Boys on the Tracks /// Part 2 /// 94 | Forensic Files

foreign [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] welcome to True Crime garage wherever
you are whatever you are doing thanks for listening I'm your host Nick and with me as always is the next Sheriff of
a beautiful little town called Parts Unknown he is the captain let me see your hands boy
let me see your hands it's good to be seen and it's good to see you [Music] tonight in the garage we are drinking
Huntsman Red Ale by barley Mo Brewing Company garage grade four and a quarter out of five bottle caps the sheriff
approves this is an imperial double Red Ale that is not only hoppy and malty but
also smooth and sweet and has a very beautiful red color and Huntsman Red Ale was brought to us by first up Warehouse
Captain but in the beautiful little town of Parts Unknown we have free and Bonnie and Jeanette as
well looks like it looks like all of you can spread them it looks like the land Parcels are filling up in Parts Unknown
I'm selling a lot of tents next we have Denise who says that this is a five-star
podcast yeah well thank you Denise for grading on a curve and if you'd like to leave us a five-star review go over to
iTunes and treat yourself and this next one is from Lynn who says lots of love from Little Rock Arkansas much love to
you and last but not least also a very big thank you to rayquella in Minneapolis who is celebrating a
birthday this month so happy happy happy birthday thank you all for pitching in for this week's beer fun and if you want
to buy us a round for next week's show go to truecrime garage.com and click on the Donate button thank you jib if you'd
like to follow us on Instagram Snapchat Facebook Twitter any of that stuff True Crime garage do you have any new
music for us Captain yeah some people keep asking me uh who did the music on that one as the captain is that still
the captain that's my job well that's enough of the business let's get to the trailer everybody gather around grab a
chair grab a beer let's talk some true crime foreign [Music] [Music] looking in our Direction but we could
see the light and so we kind of quieted down and snuck up a little bit closer to
see what was going on and there was five individuals standing on the tracks one thing that struck with curiosity is at
the time my mother was dating an attorney named Dan Harmon I knew him well enough to recognize him
there were two more individuals that a few minutes after we got there we're walking down the road tracks that had a
rifle I'll look to be a flashlight there were more or less kind of minding their own
business and when they realized someone else was on the tracks they stopped and it was fixing to turn around when
someone or Danny motion for him to come closer over to where they were they hesitated and
eventually ended up walking on towards the rest of the group why my head was turned I heard what
sounded like a gunshot I saw a flash as you would expect with a gunshot at night
we were pretty much terrified and [Music] other Witnesses corroborated that evidence
[Music] thank you [Music] this is part two of the boys on the tracks case Captain should we do a
little recap last time on True Crime garage in the early morning hours of August 23
1987 this is in Bryant Arkansas two boys were laying motionless on the train tracks and they were passed over by the
train the investigation of their deaths falls into the jurisdiction of the Saline County Sheriff's office now that
investigation has been called botched at best and where it picks up from there the medical examiner this is Fami Malik
he takes over the case and he has to investigate his ruling on the cause of the boy's deaths he's going to claim
that the boys were high on marijuana and they passed out on the train tracks then
the train came and ran the boys over and that's the cause of death ruling it in accidental death you're exactly correct
exactly so the parents of the two boys are obviously dissatisfied with the sheriff's investigation as well as the
medical examiner's findings so they schedule a press conference and it's after this press conference that a
grand jury is established and the grand jury decides that they review the they review the evidence and they decide that
the cause of death might not be accidental that it's a possible homicide and they're going to call for a second
autopsy after the grand jury successfully got the latest autopsy this was conducted by well-renowned
pathologist Dr Burton now remember he was from out of state he was actually from Atlanta because they they needed
not only fresh eyes on this but they needed someone that would not have connections locally or at the state
level but also at the time Atlanta and Dr Burton had access to better technology this is going to change their
findings of the death not being accidental but by being murdered yes let's let's say correcting right because
they they just got it wrong from the beginning so from a possible homicide to a definite homicide side and because the
grand jury and the change in the correcting of the rulings of death the investigation was then transferred to
the jurisdiction of the Arkansas State Police I say that because it's not only important to the telling of this story
but in today's episode we will be reviewing some statements that have been taken from the Arkansas state police
files from their investigation into the murders of sixteen-year-old Don Henry and 17 year old Kevin Ives this new
investigation team has an uphill battle because from the get-go it should have been investigated as a homicide but it
wasn't and they didn't do the due diligence and it was disinvestigated as a traffic death correct and we even
discussed items that they failed to collect at the scene that may have had value towards pointing towards any kind
of of evidence and before we get to the timeline we need to kind of discuss what
was going on in the drug community in this town cocaine and Other Drugs were flowing into the city of Little Rock
Arkansas and the smaller communities that surrounded it as well this is coming from Central America via the
freeways that connected Miami Los Angeles and Dallas but they were coming in by all forms of transportation by the
time of 1987. the movers would Place cocaine on trains and it would be dropped at designated drop spots this
was also coming in by airplane as well and not too far from the tracks where the boys were found there's an airport
called the Mena airport and this was known by many to be trafficking drugs planes were landing near the airport
under the cover of night without using their lights they were Landing sitting briefly and taking off again without
cutting off their engines the state police was aware that this was going on so to combat this they started parking
Vehicles near the airport well the airplane started adjusting what they were doing they picked out different
locations and now rather than Landing they were just kind of buzzing the fields getting real low about 100 feet
off the ground and dropping things from the planes obviously we have Kevin Ives and we have Don Henry those are the two
