
Speaker 6: the time April was dirty.
Speaker 3: Two weeks after Anna Thompson was shot in her home,
Speaker 3: she was removed from life support and she died at
Speaker 3: the hospital. Bob wrote in his book that he didn't
Speaker 3: go to the hospital often during that period. He said
Speaker 3: that some people might not have understood it, but working
Speaker 3: on cars and doing stuff at home was his way
Speaker 3: of coping. Others said he seemed a bit cold toward
Speaker 3: his wife, the one he had appeared to adore. Meanwhile,
Speaker 3: Bob wrote in his book that after Anna was shot
Speaker 3: while she was in the hospital and after she died,
Speaker 3: Bob claimed that he was enraged by Doug's alleged involvement
Speaker 3: with April, his underage daughter, and he said that he
Speaker 3: went to see a judge in Sabine County. And in
Speaker 3: his book Bob claimed that the Justice of the Peace
Speaker 3: and the judge were both Doug's BFFs, and, in his words,
Speaker 3: out to get him.
Speaker 1: Called the judge and made an appointment with him to
Speaker 1: talk about Aggie molesting June. And when I got to
Speaker 1: the courthouse and went up to the judge's office, Jake Butt,
Speaker 1: the JP, who was Aggie's friend, moved a chair over
Speaker 1: beside the judge's desk and said to have a seat.
Speaker 1: As he closed the door, the judge asked me how
Speaker 1: can I help you? And I said I would like
Speaker 1: to have Aggie arrested for molesting a minor, my daughter.
Speaker 1: They both sat there and told me I couldn't do
Speaker 1: that because it was up to June. If she didn't complain,
Speaker 1: I couldn't do anything about it. I argued with them
Speaker 1: that it was on her confession that I was her
Speaker 1: father and she was a miner. It was frustrating to
Speaker 1: have the judge and JP sit there and tell me
Speaker 1: I couldn't do anything about it. I left there mad
Speaker 1: and frustrated. So the next day I drove to Lufkin
Speaker 1: and went to the FBI and told them my story,
Speaker 1: and the agent went out of the room for a
Speaker 1: few minutes and came back and told me that he
Speaker 1: he sympathized with me, but he flat out told me
Speaker 1: that one thing the FBI doesn't do is mess with
Speaker 1: elected officials. And that ended that.
Speaker 3: This is absolutely not true. Statutory rape laws have been
Speaker 3: on the books in Texas since nineteen sixty nine, and
Speaker 3: it's defined as when an adult engages in some type
Speaker 3: of sexual activity with a child under the age of seventeen.
Speaker 3: It doesn't matter if the underage person doesn't want to
Speaker 3: report it. In addition, there's aggravated sexual assault of a
Speaker 3: child that's defined as sexual penetration. However, slight of or
Speaker 3: by a child thirteen and younger by a person of
Speaker 3: any age. Because April was thirteen at the time, this
Speaker 3: could have been a first degree felony, one that if
Speaker 3: Doug had been found guilty, he would have faced a
Speaker 3: minimum of five years in prison and a maximum of
Speaker 3: up to ninety nine years, plus a fine of up
Speaker 3: to ten thousand dollars. Now, there's no way to know
Speaker 3: for sure if one of Doug's friends told Bob incorrect information,
Speaker 3: but I do believe he could have pursued it further.
Speaker 3: April told Yvaughn that Doug had touched her sexually and
Speaker 3: specifically mentioned digital penetration. At that point, Bob claims he
Speaker 3: started doing some checking on Doug's background. He said he
Speaker 3: discovered that Doug had been run out of the town
Speaker 3: he was living in before because of his involvement with
Speaker 3: another very young woman. We have not been able to
Speaker 3: confirm that, but we are looking into the rumors that
Speaker 3: Doug could have had previous alleged victims. Bob decided to
Speaker 3: reach out to Doug's wife, Terry at the time when
Speaker 3: he was involved with April.
Speaker 4: Bob said.
Speaker 3: Terry told him she had found out a lot of
Speaker 3: information about Doug after they were married. She said he
Speaker 3: had nothing to his name, he had committed fraud. We
Speaker 3: talked to Terry and we're going to get a lot
Speaker 3: more into what she had to say next week. We
Speaker 3: have heard from multiple people that Terry and Doug never
Speaker 3: actually lived together. The person he was romantically interested in
Speaker 3: at that point, we're told, was April. So now Bob
Speaker 3: knew that Doug had sexually assaulted April, but.
