Speaker 1: This story contains adult content and language. Listener discretion is advised.
Speaker 1: Once they run that dark little room with the dirt floor,
Speaker 1: they could see a patch against a wall, and they
Speaker 1: started to dig, and four hours later they dug up
Speaker 1: this blue rubber mad container with the remains of Jamie Carroll.
Speaker 2: I'm Kate Winkler Dawson, a nonfiction author and journalism professor
Speaker 2: in Austin, Texas. I'm also the co host of the
Speaker 2: podcast Buried Bones on Exactly Right, and throughout my career,
Speaker 2: research for my many audio and book projects has taken
Speaker 2: me around the world. On Wicked Words, I sit down
Speaker 2: with the people I've met along the way, amazing writers, journalists, filmmakers,
Speaker 2: and podcasters who have investigated and reported on notorious true
Speaker 2: crime cases. This is about the choices writers make, both
Speaker 2: good and bad, and it's a deep dive into the
Speaker 2: unpublished details behind their stories. I love a good murder
Speaker 2: story set in the South, and this is a pretty
Speaker 2: intense one. It centers on a vicious murder in a
Speaker 2: crumbling Kentucky mansion and a killer who managed to cover
Speaker 2: it up for months. Author David Domine writes about it
Speaker 2: in his book A Dark Room in Glitterball City, Murder, Secrets,
Speaker 2: and scandal in Old Louisville. You are someone after my
Speaker 2: heart because you love a good ghost story. Tell me
Speaker 2: about how you found the story to begin with. I've
Speaker 2: read about it.
Speaker 1: It's just one of those stories that kind of fell
Speaker 1: in my lap. So I live in Louisville, Kentucky right now.
Speaker 1: I'm not from this area. I'm from Wisconsin. I came
Speaker 1: here in nineteen ninety three to go to law school,
Speaker 1: and you know, I didn't really look forward to coming
Speaker 1: to Louisville, Kentucky. I've never been here before. So my
Speaker 1: plan was to do my time and get out of town,
Speaker 1: but that never happened. I ended up loving the city,
Speaker 1: and in nineteen ninety nine I bought a house. I
Speaker 1: fell in love with one part of the town. It's
Speaker 1: called Old Louisville. It's one of the largest historic preservation
Speaker 1: districts in the country. There's forty five scare blocks of
Speaker 1: old houses, roughly fourteen hundred old homes and mansions, mostly
Speaker 1: from the eighteen eighties and the eighteen nineties, and so
Speaker 1: that area just kind of sucked me in. Well. In
Speaker 1: nineteen ninety nine, I had a chance to buy a
Speaker 1: house in that neighborhood, and my partner and I lived
Speaker 1: there for eight years. But right before we moved into
Speaker 1: this house, the previous owner just casually mentioned that the
Speaker 1: house was haunted and we moved in, we'd be getting
Speaker 1: a resident polter guys named Lucy, and so I just
Speaker 1: kind of, you know, pooh poohed her warnings and we
Speaker 1: moved in, and sure enough, all the crazy stuff she
Speaker 1: said what happened began to happen. And long story short,
Speaker 1: I never saw that ghost that was I was hoping
Speaker 1: to see to kind of make me a true believer.
Speaker 1: But all these other things of a paranormal nature people
Speaker 1: would say began happening in the house. And that's when
Speaker 1: I began to discover more about the neighborhood, and I'd
Speaker 1: found out more about the house, and I discovered you
Speaker 1: can use ghost stories and hauntings as vehicles for more
Speaker 1: than just talking about the pair ofanormal And there's history
Speaker 1: and there's architecture. So I got into writing about the neighborhood.
Speaker 1: And when we moved out in two thousand and eight
Speaker 1: from that house, I was a food writer and I
Speaker 1: heard right around the corner a new house had come
Speaker 1: on the market a house that hadn't been for sale
Speaker 1: in years. It was called the Richard Robinson House and
Speaker 1: it was massive. It was like twelve bedrooms over ten
Speaker 1: thousand square feet. But I heard they had the original
Speaker 1: wine cellar from when the family built in eighteen ninety eight,
Speaker 1: and I got into my head somehow, if you're going
Speaker 1: to be a food rid, you have to have a
Speaker 1: wine cellar. So I made an appointment to go look
Speaker 1: at the house and it was huge. It was just
Speaker 1: too much work. I could tell right away, right when
Speaker 1: I walked in. Despite the grand stairs and the beautiful
Speaker 1: parquet in lay on the hardwood floors and the beautiful
Speaker 1: molding and stained glass windows, I knew it was going
Speaker 1: to be too much work. But I thought, well, go
Speaker 1: look at the wine cellar. You know you're looking at
Speaker 1: the house because you're interested in the wine cellar. So
Speaker 1: went down to the basement, worked our way through this
Speaker 1: maze like warrn of little rooms, and finally found the
Speaker 1: wine cellar. And it was a disaster. Like much of
Speaker 1: the house, it had a dirt floor, but previous tenants
Speaker 1: had just thrown boxes of you know, trash in there,
Speaker 1: and you could only tell it was a wine cellar
Speaker 1: because of the shadows the outlines of the shelves that
Speaker 1: had been on the brick wall at one time but
Speaker 1: then had been removed over time, and so that was
Speaker 1: kind of the nail in the coffin. I thought, no,
Speaker 1: don't need to do this, and so said thank you
Speaker 1: to the real estate agent. And as we were going
Speaker 1: out the front door and down the walkway to the
Speaker 1: sidewalk out in front of the house, a man was
Speaker 1: rushing up the stairs and it turns out he had
Speaker 1: the appointment right after we did, and he kind of
Speaker 1: bumped into me and didn't say excuse me. I thought
Speaker 1: that was kind of, you know, rude, but I didn't
Speaker 1: really think anything of it, and we went on with
Speaker 1: the rest of the day and that was that, or
Speaker 1: so I thought. Two years later, it was the morning
Speaker 1: of June eighteenth, twenty ten. I teach at a local university.