boys that were found on the tracks but now let's get into some of the other key players yes the first person that we
will introduce is a man by the name of Jeff Rhodes he's a young man that was interviewed by investigator Don Birdsong
and this is from the state police files birdsong's report this is with an interview with a young man that Birdsong
does not identify in his notes but his notes state that the Wednesday before the boys were killed someone had
contacted this man looking to buy an ounce of cocaine this being possibly roads the buyer this guy was unable to
obtain the cocaine so he contacted Don Henry Don and Kevin met with the buyer and they said that they could get Coke
from Don's connections now this connection is not mentioned as well well and mind you that Don Henry was 16 years
old at this time in another interview with the state police this is with Don Henry's sister gala gala stated that Don
had been at the home of a alleged drug dealer to purchase marijuana on the Thursday or Friday before he was killed
she had also heard Don say that he knew quote the ultimate dealer unquote he didn't give a name to this person but he
said that the dealer worked out of Little Rock Arkansas one we have evidence that the boys were smoking pot
so they got to get that from somebody I've been on pot runs right so you go into the house just because the guy
sells maybe all he does is sell pot but he might sell other things in another statement this is from Chris Ballard who
was at one time married to Don's sister he says that he saw Dawn on the Thursday
before Dawn's death Don said that he was going to steal some cocaine Chris also said that Don had mentioned something
about this ultimate guy working out of Little Rock Arkansas and one of the investigators notes this is investigator
Don Birdsong these were entered into the file in the summer of 1989 and this is in regards to a conversation with a
confidential informant stating that Don and Kevin had overheard a phone call between the dealer and an unidentified
individual about a large drug drop near the area of the train tracks Sergeant Barney Phillips interviewed a friend of
Don and Kevin's and said that the night that they had died he was at a party at a mobile home and the two of them
dropped by before leaving this party he said that they had told him that they were going to go get some cocaine so
they could sell it and make a bunch of money now let's introduce Keith Tony Keith Coney is a young man he's a an
acquaintance of Don and Kevin's Keith's mother Betty Alexander reported to a drug task force officer that her son had
told her that he knew something about the Ives and Henry deaths but he wouldn't explain to her what Now Keith
would go on and tell his father and some of his friends that he had been out that
night with well unless you know not to interrupt but he was pretty close with his mother he was afraid to tell her
correct yes like severely afraid but in a moment and he I think he was afraid to
tell his father as well it wasn't like he just came out with this information old willy-nilly no he wasn't just
running around town telling anybody that would listen uh this was something that
he was it was burning inside of him but he was afraid to talk about it but I also think possibly you know having been
in that father role that if if my son you know my stepson would have said I know something but I don't want to tell
you I would have made him tell me you know because because I can't I can't try to protect you if I don't I don't know
what you know yeah yeah well Keith had told his father and he had told some friends that he had been out that night
with Don and Kevin this is being the night of their deaths and he stated that they were out near shobe Road uh where
they were approached by two police officers in a vehicle okay now at this time Keith is on his motorcycle at this
point and he states that he fled the scene and he believed that the boys were attacked and possibly killed by those
two police officers so he saw them being attacked and he fled the attack yeah he
was he was hanging out with the two boys and as the officers approached he he took off he got out of there months
after having telling his father about the story involving the Police Keith Coney's mother Betty Alexander she's at
the local prison visit visiting her other son Eugene Coney now while she's there she meets a man by the name of
Mike crook Mike crook is a former manager of Gigi's which is a nightclub on the county line Mike had told Betty
about a Gigi's customer who frequented the club and an incident that the customer had said he had seen at a small
grocery store near shrobe Road this is located in the general area of the train tracks where the boys were found on the
night of their deaths he was parked at the store close to the railroad tracks waiting for his wife that's what this
statement says there's actually another statement that says he believed that his
wife was running around on him so he had parked there hoping to catch her in the
act of being with a boyfriend or being with another man could you imagine just sitting out in a parked dark car
waiting for your significant other to possibly be with somebody else I wouldn't waste my time yeah I think
that's that's good I wouldn't waste my time well while the man is there and crook will refer to this man as Jerry
and he says that Jerry saw three teenagers one of them was on a motorcycle and then he saw two officers
arrive at the scene these boys were there smoking pot is what he believed that they were doing so one could assume
that that is Keith Cooney on his motorcycle and that is also Don and Kevin and they're all kind of hanging
out smoking a little pot yes yes crook would say that Jerry does not identify the boys by name but he did in telling
crook the story he did say I believe that two of those boys could have been the boys that were found that night well
right but this is disproven that his story makes a lot of sense with Keith's story
Jerry then sees what he believes to be a police car pull-up and at this time he says that one of the boys hops on the
motorcycle and takes off now some kind of interaction goes badly between these police officers and the two remaining
boys and he sees that an altercation breaks out and during the course of this he basically says that he sees the
police officers beating the [ __ ] at the remaining two boys and afterwards they
throw the kids into the back of the patrol car the man Jerry he tells crook this story back at Gigi's Nightclub at
some point and after discussing the story crook tells him you know what that's probably you're probably right
those are probably the two boys that were found that night and you really should report this now Jerry was a
little hesitant to do so because he saw police officers what he believed to be police officers you know abusing some
citizens right right and so he convinces Jerry to report this Jerry does go and report this situation to the Sheriff's
Office uh Jerry is immediately thrown in jail uh he's thrown in jail for back child support and they keep him in jail
