Boys on the Tracks /// Part 3 /// 95 | Forensic Files

foreign [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] foreign garage wherever you are whatever you are
doing thanks for listening I'm your host Nick and with me as always is a man that
was all set to play the role of Pennywise until the director found out that he's not a clown he's just a damn
fool he is the captain thank you thank you thank you it's good to be seen and it's good to see you
today we are drinking Kessler Trail ale by the fine folks at Apple Blossom Brewing Company in Fayetteville Arkansas
garage grade three and three quarters out of five bottle caps Kessler Trail ale is a Belgian blonde ale named after
Mount Kessler this Belgian blonde single ale is crisp and refreshing the imported
Belgian pilsner and American pale malt create a delightful Fusion of crisp light malt flavors Kessler Trail ale was
brought to us by these delightful people first up big shout out and thank you to
Craig in Wisconsin and a big shout out to Kelly from Crown Point Indiana next up we have Carrie Curtis Courtney and
David all from the beautiful town of Parts Unknown we still have tents available and we want to give a shout
out to Keith in Colorado Springs Colorado we like your gym next up we say thank you to Amy from northern New
Jersey also Jersey also in Jersey we have Brooke in Elizabeth New Jersey oh and last but not least we say thanks to
Reuben whose parents named him after a sandwich down in Austin Texas reuben says try some Lake Fire Rye Pale Ale
from Grapevine we will try try the Reuben on rye Reuben we will get right on that thank you all for pitching into
this week's beer fund and if you want to buy us around for next week's show go to
True Crime garage.com and click on the Donate button if you haven't been to the website you need to go to the website
I'm surprised that not everybody is on our mailing list we have some new merchandise that we're working on and
this will be available first to the mailing list before anybody else the mailing list will have opportunity so if
you snooze you lose yes make sure you sign up on the mailing list also while you're at the website check out the
store Page we have all of our old episodes available there for purchase they're available for purchase at the
iTunes Store as well and that's enough of the business everybody gather round rabbit chair grab a beer let's talk some
true crime Clinton had integrated a number of corrupt cops judges and politicians into
high-level positions to ensure the continued success of the drug smuggling money laundering operations always going
well until a fateful night in the fall of 1987. on August 22nd 1987 Kevin had spent the
night with his friend Don Henry they left Don's home around 12 30 or quarter to one
on the 23rd of August and early morning hours and the next thing we knew they had been run over by a train there seems
to be a small airstrip in the area there have been sidings and reports of small airplanes
flying very low with lights off in the area I believe they saw something they shouldn't have seen
three weeks later their desks were ruled accidental by the state medical examiner
family Malik and we disagreed with that ruling because we thought the evidence pointed
to homicide at that point we had a lot of questions and no answers and the facts didn't add up to what he
was telling us so we decided to get a second opinion and met with resistance from all fronts
both with our local law enforcement with State Crime Lab with everybody that we turn to
we obtained court orders uh requesting samples of everything that the crime lab had for a second opinion
and femi Malek [Music] um I resisted court orders he refused to obey them ultimately it was proven that
Don Henry had been stabbed in the back and Kevin Ives skull had been crushed prior to the placement of their bodies
on the railroad tracks however Malik stood by his ruling that the boys had simply fallen asleep on the tracks Malik
had been kept in office at the insistence of Governor Clinton for a number of years despite vigorous public
outcry to have him removed as long as Malik's rulings please the governor's office or State Police they
were left to stand no matter how implausible Malik's obvious lack of medical knowledge reached a pinnacle when he
ruled that James Milam who had been decapitated had died of natural causes yet Clinton who had the power to remove
Malik from Office insisted he stayed there were allegations of tampering with evidence in murder cases
there were allegations of perjury in different cases it didn't seem to matter what Mallet did Clinton
protected him he made excuses such as he's overworked he's just stressed out he's underpaid
they gave him a fourteen thousand dollar raise which was an insult to my family as well as a lot of others in the state
who um to this day are struggling with asinine rulings in the deaths of children and
other loved ones I was outraged that protecting a political crony of Clinton's was more important than the
fact that two young boys had been murdered Dan Harmon was just a local attorney in
the town of Benton Arkansas and after Don Henry and Kevin Ives were killed and their bodies placed on
the tracks run over by Terrain he approached Linda Ives in the Henry family about trying to help him
he's a manipulator he gives a great closing argument in court he's been trained for years to play the
game he knows how to do it he's very good at it Harmon can win your confidence make you think he's the greatest guy in
the world he did that to Linda Ives he helped lead them down a path that absolutely led to Nowhere on this
case I got involved in the case and immediately harming uh tried to discredit me without even
knowing me couldn't figure it out I run across a young lady named Charlene Wilson
who told a horror story that I didn't really believe at the time so I started searching for evidence to
substantiate just part of what she had said Herman went ballistic called he threatened me threatened
Sheriff Pridgen threatened Captain Jean Donald the chief deputy all because I talked to this one woman
the people at the track that night to my knowledge were Dan Harmon Keith mccaskill Larry Rochelle
on Sunday August 23 1987 two teenage boys were run over by a train traveling through Bryant Arkansas What followed
was an investigation by local law enforcement this is the Saline County Sheriff's Office who refused to
investigate this as a possible homicide they saw no evidence of Foul Play but they weren't really looking for any
publicly the Sheriff's Office spoke of the incident as though it were an accident and to the families of the two
teenagers 17 year old Kevin Ives and 16 year old Don Henry they talked as if this were a likely suicide the medical
examiner this is the captain's friend Fami Malik ruled the deaths an accident due to marijuana intoxication well he
ruled these deaths at accident due to his stupidity months after the deaths two men present themselves to the
families of the boys this is Rich Garrett and he brings in Dan Harmon who is appointed as a special prosecutor in
this matter working with the grand jury trying to piece together a double murder
case and Garrett and Harman will help out in this case they do get it overturned from an accidental death to a
possible murder yes and then they start investigating looking for the killer or killers of these two boys last week we
took you through the night the two boys were run over the medical examiner's findings and even though the Sheriff's
Office and the medical examiner both decided this was an accident we showed you a second autopsy which showed
significant evidence that both boys were dead before they were placed on the tracks and that both boys were murdered
and placed there so that their bodies and all other evidence would be destroyed and we can clearly see that
Don was stabbed in the back and we also can see that Kevin was he had a skull fracture somebody and we have
eyewitnesses that saw possibly a police officer hitting him with a object in the
face probably the very rifle that the two boys were carrying that night very possible fluids in the body pointed
toward a slower death for both and not a sudden death like that of a being run over by a train and eyewitness
statements regarding the lack of blood and the color of the blood proving that the blood itself was not fresh
