Pendleton Quadruple Homicide /// Part 1 /// 818 | Forensic Files

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talk some true crime Monday November 2nd 2015 around 12:30 p.m. a frantic 911 call came into the Anderson County
Sheriff's Office the female caller was sobbing she tells the dispatcher oh my God I need somebody out here what's
going on dispatch ask caller there's four people in my mama's house and they're dead dispatch who are these
people caller my mom my grandma my gamy and my stepdad the caller identified herself as Amy valard minutes later when
Anderson County deputies arrived at the house located in Pendleton South Carolina they found a horrific blood
bath inside three people were found deceased in the family room a fourth victim was
found in the bedroom four people had been slain it was a massacre all of the victims had been shot but that didn't
account for all of the blood it was Pulled Under the four victims it was smeared on the walls and Furniture it
was tracked through the house via foot and shoe prints and this was no murder suicide which of course is what the
deputies initially suspected no weapon was found this was a quadruple homicide by suspects unknown what in the hell
happened here and just how long would that question plague the small town of Pendleton South Carolina this is true
crime garage and this is the Pendleton quadruple homicide [Music] the murders took place at
2217 Refuge Road this is a rural part of Pendleton which is a Tiny Town of only about 3500 residents the Anderson County
coroner told the media quote this was very violent very very violent deaths on all four of them end quote the coroner
is Greg Shaw he estimated that the four had died on Sunday afternoon between the
hours of noon and 3 p.m. by the time that Amy vardi found them they had been dead for at least one day time the house
that the victims were found in was a modest cream colored double wide mobile home with maroon trim it was all
decorated up for Halloween with glow-in-the-dark skeletons hanging on the trees and colorful spooky decals in
the windows in the sizable front yard sat an adarand chair and an ADT security sign were among the items surrounded by
crime scene tape whoever went into this home and killed the family obviously they were not deterred by the notion
that the security system may have been in place all four victims lived at this home since no one who lived in the home
was alive to give consent the sheriff at the time John Skipper wisely ordered the
investigators to obtain a search warrant before commencing their investigation Captain Gaylord major of the Anderson
County Sheriff's Office told the local paper this is the Anderson Independent Mail quote this is going to be a very
meticulous and thorough process we're looking for evidence and anything we can find at this point hair fibers anything
well like you said this property is on a little bit of land but there's also two
residents so I think that makes the investigation a little bit difficult there are some complexities with this
investigation right out the gate we have no sign of a Breakin and really when you
look at the evidence in the blood evidence we have no sign of a major struggle with all of the blood that
we've discussed in the trailer that seems like an odd statement well plain and simple this was an attack injuries
blood and other evidence is telling investigators that there was little in the way of a struggle or
altercation more of an attack and these poor victims had little or no chance to defend themselves well I think the other
difficult thing is figuring out the timeline nothing seemed out of place with inside of the home and as said we
have doors and windows that had not been pry to open and what the papers were reporting Captain was that the house had
not been ransacked the thought was that it was as though someone had a serious grudge against the victims or one of the
victims right so this was just targeted violence and this is odd to say the least these victims were esteemed
members of the Pendleton Community in fact they were senior members of this community Mike Scott one of the victims
was 58 years old he worked at the South Carolina Department of Transportation his wife Kathy Scott was
60 years old she stayed at home to take care of their elderly mothers Mike Scott's mother and her mother who both
lived with them so these elderly mothers were killed as well Barbara Scott who was 80 Violet Taylor Kathy's mom who was
82 Anderson County and most other counties don't see many octogenarians slaughtered in their home
this is not something that happens this is a rare crime so who would do this who of the four was the
target it's hard to believe that all four of them would be the target I can't imagine that Violet and barbar both in
their 80s had a long list of enemies but what about Mike and Kathy 58 and 60 years old respectively did they
have a beef with someone law enforcement believes that Mike was taken out first but he would be the threat to stop the
attack but that doesn't tell us who was the Target right was it one of them or was
it all of them and then what are what would the motivation be did they owe someone money were their Affairs or
possibly drugs involved the sheriff's detectives were determined to find out these details about the victims and
about the crime scene as well well like you said there I don't think there was any sign
of somebody rans sacking the house and and maybe I'm wrong and maybe you can correct me but they're found on a Sunday
and trick or treat was on the Friday and there was still like a tub of candy out by the
door normally that is either emptied by the people coming to get the the candy or you eventually put that away well
you're right the timeline is a little bit tricky here and you'll see the listeners will understand why as we get