Speaker 1: I was up drinking my coffee, getting ready to go teach,
Speaker 1: and I had one of the local stations on, and
Speaker 1: all of a sudden, there was kind of a newsflash
Speaker 1: and a big, boxy, red brick house popped up on
Speaker 1: the screen and there were police out front that had
Speaker 1: caution tape all around it. And I saw the house
Speaker 1: and I thought, well, that house looks awfully familiar. And
Speaker 1: I thought, well, probably down in old Louisville where all
Speaker 1: the old Victorian houses are. And then a mug shot
Speaker 1: popped up, and I stared at that mugshot, and I thought,
Speaker 1: who is he? I know that guy, you know? I
Speaker 1: thought maybe just from the neighborhood or something. And then
Speaker 1: all of a sudden it dawned on me that was
Speaker 1: the guy who had the appointment with the real estate
Speaker 1: agent that morning.
Speaker 2: So tell me about Jeffrey Mund, Joey Bannis, and Jamie
Speaker 2: Carroll separately, and then tell me about when they came together.
Speaker 1: Yeah. So at the time they were all thirty seven
Speaker 1: years old. Jeffrey Mount went to a good high school
Speaker 1: here in Louisville. Is future boyfriend Joey Bannis did as well.
Speaker 1: They both came from kind of privileged backgrounds. Jeffrey ended
Speaker 1: up getting a scholarship at Indiana University and he studied
Speaker 1: computer sciences and got a very good job. He was
Speaker 1: a big it person. He ended up in Chicago for
Speaker 1: a time. He was working at Northwestern Universities in charge
Speaker 1: of their big technology overhaul and he had had other
Speaker 1: jobs as well. Joey Bannis, on the other hand, he
Speaker 1: was more of a ne'er do well. He was a
Speaker 1: deadhead for a while and worked in restaurants, supposedly as
Speaker 1: a ski instructor. He had designs of opening his own
Speaker 1: club in town. He claimed to have already opened a club,
Speaker 1: but some people dispute that. But he was known in
Speaker 1: the community for being kind of a colorful figure at
Speaker 1: the local clubs. He bartended very often and he would
Speaker 1: often have like his hair done in a bright blue
Speaker 1: neon mohawk. He had body painting, and he really stood out.
Speaker 1: And so Jeffreymont, according to his story, had just moved
Speaker 1: back to Louisville from Chicago. He said his then boyfriend
Speaker 1: had dumped him by text and he was kind of
Speaker 1: coming back home to lick his wounds, and that's when
Speaker 1: he met Joey Bannis in an online chat room and
Speaker 1: they kind of hooked up and they started going out together. Eventually,
Speaker 1: Joey moved himself into the house on four Street, and
Speaker 1: when he moved in, he had had several hookups with
Speaker 1: Jamie Carroll. They met online and Jamie Carroll was a
Speaker 1: drug dealer. Joey Bannis was a drug dealer as well,
Speaker 1: but they had also kind of dated on and off,
Speaker 1: and so the three of them kind of hooked up.
Speaker 1: And so the night in question, June seventeen, twenty ten,
Speaker 1: Jamie Carroll was in town and he had some outstanding
Speaker 1: warrants and the idea was he had come to town
Speaker 1: with the plan of turning himself in the next day.
Speaker 1: He was going to go to jail and try to
Speaker 1: do his time and come out and be on the
Speaker 1: straight and narrow, you know, get a fresh start. But
Speaker 1: before he turned himself in that next day, he wanted
Speaker 1: one last night out on the town. And when Joey
Speaker 1: found out that he was in town, he said, come
Speaker 1: on over to the house and bring lots of drugs
Speaker 1: and Jeffrey and I will party with you. We'll send
Speaker 1: you off with a bang. And Jamie arrived and they
Speaker 1: started doing crystal meth and other things. And supposedly after
Speaker 1: they ran through the first batch of drugs, Jamie left
Speaker 1: went back to his hotel room to get more drugs.
Speaker 1: And in that window of time that's where whoever you
Speaker 1: believe Jeffrey floated the idea or Joey floated the idea
Speaker 1: of killing Jamie and keeping his drugs and money because
Speaker 1: Jeffrey and Joey were having major financial issues. Jeffrey had
Speaker 1: been working at the University of Louisville as an IT consultant.
Speaker 1: He was making over a quarter million dollars a year,
Speaker 1: but he started missing work and showing up Hie, so
Speaker 1: they let him go, so no money was coming in
Speaker 1: to pay the bills. Jamie did come back, and Jamie
Speaker 1: was a hairdresser. He had a shop in Lexington, and
Speaker 1: he had a checkered pass. You know, he had been
Speaker 1: a drug dealer, and some people described him as ruthless,
Speaker 1: but a lot of people said he was charming in
Speaker 1: high school and he was out in the nineties in
Speaker 1: eastern Kentucky and said he was very confident being a
Speaker 1: gay man. And some said he didn't look like he
Speaker 1: had a care in the world. But when he came back,
Speaker 1: the three of them were in bed and they took
Speaker 1: a little break from things, and depending on who you believe,
Speaker 1: Jeffrey got out of the bed, left Jamie and Joey
Speaker 1: on the bed. When he went to pull up the
Speaker 1: laptop and look at some porn and he heard a
Speaker 1: scuffle and turned around and found Jamie yelling for help,
Speaker 1: and there was Joey stabbing him. If you believe Joey,
Speaker 1: he's the one that got out of bed. He heard
Speaker 1: the scuffle at the computer, turned around and he saw
Speaker 1: Jeffrey attacking Jamie. But whatever happened, Jamie ended up on
Speaker 1: the floor or kind of cowering in a corner. He
Speaker 1: was bleeding profusely. He had fallen into like a glass shelf,
Speaker 1: and there was blood all over the place. And then
Speaker 1: one of the two guys took a pistol and shot
Speaker 1: him in the head, kind of execution style, and then
Speaker 1: they took his body down to the basement and that's
Speaker 1: when they proceeded to bury him. And it took well
Speaker 1: over the course of a day. You know, they were
Speaker 1: planning what to do and stuff, but they ended up
Speaker 1: down in the basement. And it took him hours to
Speaker 1: dig the pit where Jamie was buried, because he was
