Speaker 1: The following podcast contains explicit descriptions of violence, including sexual violence,
Speaker 1: that some listeners may find upsetting. Continue at your own risk.
Speaker 1: Vera Kendrick was something of a mascot to the surfers
Speaker 1: of Domino Beach. Homeless by choice, the nineteen year old
Speaker 1: bohemian spent most of her days selling handmade jewelry and
Speaker 1: candles on the boardwalk, and most of her nights sleeping
Speaker 1: in a tent on the sandy shores of the Pacific Ocean.
Speaker 1: Vera was a ray of light, a true free spirit
Speaker 1: who perfectly personified the idyllic little town she had adopted
Speaker 1: as her home. She was found raped, beaten, and strangled
Speaker 1: to death just after dawn on the morning of Friday,
Speaker 1: September eighteenth, nineteen ninety two. My name is Courtney Barnes,
Speaker 1: and that's a passage from chapter one of my book
Speaker 1: All Fall Down, The Story of the Domino Beach Murders.
Speaker 1: When it was published in nineteen ninety nine, I made
Speaker 1: the rounds on all the talk shows and recounted the
Speaker 1: grizzly details of the year's long murder Spray to Maury
Speaker 1: and Ricky and Sally Jesse and all the rest It
Speaker 1: was an exciting time for me, but to tell you
Speaker 1: the truth, I was glad when interest died down and
Speaker 1: the public fascination moved on to whatever the next horrible
Speaker 1: thing was. It's tough when you're defined by tragedy and violence,
Speaker 1: but that's what it was like for not just me,
Speaker 1: but everyone who lived through it. We're all scarred from it,
Speaker 1: and even though they're emotional scars, there's still the kind
Speaker 1: everyone can see. And the same thing is true for
Speaker 1: the place where it all happened.
Speaker 2: Admit it.
Speaker 1: If we were playing that word association game and I
Speaker 1: said Domino Beach, the first words out of your mouth
Speaker 1: would be serial killer. But it wasn't always like that.
Speaker 1: Once upon time, Domino Beach was just a sleepy little
Speaker 1: California coastal town about halfway between Los Angeles and San Diego.
Speaker 1: And I certainly never intended to end up there, and
Speaker 1: I also never intended to return there thirty years later
Speaker 1: to revisit one of the worst killing sprees in the
Speaker 1: history of southern California. This is the Murder Years, Episode one, Paully.
Speaker 1: When I graduated from UCLA with a bachelor's degree in
Speaker 1: journalism in May of nineteen ninety two. It was right
Speaker 1: on the heels of the Rodney King riots, which cost
Speaker 1: the city fifty three lives a billion dollars in damages,
Speaker 1: and honestly, it's soul. I was appropriately naive and idealistic
Speaker 1: about entering the newsworkforce at a time when my hometown
Speaker 1: and the whole country for that matter, was in such turmoil.
Speaker 1: I was determined to land a job at a big
Speaker 1: time newspaper or magazine, work my way to the top
Speaker 1: with my unique and powerful prose, and win a pulletzer
Speaker 1: by the time I was twenty five. But as it
Speaker 1: turned out, I couldn't even score so much as an
Speaker 1: unpaid internship anywhere in La. The closest I could get
Speaker 1: was about seventy miles south in a little town I'd
Speaker 1: barely even heard of called Domino Beach. I applied for
Speaker 1: and got an internship at a small newspaper called The
Speaker 1: so Cal Journal, which had a modest readership mainly through
Speaker 1: Del Soul County and parts of Orange and Riverside. It
Speaker 1: wasn't even close to what I wanted, but beggars can't
Speaker 1: be choosers. It felt like I was slumming it like
Speaker 1: my career was starting off on the wrong floor. But
Speaker 1: when I first arrived in town in early June, I
Speaker 1: got to admit I just fell in love with the place.
Speaker 1: There was something about the warm, welcoming vibe of Domino
Speaker 1: Beach that made me feel like a local almost right away.
