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E156: Betty Gail Brown
5.6k Plays3 years ago
Betty Gail had just finished studying for a huge biology exam with some of her college classmates in Lexington, KY, when (around midnight) she headed back home to her parents’ house about three miles from campus. Despite acquaintances seeing her car headed in the appropriate direction of her home, Betty Gail never made it that far. Instead, she was found just hours later, in her car, murdered. Who committed the crime is still a mystery today, 61 years later.
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Transcript
Introduction to Transylvania University
00:00:00
Speaker
Transylvania University, a small liberal arts college, is nestled right in the heart of downtown Lexington, Kentucky. Extremely close to the much larger State University, the University of Kentucky, Transylvania, or Transy, as we locals call it, is home to fewer than a thousand total students.
00:00:21
Speaker
Although small, this college has a long and rich history. Founded in 1780, it was the 16th college in the United States and the first in Kentucky. Its alumni includes 36 governors, 101 US representatives, 50 US senators, two Supreme Court justices, and two vice presidents. One building in particular, now called the Old Morrison Building, also has a storied past.
00:00:51
Speaker
When the college was closed during the Civil War, that building served as a hospital first to Union soldiers and later to the Confederate soldiers. Now an administrative building, its tree-lined semicircle drive and lawn leading to the steps, is where first-year Transy students complete the Greet Line tradition, where all new students stand in line and individually greet each of their fellow classmates to build connections and camaraderie.
00:01:19
Speaker
but there's also a darker story linked with this building and with the campus in general.
Unsolved Murder Case of Betty Gail Brown
00:01:25
Speaker
It's the story of a murder, of a subsequent trial ending in a hung jury, the tale of a case that still needs attention because there's still so many questions. This is the case of Betty Gail Brown.
00:02:15
Speaker
Welcome to Coffee and Cases where we like our coffee hot and our cases cold.
00:02:21
Speaker
My name is Allison Williams and my name is Maggie Dameron. We will be telling stories each week in the hopes that someone out there with any information concerning the cases will take those tips to law enforcement. So justice and closure can be brought to these families.
00:02:35
Speaker
With each case, we encourage you to continue in the conversation on our Facebook page, Coffee and Cases podcast, because as we all know, conversation helps to keep the missing person in the public consciousness, helping keep their memories alive. So sit back, sip your coffee, and listen to what's brewing this week. So obviously you know from our introduction that our case this week is a local one, Maggie.
Initial Investigation and Discoveries
00:02:58
Speaker
I realized that and I am
00:03:03
Speaker
intrigued. And I feel like it was meant for me to cover this case because I took my little sleuth hound to the local public library to check out some books. We love to go to the library. This was a few weeks ago. And while looking for a book to read myself, I was drawn to a red cover.
00:03:21
Speaker
Caught my eye. The title on the spine read, Who Killed Betty Gail Brown? Murder, Mistrial, and Mystery by Robert G. Lawson. Yes. So this book, which obviously I checked out, was my primary source for this episode because it was so thorough
00:03:41
Speaker
in the coverage of this case. And the reason that I said I think it was meant for me to cover this story is because I went to the library on October 26th. That was the day we went to the library. And I opened up this book when I got home. And the very first line of the book begins on October 26th, 1961. Oh, so it was fate. It was.
00:04:06
Speaker
Plus, Betty Gail Brown, the focus of our case this week, was in the Phi Mu sorority at Transy, and I am also a Phi Mu, which means Betty Gail is my sorority sister. So many connections. Yes, so many that I felt like it was meant for me to cover this case. Now, I know for our listeners outside of Kentucky,
00:04:32
Speaker
I gave a little bit of background on Transy, but another thing to know about Transy and probably about most small liberal arts colleges, at least in Kentucky, is that most students who go there live on campus. But Betty Gail, who grew up
00:04:50
Speaker
in Lexington and went to Lafayette High School, did not. Instead, she lived about three miles away from campus on Lackawanna Road with her parents, her dad Hargis, and her mom Quincy. Okay, I love those names. I do too. She was an only child
00:05:08
Speaker
And as such she was very close to her parents. But just because she lived at home doesn't mean that Betty Gail only went to campus for classes and then spent the rest of her time at home. Because it seems that even though she had the habit of telling her parents when to expect her home she would come and go as she pleased.
00:05:29
Speaker
And obviously, you know, she was in a sorority. So she was very involved in the social life on campus. Yeah. So she's got things she's doing on campus. Exactly.
00:05:39
Speaker
In 1961, when this case is set, Betty was 19, and she had just recently started her sophomore year of college. And, you know, she probably looked a lot younger than 19 than a sophomore college with her petite 90-pound and barely, yeah, barely five-foot frame.
00:06:01
Speaker
So she's petite. She's very petite. She was active in the church. She taught Sunday school classes. She sang in the choir. And in addition to being active in the church, she was also active on campus. She did very well in school. She had a 3.1 GPA. She had lots of friends.
00:06:20
Speaker
and she had an active dating life. She didn't have a steady boyfriend, but she frequently went on dates with several different boys. And because of her religious beliefs, the boys who Betty saw knew that she was saving herself for marriage and that their relationships were not gonna go much beyond kissing.
00:06:41
Speaker
You know, she wanted to find the right person. Yeah. Yeah. She's saving herself for the right person. Right. In October 1961, she had just recently begun seeing a UK football player. Ooh, Betty. I know. Yeah. Date and the jock.
00:06:58
Speaker
The morning of October 26, 1961 began like so many others had. Betty Gale, and I'm gonna call her that because that's how her friends and her family referred to her. It wasn't Betty, it was Betty Gale. I love that. I had a dancer that was too, she went by.
00:07:17
Speaker
Well, her first name was two names, if that makes sense. Yeah. Yeah. So the morning of the 26th, and we know that's when everything happened because I already told you that's the first line of the book. But Betty Gail had parent had breakfast with her parents. She went to campus for a full day of classes and then she came home for dinner with the plan to return to campus.
00:07:42
Speaker
to study for this really hard biology test that was scheduled for the next day, yeah for the 27th.
00:07:49
Speaker
The heater in Betty Gale's car, which was a small gray Simca, it had been messing up. So her dad had taken it to the shop that morning of the 26th to get it serviced. So for her trip to campus for her classes, she actually had driven her dad's car. By the time Betty was home from classes and time for dinner, her car was back. So that evening for dinner, her mom made steak, baked potato,
00:08:18
Speaker
carrots, all the fixins. Literally my favorite meal. I know this amazing home cooked meal like usual. And at dinner, Betty Gail had reminded her parents that she was going to go back to campus to study for this biology exam with some friends who were in the class with her. And as I mentioned earlier, most trans students live on campus, as did the study friends who lived in Forrer Hall. So her plan was to go back to campus, study with them until about 10 or 11 o'clock.
00:08:49
Speaker
The rest of dinner was filled with normal conversation. Betty told her parents about a movie that was showing at a local drive-in that she thought her dad would like. And let me just say I miss drive-ins.
00:09:01
Speaker
Do you know there is a drive-in in Paris and it has like a full concession, like non-shows, hamburgers, all that stuff. But yeah, it runs. I don't think it's year round, but it's still open right now. We've been waiting. That's awesome. Yeah. So after clearing the table and helping her mom wash dishes, Betty Gail headed to campus and her parents headed to the movie. All of this happened around 7.15 PM.
00:09:31
Speaker
Now, I don't know about you, Maggie, but when I was in college and I had to walk back from the parking lot after a weekend at home, like walk back to my dorm from the parking lot and had my arms full and the sky was darkening more and more by the minute, I would basically sprint.
00:09:48
Speaker
Well, I'm gonna be completely honest, that was one of the things I liked about U-Pike because the furthest I had to walk was like from the parking garage to my dorm, which was
00:10:02
Speaker
Maybe a five-minute walk, it wasn't very far. Right, yeah. Lucky for Betty Gail Doe, right across the street, Broadway, from Forre Hall, was a half-circle drive. So she parked her car at the end of that semicircle, and she just had to cross the street to meet three of her friends. And the four immediately went in to like a study hall area inside the dorm.
00:10:30
Speaker
like this test was intimidating them and they meant business. Yes they meant business in their studying. Betty Gale's home was only about a 15 minute drive from campus and the girls started studying straight from 7 30 when Betty Gale got there until they finally took a break around 10 15 to get a snack
00:10:53
Speaker
from this snack bar that was in the dorm and it must have been like what we called the grill at my small college because the research said that her friends ordered food even though Betty Gail only got a soda. So this was like a little like restaurant that was open late.
00:11:13
Speaker
She then went to find the housemother, Betty Gail did, because she was going to ask if she could stay until midnight. So visiting hours, the the dorm would close its doors at midnight, like lock them for the night. But visiting hours were supposed to end around 11.
00:11:32
Speaker
And so Betty Gale wanted to make sure that she could stay until midnight, since that was past the visiting hours. And she was granted permission to do so. So the girls went back to studying until almost right at midnight, when the dorm would be locked up and all the visitors at that time would be escorted out. At 11.55,
00:11:54
Speaker
She left her friends and she was taken by the house mother to the front door where she walked promptly to her car. And remember, it's right across the street.
00:12:05
Speaker
Also walking out of the dorm at that time was a friend that she knew, 19-year-old Charles Rizden, who had just dropped off his date because his date was a resident in Forrer Hall. So he walked out right before Betty Gail and he actually saw her get into her car because he was parked in that same semicircle driveway. Got it.
00:12:30
Speaker
Since he got to his car first, he actually pulled up right next to Betty Gail's car on his way out the driveway. And because he pulled up on the passenger side, she actually slid into the passenger seat and rolled down the window to talk to him. See, Betty Gail had been feeling ill recently. One source said that she even passed out during one of her classes that previous week. So he asked her how she was feeling, asked her what she was doing out so late. And she told him that she was feeling much better.
