Hayward Bissell and the Murder of Patricia Booher | Morbid | Podcast | Forensic Files

hey weirdos I'm Ash and I'm Elena and this is morbid [Music] it is I did that thing where I almost
said hi I'm Elena hi I'm Elena just hey emelina that's it that's that's that's welcome that's the that's that's that's
the whoa that's the that on that oh yeah that's what I was going for I finished it I figured that's what you were going
for just trying to help you out there for a second just taking a sip of her iced coffee so she's like you keep
talking keep going don't you let anyone hear me swallow that iced coffee oh God I hate when I hate the thought of people
like hearing me chew or swallow or anything it's true um I don't like mouth noises no and most
people don't I don't think so I don't think anybody's like Oh yay mouth noise my favorite
um I also just needed that coffee because wow I could not get a sentence out it's true but here we are it's
morbid yeah I have a pretty tough one today it's it's a sad sad story oh good um
but yeah maybe before we start I'll just quickly say there's a tick tock account
that you guys should follow oh she's good at that let's see yeah I haven't done it in a while yeah you haven't Tick
Tock recommendation corner with Elena who's who's up oh there's two actually there's two so uh my first is like for
all especially parents out there oh is it Annalee Yeah Anna Lee a-n-a-l-e-e she's hilarious she's like the realist
parent she is even fellow I feel like even if you don't have kids but like you want kids or like you're involved in
kids lives in a big one yeah she's a great follow I highly suggest it very entertaining very sweet and every time I
watch her videos I'm like can we hang out though like can we be mom friends I would really like to be so Anna Lee if
you're listening can we be mom friends can you guys be mom friends and then I can be like your non-mom friend for a
little bit I want that and Anna Lee and a bunch of other Tick Tock moms hung out
in like South Carolina I know one of my other couple weeks ago mom Tick Tock yes
was there I can't think of her name and I'm so bad at that lost my mind when I saw it because they were all my
favorites and I was like the mom with like the super curly hair who's pregnant right now oh my God yes
cutest woman alive funniest woman alive and you know what we'll make sure to share yeah she's gonna look for it
because you gotta follow these these ladies they're just genuinely hilarious women they're doing awesome things and I
highly suggest supporting the [ __ ] out of them I agree who is the other person
so the other one is if you're feeling you know if you if you're feeling witchy or if you're interested in witchiness
there's an account called down the witch's way oh hell yeah we literally just did one of them yeah and he has the
most soothing voice my goodness couple of books he has a couple books that I have I purchased them because he is that
good and he's just you know he's a delightful human to to watch his tick tocks and I think he needs more
followers so I agree go take a peek at it if you feeling like you want some easy little you know spells or you just
wanna listen to a soothing man tell you wonderful things this man is it you can do that down the witch's way
so good I love his spells and then the mom that I was just talking about um is at the Von D fam it's the
v-o-n-d-y-f-a-m hilarious that page is so funny she is hilarious she makes up like songs and stuff and it just yeah
she's really funny and again like even if you're not a mom but like you love kids or just a very very good accounts
to follow that'll just make you smile exactly make you laugh if you're looking for a laugh or looking for a smile or
looking to learn some things those are some good pages so I cast a [ __ ] spell so you know so do it just do it
just do it I was thinking of the does anybody remember the video where the little boy was like so do is it just it
was it I can't find that video anywhere now and we remember we used to say it all the time you showed me it wow but
yeah those are a little internet recommendations of the hour and now that we've brought you up we're
gonna bring you right right back down I don't know this one so I am totally in the dark I also hadn't heard of this one
um a couple people requested it so I said sure beans totally sure beans and then me and Dave started working on it
and we were like wow this is so wow tragic and terrible but an interesting story nonetheless okay and definitely um
I just want to say at the beginning of this I have a few um like mental health things that I'm
gonna plug at the end so definitely stay tuned for those Outlets okay so we're going to be talking about Hayward
Bissell today and the murder of Patricia Booher it is a particularly gruesome one
so just please be warned so Hayward William Bissell was born March 28 1962 in New London Ohio
um I think I had said you did like an Ohio case recently and I was like oh my God my next one is Ohio oh yeah but I
ended up doing something before that so this is the Ohio one yeah this is the one I was talking about but Hayward was
the second of three children born to Howard and Magdalena better known as Maggie Bissell altogether though there
were four children in the house actually because Maggie had brought a son from her previous marriage now Howard he
spent almost 20 years serving in the U.S army before finally getting discharged and that's when the family settled down
in Ohio okay now once they were kind of settled he went to work at the Ford plant in Sandusky and from the sounds of
it Maggie stayed at home and raised the kids and I'm sure she definitely had her
hands full and she definitely did actually because by most accounts Hayward was a pretty
difficult child from an early age a family room member recalled his childhood and told reporters he was
always griping he griped as a child and he griped as an adult fun yeah according to more family
members he also had a constant struggle with authority whether it was an authority figure at home at school at
work he just did not want to deal with and would not deal with any kind of authority that's not easy to deal with
no and it was probably for that very reason that it made it really difficult for him to hold down a job the family
later said he abhors work and avoids working wow and his attitude made it so that he was constantly involved in some
kind of conflict some kind of argument always had an issue with somebody and that person usually for like the the
first half of his life was his father their relationship for probably that reason and I'm sure many others was very
very strained there was a lot of different reports about hayward's childhood but a lot of them
were kind of unreliable because they all said different things but that speculation does make a bit of sense
that there was issues with the father and one relative wondered if hayward's behavioral problems could have come from
or at the very least been exacerbated by quote a couple of minor accidents as a child that might have resulted in
concussions that's always a trigger I feel yeah but I mean he must have been growing up in what the late 60s early
70s yeah I don't think they had a great understanding oh what that did or what that could do I mean up until very
recently they would tell you to wake the kid up every hour yeah and they hit their head right now they tell you
something totally different oh I didn't even realize yeah that changed as well like obviously I'm sure there's
different things but like um they tell you to like just make sure that they Rouse correctly but you don't
need to wake them up especially not for like a minor head head knock you know that makes sense but we were always like
so crazy like whenever the kids would like bump their head oh yeah we'd be like we need to wake them up every 20
minutes I don't blame you though because it's like scary yeah you're nervous exactly especially a new parent you're
like Jesus oh yeah trailing off well in general like if you think your kid whacked their heart their head hard
enough yeah that's really nerve-wracking and in fact I'm about to say something about that there you go there was one
incident in particular where he had fallen so hard that afterwards he told a family member he got down on his knees
and saw a bright light oh that's how hard he had fallen oh so that's like definitely concussion territory pretty
hard at the very least yeah if that was one concussion of many the mental illness that kind of plagued his life
afterwards and especially when he was an adult I think could have started an early childhood yeah there certainly
could have been a correlation you know who's to say so by the time he reached High School Hayward had a reputation as
a difficult and sort of hot and cold student and I think this was definitely during a time where people did not
understand mental health struggles yeah and it was it seemed very clear that he was struggling mentally and it's just
like he's lazy he's lazy he doesn't like rep he doesn't like Authority he doesn't
like this and I think had he gotten help I don't think this story would have it's very sad
but the thing was if he was interested in the subject he would actually do pretty well in the class but if he
didn't care or wasn't interested in the subject he would just mess around he would distract people in the class and
would end up failing or just getting kicked out okay so he ended up dropping out after his sophomore year which
probably had something to do with his increasingly heavy drug use and alcohol abuse around that same time and that's