through the details but they were found on Monday November 2nd Monday not Sunday
sorry but you're you're fine because the coroner was saying early in the investigation that he believed that they
were likely dead by Sunday even put the time of death early Sunday to early afternoon
Sunday now a lot of information was released about the crime scene we relied heavily on some episodes of Oxygen's
Cold Justice show that was dedicated to this case and in fact they aired rather recently these
episodes kind of took over our research for the case because they ended up revealing a lot more than what was
previously known about this case so at the crime scene like the captain pointed out it was obvious from the blood
evidence at the scene that Mike Scott was the one that was attacked first so he was found lying face down on the
living room floor by the coffee table he's in his boxer shorts his arm is kind of bent at an unnatural
angle and there's an absolutely massive pool of blood surrounding his head and this pool of blood was totally
undisturbed there's no Footprints or smears for the pool of blood based on the blood patterns and the body location
and positioning of the body Mike was believed to have been killed first it appeared that he had been surprised
while sitting on the couch with some lethal slashes and stabs to the neck and throat area he had six sharp force
injuries to the left side of his neck with the longest being six over six Ines his throat was essentially cut ear to
ear there's a lot of baffling things about this case but I I think the one that stood out to me is that long
enforcement is telling us they believe these victims were cut first and then shot I'm guessing they could tell this
by the blood evidence like you said there's these pools of blood but they're not Disturbed we don't have Footprints
all over the house then we have the two older ladies they were also sitting on the couch and this appeared that they
tried to get away they were caught and stabbed or slashed and fell to the living room
floor as well they were found lying side by side Violet was nearly decapitated by
a massive slicing wound to her neck she was also shot twice and she did have some defensive
wounds to her left hand Barbara had the most wounds of all she had been stabbed six times in the neck chest and left
shoulder and as we had said going through the gruesome details here m Barbara and violet all had their throats
cut yeah wasn't the mother found in a different room yes so Kathy was and it's interesting how they piece this all
together this is all very blood spatter evidence to tell them to kind of show and tell the story to the investigators
of what may have happened and how everything went down because Kathy it's believed that she was in the living room
too when the attack started she was barefoot what happened is she got up and ran to her bedroom and we know this
because it's on her Pathway to the bedroom she stepped in Blood on the way right so there the attack had already
started and that's why things are pointing to Mike and Barbara and violet being attacked first Kathy has the
opportunity to actually get up and run and when she does so she steps in the blood on her way bloody barefoot prints
staining the oak floor of the trailer showed that her trajectory as she turned and sprinted away from what was going on
the attack in the living room didn't they believe she was trying to get to the bedroom to possibly get a weapon to
defend herself correct yeah and and what they figured out is that someone caught
up to her she was stabbed just once this was in the right lung and fell to the bedroom floor the blade went in several
inches deep Kathy had a bruise in the shape of a a knife Hilt at the top of her chest Kathy was found dead on the
bedroom floor she was partially on her left side her right arm like up over her face but it wasn't the stab wound that
killed her she was alive when she was shot in the face and head two shots double tap each of the victims had been
shot in the face or head at least one uh Barbers was a close contact wound with stippling and gunshot residue behind her
right ear but Barbara Mike and violet were already dead when they were shot the knife was the murder weapon The Gunshot
seemed like a final Fu or maybe a fail safe to make sure that they were dead right like the Captain's pointing out
here and sorry that I'm going in a roundabout way of getting it to it but Kathy and Mike who were technically the
homeowners right their mothers were older they're in their 80s they're living with them and Mike is out working
and Cathy's at home taking care of them and they were known to own several guns what Cold Justice would would say is
that it was determined from an empty holster found under the bed that Kathy likely tried to retreat to this bedroom
to get a hold of this 38 caliber revolver to defend herself it looked like the killer or The
Killers beat her to it according to the show the gun holster was found under the
bed near Cathy's body it was empty the revolver was missing the holster had a small drop of blood on it and this is
perhaps from when Kathy was stabbed so you can kind of see this playing out she gets up to run she lucky or unlucky
enough you can look at it either way but it app it appears that Michael is attacked blindsided right and then the
two older ladies at least have the opportunity to start to get up but they're stopped they're attacked and
then Kathy goes running for this gun Killer goes after her stabs her in the lung she drops killer grabs the gun and
then is now using the gun it looked to me like that the killer used their own gun on these people so the question I
was going to ask is do we have information is it the same knife used on all the victims is it the same gun used
on all the victims I don't have a lot of information on the gun but the short of