for the mandatory sentence of 90 days that he was to serve after the 90 days this Jerry person immediately leaves
town now why do we keep referring to him as Jerry well it's because Crook in the
statement refused to name the guy right just stating that his name was Jerry and
he looked he looked kind of Mexican was the best description that he would give about regarding Jerry yeah well I think
his real name was sketchy Jerry well we're going to follow that up with another statement and this is from a man
named Ronnie Godwin now Ronnie Godwin according to his statement he had been at Gigi's nightclub uh for about three
or four hours the night that the boys had passed away this is a happening place he said that he had had seven or
eight beers there before he left and he left around midnight uh when he was driving home he was driving down highway
five he turned down County Line Road and then he turned right on to 111. as he approached shrobe Road he saw an
unmarked police car he said it was either tan or gray but it had three antennas police hubcaps and spotlights
on it uh instead of turning right onto Shrub Road towards his home wait hold on which could be like a detective car yes
yes because a lot of times like we we live in a pretty small town and when you see well well why do you live north but
um you grew up here and you know you see these cars you have your the police cruisers and then sometimes you have the
sheriff cars or you have like maybe a chief of police car but then you also have these detective cars they're pretty
easy to spot tinted windows a bunch of antennas yeah well after seeing the vehicle he decided to go straight to
avoid being noticed instead of turning towards going to his home he had been drinking obviously that 90 said seven or
eight beers and he was concerned that he was going to get another DWI had they spotted him he would eventually Park his
car and shut off his lights but when he was near shrobe Road dark canoe he saw two cops with two boys uh his first
thought was that the police may have caught some boys trying to break into the store that was in the area one of
the boys was described as being taller than the other and more heavy set and this boy had light colored hair this boy
had been shoved up against the phone booth by a larger cop we can assume at this point the teenagers that they're
pushing up against this pole would be Don Henry he during this altercation he believes that he sees one of the
teenagers being hit with something in the head and this was near a phone booth so he wasn't certain if it would have
been the receiver from the phone uh that would would have been from the phone booth or if it would have been a larger
item it's you know it's dark out he's got his lights off but he sees the one boy being hit in the head and remember
in the autopsy was the whole skull fractures and he also says that he did not believe or did not see the boys to
be resisting in any form that these guys were just going after these kids right these guys guys were just getting their
ass kicked the second boy he saw there was an officer standing over the other teenage boy who was kneeling and on the
ground but he had his head down and he couldn't really make out whom the kid was after this all took place he said
that he saw the two officers throw the boys into the back seat of their vehicle he then sees one of the officers grab
what he believes to be a rifle and throw it into the car as well the officers then get into the vehicle
and they take off he says that they make a turn and he noticed that they went onto a road that that is a dead end he
lost track of their lights so at some point he believes that they may have turned off to the left
he was obviously concerned about this situation and a bit scared but he's still also watching out for himself he's
still worried about that possible DWI right and so he decides that since nobody noticed him there he knew that
these officers would have to turn around at some point because it was a dead end
and he was worried that they could come out at any second so he decided to still
lay low there and he said it's probably about 15 or 20 minutes went by before he
sees the vehicle drive by again he did not notice if the boys were still in the vehicle at this point Ronnie Goodwin
estimated that all this took place around 2 or 2 30 a.m that night the night that the boys were found on the
tracks right now this is interesting here Captain we have a couple of stories that seem to be lining up with one
another we have we have their friend Keith Cooney who states that he left because police officers drove up scared
him off and he believed that there something happened right there the police officers and the and the boys at
least a confrontation so we have that story then we had the unknown Jerry person and then we have this Ron Goodwin
come from Shady Jerry yeah yeah well the thing here is the state the state police
officers during their investigation they believed because this Ronnie Goodwin story was so similar to the story of
this unknown Jerry person that who did his name right they had moved out of the area they believed that Jerry and Ronnie
Godwin were one of the same and the thing here is when they approached Crook and and they asked him
you know here here's the guy that we believe this Jerry person is can you confirm this or deny it right he States
very matter-of-factly this is not the person that I'm talking about I I still refuse to give his name but this is not
the person that that I was describing in a sense it's almost like they're trying
to minimize the idea that there was police officers involved you know I mean like well we got three
stories right now that they all kind of line up but uh we're thinking that you know guy a and Guy C are the same so
really they only have two stories that line up or possibly it could be the exact opposite though maybe they're
trying to corroborate this Godwin story right and and and just go to him and say
okay now we know you told somebody else about this and we believe you even more um I mean it really could go either way
which does make some sense because he was coming from the bar so that would you know put two and two together
there's a lot of things that line up there but there's probably more than one person leaving that bar that night
correct yeah well now we have three stories so let's get to the fourth story this is going to come to us by Tom
Newhouse not to be confused by Tom old house but this is the guy that was hiding in the bushes Tom Newhouse is not
introduced into this whole thing until around 1993. this is when a friend of Kevin
Ives reaches out to Lynn Linda and he says that he knows a boy that's now 18 in 1993 that had seen some things that
took place that night and he wanted to put her in contact with this boy this boy didn't want to talk to anybody but
he thought that maybe if Linda talked to him that he would he would feel the urge
to come forward with this information having meeting one of the one of the victims so he puts the two of them in