another thing that I think again exacerbated the issues that probably were already there for sure now in 1979
when he was 18 He enlisted in the Army and at first he was stationed in Cleveland Ohio but he did eventually get
transferred to Germany which is weird oh yeah the Joe Metheny you were just talking about that and he probably
didn't get stationed yeah we don't think he did at least the Hayward did oh that's wild and Joe metheny's childhood
was very like I'm not sure exactly what happened because there's different reports yeah it's interesting yeah and
they are both very they end up both being very brutal people yeah exactly um but it was there in Germany that he
trained as this is really cool in my opinion a motor transport operator and um and a Rifleman but strangely enough
Hayward he didn't seem to struggle with authority as much when he was in the Army ah I don't know if
you know I don't really know why that was yeah that's so that's strange but but who's to say I used to say I I don't
know if it was just one of those things where he was like I have to do this I don't really have a choice yeah I know I
just gotta get through it and I might as well like do it or if it was because he
was interested in what he was working on that could have been it maybe exactly um I think it was probably all the
structure involved I think yeah if there's structure that tends to help but not only was he staying out of trouble
at this point in his life but he was actually succeeding in ways that he never had before the more and more I'm
talking about this it is kind of reminding me of Joe Metheny yeah he ended up being honored two times with
the Army Achievement medal for excelling in Specialties wow and unfortunately though his positive experiences in the
Army would be short-lived and really the first and only time in his life where he
wasn't involved in any kind of conflict or some kind of trouble oh that sucks but it's so sad because it's clear that
like obviously he could succeed yeah in some areas like that's why not none of these things you can really not make
sense like heads or tails of these kind of stories because it's like would it have stopped you would it not have like
what would have taken to put you on the right path what is there a right path for you like you know like these kind of
things are always just like huh it's one of those things where you can argue nature you can argue nurture it's all
speculating they're both at play yeah it's all speculation exactly because who are we to say who's to say I'm not an
armchair expert like Dax Shepard exactly another great podcast recommendation true same but anyways in 1985 Hayward
was actually honor honorably discharged and he went back home to Ohio where he got a job working as a security guard at
a factory in Toledo which is really fun to say the Toledo Toledo uh he got another gig after that working at the
Fannie Farmer Candy Factory in Norwalk and it wasn't long before he met a lady that struck his fancy her name was
Sherry Brown and they got married very quickly and after they got married they moved to Norwalk Ohio and a year later
they had a child together a daughter named Crystal um trigger warning coming up for
domestic violence ooh The Newlywed period where you're just happy to be husband and wife and everything is
beautiful a lot of dad do it did not last long for them just one year after Crystal was born Hayward started
verbally and physically abusing Sherry that's [ __ ] up which like I can't imagine you just have a baby with
someone you think you're in love with and then that's when they start bringing being cruel to you like that's when the
facade drops that's awful but things actually got so bad that she filed for and was awarded a strain a restraining
order excuse me against Hayward but she ended up dropping the order just eight days after it was granted and she
did go back I'm sure she was very scared yeah of course you never know those situations no and according to her
brother Leonard the abuse only got worse after the restraining order was lifted he told a reporter from the Sandusky
Register I know he was very dominating speaking about Hayward he made my sister eat food from the floor like a dog oh my
God he beat her he used to do lots of weird stuff and what's really sad is during this time her own family was
having a hard time believing her about everything that was happening I think because it was so like over and exactly
so extreme that they were like what and was he putting on like a good front for them I think he must have been I'm sure
he was able to exactly and that's God that's awful so they weren't believing the details of the abuse necessarily and
it was only after Hayward ended up being arrested that they realized Sherry was telling them the truth the entire time
that poor baby a poor baby having to grow up in that environment I didn't find anything to say that like she was
involved the baby and I can only hope that she wasn't well I feel so bad for like for sharing them for Sherry too
because it's like I'm sure Sherry just wanted to protect that baby and yeah possible situation exactly so in January
of 1989 she did file for another restraining order after an argument got so bad that he slapped her across the
face and ended up throwing her into the refrigerator not like inside of it but like onto it you have to be like such
a huge piece of [ __ ] to abuse your spouse a hundred percent like like obviously you have to be a
huge piece of [ __ ] to abuse anybody but like someone else that you're supposed
to love like what the [ __ ] is wrong with you like you took a vows you to accept
them for who they are to love them no matter what you can't handle your own your own anger like you you're you're
that [ __ ] ugh it's just like grow up no it's like learn to manage your own emotions there buddy go get help if
you're having a problem regulating your emotions do you know that like you realize that inside of yourself and you
need to go get help and you need to come up with like ways to you know hand like
regulate it go take a walk outside go do something count to ten like figure out ways that work for you to calm it down
before you lose it on someone because that's not cool in any sense of the word that's why I personally feel like
everybody should just go to therapy because you figure out ways to calm yourself down before you even know that
you're pissed off about truly it makes sense but it's so sad she in the affidavit filed Sherry wrote he's
slapped me and I started to scream then he pushed me up against the wall and hit
both sides of my head I got in the shower and told him to leave me alone he slapped me again on the side of the head
and banged my head against the shower and knocked me down like this is what he's doing to his wife well that's the
thing I'm just picturing her like this is the person that you love and a love enough to like welcome a baby into that
stuff always really stresses me out to here because it's just like I can't like the fear that must come with that and
the loneliness like I can't imagine the fear the loneliness the lack of help that you would have in your next
relationship if you even trusted somebody enough to get into one second time I just feel bad that anybody goes
through that it's just [ __ ] up but so she she ended up filing for another restraining order like I said and this
time once it was granted she had no [ __ ] intention of dropping it or going back good for her and she was
going to up the ante this time because she filed for divorce good now at first when he was served the divorce papers
Hayward was in shock yeah I'm like you you were really you were really shocked by this news he told
Sherry's brother Leonard I can't understand after so many years of loving her why she wants to divorce me huh like
you have been married three years and it sounds like you made a majority of those
years a living hell for her like you did not love her love is not hitting somebody repeatedly in the face
and also he was trying to kind of like [ __ ] with her name and he was constantly
accusing her of having an affair with one of her friends and she was like I'm not having an affair and another report
made to the Norwalk Police uh Leonard her brother there claimed Hayward is telling people in front of me and to me
that cherry is gay and she left him for another woman a woman which I can say she's not
like why are you just making random stuff up at her like just go your separate ways man that's the thing but
either way regardless of all his protests and claims of Sherry being stepping out on him and everything the
divorce was granted on March 29 1989 and luckily Sherry was awarded full custody
of Crystal I was gonna say I'm very glad that she was able to get out of there because sometimes that is the most
dangerous most of the time that is the most dangerous part of the whole thing absolutely is when you file or exactly
into well what makes me sad is so she did get full custody of Crystal but a few weeks after everything was finalized
the agreement was modified and Hayward actually ended up getting granted custody on Alternate weekends and
holidays which she must have been terrified to send her daughter over there how do you let a child be with any
person who is violent especially toward women it's a daughter it's like no matter what of which way it goes if that
other person is violent and has been proven to be violent they should not be they should not be able to be around
that child unless it's supervised and like they're exactly in a program getting help exactly
so the divorce seemed to settle the conflict between Sherry and Hayward I think they must have just gone their