it it appears that this gun this 38 revolver that was found missing from the scene with a drop of blood on the
holster likely was used and as said three of the victims were dead before they were even
shot the as far as the knife goes here's a fact we know that the killer used a knife on all four of the victims and
then used a gun believed to been lifted from Kathy or from her room so the first
thought is the investigators were wondering were there two people involved or you know first the the lethal Slayer
who's unafraid to use a knife up close and personal on these people and then someone with enough angst or vital to
enough to shoot all of them for good measure but as far as the knife goes what we know about the knife is that
the hilt marks so it left when when the victims were stabbed or attacked with this knife it left bruising in the shape
of a rectangle near the the cuts and the stab wounds and what that was telling the investigators was this wasn't like
somebody just grabbed a steak knife out of the Block in the kitchen and used it on them this would have been a hunting
or military style knife yeah and you're correct Captain it's believed that that one knife was used on all four victims
law enforcement has a reason to believe that whoever did this is trained to do this yeah some
other information about the crime scene and this is a significant clue partial shoeprints in blood bloody Sho prints
were believed to have been made by the killer so someone wearing sneakers had chased after Kathy we have her Barefoot
Prince and then we have the shoe Prince drops of blood on top of the prince show
that the prince were made by someone who was there when the murders were happening when the attack was going down
right not by the daughter that found her correct the prins were confirmed to have
been left by someone wearing a man-sized we don't get it we don't get a size here
we just it's a man's shoe they believe and the make is Bic speed star running shoots as said the house the police say
that the trailer was not ransacked we have Kathy's jewelry box that was sat undisturbed it appears that
the the murders were the intended outcome here but one thing that we learn beyond the no force entry to the trailer
in one of the in the bedroom closet there's a shelf that was off kilter investigators would learn that that
shelf at one time held a safe uh that safe was not there when they are pouring over this crime scene well like I said
law enforcement is saying for whatever reason there's reason to believe that this individual knew what they're doing
or these individuals at least one of the individuals knew what they were doing and this is when they started looking
into okay what's the motive because this wasn't a home invasion to steal a bunch
of stuff there's not a bunch of stuff stolen but possibly this safe is stolen so is the motivation money or is it
possible that somebody had a bad gambling problem or is this just out a pure hate yeah I I'm looking at this
thing and wonder if it's not a multitude of of a lot of that because how the way
how brutal this attack and how these people were killed how could you not hate them right how could the killer not
have some kind of hate for them in their heart but the you know you talk about motive this is a very rural area there's
not a lot of people that live there but but when you see a bunch of when you see
a bunch of flashing lights and hear a bunch of sirens people have a tendency to gather crowd attracts a crowd and
when you get ambulances and a bunch of police vehicles outside of this big yard this big plot of land with the double Wi
on it people started to gather around somebody had kind of shouted to some of the First
Responders wondering if it could be a murder suicide that they were responding to and the coroner of course you know
this early in the investigation they want don't want to show anything right they don't want to show their hand they
know very little at this point so the coroner tells the crowd or or or at least some of the people in the crowd we
don't no which is the perfect response for that time right you're not you're not being rude to any of the people that
are gathering this people that are are a community that's concerned you're not being rude to them but you're also not
giving up any information and what we do know is that at that time they did know
they did know that the killer was someone from outside of the house they did not find the gun or the the knife at
the scene and if had it been a murder suicide the weapon used will be found at the scene so the killer was someone from
outside of the house someone whom the police believed wanted to leave no [Music]
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in the air cheers to you Colonel cheers to you Captain well and I think the reason why the public at first thought
it could be a murder suicide is I think there was some information that three of
the victims were found in one room and then the mother was found in a different area of the house and so people kind of
I think assumed well maybe the the mom killed these three family members and then went off and killed herself but
what would you find you'd find a knife or you would find a gun beside her and we don't find those items well in crime
statistics too murder suicides are far more common than what this is a quadruple homicide exactly the OD opsies
revealed what a lot of what we've already discussed all four victims have been stabbed in the neck upper chest and
shot all four had defensive wounds on their hands or arms but when we say there there was not a great deal of
struggle here it's because they this was a surprise attack they had limited amount of time to defend themselves so
the defensive wounds were not like one would think that that there would be a lot plus also consider the age of two of