touch together what made him the victim's mother correct and so Tom Tom tells this story that he is out the
night that the boys are found and he was out with a couple of his friends they were out in the area of the tracks and
they were looking for marijuana plants and they were goofing around and just you know just kind of being out in the
middle of the night you know doing weird stuff well yeah well and we kind of talked about this like when we're kids
the whole thing was especially around the summertime was you might if you could camp out in the backyard that you
might go like do some pranks right you might a toilet paper somebody's house you might pee in somebody's mailbox
stuff like that uh inappropriate not nice stuff but the the best was good for the toilet paper manufacturers well good
and bad because yeah but uh but it was always weird to me it's like you'd be walking to the neighborhood and you
might have a couple buddies with you and then all of a sudden you see another group of people from your high school
and they're out doing the same thing did it ever happen with you once happened once yeah but it like freaks you out so
it kind of similar thing where you have this one group of boys out we're not for sure what they're doing
yet they can claim that they're hunting and then you got this other set of kids out and they're maybe looking for pot
just kind of looking around yeah well and you know what happens Captain if you're out at night and you're a kid in
the dark and you see some lights headlights or a light turn on you you what do you do you duck and you hide and
these kids Tom and these other kids they see Tom would have been 12 at the time right and they see a light and they
decide to duck down and they're going to kind of observe what's going on and they
see three men on the tracks and he he very outwardly describes these guys as men and during this time he also sees
two other figures approaching now Tom and the other kids they kind of move up and try to get a little closer to the
situation to see what's going on now they're intrigued right and he sees that the men are trying to engage the other
two figures they're kind of calling out to them and telling them to come over and talk to them this is the boy that we
heard in the trailer correct yeah and he says that the boys seem he describes these other two figures as as not grown
men as possible teenagers he states that the teenagers didn't seem to be they didn't want to go over and talk to the
men they were very reluctant to do so at some point though they get must have been convinced to do so because then
they start walking over towards the men now at this point Tom is ducking down and he's kind of hiding because he sees
several flashlights at the time and he hears what he believes to be a gunshot go off like he said in the trailer he
kind of looked away and then but he also saw the flash of the gun saw the flash of light now he cannot say whether that
gunfire came from the teenage boys or from the three men that he had already seen on the tracks what he does say
though is as soon as they hear that him and his friends decide to take off and flee the area one the thing is that he
recognizes one of the guys on the tracks yes and and why does he recognize one of
them well I he claims that his mother was seeing an attorney in town and that attorney was on the train tracks and
that man is Dan Harmon and where do we know that name from Captain well he was the prosecutor that we had talked about
in episode one right that was involved in the case of the death of the two boys so get your head around this right this
is what we're saying people this is why this case is mind-blowing to me is that we have later years down years down the
line right in 1993 this stuff comes out but years earlier we have two boys that you know mysteriously die on train
tracks they think it's a a traffic accident and then they bring it to a grand jury and that's brought by this
guy Dan Harmon and he is the the lead prosecutor and he's the one that's in charge of all the evidence and
collecting all the evidence and getting his hands wherever and years later comes out that oh he might have been on
those tracks we have an eyewitness that states that it was in fact Dan Harmon that he could identify a positively
identify him as Dan Harmon because he knew Dan Harmon he had some he had a relationship with him the man dated his
mother and we also have another eyewitness that points to Dan as well yeah and we're going to get to her right
after this quick beer break oh [Music] [Music] thank you all right we're back and I know the
story just took a bit of a Twist there at the last part but oh yeah I did we're gonna add to that twist a little bit by
introducing a person by the name of Charlene Wilson now this woman she's in her 30s and she was known to be popular
around town uh but this is this would take place years after the investigation into the deaths of the boys and this is
during an investigation regarding criminal charges in an unrelated case uh Charlene Wilson testified in front of a
grand jury to amongst other things but the important thing here to our case is that
amongst those other things she testified that she had dated Dan Harmon for some time now this would have taken place in
1987 right the same year as the deaths right and to call a female popular let's just go ahead and put it on the table
Dan Harmon was also considered popular yes yes he was and uh during this time Dan Harmon he was married and she said
that they dated probably seven or eight times during the course of that year but
the two of them had snorted cocaine on several of those occasions right so Not only was Dan Harmon popular but he was
also what I'd like to call [ __ ] yeah because you can't you can't have a girlfriend when you're married or you
shouldn't have a girlfriend when you're married well the big deal here Captain is that not only does she say these
things but let's keep in mind she's testifying to this to these statements in front of a grand jury so this is a
big deal this is not like you just said it to some news reporter or somebody on the street no this is now opening up a
line of questioning that is probably going to open up to a line of Investigation about the person that
you're talking about by saying that the prosecutor somebody that has been a prosecutor was known to be using illegal
drugs during the course of of his tenure yeah Dan is basically a Coco and this is
going to lead us to a lot of the other questions regarding Dan Harmon now the police get involved here because after
the statement in front of the grand jury they want to know more about not only Dan's drug use but also this Witnesses
drug use and they also want to know know what else she may know about things that
were going on in the area around 1987 and 1988 so when they questioned Charlene Wilson they start off by
providing her with two prepared questionnaires and one of them is more directed toward Dan Harmon and the other
is more directed towards the deaths of Kevin and Dawn now I'm going to read these for you the first one starts off