00:12:59
Speaker
and about how she would be even better than that once this biology test was over, that she and her friends had been staying up late studying for.
00:13:09
Speaker
So Charles wished her good luck on the test and said, well, I'll see you on campus that next day. So he drove on. And he's driving up Broadway. He makes a right turn onto 3rd Street. And he actually saw the headlights from Betty Gail's car heading that same way as him as well.
00:13:31
Speaker
He made another right, so he makes a right and then another right. So it's basically like an an N or like a U shape, right? So now he makes another right onto Upper Street. So Upper and Broadway, where for Hall were, they run parallel to one another.
00:13:49
Speaker
So, you know, in last week's case, and I was talking about all these streets in London, and you could like picture walking. That's how I feel today. Like I can picture all these. Right. Yeah. So he parked because his dorm was on Upper Street. So he parks for his dorm and he actually sees Betty Gail's car go past.
00:14:10
Speaker
He later told police that she actually may have gotten stopped at the light at the end of upper, so the road that his dorm was on. This was around 12.05 a.m., because remember she leaves at 11.55, they talk for just a little bit, and then she's kind of following in that same traffic pattern that he is. So just minutes- So she should have been home like-
00:14:32
Speaker
get 10 minutes before 1230. Oh yeah, yeah. And all of this, so this is happening just minutes into the new day of October 27th. So the direction that he thought that she was turning at the end of upper, that's exactly what would take her straight home. And like you just said, Maggie, it's only about a 15 minute travel time between campus and her parents' house. So she should have gotten home around 1220 AM. Meanwhile,
00:14:59
Speaker
Betty Gail's parents had long since gotten home from the movie. And obviously they were expecting Betty to be home around 1130, because remember she said she'd be home around 10 to 11. And obviously we're in 1961, way before cell phones or anything like that. So around 1130, her mom had actually turned on a heating pad for Betty Gail's bed.
00:15:20
Speaker
and had climbed in at herself, so it would be warm for her daughter when she got home. No wonder she still lives at home. I know. I would say exactly. I'd be like, mom heats up my bed for me at night. She makes me stay. Why would I leave? Yeah. Yeah. So that image actually gives me such warm and fuzzy feelings too, Maggie, because my grandma would do the same thing for me when I would stay the night with her. She wouldn't climb in.
00:15:45
Speaker
but she would turn on the electric blanket so the sheets would be all warm and toasty for me to go to sleep.
00:15:52
Speaker
When my mom and I used to stay with my grandma, the bedrooms were really cold or like the sheets were. And I think that's why I love getting in like a cold bed. And I remember I would like snuggle up really close to my mom because I would be so cold. Yeah, I know. Those are some good memories. So while she was sitting in bed, Quincy actually read a paper and a magazine. And that's when she looked at the clock. It was midnight and Betty still wasn't home.
00:16:19
Speaker
And what kept Quincy from worrying initially was the knowledge that the dorm didn't fully close until midnight. So she's thinking, okay, if she decided to stay longer, then at the latest, she'll be home in just a little bit.
00:16:35
Speaker
So even though something in her gut made her want to go ahead and wake up her husband Hargis, she decided not to because she's like, he's just going to say that I'm overreacting. And besides, he had actually gone to bed early because he had a headache. So she's like, I don't know if I want to wake him up. But more time passed with no sign of her daughter. When Betty Gail wasn't home by 1240,
00:17:02
Speaker
her mom actually put on a coat over her pajamas and drove to campus herself, looking for her daughter, deciding to still let her husband try to sleep off his headache. So she drove the way that Betty would have come home. So here's Quincy driving super slowly, looking for Betty Gayle's car. Cause she thinking, you know, what if something happened to it or she got into an accident or something?
Betty's Disappearance and Discovery of Her Body
00:17:28
Speaker
But Betty's car wasn't in the half circle driveway across from Ford Hall. It wasn't a long Broadway at all. It wasn't on Upper Street. She didn't spot it on Fourth Street. It wasn't anywhere along the route home. So. And she's had plenty of time to get home. Right. So Quincy's convincing herself like maybe, maybe we just missed one another. Like when we were on parallel streets.
00:17:57
Speaker
Right? I just didn't see her. Surely Betty's going to be home when I get there. But she gets home and she opens the garage and Betty's car still isn't there.
00:18:11
Speaker
So her anxiety is heightened, obviously. So she's like, you know what? I'm going to drive to campus again. Maybe she took a different route. So Quincy did the same thing. She was taking a different route. This time she drove down side streets, like all around the dorm. She, like other streets that she didn't drive down, she's peering down them. Like she peered down the semicircle in front of Morrison Hall, but she didn't see any cars.
00:18:40
Speaker
When she got home this time, it was around 1 45am. And there was still an empty garage. So she woke up her husband. Yeah, just as she knew he would say when she thought about waking him up earlier, he told her not to worry.
00:18:59
Speaker
He said, Betty Gale probably drove a friend home. Maybe she went to get a midnight snack or something like that. But Quincy wouldn't let it go. So Hargis finally started calling the city and county police to see if there had been any accidents reported with cars that were the make and model of Betty's. There hadn't been.
00:19:22
Speaker
While her dad was making those calls, in between those calls, her mom was calling every major hospital, but her daughter hadn't been admitted to any. So her mom at this point is freaking out. Her dad's still convinced that everything's fine.
00:19:43
Speaker
Despite Quincy's insistence that he do so, Hargis Brown didn't initially report Betty Gail missing when he was on the phone with the police. So she's saying you need to tell them. He's like, you know, there's a logical explanation. She'll be home.
00:19:59
Speaker
In a stroke of genius, I think Betty's mom actually called the housemother of four. Oh, yeah. Right. Because I wouldn't have even thought of that, but her mom did. And so she calls and the housemother verified that Betty Gale left at midnight and that she personally had walked her to the door.
00:20:21
Speaker
So by 2.30 a.m. with Betty Gail still not home, her dad called the police back to file a missing persons report. Wow. Law enforcement immediately put out a bulletin for Betty Gail. So now her father went out driving to look for his baby girl. He drove to every drive through restaurant that he knew his daughter liked.
00:20:46
Speaker
like looking for her car in the parking lots. He went by the football lodge at UK, because remember the boy she'd gone on a few dates with was a UK football player, didn't see her car there. He got home around 3am and that's when they rotated and Betty's mom went out looking for a third time.
00:21:06
Speaker
Oh wow, I know that her nerves were shot at this point. Oh, I can only imagine. On duty that night, Detective Donald Duckworth heard the APB and he started patrolling campus.
00:21:19
Speaker
He was turning down every possible street and alley, and he actually turned onto the semicircle drive that Betty's mom had just peered down. Remember, but she hadn't seen Betty Gail's car, so she drove on the semicircle off of 4th Street that ran in front of Morrison Hall.
00:21:39
Speaker
She's on, Quincy's on her third round. The first round, did she go down the semi-circle? I don't remember. No. She looked at the semi-circle across from Forrer Hall. There are two semi-circle driveways, one right across from Forrer. That's where she looked for Betty Gale's car, knowing that she was going to be in Forrer Hall. But the second time she went out, she's peering down every other
00:22:03
Speaker
like alleyway and roadway. And that's when she peered up the semicircle of Morrison but didn't see Betty Gail's car. And Betty Gail parked her car on which semicircle?
00:22:15
Speaker
the for hall one. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. But here is detective Duckworth who sees a car that matches the make and model that he had just heard on the APB in front of the other semicircle in front of Morrison Hall. So as he gets closer, he actually sees someone in the front seat and he's relieved because he's thinking, okay, I have found Betty Gail. But he was shocked as he got closer.
00:22:45
Speaker
Her head was slung back. Her eyes were closed. She didn't move. Her bra strap was tight around her neck. With a sudden realization that this young woman was dead and this was a crime scene, he touched nothing and radioed for backup. Captain Gilbert Cravens, Captain Brian Henry, and coroner Chester Hager arrived.
00:23:14
Speaker
Meanwhile, Betty's mom was back on campus looking for that third time. She parked in the semicircle across from Forre Hall, and she was actually walking towards Forre Hall. She went to speak with some girls who she saw in a window thinking maybe they've seen Betty Gail, maybe they knew where she might be.
00:23:34
Speaker
but they didn't know. And turning back to her car in the distance, she saw an officer looking in a driveway with a flashlight. So she ran to ask him if he were looking for Betty Gail and if they had found anything. He looked at her and said that they found her daughter, but the relief was swiftly washed from Quincy's face when she learned that her daughter was found dead.
00:24:02
Speaker
I wonder if it's almost a blessing that she wasn't the one that discovered her. Oh, can you imagine? Oh my gosh, because I would be I'd be breaking glass to get into the car.
00:24:15
Speaker
Quincy tried to rush to her own car to drive home, right? Because she's like, I've got to get my husband. But the officer stopped her and he drove her home instead. She was silent on the way to her home, only asking if her husband knew. And I can only imagine that she's just trying to process all of this news.
00:24:37
Speaker
The officer replied that somebody had likely gone to their home to let him know, but when they arrived and her husband opened the front door to ask what happened, it was obvious that no one had yet been to the house. Quincy told her husband, Betty Gale is dead.
00:24:57
Speaker
Quincy later said of that night, quote, I was so shocked that it wouldn't sink in. I refused to believe what had happened. I did not believe it, end quote.
00:25:10
Speaker
With time, her parents would learn how their daughter had likely died. With her head leaned back, her face looking, again, toward the roof of the car and her bra still around her neck, it seemed obvious that she had been strangled by her bra, likely by a person who was in the backseat. The bra was Betty's own.