Speaker 1: Things moved at a much slower pace than up in
Speaker 1: La where I'd spent most of my entire life, but
Speaker 1: it didn't take long to feel like the Domino Beachers
Speaker 1: were the ones who were doing this whole life thing right,
Speaker 1: and the rest of us who were running around chasing
Speaker 1: the almighty dollar, were just a bunch of suckers. The
Speaker 1: city itself had a population of about twenty five thousand,
Speaker 1: with another forty or so scattered throughout the rest of
Speaker 1: Delsoul County. The downtown area covered eight square blocks and
Speaker 1: was filled with bars, charming restaurants and cafes, cute little
Speaker 1: clothing boutiques, surf and skate shops, record stores, and more bars.
Speaker 1: On the south end, there's a boardwalk where you could
Speaker 1: ride rickety roller coasters, or you could try your luck
Speaker 1: at knocking over milk bottles with baseballs, and all along
Speaker 1: the White Sandy beaches were well kept houses and condos.
Speaker 1: About half of them were rentals, and the other half
Speaker 1: were occupied by rich business people who worked in San
Speaker 1: Diego or Orange County. But what Domino Beach was known
Speaker 1: for more than anything else before the murders, of course,
Speaker 1: was the waves. Now I never tried my hand at surfing,
Speaker 1: but it was easy to see why it was so
Speaker 1: popular there. The local surfers swore the waves swelled earlier
Speaker 1: and built up more slowly, so you could ride them
Speaker 1: longer than anywhere else on the planet. They considered their
Speaker 1: beach to be the best kept secret on the California coast,
Speaker 1: and they were very protective of it. If you wanted
Speaker 1: to surf those waves, you had to get in good
Speaker 1: with the locals first. In September nineteen ninety two, I
Speaker 1: was twenty one years old, just two years older than
Speaker 1: Vera Kendrick, who would be nineteen forever. After my ten
Speaker 1: week internship at the so Cal Journal ended, during which
Speaker 1: I gained great experience getting coffee, replacing printer ink, and
Speaker 1: waking up at four in the morning to throw papers
Speaker 1: out the window of my nineteen eighty five Honda Cord,
Speaker 1: I was offered an actual paying job as a copy editor.
Speaker 1: It wasn't much, but I decided it was worth continuing
Speaker 1: to live in Paradise a little longer while I worked
Speaker 1: on getting a bigger job at a bigger paper in
Speaker 1: a bigger city. It was sheer luck, if you can
Speaker 1: call it that, that I was the one to cover
Speaker 1: Via Kendrick's murder. The So Call Journal was a tiny
Speaker 1: operation with very few full time reporters. One of them
Speaker 1: was Glenn Sherman, who covered crime and politics. He was
Speaker 1: out of town at a campaign event for Bill Clinton,
Speaker 1: who would officially put an end to the Reagan Bush
Speaker 1: era in just two months time. Lauren Redman, the So
Speaker 1: Cal Journal's editor in chief, called and woke me up
Speaker 1: at six thirty am and told me I was going
Speaker 1: out on my first assignment and I better not fuck
Speaker 1: it up.
Speaker 2: Okay, check check check.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, I remember you showing up at the beach
Speaker 3: that morning, green as they come, and twice as hungry.
Speaker 1: That's Damon Stokes, sheriff of Delsall County at the time
Speaker 1: of the Domino Beach murders.
Speaker 3: Tell you the truth. You looked so young to me.
Speaker 3: I thought you were with the high school paper.
Speaker 1: Not quite okay, So what do you remember about the
Speaker 1: crime scene?
Speaker 3: Ah, well, it was a long time ago, courtey. I
Speaker 3: mean we're talking more than thirty years ago, you know,
Speaker 3: so I know.
Speaker 2: But whatever you can remember is fine, right.
Speaker 3: All right? Well, well, Barrick Kendrick's body was found about
Speaker 3: fifty yards or so north of Surface Point, which was
Speaker 3: one of the locals favorite spots. You know, there were
Speaker 3: some pretty big rocks along the shoreline there, which made
Speaker 3: it one of the few places on the beach where
Speaker 3: he'd get a little privacy during low tide. The kids
Speaker 3: wuld go back there. They smoke the joints, get a
Speaker 3: little frisky with each other, and that sort of thing,
Speaker 3: you know. I speculated, based on the bruises around her neck,
Speaker 3: that the cause of death was strangulation, and the corner later.