by asking tell us about your drug dealings with Dan Harmon and Charlene responds he kept me high a lot on
occasion I would make specific drops to different areas for him I got high with him a lot the next question is if you
were going to conduct an investigation on Dan Harmon how would you do it she states that she would go to his ex-wife
Rebecca then he would then she would check his money background with a fine-tooth comb she then recommended
going through drug task force records to see who they may have let off during his
time when he was in power as well as payoffs and Drug trades and things of that nature
they asked her to list the five most important causes that would have led Dan Harmon selling drugs and using drugs she
states that it would be his family history also letting people go that had enough money to buy him off would have
led to his drug use drugs being confiscated but not actually being reported would be things that he might
have been using or selling right and by letting Big Time dealers off for free she also stated that it's common
knowledge of his drug use and that had been common knowledge amongst many people in his Circle for years they
asked her to write in detail one drug deal that that she had conducted with Dan Harmon and now this is going to be a
little difficult because like she said I mean she was high a lot of the time yes
and I imagine that there were probably more than one drug dealings that she was involved with with Dan Harmon but she's
going to give the answer to one of those and the one that she states is one that
took place at a place called Lee Bistro Club uh she says Dan Harmon was there as
well as Roger Clinton and herself she said that this took place on a weekend night and that they had met there in a
parking lot and did a cocaine Exchange the next question she's asked do you know who else deals drugs with Dan
Harmon and now they've they've pulled this information from this questionnaire because she's naming other people here
but she does name at least four other men the next question is while filling out this form what were your emotions
and she states that she was scared but she was also ready to come clean she's worried about what Dan may find out that
she is saying about him now in the second question here as I said is more related to the deaths of the boys and it
starts off by saying tell us what you know about the circumstances that might have led to the deaths of Don Henry and
Kevin Ives she states that she feels that Dan Harmon has more knowledge of the two
boys deaths than he has ever told in late summer and in August she says that she drove with Harman to Alexander to
meet with she assumes a man named Keith mccaskill to make a pickup now she says this would have been around the time of
the two boys deaths they ask her to write in detail what happened on August 22nd 1987 from the
time that she got up until the time she went to bed that evening she states that
she got up she did some coke and Crystal mixed I guess she says that's called highballing she cleaned up the house
left and went off to find some more drugs later that afternoon Dannon wanted to show her a house and they went in his
car and they looked at a house in Alexander when they came back to her house she
said she ate something and put on some makeup Dan then asked her to take a ride back out to Alexander with him and he
asked her to pull down the Old Quarry Road and he told her to wait in the car he gets out and he leaves she states
that she stayed in the vehicle and she got high a while while she was waiting for him to come back she said he
suddenly then comes back shouting let's go they hop in the vehicle and they head
back to her place and that's when she is told to take a shower um he she's asking him if there's
anything wrong he's saying there's nothing wrong that they spent some time together that evening he took a shower
she went to bed and he left well he had to go back to his wife's house well the final question on this questionnaire is
they ask her do you have any reason to be afraid of answering any of these questions and she states simply yes I do
because Dan Harmon does not like me in 1993 this would be in May uh by this point Dan Harmon has been charged with
some drug possession charges and he is currently awaiting trial now I think I think some of this is going to come to
light here Captain because I think that at this point Charlene Wilson might feel
that she might be safe from Dan Harmon because he's facing these charges and he could potentially be going to prison
right uh but in an in an interview with the State Police Department she states that she knows quite a bit more about
the night that the boys were killed well now it's getting kind of Juicy this is a
statement given to detective Brown Charlene said that she had been with Dan Harmon and Keith mccaskill the night
that the boys had been killed she went with them to the train tracks she said that when they arrived there were two
other men that were there as well but all these men seem to be agitated because there was a small band of kids
that had tried to rip off the drop see now they were going there because there was going to be this drug drop they were
expecting to get three to four pounds of coke and five pounds of weed one and like we said there was Drops that were
made from trains but also possible that the planes would come in and stop in a field make a drop and then fly to the
airport now she said that when the men got there they stumbled upon these boys that were apparently trying to rip them
off and what had happened was they chased after the boys and they got away now she said that they caught two of
them and they were brought back to the tracks this was Kevin Ives and Don Henry she said that when the boys arrived one
of them was already deceased at that point she then claimed that Keith mccaskill killed the other ah no no no
no no no no she's lying she's lying that's not the whole story it's not the whole story but it's it's also not the
end of the story so she would actually give multiple confessions to what had happened to the of course she would so
well we kind of see it with that first part with the questionnaire right she kind of leads on that she and Dan Harmon
know more about the boy's death than what Dan Harmon is willing to admit that he knows and apparently is more than
what she's willing to admit to knowing during filling out that questionnaire now when she gives her second statement
this to detective Brown she now states that she one of the boys is dead she knows exactly what had happened to them
one of the boys is dead when she's at the tracks and the other boy is killed in front of her by Keith mccaskill well
we see another confession from her and one thing I do want to point out here though Captain is you know we've talked
about this a lot when we see multiple confessions from people usually the stories can change change drastically
that's not what takes place with Charlene Wilson now with Charlene Wilson basically what I think we get captain is
weak I think we get the story you know we get the tip of the iceberg with her with that questionnaire then we get