00:25:35
Speaker
Her forehead was cut and she had bruises around her neck. There was blood on the dash in the front, like in front of the passenger seat. Of the four doors, the two back doors and the driver's door were locked. The passenger door was unlocked, though later law enforcement realized that may have been a defect in the lock.
00:26:03
Speaker
So they think this person was just waiting in her back seat for her? We don't know. Potentially. Both bra straps had been torn. The fastener. And this is the bra she's wearing, correct? Had been wearing, yes. Yeah, both of the straps had been torn and the fastener in the back had been pulled loose and was laying in her lap.
00:26:29
Speaker
So there was violence with the bra. They could tell at least some of the how in this case, but what about the why, the motive?
Challenges in the Investigation
00:26:44
Speaker
Because the bra was a murder weapon, it would seem like sexual assault was a motive, right? That seems very sexual. But all the rest of Betty Gail's clothing looked perfect. Her shirt was tucked in, her shorts were zipped and buttoned, and they later found she was not raped. Hmm.
00:27:05
Speaker
So then they're thinking, okay, maybe the killer took something of value, right? Maybe the motive was robbery. So law enforcement searches the car from top to bottom. Inside the car, laying on the front seat was a composition notebook, loose leaf paper, other study materials. Because remember, she had just studied for that biology exam. They found the keys to the car in the floorboard behind the driver's seat.
00:27:32
Speaker
So they're thinking, had Betty and her killer struggled and she dropped them back there? But here's the thing, Maggie, Betty Gail still wore her watch and her purse was also right there in the car in plain sight, complete with all her money and credit cards. So just like the sexual motivation, robbery also seems to be ruled out.
00:28:00
Speaker
what then could have led someone to commit such a heinous crime? And to me, that's the scariest thing, is a crime committed without a motive. Yeah, that's what I was about to say. We don't even know why she died. Every death like this is senseless, but we don't even have a motive as to why someone killed her. Right.
00:28:23
Speaker
The car was taken to the station for fingerprinting and Betty Gail's body was transported for an autopsy. The autopsy didn't show much beyond what was clearly visible. She had the superficial cut on her forehead. She had, quote unquote, significant injury around her left eye, abrasions and bruises on her neck. And that was it. She had been on her period because she had a tampon in.
00:28:52
Speaker
She had a torn fingernail, though they did scrapings, but from what I read, that revealed no other DNA evidence. And there was no significant injury below her neck. So the cause of death was clear, suffocation by strangulation. The time of death
00:29:11
Speaker
was estimated to be around 1.15 AM. Huh. So she had like an hour. Yeah. And yeah, that timing, it just leads to more questions. So what did Betty do between 12.05 when Charles Rizdin last saw her and her death? And why had she turned back toward campus after initially heading in the direction of her home as her friend Charles Rizdin had seen her do?
00:29:39
Speaker
Okay, so was Charles investigated because I know he lived at that dorm, right? He was. We will get to him here in just a second. Coroner Hager also found lipstick smears on Betty Gail's shorts and several human hairs on her sweater and shorts that were collected, obviously along with Betty Gail's own hair and blood samples to serve as comparison.
00:30:04
Speaker
When it came to Betty Gail's body, there didn't appear to be much evidence. Remember her fingernails were scraped, there's nothing underneath them. So they're thinking, okay, maybe we'll have better luck with Betty Gail's car.
00:30:18
Speaker
At the station, in addition to the blood on the dash near the passenger seat, which they posited, corresponded with a cut on her forehead as the killer reached in and slammed her head on the dash. They also found a few drops of blood on the rear floorboard and a small smear on the driver side window. The blood was all tested and it all came back as Betty's.
00:30:46
Speaker
Law enforcement then tested for fingerprints in every possible place on the vehicle. And many of the prints were just smudges, so they weren't viable for matching, but they did manage to lift three distinct fingerprints. With the murder of a vibrant young girl and on a college campus, law enforcement knew that they needed to try to get to the bottom of this crime fast.
00:31:12
Speaker
Like what if this is a serial perpetrator? A serial killer. Exactly. So the police department actually dispatched close to 20 detectives to begin canvassing the area and questioning both friends and those who may have been in the area to see if they had noticed anything suspicious. They heard over and over again from those who knew Betty that no one who knew her would have wanted to hurt her. And that they knew of.
00:31:42
Speaker
This couldn't have been an enemy because Betty Gail didn't have any. Yeah, it didn't sound like she did. It sounded like she was well liked. Yeah.
00:31:52
Speaker
While they didn't learn any names or discover any leads in their initial investigation, they did learn some things that would be interesting information as it related to details of the crime. First, because her breasts would get tender when she was on her period, as she was- Okay, did she typically take her bra? She did. Because I was wondering how they would get her bra, but her clothes, like her shirt, is still tucked in. Right. So then I was like, I wonder if she got in her car and took it off.
00:32:20
Speaker
But she lives so close to home, so why wouldn't she have just left it on during the drive home? That's what I don't think. So then they're thinking, okay, could she have taken her bra off and it wasn't ripped off? So either it got torn as it was being ripped off of her, or it got torn with the violence with which it was used as a murder weapon.
00:32:45
Speaker
So it might have been already off and then therefore may be a more convenient weapon for her. That's kind of what I think. Police also learned that she was religious about locking her car doors. As am I. Yes. She would not have unlocked them for a stranger. And remember, the passenger side door was unlocked. So was it unlocked because of a malfunction in the lock or did she know
00:33:14
Speaker
her killer. Everything was a possibility. And like, I don't know which one's scarier. You're murdered by a random person you don't know or murdered by someone you thought you trusted. Right. Both are terrifying. Yeah.
00:33:29
Speaker
Around 3 p.m. on October 27th, only about 12 hours after she was discovered, Charles Risdon, the last person to see her, remember he was going to a storm, stepped into the police station, telling officers that he was likely the last one to see her alive that previous night.
00:33:49
Speaker
So had it been made aware by this point? Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. People knew. In the interview, he told them all about walking out in front of her, the brief conversation that they had, seeing her drive past, risen likely, as he indicated, the last person to see Betty Gill alive was marked as someone that they wanted to interview again, right? It's the first question you asked, you knew.
00:34:16
Speaker
but likely also because whether out of guilt or out of grief was acting nervous and was making odd comments like noting the brutality of the killing.
00:34:30
Speaker
And they did ask him to return. On his next visit, he gave a formal written statement. Here, he offered his own alibi during the time when the murder had likely occurred. He said that after getting back to his own dorm, he had met with another student and talked with them for a little bit, listened to some music and cleaned his room some, and that while he was cleaning his room, a different friend had come by to chat during that period.
00:34:59
Speaker
and that then he had gone to sleep around 1 45 am and so even though his alibi was confirmed by those two other students law enforcement also asked him to take a polygraph which he agreed to do and he passed and you know i do think sometimes when we're nervous or we don't really know what to say we sometimes say odd comments yeah i would agree with that
00:35:26
Speaker
then began a deluge of eyewitness accounts, calls, and rumors. You see, unlike most of the cases that we cover, Maggie, where law enforcement are overly tight-lipped, Betty Gayle's case had the opposite problem, too much knowledge given to the public. In Lawson's book, he states, quote,
00:35:52
Speaker
In many, if not most, pending criminal cases, especially ones that are highly likely to attract public interest, investigators are slow to release the results of their investigation to the media and the public for good reasons. In some instances, they may need to protect witnesses, to hide information from suspects, to provide time to pursue crucial leads, or simply to protect the integrity of their investigation. In others, they are likely to be driven by caution
00:36:20
Speaker
habit and training to leave the disclosure of information about major crime investigations to higher authorities. For some reason, the usual reluctance to release information to the media and the public did not prevail in the Betty Gail Brown case. It may have been because the huge number of detectives and police officers working the case made leaks inevitable.
00:36:45
Speaker
Or it may have been because investigators realized very early that they had no leads to follow and that they badly needed the public's help. In any event, the police release of information about the Brown murder was truly extraordinary." End quote.
00:37:04
Speaker
So basically they almost screwed up or they potentially screwed up their own investigation because they gave away too much information. Yeah. Like let me illustrate to you just how much the public knew and how quickly the day the body was found.
00:37:23
Speaker
October 27. Papers ran stories with pictures of Betty Gales' car, a description of all of her injuries, where blood was found inside the car, that her clothes were undisturbed, that she had been strangled by her own bra, which doors were locked or unlocked, where the keys were found, that there were no clear suspects, and that Charles Risdon was the last to see her alive.
00:37:50
Speaker
Oh, okay. So like everything. Yeah. There's literally nothing for a killer to come forward with. So no way of knowing if someone who confessed had intimate knowledge or had just read the paper. On the 28th, another paper even ran on the front page, a picture of a deceased Betty Gail in her car as she was discovered and a picture of the blood on the dash. How would one get that photo?
00:38:20
Speaker
I don't know. In these articles on the day after, on the 28th, readers learned that her purse was still in the car undisturbed, that the top two buttons of her blouse were undone, and the police thought it likely that she had been strangled from behind. Oh my God. Instead of leading to answers and potential suspects, the personal knowledge of the crime only fueled rumors and speculation.
00:38:48
Speaker
On October 29th, a waitress at a local restaurant who often waited on trans students went to the police with information that she thought might be helpful to the investigation. She said that she had seen Betty Gail the night of her death sometime between midnight and 1 a.m. So this would have been right in the time frame just before her murder. The waitress said that Betty Gail had another and another girl had come into the restaurant
00:39:18
Speaker
and that Betty had gotten a hot chocolate and the other girl had gotten a tea. They sat there with her drinks, Betty paid the full bill, and then the two left. And the waitress didn't know Betty Gail, but she said she recognized her by the picture in the paper.
00:39:34
Speaker
Hoping that this account was accurate and that the identification of the other girl that the waitress had seen, you know, might give them, get them one step closer to solving the case, they actually took this woman, the waitress, to Forrer Hall, right? Saying, okay, look at all of these girls who live here. Do you recognize any of them as the other girl that you saw Betty Gail with? She didn't.