Speaker 1: well over four feet into the ground. And yeah, whoever
Speaker 1: you believe, Joey said he was terrified of Jeffrey. He
Speaker 1: said Jeffrey had gone into kind of commando mode, ripped
Speaker 1: out all the SIM cards in Jamie's phone and like
Speaker 1: he had done stuff like this before. Jeffrey said, no,
Speaker 1: that's what Joey did. And then this is where it's
Speaker 1: really interesting when the trials finally did take place, because
Speaker 1: they were both arrested charged with murder. In the end,
Speaker 1: they both admitted to covering up the body, but they
Speaker 1: each insisted they had only done this because each had
Speaker 1: been living in fear of the other for the previous
Speaker 1: seven months. And so in the first trial, Joey went
Speaker 1: on trial first, separately. Several months later, in twenty thirteen,
Speaker 1: Jeffrey went on trial, and originally the death penalty would
Speaker 1: have been an option, but the prosecutor agreed to take
Speaker 1: it off the table if they each agreed to testify
Speaker 1: against the other. So when Joey was on the stand first,
Speaker 1: it came out that one of the reasons he was
Speaker 1: terrified of Jeffreymont is because Jeffreymont had worked for the
Speaker 1: CIA as an assassin and I killed over thirty some people. Okay,
Speaker 1: that's why he was terrified. And everyone in the courtroom
Speaker 1: just kind of rolled their eyes. When Jeffrey was brought
Speaker 1: to the stand and kind of asked about that, he said, no,
Speaker 1: I never have been an assassin, but he said Joey
Speaker 1: and Jeffrey they had like role playing games for sex
Speaker 1: and stuff, and one of their role plays was that
Speaker 1: Jeffrey liked to play that he was an assassin from
Speaker 1: the CIA. So no one really put too much store
Speaker 1: in any of that until later on some weird things
Speaker 1: came out and all of a sudden, people wondered if
Speaker 1: maybe Jeffrey Wont wasn't working for the CIA, because they
Speaker 1: found out he's an expert in different European languages, Eastern
Speaker 1: European languages. There were pages and pages of text messages
Speaker 1: and transcripts from emails in Russian and German that never
Speaker 1: made it back from the translators in time. And what
Speaker 1: was interesting is when the murder was found out on
Speaker 1: June eighteen, two thousand and ten, Joey and Jeffrey were
Speaker 1: already out on bond from another crime in April of
Speaker 1: that year, twenty ten. They were up in Chicago when
Speaker 1: they were arrested, so this was when Jamie's body was
Speaker 1: down in the ground. They were arrested because they had
Speaker 1: been counterfeiting money the whole time in the house on
Speaker 1: four Street, the second floor. They kind of turned into
Speaker 1: a counterfeit money operation. They were taking dollar bills, they
Speaker 1: were bleaching them ands and then restamping those cleaned papers
Speaker 1: as higher denomination bills as fifteen hundred dollar bills. So
Speaker 1: that weekend in April of twenty ten, they went up.
Speaker 1: They checked into the Highatt Regency in downtown Chicago. I'm
Speaker 1: assuming the idea was they were going up to see
Speaker 1: how good they were, how much fake money they could pass.
Speaker 1: Evidently they weren't very good, because they had just checked
Speaker 1: into the hotel and hadn't even left before they were arrested.
Speaker 1: They had given the dorman a fake hundred dollar bill
Speaker 1: and he knew right away something wasn't right. He said,
Speaker 1: it kind of felt kind of oily, and he called
Speaker 1: the police. The police came and ended up arresting Jeffrey.
Speaker 1: They found fifty four thousand dollars in counterfeit money in
Speaker 1: their rooms, in addition to bags and bags of date
Speaker 1: rape drugs, bomb making supplies, guns forged documents, and fake IDs.
Speaker 1: They were planning a bank heist while they were up
Speaker 1: in Chicago, and so the murder trial that kind of
Speaker 1: trumped everything. But they were supposed to be all these
Speaker 1: federal charges outstanding, you know, the counterfeit money and stuff
Speaker 1: like that, and whatever happened with those trials, no one
Speaker 1: really knows because they never made the news or anything.
Speaker 1: And some people have been floating the idea that it's
Speaker 1: because Jeffrey was involved with the CIA and they kind
Speaker 1: of got him off.
Speaker 2: So how long had Joey and Jeffrey been together before
Speaker 2: all of this starts to happen. And I know it's
Speaker 2: very sort of a loose term because they're bringing other
Speaker 2: people into the relationship, but how long had they been involved?
Speaker 1: Well, and of course it depends which side you listen to,
Speaker 1: the prosecution or the defense, but it wasn't very long
Speaker 1: in either case if you believe what Joey said. He
Speaker 1: made it sound like they met around Halloween of two
Speaker 1: thousand and nine. So the prosecution kind of painted it
Speaker 1: as they were in this long term relationship and they
Speaker 1: did everything together. But Jeffrey Month's defense attorney was kind
Speaker 1: of able, i think successfully to point out, no, they
Speaker 1: were only together for a few months, and he was
Speaker 1: able to bring an evidence that Joey, who had just
Speaker 1: gotten out of prison, had plans on finding a mark.
Speaker 1: He was looking for a man to live with and
Speaker 1: mooch off of and he had I mean, they had
Speaker 1: lists that he had made and one of the first
Speaker 1: things was get money for bail tracking devices on the car.
Speaker 1: I mean, just all this crazy stuff. Was looking for
Speaker 1: machine guns, and every day the trial just kept getting
Speaker 1: more and more bizarre. They had suicide tapes that Joey
Speaker 1: had made, but then when they showed them, people suggested
Speaker 1: that they were manufactured, you know, they were fabricated. They
Speaker 1: had made those thinking that if they ever did get arrested,
Speaker 1: they would have these things to kind of throw a wrench.
Speaker 1: That's what a lot of people think happened. It's just
Speaker 1: a bizarre story, a bizarre murder trial.
