Lee Roy Martin: The Gaffney Strangler | Morbid | Podcast | Forensic Files

hey weirdos I'm Ash and I'm Elena and this is [Music] morbid this m what's up [ __ ] what's
up [ __ ] what the [ __ ] is up Kyle oh man we got crumble cookie today and it didn't slap it um didn't they couldn't
do it same day usually they do it same day which I know sounds like an insane problem to have yes it absolutely is it
upset us a little bit it very upset what's going on also it just wasn't as good today it was like a little crumble
is usually where it where it's at yeah like love it and I can't speak to that cuz I haven't had a piece yet you'll
probably love it so it didn't slap for ash maybe it'll slap for me it just didn't wow sorry sorry not sorry you
know what did slap I got Panera today oh my God and the chicken and wild rice soup will just it will just erase any
problem in your life it's so good all of them it'll clear your skin it'll pay your bills
it'll fix your broken relationships all right all of that maybe no Ash claimed that maybe so mod it be I mean so mod
it um so where you know we're we're doing a lot of recordings today oh my God I know this but you know what the
energy is here because we're excited to talk to you guys cuz we're always excited what are you looking at that
plane it sounded like it was going to fall into a house I I did not feel that but I recognized that you did I felt
that way is crazy you crazy you're crazy um yeah so I don't think we have a lot of
business no we did the business in the last one yeah we don't have a lot of business today except for the crumble
cookie of it all and that's business but uh today I'm going to be telling you a story that is um a wee bit upsetting I
bet which is pretty pretty nor the kids say bet bet there you go they should just say I bet they should just say
words like full sentences yeah like I bet that's a full sentence I bet you are correct or just I bet so we're going to
be talking about the Gaffney Strangler is Leroy Martin I don't know if I've heard of this I actually had not heard
of this before whoa two backtack cases you haven't heard about everybody watch out Hell hath frozen over I know until I
I I happen to come across it somehow and threw it over to Dave and once I was reading it with him he it's insane like
insane uh it's just a very like I said it's just a very upsetting case and it's one that I'm like why the [ __ ] didn't I
know about this like it's crazy so this takes place in the 60s so not like super
old time old timey but not super old timey you know like not me old timey no you know what's crazy that's like pretty
close to 100 years ago though what the [ __ ] if you really think about it like 2060 is not that far away that took me a
second I think we're closer to 2060 than we are to 1960 yeah probably I don't know Ma when
you said I thought you were saying at first that that's like a hundred years ago and I was like no it's like close in
my head I was that lady with all the math equations going around no but it's like not that far ago do the math real
quick on your your tip tappy calculator doing I'm doing it I'm doing it there's so many people listening 64 years ago so
we're closer to that being 100 years then not there you go like where when you round when you do the
rounding listen yeah I feel you we're closer years 100 years ago but not so 100 years
ago on May 20th 1967 it's late 60s oh honey so we're actually less even more less even closer
to 100 years I think is what you're trying to say no it's further from 100 Years cuz it's later in the 60s oh yeah
no exactly [ __ ] it's been a long day people listening are like you guys got to7
years ago people born in the 60s are like can you just shut up and us the [ __ ] case honestly I'm not 100 I'd
like to say that I questioned it from the like the case before I turn 100 so on May 20th
1967 Roger and Anie deadmond a young couple from Forest City North Carolina you know they were hanging out they
spent the night out drinking in Gaffney South Carolina good for them but later that night after Roger had become more
than a little bit drunk I would say Annie convinced her husband it was time to go head home they had a newborn son
Roger Jr let's get home Tak an Uber yeah they didn't 57 years ago as Annie drove
down the back road so she was driving um she drove down the back roads of Gaffney
they did see a Red Top Cab come into view by behind them on the road it's unlikely that they really even
registered this cab um who knows if they even did but Witnesses would later tell
investigators that Roger and Annie had been fighting at the bar and that an argument that started at the bar
extended into the car as they drove home so the car was seen swerving from one lane to the other at times because the
intensity of their argument was happening who knows what was going yeah so finally fed up with the argument
probably with her husband at that point Annie pulled the car off to the side of the road and got out and was like you
know what you go to sleep in the car see you later like oh she just didn't want anything to do with it so she started
walking in the direction of home and Roger passed out in the car oh God now Annie didn't make it very far before
that Red Top Cab pulled up beside her and the driver asked if she needed a ride home which she happily accepted oh
the following morning the nude body of Annie deadmond was discovered by a driver on a royal road just outside
Jonesville South Carolina oh that's so sad you said they had a newborn baby at home a newborn baby and she had been
sexually assaulted she was struck on the head with a heavy object and her cause of death ended up being strangulation
later that afternoon police found her clothing scattered around the nearby wooded area um Annie's body had been
discovered lying against a chainlink fence that protected an electrical Transformer but other than the clothing
that they found scattered all around the woods they really didn't find any more evidence and they didn't have any leads
really jeez now a short time later Roger deadmond was awoken by a knocking on the
door of his home and opened it to find police officers who came to tell him your wife has been found dead now Roger
told the officers what he could remember of the night before he said they had gone out drinking on the way home they
got into an argument that had started at the bar oh no Annie pulled over got out
of the car leaving him to pass out in the passenger seat he said a few hours later he woke up and he ended up making
his way home cuz he figured in he was there yeah when he got there she wasn't there he said he was surprised but this
wasn't the first time they'd fought like that or the first time that she had walked off during a fight and left him
somewhere to sober up oh cuz this was a pattern uhhuh so he expected she was just going to show up later that morning
they'd make up move on right Roger was arrested and charged with the murder of his wife I had a feeling it might go
that way yeah he repeatedly insisted he had nothing to do with the murder in fact he actually passed a polygraph test
and they really didn't have any evidence well I was going to say what do he even
arrested based off of it was entirely circumstantial the fact that he was with her when she was last seen that they had
been in an argument that he had left the scene and just like went to sleep at home like none of that looked good for
him for sure um but there were some who said after his arrest that Roger had confessed to the murder oh okay
according to Annie's Father William Hayes Roger had at one point confessed to Annie's Uncle he said um he told me
he told my brother he did it he said he got down on his knees in front of a window crying he said he just blacked
out I asked him if he killed her and he said I don't know but I'm afraid I did well that makes sense I mean he was so
it sounds like he was blackout drunk and that he was like oh my god did what if I
did yeah what if I have no idea I mean they're arresting him I'm sure you know what happens when people get arrested
and held in those rooms forever so exactly so the dead mens had only been married for a couple of years at this
point and Annie had come into the marriage with three children from a previous marriage which is even more sad
like she's a mother of four kids yeah um and I guess Roger had always been kind of like ambivalent to those children oh
um the family suspected at least in recent months that the marriage hadn't been a very happy one doesn't sound like
it and according to Annie's mother Lucille Roger had substance issues and his drug use was starting to affect
their marriage okay um according to Lucille she told a reporter quote he doped he took yellow jackets all the
time but according to the family right before she was murdered Annie told them as soon as the kids were done with
school for the year she was going to leave Roger and move to Georgia oh wow now between the confessions the drug use
and Annie's plan to leave her husband the Hayes family felt certain that Roger was the Killer and I don't blame them
Ian yeah it has all the makings of that I honestly it kind of fits perfectly it's like yeah if I was her family
member I would probably think the same thing based on everything she'd been going through and it turned out that the
jury shared that opinion as well a few months later Roger Deadman was convicted of murdering his wife and sentenced to
18 years in the Union County Prison Farm where he was going to spend his days working on a chain gang oh um and Roger
lawyer Jonathan McKinnon told the press one way or another I'll see good new trial I want more evidence on this thing
but I will seek a new trial for deadmond I mean it's good that he wanted more evidence you know one way or another and
something's telling me he didn't do this something's up so Roger Deadman's story
probably would have just ended there it just would have ended in imprisonment but then something happened that kind of
changed the tide a little bit okay A Strange phone call came into the desk of Gaffney Ledger reporter Bill Gibbons on
the afternoon of February 8th 1968 so the following year sure um but like obviously not that far away so the
man had asked to speak to quote that little fellow who drives the Falcon okay so Gibbons assume the caller
was talking about um the Spartanburg heral writer Jim Holland because he once owned a falcon so he was like that's the
only person I know that was a falcon and he told the caller Holland was an end but he said can I take a message and the
man insist it wasn't something he could leave a message about but then he gave Gibbons instructions he said take out