we also talked about witness statements many of these given to the Arkansas State Police two witnesses placed Dan
Harmon at the tracks the night that the boys died this is why the case is so odd
is because you have this guy this prosecutor that comes forward and says hey you know this lawyer that says hey I
can help this family I can bring some justice oh it was an accident on death it was a murder and we're going to find
this person but then the more you dig you realize this person that's claiming they're going to help you they're
they're the ones that people are saying it possibly is uh responsible for these murders yes exactly now we do have to
introduce a man by the name of Barry seal Barry seal was a gun Runner and a drug runner in the 80s Barry would
arrange for privately owned planes to fly guns to Colombia and on return flights he was bringing drugs back into
the United States at least one pilot has come forward who claimed to have many times flown a drug drop at the place
where the boys had died some of the local law enforcement was in charge of securing these drops and just prior to
Kevin and Don's deaths a drop at that location had gone missing so those local law enforcements that that were involved
in this operation well they were on high alert they were waiting for somebody to
try to steal that next drop and then that night Kevin Ives and Don Henry happened by let's get to each one of the
eyewitnesses and what happened with them after they came forward with information
well we should start off with the big one and this is Charlene Wilson she had the statement saying that the people at
the tracks that night were Dan Harmon Keith mccaskill and Larry Rochelle she also said that she believed that the
boys were watching the drop site and that they got curious about what was being dropped there well we know that
Charlene Wilson she ends up in prison yeah and who puts her in prison uh our good friend Dan Harmon right right
well we got to put her in prison so she stops running her mouth right and the thing is that the thing that's crazy
about her confession is that this was a confession that was she gave this confession written confession in her in
her own in our own writing and this is witnessed by three officials three law law
enforcement officials and we know that because their signatures are on her confession well when I normally confess
to something I do it in somebody else's handwriting well she confesses in front of these three people in 1993 and then
this confession goes nowhere none of these law enforcement officials do anything with this confession it's
buried in the crime file right and in the case File and it's not discovered again until 2015. right just to play a
little devil's advocate here though is it a coincidence though that she is put in jail by Dan Harmon you know put away
to keep her quiet or is she coming out later saying uh he was involved in these murders which maybe he was maybe he
wasn't we also had several witnesses who placed two Pulaski County officers this
is Kirk Lane and Jay Campbell as not only being in the area where the boys were killed but as having been seen and
I'll quote one of the witnesses statements as beating the [ __ ] out of the two boys near the grocery store down
by the tracks the first man was who we simply just know as Jerry who was described as a Mexican looking man in a
dark blue Camaro right Jerry after telling Mike crook that he had witnessed the two boys being beat up and thrown
into the back of an unmarked police car he went and told this story to sheriff Jim Steed now pay attention because
that's a name that's going to come up several times Jim Steed was the Boss Hogg at Saline County he was the sheriff
he was running the Sheriff's Office Jim Steed threw Jerry into jail and locked him up for 90 days for unpaid child
support the day that Jerry gets out of jail he tells Jim crook that he was told to leave town or else and that he was
moving to California Jerry did leave town we don't know exactly where he went but he's not been seen again and Jim
Crook's story was presented to the Arkansas State Police several months after the fact and they made what I
would argue to be no effort to identify this this man that we only know as Jerry
well first of all like I said sketchy Jerry you gotta pay for your kids you know if
you have child support pay for your damn kids right that's one uh two who knows where you went off to
it's it's a little weird it's definitely weird but uh it's weird too that obviously they had reason to
lock him up for the child support so they know his name and why they're you know maybe they're just not releasing to
the public for his protection or maybe something Foul Play happen and they don't want that to be brought to life or
does Jim Steed have a bigger role in this whole thing the other witness was Ronnie Godwin who
stated that he had observed two police officers beat up two boys at the grocery store the night Kevin and Don were
killed Ronald is more like a convenience store Ronnie Godwin gave his statement to the police and we should be very
clear about this he gave this statement to police during the time of the investigation now Linda Ives she's the
mother of kavan Ives and Gene Duffy who is a former Saline County prosecutor and
I want to put quotation marks up here she's one of the good ones Gene Duffy interviewed Godwin 11 years after the
murders and Godwin's statements were identical to the statements that he had given to the police at the time of the
investigation also included in the state police report were these interviews with Godwin's mother sister
and girlfriend in which they all reported to have said that when Ronnie drinks he tells lies but we need to keep
in mind that when Godwin was interviewed by the state police in 1988 he had get he had been in jail for a couple weeks
before given the statement so he was he would have been sober at this time now Linda and Gene also contacted Ronnie's
mother to discuss her statements to the state police about Ronnie she told them that she had never been interviewed by
the state police she also was certain that neither Godwin's sister or girlfriend had been interviewed by the
state police either so if this is true then the state police had manufactured interviews of witnesses to discredit
Ronnie Godwin well yeah I think it was this I think it was this simple we don't get we don't have to kill this guy
because he's a drunk yeah he's got a bad reputation we can smear his reputation he's pretty drunk he's a liar
this this is not going to go anywhere so we don't have to we don't have to knock
this guy off but the thing we do have to remember Captain is that Ronnie told almost the
same story as Jerry did this lining up with Jerry's story corroborating both stories Godwin via right but but but
Jerry is one he's Shady he's a dirt bag doesn't pay for his kids and he left town so now he's already smeared now we
got this guy with a drinking problem just because you have a drinking problem doesn't mean you're a liar now Godwin
stated that he did not tell anyone what he had witnessed that night until he reported it to police
um he also believes that the two officers that killed the boys that night that they saw him as he passed by the
store and probably recognized his car another state police interview States Richard Garrett remember this is Dan
Harmon's sidekick rushed over to interview Godwin a second time right it would seem that officials were taking
Godwin's statement seriously as it turns out they were only serious about discrediting Godwin right following the
interviews with Godwin there was no attempt to identify the cops that Godwin had saw no photos of local officers or
unmarked cars were shown to him no check of officers in the area that night who would fit the description there was no
check for traces of blood or other evidence in the back of any of the unmarked cars nothing just discrediting
Godwin statements by fabricating interviews with his mother sister and girlfriend stating that when Ronnie
drinks Ronnie lies the only true effort to identify Jerry was the state police stating that Jerry and Ronnie Godwin
were one in the same right so it was shady Jerry actually Godwin well Godwin was shown the state police interview
with Mike Crook and he simply states that he and crook knew each other crook at the time was married to Godwin's