Speaker 2: So when police separate Jeffrey and Joey, which is always
Speaker 2: a good idea, and they start going back and forth,
Speaker 2: well Jeffrey did this, well, actually, you know, Joey's the
Speaker 2: one that did this. Was there not a way to
Speaker 2: tease out whose story actually matches the physical evidence? You know,
Speaker 2: is there any way for the police to suss out
Speaker 2: exactly what happened versus what these two guys who are
Speaker 2: high on crystal meth. I'm assuming still during the interrogation
Speaker 2: are telling the truth or not.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean I don't know that. They everyone bothered
Speaker 1: to try to look at the logistics of three people
Speaker 1: being on the bed and how it could have panned
Speaker 1: out a certain way. But one thing was interesting. Certain
Speaker 1: things were suppressed. And so when I sat through the
Speaker 1: trials the first time, one of the things that was
Speaker 1: kind of a mystery is the defense painted it as
Speaker 1: Joey Bannis was the one who first brought up the
Speaker 1: notion of the body being buried someplace, and their whole
Speaker 1: justification was, now, if he's guilty, why is he going
Speaker 1: to bring up a body in the basement. But then
Speaker 1: it came out later on in the trials that Jeffrey Month,
Speaker 1: according to the police reports, is the one that first
Speaker 1: brought it up. He said to the responding officer, ask him,
Speaker 1: pointing to Joey, ask him about the body and the basement,
Speaker 1: and the defense successfully had a statement suppressed. So the
Speaker 1: way the defense painted it, it did look like Joey
Speaker 1: was the one to bring up this body in the
Speaker 1: first place, and that's why so many people were confused.
Speaker 1: You know, why would he be bringing this up. He's
Speaker 1: going to, you know, bring himself down if he's you know,
Speaker 1: pointing out this body in the basement. But it turns
Speaker 1: out esupposedly Jeffrey Munt had brought it up, and then
Speaker 1: that kind of lent more credence to the overall notion
Speaker 1: of what happened that night, And that's still kind of
Speaker 1: a big mystery. But people suspect that Jeffrey had had
Speaker 1: enough and he was probably going to go to the
Speaker 1: police and had told Joey that night, the evening of
Speaker 1: June seventeen, twenty ten, and Joey, you know, he had
Speaker 1: been to prison numerous times already, he knew that was
Speaker 1: going to be the end for him. He was going
Speaker 1: to be going back. So he either he was high
Speaker 1: and didn't know what he was doing, or else he
Speaker 1: knew very well what he was doing and thought he'd
Speaker 1: probably take Jeffrey down with him, probably thinking, you know,
Speaker 1: if I'm going to go down, you're going to go
Speaker 1: down with me.
Speaker 2: With these two men, what is the caliber of their
Speaker 2: defense teams? Are they school or because Jeffrey, I know
Speaker 2: he's in debt, but because he had a job, does
Speaker 2: he afford an attorney or do you have the classic
Speaker 2: attorneys come to them because they want the publicity.
Speaker 1: You did notice, first of all, the size. They both
Speaker 1: had excellent defense attorneys. Joey, who went on trial first,
Speaker 1: had Darren Woolf. He's quite a well known figure, and
Speaker 1: he was assisted by Justin Brown. And then Jeffrey he
Speaker 1: had four people on his defense team. Steve Romanes is
Speaker 1: kind of a Mattlock Southern type of lawyer, you know,
Speaker 1: folksy kind of lawyer, was the lead defense and he
Speaker 1: was assisted by Ted Shause, and then they had their
Speaker 1: two assistance as well. And you just noticed by the number,
Speaker 1: you know, Jeffrey had twice as many people, you know,
Speaker 1: sitting next to him when he was at the table.
Speaker 1: And then the other thing is by that point Joey
Speaker 1: was convicted of the bulk of the crimes during that
Speaker 1: first trial, so when Jeffrey went on trial, they were
Speaker 1: able to say, we already got person. He's been convicted.
Speaker 1: And I think that really helped the defense a lot,
Speaker 1: and also I think the prosecution they got somewhat complacent
Speaker 1: after the first trial. Much of their argument for the
Speaker 1: second trial was exactly the same. Some of their lines
Speaker 1: were verbatim, so they were just I think, kind of
Speaker 1: coasting thinking they were going to use the same defense,
Speaker 1: but by that point, Jeffrey Month's defense attorneys were able
Speaker 1: to study things, and there was just all this stuff
Speaker 1: that came out. It was two completely different trials. I
Speaker 1: mean to see the stuff that was suppressed in the
Speaker 1: first trial that was allowed to come out in the
Speaker 1: second trial, and vice versa. And in the second trial
Speaker 1: they brought up all this stuff about Joey Bannis. One
Speaker 1: of the things that kind of impressed me during the
Speaker 1: first trial is Joey Bannis. He was always even keeled,
Speaker 1: he was soft spoken, he was articulate, he never changed
Speaker 1: his story once, and so a lot of people went
Speaker 1: into that first trial thinking, like the media had painted it,
Speaker 1: that Joey was probably more guilty of the two because
Speaker 1: he had this rap sheet and he was notoriously violent
Speaker 1: and volatile. Jeffrey mont had never had trouble with the
Speaker 1: law before. They made it seem like he kind of
Speaker 1: got swept up in all of this. But after that
Speaker 1: first trial, just seeing Joey maintain his composure on the
Speaker 1: stand and Jeffrey get caught in a lot of lies,
Speaker 1: a lot of people left that first trial thinking that
Speaker 1: Jeffrey probably was the more guilty of the two. But
Speaker 1: during the second trial, then they brought in all this
Speaker 1: other stuff about Joey, like how psychotic he really is psychopathic,
Speaker 1: and just all these things that he had planned. You know,
Speaker 1: they were able to, like I said, provide these lists,
Speaker 1: and we found out a little more about some of
Speaker 1: his other crimes and stuff, and people were testifying against him.
Speaker 1: Supposedly his own family was telling people to stay away,
Speaker 1: that their brother, their son, you know, was evil. So
Speaker 1: if your own family members are talking like that, that
Speaker 1: says a lot about you know, you as a person.
Speaker 2: I think what is the difference between as far as
Speaker 2: the sentence goes, They're not acquitting either one of these
Speaker 2: guys everything, no matter what they decide, right, because there's
Speaker 2: always what covering up accessory Secondarymber. I don't know what
Speaker 2: else the other choices were, and you can tell me that,
Speaker 2: but you know, I want to know what's at risk.
Speaker 2: So you said that they took the death penalty off
Speaker 2: the table for both of them.
Speaker 1: Is that right?
Speaker 2: What are the charges that they're facing as well as
Speaker 2: the sentences that they're facing.