pretty much the whole story right she's filling Us in on more things now this this last let's call it confession
it's basically the same story as the second with one little twist in there okay okay and the twist being that she
actually stabbed one of them I knew it I knew it she said that she was quite high
at the time um choked out of her mind she had been hanging out with Dan Harmon most of the
evening Coke and Fizz that's what they call it and doing coke and she said sex she said that after the boys were
attacked the one was already dead and the one was near death that the the men that were there they were they were
telling her to stab the boy well yeah because their thought process there is if she is a right now she's just a
witness and she's basically accomplice but she can get away with that yeah but if she stabs one of the boys she's
guilty then she's also a murderer yeah yeah and that's why they wanted her to stab the other boy yeah she would be
guilty as a witness but now she's guilty as a as a conspirator to murder um so she does admit to stabbing one of
the boys in the back um she does right right and we have the evidence of the stab hole and so that's
basically her confessions to to that evening well that really to me we've pointed out quite a bit of other
stories regarding that night that all kind of have some loose parts to them but once you factor in Charlene Wilson's
statement that she gives she's kind of the glue she's the little kind of binding everything together so I think
we need to kind of using these stories we we should be able to kind of walk through a timeline for the evening of
August 23 1987. yeah I mean she's the glue that's made out of mainly cocaine so we'll start off with the boys right
Kevin Ives and Don Henry well we've pointed out that if if we take into account everyone's statements that were
given to the police and let's say we believe every statement that was given to the police well this kind of points
out that maybe the boys might not have been going out that night to actually go hunting they might been involved in
something else regardless they went out that night we know they went out that night this would be between 12 30 and 1
am they leave the house saying that there are going to go hunting well we now have eyewitness accounts of other
people being at the tracks that night yeah and so the Assumption here is that Kevin and Don
got this plan in their head that you know we buy pot and we don't have much money
but we know some guys that actually sell some stuff where we can make a bunch of
money off of it so if we could intercept one of these you know I'm not saying that these these kids wanted to try
cocaine I'm saying that it's probably more likely that they're like you know what if we could get some cocaine and we
probably know some people that would buy it we could make some quick cash and we
wouldn't even have to put any money up front because we're just intercepting a drop yeah well I mean there's there's
some proof that they might have been looking to purchase cocaine or to to distribute it to other people to make
some cash and if that's if that in fact is true and they did stumble into a situation where they overhear this big
time drug dealer that they keep referring to as talking about a drop then maybe this is some kind of plan
that they devised do you think the big time drug dealer that they were talking about was uh Dan
yes I actually do and whether they knew him by name or knew it to be Dan Harmon I don't know but I think that there
might have been people that talked about this big time drug lord this big time Big Time play the bass big time
um the thing here is the the reason being is if he's at the drop I don't see why he's not the big time guy you know
you know the way these things work you usually have one it's like a pyramid scheme you have one guy that's doing
pulling in a lot of the product he's Distributing it to a couple people who distribute it to a few more people and
the it gets bigger as you go down the pyramid there and it spreads out the money and most of the money goes to the
top there and we're talking about a drop if we believe Charlene Wilson here we're
talking about a drug drop of she says three to four pounds of cocaine [ __ ] and
five pounds of weed that sounds like a pretty decent drop to me right I don't know much about drug drops drug drops
raindrops drop top but we also have Charlene Wilson's statement saying that she was at the tracks that night with
Dan Harmon Keith mccaskill and a man by the name of Larry Rochelle now who are these other two guys so Keith mccaskill
he is a local bartender he works at one of those places up by the county line and he's he's a pretty well-known
bartender as well he's he's a guy that's known to be a bit rough around the edges
he's known to be a drug user as well as a distributor he's also a Burly guy right now I don't know much about this
Larry Rochelle guy but what I'm kind of assuming here Captain is that I think this Keith mccaskill is involved with
moving drugs for Dan Harmon and this Larry Rochelle is probably involved in the same thing remember this Larry guy
Shady Jerry that's a possibility I mean like where he's like uh who's who's your
friend uh not not Larry Jerry yeah yeah but I don't think that Larry I don't think
that Larry's going to come forward and confess up to anything when he's involved in a murder
or maybe a way to tell a story to cover his own ass well we got to stay clear about this because now we have the two
teenage boys we have Don and Kevin at the tracks and we also have Dan Harmon Keith mccaskill and Larry Rochelle now
we know some of these players here because we have two eyewitness statements we have Charlene Wilson
stating that Dan Harmon Keith mccaskill and Larry Rochelle are at the tracks we also have we also have Tom Newhouse
who's hiding in the bushes nearby witnessing this event take place now there are some statements that say that
that other boy that we talk about later Keith Cooney might have been one of the boys in the bushes with Tom Newhouse now
the situation here is new house Witnesses these guys in our interact with each other there seems to be some
kind of disagreement he hears The Gunshot go off and then the two teenagers flee at this same time we have
Tom Newhouse who flees as well shortly after that we have Don Henry and Kevin Ives who are seen near the store near
shrobe road now this is with the Keith Cooney as well right he states that he was there with the boys right so we have
Keith Cooney's statement stating this and he says that two police officers pull up and at this point that Keith
takes off now we also have the other two eyewitnesses this is your buddy Shady Jerry now he's there and he says that he
sees two police officers he also sees one boy take off on a motorcycle and two remaining teenage boys we also have
Ronnie Godwin story who basically says about the same thing we have these two eyewitnesses that state that they see
police officers beating up kids and throwing them in the back of a vehicle now through these statements one thing