cousin and so Godwin presented his story to police so there's no reason for crook
to call Godwin Jerry when he knew him furthermore Godwin has never been jailed for back child support in fact Godwin
has always had custody of his only child crook also confirmed that Jerry and Ronnie Godwin were not the same person
they don't come out and say who Shady Jerry is they just said oh well he was in jail and then he disappeared and we
don't know what happened to him and now we got this other guy Godwin and Godwin is just a drunk right so that takes care
of two eyewitnesses but see here's where things start to get a little scary here
Captain both Jerry and Godwin they describe three boys driving up to the grocery store on a motorcycle
Don Henry two yes Kevin Ives and who's the third one well we have we have they State the two boys get off of the
motorcycle and around that same time officers Campbell and Lane arrive the boy on the motorcycle takes off now this
has to be Keith Coney a young man who told his mother he knew some stuff about the night the boys were murdered right a
young man who told his father he had seen Kevin and Don the night that they were killed and he believed the two were
killed by two police officers all three of these stories align with one another three people that do not know each other
and the same story is told independently of each other now Keith also had said that he was afraid for his life because
he knew too much about Kevin's and Don's murders now Coney was killed in 1988 in
a motorcycle crash this was nine months after Kevin and Don were murdered the official report was that Coney had run
his motorcycle into the back of a semi truck traveling at a high rate of speed now Keith Coney was one of the last
people to be seen with Kevin and Donna live Keith had been called to testify he was subpoenaed by Dan Harmon to testify
in front of the grand jury now there are many people that say that his death had
not been a highway accident that these Witnesses had said that Keith was attempting to escape an attack that he
had jumped on his bike and tried to flee at a high rate of speed and he was actually being chased by a vehicle when
he swerved into the back of the truck Witnesses saw Keith's body they reported that his throat had been slashed and he
had several wounds that the witnesses did not believe would have been caused by a vehicle accident right so another
case where we have and who was the medical examiner on that uh Fami Malik right so Fami again is going ah well
look this is just just death by motorcycle well I don't even know how Fami talks he sounds
stupid anyways he probably said look this is just a simple death it's a motorcycle accident that's all that
happens it's not a motorcycle accident if your throat is slashed yeah if you're escaping an attack you're being chased
by a vehicle at a high rate of speed right that's called Murder there was also reason to believe that Keith was
selling drugs and was involved with some of the local dealers so he might have known some of these people at play here
right but I think this is part of the story that I don't really like and we can get into this later when we talk
about our own theories but this whole thing about you know Don Henry and and Kevin eyes they were they were going out
there and they're going to steal these drugs right from some drug lords right that oh by the way they're the the guy
that ended up dead on the motorcycle oh he sold drugs too I think it's an easy way to tarnish you know and not saying
that these kids maybe didn't smoke pot maybe drink a little bit maybe even sold it from time to time but I don't think
there were known drug dealers and I'm not trying to tarnish Keith's name or Kevin or Dawn's names either better not
um I with with Keith I just simply bring it up because because he may have known some of the
stuff that was going on if if in fact he was uh selling drugs for somebody he may
have known these people that were out that night it wouldn't just be that oh it was two police officers oh it was uh
this group of guys and I don't know who they are I'm just bringing up that he may have had some connection with these
people well no and the other thing about it is after the Coney leaves on his motorcycle he actually went to uh the
Wagon Wheel yes which was the bar and he told and that's when he told Keith mccaskill yeah old mccaskill so you know
there is some validity because you know there is there's rumors that mccaskill was selling drugs or part of the drug
running so then why would Keith go talk to him right if he didn't know him exactly if he did know him he'd probably
know him through but this is also a weird time because this is 1987 right okay and and when I
graduated high school 99 and you remember this because and our band would play yes I was alive and
around in 99. well we had you know the metal band that we played in and would play gigs and we'd have parties and
stuff to kind of like promote the shows and stuff like that and just kind of typical things but we'd normally have
mostly high school kids but there would always be like a group of college age kids yeah or even late 20s something
yeah and now of days like you could not pay me to go hang out with high school kids yeah I I wonder I
always I didn't Wonder back then but once I got to be 28 29 I wondered what those 28 29 year olds were even doing
hanging out I think you got to be a pretty big loser as well I think is going on that you got
to hang out with these young people which makes it a little more odd that Coney would go talk to mccaskill so hold
on to your seats because we're going to get into some super creepy stories right
after this quick beer break thank you welcome back to True Crime garage all right Captain we have to Cheers mates
cheers mates we have to introduce a man by the name of Gregory Collins now it is
believed that Collins had information on the Kevin Ives and Don Henry deaths in January of 1989
Gregory Collins died from three shotgun blasts fired at a close range now one shot hit Collins in the face his body
was discovered in a Pine Forest in a County south of saline Collins had been called to testify to the grand jury but
he had never appeared now newspaper reports that Garrett and Harman questioned him privately about the
trained death case right question him or threaten him I guess depends on how you
look at it the strange thing here though Captain is you know little is known about what he may have known about this
case he may have known something because apparently he was in interviewed or like
you said possibly threatened by Garrett and Harman in private um but he he is shot three times with a
shotgun now we have a little more Fami Malik Shenanigans going on here because this is one that Fami Malik would rule a
suicide so if you believe the medical examiner okay just say it slowly for me say say
this stupidity slowly for me okay so if you are to believe the medical examiner Fami Malik then you would have to
believe that Gregory Collins drove out to a remote place went into the forest with a shotgun and managed to shoot
himself three times and one of those shots being to the face where presumably that's the shot that killed him it's not
impossible that somebody could shoot themselves three times uh but I find it highly unlikely with a shotgun it would
be very it would be extremely hard to do to shoot oneself three times with the shotgun you know that's just fomi being
fomi you know that's just fomi being farmy yeah that's just fomi doing whatever the hell he wants uh yeah or
what he's paid to do by others you're exactly right that's the other thing too it's like I'm not saying that he's a
dumbass he might not actually be a dumbass but when you have higher ups that are right one writing your check
and you got people yeah eyewitnesses dying around you well what the hell are you going to do
here's the other thing though Captain too we talked about remember Fami Malek got a nice he got a handsome uh
promotion well not a promotion but he got a raise well yeah and I said I think 43 but it's a 41 raise which was
announced to be what like 14 000 was the actual the the money amount there was fourteen thousand so if that's a 40
let's just say it's a 40 raise so that means he's making and I'm gonna show my dumb math here but that would mean he's
making in the ballpark of what 40 to 45 000 a year before that raise give or take yeah so now he's making under 60.