Speaker 1: Here the sentences were twenty five to life. That's in
Speaker 1: effect what Joey Bannis got, and the charges were murder.
Speaker 1: I forget what the terminology is in Kentucky, but when
Speaker 1: you tamper with a corpse, hiding evidence, drug possession, burglary
Speaker 1: because they stole stuff from Jamie Carroll. So there were
Speaker 1: like eight major counts and then the first trial, Joey
Speaker 1: was convicted of all but the two minor counts. In
Speaker 1: the second trial, Jeffrey was acquitted of all but the
Speaker 1: two minor counts, so he got eight years for his part.
Speaker 1: He had already been in prison three years by that point,
Speaker 1: so the next year, twenty fourteen, he was halfway through,
Speaker 1: so they let him go. He was out on parole,
Speaker 1: already went to a half way house, and as far
Speaker 1: as I know, he's out and he's living his best life.
Speaker 2: What is Jamie's family saying about all of this or
Speaker 2: were they there to represent him at all?
Speaker 1: To a certain extent, And this is another situation where
Speaker 1: you got to kind of parse things not to offend
Speaker 1: the family too much. And depends which side you believe.
Speaker 1: But Jamie's mother, I mean rightly, so she was devastated
Speaker 1: and she's on record sobbing saying how much she missed
Speaker 1: her son. But the other thing is others have reported
Speaker 1: his family life wasn't the best. And what was kind
Speaker 1: of damning for Jamie's mother is she didn't even know
Speaker 1: he was missing until the night of the nine one
Speaker 1: one call.
Speaker 2: I was wondering about that. Did somebody actually say seven
Speaker 2: months earlier, this guy's missing.
Speaker 1: People, they might have suspected something. But this is another
Speaker 1: interesting thing because this was one of the reasons the
Speaker 1: prosecution used as a motive. Supposedly, Jeffrey and Joey knowing
Speaker 1: that Jamie was going to go to prison the next day,
Speaker 1: they figured, no one's going to notice if he just
Speaker 1: diks off the face of the planet.
Speaker 2: Yes, they would. He's supposed to turn himself in, right.
Speaker 1: Well, that's the thing. He didn't turn himself in the
Speaker 1: next day. And guess what. They dropped the ball. Normally
Speaker 1: put out a bench warrant or something. They totally dropped
Speaker 1: the ball, so he fell through the cracks. So he
Speaker 1: wasn't in the system. And his mother, who supposedly, you know,
Speaker 1: was devastated by his loss, didn't even know he was missing.
Speaker 1: She just assumed he was in prison and she'd probably
Speaker 1: hear from him when he came out. But you know,
Speaker 1: your son's in prison, for seven months, and you don't
Speaker 1: know that for certain. He did have family and friends
Speaker 1: who did miss him, that's for sure. But yeah, it's
Speaker 1: kind of a tragedy that he fell through the cracks
Speaker 1: and wasn't noticed until it was too late.
Speaker 2: And what's awful is to bring up the irony here
Speaker 2: is he's at this house with the two men partying,
Speaker 2: thinking this is his last night of freedom. And obviously,
Speaker 2: if he had known that this was going to be
Speaker 2: something where, you know, he would kind of be able
Speaker 2: to scoot away and go to Mexico or someplace and
Speaker 2: never be found and nobody was going to come look
Speaker 2: for him, none of this would have likely happened. It
Speaker 2: is sad, and it brings up something that is always
Speaker 2: a challenge I think for people who write true crime,
Speaker 2: which is, how do you take a victim who is
Speaker 2: not the perfect victim? And I don't mean you know,
Speaker 2: the missing white Wooman syndrome. I mean the person who
Speaker 2: has clearly made some questionable choices. It doesn't mean they
Speaker 2: deserve what happened, but it must have been difficult for
Speaker 2: you to tease out the really positive things about Jamie
Speaker 2: that then readers could really connect to and say, this
Speaker 2: person deserves justice just like everybody else.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and that's that was one of the challenges I
Speaker 1: had right away, because it seemed when the details of
Speaker 1: the murder were released, it was always this drug, drug
Speaker 1: fueled night of sex, and it was so sensationalized, and
Speaker 1: I had to, you know, be careful that I wasn't
Speaker 1: feeding into the sensationalism, you know. But yeah, I mean
Speaker 1: they did a lot of victim shaming, and so it
Speaker 1: was a challenge to keep reminding people that Jamie was
Speaker 1: the victim. He didn't deserve what happened to him. Even yes,
Speaker 1: he did have a checkered past, as was pointed out
Speaker 1: right away, but yeah, he didn't deserve to die that way.
Speaker 1: He didn't deserve to have someone execute him. So it
Speaker 1: was a challenge, and there were other challenges. You know,
Speaker 1: the whole gay aspect of the.
Speaker 2: Trial jury selection is something you talk about. I think
Speaker 2: that would be a great example to explain.
Speaker 1: So in Kentucky they record, they videotape all their trials
Speaker 1: and so one of the you know, the book took
Speaker 1: me ten years to write, and one of the reasons
Speaker 1: was it was a daunting project, you know, trying to
Speaker 1: just get it all under my belt. But then a
Speaker 1: lot of it was doing the research and going back
Speaker 1: and I sat through the trials. I was there every day.
Speaker 1: But then later on I was able to get the
Speaker 1: videotaped proceedings in the courtroom, and that's when it got
Speaker 1: really interesting, because when you get those videotape proceedings, you
Speaker 1: get all the stuff that you don't get to see
Speaker 1: that you're not privy to when you're sitting in the
Speaker 1: gallery in the courtroom. For example, you know, if you're
Speaker 1: in a courtroom and there's an objection or something and
Speaker 1: the judge calls both councils to the bench and they
Speaker 1: hit the white noise button and everything is blocked out.
