Boys on the Tracks /// Part 1 /// 93 | Forensic Files

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Facebook @ truecrimegarage all right that's enough of the business everybody gather around grab a chair grab a beer
let's talk some true cry [Music] [Music] this is true crime garage and this is the case of the boys
on the tracks [Music] [Music] [Music] by all accounts the engineer did a masterful job of bringing his train to a
stop it had taken a screaming screeching half mile by the time the engine had shuttered to a standstill conductor
Jerry Tomlin was on the radio notifying an approaching train on a parallel track
to stop because some boys had been run over he had also called the dispatcher have you got injury
the dispatcher [Music] asked no Tomlin said we've got death I'm sure we've got death they passed under us it has to be
death it has it has to be [Music] death has to [Music] be [Music] 4:00 a.m. August 23rd
1987 this is a Sunday in Arkansas there's a train traveling north from Texarcana this train is about a mile
long pulling mostly Freight but some empty cars as well the Train's headlight is set to the bright position the crew
would later say that it was particularly dark that night the trains engineer this
is Steven shyer and the conductor Jerry Tomlin notice a dark spot on the tracks now any debris on the tracks of course
is a big concern they can see a flash of light from this dark spot the Train's headlights beam it must have hit
something metal or something that reflected the light back to them when the train was approximately 100 ft away
from the dark spot engineer Shyer yelled out oh my God and he hit the whistle in
the emergency break at the same time this is because they could tell that there were two young men laying on the
tracks between the rails they could also tell that there was a gun lying next to
them they could tell that there was something covering the boys from their waist to their knees both boys were
between the rails with their heads up against the West Rail and their feet over the East rail both were right
beside each other and their arms and hands were at their sides their heads facing straight up and and they didn't
move at all the train was traveling approximately 55 M an hour this would only give the crew just seconds to
respond before running over the boys as we had said they hit the emergency break
but with the weight and the speed of the train this is going to take some time to
bring this metal monster to a stop mhm as they are breaking the steel wheels are they're screaming on the steel
tracks the train cars vibrate the tracks begin to vibrate as well the whistle is
blowing and still the boys do not jerk they do not flinch they do not move a muscle now Sher couldn't tell what the
object was that was covering the boys but the other two men on the train Tomlin and this other guy his last name
is Delamar both said that this item that was covering the boys from waist to knee
was a tarp a a pale green tarp I believe one of the men actually said that it looked like a boat cover um and they
stated that the gun was clearly a rifle the barrel was near one of the boys' head and the stock was mostly underneath
the tarp the men watched as the bodies disappeared under the Train the men heard the train hit the boys one of the
men explained that what he was used to on occasion the train would hit a dog and he said that you would hear like a
thud and then you would hear rocks flying because if it was something that was under the train then the train was
scooting the object along with the boys and with the gun men felt the impact and
they said it was very one two three you could you could feel the hit of the first boy second boy and then the gun
it's hard to imagine what's going through these guys heads as they're hitting the bodies yeah it's I mean it's
complete nightmare when the train hits an object uh one of two things usually happen so there is a scoop on the front
of this train that the men called a cow catcher I believe this is a commonly used term so either the cow catcher will
hit the item and toss the object violently aside or it gets sucked up under the train right and this is what
happened here and the two boys's legs were laying on the track so what happened was the feet were actually
severed by the train yes severed from the legs and the heads and the torsos were between the tracks so the train
would have cleared the bodies and then rolled them under the train uh this is what the three men on board had heard so
armed with FL flashlights the men get off of the train and they went looking for what they had hit about 35 cars back
they located the first of many pieces that they would find right train cars yeah they they spotted some dismembered
toes the biggest body part that they found was the chest and head of the second boy the first boy was he was much
more chopped up the police had started to arrive on the scene um and they B basically found parts of the gun and the
bodies scattered along a quarter mile of the tracks mhm one thing the crew members noticed very quickly was that
there was a lot less blood than any of them had expected to see and the blood that they did see and find it was dark
it wasn't it wasn't red it was a purplish color and like you said they have experience with you know hitting
the Train the train hitting a dog or a cow or a deer or something of that nature yeah and and in this area of the
country too these are guys that were familiar with hunting um so they they knew kind of what to expect
unfortunately in this situation that's why they were so freaked out was they knew what they were expecting to see and
they were terrified going back there looking for that well yeah cuz it's on a whole different level I mean it's one
thing to hit a deer but to hit two teenage boys mhm the police were there at 4:48 a. this is just about 13 minutes
after the crew had reported the incident mhm this fell to the jurisdiction of the
saing County Sheriff's Office on the scene we have Deputy Chuck talent and Lieutenant Ray Richmond who was the head
of the Department's criminal investigation division after checking out the scene the officers decided that
they were investigating either an accident or a suicide MH the crew working the train immediately disagreed
with the officers they knew that of course accidents certainly do happen around trains and suicides do as well
but the troubling thing here is that the men saw neither boy move at all right if
if it were a suicide they said they might be able to be talked into agreeing that one person could Brave through the
terrifying situation of the train approaching them but none of the men would agree that two people could lay
there and not flinch or not move a muscle as the train got closer and closer right which I I think I agree
with them on uh I just think that's a really hard thing to even speculate mhm also at the scene was state trooper
Wayne lanhart of the Arkansas State Police now lanart was concerned by what he saw at the scene but let's keep in
mind he this is not his jurisdiction right uh this is the jurisdiction of the sheriff's office so he is at their mercy