the victims right I know my I know my age right I'm not moving like I used to 20 years ago I cannot imagine how slow
the old Colonel is going to be when he's 80 82 years old and and a surprise attack as well well I'm glad you brought
that up because I didn't want to mention it to you you probably should go to a doctor and I could tell you I could tell
you where thinking it seems like you have something going on with your back but the and I didn't misspeak
I think I'm correct that there wasn't really a disturbance around the blood around the victims it was just the
footprint was found leading to the mother correct but you brought up something that I think is pretty
fascinating it it has to be some kind of double motive because if the motive let's just say we don't know because we
didn't live in that house we don't know if that safe was stolen we don't know if
if it was removed weeks or months prior exactly we just know that there's evidence that there was something there
and somebody Disturbed it who Disturbed it what is the motivation if the motivation was
just money then you go in the house and you shoot everybody and you leave you don't viciously and violently attack
them with a knife as well well and the thing here is regarding that safe it would have been family members and maybe
even friends that would inform police because when you show up and there's there's an empty shelf the police don't
know what was supposed to be on that shelf the it's the daughter that tells them well yeah but we we have other
family members I mean we have four four people here that were murdered so there were other family members that would
have been asked similar questions and but we should point out here by the time that Amy valard found her family
members killed right and called it into 911 they were all in the early stages of
decomposition so they the the timeline of when they were killed it gets skewed a bit the more the
investigators learn about the case and but one thing that they seem to be pretty convinced of was that they were
killed the day before they were found maybe even killed more than 24 hours prior to them being found now we learned
a lot about the victims from NBC's dat line and on Cold Justice and from coverage in the local newspapers the
Anderson Independent Mail and the Greenville News Mike and Kathy dated in middle
school and then reunited decades later they had both been married prior to other partners Kathy's husband died of
cancer but at the time of the murders the two had been married for 9 years said that they lived a simple life
sharing a community garden with their neighborhood Kathy kept horses that she loved Kathy and Mike doed on their
grandkids so this is Amy vard's two children from a prior marriage the senior couple spent a lot of time with
these kids even hosting sleepovers and taking them to church Pam this is Mike's sister Mike Scott's sister and Barbara's
daughter was devastated by the murders to say the least and she said look somebody took the two closest people
that I have in my life she said my brother this is a quote my brother was my everything he was the constant in my
life she told Dateline that the two spoke every day saying he was always checking on me and the girls her her
daughters he was like the caretaker of the family the last time that they spoke she tells police was Hol night October
31st Pam said her mom Barbara worked in the church nursery taking care of little
kids and was a very Godly woman and a wonderful cook Kathy's cousin margorie Morgan told
the Daily Mail that the victims were precious people and the family was unable to process what had happened
quote they were all just good people I never would have imagined this in a million years with regard to the four
victims there didn't seem to be any overt problems stressors or issues in their life as far as people being
interviewed could tell life was simple life was good Mike and Kathy appear to be happy Violet and Barbara spent their
days enjoying their Leisure Time so this was inexplicable and a horrific end to people living good simple lives yeah it
makes no sense and like you said you have to be a saint to let your mother live with you and then on top of that
your mother-in-law also lives with you shout out to the moms yeah shout out to the
mom everybody knows that uh we love our moms that would be a tough situation but
it was probably a good situation and nobody has a bad thing to say about any of these individuals it it just doesn't
make any damn sense we've been doing this a long time I guess I'm going to be surprised by this when we do episode
1500 or if you can tolerate me long enough episode 2000 should we get there probably not going to make yeah I don't
know when I'm going to stop being surprised by a what horrible [ __ ] people will do to somebody else and then B how
shocking and surprising these these things always are to the latter part of that thankfully thank God these are rare
crimes a quadruple homicide rare crime maybe it makes sense that we're still surprised when we hear about these
horrible things but we we've got to learn more about what happened here and so do the Sheriff's Office and of course
they're going to be interviewing everybody that they can find one of the first people obviously that's going to
be interviewed is Amy valard she found when deputies responded to the scene they found her outside crying she's
outside the house weeping bodies laying inside she's traumatized by what she had seen in the
house but she was able to speak with the Sheriff's Office and and the deputies she's explaining to them Kathy Scott one
of the dead women inside is my mother Violet is her grandmother Mike was her stepdad and Barbara was his mother the
four lived together in this double wide trailer where they had been killed she explains that her and her husband Ross