Speaker 1: You get to hear what that all was about once
Speaker 1: you get the tapes afterwards, and the same thing. They
Speaker 1: record all the jury polling, and so you got to
Speaker 1: see the prospective jurors on the stand being questioned. And
Speaker 1: this is where you saw, unfortunately, a lot of homophobia
Speaker 1: rear its ugly head. But it was, you know, over
Speaker 1: ten years ago that that happened, and you like to
Speaker 1: think we've come a long way since then, but I'm
Speaker 1: not really sure about that. But it was fascinating just
Speaker 1: to see people's answers to some of these questions, and
Speaker 1: it was interesting to see how the defense and the
Speaker 1: prosecution were able to kind of weed out people they
Speaker 1: didn't want.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you talk about how it sounds like both sides
Speaker 2: are asking if you have a prejudice against you know,
Speaker 2: gay people, are you able to put that to the
Speaker 2: side to be fair? And there are people who are
Speaker 2: sitting there actually having to think about it for a second,
Speaker 2: which is so upsetting to read, but of course not surprising.
Speaker 2: And I'm not going to pin this on Kentucky. I'm
Speaker 2: just going to say across the nation, it wouldn't surprise.
Speaker 1: Me in any state. Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 2: So tell me a little bit more about maybe did
Speaker 2: we find homophobia in the media during this time? How
Speaker 2: did the Louisville Press also known as the litter Ball City.
Speaker 2: I had never known that. How did the Louisville Press
Speaker 2: handle all of this? Do you think that they were
Speaker 2: pretty fair and impartial?
Speaker 1: I think for the most part they tried to be
Speaker 1: as fair and impartial as they could be, But you
Speaker 1: couldn't get around some of the details. It was, you know,
Speaker 1: some people called it the pink Triangle.
Speaker 2: Murder.
Speaker 1: It was a kind of gay lover's try angle kind
Speaker 1: of thing. And I think the fact that some people
Speaker 1: were trying to really trying hard to not come across
Speaker 1: as homophobic, I think that might have affected how the
Speaker 1: case was covered in the press in general. Because the
Speaker 1: trial of Joey and Jeffrey was going on at the
Speaker 1: same time of the Jody Arius trial. Oh yeah, of
Speaker 1: course that was national two three months, that was national news.
Speaker 1: That's what dominated all, you know, the news channels and
Speaker 1: true crime things. And a lot of people were saying,
Speaker 1: had that not been going on, Joey and Jeffrey's trial
Speaker 1: might have been the big national story. But a lot
Speaker 1: of people, a lot of journalists weren't opting to cover
Speaker 1: it because they were afraid, I suspect, of coming across
Speaker 1: as homophobic by covering it and you know, dredging up
Speaker 1: all these sensational details.
Speaker 2: When I teach students at the University of Texas, I
Speaker 2: teach journalism there, I often tell them when they're pitching
Speaker 2: me an idea for like a nonfiction story or a documentary,
Speaker 2: you need to I immediately identify who your deal breaker
Speaker 2: interview is. Who do you have to get or this
Speaker 2: is a dead story, and you know I'm going to
Speaker 2: tell you no. So who was that for you, David,
Speaker 2: with this story. Is there somebody you knew you had
Speaker 2: to secure, like Jamie's mom or somebody who you just thought,
Speaker 2: I don't know if the book is going to be
Speaker 2: okay if I don't if I don't get this person.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Well, actually for me, it was Joey and Jeffrey themselves.
Speaker 1: You know, as I was writing, I thought, you know,
Speaker 1: this is one of the reasons it took me so long.
Speaker 1: They weren't talking to me. I got in my head, well,
Speaker 1: unless I talk to them and get their sides of
Speaker 1: the story, I can't really paint, you know, an accurate picture.
Speaker 1: You know. Yes, I've got interviews and I have courtroom drama,
Speaker 1: I have you know, files and documents, But until I
Speaker 1: hear it, you know, from the accused killer's mouse, I
Speaker 1: was like, you can't really do the story justice. Well,
Speaker 1: seven or eight years into that, I finally realized they're
Speaker 1: not going to talk to me, and that's when I
Speaker 1: decided to kind of go on and just build that
Speaker 1: into the story. And I did have a brief exchange
Speaker 1: with Joey at the very end right before the book
Speaker 1: was going to press. But yeah, to this day, that's
Speaker 1: what I really wanted was to talk to those two
Speaker 1: to get their you know, take on the situation, and
Speaker 1: also to kind of find out more about what happened
Speaker 1: that night of the nine one one call, because that's
Speaker 1: you know, it's also a mystery. Did they do it together,
Speaker 1: like the prosecution argued that they conspire. Was it a
Speaker 1: joint effort or did one of them kind of take
Speaker 1: the initiative and the other was swept up? Or did
Speaker 1: one of them take the initiative and the other wasn't
Speaker 1: swept up, he was just a bystander. You know, that's
Speaker 1: an unanswered question. And then you know what actually provoked
Speaker 1: the fight that night was Jeffrey going to go to
Speaker 1: the police and tell him about the body and the basement.
Speaker 1: You know what what sent Joey, you know, off the
Speaker 1: deep end like he went that night.
Speaker 2: I wonder why the prosecutor didn't decide to try the
Speaker 2: two of them at the same time, because it seems
Speaker 2: like a risk to do what they did to put
Speaker 2: Joey on first, and then it's like, well, what's the
Speaker 2: second jury going to do? You've already convicted one person.
Speaker 2: Unless you have really strong evidence that Jeffrey really was
Speaker 2: right next to him committing the crime, then it doesn't
Speaker 2: seem like they have any other choice. Do you have
Speaker 2: any reason or any idea about why that happened?
Speaker 1: I think without each one testifying against the other, they
Speaker 1: didn't really have much of a case. That was the
Speaker 1: whole crux of their case, and without that, I think
Speaker 1: it would have been really really hard to put them
Speaker 1: on trial because it just wasn't a lot of evidence.
Speaker 1: You know, there were text messages and things like that,
Speaker 1: but as far as a motive for why they would
Speaker 1: have done this, there really wasn't much out there.
Speaker 2: What do you think is important about this book?
Speaker 1: Now?
Speaker 2: Why tell the story?
Speaker 1: Now? What is it for you? Do you think, well,
Speaker 1: the homophobia needs to be addressed, just the nuances of
Speaker 1: a courtroom trial. You know, I'd like to say I'm
Speaker 1: not going to second guess a jury ever again just
Speaker 1: by seeing how different these two trials were. But then,
Speaker 1: you know, it just it's amazing how little people who
Speaker 1: have to make a decision about a person's innocence or guilt,
Speaker 1: how little they're actually shown sometimes that I think is amazing.