uh I would think that people that are importing pounds of cocaine and moving them would have the means of buying Mr
Malik off pretty cheap probably if the guy's only making 60 Grand a year it probably doesn't take a whole boatload
of money to get him to say you know what not only do we need you to say that this
was either an accident or a suicide but you're the medical examiner nobody else is going to follow up on this whatever
you rule this is probably what it's going to sit as forever but they but they did follow up on many cases if you
know I mean like people eventually started going hey there's something wrong and that's what frustrates me
about this whole case yeah is not only did you know families came forward and said hey
something's not right another the powers that be going all the way up to Bill Clinton which was this Governor
at the time he wasn't president at the time but goes all the way up to that jack wagon right and he comes back and
says Hey look it's none of my business I I think he's doing a pretty good job yeah he's doing a great job yes [ __ ] you
Bill okay all right calm down there Captain well this is just you know it's ridiculous I mean three shots you know
three shotgun shots to the face well one to the face right two to the chest right
but you're gonna shoot yourself twice in the chest and then one in the face let's
keep in mind a shotgun's a pretty powerful shot too that'd be really hard to do anyways yes I mean The Recoil
alone would probably mess up your hand on some level or I would argue that nobody would that very few people would
even have the strength remaining after one shot to fire an additional two shots I mean it's this is just asinine really
next we have Daniel Bearden who went by the name of boonie boonie was from Alexander Arkansas
about six weeks after they discovered Gregory Collins body in the forest uh police began searching another remote
area for the body of this boonie guy and he had he was another person that was asked to testify to the grand jury it's
probably suicide well he he was actually missing for about eight months at the time that they started searching for him
so they were in no hurry to go looking for him right um police they only went out there
because they received information that he was buried near the Arkansas River they went out there and they searched
and they found nothing um so this guy is is unaccounted for suspected to have been killed and buried
somewhere now a person by the name of Woodrow May testified that he Woodrow was the middleman and a local drug trade
but he also stated that three other people had similar arrangements with the guy that he was getting his drugs from
and in this statement he also says that two of these people Harmon knew personally and may have had some kind of
arrangement with them the reason why I bring up Woodrow is because in that same statement Woodrow stated that boonie was
one of his distributors so again we're seeing the drug trade the drug trafficking right going on wrapped
around this whole case right and this also brings us to eyewitness James Milam yeah we talked about Milam a little bit
earlier but we didn't identify him by name um he had information regarding the Ives
and Henry deaths as well he was scheduled he was you know they had a long list of people that they were going
to talk to with the grand jury he was on that list he didn't get the opportunity
to do so though remember he was the guy that was found decapitated but Fami Malik had ruled that it was a it was
natural causes that he had died from in all of an ulcer yeah yeah yeah which apparently that that you have an ulcer
your head pops off that's that's according to Fami Malik that's what happened and
um and we here's the crazy thing he's decapitated and Fami Malik claims that the dog ate the head right ate the
head of the of of his owner now the thing here is his whole story got all screwed up when do we know what kind of
dog that is uh because I'm not it's probably a very small one I'm in the market to buy a dog and I'm not buying
that kind of dog okay so that's what Fami Malek said because when I die from an ulcer and your head pops off I do not
want my dog eating my head okay but listen to this Camp though Malik says that the dog ate the head right
okay then there's a big problem with his finding because the police shortly after
Malik gives this ruling they find the head right they find the head and then Malik's like well that's because the dog
regurgitated it that he threw up he ate the head and then he puked and puked it up right the more the more we cover this
story the more I just think that he has paid or knows that if you don't cooperate
you're gonna die of an ulcer and your head's going to pop off as well I I look I don't think it's stupidity I don't
think I don't think any doctor is that dumb I think I really the more we talk about it
the more I think that his hands were tied and he knew if he didn't follow you know the powers that be that he's going
to end up worm food I think you might be on to something there you he he could have been afraid he could have been
being paid under the table by some of these people or could have been a combination of both which is probably
what is most likely um the thing here is though you know while we're on Fami Malik story here
that he started off as an assistant to the medical examiner and very quickly the medical examiner retired and he
basically assumed the role of medical examiner well and I wonder how long that guy worked for and and was he was he
supposed to retire or was he just somebody that was not going to work within their system he was
made to retire that's who I'm saying that's a good question we we don't know that but what we do know is that what
was discovered after Fami Malik had been the medical examiner right for like seven it was either seven to nine years
somewhere in that ballpark they realized because of some of these cases that Malik actually did not have the
qualifications to be a medical examiner he only had the qualifications to be an assistant so they realized this he
wasn't even qualified for that probably right and they realized this after he's been running the show for almost 10
years yeah but it's not you know Bill Clinton can't do nothing about it well listen to this whole story they they the
governor's office there here's their statement they say that it's not their problem because
they're supposed to be a medical examiner's commission this is a group of people that review and decide who is
qualified for this position and who is not so when Fami Malek took over the position they should have reviewed his
qualifications reviewed him as a candidate and either accepted him or turned him down for the
role the problem is when people started going back in in interviewing this medical examiner's commission that
supposedly existed well the people that were supposed to be on the commission said yeah I was on
that commission at one point but we haven't met for like 10 or 12 years we've not met about anything for 10 or
12 years I didn't know I was supposed to still be on that commission well then the governor's office then says well
because this commission didn't do their job there's nothing that we can do about
it we cannot remove we we can't remove we can't remove him now and at some point after it was discovered he wasn't
qualified he did seek out whatever training or knowledge he needed or you know to to become qualified for the
position eventually right well because he just got won a a 41 raise and then he's getting probably Kickbacks and look
and again there's the fear element when your Governor is helping other people run drugs
then and and and some boys stumble upon that 16 and 17 year old boy stumbles upon that and they are murdered and they
put their bodies on tracks to be ran over by trains you might fall in line too I mean you might do what they tell
you to do well when the officials of Arkansas were asked why would you give Fami Malek a a pay raise when we have
people in the community hold on because we're selling drugs people that's what they should have said Bill Clinton
should have said hey we're selling drugs and we need somebody to cover our ass and that's why we gave him a pay raise
but the thing here is we they had people they had families they had people in the