three sheets of paper I've got three stories for you what so he was like okay he's not going to pass up a potential
scoop here so he's like give it to me sounds like a scene in that in the Zodiac movie oh it literally does not
sound real how this happened so Gibbons listens and he's like okay tell me what what you got to say and the guy on the
other line gives him three names followed by a set of directions to locations in and around GNE oh no the
first was Nancy Christine East Smith Street then Nancy Carol Paris chadam Avenue and finally Annie deadmond March
1967 Jerusalem Road oh no the names were unfamiliar to Gibbons except he said that last name Annie deadmond he was
like I recognize that one cuz the case just happened it was pretty recent so before hanging up the caller said
something very ominous he just said wait a second and he said what and he said you take the sheriff with you don't go
by yourself oh I just got a chill down my whole spine yep oh what the [ __ ] and
he's like what the [ __ ] he was now Gibbons was the managing editor of The gaffan Ledger and he got tips all the
time but he rarely went out to investigate stories himself he was the managing editor yeah he said I had just
returned from lunch and our reporter and photographer were out or I probably would have sent them in fact Gibbons had
assumed the call was probably a prank for phone call but he figured it was worth checking into they're not going to
let it just float out there yeah you never know so he went himself over to the Sheriff's Office to let Sheriff
Julian Wright know about what happened I'm glad he actually did go to the sheriff he did he was smart about it not
wanting to waste too much time on it if it did turn out to be a prank the two of
them just were like let's just head to the closest location see if anything's there if it's not then we'll let it go
so they went to chatam road because it was nearby and according to the caller whatever they were supposed to find
there could easily be seen from the the bridge on Ford Road oh no so they pulled
up to the bridge and both men got out of the car and they start looking around and Gibbon said we thought we'd look
right in the water and see a dog or a goat we thought it might be some trick or even a liquor deal but when they took
a closer look at the brush below them they saw the nude body of 21 20-year-old Nancy Carol Paris laying on the sandbank
below her head was partially submerged in the water oh man he said we knew then my God this is real uh-huh imagine being
sent there and that's what you find and you look over which also I'm like the L like humans are wild because like I
understand what he's saying when he's like Oh I thought we were just going to find a dog or a goat like in the water
and I'm like the fact that your brain is like well humans suck so much that some
guy probably pulled a prank and threw a dog in the water below is wild like our species needs to do a lot of work but to
look over that thinking is a prank and seeing a actual nude dead body laying there the amount of things that must
have been going through their heads I can't imagine so Gibbons and the sheriff made their way down the embankment to
confirm that they weren't seeing like a mannequin or something it's never a mannequin and the body showed almost no
signs of decomposition which led them to believe she hadn't been there more than
a day right and was most likely murdered a short time before being left there there was a deep purple Mark around her
neck and her back was covered with what what appeared to be recent cigarette Burns oh God all over her back oh that's
horrible yeah Paris had been reported missing by her husband a day earlier after she had left the house to walk
their dog and never came back oh yeah 20 years old 20 years old left the house said bye to her husband with her dog and
never came back also they find this this Nancy and now they have another location
to go to they have two other locations too but at that point they had already found Annie Annie deadmond yeah now no
longer thinking that this was a prank Sheriff Wright left two deputies at the scene on Ford Road to take care of that
and he and Gibbons traveled to the first location on East Smith Street that the caller had described um so what he had
said was go out to the it's so like specific which also is like how do you know these directions so well to get
there cuz he told Gibbons go out to the junior high school to the Chain Gang Road go towards the Chang Chang gang to
the second bridge take a dirt road to the right go to the top of the hill turn left come to the edge of the woods and
stop like that is so many so specific and Gibbons and Wright were now accompanied by several others who had
formed a search party and followed these instructions and after walking about 3/4
of a mile into the woods they began combing through the brush and that's when they heard one of the deputies
shout oh God here she is oh which is so chilling it is oh God here she is they had discovered the nude body of
14-year-old Nancy Christine Tina Reinhardt 14 yep oh my God 14 years old what the
[ __ ] dude Tina had been reported missing by her parents 10 year 10 days earlier
when she left her grandmother's house one afternoon and just didn't come home and no one had seen any sign of her
since then although she had been missing for 10 days and this is even more upsetting she appeared to have only been
dead for about five or six days which means she was held alive for a few days yep and like Nancy Paris Tina had Deep
Purple bruising around her neck and had been burned with cigarettes as well she also had bruises on her hands legs and
ankles and she had been sexually assaulted oh no now and she's 14 so strangely she was found nude but she
was wearing a wedding ring and what appeared to be a diamond ring what but she was in seventh grade yeah
and was not engaged or married a wedding ring and a diamond ring like two like a
like a wedding engagement ring and a and a wedding ring what the [ __ ] yeah the
area looked pretty undisturbed which led the sheriff to think that the body had been placed here after Tina had been
murdered which the same was true for the Ford Bridge the Ford Road scene sure now
while the sheriff and the rest of the search party kept combing through the woods they got another call and into the
Sheriff's Office and that was answered by Deputy Vernon Wright this caller said did Gibbons get the sheriff to go look
for the bodies and when he so when Deputy Wright was like yep he did the caller hung up
before he could ask anything else yeah now this is so crazy it's so spooky it is spooky and tragic and awful
so after leaving the scene in the woods behind the junior high school the search
team went to to the Third location on Jerusalem Road now they expected to find a third body just because of what they
had just come across on the first two but when they got to the scene there was no no body nothing to be found there
wasn't any evidence of any dead men like none of it and upon further investigation the sheriff learned that
just as the caller had indicated Annie Deadman had been Mur murdered several months earlier um and in March of the
previous year like we know her husband Roger deadmond had been arrested and eventually convicted of the crime and
was currently serving an 18-year prison sentence right so they were like what the [ __ ] is this about like she's
already why send us here yeah like why would you send us here I'm like is somebody else there and way later in
2009 Gibbons told a reporter I don't think he would have called me except he said that another man was serving time
this caller and he said he was concerned about that what so the caller said to him something about like there's another
person serving time for this crime and you wonder if that's like a compassion thing or if that's a I don't want them
getting quote CR I don't want them getting credit that's what I think is he tried to play it off a little bit like
it was sure like it was I don't want someone taking having to serve time from my crown he it was 100% a credit thing I
bet he as we'll see he really wants people to ask him and know that he did it oh I hate that so the caller was the
only one who was concerned about Roger deadmond serving time for a crime he possibly didn't commit Roger's mother
syil deadmond believe the new cases all proved that her son didn't kill his wife
I would say so she said when news of the murders and the bodies broke she said I
know my son and he never killed her but whilst Deadman's family was convinced the new details were clear evidence of
Roger's innocence the Sheriff's Office was less convinced okay it was the Sheriff's Department's refusal to accept
the caller's word that prompted him to call Gibbons back a few days later really by then the FBI and State Police
had been called in to help the Gaffney police because this was a lot for them and they'd put a trace on all incoming
calls into gibbons's death I was waiting to hear if they if I didn't know if they
were able to do that at that point I kind of thought so they were but it was back when a trace would be like hold
them on the line for a long period of time so we can get the proper Trace like you see the guy at the
like it takes forever now when the man did call again Gibbons had been instructed like I said to keep him on
the phone as long as possible so when he finally called Gibbons did his best to keep him talking and I guess he told the
man this thing has to stop and then he suggested that they get together in person for a real conversation what of
course the caller was like [ __ ] no he said no and he said they're going to have to kill me like the dog I am creepy
it's like dogs don't do this so they definitely don't it's kind of giving um Like Son of Sam Vibes it is a little bit
like it's weird now he may not have wanted to meet with Gibbons in person but this guy was nonetheless insistent
that Roger deadmond had been wrongfully convicted okay made sure to say that he said we're going to have to do something
about that man down there serving my sentence I killed Mrs deadmond I did I did so like I did miss miss Paris and
Reinhardt I killed them all with them begging me not to do it oh now as if to offer proof of this the
caller described the scenario under which he had picked up Annie deadmond um that included very very specific aspects
of her outfit he said she had been wearing um she had a blue pocket book with a snap with a top snap in it was
lipstick an aluminum comb a picture of a girl sitting on the back of a white Falcon car keys a watch which had no