separate ways and kind of let the court handle it from the sounds of it which I think in that situation was the best way
to go but at the same time it definitely marked a downward spiral for Hayward into more violence more bizarre behavior
that hinted at bigger mental health problems to come in 1990 his parents moved from Ohio to
Florida and their relationship for like the past couple years with him had gotten increasingly strained especially
leading up to their move but at the same time they were also the only people he had to lean on when it came to managing
his symptoms and his symptoms were getting worse and worse yeah so once they were gone the changes in him were
completely undeniable and his life it just became a like a series of bizarre events threatening events he was having
violent exchanges with people acquaintances friends doctors strangers sometimes and he didn't really have
anybody around him at this point to like get him into a program I was gonna say and he wasn't like it's really tanking
here it's getting worse now it was during this time that he was like I'm saying right now showing Decline and in
late 1991 his landlord at the Dreamland Motel where he ended up living called the police and reported that Hayward
made multiple stream change and frightening threats according to the landlord Hayward stole the landlord's
mail and cut it up into little pieces and he said he did this because he was convinced that his landlord was
returning his mail like hayward's mail to the post office and the landlord was like no I'm not doing that at all like I
I haven't touched his mail seeing it's these kind of things these like Strange Behaviors that are always the things
that it's like it's leading up you wish someone's radar would go up but again and and especially in this country
mental health is not where it needs to be like to be remedied you know what I mean like it's not easy to get resources
it's stigmatized it still sucks people don't want to admit sometimes like what they're going through because of the
state not everyone has access to the help they need or the help that would the help that would stop somebody from
going down these kind of paths and sadly right now especially like in America we're in such a mental health crisis
right now after the pandemic beds are available psychiatrists aren't available it's [ __ ] like it's sad yeah it really
is I really hope that's some of the sources that I ended up putting in the bottom if anybody is going through
something I think they cannot help they can find help there because I feel like therapists are probably overrun right
now oh yeah I mean I mean I can't imagine how their mental health is going like with their case loads you know
exactly my therapist that I used to see said that she had a therapist herself oh
I'm sure and like I can't imagine having to take on all of those problems and then be like and like not internalize
them you know of course but during this incident where the the cutting up of the
mail was going on the landlord called his wife into the room to be a witness to of the exchange and at that point
Hayward told the couple and this is like racist so trigger warning he said I don't like people from foreign countries
I'm going to kill one of them when it gets dark I'm going to hurt somebody I'm going to hurt them or their children oh
so that's when the landlord called the police oh thank goodness they took that step yeah but short before this incident
with his landlord hayward's second wife Teresa she started noticing a dramatic shift in his behavior because he got
married a second time they got married in 1991 and just after the wedding like he had with his first wife he started
abusing her getting argumentative picking fights and then started making weird threats or just being generally
menacing now weirdly the abusive Behavior was not the main cause for the end of their
relationship what really ended the relationship was hayward's slow shift toward isolation and he was becoming
like very obsessive about his environment he wanted to control everything in the environment according
to Teresa Hayward quote got to where he never wanted to go out and he was very particular about putting things with the
where they belonged he wanted everything done in his way so they went their separate ways because of this but they
actually never formally divorced oh wow isn't that interesting yeah they were technically still married but very much
separated when Hayward started dating Patricia booer years later so in the years that followed the break
uh the breakdown of hayward's second marriage and kind of like the incidents where he was living he was hospitalized
for mental health treatment several times and quote would the diagnosis usually listed as paranoid schizophrenia
okay which is really sad his symptoms almost always included acute paranoia and he believed that people were either
watching him following him or bugging his apartment that's so scary it is in one of the instances he told doctors
quote he had been given truth serum in a shot ending candy and then in another he
told his doctors he believed that quote his alarm clock and his mind were being controlled by satellites and said that
certain people in town were trying to bite off his penis wow so he was really really going through it but the thing
was more often than not the periods where he was hospitalized they were actually him volunteering to get help
and like going into these programs like the the first move was initiated by Hayward himself and it was amazing that
he was willing to get help but because of the state of his mental health he didn't always want to stay once he got
there and while the doctors maybe wanted him to stay longer there wasn't a lot they could do back then because this all
of this was a voluntary basis yeah and what only exacerbated things further was that he was prescribed medicine to
manage his symptoms but he didn't always take it consistently yeah because he doesn't have like an aid that lives with
him he doesn't have a doctor that's coming out to check on him routinely it's just him or just anyone that's like
around him taking care of that yeah he doesn't have anybody so that was obviously going to lead to a lot of
bigger issues this whole story is really sad for everybody yeah truly now in the
late 90s he was living in Greenwich Ohio and he was having a lot of run-ins with
the police I think it's Greenwich it might be Greenwich but I said Greenwich yeah because we have a Greenwich here we
do yeah so he was having frequent run-ins with the police during this time there was a lot of sudden outbursts
there was a lot of inappropriate behavior going on and he actually got to know the police chief Randall Kilgore
pretty well and because of this Randall actually recognized hayward's symptoms of mental illness and I think he kind of
like would keep tabs on him a little more because he knew that he was by himself
now on one occasion Hayward walked into this officer's office and reported that something evil had taken hold of him he
said he couldn't tell the chief what it was because it was quote unquote confidential
and that was actually his second run-in with Hayward that same day the first run-in was when Hayward was discovered
sitting in the front seat of the mayor's car in the like City Hall Parking Lot oh
my so clearly this was escalating yeah and the thing was for the most part aside from the struggles within the
marriage and the domestic abuse afterwards his behavior was strange and it was off-putting for residents in the
small town but it was usually just minor disturbances that were going on but in December of 1998 that all changed when
police in Newark Ohio received a call about a man with a gun causing problems at a place called Nick Saloon now when
the officers arrived at the bar they were approached by a man who said somebody else in the parking lot had
been following his car closely for miles and he didn't know why now when they approached the driver of
the other vehicle it turned out to be Hayward Bissell and he told the officers he couldn't tell them why he was
following this man he said again it's confidential so in his mind he was on these like missions basically but
obviously it was due to the schizophrenia that he was suffering from so in the spring of 1999 he was
hospitalized again after a small fire on the stove of his apartment set off the fire alarms in that apartment in
Greenwich and he told the investigators he'd been smoking pot and that interacted with his already prescribed
medication and the fire started because he fell asleep with a pot still on the stove oh now when he woke up whatever
was in the Pod had caught fire and he ended up with a burn on his arm so he got treated for the burn and while he
was being treated he definitely seemed to be kind of out of it and the doctors were very concerned about his behavior
so he got admitted for a psychiatric evaluation and treatment now during this inpatient stay Hayward told his doctors
that it was actually federal agents that had set fire in his apartment and he said that the government was taking away
his special powers so he's starting to really go through it yeah but sadly that was another short
stay in the hospital that didn't really do much to alleviate his symptoms and in
no time he was out again and left to his own devices now later that spring one of his former
girlfriends actually introduced him to a woman named Patricia better known as Paddy Booher like Hayward she had a
pretty difficult life in her case though it was for very different reasons she grew up in olena Ohio and she spent a