community basically picketing and calling for Fami Malek's Job saying fire this dude we don't trust this guy we
can't feel safe living here if this is what's going to be happening and basically the official said that you
know because they were asked why the hell would you give this guy a pay raise when all these people were calling for
his job right and they they stated go ahead well and it's not just the Henry family and the Ives family that aren't
getting answers because a lot of all these victims and it's then multiply it by all their family and friends and
those are the people paying your salary but at the end of the day you think Bill Clinton gives a [ __ ] do
you think anybody in power that's getting paid a bunch of money actually gives a [ __ ]
you know if they're running drugs if they're willing to kill a 16 and 17 year old person do you think they actually
give a [ __ ] and for all the people right now that are listening going well this
is just a conspiracy this ain't conspiracy this is a fact we're stating facts this is not conspiracy but but the
funny thing is here these these officials talk out of both sides of their mouths no [ __ ] because what
happens here is when when he's first awarded the pay raise they they stay they say that you know what Fami Malik
is a victim in this whole circumstance and that he deserves to be you know treated with respect right and and to
show him such we gave him a pay raise well then when they come back and they ask them later there's all these people
in the community saying he should be fired how can you give him a pay raise then they State well he's due to retire
soon so we applied that pay raise to him not for him personally but as a position
we were upgrading the pay to that position so that when he does retire higher we could recruit a more you know
suitable candidate for this position well you know how they always have answers don't they well you're right
because when you're high on cocaine you come up with a million answers all at once well let's keep going with this
list here Captain because it just keeps growing and growing next on the list is Richard Winters uh who was actually at
one point he was he was considered to be a possible suspect in the deaths of Kevin Ives and Don Henry
um he had he had he had offered to cooperate with the grand jury and with Garrett and Harman at some point
um but again before he could do so okay he ends up being killed by a shotgun blast to the face
um but this was during a robbery in July of 1989. now it's it's not been proven um but but it's it's widely believed
that the robbery was was not so much robbery that it was more of a setup right okay
we're gonna have this robbery situation and one guy's going to end up dead in it
and conveniently it's somebody that's offering to cooperate with the grand jury and and maybe divulge what he may
know about the deaths of these two teenagers I think it's pretty obvious by now that
everybody that we bring up on this list is going to end up dead at some point I told you this episode should be called
Murder yeah well the thing here is one of the one of the stranger ones to me is Keith mccaskill yeah now shortly before
Keith mccaskill was murdered I have nightmares about this yeah he he told people that he believed he was going to
be murdered he he was telling his family members goodbye he was making funeral arrangements he was telling his friends
goodbye um he was also telling his friends and family that like he was being followed
by by the two police officers that we had mentioned earlier that were Lane and Campbell that were supposed to be
involved in the deaths of the two teenagers he was also pointing out vehicles to his friends and family
stating you know what I know that car's been following me for quite some time um the thing here is that the a big
problem with this story is remember we talked about Sheriff Jim Steed well there was an election coming up in 1988
and it was for the the office of of sheriff now the thing is here that mccaskill
on the night of the sheriff's election in 1988 he was out with a bunch of people and he made a big announcement at
this bar and he held up two pennies he pulled two pennies out of his pocket threw them at the bar yeah and he stated
he said if Jim Steed loses this election my life isn't worth two cents and believe it or not shortly after that he
was killed okay so did he lose the election yeah Jim Steed lost the election that night
and within 48 Hours uh Keith mccaskill was murdered but how he was murdered is what creeps me out yeah so a quick
description here which I think is very fitting for Keith mccaskill uh which is necessary I mean uh he managed a place
called the weak The Wagon Wheel Lounge uh and he was considered to be a big dude he was six foot two uh he weighed
about uh 200 pounds or so um he was a bit of a legend for breaking up bar room fights several people told
stories of him breaking up fights that involved weapons sometimes even knives and he would without a weapon go into
this fight and break it up because he was a bad hombre yeah and but but mccaskill might have been a bit of a
weird dude though because he was he was a known drug user he was suspected of selling drugs he had a lot of friends in
low places but he had a lot of police friends as well that's sky is just all sorts of bad country songs he works at
the Wagon Wheel he has Friends in Low Places yeah it but but the the funny thing here though to me Captain is we
talk about all these misdoings by these public officials and by uh police officers and sheriffs you know deputies
and things like that right and you know to call somebody a weird dude saying that he's got a lot of friends that are
in low places but he also has a lot of friends that are police as well I don't think it's that weird in this situation
because it seems to me like some of the police were in Pretty Low Places themselves right right that's exactly
right now Dan Harmon told Linda Ives and others that mccaskill was acting as an informant in the murder case agreeing to
pass along any information that he had heard in the nightclub but more importantly you know according to
Charlene Wilson's statement mccaskill was at the tracks the night that the boys were killed right and it is also
believed that Keith Cooney went on to to find mccaskill and tell him what he had
saw at the tracks or what he had saw near the grocery store that night with the police officers beating up his
friends so on November 10 1988 this like we said this is just two days after the
sheriff's election this takes place around 1 30 a.m a neighbor of Keith mccaskill's said that he had heard some
loud groaning noises coming from mccaskill's home uh this woke him up in the middle of the night he go he goes to
the window and he's looking around and he sees nothing but what he says is that it sounded as if someone had drank way
too much and was vomiting right uh the following morning a lady friend of mccaskill's came to his home and
discovered his body so what happened how did he die well mccaskill's body was wrapped in a flower patterned shower
curtain and he was laying in the carport area of his home this is near a door that was going to his kitchen he's
covered in blood his house inside the home completely covered in blood as well there had been an obvious fight and that
lasted probably quite some time that had left blood everywhere mccaskill had been
stabbed over a hundred times Jesus um the stab that most likely killed him was there was one to the heart uh all of
the stab wounds were above the waist showing that mccaskill had defended himself and probably doing it quite well
uh making the fight last a lot longer than maybe his attackers would have thought it would have a lot of the
slashes and stabs were to the arms and the hands showing that not only was he defending himself but he was going after
the knife that was stabbing him well it sounds like he had an ulcer yeah this is
this is probably natural causes or at the very least an accidental death right according to Fami Malek no of course it
was ruled a murder um but but here's where it gets weird well actually not of course in this case
that's like not of course yeah you're right you you have to be like ex you know acceptable yeah you're like oh
finally um well now we we should talk about Ronald Shane Smith Ronald Shane Smith
was a neighbor of mccaskill's right now what had happened was when the police after after the the friend the female