00:40:00
Speaker
They even took the waitress to Betty Gail's funeral and to the grave site because tons of fellow students had gone to both. But the waitress still couldn't recognize the other girl.
00:40:11
Speaker
So was it faulty memory? Could it have been somebody that maybe wasn't a college student? Potentially, yeah. They're asking themselves all these questions. They're saying, okay, is this just a faulty memory that's not allowing her to recognize the other person? Was the other girl not one of Betty Gail's first close friends? Like you said, could it be somebody who's not a student? Or had this waitress not even seen Betty Gail at all?
00:40:37
Speaker
law enforcement were beginning to believe the latter especially when they were able to locate two male friends of Betty Gales who were in that same restaurant where the waitress worked from 11 30 to 1 30 a.m was when these two young men were there and they said that they did not see Betty Gale there.
00:40:57
Speaker
Oh, well, that's good. Yeah. Additionally, a worker from a completely different restaurant also said that Betty Gail was there with a young man on the night of the 26th. But just like the waitress, however, that employee was also unable to say what the other person looked like. So the problem is people are seeing this picture and they're like, oh, I think I remember seeing her. But then it's just leading to these wild goose chases.
00:41:29
Speaker
On the 30th, headlines ran with a story stating almost every detail that the waitress had told police. So the public knew the details at nearly the same time the police found them out. I'm like shaking my head right now. I know. Then newspapers began running stories that were just patently inaccurate.
00:41:52
Speaker
saying that the police were about to pick up the other young lady from the restaurant for questioning and even ran a story that a woman had given a full confession to the murder. This quote-unquote confession never happened. So now the media is playing into the rumor mill. But the two restaurant workers weren't the only ones with details for police. More people came forward with stories.
00:42:16
Speaker
Two corroborating stories came from a newspaper delivery truck driver and his helper. They said in their statements to police that two weeks before Betty Gayle's murder, they had been driving in the area and they had seen a man standing on the edge of the sidewalk near 3rd Street. And when a small car came down the road, he jumped into the street and yelled, Betty. The car had stopped.
00:42:44
Speaker
He had stepped up to the door, gotten into the passenger seat, and the car turned into the driveway that went in front of Morrison Hall. The man was wearing a checkered shirt, had red hair, was around 5'10 or 5'11, looked around 20, and had a medium build.
00:43:04
Speaker
Then a few nights later, the two saw the same car with a girl in the passenger seat turn on that same driveway in front of Morrison Hall. So could that have been Betty Gail? Right? After all, the car was seen pulling into the drive in front of Morrison Hall where she was found. Yeah, but who's this person? Yeah, we don't know.
00:43:29
Speaker
Two other young men reported seeing a man on the night of the murder walking down the road away from campus. He stepped around some hedges. He was tall, around six foot, wore glasses and had curly brown hair. Police were never able to find either of these men. Since Allison and I don't work together anymore, recording our podcast became harder until we found Zincaster.
00:43:59
Speaker
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00:44:25
Speaker
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00:44:51
Speaker
go to zencaster.com forward slash pricing and use our code coffee and cases, all one word. You'll get 30% off your first three months of Zencaster Professional. We want you to have the same easy experience we do for all our podcasting and content needs. It's time to share your story. So police weren't left with much.
00:45:18
Speaker
Right? I mean, they can't find anybody who people are talking about. But they did have the three fingerprints. Because remember, most were smudges. Right. And were they able to tell anything really from the fingerprint?
00:45:34
Speaker
They could tell, and I don't even know how you tell this from fingerprints, but they could tell that some were male and some were female. So I don't know if it was the size, but I mean, some people have big hands and some people have small hands, so I don't know. But they said that some were male and some were female. So since that seemed about all the solid evidence available, law enforcement decided, you know what? We are going to do a massive fingerprinting
00:46:01
Speaker
of all of the males on campus with a plan to then test. But not females, though. Well, their plan was to then test the female students after. And obviously, they were going to test both because they don't know if their killer is male or female. But they got through about half of the male students at Transy before somebody suggested
00:46:27
Speaker
Hey, we should probably test Betty Gail's parents since they were known to drive the car and her father, I know beforehand, right. And her father had just driven it because he had just taken it to get the repair work on the heater. So her parents were tested and they ended up accounting for two of the three prints.
00:46:53
Speaker
OK, but we still have the one. Yes, that that left one. So they had resumed testing the students on campus when a man came up to an officer and said he was worried about something. He said he knew the police were looking at fingerprints to find the killer of Betty Gail Brown, and he was worried.
00:47:18
Speaker
because on the day before her murder, like that day of her murder, but earlier in the day, he had done auto body work on her car. Oh, so his prints would have potentially been in there. Right. He's worried about it because he's, and that's what he tells this cop. He said, I'm worried, you know, you guys are looking for fingerprints and I just did work on this car. I'm really worried that my prints are going to be in there. So,
00:47:42
Speaker
they asked him what repairs he did and he stated that he had to get the heater working again and that he knew he had touched the heater, the dashboard, the steering column, and the doors. So basically all over the front of the car. Yeah. So that's good to know because, you know, I don't think at this point they knew where the fingerprints were found.
00:48:05
Speaker
You know what I mean? And so he says, I basically touched all over the front of the car. So the officer told him, you know what, go down to the station, go ahead and give your prints. The mechanics prints matched the third print, which was found near the heater.
00:48:27
Speaker
The mechanic himself had an alibi that police verified. He was with his girlfriend and family members that night. And now there's nothing tangible, right? There were the three fingerprints. One is her dad, one is her mom, one is the mechanic.
00:48:45
Speaker
It's just crazy to me that someone would get in her car because they believe she was strangled in her car, correct? Like she wasn't strangled elsewhere and put in there. Okay. And not leave any fingerprints. Right.
00:49:01
Speaker
But I guess we have the hair, but then in 1960, whatever, do we have the ability to DNA test? No, no, that wasn't a thing then. Right. And so, yeah, they really in terms of physical evidence, there really isn't any because all of the blood in the car turns out to be Betty Gales, the three fingerprints that they were able to collect.
00:49:30
Speaker
They've all been matched up. There was like a partially smudged palm print. But again, like back then, that's not enough to to get anybody. And honestly, depending on the location, it could have been that same mechanic. Right. So now all they had were the questions. Do we have a male or a female killer? Did Betty Gail take her own bra off or did the killer take it off?
00:50:00
Speaker
Was the murderer a stranger because the lock malfunctioned or a friend who she let in? And why had she come back to campus and pulled in front of old Morrison Hall? So leads continued to come in only to turn cold almost immediately or be dismissed. One woman came in a couple of weeks after the murder to say that she was at a drive-in restaurant and a man had come up to her open window.
00:50:31
Speaker
had touched her arm and asked what she was doing that night. She obviously rebuffed his advances and he said something like, you know what happened to the brown girl.
00:50:44
Speaker
So that lead was obviously interesting to police because a young man actually had previously come in to say on the night of Betty Gail's murder, a man had been at a local restaurant bragging about how many women he could sleep with before the morning. And the description of the individual by both that young man and this young woman was similar.
00:51:14
Speaker
But just like a lot of the cases, the description of the individual was generic enough that it could have been hundreds of people. And so obviously, therefore, not a viable lead. I mean, we're talking like brown hair and brown eyes.
00:51:31
Speaker
Yeah, you could pick it out. It could be anyone. Right. Another girl was approached at night near Morrison Hall by a man. This was right after Betty Gail's murder. So this girl is out walking near Morrison Hall, which I would never be, especially after I hear about this. But a man approached her, and he told her that he was the Transylvania Strangler.
00:51:57
Speaker
Yeah, but people say so many stupid things. I mean, I'm saying it couldn't have been him, but people just say things for shock, I think. The description of this man, he was described as short, looking like a woman. So I don't know what they meant by that. That was just a description in the research with a speech impediment, but they were never able to locate that man either.
00:52:23
Speaker
Well, I feel like we could perhaps have more answers in this case if we could ever find some of these people that we're talking about. I know. And so really it's going to take people trying to recall and talking about it. And there were so many leads. Again, they were turning cold, but there were so many that were coming in because everyone has knowledge about the case.
00:52:47
Speaker
Right. There's no secrets in this case. Exactly. And so law enforcement would explore some of the leads right away. You know, if it seemed like it would be really a viable lead and then other ones they would write down to follow up on later. Though they didn't follow up on the one I'm getting ready to tell you about until January 1962.
00:53:09
Speaker
It actually was a theory or a lead just a couple of weeks after the murder. That was when this other theory came up.
00:53:19
Speaker
A man who had worked for food services for Transylvania College in the dorms cafeteria system. And remember that night when they were studying, they had paused their stuff. Oh yeah, they went to that snack bar. This man was 40 and he was the manager in that dorm cafeteria. Many of the students knew him, they recognized him, and he had worked at that grill.
00:53:48
Speaker
in Forrer Hall. According to his coworkers, though, he lived alone off campus, and he did speak often of his wife and kids who he said lived in Atlanta. It's a really far commute you got there, sir. Right. Now, what's suspicious about him and kind of led to this theory is because the day of Betty Gail's funeral, he quit his job and left town.
00:54:19
Speaker
And that was a move that has shocked coworkers. So it was a quick and an odd move, but to play devil's advocate, he did put in a letter of resignation weeks earlier and had told his supervisor, had told a supervisor that he was going back home to Atlanta where his family was.
00:54:44
Speaker
Which makes sense if you miss your family and they're that far away. Right. I get it. When police investigated him further, he had minor offenses on his record like drunk driving, a fight with a neighbor, but nothing violent.