band and she said she had the band brok when she and her husband had a scuffle so he knew all of this to a te
he was like that guy like well how would I know this right yeah so while Gibbons
and members of the FBI tried to lure the caller out of hiding Sheriff Wright and
Dick McKinnon from the South Carolina law enforcement division sled uh they launched an investigation into the
murders hoping that they might find someone who had seen something that could lead them to this guy cuz they
were I don't think they were able to get a proper off of that he couldn't keep them on the on the line um so the
sheriff's department was flooded with calls from locals at this point but they weren't getting any solid leads uh then
a few days after the bodies were discovered a local man approached McKinnon with a tip the man said he had
been parked out by the bridge on Ford Road on the night of February 7th and he says while he was there he saw a tall
skinny white man dumping something large over the side of the bridge oh no said and then he got in his car and he sped
away and he said when it happened I thought and again I'm like is this like something that happens in the Carolinas
a lot he said when it happened I thought he was tossing a dog over the side I didn't know it was a body until I heard
the news why does everybody think this guys are people just tossing dogs in the water over there like what is going I
would never think that that wouldn't be my first thought the only thing I can think of is like like Farm dogs like
sometimes people like like shoot their dogs when they're like like older or dying or something I don't know they're
just like tosing them over Bridges I don't know don't don't tell me don't tell us anything about but it makes me
wonder like what the [ __ ] yeah but of course your first question with this guy
is like that's very interesting thank you why didn't you come forward with this sooner right that was you saw a guy
throw something large at night into a bridge then speed away and you didn't think to say anything and the man said
yeah about that I'm married and I was on that bridge with another woman [ __ ] I didn't want that fact to
go back to my wife but I eventually did decide that this was more important and that I needed to come forward wow your
moral compass like so amazing oh boy yikes now other than the witness who'd potentially seen the suspect dump this
body over the side of the bridge investigators had very little evidence and almost no leads to work with but the
did Place one final call to Bill Gibbons this time to his home [ __ ] which I'd be
freaking the [ __ ] out I'd be like no thanks Gibbons tried again to convince this man to give himself up he was like
you need help like let's get you help yeah and the man refused he said I'm psycho the only reason I'm telling you
this is to get the other boy out he's serving my time it's like okay then go turn yourself in like clearly that's
what you're looking for but then before hanging up for the last time the caller added one thing you can tell people I'm
not going to pick up any woman that's fat and ugly I'll be in but if they don't catch me there will be more
deaths oh so he's a real Prince definitely you know this is a prince of a guy yeah like literally that is Verbatim
what he said that's gross and it's like okay that's a gross way to be I mean it's a gross way to be when you're like
a murder yeah it's pretty gross now the discovery of Tina and ny's bodies had set the town on Edge on edge oh my God I
can't even imagine yeah and this was at a time like this was at a a scary time in the South especially with like
integration was already straining black and white relations across the South so this was like this was strain like
people were just tension was already at an all-time high yeah and um GA a Gaffney Pastor Clyde Thomas told a
reporter in 2009 there's an indelible memory in my mind of going to the bus stop and parents being there with
shotguns in their hands Jesus yeah he said people were afraid to go to school afraid to go shopping they kept their
children locked in the house and Bill Gibbons also remembered the fear that seemed to just I mean permeate Gaffney
at the time he recalled how law enforcement officials became concerned that terrified residents would start
shooting at Shadows probably everybody just on edge right now exacerbating the tensions and all the frustrations that
everyone was feeling was the absolute complete lack of evidence and any answers into the deaths of Tina and
Nancy both had been raped and murdered that much was clear MH and asphixiation looked like it was the cause of death
for both but beyond that the coroner could offer really no insights except they look like they had been like
tortured yeah and given the marks around their neck he speculated both might have
died by hanging hanging mhm but he couldn't say for sure okay he said I hanging death would explain why the cord
marks were around their necks okay now on February 13th just one week after the other bodies had been discovered the
killer struck again no and this one's so sad I mean they're all sad but this one's
15-year-old yeah this time he kidnapped 15-year-old Opel Diane buckon Opel had been on her way to school with her
sister Gracie and run a short distance ahead of her when Gracie saw a white man in a sedan pull off the side of the road
jump out of the car and grab opal and throw her in the trunk of the car in broad daylight like literally her sister
ran up ahead of her and got plucked off the side of the road and thrown in a trunk what the [ __ ] to be that Brazen
that's the thing in that poor Gracie poor it's the PTSD she must have been living with after that Gracie told
police she noticed the car pull out ahead of opal and found it strange when it backed up with the trunk open and she
said he looked at me and I ran back towards the house when she looked back they were all gone along with and they
weren't even far from their house it sounds like she ran back to her house holy [ __ ] now to law enforcemen it's
basically what you were just saying the Abduction of opal wasn't just an escalation in the Killer's Behavior cuz
it it occurred in broad daylight in front of somebody else like it also represented a change in victim profile
yeah well sort ofal was black oh okay the other victims were all white this is a very different kind of crime because
usually we've seen this in other things yeah usually Killers have a very specific victim profile or it's a lot of
times um Killers won't kill outside of their own race yeah that is interesting that's a like like serial killers is who
I'm talking about but so this is interesting that we''ve that he's gone from I mean he stays with younger women
but he's gone from like 20 to 14 yeah and white and black women right like that's that makes it a lot harder to
understand and a lot harder to follow who he is or what he could be doing and Sheriff Wright told reporters
at a pref brief briefing that same day I'm afraid for her life talking about opal we're using every available man in
this he and he was trying to assure everybody but he said but we have nothing definite yet and while Gracie
had gotten a look at the man who she described as a slender white man with brown hair which by the way that other
guy on a tall skinny white guy but unfortunately that description matched a lot of young men in the area and it was
really vague like Gracie did the best she could under one of the worst circumstances I could possibly ever
fathom in my brain and she's turning to run around or turning around to run excuse me back home panicking and
running and she's probably looking at her sister more than anything yeah and she's a child like she did the best she
could and she even was able to describe the car he was driving as an old blue Ford but that's also really common at
the time and it just and to make matters worse later that day Gracie changed her
statement and said she couldn't be certain about the make of the car cuz then she's probably sitting there likeu
was it a blue Ford like I don't know you could if you ask me as a child what car
is that I'd be like a car like I don't know you ask me now I don't even know what some cars are it's true I just feel
like I don't know a blue car I guess maybe could have been maybe black like I wouldn't be good at this now a search
team started combing Gaffney immediately for opal uh but there were few Clues and
no signs of opal or that blue Ford anywhere and near the bus stop where opal and Gracie had been waiting opal's
Father which like breaks my heart found his daughter's school books and a shoe and her scarf was discovered along a
nearby Road oh that's they used that scarf to indicate maybe the direction the car went cuz it was further up but
otherwise they really didn't have anything and at the same time local law enforcement's fears about Widespread
Panic started coming to fruition on the morning of the abduction a local gun shop owner sold three pistols just a
short time after opening for the day two of them to young women and when the clerk asked one of the women what kind
of pistol she was looking for she said I don't know I don't know anything about guns just give me something that will
shoot wow and when he was asked about the local Rush of residents going to buy guns and take other protective measures
Sheriff Wright said if they're good people let them have something to protect themselves and their families
with I'm not against any man doing that I'm afraid though of guns getting into the hands of the wrong people yeah now
the very real public fears were furthered by what appeared to have been a large number of prank phone calls
received by women around the time and these prank phone calls would warn random women you better watch out
tonight I'm coming to get you oh God those poor women can you imagine these young men get it to [ __ ] together
what is wrong with get a hobby get a grip godamn local women weren't the only ones getting the prank phone calls
either because following opal a 15-year-old's kidnapping the sheriff's department and the Gaffney Ledger were
plagued by a series of calls from various young men confessing to be the Killer ker what the [ __ ] is going on
that's like you should be able to trace every one of those and you should be able to charge them with a crime and put
them in jail for yeah you should can't you get charged with like um disrupting disrupting investigation like do you
something you should get a big consequence for that should people like you need to you need to be taught a