friend found mccaskill's body she calls it in the police are there investigating
whatever's going on and Ronald's father goes across the street and he says you know what I think you should talk to my
son because I think he knows something about what has happened here right so they talked to the Sun
uh now now Ronald Shane Smith is 19 years old at the time and he's he's considered slow at school that's
mentally handicapped not my words these are other people's words um the thing here is he tells them that
he was over at mccaskill's place and that he he had gone there to purchase I believe he purchased a silver tray and
some pornographic uh videotapes from mccaskill the tray was going to be a gift for his mother the tapes were
something for himself right and uh he had owed mccaskill money so he went over there to pay him some of the money that
he owed him and while they were there he said that mccaskill was acting strange he was looking out the window stating
that people were following him and as he's been calling this for weeks yeah and he says then at some point
three men they they pull up in a vehicle they bust through the door yeah but what
were these guys wearing there were there were three men wearing clown masks [ __ ] no well no so well that's what
that's what they were wearing but could you imagine well we do have Stephen King's It coming out
very soon yes but what I'm saying is if three dudes in clown masks showed up to my house oh Abby yeah you're hoping that
it's one of your friends are acting nuts I mean I'd be scared by the same time I'd be thinking I'm going to kick one of
these dudes in the dick well uh according to Ronald Shane Smith two of the guys had knives and one of
them had a gun and the the guy with the gun the clown with the gun comes up to Ronald and he forces him into a chair
holding him at gunpoint a fight breaks out between mccaskill and the other two guys that are holding knives
at some point during the fight the the gunman takes Ronald outside and he says that during this time he
could hear mccaskill in the home being killed uh you'd think they would just shoot him
and then would it you know with the when the struggle happened you'd think that the guy with the gun would have just
shot him and just took off yeah well here's the thing here's what really that was my whole
thing I was like why the hell wouldn't they just shoot this witness right but then I also got to thinking about
well if mccaskill was killed in a situation where it was a hit where it was a planned murder
well why would why would you bother fighting with mccaskill anyway because if you just you I wouldn't want to fight
with mccaskill it sounds like he could handle himself and and many others at the same time right he was a ballroom
brawler man and the thing is they obviously wanted to keep this quiet you can't just show up you can't just show
up to someone's home in a neighborhood and guns blasting everywhere and go unnoticed silence sir the the thing here
is you know so what they did according to Ronald Smith is that they gave him the knife and they told him that if he
didn't stab uh mccaskill they were going to shoot him and so he stabs mccaskill and they take a picture a Polaroid
picture of him at that time and they tell him that they're going to keep this for evidence if you ever come after us
if we if you tell on us we're going to frame you for this murder and again his IQ was something around 80. so this is a
lot of stuff and a lot of details that come up with out of nowhere it is uh the story doesn't end there uh
we'll get it back to that but the I didn't really want to I didn't really want to report on what
his supposed IQ was because I've seen some varying you know we we noticed this with West Memphis Three and several
other cases that we've covered that the IQ seems to be something that people argue you know people that would be for
some kind of conspiracy they're going to lower his IQ when they tell the story and people that think that Ronald Smith
is guilty they're going to raise that IQ right the other thing that's been in question I've seen different reports of
ha of the size of this 19 year old boy because there's been a lot of people that said well you know he was only five
eight 148 pounds there's no way that he could have taken down Keith mccaskill who was six foot two over 200 pounds bar
room brawler uh but I don't bring a fist to a knife fight but I've also seen reports that have uh Ronald Smith being
as tall as 5 foot 11 and 180 pounds which is not a big discrepancy between the two men exactly exactly but his
story does change upon further questioning the story changes too that it was not three men in
clown mask it was five men that were dressed head to toe in Black uh that they came in but but there's a lot of
similarities they came in they busted through the door they took over the situation they controlled Ronald Smith
and and they attacked Keith mccaskill um they did find they found blood everywhere in that home this fight
lasted for quite some time and he believed Ronald Smith reported that he believed that the men that the attack
took somewhere between 30 and 40 minutes to take place the strange thing here though too is Jim Steed you remember the
uh the the outgoing Sheriff who lost the election well he had hired mccaskill to
take aerial photos of the of the tracks of of the area where the boys were were killed
um we don't know I don't know if he ever successfully carried out those photographs now he did have a briefcase
in his home that had blood all over it and it was opened and and it wasn't full you know it wasn't stuffed to the brim
with with with items so some people would believe that something was stolen from that briefcase
um it could have been aerial photos it could have been it could have been drugs there was also rumors that mccaskill was
making audio tapes of what he knew about the murders and what he and who he knew
was involved that way if something did happen to him that maybe police or maybe one of the actual good guys would find
one of these cassette tapes yeah if there was a good guy left yeah it's it's getting hard to find any good people
left now the police they did go and they found some of these some items in Ron Smith's possession
um out behind his home they had found the silver tray that he had talked about purchasing some videotapes and they
found some bloody clothes now in Ron Smith's story though he says remember he says that he was told to to stab uh
mccaskill as mccaskill was already dead uh but he was also he also said that he had
fallen on the body at some point and got blood all over himself right um it's difficult here Captain because
you could make a strong argument either way in this case to me but when I keep seeing name after name of people that
are being called to the grand jury and they keep dying um it it seems to me like mccaskill's
murder is probably not a one-off committed by this Ron Smith it's probably connected to this whole voice
on the track situation um now Ronald Smith ends up being convicted of the murder of Keith
mccaskill which my gut feeling says that is another tragic point of this story yeah and next we have Jeff Rhodes now
Jeff Rhodes was the young man from Benton Arkansas who was he ended up being murdered in 1989 but shortly
before his death he made a phone call to his father in Texas stating that he needed to get out of Arkansas and that
he felt that he knew way too much about the boys on the railroad tracks and the death of Keith mccaskill a couple weeks
after this phone call that's when Jeff is found dead he had been shot in the head and he was they had attempted
whoever killed him attempted to cut off his head and hands and feet they were unsuccessful with the hands
and feet and they had also set him on fire now they found his body in a landfill these are just Savage people
yeah the thing is though we have Jeff Rhodes he's he's missing for just a week right but but shortly after he's
reported missing his father re reaches out to the Sheriff's investigators and states that you know he called me a week
ago asking if I could find him a job here in Texas because he needed to leave Arkansas and this is why he needed to
leave Arkansas and he said there was never any follow-up even after they had found his body they didn't reach back
out to him to further inquire what Jeff Rhodes could have been talking about and