00:54:59
Speaker
Yeah, because that's a pretty big leap to go from driving to strangling someone. Yes, yeah. But regardless, law enforcement did track him down and he actually admitted to law enforcement. He said, you know what, it does look bad that I left so close to the murder. But he stated that he had actually quit. The reason he had put in his resignation
00:55:21
Speaker
was because he had had enough of working 12 to 14 hours a day and being physically exhausted. And he had actually reached out to a supervisor for help and saying, you know what? I can't do these long, grueling hours anymore. I need a shorter workday schedule. And the supervisor basically said, well, there's nothing I can do, which is why he had put in his resignation. And he did.
00:55:50
Speaker
He didn't recall ever meeting Betty Gail because remember, she doesn't live on campus. And they actually show pictures of her, like the picture of her dead in her car to him. And he didn't have a reaction to it. And honestly, he probably feeds hundreds of kids a day. So even if he did meet her in passing, he's not going to be able to pick out her face. Yeah. So here's another lead that's gone nowhere.
00:56:18
Speaker
in July 1962. So now we're, you know, this happened in October of 61. So, you know, we're what, nine months out? A woman came in to the police with a story to tell about her then fourth ex-husband, whom she was married to at the time of the murder.
00:56:43
Speaker
She said that he was supposed to be at work that night, but he had come home right before 2 AM with blood on his shirt. So where do we know where he worked? Could that, could there have been a reason he had blood on his shirt? No, I don't think so because she was kind of saying that this was unusual. That's why she was coming to the police. She said that when she questioned him about it, he had slapped her.
00:57:12
Speaker
and said, I think I killed a woman. And that he then burned the shirt. So she told police all this and she said that he acted oddly the next morning when obviously the news about Betty Gill's death was the headline in the paper and that anytime she would bring up the murder, he would slap her. Um, sir.
00:57:38
Speaker
First off, no. Secondly, that's a little suspicious. Mm hmm. But here's the thing, Maggie, I didn't read anywhere why this lead was dismissed, like based on anything specific, but
00:57:53
Speaker
Police did dismiss it. In fact, they didn't take the lead very seriously, even from the beginning, out of fear that the woman's statement was made out of retaliation because she and the man in question were just freshly divorced. But even if it was out of retaliation, I feel like it should have been thoroughly checked out because
00:58:19
Speaker
it potentially could have not been, you know what I mean? So even if they suspected it, they still should have checked it out. I totally agree, but they didn't. They just said, you know what, this woman probably just wants to get revenge. She's bitter. Yeah. A final lead in that first year after the murder came from an arrest in October 1962 in New York City of all places.
00:58:49
Speaker
So we're going from Lexington to Kentucky in New York City. Law enforcement saw a woman in a hooded sweatshirt on a park bench and as they approached, the hood was thrown back and a revolver was drawn.
00:59:05
Speaker
They disarmed the woman and arrested her. It was then, in this arrest, that they realized this was not a woman they were arresting, but a man dressed as a woman. So I wonder if it was the same guy from the one lead where it said it was a man but looked like a woman.
00:59:27
Speaker
could be, I mean, or it could even be, you know, you go back to the newspaper delivery driver, and first he saw a man standing on the corner. And then a few nights later, he thought he saw a woman in the passenger seat. So could it have been the same person?
00:59:44
Speaker
But what made this man so suspicious is that he had on his person an envelope containing no fewer than 10 newspaper clippings covering Betty Gail's murder. Wasn't that a Lexington? He is. And a letter detailing the police investigation in the case. Still weird. The letter right, cause we're a year out now.
01:00:14
Speaker
from the murder. So that's weird to still have on your person 10 newspaper clippings. The letter writer and this man had both been students at Transy. So when officers from New York City alerted Lexington law enforcement, officers quickly flew from Lexington to New York City, but the man refused to speak.
01:00:43
Speaker
So they then turned to the letter writer for answers and they were able to get him to talk. And he said that he had actually sent those newspaper clippings to this friend in New York city because the receiver was a good friend and lived out of town and he wanted to let his friend know what had happened on campus. But again,
01:01:13
Speaker
He waited a year to tell him that? Or was this dude carrying these around for a year? Because that's two very different scenarios on the line. I know. And I didn't see anywhere if there was a date on the letter. So that's a fantastic question about whether he had just received these. But then that would mean that the letter writer had hung on to the articles for a year before sending them. So either the letter writer or the letter receiver
01:01:41
Speaker
had hung on to these articles for a year. Which is weird. Were they investigated beyond just figuring out like, oh, I was mailing him these because he went to Transy. I think as far as I read in all of the research and in Lawson's book,
01:01:57
Speaker
And he's a lawyer in this case, because there's going to be a trial here in a bit. So he has that insider information. And again, I don't know if both the men had alibis the night of Betty Gail's murder or what, but police dismissed that trail too. So they, again, were like, well, I think that's a good enough reason. So we're not going to
01:02:27
Speaker
Keep following it. Strange to me, but okay.
Alex Arnold Jr.'s Confession
01:02:31
Speaker
But on January 16, 1965, everything for this case changed. And it happened all the way across the country in the town of Klamath Falls, Oregon.
01:02:48
Speaker
Wow. Okay. This place, this case has been everywhere. This is national. At the time, a 33 year old man named Alex Arnold Jr. was arrested. He was originally from Lexington. Okay. So full circle. Right. Other than two years during which he had served in the Korean war, he had spent most of his life here in Lexington.
01:03:18
Speaker
Well, other than another year that he had also spent incarcerated in Kentucky State Prison. But I'll get to that. OK, you'll get to it. OK. Yeah. After his release from prison, he had done odd jobs. He'd taken charity money from people to travel because he didn't have a car of his own. And he had traveled all the way across the country to Oregon. But in January 1965,
01:03:48
Speaker
Well, let me also give you this little tidbit. Arnold Jr. had a drinking problem. That's where all of his money went that he was able to get. And on January 16th, 1965, he had gotten extremely intoxicated and he was arrested for public intoxication. But remember, he doesn't have a car and he doesn't have money. The only money he has is from like small odd jobs and then charity money, but he would spend that on alcohol.
01:04:18
Speaker
So without money to pay the fine for the public intoxication, he was kept in the local jail for 10 days to work off his fines. But this is not the incarceration at the Kentucky state prison. No, no. This is different. Yes.
01:04:36
Speaker
So Arnold Jr. at first was functioning OK, but because of his alcohol dependencies, by the third day, he was going through alcohol withdrawal. And he was suffering from delirium tremens.
01:04:56
Speaker
So in this delirious state that he is in, he started saying that things were crawling up the wall in his cell. He started talking to inanimate objects like the toilet paper holder. He said that there was a machine outside of his cell that was reading his mind. Like he is obviously not in
01:05:23
Speaker
the best mental state. And he was even threatening suicide. And it was with those threats of self-harm that he was moved to a cell where he could be monitored continually. Even once he was in the new cell, he was still saying, oh, the mind reading machine followed me. So again, still not in a good headspace. But it was then that he said,
01:05:51
Speaker
that he had something he needed to talk about and he asked for an officer. Oh, interesting. Detective Dennis Lilly came to see him on his fourth day of incarceration. Arnold told the officer that he thought he killed a woman back in Lexington named Betty Gail Brown. Oh. He said that she was parked
01:06:20
Speaker
She was in a parked car in the middle of the night, was partially undressed, and that she was making love to another woman. But I thought her clothes were fine. Well, we'll get back to that. He said that he asked Betty Gail Brown for a match from her for a smoke.
01:06:44
Speaker
This makes sense to me because she's making out with the girl and you're just going to go like knock on her window and interrupt whatever they're doing. Apparently cigarette. This is what he says happened. Yeah, he says he saw her in the middle of the night, partially undressed, making love to another woman. He's desperate for his smoke. So he knocks on the window and asked her for a match and that the two of them actually got into a fight.
01:07:11
Speaker
because she wasn't giving him a match to light a cigarette. So they get into a fight in which he hurts her and then he killed her out of fear. When asked how he had done it, he said he hit her head on the dashboard and then choked her with her own bra because he was afraid that she would identify him to the police. Okay, but when did he leave Lexington?
01:07:41
Speaker
So he was in Lexington during, at the time of the murder. So he was also in Lexington then, like when the newspaper was printing all this stuff? Yes. Okay. So the detective says, you say you think you killed her? What do you mean? And he responded, quote, sometimes I feel like I'm dreaming about it.
01:08:09
Speaker
but I'm 99% sure I killed her." He said that the other woman who had been in the car had jumped out of the car and had run away, and that after he had killed the driver, he locked all the doors himself before running away also.
01:08:33
Speaker
So the detective in Oregon called Lexington PD who sent two detectives to interview Arnold. Once they arrived, he turned down a lawyer and again confessed. So I guess my problem here is even if
01:08:55
Speaker
Betty Gail and this woman were in this love making state. And perhaps their parents or whatever didn't know that this was their lifestyle. And so she was, I still don't understand why she wouldn't have told the police what had happened. She could have left out that detail and still have said, Hey, I was with Betty Gail that night. We were in her car talking and this guy happened. Right. Exactly.
01:09:25
Speaker
I just kind of feel like maybe this man, one, he's delirious, right? Because he's going through these withdrawals. And two, maybe he was in like an altered state of mind. And when Betty Gail was murdered and maybe he couldn't tell his reality from his dreams. You know what I mean? And he thought he dreamed perhaps that he was involved and he just can't tell the difference between reality and
01:09:55
Speaker
dreams. So let me tell you the details and then we'll see. We'll come a circle back and see what you think. So he, they fly in some officers from Lexington for him to give a confession about Betty Gail Brown. Arnold continues to sweat and have tremors during the confession. So he's telling his story a second time and he says, here's what happened.