so I'm assuming that it was a the call was made and he was just in close proximity so he then showed up to see if
they need any assistance yeah everybody was responding to this call so this is not his case he is pretty much just a
spectator at this point but the thing that bothered him the most was the sheriff depuy's disinterest in the
possibility of a murder according to layard's training any unnatural death should be investigated first as a
possible homicide so evidence can be preserved and the most serious possibilities eliminated before less
serious ones are considered laner after having talked with the crew members told
the deputies that he doubted the deaths were an accident right another cause for
concern was the observations made by the emergency medical technicians arriving on the scene right the EMTs yeah they
both said that the bodies looked more like mannequins because there was so little blood and at the impact site the
blood that they found was really dark in color more a purple than a red mhm they
didn't see any bright blood and this led them to believe that the blood that they
were seeing was not fresh who were the two boys on the tracks that night and why were they there m the boys were
17-year-old Kevin IES and 16-year-old Don Henry and I know it's 1987 and there wasn't a lot of law
enforcement didn't crack down on curfew as often but what is a 16 and 17year old
boy doing out by these train tracks I mean it's Saturday they they're hanging out Saturday and then this happens at
400 a.m. on Sunday yeah so it was the weekend yeah well this is a rural area um so uh you don't see curfews really
enforced a whole lot out in these parts um but basically the boys were staying the night at Don Henry's home M uh and
they they got there around 12:15 a.m. uh don lives with his parents Curtis and his stepmother Marvel Henry now the two
were supposed to be staying the night at Don's house they had known each other about 6 months uh they had become quick
friends hanging out together very often uh this was the summertime nearing the start of another school year so they
were you know the two of them were trying to make the most of their summer what what they had left right uh Kevin
had stayed at Dawn's Place once or twice before but Kevin's mother Linda was not
real excited about Kevin staying there that night uh in fact she had originally said no to the request because last time
he had stayed there she didn't approve of what went down on that occasion Don's father had called Linda the morning
after and asked if the boys were at her house right and she says she says no you
know they they were supposed to be at at your place I don't I don't know what happened here right so they did a switch
a rule well what what it turns out that what happened was that uh at some point Dawn had gotten an argument with his
father Curtis MH uh and then then after the argument the two boys went and decided to stay at another friend's
house that night um so Curtis maybe thought that they went back to Kevin's and it turns out that that was not not
the case well it's very embarrassing when you have a friend over and you get an argument with your parents mhm that's
always like you're like oh I'm really sorry that my mom's being a big old bee right now well I'm sure Kevin's parents
would have wished that they would have returned to to their place rather than just going to this yeah this unscripted
place that they ended up um so of course Linda was reluctant to let Kevin go over
there on this occasion but you know how it goes teenagers talk their parents into things uh so on that night the two
had been hanging out with some friends uh they were told to be home by midnight or 12:30 at the latest so once they were
back at Don's place they had asked Don's father Curtis if they could go out hunting uh this is spotlighting which is
an illegal form of hunting plus I wouldn't think that anything would be in season at that time of year now Don was
an avid Hunter so he was you know this activity sounds a bit strange to me uh but I get the impression that this could
have been a common thing here for him uh plus it doesn't sound to me as if Don's
parents or at least Don's father Curtis was the strictest of parents right well and some people remember what their
childhood was like when when it's summertime and they think you know some parents get a little more loose in in
the summertime and I I think that's okay well I used to be a you know have to be
in by a certain time but in the summertime a lot of times my parents would let me pitch a tent in the
backyard you know and have somebody stay over so really I wasn't totally under their watchful eye um but spotlighting
is where you go out with flashlights and a gun and when you come across some unfortunate animal and I don't know what
they were hunting for uh or maybe if they were just looking for any type of creature out there um but basically you
you shine your flashlight on the animal and the light beam will pretty much lock
up the animal like the old saying freeze up like a deer and the headlights well this makes the animal a very easy target
so they ask Curtis if they can go out spotlighting and he says yes and that is the last time that the boys are known to
be seen alive yeah last time that they're known to be seen Alive by any parents or close family members this
story which has not been covered often has so many twists and turns and I dare say maybe one of the most interesting
cases Most Fascinating cases with as many twist that you will ever hear in a case yeah it it it's crazy it starts off
as a small town case and it could be I mean it could be huge well it starts out as a as a small town case that people
think it's an accident or suicide MH the next morning Curtis the father he gets up around 5: a.m. and he wakes up his
wife Marvel saying that that Dawn should have been home by now but wasn't and he
tells her that he really thinks that something is wrong here Curtis goes out looking for the boys he knew where the
boys were going to go hunt uh so he headed to the woods near the train tracks he's out driving around looking
for Dawn and Kevin and while he's out there he passes a uh deputy and he slows down and he stops and he asks the deputy
if they had seen two teenagers out there running around the deputy asked who the
man was looking for and Curtis knowing that the boys were out hunting illegally he decided that he didn't want to name
any names right you know um so Curtis is going to continue on looking for the boys the
officer also didn't say that they had found two boys on the train tracks when when Curtis had stopped to talk to him
right after driving around for a few hours Curtis went home and he called Linda and he asked her if the boys were
at her place and of course now she's thinking oh no not again this happened last time and why the hell can't this
other parent keep the kids at his house right uh she asked if there was an argument uh he says no there was nothing
like that that the boys had simply went out hunting and they must have stayed out all night uh he told Linda not to