Speaker 1: I think that's an issue. But then the other thing is,
Speaker 1: you know, this was kind of my story. You know,
Speaker 1: if you read the book, I take a first person approach,
Speaker 1: and I kind of as I was finishing things up,
Speaker 1: you know, we were going on ten years, and ten
Speaker 1: years is a lot of time you can go back
Speaker 1: and reflect. So I decided to insert myself more into
Speaker 1: the story, include a lot of quirky neighborhood flavor and characters,
Speaker 1: and I kind of made it the story about me
Speaker 1: on this journey trying to figure out what happened that night.
Speaker 1: So just for purely selfish reasons, it's kind of my story,
Speaker 1: you know, my story as a writer and trying to
Speaker 1: take a journalistic approach and trying to be fair to
Speaker 1: all parties involved. But still, you know, it's so often
Speaker 1: the case you're rubbing salt and open wounds, and some
Speaker 1: people weren't happy I was writing this story. So just
Speaker 1: on its face, it's my story, but it's a story
Speaker 1: of how I got involved in this murder and how
Speaker 1: I went after loose ends, tried to figure out what
Speaker 1: the murder was all about, what really happened, and in
Speaker 1: the process I just uncovered this interesting neighborhood and a
Speaker 1: fascinating city. So yeah, you mentioned literabal city. That's a
Speaker 1: nickname a lot of people don't know Louisville enjoys. I'm
Speaker 1: hoping the book will kind of change that though. But yeah,
Speaker 1: I love quirky things and I love eccentric characters. So
Speaker 1: there's a lot of these quirks that pop up in
Speaker 1: all angles of the book and some one of the
Speaker 1: reviewers said, this is my love letter to Louisville. And
Speaker 1: I kind of like the conscription. It's a true crime book,
Speaker 1: but it's more than a true crime book. You know,
Speaker 1: it's not just straight true crime. It's got memoir, it's
Speaker 1: got you know, just history and local flavor. And that's
Speaker 1: kind of what I like to do when I'm writing,
Speaker 1: you know, they say write what you like to read.
Speaker 1: So I basically wrote the book that I'd want to read,
Speaker 1: and that's all she wrote.
Speaker 2: So one last thing, what does your gut say happened?
Speaker 2: Who is the one that held a knife that night?
Speaker 2: Or do you think it was both of them? Just
Speaker 2: reading everything you've read and hearing everything you've.
Speaker 1: Heard, And that's another thing. Every time I go back,
Speaker 1: and like every six months, I go back and just
Speaker 1: reread the book and just you know, to refresh my
Speaker 1: senses and my recollections, because you forget things over time.
Speaker 1: But every time I go back and read the book,
Speaker 1: I kind of come to a different conclusion. And every
Speaker 1: time I go back and watch the trial tapes, I
Speaker 1: noticed something that I didn't notice before. So I guess
Speaker 1: it depends on the day of the week or what
Speaker 1: month of the year it is, and I might have
Speaker 1: a different answer. But the more it happens, the more
Speaker 1: I tend to believe the prosecution was kind of on
Speaker 1: the right track. That Joey and Jeffrey they work together
Speaker 1: to a certain degree. One thing I'm convinced of is
Speaker 1: Jeffrey is not as innocent as the verdict makes him
Speaker 1: out to be. There are things in the trial that
Speaker 1: come out that are just kind of, you know, dead giveaways.
Speaker 1: For example, one of the lawyers, they brought up all
Speaker 1: these text messages between Joey and Jeffrey, and supposedly one
Speaker 1: time they were fighting for whatever reason, but Joey sent
Speaker 1: Jeffrey a text saying, Jeffrey, don't make me. Don't make
Speaker 1: me tell them about what's in the basement, you know,
Speaker 1: And if someone were to text that to you, if
Speaker 1: you were involved, and you were innocent, what would you say, right, say,
Speaker 1: why do I have to worry about You're the one
Speaker 1: that killed him and buried him down there, You'd say
Speaker 1: something like that. Yeah, Jeffrey Mont just totally glosses over it,
Speaker 1: you know, like so he knows, he definitely knows more.
Speaker 1: He's more involved than the verdicts lead us to believe.
Speaker 2: I am shocked, and this is going to sound terrible,
Speaker 2: but I am shocked that one of them ultimately did
Speaker 2: not kill the other one in this situation at some point.
Speaker 2: I mean, really, seven months go by and one of
Speaker 2: them does not completely freak out and kill the other one.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and there's some of the people they put on
Speaker 1: trial were, for example, a former prisonmate of Joey's who
Speaker 1: had come to town and he was staying with them for
Speaker 1: a while, and he talks about how Joey pulled out
Speaker 1: a gun and like shot it above Jeffrey's head went
Speaker 1: into a door or something. So yeah, it could have
Speaker 1: very well happened, probably would have been Joey killing Jeffrey.
Speaker 1: But yeah, it's surprising that they made it as long
Speaker 1: as they did.
Speaker 2: Seven months did their families come at all? Did they
Speaker 2: have any kind of representation?
Speaker 1: Yeah, both families had people there. Wow, And you asked about, like, like,
Speaker 1: when I was trying to, you know, get people to talk,
Speaker 1: who my most prized interviews would have been. And that's
Speaker 1: one thing I didn't do. I didn't go after family members.
Speaker 1: You know, I'm not that kind of journalist who can
Speaker 1: go knock on people's doors and kind of be a
Speaker 1: thorn in their side either. I never approached the family
Speaker 1: members directly, but I let it be known that if
Speaker 1: they wanted to talk to me, I'd be more than
Speaker 1: willing to talk to them. Jeffrey's family, Joey's family, and
Speaker 1: Jamie's family. So I didn't approach any of the relations directly,
Speaker 1: but I let it be known through channels that if
Speaker 1: they wanted to talk, I'd be available. But none of
Speaker 1: them wanted to talk.
Speaker 2: I'm a little surprised Joey wasn't willing to talk to you.
Speaker 2: Is he expecting to get out on parole or something.