lot of her early years surrounded by family but she did not come from the best family oh no one of her family
members was sexually abusing her until the abuse was discovered and they went to prison for it oh God but at school
and in the community she was very well liked she did struggle with cognitive impairments and at school she was
identified as a student with special needs so she had people at school and in the community that looked out for her a
little bit more yeah but because of her what she felt like were impairment she was self-conscious and kind of shy
around other people now as she got older she became a lot more scared of men in particular I think because I can imagine
why had gone through yeah her Diaries from the mid to late 90s suggests that she'd gone through a lot of traumatic
events that caused her to form these negative associations with men and intimacy and all that kind of stuff yeah
now those negative experiences were probably triggered again in 1994 when her father Vernon was arrested for
sexually abusing two girls oh God that lived nearby he was a terrible terrible man he
literally had bad to the bone tattooed on his forehead and when he got arrested it was almost like he was proud to admit
what he had done oh that's [ __ ] disgusting [ __ ] horrible throw him in a dank cave and it's unclear whether or
not he had sexually abused Patty as well but either way his behavior had to have
had her had to have made her fears and her trauma even worse um when he was evaluated for a sex
offender treatment program this is how much of a monster he was he failed to meet the criteria quote because he did
not have the mental capacity to meaningfully engage in it what like they couldn't he they were like he cannot be
helped like he needs to be in prison wow he cannot be reformed wow that's how [ __ ] up this is that's horrifying now
at the same time so Patty had all these diary entries where there was a clear clear signs that she was like very
afraid of men and nervous about intimacy and stuff like that yeah but at the same
time there were other ones where she was longing for affection and attention from
a partner like of course because she probably just wanted it to feel like like I feel right yeah like exactly feel
right you know she was like I want this but I but not like this yeah and this is
all she's ever really known as people taking advantage of her um but unfortunately and I mean most
likely because of the trauma that she'd experienced she kind of struggled when it came to distinguishing positive
attention from negatives yeah and she had a tendency to this had a tendency to put her in the company of abusive or
manipulative men that's sad it is people took advantage of that of course absolutely it's [ __ ] up yeah her Aunt
Betty would later say she was never a very good judge of character when it came to boyfriends it's like I just wish
that she had more people to help her out you know more people for backup being like exactly I don't know about that one
yeah but by December 1999 Patty had been dating uh Hayward for a few months and she was feeling very optimistic about
their future she wrote in one diary entry there was a man in my life that I love with all my heart and soul
but then she goes on in other entries to say things about them hadn't been going
so well lately around this December 1999 period and she was wondering at this point if it was time for them to split
up oh geez but she almost always she almost seemed like empowered in later entries when she wanted to get away from
Hayward it was like she wanted more for herself and she was it almost seemed like she was realizing that she could
get more for her convincing herself that she was worth it yeah she said I can't go on depressed anymore I feel like I
have received a wonderful blessing I'm in touch with myself now oh so it seemed like she was kind of getting there yeah
now by the winter she was still unsure about her relationship with Hayward on one hand she was very determined to
build a positive future for herself that didn't involve volatile or abusive men or people taking advantage of her yeah
but then on the other hand she still wanted a partner she still wanted somebody to love her and she also really
wanted to start a family what which is awful and the latter feeling I think definitely explains why she was hesitant
to break things off with Hayward yeah but still the fact that the relationship was having struggles was clear
especially to her family one of her cousins Rebecca later pointed out usually when she had a boyfriend she
would bring him over here she never brought him over here talking about Hayward yeah in the six months that
Patty and Hayward Bissell dated multiple multiple of her friends and acquaintances warned her that he did
have a history of erotic threatening and violent behavior and they were like we're worried about you yeah but she was
either unable to or didn't want to see these issues yeah she was very committed to making things
work and by January 2000 she was even more determined to make things work because she had achieved her dream of
starting a family she was pregnant now on January 22nd she called a ton of her friends to let them know that she
was pregnant that she and Hayward were expecting they were more than likely confused and very concerned about this
because things weren't going well at this point Patty had actually told him told her friends on numerous occasions
right before this that she was planning on breaking things off yeah he was controlling he was critical he
was abusive to her at times and she was usually afraid of him oh that's awesome so her friends were really worried but
every time she tried to break things off he would do something say something that
convinced her to stay yep and now there was another person involved in all of this so she wanted to make this yeah
now this is where the story kind of gets a little bit confusing it's kind of unclear what happened here because they
go on a road trip so what we can assume is that Hayward must have wanted to tell
his parents the news in person and he told him that he and his girlfriend Patty were going to take a trip down to
Florida to see them they actually hadn't seen Hayward in like five years at this point oh wow and
they didn't know why he was coming to see them they just all of a sudden heard that he was coming and they were excited
to see him okay um Hayward Lee Excuse Me Howard the father later told the Sandusky Register
we expected him to visit but he never showed hmm so later while he was being held at
the county jail Hayward would tell investigators that Patty didn't know where they were going she just knew they
were going for a drive oh geez so she wasn't prepared remember they're in Ohio and they're driving to Florida she
wasn't prepared for this and she's pregnant so they left Ohio on the afternoon of
January 22nd and that day they made it as far as Chattanooga Tennessee and that night they stopped uh for the night at a
motel but they didn't have any money to pay for a room so they slept in their car in the parking lot okay now the next
morning they woke up to some pretty gnarly weather there was an ice storm the night before that had passed through
so everything was covered in a thin sheet of ice which was going to make the drive more dangerous to finish and
because of that Hayward was very on edge yeah because he was like irritated about
the weather conditions and to make things worse he was already irritated before this with Patty he was mad
because she hadn't brought any money along for the trip I'm sorry dude what the [ __ ] are you doing and also you
didn't tell her that you were feeling lucky where you were going you thought you were going on a drive you probably
thought you were going to get [ __ ] ice cream or something like what the hell she was not prepared for this no of
course not but I think he must have been in a mental state where that was yeah Computing like this this was all just a
disaster truly a traumatic disaster but that again she didn't even know they were going to be gone overnight yeah so
he's mad that she doesn't have money he's mad about the weather conditions and he just starts driving kind of
aimlessly he was looking for a Western Union so that he could ask his parents to send money so that they could finish
their Drive now eventually they reached Somerville Georgia um It's a Small Town not too far from
the Alabama border and it was there that they stopped for coffee at a Burger King
around 7 30 in the morning and when Hayward pulled up to the drive-through window he asked the lady
at the register whether there was a flea market in town where he could buy quote
weapons guns knives and stuff oh and she told him that there was a flea market but that they didn't sell weapons at the
market and she said you could probably kind of find something of that sort at the local pawn shop like one of the pawn
shops what a strange interaction yeah I can't imagine at 7 30 in the morning being asked that question I can't
imagine being asked that question really ever no and especially not at a Burger King no definitely not [ __ ] love
Burger King but he told her uh a pawn shop would take too long to deal with so she was like okay I would try maybe one
of the markets just over the Border yeah I don't know what to tell you guys exactly she's like I'm just here to give
you coffee so she was like yeah like cross the border in Alabama find one of the markets here's some kind of rough
directions now after that Hayward drove around for a while until he spotted a woman who was