worry because Dawn had hunted often uh he was very responsible with a firearm and he knew the woods better than anyone
mhm Linda was beginning to get quite worried about Kevin though well and like we said we're 16 and 17y old and you
have your little stomping grounds so it seems like Don one of DA's stomping grounds was these woods and you know and
and back when I was uh probably you know elementary school and middle school there was Woods by my house and if you
took it you know if a parent came back looking for a kid they couldn't find their way around right but but the kids
knew how to get through every inch of that woods around noon the phone rang again and it was ctis uh Linda could
tell by his voice that this call was much different than the last call he says get over here quick they've been
shot and tied to the railroad tracks and they've been run over by the train now this might sound a little weird here but
Linda of course she she's in shock by what she has just heard yeah obviously but she she says that she was actually
somewhat relieved when she had a chance to kind of process what Curtis had said uh Linda was worried that the boys could
have been in a car wreck you know they were both young drivers at this time they both owned fast cars Don had a
firebird and Kevin had a Camaro right uh 1987 but yeah but she said what Curtis had told her sounded so absurd that it
couldn't have possibly happened that it couldn't be the truth right right so Linda drives over to Curtis Curtis
Henry's home when she pulled up to the place she sees Kevin's car at the end of the driveway and this makes her feel
very good uh she's immediately thinking that Kevin had returned to the Henry's and nobody
was in a car wreck and you know all is good again right maybe maybe something happened and maybe they were on these
tracks but they're okay now mhm well that feeling quickly left her as she's getting out of the car a deputy this is
Deputy Talent came out from the house and he asked her to come inside so we go here from from a lot of relief to very
worried Curtis right in front of the officer tells Linda that a neighbor had told him that the boys had been shot
they had been tied to the tracks and they've been run over by the train now the police officer he states that the
boys yes there there had been two boys that had been run over by a train now these boys had not been positively
identified yet and they were going to be checking dental records at the crime lab
to figure out who these boys were right but you have no whereabouts of your two of these two teenage boys mhm that you
know that they went out at night you know what area they went at yeah you know they went in the woods down by the
train tracks right and you now and they didn't come home and their vehicles are at your house M so this is this is very
Troublesome well Deputy Talent he asked Linda for a description of what Kevin was wearing the last time that she had
seen him um she describes this and he does say that that fit with the items that they had found at the
tracks um what led the officers to Curtis Henry's door they had found a camouflag baseball cap with the with a
Little Rock electric logo on it this is the electric company in the area right now Curtis was a superintendent with
that company and da had had one of those hats right Don wanted to become an electrician uh just like his father
father after graduating from high school and that summer he had actually kind of
Taken Don under his wing a little bit and would bring him into work with him and you know kind of show him the ropes
a little bit to see if this was something he actually wanted to do after graduating high school so unfortunately
this is a this is a hat that he knew that Don would have been wearing that night right so the writing is pretty
much on the wall yeah and unfortunately the boys would soon later be positively identified as the the two boys who had
been run over by the train that night right that being Don Henry and Kevin Ives now there are still plenty of more
weird things about that night that we haven't even got to yet mhm uh the first strange thing here is remember that at
the beginning of the show we had said that the Train's conductor had called another train that was passing on a
parallel track and he called them telling them to stop because they had just run over some boys uh well one once
the officers had arrived and they began scoping out the scene the sheriff's told
the other train that it could then continue on well this is before collecting some of the remains or
looking for potential evidence of a crime here right you know nothing stirs up a crime scene area like a giant train
passing through right next the crew had said that they and this is all three of the crew members they all got the same
feeling that the Sheriff's Office the the officers that were on the scene they said that they didn't even believe that
any of them were looking for any clues as to what had happened first off they were obviously looking at this thing
like it was an accident or a double suicide and not only that but the officers were overheard being told hey
treat this as a traffic accident yeah and and I'm guessing that this might have been the extent of their expertise
you know they were probably all famili with traffic fatalities but not very familiar with you know potential double
double murder scene and probably not a scene as complicated as this one uh this next bit is is extremely strange in my
mind regarding the sheriff's that night uh it's like they were trying to pull the old Jedi mind trick on the train
crew after listening to each of the crew memb statements the deputy and the lieutenant told the crew members that
they had all been mistaken that there was no tarp covering the boys do or do not there is no trash yeah they they
they simply told the guys that they were confused by how dark it had been that night and that there was simply no tarp
um the next thing that the sheriff's did was confusing too as well because they also seem to doubt the men's statements
that there was a gun present with the boys right and we know from Curtis from Don's father that they were out there to
hunt M so makes a lot of sense that there would be a gun beside the boys right right and we and we know that but
but the officers at the scene they don't know any of that information yet but it's very strange here Captain why would
they when you take the the train crew statements MH uh and then you're going to go out and look at the scene and and
unfortunately have this terrible job of collecting things there why would you have any reason to doubt them without
walking the scene yet why why would you even say that there was no tarp why would you say that there's no gun um I
don't even know why you would even question that wouldn't you just take their statements and not even make any
observations of your own until you've walked the scene well and as you're walking the scene maybe they're just
having a hard time finding these items so therefore well I can't find it so maybe you are mistaken I mean I I don't