Speaker 1: Confirmed that the coroner's report would also reveal that Vera
Speaker 1: had been raped and beaten prior to her death. In
Speaker 1: nineteen ninety two, DNA testing was still a relatively young
Speaker 1: forensic science, but even if things had been as sophisticated
Speaker 1: as they are today, it's doubtful it would have been
Speaker 1: much help identifying her killer.
Speaker 3: There was no semen found, no blood or skin under
Speaker 3: her fingernails, and any hair or prints that might have
Speaker 3: been left behind were washed away. The morning tide would
Speaker 3: should also banged the body around on the rocks a
Speaker 3: little before we got there.
Speaker 1: When I arrived at the beach that morning, the first
Speaker 1: thing I did was duck under the yellow crime scene
Speaker 1: tape the sheriff had put up around the rocks so
Speaker 1: I could get a good look at Vera's body. I
Speaker 1: immediately regretted it, and not just because it was a
Speaker 1: stupid and unprofessional thing to do. It was the first
Speaker 1: time I'd ever seen a dead body with my own
Speaker 1: two eyes. She was completely naked, and her skin, although
Speaker 1: pretty tanned from all the time she spent out in
Speaker 1: the sun, was pale and a little bluish. Her long,
Speaker 1: curly auburn hair was plastered to her face, and I
Speaker 1: could just barely make out one green eye peering through
Speaker 1: the wet strands, vacantly fixed on the blue, cloudless sky
Speaker 1: above us. Like Sheriff's Stokes said, there were dark purple
Speaker 1: bruises around her neck, with two heavy black marks a
Speaker 1: little bigger than your thumbs over her windpipe. She had
Speaker 1: cuts and abrasions all over her arms and legs, which
Speaker 1: were sticking out at odd, unnatural and uncomfortable looking angles.
Speaker 1: I never met Vera, but she looked like a hundred
Speaker 1: girls I did know, like someone who might have been
Speaker 1: a friend of mine. In a way, she kind of
Speaker 1: looked like me. Seeing her like that made me feel
Speaker 1: very fragile and vulnerable. I didn't even realize i'd snapped
Speaker 1: a few pictures before one of my deputies grabbed me
Speaker 1: by the arm and escorted me away. The pictures I
Speaker 1: took weren't suitable for print in the journal, not that
Speaker 1: I ever submitted them anyway, but I held on to
Speaker 1: them for some reason. I've still got them. I haven't
Speaker 1: looked at them in years, but for a while i'd
Speaker 1: pulled them out every so often to remind myself just
Speaker 1: how quickly and cruelly death can come for any of us.
Speaker 3: You had a lot of nerve coming into that crime
Speaker 3: scene that day. I could have arrested you.
Speaker 2: Know, I know, thanks for not doing that.
Speaker 3: Kind of had my plate full. Besides, from the look
Speaker 3: on your face, I could tell you learned your lesson.
Speaker 1: When I was back on the other side of the tape,
Speaker 1: I tried to shake off that eerie, ichy feeling and
Speaker 1: do the job I was sent there to do. I
Speaker 1: started talking to people in the small crowd that had
Speaker 1: gathered and learned the body had been discovered by two
Speaker 1: surfers just after dawn on. One of them was twenty
Speaker 1: four year old Connor Langford.
Speaker 4: It was one of the worst fucking days of my
Speaker 4: life back then, and it's still ranks pretty high up there.
Speaker 4: I mean that we knew Vera.
Speaker 1: You know, Connor was one of the most well known
Speaker 1: and well liked residents of Domino Beach. To some, he
Speaker 1: was Domino Beach. He was the quintessential surfer dude, tanned
Speaker 1: in tone, with shaggy blond hair and leading man looks.