lesson there needs to be a real lesson learn there because what the [ __ ] is wrong with you Someone's Child got
ripped off the side of the road on the way to school front of her young sister thrown in a trunk and you're like this
will be so funny to say it's me like like you might well Mur you're disgusting yep like what the [ __ ] is
wrong with you and in Charlotte North Carolina police arrested 17year old you are far too [ __ ] young or old Sir
Robert Wood after he placed a series of calls to Gaffney authorities claiming there's going to be another killing
tonight 17 years old seriously come bye put them away honestly you're a [ __ ] Menace like what is wrong with you
that's ex that's a menace and in response to the chaos and fear that was happening everywhere authorities
increased the number of officers working on the case to more than 100 from local
agencies holy [ __ ] and it was like the State Office of the FBI you know the was
was it the um it's called sled the oh yep um but like all the different agencies just increased all the officers
the next day there was still no sign of opal and as the search teams grew larger
and larger they came to include a significant number of residents and this was both both black and white people
which was they were coming Le people coming together to be like we're all in trouble here like we're all we're all
going to be prey here how s that's what it took it took a a 15-year-old black child being [ __ ] ripped off the
street but among the Searchers was professional golfer Henry tranzo and his friend Forest r Lester Skinner the two
men had volunteered to drive around the back roads in trans zo's car looking for
any signs of opal or her kidnapper because they thought the killer had left bodies in remote areas so maybe he'll do
the same this time so like it's worth a shot yeah so they were driving around a roll Road out by the Cowpens
Battleground Memorial and they spotted something interesting they spotted what looked to be a man in a blue
sedan parked in the field with his trunk open what so the man in the field watched trans Zoo's car as it drove past
slowly which is something out of a horror movie uhhuh then he got in the driver's seat and pulled out of the
field so not wanting to lose who they believed to be the suspect they followed the car keeping enough of a distance to
not like scare them any further but transo followed the other car for a few miles and then the car pulled into the
driveway of a local house and got out and immediately started talking to another man standing in the front yard
okay so they were like okay so they they were like we need to get this guy but like who knows if he's armed and
dangerous we don't know yeah so Skinner pulled out a pencil and paper and jotted
down the license plate number nice nice and then they sped off in the direction of town to let the sheriff know okay so
tranzo and Skinner along with the sheriff and a deputy went back to that house right away where they'd seen the
car they knocked on the door cuz the car wasn't there they're thinking like this
could be the killer this could be him and then an elderly man opens the door and they're like hello sir like do
what's going on and he was like so they asked him about it like what was that about and he was like yeah a guy in a
blue sedan came into my driveway a little earlier he doesn't live here though he just stopped briefly and asked
me if I sold beagle dogs I had a feeling he just pulled into the nearest driveway
and was like oh I'm talking to this guy I just know I had a feeling and when the
homeowner said no the guy just got back in car had left that's okay they have the license plate they're disappointed
but they returned to the field too where they first started spotted the car hoping there was anything that they
could find they didn't find anything they didn't find opal either but in case you know just in case FBI agents did
stake out the house all night but the car never returned I'm not really sure why they staked out the house to be
quite honest I don't really know why he'd go back there I don't know why he would go back there but you know what it
sounds like they were trying everything they were trying they were they it wasn't like they were like taking two
people away from like there was plenty of people in every exactly so I'm not sure what the motive was that but again
I'm not in the FBI so I'm sure there was a a smart motive behind this but it didn't pan out nobody came back maybe in
case he came back to threaten that guy or yeah to be like did you talk to somebody no that's a good point actually
so back at the Sheriff's Office deputies ran that plate number on the car followed by trans zoo and Skinner and
learned it belonged to 31-year-old Leroy Martin mhm he was a mill worker and father of three are you [ __ ] kidding
me yep who'd been born and raised in Gaffney lived there his whole life most everyone in town knew Martin what the
[ __ ] and thought he was fine which I have questions about this because it was like everybody thought he was fine like
nobody had a problem with him but then you hear about a little rap sheet that he has and I'm like were you okay with
it I mean everybody also thinks that people are just tossing dogs over the side of bridges so I don't know about
Gaffney back I don't know but about a decade earlier Martin was arrested and served a jail sentence for assault and
battery with intent to kill after he raped a teenage girl behind his mother's house oh yep and everyone thought he was
fine cuz he was released from prison and he appeared according to everyone else to have gotten his life together he got
married he had three children he' worked as sometime for um as a driver for the Red Top Cab Company I don't know if that
sounds oh you said Red Top Cab Top Cab company and then he found work at the local working mhm he was literally
working girl while some members of law enforcement felt confident he was definitely the right suspect I do just
as many were skeptical because they said this is someone they've known their whole lives he can't be a psychopath he
raped teenager kind of already proven you guys okay again he raped a teenager and tried
to kill her and you guys think he's all right well they're like no he couldn't be a psychopath what I think if you're
capable of that you are a psychopath what was that in fact one sheriff's deputy said a it's not him I know Leroy
Martin and his whole family he's got a wife and three kids and works regular Leroy Martin ain't ain't the Strangler
you're wasting your time baby BTK had a whole family too baby he's a rap johney he's a rapist and he attempted to kill a
teenage girl he's a rap that's the other thing he's a pedophile cuz he's a rapist
of a teenage girl he's a predator he's a rapist and an attempted murderer of a young girl and now there's young girls F
coming up raped and murdered y'all don't are we not seeing the connection hello hello literally talked in the room with
us so still believing opal buckson could be alive because at this point they're hoping Beyond hope officers didn't want
to tip off Martin and risk the girl's life which is a good move smart so surveillance teams monitored him
constantly hoping they might lead him to them to opal yes Gaffney Ledger reporter
Tommy Martin was a member of one of the unofficial surveillance teams and he remembered the first time he saw Martin
and he said he emerged from his house in the middle of the night to wash the car
oh that's not good which Tommy said he believed was to get rid of any evidence do you ever like do something and you're
like wow I probably look suspicious as [ __ ] right now like I don't know like I'm trying to think of an example and I
can't but like you think of somebody going out to [ __ ] wash their car in the middle of the night you don't you
don't think that's like like anybody's going to be looking at you yeah I took my trash out and I'm like is anybody
looking at me like there's nobody in here well that's when our dog our family dog died like a billion years ago and we
had to it was pouring rain and we were able to like you know bury him in our Woods yeah to give him like a little
Memorial and it was pouring rain when it happened and me and my dad had to go out
in the woods and dig a hole and dig a hole with a wheelbarrow with a giant load in it covered by a blanket yep and
my neighbors were right there and my dad trying to make me laugh because it was so horrible and we had all been sobbing
yeah he said do you think this is my dad's humor it's gall's humor we were we were we needed it at that
moment cuz we were so sad but he said do you think we should just keep your mom indoors for a few days and really make
the neighbors question what we did out here and I was like hilarious that's hilarious but he was literally like do
you think they're going to be like worried about what we're do I remember being like yes I think they are like
what but even like something innocuous too like you like I I can't think of an example but I'll do something and I'm
like oh man like did anybody see that like like that was weird for me to do and not even a weird thing yeah like
like you said taking your trash out sometimes at a weird everyone's looking at you I'm like everybody's wondering
what I'm doing they're not no nobody is I don't give a [ __ ] when people take their trash out no but going out in the
middle of the night and washing my car I would be looking around being like my neighbors definitely think I like that
would be and let me tell you something if you're my neighbor and you're washing your car in the middle of the night I
think you did too I'm watching yeah I'm always watching watching I'm always watching I'm always watching I love
watching too I do too just my street who doesn't love watching you know and I hope my neighbors love watching so
everybody just loves watching each we're all the neighborhood watch yeah that's the best together so while surveillance
teams watched Leroy Martin Around the Clock sheriff's deputies went to the mill to speak with the management where
he worked although no one at the Mill had anything like truly negative to say about Martin they were just like he's
fine other than the fact that he had raped and murdered oh no excuse me raped and attempted to murder a teenage girl
yeah just going to keep reminding everybody about that they were like when we work with him there's nothing like
weird about him you know like we can't point to anything that's like oh yeah he gets mad angry like easily or anything
they're like yeah he's fine to work with like we don't have anything bad that's crazy but when deputies looked over his