think all that stuff is NE you know nefarious I think some of it is just simply well maybe you know it was super
dark you have this bright light coming from your train mhm and maybe you didn't see exactly what you think you saw I I
can agree with that I can agree with that the train is traveling very fast it's very dark out that night these men
are trained though to spot things on the tracks um that is one thing that they do
you know right but what what a law enforcement should do is just take the statement and if the statement is a
little off that's okay that is the statement from that individual not a statement that you guys made in a joint
effort right right and and don't react to those statements until you have an opportunity to check out the scene and
collect evidence to you know cuz they're probably walking in there thinking this
was an accident or this was a suicide it's the only things that seem to make sense here um but it's it's weird that
they have this kind of preconceived notion before even really collecting evidence yeah but we see this time and
time again with law enforcement it's you create a narrative and then you make that evidence fit your narrative instead
of collecting the evidence and collecting the statements and letting that create your narrative yeah and
while they're walking the scene with the crew members uh they even State several
times you know where so where is this alleged gun where where is the so-called gun that you guys saw we have law
enforcement creating a narrative mhm now we need to do autopsy on this bodies to
actually figure out you know that's going to point us in a direction too and this is where the first twist in this
story takes place we'll get to that right after this quick beer [Music] break this show is sponsored by better
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to answer call us at 1888 [Music] Freedom all right we're back cheers mates yeah we have two boys that are
found dead on the train tracks and we do have autopsies that we need to get to but I real quickly I want to go through
a couple more things about that night before we get to those autopsies mhm uh we had talked about the gun you know
that the the officers refused to believe the crew statement that there was a gun
president present that they had seen one right and like we said before Curtis uh
Henry Don Henry's father said they went out hunting mhm and while there're searching the crime scene they start
referring to this gun as the alleged gun or the so-called gun it was not until the Sheriff's Office had actually
recovered pieces of a shattered 22 rifle with that they would believe that there
was even a gun present right so they did recover shattered pieces of a 22 rifle uh there there were no bullets in it at
the time there was no tarp found um I could see a tarp just getting ripped to shreds uh you know if it's covering the
boys well possibly but you also have the other train mhm that just they let go mhm and I could totally see a a tarp
being trapped into a a train somehow yeah it gets pulled along you're exactly right and and not only that they're not
even looking for a tarp they're refusing to believe that it it exists right right
so as they're collecting evidence they they they weren't looking for these things and these things were scattered
for about a quarter mile of track and there was also other items that were found left at the track as well mhm so
the boys were the train incident took place on a Sunday well Monday morning comes and the deaths are reported in the
news and in the papers M so people start going down to the tracks to check out the scene um one group that went down
there they found a I like to call those people Whiskers Whiskers cuz they're curious like a cat well these people uh
be careful what you wish for they went down to the track this one group and they found a severed foot in the gravel
uh that was missed by the sheriff's department right so you don't believe that there is a gun you don't believe
that there's a tarp you find evidence of the gun mhm and then you leave a foot behind yeah right I mean and like we
said some of the police officers that were at the scene at the time said look you have to assume that this is a
homicide scene M and you need to do your due diligence so therefore we can get some answers and this is direct evidence
to point that they said well this is a suicide or accident case shut mhm well in fact it became it became well-known
knowledge that the sheriff's investigators never even roped off the scene um and some other people recovered
parts of the gun from that scene that the Sheriff's Office had missed well congratulations when they returned
Dawn's clothing to the Henry's um his stepmother found a small bag of pot in his pocket uh so the officers had missed
this entirely and two days after the boys's death the sheriffs they they offer a statement saying hey we haven't
ruled out anything except for Foul Play We ruled that out mhm yeah in review of the investigation it was learned that
the Sheriff's Office spent about a week on the investigation this mostly consisted of interviews with friends and
classmates of the two boys uh most of these interviews contained the same two questions well heck most of these
interviews only consisted of two questions one how much drugs did the boys use and two were they suicidal
right and this is what makes me go Bonkers man yeah it's it's again like we said they are they have a theory and
then they're trying to create the narrative and we see this time and time again it's it's just it's utter Malarkey
yeah and usually even in an accidental death when they are an invest when they're investigating it they will
typically ask friends and relatives well do you know anybody that would have wanted to hurt this person or why and
you know and this is not even a question that is posed to most of these people right but you're asking people the same
question are they suicidal how much drugs did they use and then it creates the story amongst the people that well
that's must be what happened here right and then and then obviously think about the family why would you why would you
tell your parents why one why would you spend the night with anybody and then why would you decide to oh well let's
just go hunting and uh let's now let's just lay down on the tracks and again like you said you'd have to have I mean
you'd have to have the balls nerves of Steel Man to lay there on that track MH and let that happen yeah well this story
obviously very quickly became big-time news all across the state of Arkansas Not only was the story A parents worst
nightmare but it was a strange and horrible story all at the same time of course the rumor mill ran wild and there
were a lot of theories regarding the deaths being traded around dinner tables dinners at local bars and you know all
over the state of Arkansas one of the things that I find a little creepy about this and uh our longtime listeners would
know we we covered the Phantom killer also known as the Tex Arcana murders mhm and and having the train come from Tex
Arcana adds a little bit to the creep factor for me the Sheriff's Office officially seemed to be describing the