Speaker 4: Again he seemed to turn things around on her.
Speaker 1: I had told June we couldn't have anything to do
Speaker 1: with Augie anymore because people would be watching her to
Speaker 1: see if they got back together. I could tell that
Speaker 1: didn't go over very well. She had been back with
Speaker 1: me for only a few weeks when the law came
Speaker 1: out to arrest me because June had written a confession
Speaker 1: that I killed Barb and signed my name to it.
Speaker 3: Now, April's court records because she was a juvenile, had
Speaker 3: been sealed, but we discovered that police supposedly ruled out
Speaker 3: that confession. They believed it was fake because it was
Speaker 3: not in Bob's handwriting. We don't know for sure because
Speaker 3: These records are sealed because April was a juvenile, but
Speaker 3: police did not move forward with charging Bob, so it
Speaker 3: was April who was charged with her mother's murder. After
Speaker 3: a two day trial, April was found not guilty. April
Speaker 3: spent some time in foster care, but eventually she returned
Speaker 3: home to her father. The way Bob tells it, for
Speaker 3: the next few years, things were pretty calm and he
Speaker 3: and April got along. Bob said that April did not
Speaker 3: date anyone or express any interest in doing so.
Speaker 4: He said he told her this.
Speaker 1: I'll always be here for you, but just stay out
Speaker 1: of trouble. Everyone will be watching to see if you
Speaker 1: go to Augie and that could be trouble for you,
Speaker 1: so beware of that and just don't burn any bridges.
Speaker 3: But then, he claims, April, without his knowledge, kept reaching
Speaker 3: out to Doug. In his book, Bob talked about a
Speaker 3: sixty eight year old retired widower named David, a guy
Speaker 3: who would help them haul bales for their horses. Now,
Speaker 3: these bales weighed five hundred to one thousand pounds. David
Speaker 3: supposedly did these favors for them for years and never
Speaker 3: asked for anything in return. Bob sort of tells this
Speaker 3: story as if it's just a kind neighbor, but honestly
Speaker 3: that generally people don't do things for free, especially if
Speaker 3: they hang around your young daughter. When it comes to
Speaker 3: older adults hanging around with underage kids for no reason,
Speaker 3: too good to be true usually is the guy. David
Speaker 3: told Bob that April had been secretly calling Doug from
Speaker 3: her cell phone while they were working together. David told
Speaker 3: Bob something else. He said that April had told another
Speaker 3: one of their neighbors that David made his sexual advance
Speaker 3: toward her. David said this was absolutely not true. He
Speaker 3: believed that April was trying to blackmail him so that
Speaker 3: he would not tell her father about the cell phone
Speaker 3: and the calls to Doug. Once again, Bob believed his
Speaker 3: friend over his daughter. What is so sad about this
Speaker 3: to me is that either way, whether that specific accusation
Speaker 3: was true or not, April had learned a very hard lesson.
Speaker 3: She was not going to be protected by the men
Speaker 3: close to her, and possibly that she would have to
Speaker 3: use manipulation with sexual power the only power she probably
Speaker 3: felt she had to get what she wanted. When April
Speaker 3: was seventeen she enrolled in a community college in Minnie, Louisiana.
Speaker 3: She was studying to become a nurse's aid. Shortly after that,
Speaker 3: Bob claims, April basically took all of her stuff and
Speaker 3: left his house for good, leaving a note to let
Speaker 3: him know she was okay.
Speaker 1: As far as I was concerned, I did my best
Speaker 1: and got her through high school and into college. She
Speaker 1: had a nice truck that was paid for, a brand
Speaker 1: new motorcycle paid for, and she was gone. It really
Speaker 1: hurt that she had to do me that way, leaving
Speaker 1: the way she did.
Speaker 3: Bob said that it was only then, when he was
Speaker 3: cleaning up april stuff, that he found April's confession in
Speaker 3: a hidden gun cabinet, the one that was written years ago,
Speaker 3: the one that the police had supposedly dismissed because it
Speaker 3: did not match Bob's handwriting.