that we learn we do learn who these officers are because of descriptions given as well as names given during some
of these statements and these officers are Jay Campbell and Kirk Lane and they work for the Pulaski County Sheriff's
Office so now we got more we got more characters here well let's just stop right there
right so you know look some sometimes I get you know hate mail saying yeah we don't need to recap hey sometimes we do
we need a lot going on right now so here it is these boys go out to the woods we're assuming that maybe instead of
hunting that they're trying to get in on a drop so that they possibly could get the drugs maybe sell the drugs who knows
yeah they're gonna do a Robin Hood move they they've they've identified some bad
guys they've found a way that they could make some money off of this they're gonna intercept these drugs and sell
them off to their friends right and again there's 16 and 17. so I think some of it is just like you you make some
weird decisions and I don't even want to say bad decisions you sometimes it's just a weird decision so anyways they go
out there there's some kind of Confrontation they jet they leave then they meet up with their friends so now
they're back at the store and there's three of them and then guess who rolls up the police officers now what we do
know is if Dan Harmon was there that you know he's a prosecutor or he becomes a prosecutor after this event he knows
people of power he's in a position of power and if he's the big time drug dealer he is a
position of power right and he probably has people working for him within the system and out of the system and so it's
not like you know if these cops did what the eyewitnesses claimed that they did they
were working for Dan Harmon yes yes you're exactly right and what what takes place here we don't know we can't figure
out if the police officers if these two Sheriff officers if they intended to kill the boys if they were told to kill
the boys but they were certainly told to go out and catch these boys right you know go find these guys that that
stumbled upon our our operation here and bring them back to me you know they bring these boys back to the tracks and
at that point this is where Charlene Wilson's statement carries through stating that one of the boys was dead by
that time probably the one that was you know it was beat in the face yes he was he was hit in the face with with the
either the gun or a telephone a receiver or both and it could have been as simple
as the orders were bringing these guys back to me and then when they tried to apprehend these boys a guy I control
because the boys knew what they're going to head back to right they're heading back to a a drug boss and if you don't
know much about it all you then would know is Hollywood so then you have to deal with your the images of you have
from Hollywood right so you'd be scared out of your mind so you're going to fight for your life
the boys are then brought back to the tracks and according to Charlene Wilson that's when the second boy is killed
um whether it be from Keith mccaskill or whether it be from her stabbing him but
then they place the boys on the tracks so that their bodies are destroyed and all the evidence would be destroyed as
well well that's five key players in this and I would I would say you know to me that
all five of those players are involved in the death yeah yeah right yeah yeah there there's some
moving Parts here that that we don't have um we don't have a solid statement that
locks them into this timeline for the entirety of the timeline because we have this Keith mccaskill he's a bit of a
he's a bit of a rogue situation here right Captain we don't know if he was actually at the tracks from the start to
the finish of this because there is a statement that says that Keith Cooney had went and and told Keith mccaskill
what he had seen at the tracks and that he had fled from some police officers and that mccaskill then went down to the
railroad tracks the only person that states that mccaskill was there is Wilson who says that she didn't see him
until the time that the boys were brought back right so my question here is I got a little bit of a question with
this mccaskill but you're exactly right these are the five key players but you know did he only show up for the second
portion of this or was he one of the three men that Tom Newhouse saw on the tracks because the
situation I think is what what is more likely is that both of those officers might have been there with this Larry
Rochelle and Dan Harmon as a form of protection for this drop you know maybe you leave one officer in the car because
new house only saw three guys on the tracks you leave one guy in the car to keep it as a lookout and the other
officer walks along with you as a form of protection that's the only thing that makes sense to me other than maybe
because they can't make a radio call saying these two guys interrupted are our drop go catch a drug deal yeah yeah
so our drug drop yeah right so I don't know if I don't know if Keith mccaskill was actually involved in the murder or
if he stumbled upon it later and then was terrified because he was dealing drugs for Dan Harmon and didn't want to
throw him under the bus because Dan Harmon had a lot of a lot of stuff on him one on top of that you just you have
two dead bodies you're gonna go run in your mouth after you saw you know two dead bodies so even if you didn't get
there till after they're dead then at that point you're you're maybe not talking because you're well he he
wouldn't be talking if he's dealing for Dan Harmon is my guess if he's working for Dan Harmon as a drug dealer right
but some people are drug dealers are not murderers right and that's that's why I'm I'm bringing up Keith mccaskill
because I don't I'm not convinced that he was there for the actual murder of these boys right I'm stating that it
very clear he could have just stumbled upon the end result while the men were still there and because he was dealing
drugs for Dan Harmon and he was caught up in this drug ring he didn't come forward with information well and maybe
it sounds stupid you know but you got five adults here you got two teenage boys that like I said making a
weird decision maybe a dumb decision you know Autumn ultimately they paid the price for it you know we're going to go
out into the woods if it wasn't just for hunting if it was to disrupt a drug drop
then that that's a very bad decision you know yeah um if you're just going out and hunting
wrong place at the wrong time right and uh you saw some things that you shouldn't have seen but it seems like
there's a lot of weight that they were planning to do this but they're teenage boys 16 and 17 years
old and you got these adults that are some in the system some out of the system they're just doing it for [ __ ] money
anyways right and so and and I and maybe these guys like I said there's a big difference between a drug dealer
and a murderer but then once these guys thought they were caught they had to do something