deaths as an apparent accident but would not give it that official title yet stating that the official cause of death
would have to come from the State medical examiner's office unfortunately when the deputies were speaking with the
families they suggested that suicide was a more likely explanation right again coming up with your own narrative well
and both sets of parents disagreed with this thought uh from the beginning uh that you know there was no evidence that
the boys were suicidal there was some evidence that the boys had been using drugs uh one 1.9 gram of marijuana was
found in the pocket of Kevin's jeans right and not always is there signs of somebody struggling with you know
Suicidal Thoughts here's another strange thing to this story though Captain uh that is often not reported Kevin's
father Larry IES he was an engineer for the railroad uh the route that the train
was on that passed over the boys that route just months before it was his route really um and it was just pure
coincidence that that route was no longer Larry's or he would have been driving the train that night right so he
would have he would have been engineering the train that basically you know uh ran over his own son mhm the
parents obviously were devastated by the tragedy but they were also disappointed
in the Sheriff's Office and how they handled this incident they were anxiously awaiting the medical
examiner's ruling on the cause of deaths uh and they wanted answers obviously a week after the funerals the medical
examiner had finished his report and a meeting with the parents was scheduled when the parents arrived they were first
met in the parking lot by officers from the Sheriff's Office there was also an officer from the Arkansas State Police
there as well this was really good news to the parents as they had been requesting multiple times in this short
time period that the case be transferred to the state police um but that had not
been done uh Kev Kevin's parents brought a potential useful item with them Larry
and some of his friends went to the site where the boys had died when when they were there they found a large piece of
cardboard board the piece was large enough that it could have been used to drag two bodies on it there was also a
stain on it and that stain could have been blood right Larry knew that the Sheriff's Office didn't have the
technology or the capability to properly analyze it so he wanted to bring it directly to the medical examiner's
office in the parking lot he showed the piece of cardboard to the state police officer and he turns it over to him
there we have a 16 and 17-year-old and obviously just teenagers but they're becoming young men and you know you have
a lot of growth spurts at those times so we're talking about two big individuals
MH that you know now it's very possible if there was Foul Play that they were they were attacked on the train tracks
cuz we know that's where they're at but if they were attacked somewhere else and
they use this piece of cardboard anybody that knows it's like a sled push or something like and weightlifting yeah
you can put on a ton of weight but because it's on on a different surface you can drag that surface you know I
mean most people can't pick up a couch but people can push it around their living room M yeah and unfortunately
this possible piece of evidence um it's not seen again after this situation he the father gives it to the state officer
and he's told that it's going to get where it needs to go to be examined and that just simply doesn't happen right
and again the the my issue is you'd have to test this to one find out if it was blood if there was blood then we can
assume that this was used to maybe transport the bodies but here's the other thing about it this is the thing
that frustrates me is whoever used if that was used to transport the bodies then there's a good likelihood that
there was fingerprints on there right right and and and that's what frustrates me when the parents went inside to meet
the medical examiner uh this is famy Malik is his name uh they were yeah and his face looks
exactly like the way his name sounds okay uh but FY well the his face is very FY when the parents first met Malik they
found him to be weird uh when they first arrived Malik took polaroid pictures of
each parent and had asked each of them to sign forms so it was official as to who was in attendance at this meeting Oh
I thought you were going to say then he took pictures he took polaroid pictures of him then he asked him to shake it
like a polar pict Malik then passed out copies of His official ruling the statement read something like this at
4:25 a.m. August 23rd 1987 Kevin Ives 17 and Don Henry 16 were unconscious in a deep sleep on the railroad tracks under
the Psychedelic influence of THC marijuana right when a train passed over them causing their accidental
deaths the parents began questioning Dr Malik not really his ruling but they wanted more information because none of
them had ever heard of people passing out from THC right according to the parents Malik seemed very irritated at
the additional questions I think that he thought that they would simply hear his
final ruling accept it and then leave this is very surprising to me that he would not have expected questions or
that he would have seemed irritated at the additional questions given his amount of experience in these matters
you know no one handles a sudden death well and loved ones are always left with a lot of questions when someone suddenly
dies especially if it's your kids and especially if the circumstances surrounding those deaths are abnormal
this guy has the bedside manner of a wolverine he basically states that marijuana levels in the boys were
extremely High drawing a line on a chalkboard he writes a large Five Below the line and a 100 above it pointing to
the 100 he says this is how stoned they were well you know old Captain FY over here I think part of his annoyance is
that you know he's an expert in his mind and here's my findings and kind of how dare you question me yeah well of course
the parents are still confused as the doctor has not clearly explained this very well right uh when they ask him
what kind of measurement is that Malik snaps back and says it's units the parents wanted this explain to them in
an easier terms because marijuana was not something they were familiar with they didn't know if passing out was
possible or likely or or really what they wanted to know how much pot the kids would have had to have smoked to
achieve these high levels of THC Malik never really answers that particular question right the more the parents
question him or push him for reasonable answers the more the doctor gets upset with them and at some point he holds up
a large envelope stating that inside are the autopsy photos and in these photos is the proof that you are looking for
well the parents of course they they don't want to see these photos at all right and they told him that they didn't
want to see these photos yeah I don't know what parent would want to see that yeah they wanted toxicology results and