driving a green Nissan Maxima and for some reason he started following her as she drove and then she pulled into her
driveway at her house and he pulled in closely behind her and just sat there with the car idling in the driveway so
the woman kind of called out to them and was like Hey like do you need help like
what's going on but he just sat in the car just staring at her not saying anything and she was like what do you
guys want and finally Hayward said that they were lost but just as he was about to say something else the woman's cat
tried to get out of her house so she reached down to grab the cat and she just went back inside and like locked
the door didn't come back out yeah I think she was and that's why she was like that I I almost think she was like
okay I think this happened for a reason let me go inside yeah let me go inside the door yeah like something between us
here something about this interaction didn't feel right it wouldn't feel right to me wouldn't feel right to me so
Hayward and Patty sat in the stranger's driveway for a couple more minutes and then Hayward just randomly pulled back
out and started heading back the same way that they had come so now they're backtracking he never said why he
followed this woman or what his plan was but I guess it's possible that he just needed directions I also think it's
possible that he was going to hurt her this is just scary and always yeah I don't like it I thought you were
saying it's scary and always and it's always like in all ways it's scary it's [ __ ] terrifying so the woman at the
Burger King like I said she kind of just gave him General directions to find the
market but now at this point he's probably forgotten what she even said he has no idea where he's going and he's
only getting more and more Angry exactly So eventually they made their way back to Somerville Georgia
where Hayward stopped the car in the middle of an intersection and just sat there again with the engine idling so
two women who happened to be out for a walk went up to the car and said like oh like do you need any help like you're
traveling at an intersection yeah exactly and he said no I don't need any help I'm letting the transmission cool
down in the middle of an intersection and they were like okey dokey we're gonna go about our way yeah but later
those women would tell investigators that during this exchange Patty looked very upset oh they said that she was
huddled up in the passenger seat and she looked like she'd been crying oh is that
breaks my heart it breaks my heart the story I told you is gut wrenching multiple other people that same day
would have would report having strange interactions would hit with Hayward that afternoon and it was especially while he
was driving around the Somerville area he was just stopping at various points to get coffee and asking bizarre
questions or doing bizarre things stopping to use the bathroom and doing the same thing
and then around 3 pm he became very suspicious of Patty and he demanded to know he said to her are you double 07 or
the devil oh no yeah this is a huge break in reality it's a very very big break in reality and by that point it
was clear he had come to believe that Patty was either a double agent this is a quote quote a double agent or a black
witch like meaning dabbling in like the Black Arts yeah and at this point he was
determined to quote unquote get rid of her oh no so shortly after accusing her of being a witch he claimed that he
asked Patty if she knew where they were and she answered telling him that they were in Georgia and at that point he
absolutely lost it on her he went full break from reality it's going to get really intense here if
you want to tap out of this I understand here we go at that point all of the sudden he just reached into the back
seat grabbed a knife from the floor and cut Patty's throat oh just that abruptly
out of my God absolutely nowhere and he would later tell his cellmate I was just
following orders I was her supervisor she was lying so I terminated her oh boy like he did not have any understanding
it's horrible but the murder set Hayward Bissell off on what he described to his cellmate as
a rampage like we're not even done yet the autopsy findings would later note that Paddy's lower right leg was severed
at the knee her left hand was severed at the wrist oh my God and quote portions of her left lung liver and stomach were
removed removed removed the cause of death was the sharp force injury to her neck meaning the first
attack is what killed her and everything else happened after she'd been killed oh
so she didn't have to experience experience that luckily but her body did now the autopsy also noted more than 30
stab wounds to her her eyes her eyes the bridge of her nose and several sharp force injuries to her chest he he was
gone at this point like on another level that's wow and later when the crime scene technicians processed this vehicle
they found blood on nearly every surface of the interior of that and there were even spots on the exterior of the car
now they think their murder most likely took place in the parking lot of um the Discount Food Mart Food Mart excuse me
in Fort Payne Alabama which is a small town that is just across the border from Georgia
that afternoon two men were leaving the store parking lot and they saw Hayward outside of the car with his doors open
and they said he stared at them menacingly as he as they drove past and just as they were by the side of
bissell's car he grabbed Patty's head up by the hair held it up and they said as
though he were proud to display what he had done what the [ __ ] yeah are you kidding me no
oh just like this this sounds like a horror movie I was gonna say this literally sounds like a horrible this is
awful it's just so sad now obviously they were shocked and terrified and sped the [ __ ] out of there yeah so obviously
Paddy's murder was completely senseless insanely brutal and both of those factors suggest that Hayward Bissell had
become dangerously paranoid at this yeah like like we've said this whole time it
reached a Breaking Point on this day now even what he did in the aftermath shows
that he was not operating under a sane mind he believed that he needed to report what he had done to Patty to his
supervisors so he strapped Patty back into the passenger seat and left that Food Mart parking lot and headed in the
direction of Georgia he drove about 12 miles until he got to the small town of Mentone Alabama and
there he pulled into a stranger's driveway and just got out of the car oh God now it was January 23rd it was one
day after he had left and James and Sue Pumphrey were at their home in Benton uh
multiple people in their neighborhood actually that day had lost power and water from the ice storms that I had
talked about they lost power actually the night before so James and Sue had spent their afternoon cleaning
collecting and distributing plastic jugs of water to their to their neighbors that afternoon and they got all the
water from a nearby natural spring like just went out and did that for their community
so in Hayward a total stranger to them pulled into the driveway they're too dark dogs started losing it and James
looked out the window to see what was going on and he said that's when he saw this large man coming up the driveway
toward the house now he would have never opened the door if he actually had a very clear view of
Hayward who was completely blood soaked but he didn't see that and again he also
especially wouldn't have opened the door to somebody who had rammed open the gate
at the end of the driveway oh is that what he did that's what he did but damn from where he was standing James didn't
see either of those things so being the kind and helpful person he was he stepped out onto the porch to offer this
stranger help just thinking like oh maybe this is someone in my neighborhood yeah maybe they lost power and I just
don't know maybe they heard we're handing out water and they need some you know so the first thing that struck
James and his wife Sue as unusual was how aggravated the dogs were by this man's presence there were two chocolate
labs and they always liked people they never showed aggression to strangers Labs will always tell you they will
always they will always tell you if it's a bad person and they sure did James was
shocked when Hayward got close and one of the labs actually snapped at him oh see they don't [ __ ] around like the dogs
had never done that before and he was like this makes me nervous that's why I love my little girls because they will
they will always tell you who's a bad person exactly I love them so much but from what James could see from the porch
it just looked like or it looked like Hayward had struck back hard at the dog and sent her running back in the
direction of the house so he spun around to see what had happened and called out
to Hayward did my dog bite you like he was like what the hell like what the hell happened
when he turned back around Hayward was standing right in front of him and just punched him in the stomach oh my God
just out of nowhere he later James later told reporters because just know he survives this attack
he said his hands were so big I didn't even see the night he stabbed so he had stabbed him [ __ ] everything happened so
fast he didn't even realize that he'd been stabbed until he looked down and saw that blood was pouring out of his
stomach so he backed up toward the front door and Hayward continued walking towards him but just then the wife Sue
called out and it actually distracted Hayward for a second so he James screams to his wife to stay where she is oh my