time cards they discovered that Martin had wildly been punched out during the times when the girls were believed to
have been murdered imagine that I was like my goodness however while this was definitely suspicious it was just more
circumstantial evidence we're not getting any Smoking Gun here y if they wanted to make a strong case against him
and learn the location of Opel where she was they need something more compelling
here uhhuh from the moment Opel was abducted on her way to the bus stop law enforcement officials had been
cautiously optimistic that they were going to find her alive unfortunately those hopes were dashed on the morning
of a of February 16th when a group searching the the woods and Gaffney so they were Searchers found opal's nude
body covered over by some brush like the other victims opal had been choked and she had been raped oh God but the cause
of death in this case was attributed to the stab wound to her chest she had also
been stabbed once in the leg oh God years later bill Gibbons our our our guy Bill Gibbons would speculate that the
killer had stabbed opal because she fought back yeah I was wondering that and otherwise he said she would have
been strangled like the others but she was a fighter they all were but like she clearly fought so much that he had to
resort to that yeah so with opal confirmed dead now unfortunately law enforcement had no reason to proceed
with caution any longer so Sheriff Wright returned to the mill found Leroy Martin in the bathroom where he was
arrested and taken into custody cuz they were like [ __ ] that get in now and while
they were leading him away to the depuy's car a young woman who worked an administrative job grabbed one of the
deputies she worked did an administrative job at the Mill so she grabbed him and said the day before he
had tried to convince her to go for a ride with him and she almost accepted but something seemed off and she turned
him down what the [ __ ] and she was like [ __ ] cuz she was like I felt something
weird like I didn't go because I felt something about him must been losing her mind as he was taken away in cuffs she
must I can't even I would never not trust my gut I would be like sorry my gut says you're you suck so I Elite guts
like that is El Elite guts and honestly trust your gut every time I don't trust my gut I regret it telling you yep and
I'm like an overthinker so I constantly second guess my gut don't do it don't do
it sometimes my guts are hella Elite do you remember that one situation I really
disliked this person that we both knew and I could not explain why I had no reason no like visible you know tangible
reason and I was just like no we need to stay away from this person and honey was
I correct you were correct your guts can be very elite no it was crazy like you're very you um you have like you're
an intuition so you have this intuition that's like like this and we're witchy I
bet this scal had a good intuition and she's witchy mhm so years later when a reporter asked Bill Gibbons why he
thought there had been a gap between Martin's first murder and the other three Gibbons explained he attended the
Deadman trial and that had a lot to do with him doing the other MERS he was upset he said with the miscarriage of
justice and that was the crowning blow he turned from his good side to his bad side I think he just you know I think he
was mad that he didn't get credit I think so too well you know it do it's it feels like he couldn't tolerate someone
else in this case Roger deadmond getting credit for his work that's what it feels
like to me definitely why else would he have contacted he wasn't contacting the local news to be like I wasn't like the
weepy voice killer like stop I can't be I can't I need help he went and killed more people exactly like I mean the
weepy voice killer did too but you know what I'm saying it's like it was a different vibe it definely is so as they
pulled out of the mill parking lot with their suspect in the back seat it occurred and this is actually really
smart it occurred to sheriff Wright that they had a growing body of circumstantial evidence against Martin
for sure but they didn't have a shred of physical evidence connecting him to the
murderers so they were like this is [ __ ] tenuous and so the the first thing Martin said to them as he got as
they left the parking lot was you've got the wrong man I didn't kill anybody so immediately he's like I Didn't Do It y
so they're like [ __ ] we don't have a lot to go on anyways so like this is not good so right new if we're going to keep
him with us we need a confession yes so based on the phone calls the killer made
to Bill Gibbons right in the deputies knew this is a killer who wants attention for the murders and is mad
that somebody else got the attention and he just couldn't abide by his crimes being ignored that was clear to them yep
so instead of driving back to the courthouse Right started driving in the opposite direction and so Martin notices
that they're heading in the wrong direction and he's like where the [ __ ] are we going and the sheriff and the
deputy just didn't say a [ __ ] word wouldn't look at him wouldn't say nothing wouldn't speak to him so he's
just like where are we going like why are we do where are you taking me and they're just like
and it's just getting more and more tense more and more awkward and Martin couldn't bear it because they weren't
asking him questions he wanted questions yeah he wanted to be able to say things
right he wanted them to challenge him saying I didn't do it and he wasn't getting anything and he had no idea
where they were taking him and they wouldn't say anything so he started babbling and just filling the space with
things cuz he just couldn't handle that they weren't like putting attention on him that they were totally ignoring him
and the further they drove the harder it became for him to tolerate that neither
of them were speaking to him and that they weren't asking him questions about the murders so like many people Martin
probably assumed that his arrest would immediately be followed by a barrage of interrogation questions or people
challenging you saying you didn't have anything to do it he's thinking like he's going to be on on having a show in
here he's going to get to a onean keep talking about it keep playing with them but they seemed entirely uninterested in
him and entirely un interested in whether he had killed someone or not they didn't give a [ __ ] they they didn't
say anything to him making it seem that way and eventually he just couldn't take
it anymore and Leroy Martin started talking about the murders he' committed what they wore this [ __ ] down by
just driving in complete silence just all over like they gambled on this they just
gambled to see if it would work wow and they literally gambled on his narcissism
yeah and it paid off if you gamble on someone's narcissism n out of 10 times I bet it off you probably win cuz from the
backseat of the police car he fully confessed to killing all four women fully confessed strangling the
first three with his belt he said and stabbing opal bucken what the [ __ ] confess to the the entire thing damn
while they that was like the wildest gamble that paid off like absolutely for them and I imagine just like it must
have been so satisfying to hear this little narcissistic prick in the back seat losing his godamn mind that they
weren't paying attention to him and weren't like fawning over him or getting upset or anything and that they're just
like not even paying attention so that afternoon Martin was charged with the murder of opal buckon and placed in a
jail cell at the courthouse and a couple days later on February 18th he was charged with the murders of Nancy Paris
and Tina Reinhardt in his statement to the Press Sheriff Wright praised the large number of law enforcement
officials from various agencies and he praised all the local residents who'd worked cooperatively to quickly bring
the killer to Justice he said I'd just like to say we've had just marvelous help in this thing from all law
enforcement agencies and the public has just wonderful I love that you don't hear about that often you don't you
really don't so the town's people were able to relax a little in the wake of the arrest but the Sheriff's Office had
their work cut out for them now Gathering as much evidence as they could against Martin so going over Bill
gibbons's original reports of his phone calls with the killer now believed to be
Leroy Martin they came across several statements the caller made about where the reporter and law enforcement
officials could find various objects belonging to the victims he'd intended this as proof that he was
responsible for the murders but remember as these calls were coming in he was getting them like often and he's like
writing this stuff down and then sometimes they're not chasing all these leads down because they didn't even know
if this was a prank yeah sometime CU they were getting so many pranks afterwards right that there was hard to
tell and yeah you can't distinguish so yeah so the caller had spec now that they knew this was the real guy the
caller had spe specifically mentioned an area on mil Jin Road just off Highway 11
near where transo and Skinner had seen Martin's car okay and the caller had said they would find several items there
and when they searched the area deputies found two Ford automobile keys a small hairbrush and three books of Harris
Teeter stamps which all belong to Annie deadmond wow so with this new evidence Martin was also charged with the murder
of Annie deadmond now they could connect and her husband was let out so we'll get to that so by the end of
the month investigators had also located several pieces of clothing and personal
items belonging to opal bucken including a coat with her initials written on the
label um and they found that hidden in an abandoned well about a half mile from where her body was discovered according
to press reports quote many items of clothing were torn or cut wow um around this time other evidence had been
collected around the other crime scenes including the body of Nancy Paris is poodle who she had left the house to
walk that night so he killed a poodle yeah he's an absolute piece of [ __ ] he killed her dog and her that's so sad so
I wonder if that guy did wait no cuz it never mind it ended up being yeah but so
now you can see why so just a few days after his arrest the evidence started piling up on Leroy Martin and he made
what a prison official described as a quote half-hearted suicide attempt apparently he pulled one of the slats