Speaker 1: If it sounds like I had a little crush on him,
Speaker 1: it's because I did, so did everyone. But the morning
Speaker 1: he found Vera Kendrick's body was the first time he
Speaker 1: and I had actually ever spoken.
Speaker 4: Me and Brody Hannigan. Brody and I were in a
Speaker 4: band together. He was the drummer and I did guitar
Speaker 4: and lead vocals. At that time, we were calling ourselves
Speaker 4: slapping bow Zones. Really liked it because that was what
Speaker 4: some people called playing dominoes and thought it was a
Speaker 4: way to make us the unoffvisual hometown band, you know,
Speaker 4: but it always made me think of jerking off.
Speaker 1: Okay, then, so when you found Vera's body.
Speaker 4: Right, all right, I get distracted easily. We were first
Speaker 4: to the beach that morning. We got there before the
Speaker 4: waves got riped, so we were just shooting the shit.
Speaker 4: When the sun started coming up, I saw what I
Speaker 4: thought was some trash over by the rocks. Sometimes the
Speaker 4: high school kids would party over there and leave their
Speaker 4: beer bottles and cigarette butts and shit all over the place,
Speaker 4: and we'd clean up after them. But when we got
Speaker 4: over there, we saw, well, we saw Vera.
Speaker 2: And you recognized her right away.
Speaker 4: Oh yeah, Vera was one of us. She didn't surf,
Speaker 4: but she was at the beach almost every morning. I
Speaker 4: mean she usually slept that right, and she came to
Speaker 4: all all our parties on how with us all the time. Yeah,
Speaker 4: we knew it was her right away.
Speaker 2: Okay, go on, But anyway.
Speaker 4: This was before everyone had a cell phone, right, So
Speaker 4: I told Brody to take my van drive to the
Speaker 4: boardwalk and call the cops while I stayed with the body. Yeah,
Speaker 4: so it wasn't long after he left the other surface
Speaker 4: started showing up.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 4: Some of them told me I should take off, that
Speaker 4: they'd guard the body and wait for the cops.
Speaker 1: But I said no, Why did they think you should leave?
Speaker 4: Because of my dad? They knew he wouldn't want me
Speaker 4: mixed up in something like that.
Speaker 1: Greg Langford, Connor's father was a Domino Beach City councilman,
Speaker 1: but everyone in town knew he was more than that.
Speaker 1: Deborah Charles was the city's mayor, but at the age
Speaker 1: of eighty five, that was pretty much in name only.
Speaker 1: She may have won election after election, but it was
Speaker 1: the council that really ran things, and it was Greg
Speaker 1: Langford who ran the council. Connor and his father couldn't
Speaker 1: have been more different if they tried, and Connor did try.
Speaker 1: The councilman was a died in the wool Reagan Republican
Speaker 1: with political ambitions on a national scale. Connor, on the
Speaker 1: other hand, had no ambition outside of surfing, getting high
Speaker 1: and playing in his band. The only time he had
Speaker 1: ever even left Domino Beach was for one semester at
Speaker 1: uc San Diego, where he got straight a's just to
Speaker 1: prove he could do it, then promptly dropped out.
Speaker 4: It wasn't like I could do anything to be more
Speaker 4: of a disappointment to my dad.
Speaker 1: You know, is that what you wanted to upset your father?
Speaker 1: And is that why you sent Brody to call the
Speaker 1: police while you waited with the body? It was your
Speaker 1: van Brody left in, wasn't it.
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 4: And I don't know if I thought about it like that.
Speaker 4: I felt I felt responssible in a way. I guess
Speaker 4: like I was the one who should be watching over her.
Speaker 4: She was my friend, you know.
Speaker 1: Well, well, actually you were more than friends, weren't you.
Speaker 4: Not really? No, I mean, if what you're getting at
Speaker 4: is that I slept with her a couple of times, yeah,
Speaker 4: I did, But you didn't know Vera. Sometimes she just
Speaker 4: wanted to sleep in a bed, you know, if you
Speaker 4: gave her one, sometimes she'd repay the favor. It wasn't
Speaker 4: a big deal, and I never messed around with her
Speaker 4: when Maya and I were together.