Malik insisted that they see the photos as crazy as this whole story sounds I believe this is true because remember
the officers are there with the parents at this time and at this meeting and we already know that they are not all on
the same page but one of the officers yeah just meaning that some of the officers think from the get-go this
should be this should have been looked at as a homicide and then some of the other ones just going this is probably
accidental or possibly suicide well and the officers know that the parents are dissatisfied with with the off officer's
investigation of this incident yeah and I think the officer Hearts would have to
go out to those parents and this is why this statement has to be true because one of the officers then stands up at
the table and this is an increasingly heated debate but he says pointing to the photos pointing to the envelope he
says they don't want to see those right uh that same officer as he begins to take his seat again he tells the parents
that Malik had told them that 20 joints is what the boys would have had to have smoked to to have that high level of THC
that you know I am not a you know pot smoker myself but I would just assume that 20 joints is a is a lot of joints
yes 20 joints would be a considerable amount of I mean even if you just put it in like terms of like cigarettes like a
normal cigarette package has 20 cigarettes in it MH so they would have had to smoke 20 cigarettes within
hours I I don't know but it sounds that way because he's pointing to the 100 Mark and saying this is how Stone these
guys were um it it seems like yeah but I would have walked up to that board and pointed to that 100 and said Mr FY this
is how much of an [ __ ] you are that's what that's what that 100 means well Malik he denies that he had ever told
the officers such a statement he says I never told the officers that it would have taken 20 joints um and the officers
they had reason to believe that the boys purchased a $ bag of marijuana on one of
their stops that night um the the police right it's man if you can get 20 joints
out of $10 of marijuana yeah it' be a bad business to be in because you could you you could spend $10 and be good for
quite sometime right uh the medical examiner's findings not only seemed questionable to the parents but most of
the citizens of Arkansas were pretty stunned by the ruling uh this is according to the newspapers the parents
decided to seek a second opinion they hired a second pathologist to review the deaths now this was a pathologist that
came recommended to them uh from other physicians in the area this is Dr JT Francisco he's located in Memphis
Tennessee he was charging the parents $200 an hour uh and he explained to them that he would preserve and test the
blood of both boys and the urine of Kevin they would be unable to test Don urine because his bladder had been
completely destroyed right and then also the this is the first time that the parents are aware that that his urine
hasn't been tested yeah so we're seeing some progress here for the parents uh they received the results from Dr
Francisco uh and he actually confirms Dr Malik's ruling uh he quoted the same levels of THC that Malik had reported
100 97 microG per milliliter for Kevin and 122 for Dawn okay upon further review of the material sent to the
parents from Dr Francisco's office they were able to determine that the results were from a test of Kevin's urine only
no blood from either boy or no urine from dawn were tested all right so he's agreeing with you know Mr FY yeah so
that they get Dr Francisco on the phone and after some debate on how he could have confirmed Malik findings with only
having tested the urine of one boy uh the doctor then admitted that they had arrived at the conclusion by inference
uh because his lab and the Arkansas lab followed standard procedures the confirmation of one test gave weight of
confidence that the other findings were going to be true as well right but couldn't they just test both of their
bloods but they didn't that's the whole thing they were led to believe that that
both sets of blood would be tested they didn't test any of that but they but they claim that they can back up Malik's
findings right so we have the IES family and the Henry family kind of getting [ __ ] around
again in February of 1988 the parents contacted members of the media to arrange for a press conference this is a
brilliant idea and they arrived at this plan because the longer this thing went on they were beginning to realize that
the only group interested in this case was the media no other group wanted to spend any time on this thing the day
after the press conference the families were contacted by Richard Garrett who is
the district Deputy prosecuting attorney Garrett wanted to help he told Linda that until he saw the press conference
he had no idea that the parents of The Dead Boys had been dissatisfied with the sheriff's department M he was going to
hold a prosecutor's hearing well what's that exactly well he he's hoping that they will reexamine the case but a a
prosecutor's hearing is not just unusual they are highly unusual these are intended for only special inquiries uh
particularly when the cause of death is in dispute well here the the cause of death is definitely in dispute I mean we
have two coiners saying well they they got super stoned and then they laid down on the tracks and they got ran over by a
train mhm and then the parents are going well that just doesn't add up doesn't make a lot of sense to us MH well the uh
Deputy prosecuting attorney Garrett he would introduce the families to a man by the name of Dan Harmon now Dan Harmon is
actually a guy that is off in a private practice he's not a prosecutor um but he's going to be brought in as a quote
unquote special prosecutor in this situation and he is going to make arrangements because he wants to get a
grand jwelry organized so that this case can be looked at by some fresh eyes and
decide if that an investigation should shift gears or if that there's a chance of a trial taking place here right right
so basically this grand jury is going to be set up they're going to look at the evidence and they're going to decide do
we need to reinvestigate this case or is it shut you know open and shut case where these guys smoked some pot and
then they had an accident where the train ran over them and more importantly if if the the cause of death is what's
in question what the big dispute is then can we get you know another odd autopsy
can we get other autopsies performed on these two bodies right and after a couple more autopsies are performed I
think part of it too is like you don't want the families uh of these you know victims they're victims of at least at
this point a tragic accident you don't want them to be dissatisfied with uh law enforcement and the way uh the coroner
or anybody else handled their loved ones case mhm so upon further review the grand jury the first thing that they're
going to do is determine if this cause of death is correct and their findings they're not agreeing with what Dr Malik