somehow they linked the death of Jeff Rhodes to this guy named Frank pelcher he's ultimately arrested and charged
with murder he's convicted and sentenced to life now we got to keep in mind here
because of what took place in 1987 Dan Harmon he's he's a quote-unquote special prosecutor he's assigned this role he's
he's certainly special right but he's not technically he's not an elected prosecutor uh he's assigned this role in
the in the the specific case of Don Henry and Kevin Ives Now by 1990 he is the elected prosecutor and so now he has
all this additional power so some of these cases that we're seeing coming about where the murder would take place
in in 1989 some of these people were probably convicted and prosecuted by Dan Harmon
well he had a lot of covering up to do and that leads us to Jordan ketelsen now Jordan kettleson he was believed to have
had information regarding Kevin Ives and Don Henry's deaths he was also believed that he might have
been a part of mccaskill's murder now he was found shot to death in his front in
the front seat of his pickup truck in June of 1990. now there was no police investigation regarding his homicide
his body was cremated before an autopsy could be performed why I have no clue well because the autopsies were so bad
anyways so you know hey let's just not even get old Fami involved is probably an ulcer anyways and and I
don't have definitive information about this but it could be a situation where the police ruled it a suicide you know
he's found shot in in his vehicle right um but again we've talked about this time and time again anytime you have a
death that is as a result of unnatural causes you know an autopsy is supposed to be performed in this situation and it
wasn't well not it was cremated before it could be performed well right not if you're trying to cover up and cover your
ass you know we don't need autopsies so obviously this is so obvious right here Captain we we have an obvious we have
all these Witnesses we have all these people that are supposed to be called to the grand jury people that have been
reported to have had private meetings private questioning situations with Richard Garrett and Dan Harmon and we
see person after person you know getting killed yeah people person after person dying in these mysterious serious deaths
somewhere we have people getting convicted somewhere we have no explanation why they died at all I mean
we had we had Jerry who we don't know who he is he and if we believe that story he moved out of the area because
he was told to get the hell out of Dodge right or he was killed and never found and and one they refused to identify him
you had stated earlier and you're exactly right it would have been so easy for Sheriff Jim Steed to come forward
and say well this is who Jerry was I know who he is because we locked him up for 90 days but nobody says that and
then we have Ronnie Goodwin now Ronnie Godwin I'm sorry he's one of the lucky ones he's still alive today but but
police refused to believe his story more to the point where they say that he is Jerry when they know damn well he's not
Jerry right he's just a drunk can't believe him we have Keith Cooney who was probably you know witnessed too much
stuff that night he probably gave Kevin and Don a ride on the back of his motorcycle he may have seen something go
down at the tracks or earlier yeah and his death has ruled a motorcycle accident we have kids right with a slit
throat yeah we have Keith mccaskill who is murdered in his own home he stabbed over 100 times we have the strange
stories with the clown mask and the men dressed from head to toe in Black right and we we have who could be another
innocent person who is convicted of his murder right we have Greg Collins shotgun blast the face and it's ruled a
suicide yeah three shots with a shotgun he killed himself we have Jeff Rhodes shotgun blast the face his body is
burned he's found in the landfill and we have this pelcher guy that is arrested and convicted for his murder and we we
got Rhodes telling people that not only did he know about the boy's deaths in advance before he's killed he's telling
him that he knows about mccaskill's death as well right we have Richard Winters who who dies in the robbery we
have Jordan ketelsen uh shot to death in in the front seat of his pickup truck and there's no explanation for how he
died we're not given a ruling on how he died no autopsy performed we have James Milam who had an ulcer and his head
popped off you know that's just Fami Malik straight out creating something here just just making something up we have
that boony Bearden who vanished and we've never seen him there he's believed to be murdered they've never located his
body what did he know yeah and if this isn't this is enough evidence of a huge conspiracy to cover up
these boys's death uh I don't know what to tell you yeah they're covering up the
deaths of these two boys and then they're killing more people to cover up the deaths that they have to commit to
cover up the the original two right and it all comes down to the fact that they have these drugs they have to keep
running the drugs they want to keep having the money from the drugs and that they're they have higher ups I think
that are involved in this drug smuggling and this drug running and it's it's the
crime agreed to you know the murder for greed just makes absolutely no sense to me well and I know we probably got some
loyal garage army people out there going this this is huge Nick and Captain why haven't we heard of this before well
contact somebody that lives in Arkansas because these people have been talking about this case for 30 years right uh
this is no secret to the people that live in Arkansas and live in this area and if alarm Bells aren't going off in
your head ask yourself this okay we've we've mentioned over what we've mentioned 10 or a dozen murders here
right and there's probably a few that we don't know about because we're not in Arkansas and it's hard to find
information about people that died in 87 88 89 from that time period but ask yourself this why do we have an area a
remote area of a state where only about 5 000 people are reported to have been living there in the late 80s and we got
all of these mysterious deaths going on in a short period of time it it there's something going on in Arkansas
one how many people are going to talk about this if you know clowns are showing up to people's houses and
stabbing them a hundred times if a clown shows up to my house one I'm kicking it
in the I'm kicking in the goddamn dick okay first of all second of all I hope that we put on the
show next week because if somebody finds me somewhere and my head popped off it wasn't a goddamn ulcer your stomach's
fine I I mean I will vouch for you your your stomach is fine you're solid I'm in
that area we go we we have a lot to uh cover in the next case and I think I it's a shame that this case hasn't
been talked about and I see this all the time when when in the the thing that drives me absolutely insane is the word
conspiracy when there are truths there and when they start talking about these child sex trafficking rings that maybe
some people in the government are involved in and there's some actually there's some
validity to the story and it just kind of goes nowhere to me that is powerful people and rich people being able to
protect themselves in a way that the normal person or the normal citizen of the United States of America cannot do
yeah and I think um how much was like Bill Clinton involved in this I don't know but he knew certain
things about it and again I don't want to become political because I'm neither left or
right I'm normally always wrong so you're usually wrong but well my point is is I I don't like Rich Pricks and I
don't like Rich Pricks using people for you know gains and I don't like I don't like people of power getting away with
horse [ __ ] well we will try tomorrow to sum this up put a nice bow on it and open your eyes to some other goings-on
that was taking place in in Arkansas as well all right let's wrap this up because I gotta do a couple sets down at
the Wagon Wheel yeah we will see everybody back in the garage tomorrow if you if you don't hear from us tomorrow
notify the National Guard all right but until then be good be kind and don't let
her foreign [Music] [Applause] [Music]