Speaker 5: Of course I knew Connor and Vera slept together. It
Speaker 5: wasn't like a secret or anything.
Speaker 1: Maya Morales was Connor's on again, off again girlfriend since
Speaker 1: high school, and they were dating at the time of
Speaker 1: Vera's murder.
Speaker 5: She was all into that free love shit, and she
Speaker 5: was cute and fun, and Connor like cute fun girls. Look,
Speaker 5: it wasn't my business why or who Connor did when
Speaker 5: we weren't together.
Speaker 2: Did you go to the beach that morning?
Speaker 5: No? But Connor came over after I was twenty two.
Speaker 5: He was still living at home, waiting tables and bartending
Speaker 5: at the Blue Parrot and trying to save up for college,
Speaker 5: which never happened.
Speaker 1: But whatever.
Speaker 5: Anyway, I'd worked late the night before, so I was
Speaker 5: still asleep when he came by a little after eight.
Speaker 5: I think my mom woke me up, and he and
Speaker 5: I went out on the back porch and he told
Speaker 5: me all about it. He was shook, and he wouldn't
Speaker 5: admit it, but I think he was afraid to go
Speaker 5: home because he knew his father would be up his ass.
Speaker 2: He still lived with his parents.
Speaker 5: Of course he did. It's not like he could afford
Speaker 5: to pay rent anywhere. He didn't have a job, But
Speaker 5: it wasn't like he was living under the same roof
Speaker 5: with them. After he dropped out of school, he pretty
Speaker 5: much turned the pool cabana into an apartment. But you
Speaker 5: know what, even though he had all that privacy, whenever
Speaker 5: we were having sex. He wanted me to be loud,
Speaker 5: you know, so they could hear us up in the house.
Speaker 2: He loved messing with his dad.
Speaker 5: Who was racist as fucked by the way, guy was
Speaker 5: terrified of one day ending up with a half brown
Speaker 5: grand baby. Can you imagine him trying to explain that
Speaker 5: one to his constituents.
Speaker 2: So what did Conor say about Vera that day?
Speaker 5: I don't know, nothing, really, He just didn't want to talk.
Speaker 5: He just wanted he just wanted me to hold him mostly. Look,
Speaker 5: it was really sad, all right. Vera was very sweet
Speaker 5: and innocent. But it's not like what happened to her
Speaker 5: was some kind of a huge shock or anything. No, no,
Speaker 5: and stop pretending you don't know why girl lived in
Speaker 5: a tent on the beach a tent and not blaming
Speaker 5: the victim or any bullshit like that, But come on,
Speaker 5: do you sleep at night with.
Speaker 2: Your door unlocked? No?
Speaker 1: No?
Speaker 2: And why not in case.
Speaker 5: In case someone tries to break in steal your shit?
Speaker 5: Fuck you up? How you lock a damn tent?
Speaker 1: Well, there's no evidence to suggest that she was pulled
Speaker 1: out of her tent or that one is.
Speaker 5: She didn't take any precautions. If you want to live
Speaker 5: to get as old as you and I are now,
Speaker 5: you've got to keep your guard up. I don't think
Speaker 5: she was intentionally reckless, just naive. She was, like you know,
Speaker 5: a very trusting soul, an inherently good person who thought
Speaker 5: everyone was the same way. She had to learn the
Speaker 5: hard way how wrong she was.
Speaker 1: So there's one thing I haven't mentioned yet about the
Speaker 1: crime scene with something I noticed right away but didn't
Speaker 1: give a second thought to until I spoke to Connor.
Speaker 1: Written on the rocks in black spray paint, within yards
Speaker 1: of where Vera's body was found, were the words Polly
Speaker 1: wants a Cracker.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 4: I didn't think much of it either, not at first,
Speaker 4: But when I was sitting there by myself with Vera's body,
Speaker 4: waiting on the police, I realized I was singing the
Speaker 4: song in my head over and over again.
Speaker 1: The song Connor was singing to himself was Polly by Nirvana.
Speaker 1: Polly Wants a Cracker are the opening lyrics.