Speaker 1: June figured I wouldn't find this for a long time,
Speaker 1: or there were plans something was going to happen to
Speaker 1: me too. This would be found and there would be
Speaker 1: no one to say it wasn't my handwriting. I guess
Speaker 1: I'll have to accept it, and I don't want anything
Speaker 1: to do with that little girl anymore. I just can't
Speaker 1: understand how anyone could do that to their own mother.
Speaker 1: I told mom, it's hard to believe how she could
Speaker 1: be so quiet and not give us any trouble in
Speaker 1: any other way and do this. I guess it was
Speaker 1: the day after that I started burning everything.
Speaker 4: He ended his book with this, as I look back.
Speaker 1: I will always love my daughter just because she is
Speaker 1: my daughter, I guess, and for the fact that if
Speaker 1: we would not have lived where we did, in such
Speaker 1: a troubled area, with people that had so much influence
Speaker 1: on turning her against her parents, everything would be a
Speaker 1: whole different ballgame.
Speaker 3: I feel like I need a shower after reading this book.
Speaker 3: This father who literally did zero to protect his underage
Speaker 3: daughter and in fact basically seemed to pimp her out
Speaker 3: for grocery money. All of this book was written in
Speaker 3: such passive voice. In my opinion, Bob utterly failed to
Speaker 3: protect his child. And as a friend of April said,
Speaker 3: and I agree with their view, Bob's book was full
Speaker 3: of holes. They were all so suspicious about these big
Speaker 3: leaps of time. For example, Bob talks about the night
Speaker 3: of the murder and his suspicions, but then said Doug
Speaker 3: was not around at all anymore during April's ten years.
Speaker 3: He only discovered they were talking again and possibly sexually involved,
Speaker 3: right around the time when she turned eighteen, actually a
Speaker 3: little bit before, when she was seventeen.
Speaker 4: I agree with this source.
Speaker 3: I think it's very unlikely that Bob only had this
Speaker 3: realization that they were talking again magically right after April
Speaker 3: turned eighteen. In Bob's story, he's the victim and April
Speaker 3: is a manipulative vixen. But there's another side of the story,
Speaker 3: one that tells a very different tale and shows how
Speaker 3: April was repeatedly violated and failed by multiple adults in
Speaker 3: her life.
Speaker 4: We found Terry.
Speaker 3: Dougsac's wife who you'll hear from next week, and several
Speaker 3: other people who were around when this was going on.
Speaker 3: A lot of people whose stories have never been told.
Speaker 3: They lay out a very different motive for why Bob
Speaker 3: may have wanted to harm Anna. It turns out that
Speaker 3: Doug Janis was not just sexually intimate with April, he
Speaker 3: was also allegedly having an affair with her mother.
Speaker 4: Anna.
Speaker 6: She called me and said she was so upset, and
Speaker 6: I'd never heard of this upset, And I said, what's
Speaker 6: going on and she said, I found a letter between
Speaker 6: Doug and April and he's messing with my daughter. And
Speaker 6: I was like, are you serious? And she said yes,
Speaker 6: and she said and that is it. She said, I
Speaker 6: told him, don't you ever come over here again? You
Speaker 6: will never ends me exactly what she told me her words,
Speaker 6: She said, I told him, over my dead body, will
Speaker 6: you ever see her again?
Speaker 3: I'm Catherine Townsend. This is Helen Gone Murder Line. Helen
Speaker 3: Gone Murder Line is a production of School of Humans
Speaker 3: and iHeart Podcasts. It's written and narrated by me Catherine
Speaker 3: Townsend and produced by Gabby Watts and Miranda Hawkins. Special
Speaker 3: thanks to Amy Tubbs for her research assistance. This episode
Speaker 3: was sound design and mixed by Noah Kamer. Our theme
Speaker 3: song is by Ben Sale. Executive producers are Virginia Prescott,
Speaker 3: Brandon Barr, and l. C.
Speaker 4: Crowley.
Speaker 3: Listen to Helen Gone ad free by subscribing to the
Speaker 3: iHeart True Crime Plus channel on Apple Podcasts. If you
Speaker 3: have a case you'd like me and my team to
Speaker 3: look into, you can reach out to us at our
Speaker 3: Helen Gone Murder Line at six seven eight seven four
Speaker 3: four six one four five.
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Speaker 1: School of Humans,