01:10:24
Speaker
This one's even more detailed. He said he had been drinking near Short Street and Broadway in downtown Lexington and was looking for a bench or someplace to sleep off his drunken stupor. Cause he said he was so drunk, but the bench he had in mind actually had two people sitting on it. So he walked towards campus instead.
01:10:49
Speaker
He found a bench there and slept for about an hour before waking up because it was so cold out. He started walking again and that's when he saw a car with two women kissing and hugging one another. He asked for a match from the driver and said the woman began cursing at him.
01:11:11
Speaker
and that because he was drunk, he got mad, opened the driver's door, grabbed the driver's hair, slammed her head on the dash, and knocked her out.
01:11:23
Speaker
The other girl jumped out and ran. That's when he saw the driver's bra, which was already off and hanging on the side of the driver's seat. So he picked it up, jumped in the back seat and strangled her by putting one hand on either side of the bra and putting his knees into the back of the seat. He said he threw the bra down and climbed into the front.
01:11:51
Speaker
He said her shirt had been nearly all unbuttoned, but that he was afraid they would think that he had attacked her to rape her, so he had actually buttoned up her shirt, buttoned it back most of the way.
01:12:08
Speaker
As he was doing that, this is what he's telling law enforcement officers, he thought she was pretty and admitted, you know, again, how drunk he was. And so he said he kissed her breast, wiped his prints from the dash and from the rest of the car, and slipped back into the back seat to leave, locking the car door as he did.
01:12:35
Speaker
And he said he also noticed that the left front window, so like the driver's side window was half open. So he said he put his hands on the glass to push upward to force it closed.
01:12:50
Speaker
And that he then went to stay with a friend named May Hedges who lived nearby. And he said when he got to May's place that they had had a drink and that he told her that he had just killed a woman. And then he promptly passed out on her couch. Okay. So a couple of things. One very detailed story. Very. You know, included things that the police wouldn't have known about if this is true. Um,
01:13:20
Speaker
I guess in today's world, the kiss on her breasts would have left DNA there that we could have got like saliva. Did he put, okay, when he pushes the window up, was there a partial print or anything like that? Or did he wipe that away? I know that there's partial smudged palm prints, but I don't know where the partial smudged palm print was found. And again,
01:13:51
Speaker
May, if you exist, and I'm sure we'll find out. I don't understand why they wouldn't have come forward. Maybe they thought he was just drunk and like talking out of his mind or whatever, but I think I would have came forward. Right. Same with the other girl. I don't know. It's just a lot. Yeah. After the confession, Lexington PD got a warrant for the arrest of Alex Arnold Jr. It was issued on January 22nd, 1965.
01:14:21
Speaker
Now, I mentioned that Arnold Jr. didn't have a job, which meant he didn't have money to procure a lawyer. Normally, that job would go to a young inexperienced lawyer, you know, who's trying to gain experience. Right. But this was a very complicated and public case.
01:14:47
Speaker
So the judge, the original judge, Richard Maloney, actually approached a man named Amos Eblin, who was a 60-year-old lawyer here in Lexington who had tons of experience and respect from others in the profession. Eblin had his JD from Harvard Law. Hmm.
01:15:09
Speaker
And Eblin, who was approached by the judge, then approached Robert Lawson, the author of the book that I read on the case, who had just started working for Eblin's firm to join him in representing Arnold.
01:15:26
Speaker
Okay. So the book that I read was written by one of the defense attorneys. Love it. So he does have, this is credible. Yes, yes. So the two, Eblin and Lawson, the two lawyers, first met with Arnold on January 25th, 1965, two days after he was incarcerated in Lexington. They actually asked him to tell them about the crime.
01:15:55
Speaker
But all he did was tell them exactly what they'd already heard from what they read from the reports about what he had said when he was in Oregon and nothing more. So as time went on, Lawson and Eblin were able to learn a little bit more about Arnold's background to determine really how much bearing his upbringing and history had on the case. So here's what we know.
01:16:24
Speaker
And here's where I'll tell you about the Kentucky state prison stint. Arnold was born in 1931 in Lexington. He had a horrible relationship with his parents. He had dropped out of school after seventh grade. And even though he was a young dropout, he actually got jobs at local horse farms and began building a name for himself.
01:16:54
Speaker
I cannot believe that people were able to drop out of school in seventh grade. Mm hmm. But he did. And he was actually, you know, he doing pretty good. Yeah, he was doing a good job on these horse farms with training horses and things. Well, he got married and he had a child and then he served in Korea in the Marines in 1952 to 53. And that experience in Korea
01:17:24
Speaker
was extremely traumatic for him. At one point, he and his fellow Marines were actually trapped behind enemy lines. So I mean, it was a very traumatic experience. And when he came back, he actually turned to alcohol to dull the pain. His marriage fell apart, and so did his work.
01:17:52
Speaker
because he couldn't keep a job because of his drinking problem. In 1962, Arnold was actually linked to sending paying patrons. So he's looking for money for alcohol and an illegal prostitution ring in Lexington had approached him and said, hey, send us people for this prostitution ring
01:18:20
Speaker
and we'll give you some of the money. So he was like, send us the prostitutes or send us the people looking for their service. I think I got the impression that it was the people looking for the services and that he would then get a cut and law enforcement found out about the prostitution ring and about Arnold's involvement, which is why he served a year in Kentucky state prison. I mean, which is bad, but it's not,
01:18:48
Speaker
Violent. Right. Which I guess he probably had PTSD, so maybe that could play into how he would commit a violent crime. Yeah, and I don't know what his time was like in Korea. I just know that it was traumatic for him.
01:19:09
Speaker
So after he served his time in Kentucky State Prison and was released, he immediately turned to alcohol again. Because, of course, he's not drinking alcohol while he's in prison. Right. As soon as he gets out, he turns back to it. And that was when he began his trek across the country, because he felt like he didn't have anything left in Lexington. Because he doesn't have a relationship with his parents. His marriage is over. He's divorced.
01:19:39
Speaker
What Eblin and Lawson noticed was that what had landed Arnold Jr. in trouble with the law in the past, like you said, Maggie, it wasn't aggressive violent actions. Plus, they realized that at the time of Arnold's confession, he was hallucinating from his alcohol withdrawal.
01:20:04
Speaker
This recognition made them realize that even though he was asked by officers at the time if he wanted a lawyer, was he really in the right mind to understand what he needed or didn't need because he was hallucinating things? You know, so the cops are like, we asked him if he wanted a lawyer and he said no.
01:20:30
Speaker
But does he really know what's going on when he thinks there's a mind reading machine outside of his cell? Right, and he's talking to the toilet paper holder. Right. The other issue Evelyn and Lawson soon discovered was that the confession was actually written by one of the detectives on the case and not Arnold himself.
01:20:51
Speaker
So he just kind of dictated it and then the detective wrote it down. And even though the integrity of the detective who wrote it is not, nor has ever been in question, like people respect this detective who wrote it down, there are still nuances of word choice. Yeah. And those little nuances can have lasting effects.
01:21:20
Speaker
For example, the comment that Arnold Jr. made that he was 99% sure that he had killed Betty Gail was not included in the confession. Right, because there's 1% chance he didn't, which leaves a reasonable doubt. And even the details of what was included in the confession actually gave them pause.
01:21:47
Speaker
So he had said over and over and over that he was highly intoxicated when the murder supposedly happened. And yet he had had the wherewithal to think to wipe his prints off of a surface and do a good job at it.
01:22:07
Speaker
Right. I think his story is very detailed, but there's a lot of it that just doesn't add up really. If you're that intoxicated, you're telling me you're going to wipe every single fingerprint off, except for the three that were there. And you're going to be able to successfully button up a blouse drunk. Most of the time they can't even unbutton their own pants. How are they going to button up someone else's blouse? Yeah.
01:22:35
Speaker
And the final and the biggest problem was that all the details Arnold provided in the confession that were accurate were once revealed in newspaper articles and accounts. But there were also some details like throwing the bra down after he had killed her.
01:22:56
Speaker
rather than it still being around Betty Gail's neck, were inconsistent with the crime because a bra was still found laying across her neck and he says he threw it down. Literally the only added detail to what the newspaper had already told to everyone was that Betty Gail had been making out with a woman.
01:23:20
Speaker
But if that were the case, the girl who supposedly jumped out of the vehicle had never come forward to report the attack, just like you said. She didn't have to say what was going on, if that were taboo at the time. She could have just said, this guy jumped in the car and started attacking my friend. And you're telling me that she had left nothing behind? You're telling me that she had left nothing behind?
01:23:51
Speaker
No hair? A fingerprint. And he not only would have had to wipe down the inside of the car, he would have had to wipe down the outside of the car. Not just the window that he pushed up, but the door handles as well. Exactly. And how would he have wiped his fingerprint off the lock? I guess he could have wiped it off before he closed it. Never mind Maggie.
01:24:16
Speaker
Plus, he's saying that this girl was sitting in the front seat, and all of the study materials, and you can clearly see them on the pictures, were taking up nearly the whole passenger seat and they looked normal.
01:24:33
Speaker
So again, they would be all over the place if this other girl had him in her lap, or if they were making love like he said they were, I would think that the study materials would either be messed up or they would be moved somewhere and they weren't. So this supposed woman didn't even lose anything, didn't leave a fingerprint, like you said. And he's saying that they were making out
01:25:03
Speaker
but they picked a public place on campus to sit and make out, right? Like if this is something scandalous at the time, you would think that they would drive to, I don't know, a remote street or a park. Maybe they thought because it was so late.
01:25:23
Speaker
I don't know. I know. Or maybe it never happened, which is kind of what I think. Yeah. So his lawyers began to wonder that exact thing. Like, could this have been Arnold's mind taking the details of the waitress, seeing that Betty and the company of another woman and taking that along with all the details from the newspaper articles and he's just putting it all together as part of his hallucinations?