Speaker 4: It's a pretty fucked up song. I listened to that
Speaker 4: album one hundred times and never really thought about what
Speaker 4: it meant.
Speaker 1: Connor's right, it's a pretty fucked up song. I learned
Speaker 1: all about it when I got back to the journal
Speaker 1: offices and called the freelance music critic we hired to
Speaker 1: review new albums and talk about local concerts. After talking
Speaker 1: to him, it became pretty clear to me that what
Speaker 1: the police thought was random graffiti might have actually been
Speaker 1: some kind of message left by Vera's murderer.
Speaker 3: You know, you could have shared that information with us
Speaker 3: before writing about it in my paper, But I guess
Speaker 3: you got your scoop.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: I let the cops find that out the next morning,
Speaker 1: along with the rest of the city when they read
Speaker 1: my first ever published article on the front page of
Speaker 1: the so CAW Journal. I like to read directly from
Speaker 1: it now so that you'll get all the details I
Speaker 1: had at that point. Homicide victim found at Surfer's Point
Speaker 1: by Courtney Barnes. The body of nineteen year old Vera
Speaker 1: Kendrick was discovered early yesterday morning near the section of
Speaker 1: the beach nicknamed Surfer's Point. Del Sol County Sheriff Damon
Speaker 1: Stokes has confirmed that her death is being investigated as
Speaker 1: a homicide, although official cause of death has yet to
Speaker 1: be released, pending an autopsy. Sheriff Stokes believes it is
Speaker 1: relatively safe to conclude she died from strangulation based on
Speaker 1: visible wounds around her neck. Preliminary examination of the body
Speaker 1: by del Sol County Coroner Victoria Watts suggests Kendrick was
Speaker 1: beaten and sexually assaulted during the attack. There are no
Speaker 1: suspects at this time. Miss Kendrick, originally from Denver, Colorado,
Speaker 1: lived a rather unconventional lifestyle. After leaving home at the
Speaker 1: age of sixteen, she hitchhiked around the country, finally landing
Speaker 1: in Domino Beach in early nineteen ninety one. Here she
Speaker 1: befriended many in the surfing community and brightened the days
Speaker 1: of many a tourist with her handmade jewelry and warm heart.
Speaker 1: She was known for seeing the good in everyone and
Speaker 1: greeting everyone she met with a smile. Her body was
Speaker 1: found by surfers Connor Langford and Brodie Hannigan, both of
Speaker 1: whom preferred not to be quoted in this article due
Speaker 1: to having personal relationships with the deceased. One of the
Speaker 1: more disturbing details of the crime scene was a message
Speaker 1: spray painted near where Vera's body was found. Polly wants
Speaker 1: a cracker. This is an apparent reference to the song
Speaker 1: Polly by the grunge band Nirvana off their smash hit
Speaker 1: nineteen ninety one album never Mind. The song was inspired
Speaker 1: by the real life story of a fourteen year old
Speaker 1: girl from Tacoma, Washington, who was abducted, raped, and tortured
Speaker 1: by forty nine year old Gerald Friend in nineteen eighty seven.
Speaker 1: Making the song even more disturbing is the fact that
Speaker 1: it is written from the point of view of the rapist.
Speaker 1: What Vera's killer is trying to say by leaving this
Speaker 1: lyric behind is unclear, but it is worth noting that
Speaker 1: Polly from the song managed to escape, and as a result,
Speaker 1: her abductor is currently serving two consecutive seventy five year sentences,
Speaker 1: while Vera Kendrick sadly did not manage to escape. We
Speaker 1: can only hope that Sheriff Stokes will ensure that her
Speaker 1: attacker meets the same fate as Gerald Friend. Okay, not
Speaker 1: the best article, but give me a break. Twenty one
Speaker 1: years old.
Speaker 3: Let me tell you how much I appreciated you call
Speaker 3: him me out at the end of that piece.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I guess I was trying to give you a
Speaker 1: little extra motivation.
Speaker 3: As if I needed it. But to you, I was
Speaker 3: just some old ass authority figure who didn't know what
Speaker 3: the hell he was doing. I mean the arrogance of youth.