out from under his prison bunk and just scratched at his wrists with it an officer discovered it immediately and
they had a doctor look atam and the official said but Martin required literally no
treatment okay so the half-hearted suicide attempt quote unquote and the circumstances of the crimes led to
Martin being put on a 30-day hold at the state hospital in Columbia South Carolina probably what he was looking
for I'm sure it's better than a holding cell but there he was extensively evaluated by psychiatrists so during the
evaluations additional details of the crimes came to light additionally and this is rough everybody in addition into
sexually assaulting his victims he had Revisited the bodies of Tina Reinhardt and Nancy Paris following the murders
and he further violated their bodies so he is a necrophiliac as well oh also he seemed to Revel in the ways that his
crimes affected the people of Gaffney specifically the victim's families yeah I bet Tommy Martin recalled Tina's
sister told me told me Leroy Martin had come by and stayed for a lengthy period of time at her funeral so he stayed at
these funerals and watched the families grieve them that's a whole other level of just
Disturbed and it's like so he is a necrophiliac he's going back to these bodies and he's raping
these dead bodies he is raping these dead bodies and then after he's doing this going and showing up to funerals
knowing what he has done your mind can't even like truly comprehend how [ __ ] up
that like it's so [ __ ] up but it's on a level that you can't even it's Indescribable comprehend you can't even
like label the kind there's adjective disgusting that is no like you really can't I can't come up with a good
adjective for it and you're a writer so that's saying a lot there you go and the
source.com will not even help us with this no now despite the bizarre and very disturbing nature of his crimes and his
complete and total lack of remorse he had no remorse psychiatrists at the state hospital determined that Leroy
Martin was not insane and was completely competent to stand TR isn't that such a
wild thought that somebody that murders people defiles their dead bodies and then go sits with their family
afterwards is legally sane yeah like I believe it it's just a [ __ ] wild sentiment yeah cuz he was able to he
knew it was wrong now in may 1968 a grand jury indicted Martin for the murders of Annie deadmond Tina Reinhardt
Nancy Paris and Opel buckon despite the indictment the judge granted a continuance in the case until
September due in large part to the fact that the constitutionality of South Carolina's capital punishment laws had
been challenged it was currently under review so it's a it makes sense for a continuance cuz they want to make sure
that irons everything goes out correctly yeah yeah in September on September 16th
1968 Martin went to trial for the murder of Opel buckson he waved his right to a
tri a jury trial because as he told the judge I don't believe I could get a fair
trial anywhere in South Carolina and when he was indicted for the murder he pleaded not guilty but as the trial was
about to begin Martin's lawyers HR swink and CD P padget HR and CD H comp dis they asked the judge for a
conference and during that conference they explained that their client wished to change his plea to guilty oh judge
Morrison asked Martin a series of questions to determine whether he was making this change in his like with his
Free Will and once he was satisfied that it was his choice he accepted the plea and when asked why he had murdered Opel
bucken Martin explained it was like he was standing on the side of a hill and watching himself in a valley he knew
what he was doing but he just couldn't make him himself stop I don't think it went like that so
even the prosecution acknowledged that although Martin knew does know right from wrong the prosecutor's office was
of the opinion that Martin acted under irresistible impulses okay cuz he's a murderer he's a
a horrible horrible vicious murderer later that day Leroy Martin was sentenced to two consecutive life terms
for the murders of Opel bucken and Annie deadmond uh additional life sentences for the murders of Tina Reinhardt and
Nancy Paris followed in the next few months now Leroy Martin's explanation for his crimes has always been that he
had what Bill gibons described as of split personality and this thing comes over him and he can't control it it was
he explained his violent side who had raped and murdered the four young women in Gaffney while his good side felt such
a great deal of remorse for his crimes I don't buy that and he used to say that his good side was the one that didn't
want that guy to sit in prison for him no cuz also if he did have a slip personality isn't that some form of
insanity I would think so right like when the psychologists have said something about that or the PS whether
you can understand right from wrong basically and it's and he clearly can and he clearly can he's almost trying to
make it sound like he's like he has like multiple personality disorder absolutely
he is trying to say that for sure but they have found no yeah no evidence I think he's this as a cop when he was
calling he was saying no I can't meet you person cuz they're going to have to shoot me like the dog I am so he knew
what he did was wrong he didn't want to meet anybody he just wanted to go get the attention for it goes beyond
irresistible impulses when he's like he's murdering people he's raping them and then he's going to sit with their
families like that's not that's not an irresistible impulse that's just you just doing what you do and again whether
this was true or not the claim did get some sympathy enough to place him in the mental illness wing of the Central
Correctional Institute following his sentence in May 1968 I feel like that was the goal for him uh he prefer like
maybe he expected this to be preferable than being among the general population but he regretted this because among
other things security was tighter on that Ward so movement was heavily restricted and he complained quote there
was no sunlight in the cell yeah you know where there's also no sunlight when you're dead when you're dead yeah and
you did that to three different four different women excuse me and in December 1969 Martin was moved into
general population where he remained for 3 years I almost wish that he didn't I he should never have gotten sunlight
again well and he remained there for 3 years because a little after 5:00 p.m. on May 31st 1972 Leroy Martin got into a
fight with a fellow inmate Kenneth Rumsey Rumsey stabbed Martin in the chest with a shiv just below his heart
and killed him instantly damn that earned uh that earned that inmate an additional 20 years on his already
lengthy sentence um but 5 years later that inmate was also found dead in his prison cell after having hanged himself
with his own pants so prison man quite a cycle now on February 28th 1968 because
you're like what what could possibly be happening here everybody's gone and dead
Roger Deadman was released from the Union County Prison Farm after Leroy Martin confessed to the murder of Annie
deadmond and how many years he served um he was convicted and served 10 months in
prison for crime he didn't commit that's a long time and this crime he didn't commit was based on false testimony
provided by Union County Sheriff Harold lamb and two of his deputies which was corroborated in court by several members
of other law enforcement agencies in South Carolina oh no I thought you guys were doing good yeah upon his release
deadmond reclaimed custody of his son and found work as an electrician in North Carolina when asked about the
wrongful conviction deadmond told a reporter he wasn't bitter about what had happened he said the justice system
makes mistakes just like everybody else thank goodness they don't make too many wow which is like a
very mature way of looking at that like I was like what the [ __ ] I wonder I mean 10 months people say there's more
drugs inside a prison than there are in the streets but you wonder if he was like able somehow to clean up his act I
mean maybe it shook him up I don't know but the memory of the Gaffney Strangler and the four murdered women have
absolutely Ely haunted the small town of GNE since they occurred more than 50 years ago and according to author Mark
Jones quote the ultimate Legacy are the stories that permeate through South Carolina today the bridge is a spot that
people go to there's always these stories that there's screams of girls that can be heard those types of things
in small towns take a long time to disappear yeah it's like the end of a horror novel and I did look it up in one
place that is that locals and other people refer to sometimes as Leroy Bridge off Highway 329 don't call it
Leroy Bridge it's said to um be a place where people will claim to hear the screams moans and cries of young women
that's really sad in Chang gang road is also more of the same reports oh that makes me sad cuz that means like there's
like I want them to like I mean it's like a residual haunting hopefully so the energy has to be dark just rancid
there so wow I hate that they call it l Rose Bridge stop doing that guys I don't
think like I don't want to like indict all of the people locals there like I that's what I've read on certain things
so like whoever's doing that you probably shouldn't but like yeah that's what I mean yeah I don't I just don't
want anybody to be like you said that everybody yeah no no no I promise I didn't say that don't take that away
guys wow what a case I can't believe we had never heard of that one before yeah it's so sad it is so sad and it's such
young women that is a that's a chilling spooky case yeah the story of Opel just like breaks my heart just walking with
her to school runs up ahead of her and is snatched right off the [ __ ] road in the broad daylight front of her sister
and thrown into a trunk you think that like that had to have been like 7 8 a.m. like when to school start you know what
I mean the [ __ ] yeah oh it's so scary chilling yeah having kids must be the most terrifying thing on the planet it
is it absolutely responsibility my God that's why we all age like a presidency like very quickly like I am I'm in a
constant state of anxiety yeah me too and I don't even have children yeah [ __ ]
yeah well keep listening and we hope you keep it we but not so weird that I didn't even give you the choice to keep
listening I just told you keep listening I like damn usually I say we hope you keep listening but this week you have to
keep listening bye bye [Music] [Music] [Music]