01:25:50
Speaker
Arnold admitted to his lawyers that he had signed the confession without reading it. So he says that night that he just stated, you know, his story, that the detective had written it down and that they had said, you know, read this to make sure everything is correct and that he hadn't read it. He had just signed it because he wanted to get the night over with.
01:26:18
Speaker
I mean, which we've talked about happens sometimes. You just confess the stuff so you can get out. Right. And now sitting with his lawyers, he told them certain details like that were not in this confession. Like he said that when he was in the backseat, he stepped on a large thermos on the floor behind the driver's seat.
01:26:42
Speaker
So he's still saying that he did this, but he's adding these other details. So he says there was this large thermos in the floor behind the driver's seat. And then he said that when he locked all the doors, he had pushed down the locks, locking all four doors. But remember how many doors were locked? Just the three. Just the three, yeah. But he's telling his lawyers that he locked all four doors, that he pushed down the locks on all four doors.
01:27:12
Speaker
And these details either were not in the confession, right, or were different from what was in the written confession. So in the preliminary hearing for the case, knowing what their client had said about what he did with the bra, you know, like tossing it down instead of it being around her neck and all of that, Evelyn and Lawson continually had the officers, when they were talking to them during this preliminary hearing,
01:27:42
Speaker
had the officers note that Betty Gales' bra was found shoulder to shoulder across Betty's neck. So they're like, where was her bra found? So the officers would continue to repeat that it was found across her neck, knowing that their client said that he dropped it. And they kept asking these police. So there was no indication of anyone else having been in the car with her.
01:28:08
Speaker
and the officers were saying no. So they're like, there was no indication that somebody else had been in the front seat with her. No. Because they know that obviously their client's story is different. Yeah. In the days leading to the trial, there were more interesting developments.
01:28:28
Speaker
Lawson heard from a fellow lawyer friend that the parents, Betty Gail's parents, had actually contacted this other lawyer to say that they didn't believe that Arnold was the killer.
01:28:42
Speaker
So even her parents don't think it's this guy. Then there's Mae Hedges, the woman who Arnold said he went to go see after the murder, had a drink with and had confessed to the crime right before crashing on her couch. Did we find her? We did. Captain Cravens of the Lexington Police Department said that he located her and she had moved to Florida and that when he went to see her, she was extremely ill and in the care of her sister.
01:29:10
Speaker
He said that she had been willing to talk, but Craven said at the preliminary hearing that he had not taken a statement from her. Well, then Eblin and Lawson, yeah, they're saying, why? Why would he go all the way down there and then not get what he came for? Eblin and Lawson, they actually set out to find out why he didn't take it. Eblin located Hedges and spoke with her.
01:29:36
Speaker
She said that she knew Arnold, but that she knew him under an alias name. She said that they were familiar with one another, but not friends. She said that he had never said anything to her about killing a woman and that he had never stayed the night.
01:29:59
Speaker
That's why I'm thinking he didn't know reality from his dreams and kind of meshed some stuff. It could be. And then she said something else interesting. That when Detective Cravens had asked her these exact same questions, she had told him and the person who had come with him the exact same thing. Hmm.
01:30:24
Speaker
that she didn't really know him. She knew him under another name. He never told her that he had killed anybody and he had never stayed the night at her place. So then if that's true, his confession is like done. Yeah, we know parts of it are false, at least. Before the trial, Hedges actually moved back to Lexington to stay with a relative here. And because of her bad health, the judge agreed for the lawyers to take a deposition from her.
01:30:54
Speaker
like at her home. So Eblin and the prosecutor, Dawn Maloney went to see her. She reiterated that Arnold, whom she knew as Donald, would often come over to her table when they were both at the black cup bar and that he would bum drinks off of her. Or he might pop in at her house just to get a free drink.
01:31:17
Speaker
And there was once when she had let him come into sleep off his drunkenness, but he had never stayed the night. And she said that while he had told her about killing both men and women while in Korea, that he had never mentioned a recent murder.
01:31:38
Speaker
Yeah, again, I think what I'm saying is true. I think he's just confused. Evelyn and Lawson decided that they needed to explore other parts of Arnold's testimony, right? Because obviously, if that part's false, right, what else can we prove false? What else is, yeah. So they start out to try to prove the details of how the murder happened. So Lawson actually located the car, which had been given back to the parents and then sold to an acquaintance.
01:32:07
Speaker
And in doing so, they located further holes in Arnold's quote unquote confession. For example, Arnold had said that the left front window was half open and that he had grabbed the glass and forced it closed. Remember that detail?
01:32:24
Speaker
So Lawson, his lawyer and the new car owner, they both try to do the same. They have the window partially down. They try to just push it up and neither one of them are able to do it. Then remember how Arnold said that he had pushed the locks down to lock all the doors? The car didn't have push locks. It had locks within the handle instead.
01:32:52
Speaker
So he's saying, I pushed the buttons to lock all of the doors. Well, he couldn't have because the car didn't have that kind of locks. With further probing of their client, his lawyers also found that when Arnold had to go to prison for the prostitution scheme,
01:33:11
Speaker
that before he was sent to prison, he had shared a cell with a man who told him that he had been given a polygraph about Betty Gail's murder and that he knew all about it.
01:33:26
Speaker
Arnold told his lawyer Lawson, quote, he told me all about it. And I just listened, end quote.
Inconsistencies in Arnold's Story
01:33:34
Speaker
So I wonder if in his delusional state, he just assumed the identity of this man in a way. Potentially. And I don't even know who this man was. I didn't read that name anywhere. And they should know that, correct? There should be records of who was in the cell with him, I would think.
01:33:55
Speaker
Then there's the only added detail to Arnold's story that wasn't in the paper, the presence of another woman and what he said they were doing. Here was Betty Gale, Sunday school teacher, saving herself for marriage. And Arnold had said she not only cursed at him, but was interested in other women. So obviously at the time, this would have been shocking.
01:34:22
Speaker
His lawyers knew that they would call her preacher, her boyfriends, and her sorority sisters who would testify otherwise. Plus her own diary only ever mentioned young men whom she had gone out with. But the biggest aid in the defense's case actually came a few weeks before the trial when Arnold's aunt came into the law office with a shocking story.
01:34:52
Speaker
Even though Arnold had been in jail for eight months already, awaiting the trial, and obviously the lawyers are thinking, why didn't this aunt come in before? She said that she had told Arnold's mom her story of what happened the night of the murder, thinking that his mom would take the necessary steps with it.
01:35:19
Speaker
So she says, I have a story, an alibi for Arnold. And they're like, why are you coming up to tell us this alibi just weeks before the trial when he's been in jail for eight months? And she said, well, I told his mom. And I figured his mom would help clear his name. But remember, he doesn't have a good relationship with his parents.
01:35:43
Speaker
I don't think they do anything to help him. Right. Well, anytime his mom would try to visit him, he denied seeing her. And when he finally agreed to see her, she told him what his aunt said. And he said he didn't remember the night in question. Like he didn't remember the details like his aunt did. And so he never told his lawyers.
01:36:07
Speaker
And it was when the aunt heard that he didn't remember what she said happened happening, that she came herself to his lawyers to tell them. So she said to his lawyers, he could not have committed the crime because he was staying at her house that night. And here's how she remembers, because we talk about memory a lot, right?
01:36:36
Speaker
You know, there has to be something significant happening or else you're not going to remember. It could have been, you know, any night. She remembers because her husband, who was also an alcoholic, had been at the black cup that same night along with her nephew, Arnold. Her husband had been kicked out and her nephew had brought him home. Now, again, if they're both alcoholics, obviously this could have happened on any night. There's nothing really
01:37:06
Speaker
out of the ordinary that would stand out, right? But she says her nephew brought him home and her nephew was about to head back out around midnight, but she stopped him.
01:37:18
Speaker
And instead she asked him if he would stay because her husband was sick and he needed somebody to stay with him. And the next morning she was supposed to take her children to get the polio vaccine. And she knew the date when this happened because the morning of the vaccine was her son's birthday, October 27th. She also remembers because her husband was so sick
01:37:48
Speaker
that night on the 26th, that three days later she admitted him into the VA hospital. And inoculation records from the vaccines and VA hospital records proved this aunt's testimony true.
01:38:08
Speaker
So she said, I know when this happened. So he essentially had an alibi. Yeah, and I know that he stayed the night. So finally, when Arnold was told the story, he said to his aunt, I remember doing all those things, but I couldn't remember when I had done it. So he remember doing it, but he didn't remember the day.
01:38:31
Speaker
So now Arnold himself is doubting his own memory. And he starts telling his lawyers at this point that he's now not sure if he killed Betty Gale. So first he was 99% sure. And now he's saying, maybe I didn't. Right? Because I remember doing this at my aunt's house. I just don't remember when. For the trial.
01:38:58
Speaker
Arnold's lawyers got their hands on the handwritten notes from the Lexington officers when they had taken the confession in Oregon. Eblin and Lawson asked them when they were on the stand why the 99% comment wasn't included. And they pointed out, you know, there's a difference between that 99% comment and an I killed her comment.
01:39:26
Speaker
Yeah, there's some doubt in there. Exactly. They asked about the thermos that Arnold had told them about that was not in the confession, but it was mentioned in their notes. So you know how he told his lawyers there was this thermos in the back floorboard. They had written it down in their notes, but it was not in the confession. So they're saying,
01:39:51
Speaker
was it not written in the confession because there wasn't a thermos that was found in Betty Gail's car, so it doesn't fit, and therefore it was left out of the confession? Right? The police knew there's no thermos, so is that why they left it out? Yeah, did they purposely do that? Yeah. Their own discussions with Arnold and the written notes from the detectives
01:40:19
Speaker
also stated that Arnold, quote, pushed the button on the door down, end quote, to lock the doors. Which we know he can't. Right. But the confession just said he locked doors. Again, like you said, it's not maybe not intentional, you know, that the wording like that changed, but
01:40:47
Speaker
It's significant. Because if the confession had said pushed the buttons down to lock the doors, and then we see that there are not push button doors, then obviously the confession is false. But if the confession just says he locked the doors. He could do that anyway. Exactly. The way it needed, yeah. So they were questioning the officers, was this change? Because again, it didn't fit.