God but just as that he was doing that the dogs ran out to the porch and they started attacking Hayward of course his
person I do want to give you a trigger warning for animal abuse so James and Sue they were able to close
their door and they were able to protect themselves but now Hayward was left outside with their two dogs oh no
while he fought off the dogs James managed to get a rifle and actually fired a warning shot before aiming the
gun at Hayward so he gave him a warning but now Hayward had opened up the front door and was standing in front of the
couple at this point so James later said I fired once then I pointed it at him and it jammed oh my God because I was
like honestly I'm so glad he's armed right now he said you come any closer and I'll kill you and then he said that
Hayward started hollering don't shoot me and ran off okay you just stabbed him you're just right Paul you broke through
his you drove your car through his front gate you stabbed him you hurt one of his
dogs you started fighting his dogs and now you're standing in his living room and he has no [ __ ] idea who you are
but once Hayward left the couple was able to survey the damage of what had gone on James had a large knife wound to
his stomach and was still bleeding heavily and their dog's Reese and Coco had been killed he wouldn't kill these
two dogs James actually had to be hospitalized twice due to this attack and he ended up
being out of work for months afterwards and on top of that they were incredibly traumatized I can't even imagine this
just happened randomly out of the blue Sue later said I'll never forget his face and I'll never forget his eyes
that's what caught my attention with everything going on so quickly his eyes were just unreal it was like he didn't
have a soul oh my God that's so terrifying but they credit their survival entirely I was her recent coach
I was literally just gonna say what an awful end to this but it would have been much worse if those dogs
weren't there absolutely those dogs like protect their hell out of them like protected them they stopped him briefly
like yeah it's insane I just I wish that they had I know I was killed I wish they'd survived but Sue said if it
weren't for our dogs we wouldn't be here they saved Our Lives they were our Angels that's gonna make me cry I know I
hated that I had to include that especially when you have two Labs oh but Hayward Bissell left the pumphrey's
driveway and headed out to Alabama Highway 117 heading towards Georgia so he is in this state of mind still he has
killed his girlfriend who is still he's still in the car he has killed two dogs attacked a man in his back out on the
road so it was late afternoon when he drove up behind Rhea and Donald perch they were a couple driving through
Menton on their way home Raya perch barely even noticed the Lincoln Town Car that was riding their bumper until she
felt their car get bumped from behind oh Jesus so she figured the other driver must have just hit a patch of black ice
because remember ice storm yeah and she figured oh it was just an accident so she pulled off to the side of the road
and started getting out of the car when her husband stopped her and said he would get out to exchange information
with the other driver so she rummaged through the glove compartment as Donald walked around to
the driver's side window and then inside of the car she felt another jolt and heard quote a sickening crunch as Dawn
began to shout when she looked up she saw her husband holding on to the hood of the Lincoln
that had bumped them and the driver was speeding off oh my God it turned out that the bumper of hayward's car had
struck Donald in the legs which made it so that he couldn't fall beneath the car
luckily luckily he was able to grab the hood and pull himself up onto it so he's
literally holding on to this man's car he said I was two feet from his face yelling stop stop what are you doing why
are you doing this all while he drove me about 200 feet down the road what the [ __ ] he is holding on to this man's car
for dear life he was just driving with his wife a minute ago just oh my God normal day so in response to Donald's
yelling apparently this is what Donald said Hayward only stared at him and gave him an obscene hand gesture
what the [ __ ] like he is not here right Beyond then he jerked the steering wheel
which sent Donald flying off the hood of the car to land in a ditch months later
he recounted Donald recounted the story for a local paper and told them at first
I thought he was just mad but when I looked into his eyes I saw that he was a Madman wow now wildly Donald never even
noticed Paddy's mutilated body in the passenger seat because he probably I mean because hanging on to the hood of
the car but he told repeat reporter excuse me all I saw was his eyes I never saw the cut up girl next to him because
he was probably focused directly on the driver just being like what the [ __ ] and
holding on yeah just trying to hold on to the car so Rhea ran to her husband who was now lying in the ditch with a
broken leg two broken wrists and a shattered knee but he waved her off he was like you need to get off the highway
and flag or you need to go down the highway and flag somebody down for help oh my God God so she's running down
Highway 117 and luckily she locates a man named Walter pollen who was working uh on a on his field on his tractor that
day he called Lookout Mountain Fire and Rescue and they then returned to the ditch where Donald was laying and in the
meantime another couple James McRae and his wife were passing Rhea and Donald's car and they saw Donald so they pull
over to stop and help now James McRae sees the state that Donald is in and he's like okay like you need to call
9-1-1 to his wife now that was like the one of many calls that the now DeKalb County 911 dispatchers were getting
about this hit and run now like their phones are ringing off the hook so as Raya Walter Poland and the mcrae's
gathered around Donald waiting for the ambulance to arrive Reyes notices the Lincoln Town Car come back into view
Hayward bissell's car oh my God it was hurling toward them like speeding toward them and before anybody knew what was
happening Hayward rammed his car into Walter pullen's tractor oh my God and then slammed the car in reverse and
aimed it instead at the group what that now had jumped into the ditch altogether to protect Dawn and to get
away from the car oh my God and it's all these like strangers just trying to protect this guy like people working
together exactly Jesus so he paused for like several what they said were very long seconds yeah I can imagine and then
put the car in drive and started speeding toward them these five strangers just laying in a ditch
together God they were all sure that's real that's the thing it sounds like a horrible horrible movie but they were
like okay we're gonna die like in that one yeah but he swerved at the last minute and took off so he was doing that
just the terrorize he's terrorizing them exactly so now police and emergency responders
are making their way to this accident at the scene of uh the accident scene on the hot side Jesus of Highway 117. and
mentone's police chief Ken Busby he was at a nearby gas station filling up his car for the day he was actually off duty
and he this was his day off but he went out to survey the damage from the ice storm and wanted to see what he could
help to do around town so it's just a bunch of helpful people around here I know the community so while he was
paying for his gas he heard the bolo alert about the silver Lincoln Town Car that had fled the scene of a hit and run
and was now making its way towards Georgia and he's like uh okay I think I should get to it so he hops in his car
thinking that he might be able to help now at the scene and he heads out on the road in the direction of 117. now he
only made it about a quarter of a mile down the road when he spotted the Lincoln Town Car damn Hayward Bissell
barreling down the road now in his Direction so Hayward speeds pass past Bugsby and
Bugsby managed to spot his license plate number and called it into the dispatch so before he knew it Hayward found
himself at a Crossroads in the road at this point now he is blocked in all directions by patrol cars because they
come running out and their drivers are all standing around him with their guns drawn and aimed at him like this is a
standoff so he revs the engine as this is happening and tries to drive the car directly in front of them but he only
went a few feet and one of the officers was shouting don't do it don't do it and
he revved the engine again but then stopped the car so officers approached the vehicle and
they yank the driver's door open they were fully intending to yank him from behind the from behind the wheel but
they struggled to get him he's a very big guy yeah um now while several officers are
struggling to subdue this guy they're realizing he's covered in blood yeah and other people are like the other officers
are realizing that there's a ton of damage to this vehicle and so one of them went inside to put the gear shift
into park and that's when he saw the bloody knife for the first time and realized that there was another person
in this car God and this person this officer said it actually took a few seconds for him to fully process what he
was looking at until his brain started to register that it was Patty's brutalized body in human remains he said
I thought it was a mannequin at first it was such an unreal thing to see you know
it's it's so wild that everybody always says that I thought it was a mannequin I