Speaker 2: Huh, something like that.
Speaker 1: But as it turned out, I had called out the
Speaker 1: wrong man.
Speaker 4: I guess you know why you weren't a signed any
Speaker 4: follow up articles about Vera's murder.
Speaker 1: Not at the time, No, I thought that piece would
Speaker 1: get me a promotion, that i'd be an official reporter
Speaker 1: from then on, but I got put back on copy editing.
Speaker 4: Yeah. Well, this is the kind of thing that happened
Speaker 4: when you said something my dad didn't want to hear.
Speaker 1: Vera's murder did not receive the attention it deserved. It
Speaker 1: was almost shocking how quickly it was swept under the rug.
Speaker 1: An investigation was performed, but very quietly, at the urging
Speaker 1: of Counselman Langford. Maybe if the police had been allowed
Speaker 1: to do their job as they saw fit, Vera's murder
Speaker 1: would have been the last. But it wasn't the last.
Speaker 1: Over the next few years, more would follow, too many more.
Speaker 5: You know what, I don't get, why the hell are
Speaker 5: you doing this? I mean, it's been thirty years. Is
Speaker 5: it because your book isn't selling anymore.
Speaker 2: No, that's not it at all.
Speaker 5: Then why why are you rehashing these details? Why are
Speaker 5: you going around reopening all these old wounds?
Speaker 1: Why force myself and you and everyone else to relive
Speaker 1: the most traumatic time.
Speaker 2: Of our lives.
Speaker 1: Well, yeah, Look, I have my reasons, okay, and I'm
Speaker 1: not ready to discuss them right now, but I promise,
Speaker 1: when the time is right, I will.
Speaker 2: Tell you.
Speaker 5: Whatever.
Speaker 1: Okay. So Maya is asking a good question, and she
Speaker 1: deserves it answer, but it would just open a whole
Speaker 1: can of worms that I am not ready to deal with.
Speaker 1: What I am not telling her is I've been presented
Speaker 1: with some, let's just say, some new information that indicates that,
Speaker 1: after all this time, there's a chance, a chance that
Speaker 1: the wrong person may have been convicted of these murders,
Speaker 1: murders I personally profited off of, made my name off of,
Speaker 1: and the person sitting in jail right now, the person
Speaker 1: who is found guilty in a court of law by
Speaker 1: a jury of their peers, I help put them there. Look,
Speaker 1: best case scenario, this podcast will serve as a way
Speaker 1: to clear my conscience. I am going to reanalyze every
Speaker 1: aspect of the Domino Beach murders of the nineteen nineties,
Speaker 1: and hopefully, hopefully come to the conclusion that we had
Speaker 1: it right all along and my fears are unfounded. But
Speaker 1: if what I now suspect proves to be true, that
Speaker 1: an innocent person has been sitting in prison for decades
Speaker 1: while the real killer walks free, I swear I will
Speaker 1: do everything I can to fix it, to repair the
Speaker 1: damage I helped cause, to deliver justice for the victims
Speaker 1: and their families, and maybe maybe learn to live with myself.
Speaker 1: The Murder Years is a production of AYR Media and
Speaker 1: iHeartMedia Executive producer Elisa Rosen for AYR Media. Written by
Speaker 1: Tim Huddleston, directed by Alisa Rosen, Editing and sound designed
Speaker 1: by Tristan Bankston, Consulting producer Jean chandil coordinator Olive Goldberg,
Speaker 1: Audio engineering and mastering by Justin Longerbeam studio engineer Josh Hook.
Speaker 1: Original music by Nathan Bankston. Original concept developed in partnership
Speaker 1: with Anne Margaret Johns and Greg Spring. Executive producer for iHeartMedia.
Speaker 2: Maya Howard.
Speaker 1: Performances for this episode by Erica Leniac as Courtney Barnes,
Speaker 1: Tom Virtue as Sheriff Damon Stokes, Alex Salem, As Connor Langford,
Speaker 1: melon faxis as maya morales,