had stated and they basically overturn the cause of death as a possible accident as a likely accident to a
possible homicide well once that takes place they're going to need to bring in somebody to conduct a further
investigation into this autopsy and take a look at this thing and see if they findings are correct right so we already
have two autopsies done so this is technically going going to be the third autopsy done yes so this they will bring
in a man by the name of Dr Burton and they actually bring him in from Atlanta uh they wanted to bring in somebody that
had more experience and somebody with outside eyes that wasn't so privy to what was going on in the area they bring
in Dr Burton and what are his findings well to begin with one of the things that he found most disconcerning or most
important to this case is the shirt that was worn by Don Henry or allegedly worn
by Don Henry this is the shirt that was not on the boy's body when he was found this was found some distance away from
the track where the Torso and the body of Don Henry were discovered all right so don didn't have a shirt on but this
shirt was possibly ran over by the train yes yes this shirt as we know has a lot
of tears and defects in it a question that was raised as to whether These Tears or defects were made by the body
being pulled down the track by the motion of the train over the body of the victim what Burton did was he had took
the shirt to a private laboratory that he had worked in in Atlanta and they took one of these tears this was a tear
from the lower back area of the shirt that was kind of in the area of of an injury that they had found on the back
of Don Henry and they took a scalpel and they cut this defect out which measured
a little bit over over an inch in length they then took this defect and they analyzed it under a scanning electron
microscope which is a very powerful microscope and with this microscope they could tell whether the fabric had been
torn or cut with something like scissors or a knife right so what he's saying is
this cut on the shirt and the body was either made by scissors or a knife yeah well basically basically what he can say
is that the cut on the shirt it exhibited all the characteristics of something that was cut with a very
sharp blade um so there's there's no question as far as this being a tear or anything like that as far as Dr Burton
is concerned also around the cut in the shirt they found evidence of blood which
means which means that the the boy had probably bled through some kind of injury before the shirt was removed from
his body right so we're starting to assume that this uh injury was um premortem yes yes and and here's the to
kind of lay it out very quickly here of Burton's concerns right first of all we have the the knife he believes a knife
made this cut in the shirt second of all it's majorly concerning to him that this
cut matches up with a with an injury to the boy's back and that more importantly
that the shirt was not found on the boy's body meaning that if this was an injury that was sustained by the train
itself that you would expect to see you expect to see the the shirt still on the boy matching up with the injury
another thing that concerned Burton was an injury found to the left cheek of Kevin IES uh this was an injury that he
did not find consistent with any pattern that might have been made from being struck by the cow catcher in front of
the engine uh he explained that he sent photographs of the boy's injuries to a computer enhancement specialist and he
was awaiting those results so we have two things that he finds pretty odd mhm yeah these are injuries that would not
be consistent with with the train now the thing is once they get those results back Captain he finds as well as the the
Specialists that he sent them to they find that that injury to Kevin's cheek is consistent with that of being struck
in the face with like the butt of a gun and more specifically uh They said that the gun
that was found with the boys could have very likely made that injury or caused that injury it would have been a similar
type gun or that gun the other thing that's interesting here Captain is that he would find something in both of the
boys that would give him cause of concern uh this is the amount of congestion and fluid in the lungs of
both of the boys he felt that this was inconsistent with the type of injuries that one might expect from someone being
run over by a train when you have a sudden death occurring he feels that it's very likely
uh that the possibility exists that because there's this congestion and fluid in the lungs that both boys were
either unconscious or already dead when they were placed on those tracks they're
either dead or they're knocked unconscious and that's why they didn't move at all mhm and so that the train
possibly did cause their death but who put them there mhm who made them unconscious another thing that he
included in the autopsies as well and this is more opinion than it is fact um but he had agreed with the train crew
members stating that he he didn't see how anyone whether they be passed out from drug use or be sleeping on the
tracks how they would not have you know woke up as the train was getting closer and closer these these rails they
vibrate the the train was Extremely Loud anybody that even has ever stood next to
a train just on the ground you can feel the ground moving below your feet uh there was also a state trooper that was
involved with the uh grand jury who had gone down to the train tracks with with some other people witnessing him and he
timed this so that he would be arriving and he could he could do this little experiment as a train was coming he laid
down exactly how the boys were laying on the tracks MH and he jumped up from the
from the rails pretty quickly but he said that you know when this train was this train was still quite a ways away
maybe a quarter of a mile he said he felt the thing when it was like a mile and a half away from him he could feel
it coming down the tracks and then on top of that he said he he he got terrified and to the point where he says
he still has a little bit of like PTSD just from from that moment experiencing that little exp he was also conscious at
the time correct all right so this third autopsy it brings up some questions and
and it seems like it's not not that agreeable with the first two autopsies mm which I think you know causes a lot
of concern I think it also causes a lot of concern with the parents well as far as that second test goes and let's let's
call that a test rather than an autopsy because it was supposed to be a testing of the boy's blood and the boy urine um
you're exactly correct thank you and and but we know that that didn't take place
um but not only does this point out here that the the autopsies were wrong but now this really starts to make you
question the medical examiner himself uh you know what what is he up to why how would he have arrived at these
conclusions uh after performing an autopsy had a significant amount of time to perform these tests and he comes up