thought it was a doll and it's like so and I I'm always like it's never a mannequin it's never adult but I'm like
your first thought would never be that's that's a real person like that's a real
thing you know what I mean like especially my first instinct is always like it's never it's not a mannequin
ever like whoever is but I'm like I would think the same thing why would I ever think that that's a brutalized
human body excuse me I was taking a sip of water especially in the state that Patty was
in exactly she had literally been decapitated and he's holding up her head at home oh my God like that's awful it's
insane it's this story is so scary so once he was removed from the car Hayward was
actually mostly compliant with the officers wow um they began to search him and he was
letting them and sheriff's deputy Lamar hackworth later said his arms were totally covered with blood as well as
his shirt and pants and this officer also noted that Hayward seemed to be covering his shirt pocket like he was
hiding something in there so the officer reached for the pocket to check what he
was hiding this is gruesome and one of the other officers told him to leave it and let them finish searching him at the
station but if Lamar hackworth had searched bissell's pocket at that point what he would have discovered was a
large portion of Paddy's esophagus what her esophagus part of it was in his shirt pocket
I don't know what I thought was in there but that is not on the list no what the [ __ ] this is I think the most
brutal case yeah that I've ever heard yeah like at least in terms of yeah this is doing this one was really difficult
yeah this is horrifying so yeah as the police began the booking process investigators started putting together
the pieces of what they discovered and realized this wasn't just a hit and run but that they were actually now dealing
with three separate crimes and this one person was behind all of them so the County district attorney Mike
Odell told reporters that who had assembled for a press brief at this point quote the whole set of
circumstances is bizarre we're having a difficult time sorting it out we're not sure where the homicide occurred like
they were like we actually have no effect happened what is going on WOW so once they determined that Paddy's murder
had occurred in Georgia the DeKalb County investigators called in the Alabama secret service agent wow to
interview Hayward now unfortunately while he may have been relatively docile during the arrest he
became very very agitated when they put him in a cell and the Agents from Alabama were doing their best to get
information out of him regarding the murder but really all they could get out of him was that he was on a mission
that's what he kept telling them and to make matters worse his unmanageable Behavior was becoming kind
of a safety concern yeah since his arrest he was destructive he was banging his head on the cell on the concrete
wall he actually broke the shower head off the wall in his cell and that caused water to spray everywhere he also tried
to flush his pants down the toilet at one point so the toilet started overflowing so they were just dealing
with like everything that you could possibly imagine all at once now the next day hayward's bond hearing
was held and it had to be held in the jail after he was determined to be too dangerous to transport like it should
have took place somewhere else but they couldn't they couldn't move him they said for his safety and the safety of
others we could not take him into court but Bond was luckily refused by the judge I think they saw what they were
dealing with yeah and Hayward was luckily finally going to be transferred to a secure mental health facility this
time it wasn't voluntary or involuntary like you can't sign yourself out and you're not coming out but the sheriff's
office would have to wait for a bed to become available there it is we were just talking about like the fact that
they had to wait for a bed to be available for this guy like come on so they were again trying to piece
together what had happened to cause Paddy's death and the other attempted murders of the pumphreys and Donald
perch but Hayward was not giving them any information he was talking in circles he was telling them different
conspiracy theories that he had he told them how Patty was a double agent all this kind of stuff
so he was um given a public defender and his public defender Hoyt ba I believe is how
you say the name told the Press he's definitely paranoid and definitely hearing voices which was true remember
he's diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia but by the evening of Wednesday the 26th now it had been three
days since his arrest he had mostly calmed down he was still slightly agitated and a few days later he was
able to be transferred to the Bryce Hospital in Tuscaloosa where he would say he would stay until he was deemed
stable enough to go through the trial yeah now in April a grand jury indicted him for the attempted robbery and the
attempted murder of James Pumphrey and the attempted murder of Donald perch and at that point he pleaded Not Guilty by
reason of mental disease or defect and afterwards he returned to the hospital and there he would await word of a grand
jury hearing for Paddy's murder okay but meanwhile the investigators traced his movements from Alabama back to Georgia
and based on their on Paddy's DNA profile they connected Patty to the small pool of blood in the Discount Food
Mart parking lot wow so that's how they officially found their murder scene wow now after months staying out Bryce
Hospital Hayward was deemed competent enough to leave the hospital and he was sent to a jail cell in Fort Payne
Alabama that June wow I don't know what had to happen there maybe he was put on proper medication at that point maybe
um because remember he had been taking medication off and on yeah but in the time since his arrest he did become much
more manageable and way less destructive but he was still largely uncooperative uh this is crazy though by the time he
returned to his jail cell he had lost over 170 pounds wow and he refused to leave his cell
he spent nearly two years bouncing back and forth between hospitals and county jails while doctors were trying to
stabilize him and while investigators and prosecutors were trying to figure out how to go forward in this case but
finally it took two years in February 2002 two years after Paddy's murder Hayward Bissell did go before a judge in
Somerville Georgia where he pled guilty but mentally ill to the murder now Superior Court Judge Christina cook
Connelly she accepted the plea and she sentenced Hayward Bissell to life in prison now The Plea of guilty but
mentally ill meant that he would spend the rest of his life in a prison suitable for his psychiatric care okay
which thank goodness like that he could finally get some medication so that nobody else has to but through something
like this the rest of his life but A-Okay with me need to be in jail yeah 100 percent
and the Georgia Department of Corrections is actually required to monitor his mental health and behavior
while also managing his uh medication wow so I have to say it seems like this court system did everything that they
needed it seems like it worked out in this situation like the the sentencing and Punishment exactly so hopefully with
them managing his meds and treatment he's in a better head space and is not terrorizing those around him but yeah
it's really tragic that it took what it did for him to get this kind of help it's horrifying and it's absolutely
tragic that so many people's lives were affected by this when he could have gotten help earlier yeah
you know like like some of these people were just like like the the couple in James and Sue just in their house just
going about their day yeah helping people like everybody obviously but it's like he just he like sought out people
to destroy their lives he did um but like I said I I got a lot of sources for you guys so if you or
anybody you know is struggling mentally or is in a relationship experiencing domestic violence we're gonna put all
these sources in the show notes but I'll read them out for you now we have um the
schizophrenia and psychosis action Alliance their website is sczaction.org and they have they have a
bunch of like education materials and support groups which is awesome and then we have the National Alliance on Mental
Illness which is also known as Nami or Nami uh it's nami.org and they have General resources
there for mental health and then we have the domestic violence U.S hotline number
that's 1-800-799-72 three three we also have The Battered Women's Justice project
um we actually donated to them and we've met with them a few times and they are like an amazing resource their website
is bwjp.org and they offer free legal help if you're going yeah that's amazing any
kind of domestic violence situation and finally we have the center for domestic peace their website is Center for
domesticpeace.org and they offer support groups amazing so again I'm going to put all of
those in the show notes for anybody struggling anybody that knows anybody struggling and just like take care of
each other because this one made me really sad this is a really sad story it is all around and the thing is like we
were saying in the beginning like you want to think that we treat mental health differently now but but it's
still tough still really tough yeah so long way to go yeah a long long way to go so guys um I love you we hope you
keep listening and we hope you keep it weird but not so weird yeah just not so weird
bye [Music]