Speaker 1: In another ten years or so. But yeah, that was
Speaker 1: one of my biggest surprises because you would think, after
Speaker 1: the verdicts have come down and he's in prison, you know,
Speaker 1: living the rest of his life like he's going to
Speaker 1: live it. Being the narcissist that he is, you think
Speaker 1: he'd want to put his spin, you know, on the
Speaker 1: story and kind of get his two cents out there
Speaker 1: so he can kind of narrate the story himself, kind
Speaker 1: of direct how it's going. But yeah, right before the
Speaker 1: book went to press, I finally got him to answer
Speaker 1: an email. And you know, I was going through different channels.
Speaker 1: I finally someone found his Tumblr page and sent me
Speaker 1: an email, and I sent it like five months from
Speaker 1: by six seven months. I thought he's not going to talk,
Speaker 1: and then all of a sudden, I got this email
Speaker 1: through the prison email system JPAL, and he's like, oh, sorry, David.
Speaker 1: I was, I've been in the hole the last six months.
Speaker 1: And then he was really excited. He wanted to talk
Speaker 1: and and he ended up being in a prison right
Speaker 1: outside of Louisville. But he said, if we talk, then
Speaker 1: we have to do it face to face because you know,
Speaker 1: they can record, you know, phone calls and stuff like that, emails,
Speaker 1: and so I made plans to visit him. And then
Speaker 1: this is when some of the CIA stuff was coming out,
Speaker 1: and I was like, don't ask about the CIA stuff.
Speaker 1: Don't ask about the CIA stuff. Well, I couldn't keep
Speaker 1: my mouth shut. So the day before I was supposed
Speaker 1: to go meet him, I said, so, some of the
Speaker 1: things I want to talk about tomorrow. By the way,
Speaker 1: what about all the CIA stuff? Whatever came of that?
Speaker 1: Why did you say that? And he never got back
Speaker 1: to me, and he went he wouldn't accept my visit.
Speaker 1: When I went, oh, wow, So it makes you think
Speaker 1: that maybe there was something with the CIA angle, which
Speaker 1: is so crazy. Wow, what a story.
Speaker 2: And I love learning about Louisville. I've never been there before,
Speaker 2: and it's interesting because it's such a sad story. But
Speaker 2: it's a story that I think is so illuminating about
Speaker 2: different parts of society and certainly this part of Kentucky.
Speaker 2: What I was struck by, I will say the most,
Speaker 2: is the idea of, especially after you telling me it
Speaker 2: didn't seem like they were trying to kill each other afterward,
Speaker 2: that this combination of these three men could create something
Speaker 2: so ultimately deadly and vile. You know, if you strip
Speaker 2: them apart, would that have ever happened? But together, particularly
Speaker 2: Jeffrey and Joey together, it's like they're emboldened to do this,
Speaker 2: And I do wonder what you think if we separated them.
Speaker 2: Is this something that would have happened if they were
Speaker 2: on their own with Jamie?
Speaker 1: Yeah, good question. Like I said, that's another thing. Depending
Speaker 1: on the month of the year, the day of the week,
Speaker 1: I'll probably have a different answer. But my first inkling
Speaker 1: is Joey Bannis very well could have ended up doing
Speaker 1: something like this. Whoever he en came with. I mean,
Speaker 1: some of the stuff that came out, he did have
Speaker 1: those propensities. Whether or not jeffreymont ever would have gone
Speaker 1: in that direction, I see that less likely. But they
Speaker 1: both had some of their dark sides revealed during the trials.
Speaker 1: And another thing that I tried to address in writing
Speaker 1: this book was yeah, like you said, and the prosecution
Speaker 1: pointed out, Joey and Jeffrey came together, it was just
Speaker 1: like this deadly mixture, you know, just they were swirled
Speaker 1: up and all this stuff and this terrible stuff happened.
Speaker 1: But yeah, they did something terrible, But does that invalidate
Speaker 1: their whole lives? You know, people do bad things. Do
Speaker 1: we just discount them because of this one horrific thing
Speaker 1: that they were involved in? Or did they still have
Speaker 1: some value as human beings? Is there some redemp in
Speaker 1: store for them down the road?
Speaker 2: Well, I will say it makes me uncomfortable that Jeffrey
Speaker 2: Mont is out there now because did he really learn
Speaker 2: a lesson? We don't even know if Joey learned a
Speaker 2: lesson and now he's out there.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And while there's all kinds of rumors. Some people
Speaker 1: say he's he changed his name and he's working in
Speaker 1: Europe under an assumed identity. Some people say, no, he
Speaker 1: bought a house that's kind of similar to the house
Speaker 1: he bought and he's fixing up that house. Someone says
Speaker 1: he's with another boyfriend that kind of looks like Joey.
Speaker 1: Joey's got his little acolytes in prison. From what I hear,
Speaker 1: he's got a following, and he's quite the charmer. He's
Speaker 1: meticulous in the way he dresses and in prison, uh huh,
Speaker 1: So who knows?
Speaker 2: Who knows he'll be in his Would it be late
Speaker 2: fifties early sixties when he gets out? Is that right?
Speaker 2: He was convicted in twenty ten and he.
Speaker 1: Got twenty ten, convicted twenty thirteen, so early sixties. Everyone says,
Speaker 1: still young and spry enough to do some more killing
Speaker 1: when you get out at home. Not the case.
Speaker 2: I hope so too. I hope so too. If you
Speaker 2: love historical true crime stories, check out the audio versions
Speaker 2: of my books The Ghost Club, All That Is Wicked,
Speaker 2: and American Sherlock and Don't Forget. There are twelve seasons
Speaker 2: of my historical true crime podcast, Tenfold More Wicked right
Speaker 2: here in this podcast feed, scroll back and give them
Speaker 2: a listen if you haven't already. This has been an
Speaker 2: exactly right production. Our senior producer is Alexis M. Morosi.
Speaker 2: Our associate producer is Christina Chamberlain. This episode was mixed
Speaker 2: by John Bradley. Curtis Heath is our composer. Artwork by
Speaker 2: Nick Toga. Executive produced by Georgia Hardstark, Karen Kilgarriff and
Speaker 2: Danielle Kramer. Follow Wicked Words on Instagram at tenfold More
Speaker 2: Wicked and on Facebook at Wicked Words pod
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