In the winter of 1968, reporter Bill Gibbons got an anonymous call from a man who wanted to confess to three murders in the small town of Gaffney, South Carolina. Gibbons thought the call was a prank, but he took it to the sheriff and the two men travel out to the first of three locations where the caller claimed to have left the bodies. After searching casually through the underbrush for a short time, the men discover the nude body of twenty-year-old Nancy Carol Paris, who’d been strangled to death. At the second location, they discovered the body of fourteen-year-old Tina Rhinehart, who appeared to have been killed in the same manner as Paris. Investigators soon learned that the third location the caller gave was where police had discovered the body of Annie Dedmond six months earlier.

In the days that followed, the “Gaffney Strangler,” as the press would come to call him, would contact Gibbons several more times, demanding that he print stories about the murders in the newspaper. He also insisted that Gibbons and the sheriff’s department needed to do something about the fact that Annie Dedmond’s husband, Roger, was sitting in jail for Annie’s murder. Then, a week later, the strangler struck again, this time kidnapping fifteen-year-old Opal Buckson in broad daylight, throwing her in the trunk of his car while her sister watched helplessly. Opal’s body would be discovered a week later, dead like the others.

A few days after the discovery of Opal’s body, police arrested Lee Roy Martin, a local mill worker and father of three who’d been born and raised in Gaffney. The arrest shocked the local residents and left everyone wondering, in a town as small as Gaffney, how could they have lived their entire lives with a violent psychopath and never known it?