were Newly Weds they had just been married in fact the week prior her and her husband Ross lived with her two kids
from a previous marriage in a single wide trailer on the same property so not only is she shocked by what she's found
but has to run through her mind a little bit that hey we're we're on this property are we in danger as well yes
and so to describe this we said that it's a large yard and Kathy and Mike were the owners of the house and the
land the the deant Amy the daughter her front door faced the back door of her mom's house
and the reports I had have is that they were only about 50 or so yards away these two trailers Amy said that the
kids her kids had spent the previous week at her husband's parents home which is about an hour and a half away in
Columbia South Carolina this was so that Ross and her could have kind of like a little honeymon
period Amy told the investigators that she and Ross left town they had to go out of town to go pick up the kids this
is on that Sunday November 1st she said they left around 5:00 a.m. and they were gone all day and well into
the evening on Monday she says that she had noticed that her mom had not let out
her dog this is a cute little Chihuahua his name is Buddy she thought that this was very odd so she picks up the phone
calls over to her mom's house gets no answer she says she left a message on the answer machine but her message her
call was not returned so then her concern grows greater and she decided look even though it's raining outside
she walks over to her mom's house and she's outside she can hear the TV on inside she was startled to see the back
door was open now I think we need to describe this because I hate when when these reports just simply say the back
door was open because you go well you could have seen that from from your home right you should have been alarmed when
when you saw the back door open from your home but the way she describes it to Fox Carolina 21 the day after the
Murder She says quote when I went to knock on the back door the door just pushed open so I walked in it was dark I
flipped on a light and there they were they were just they were just there I don't understand why any of it has
happened I just keep thinking it's a dream I'm going to wake up from whoever did this I don't see how they can live
with themselves so she says she walks around she checks on each of the victims and then calls
911 and and then she also tells police that she called her husband Ross fardi who was out doing errands and she says
hey get home ASAP I need you to get home I need you to get to our trailer and make sure that the kids are not looking
out the windows what more information do we have on this timeline yeah so here we
go this some pretty detailed information here investigators initially believe that Mike Scott had sent a text on
Sunday this is to his boss at the Department of Transportation and the text was pretty simple just saying that
he would be back to work the next day he had taken off three days the previous week I think that the initial
misunderstanding of the text date and time in which it was sent caused the confusion for the possible time of death
that we talked about earlier that came from the corner remember it was thought that this text came in on Sunday later
they sorted out that the text it was actually sent on Saturday at 1:30 p.m. on Halloween so now if you're basing the
time of death Less on science and more of circumstantial evidence like like interaction with the victims or people
that it may have seen the victims live and well well if if he's the one that sent this text then they could have been
killed as early as late Saturday and then we also have Amy the daughter who says that she saw her mom and Mike
Saturday evening this around 8 and she said this is before she and Ross left for an overnight in bville South
Carolina first thing Sunday morning Amy valard the daughter said that she saw her mom and Mike on Saturday evening and
Amy and rosbo said that everything seemed normal with the couple at that time they noted nothing unusual in fact
they they said that they saw them one of them out outside doing yard work which was pretty typical we also have some
information from one of Kathy's brothers who says that they went to the home around 3:30 on Sunday knocked on the
front door no one answered and they they left so now now we have all of this information where a text was
sent on Saturday another relative shows up at 3:30 on Sunday no one answers the door we can presume that they were dead
by 3:30 on Sunday I want to clarify something here just in case any of the listeners get confused when Amy arrived
on Monday she attempted to knock on the back door and that was the door that just kind of came open when the other
relative arrived on Sunday they knocked on the front door so I don't think we should find it suspicious with anything
regarding Kathy's brother as far as we know at this point yeah but with four victims every body's Inner Circle every
single victim's Inner Circle has to be looked at the quadruple homicide was the first in the county in nearly 10 years
investigators were brought in from the FBI from sled which is the South Carolina law enforcement Division and
the forensic unit from the Greenville County Sheriff's Office brought in additional help to assist Anderson
County Sheriff's Office who were working the case this is Anderson County's case
the Sheriff John Skipper and representatives from the coroner's office held a press conference a week
after the murders the sheriff admitted to still not knowing whether the murders were targeted or random he said that
they were still working to determine whether the killer was someone the slain people knew or whether they had just
failed to be cautious and lock their doors he reminded the public quote we have no forced entry which gives us an
indication that it was someone known I still know a lot of people who don't lock their doors