On January 24, 2000, sheriff’s deputies in Mentone, Alabama stopped an older model Lincoln with Ohio plates that they suspected was involved in a hit-and-run accident earlier that day. The driver was thirty-seven-year-old Hayward Bissell of Norwalk, Ohio and strapped into the seat beside him was the remains of his twenty-four-year-old girlfriend, Patricia Booher. To the deputies’ horror, Booher’s hand and leg had been severed from her body, her eyes had been gouged out, and her heart and liver had been torn out, but were still in the car. Further investigation revealed that, in addition to Booher’s murder, Bissell had also attempted to kill two other couples on what appeared to be a rampage across two states.

Thank you to the ever so talented David White for research assistance :)

-Schizophrenia & Psychosis Action Alliance - Website:sczaction.org

Services: Education and support groups National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI) Website: nami.org

Services: General resources for mental health Domestic Violence: -US Hotline Number: 1(800)-799-7233-The Battered Women's Justice

Project: We donated to them, I met with them and they are amazing Website: BWJP.org Services: Free legal help -Center For Domestic Peace Website: Centerfordomesticpeace.org Services: Support groups

Connect with Wondery http://wondery.com/shows http://facebook.com/WonderyMedia http://twitter.com/WonderyMedia http://instagram.com/WonderyMedia

Brief Summary

Hayward Bissell murdered Patricia Booher in a violent episode fueled by mental illness, leading to his life sentence in prison.

Key points

TikTok Recommendations. Elena shares her favorite TikTok accounts for parenting and witchcraft.
Mental Health Insights. The hosts reflect on the importance of mental health awareness in childhood.
Domestic Violence Discussion. Elena and Ash delve into the tragic story of domestic abuse and its impact.
Hayward's Downward Spiral. Hayward's mental health deteriorates after his parents move, leading to bizarre and violent behavior.
Patty's Troubling Past. Patty Booher's traumatic childhood shapes her relationships, leading her to Hayward.
Pregnancy Announcement. Patty announces her pregnancy to friends despite her troubled relationship with Hayward.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

I hate when I hate the thought of people hearing me chew or swallow.

Elena expresses her discomfort with mouth noises.

0:48WatchJul 4, 2023

Tension

85/ 100High tension

More from Morbid | Podcast

Solve the Crime

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