about these boys and they and they chose I think to murder them or knock them unconscious
because the one that was beat in the face could have you know you know drifted off into a coma for all we know
and then they lay them on the tracks does it matter that there's a train coming he's not waking up from that you
know and they might not have been fully dead by the time that the trains hit them I think it's most likely that they
were but either way it's murder oh yeah yeah and and I agree with you I think it's most likely that they were in
fact dead when they were placed on the tracks we have Wilson's statement Charlene Wilson's statement saying that
she believed both boys to be dead when they were placed on the tracks this also goes along with something we talked
about in the first episode with the EMTs what they what they thought about the blood as well as the train crew right
who were Avid Hunters that when they saw the blood of these boys it was not bright red right it was not flowing this
Blood wasn't you know it had they been killed why they were unconscious on the tracks their their heart would have been
pumping seconds before they were run over this would have caused the blood to flow this would have meant more blood
evidence everywhere at that scene there was a lot less blood than anybody with a
trained eye expected to see and it also was not the color that they expected to see it was purplish in color it did not
look to be fresh blood right so we have these five adults but we also have these
people like I said of power people that are in this system and that's what's so crazy because then you know once they
rule it at accidental death which is probably rule to accidental death because of the people that Dan Harmon
knew right and so they can get this ruling and then all of a sudden when it when
all this new information starts coming to light and we're going to bring it in front of grand jury guess what lawyer
volunteers his Services he rises to the occasion and he throws himself in the middle of the investigation not only
throws himself in there but he's going to be being the guy that's steering and directing the grand jury and on top of
that he has the power he's going to use the grand jury like his own set of bodyguards puppets basically run a
racketeering operation in a blackmailing operation through this grand jury he can
now subpoena whoever he wants in the area bring them in for questioning submit them to questions to find out
what they know what they do or don't know who they've talked to and he can he can sift through the dirt man he can
sift through the dirt and see what Rises to the top to find out what people know
and maybe who he needs to shut up right but who's this lawyer's name well this is Dan Harmon right right once a
prosecutor twice a prosecutor but clearly always a drug dealer and always a douche canal and he's got two sheriffs
at least two sheriffs that we know of that are on the take he's got drug dealers working for him he's created his
own little web his own little operation and he's done it all under the watchful eye of of the local police well and I've
never heard of a story where okay one accidental death you know that's what is they claim it's
Axel down death oh it's not now we got to bring it to trial who brings it to trial Dan Harmon years later who's one
of the number one suspects in the actual murder Dan Harmon I've never heard of that ever I mean it's freaking
mind-blowing and we're just kid we're just getting warmed up I mean I mean we should call part part three of
four should just be called Death that's what it should be called yes we certainly got so much more to get to
we'll get to that next week we got more evidence we got more crimes being committed we're just getting started
right what's our recommended reading for the week recommended reading this week I'm excited about this one Captain it's
called Dark spell surviving the sentence uh this is by one of my favorite and I believe one of the very best True Crime
authors out there Mara Leverett in this story dark spell it's about Jason Baldwin most of you will know him from
The West Memphis Three uh she's written about them before this is kind of continuing on in the case so if you're
like me and you always want to read more about the West Memphis Three pick up dark spell surviving the sentence by
Mara Leverett you can do that by going to our website truecrime garage.com you click on the recommended page and you
pick things up through our Amazon banner and real quick before we go here Captain
we have something to talk about regard supporting iTunes and and the episodes we've had a little trouble okay so all
we do is we we have a host and then our host sends it to iTunes and sometimes it's just been coming up that there's an
error sometimes we get it sometimes it's a download error we're not really for sure all we can do
is do a request sometimes our host says oh well we did something wrong sometimes
it's on iTunes in and it's it's very frustrating and it basically keeps me up a bunch of times but also every time
that we add an episode uh it knocks off uh normally um West Memphis Three part one and so I
have to go back in and add it and sometimes I forget to so when it disappears it's because I forgot to and
just give me a day or so and I'll fix it yeah the the pro we'll prob we apologize
for the troubles and for the frustration but it's just equally as frustrating on
our end we are aware of the issue we've reported the issue many many times and it is in their hands now yeah and I like
to send them a bunch of video chat messages me just screaming I'm I'm gonna put you in your face
fix it fix it now anyways thanks for sharing every time somebody shares it on social
media just it fills my heart an angel gets its wings my my heart gets all gooey all right much love to you and
until next week be good be kind and don't let it thank you [Applause] thank you [Music]

Boys on the Tracks /// Part 2 /// 94

Part 2 of 4

TrueCrimeGarage.com

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

The episode discusses the investigation into the murders of Don Henry and Kevin Ives, revealing police involvement and drug trafficking connections.

Key points

The Boys on the Tracks Case. In 1987, two boys were found dead on train tracks, leading to a controversial investigation.
Shift in Cause of Death. A grand jury suggests the boys' deaths might not be accidental, calling for a second autopsy.
Witness Claims Police Involvement. A witness alleges that police officers attacked the boys before their deaths.
Charlene Wilson's Testimony. Charlene Wilson testifies about her relationship with Dan Harmon and the night of the boys' deaths.
The Shocking Confession. Charlene admits to stabbing one of the boys during a chaotic encounter.
Eyewitness Accounts. Multiple eyewitnesses provide conflicting accounts of the events at the tracks.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

This investigation has been called botched at best.

Comment on the investigation's quality.

5:16WatchOct 12, 2022

Tension

75/ 100High tension

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