Thank you to the incredible Dave White of Bring Me the Axe Podcast for research!

References Charlotte Observer. 1972. "About Roger Dedmond, convicted of killing his wife." Charlotte Observer, November 7: 30.

2015. A Crime to Remember. Directed by Christine Connor. Performed by Christine Connor.

Dalton, Robert, and Craig Peters. 2009. Gaffney Strangler terrorized town 40 years ago, murdering 4 women. July 5. Accessed July 29, 2024. https://www.goupstate.com/story/news/2009/07/05/gaffney-strangler-terrorized-town-40-years-ago-murdering-4-women/29885910007/.

Fuller, Bill, and Jack Horan. 1968. "Dog only murder witness?" Charlotte Observer, February 10: 1.

Gaffney Ledger. 1968. "Attorneys ask court transcript of trial." Gaffney Ledger, February 21: 1.

—. 1968. "Officers search well; find Opal's clothing." Gaffney Ledger, February 28: 1.

Howe, Claudia. 1968. "Grim mystery, violent deaths engulf Gaffney." Charlotte Observer, February 14: 10.

Jones, Mark R. 2007. Palmetto Predators: Monsters Among Us. Charleston, SC: The History Press.

Martin, Tommy. 1988. "Lives of golf pro, texile worker crossed paths on February 13, 1968." Gaffney Ledger, February 5: 4.

—. 1968. "Martin sentenced to life in prison." Gaffney Ledger, September 19: 1.

McCuen, Sam E. 1968. "Crank telephone calls plague Gaffney police." The State, February 16: 19.

—. 1968. "Gaffney girl is kidnapped." The State, February 14: 1.

—. 1968. "Mother convinced her son innocent." The State, February 9: 1.

Skipp, Catherine. 2009. "Gaffney, S.C. haunted by murderous memories ." Newsweek, July 8.

The Gaffney Ledger. 1968. "Martin is charged in 3 stranglings." Gaffney Ledger, February 19: 1.

The State. 1968. "2 bodies found after phone call." The State, February 9: 1.

—. 1968. "Suspect attempts suicide." The State, February 21: 15.

Truluck, Jack. 1968. "In-laws believe Dedmond is guilty." Gaffney Ledger, February 21: 1.

United Press International. 1968. "Lee Roy Martin indicted in 4 Gaffney stranglings." Greenville News, May 21: 1.

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

Brief Summary

Leroy Martin, the Gaffney Strangler, murdered four women in the 1960s, leading to a wrongful conviction and chilling community panic.

Key points

The Gaffney Strangler. A chilling tale of murder and mystery surrounding the Gaffney Strangler case.
Roger Deadmond's Arrest. Roger Deadmond is arrested for the murder of his wife, despite his claims of innocence.
Ominous Phone Call. A mysterious caller provides chilling details about multiple murders.
Caller Confesses to Murders. A mysterious caller claims responsibility for multiple murders, including that of Mrs. Deadmond.
Opal's Abduction. 15-year-old Opal is kidnapped in broad daylight, escalating fears in the community.
Prank Calls Add to Panic. Residents receive prank calls threatening them, exacerbating the community's fear.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

What the [ __ ] if you really think about it?

Discussion about how close we are to 2060.

3:24WatchAug 22, 2024

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.