01:41:14
Speaker
The officer notes also said, quote, left car entirely locked up. That's what their notes said. But the confession said Arnold locked three doors, but left the front passenger door unlocked. So again, the confession and the notes don't match. Right. And we know at the crime scene, three of the doors were locked.
01:41:43
Speaker
The notes
Trial and Legal Challenges
01:41:45
Speaker
say left car entirely locked up. So once the defense rested in a redirect, the prosecution pointed out with the officer that Arnold had a chance to read, verify, and change this confession before signing it, but he didn't.
01:42:07
Speaker
Yeah, he was also mentally unstable and going through withdrawals. So I mean, true. It was now the defense's turn and they took a chance and put Arnold on the stand. He talked all about his life. They asked if he told anyone other than May hedges about the murder. He hadn't until he told the officers in Oregon.
01:42:35
Speaker
He said he had heard about the murder from a waitress at the Black Cup who read the newspaper articles to him and he listened. And he said, they said, why didn't you admit to doing it then when you're hearing all these newspaper articles? And he says, well, I didn't think I did it then.
01:42:55
Speaker
And then they asked him how he knew so many details about the murder. And he mentioned the man that he was in the cell with who was questioned and knew everything possible about the murder. Right? And they said, well, why didn't you admit to killing her then? And he says, well, even at that point, I didn't think I had anything to do with the killing. So all this, like right after it happens, he said, well, I didn't think I did it then. Well, I didn't think I killed it then.
01:43:24
Speaker
He doesn't think he killed her until he gets to Oregon. Yes. And is withdrawing from alcohol. Yes. He said it was not until he was in prison in Oregon that he started to think he might have done it because he started dreaming about it. See, that's what I'm saying. But the defense, they seem, you know, they seem to have shown in their questioning of Arnold that he was just a confused man.
01:43:55
Speaker
But then came the examination by the prosecution, who started asking him questions and got Arnold to again, on the stand, admit to committing the killing.
01:44:12
Speaker
The prosecution to close brought up that May Hedges, even though she hadn't come forward after all of this, and now she's saying that he never stayed the night, he never told her about killing anyone, they said, well, maybe she's lying to cover up the fact that she had kept silent about a murder for years. They also argued that Arnold's aunt could have lied because why else had she waited so long with him sitting in jail?
01:44:42
Speaker
They argued that Arnold could have changed the confession, but he didn't. And they reminded the jury that right after saying he wasn't sure if he killed Betty, Betty gale, when cross examined, he stated that he had the jury deliberated for six hours. It was a hung jury.
01:45:08
Speaker
with no movement after every vote that they had taken, five of the 12 voted for conviction and the other seven for an acquittal. They were deadlocked. So Judge Bradley declared a mistrial and actually marked the calendar for a couple of months out for January 1966 for a retrial and Arnold was sent back to jail.
01:45:38
Speaker
And that's that, Maggie. There was no closure in Betty Gail Brown's case that feels satisfactory. The retrial never happened because, yeah, they just kept thinking, you know, we need more evidence. We need more evidence. And I'm left just like Lawson was. He stated in his book, quote,
01:46:07
Speaker
I still don't know whether he killed her or didn't kill her, but I certainly have a lot of doubt about it." And so do I, because in the end, the judge agreed to reduce bond because the whole purpose of a bond is to ensure that the defendant comes to court. And with that reduction, Arnold's mother was able to post bail.
01:46:32
Speaker
and Arnold was released on October 17, 1965. But the time for retrial, like I said, came and went without another trial. Then a second set date came.
01:46:46
Speaker
and went, the prosecutor Maloney realized that he needed more evidence than a confession in order to get a conviction in a retrial. And since no other tangible evidence surfaced, no retrial ever occurred. And Arnold died at the age of 49 in 1980 of liver disease. As Lawson states, likely quote,
01:47:15
Speaker
still wondering if he was the person who had killed Betty Gail Brown." And by the way, all of the evidence in this case has since been discarded.
01:47:33
Speaker
Okay. Well, that was going to be my next question. Like they have hair from her. Had. So did they test or yeah, but did they test that? And then obviously not because there's no evidence. Okay. Right. From what I've read, I don't know if they still have record of any of it somewhere, like it written records. But they wouldn't be able to test. So what do you think Maggie? Do you think that Arnold was responsible?
01:48:05
Speaker
I don't know. I am also left kind of like Lawson. I don't know 100% for sure. But I think like 60% of me says no, he wasn't. And like 40% of me said that he potentially was. But I still think there may be more with that man that looked like a woman because, you know, then there was the woman driving the car.
01:48:34
Speaker
And like a couple other things that just kind of made connections there. And I'm wondering if there was more to do with that person. I just wish that
Unanswered Questions and Case Conclusion
01:48:44
Speaker
more people would come forward because Betty Gales peers are how old now, like.
01:48:54
Speaker
Well, I mean, yeah, she was 19 in 1961. Yeah. So, you know, Tom is not our friend here. Right. And, you know, I was reading, I was doing some research about Morrison Hall.
01:49:10
Speaker
where she was in front of. And one article that I read, and I didn't see this in Lawson's book, I didn't see it in any of my research. So I don't know when, but I read, it mentioned that they were doing renovation work in 1961. So I'm thinking, could there have been workers who had seen or something? I don't know. But there's another theory to throw out.
01:49:39
Speaker
With so many years that have passed, we are nearing the end of our ability to find answers. If you're from the Kentucky area or have family who attended Transylvania University, especially parents and grandparents, ask them if they know or remember anything from that night that might lead to the discovery of another clue, as small as the detail may seem to them. Lawson ended his book with the questions that still remain in this case, and there are many.
01:50:08
Speaker
As the leading expert on the case of Betty Gail Brown, I'd like to end with his words. Quote, if Alex Arnold did not murder Betty Gail Brown, then who did? Was she killed by a man or was she killed by a woman? Was she murdered by someone she knew or was she murdered by a stranger? Was she murdered by someone who had connections to Transylvania College, like a student or former student?
01:50:34
Speaker
Where did she go after leaving campus near midnight? Why did she return? Was she killed on campus or somewhere else and brought back to campus? Was she engaged in some kind of sexual activity on the night she was killed, willingly or unwillingly?
01:50:52
Speaker
Were the straps on her brassiere broken during the course of her strangulation? Or were they broken when the brassiere was yanked off her body? I have asked myself those questions over and over for more than 50 years, never getting any closer to answering them than did the more competent investigators who spent years investigating the case. And needless to say,
01:51:14
Speaker
Never did I get any closer than the investigators to answering the most crucial of all questions related to the killing. Why would anyone want to kill Betty Gail Brown? No one, no relative,
Closing Remarks and Listener Engagement
01:51:28
Speaker
no friend, no acquaintance, no investigator, no lawyer, and no witness has ever provided anything resembling evidence of a motive for the killing of this young woman." End quote.
01:51:41
Speaker
Anyone with information is asked to contact Bluegrass Crime Stoppers at 859-253-2020 or 1-877-970-2020.
01:51:57
Speaker
If you are interested in reading all the details about the case and viewing maps, et cetera, please check out Robert Lawson's book, Who Killed Betty Gail Brown? Murder, Mistrial, and Mystery, available on Amazon or Barnes & Noble.
01:52:13
Speaker
Again, please like and join our Facebook page, Coffee and Cases podcast to continue the conversation and see images related to this episode. As always, follow us on Twitter, at casescoffee, on Instagram, at coffee cases podcast, or you can always email us suggestions to coffeeandcasespodcastatgmail.com. Please tell your friends about our podcast so more people can be reached to possibly help bring some closure to these families. Don't forget to rate our show and leave us a comment as well. We hope to hear from you soon.
01:52:42
Speaker
Stay together. Stay safe. We'll see you next week.
01:53:06
Speaker
It's love notes from Maggie and Allison. I giggle every time. A huge note of love is going out to Terry, Amanda, Mary, Miranda. Very unique spelling. I like it. Jerry, Leah, Antonia, which I think
01:53:26
Speaker
maybe my friend that I call Tony, not 100% sure. Sandy, Whitney, Amber, Charmaine, Monica, Brooke, Julia, Alexis, Nicole, and Ilandia99 for either reaching out to us on social media this past week or recommending us to others. This means the world to us. Oh, and I think that Alexis is my friend. You've just got lots of friends.
01:53:53
Speaker
I know. I think if it's the same two girls, I coached them in dance and then worked with them at a studio. It could be. It could be random people.
01:54:04
Speaker
who are now part of our fam. Yeah. Yeah. And we love you. Yes, we do. And we have a ton of love. Also going out to Anna Noel Photography, who actually creates beautiful photos, by the way, because I looked at her Facebook page. So if you are in or around the Vegas area and looking for a photographer, look her up, who reminded her peeps on Instagram that if you have three names, you are more than likely a serial killer.
01:54:31
Speaker
And she tagged us in it, which is so true. We haven't talked about it in a while, but it is true. And Major Love is also going out to Addison, who has just joined the CNC fam over on Patreon. If you haven't yet checked out our Patreon, we would love to have you join us there as well for bonus content.
01:54:53
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of some crazy solved cases, some paranormal stories, personal stories to get to know Maggie and me, and some just fun shenanigans. So if you'd like to check it out for as little as $5 a month, $5, go join us by going to patreon.com forward slash coffee and cases, all one word.