Boys on the Tracks /// Part 3 /// 95

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.

Beer of the Week - Kessler Trail Ale by Apple Blossom Brewing CompanyGarage Grade - 3 and 3/4 bottle caps out of 5

Beer Fund: https://truecrimegarage.com/home

Brief Summary

The episode details the suspicious deaths of two boys and the ensuing cover-up involving corrupt officials and witnesses in Arkansas.

Key points

The Mysterious Deaths of Kevin and Don. Two teenage boys were run over by a train, but evidence suggests foul play.
Political Protection. Corrupt officials shielded a medical examiner's questionable rulings, raising suspicions.
Eyewitness Accounts. Multiple witnesses reported seeing police officers involved in the boys' deaths.
Murder or Accident?. Witnesses question the cause of Keith's death, suspecting foul play.
The Mysterious Death of Gregory Collins. Gregory Collins, who had information on the case, was found dead from shotgun blasts.
The Unlikely Suicide Ruling. Fami Malik ruled Collins' death a suicide, raising eyebrows about his qualifications.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

I was outraged that protecting a political crony was more important than two young boys.

Expressing frustration over the handling of the case.

6:42WatchOct 12, 2022

Tension

85/ 100High tension

More from True Crime Garage TV

Solve the Crime

Read a real case one clue at a time, then see how your call held up against the investigators.