with a completely different ruling than what this this other guy comes up with from from Atlanta right and look then it
becomes which doctor is correct well because of this whole case we have a lot of interesting things come out about
Malik yes and Malik has all these autopsies that were ruled normally natural causes or
accidental and because of this you know because of the parents I applaud the parents they start stiring the pot and
then they start going back and looking at some of his other autopsies right we have a scenario where he ruled a guy
we're we're just going to tell you about some of the more Wild Ones let's call them wild and and we won't use any names
because these P these particular people are only involved in this case through Malik they have really no right you know
nothing to do with this case but this gives you an idea of some of the shenanigans going on with famy Malik
right so old Fami he you know rules this guy dies of a ulcer and not a big deal right that's
his ruling the guy died of an ulcer and everybody actually agrees with him says Hey Malik did his job again but they had
people find this guy's head yeah so he was decapitated apparently that happens naturally when
you have an ulcer uh your head just pops off right um so once they found this severed head they realized this autopsy
was completely botched yeah do do you want to know how he defended himself on that particular case sure so um here's
what happened here they they found the the dog that lived with this guy uh he actually lay dead in his home for for
quite some time uh the dog that lived there they recovered some of the dog's vomit and in it they found what what FY
believed to be uh evidence of of human tissue of of skin um so what had happened was fi said that the guy had
died and he laid there for quite some time and at some point the dog uh chewed on the neck until the point of
decapitating his owner um but of course the thing here is it it was all the evidence points to a very clean cut of
somebody killing this guy and taking off his head not the gnawing of a dog uh chewing chewing up this this guy's neck
right and then there's this other case where the guy this guy was suicidal he he he told told his family about it yeah
they they put him in in a place for treatment he wanted help right he went to his family he said help me out and
and goad right and it looks like he lost his battle with the you know suicidal thoughts and he hung himself right and
in this case Malik decides well it wasn't suicide it was actually an accidental death mhm and again it's just
stuff like that where it's like and this is just three examples of probably doz maybe a dozen or 20 of them out there
that that are pretty well known right and so the governor at this time is Bill Clinton MH and people are calling for
this guy's job saying look we got these two boys that now we believe there's good reason to believe that there was
some foul play and this guy is ruling this we dug up all this other stuff he's not doing his job and taxpayers are
paying for that they want him to C you know they want Bill Clinton to ask for his
resonation Bill Clinton says well I I'm not really in charge of doing that that's not really my thing so what do
they do do they fire him do they replace him no they give him a 43% raise where this leaves us now is we now have to
look at these two deaths as murders okay so we need to conduct a proper murder investigation mhm and why were these
things covered up and why does it seem that government officials and people at the medical examiner
office and the sheriff's department they seem to not want to investigate this thing properly right and at what lengths
are they going to go to or what is anybody going to go to to possibly cover up this murder there's so much more to
get into and we're just on the first episode of this yeah because if the cause of death can be overturned that
brings up so many more questions okay first of all if these boys were murdered why were they murdered what what
happened during those 4 hours between the time they left Don's house and the time that they're found on those tracks
what occurred during those 4 hours did they see something that they shouldn't have seen did they come across somebody
that they they shouldn't have come across what happened to those boys in that 4 hours well we have a really good
idea what happened because we have a bunch of eyewitness accounts we're going to have to get into that tomorrow yes
and don't forget to check out all of our old episodes they're available in the iTunes Store store and on our store Page
at true Crim garage.com thank you guys so much for sharing the thank you guys so much for
sharing thank you guys so much for sharing it with a friends family I just got a text message a couple minutes ago
saying hey I told somebody about your show uh they don't call it true crime garage they call it the captain show the
captain show well imagine that isn't that special all right we'll see you guys in the garage tomorrow and
until then be good be kind and don't [Music] [Applause] [Music] litter you can live out your Master Chef
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Boys on the Tracks /// Part 1 /// 93

Part 1 of 4

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By all accounts, the engineer did a masterful job of bringing his train to a stop. It had taken a screaming, screeching half mile. By the time the engine shuddered to a standstill, Conductor Jerry Tomlin was on the radio notifying an approaching train on a parallel track to stop because some boys had been run over. He also called the dispatcher. "Have you got injuries?" The dispatcher asked. "No," Tomlin said. "We've got death." -From "The Boys on the Tracks" by Mara LeverittTonight we discuss the case that many wanted to keep quiet. Two teenagers are run over by a train in the middle of the night. Was it an accident, a double suicide or a double murder? Join us in the garage for the tragic story of the boys on the tracks.

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Brief Summary

Two boys found dead on train tracks spark investigation into potential foul play and mishandled evidence.

Key points

The Boys on the Tracks. A tragic incident involving two boys found on train tracks raises questions about their fate.
A Mother's Relief Turns to Horror. Linda's initial relief quickly turns to dread as she learns the truth about her son.
Boys Identified. The two boys, Don Henry and Kevin Ives, were identified as victims of a train accident.
Strange Investigation. The sheriff's office dismissed evidence and created a narrative around the boys' deaths.
Parents Seek Second Opinion. The parents hire a second pathologist to review the deaths after being dissatisfied with the initial findings.
Grand Jury Investigation. A grand jury is set up to determine if the case warrants further investigation.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

Death has to be.

A chilling realization by the train crew after the incident.

5:09WatchNov 16, 2023

Tension

75/ 100High tension

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