we don't know anything along those lines end quote now the sheriff did have to do
a little backtracking here because there was a spokesperson for the sheriff's office
that had told the public that this was an isolated incident and quote as far as we know there was no danger to the
public the sheriff Mr Skipper here admitted that he could not say that this was true quote I don't know that they
shouldn't be scared over this incident end quote I we saw this in Deli we see this
in most homicide cases and of course yes most homicide cases person a knows person B person a kills person B and
it's a targeted murder right that's just the statistics it's it it's the overwhelming
statistic but I always hate when someone on law enforcement is is very quick to tell the news and tell the public like
uh there's no reason to be concerned here for the public at large this you know this this might have been an
isolated no until you figure out who did this everybody should be concerned everybody should be locking their doors
everybody should be on a heightened state of alertness it would be silly not to well
if you live in United States of America that the murder capital of the world maybe you should just be cautious all
the time lock your goddamn doors True Crime garage body armor now available on the
website we sell ma we sell we sell it all listen to this this part might clue us
into How concerned should we be about this missing safe right because until you figure out a plausible reasonable
explanation for a missing safe it has to have everything to do with the murders until you figure out differently
it's Amy the daughter that Prov valuable information to the Sheriff's Office she
tells them and other people knew this as well that Mike Scott and his you know after workor in his free time he was a
part-time dealer in valuable Collectibles jewelry guns Rare Coins gold he sold a lot of stuff on eBay
Craigslist and Facebook these items from my understanding here Captain some of these he's buying and then selling these
it items some of these items he's collected and then later is selling them but he's also selling items for like
people he knows right he charges them a little bit of a fee and list their items
for them on Outlets like eBay Craigslist and Facebook didn't include his address
but his phone number on these postings and he did prefer to deal in cash so it would be easy relatively easy
for a wouldbe robber to find his house through one of these posts we can say that based off of this fact previously
Mike had done some deals out of the house this was until Amy and some other family members expressed a safety
concern and said hey you shouldn't be doing this stuff out of your house you don't know these people so then Mike
started meeting clients at different locations this could be parking lots even gas stations but now we have
robbery on the table the day after the bodies were found there was like a mini press conference that Amy was front and
center for this was from wyft TV and she was thanking the community for their prayers but also criticizing law
enforcement for their lack of transparency she says quote I understand that they have a job to do but as family
members we want answers apparently Amy felt entitled to know what investigators were doing the
interviewer asked Amy what she would say to The Killers if they were watching and
she said quote I can't say that on TV and she gave a little smile she also told a local paper that her husband and
herself had been subjected to lie detector test on November 2nd the the very day in which she found the
bodies yeah that that seems like protocol protocol yes she found the bodies we're going to ask if it's okay
if you say yes we're going to bring you in if you say no okay that makes sense too said to the paper that it made her
feel like a suspect she felt like they were being treated like criminals she also openly complained about multiple
guns having been collected by a police search of her home the trailer at the back of the property she said that
police had confiscated a bunch of items from her home and she willingly took the
lie detector test the polygraph examination based on the condition that cash and her items would be returned to her
yeah I have a question and and maybe you know this maybe you don't and if you don't well then you're fired step into
my office I'm cleaning out my locker [ __ ] fired um because we have the double wide on the property and we have
the single wide on the property and we have this murder scene so obviously because there's a murder scene boom the
police have the right to search the murder scene but because it's on the same property do they even need to get a
search warrant for the separate unit that's a good question now we know how thorough they were with searching the
the actual trailer that was the murder scene right because they they did their due diligence and they were very smart
to say you know what everyone that lives there unfortunately has been killed we can't get consent that way so let's make
sure remember we say this a lot the best detectives out there let the evidence lead their investigation number one but
two number two every action that they do along the way during the investigation you have to keep in mind everything that
I do will it hold up in court because you can get everything right you can find the killer in these cases but if
you don't do things by the book you won't get a conviction and so when they got a search warrant to search the the
actual crime scene where the four lie dead right they did go and get additional search warrants and I believe
it was as many as five search warrants that were filed relatively quickly and signed off on relatively quickly and
then then executed and those search warrants Did include Amy and Ross's trailer as well well I just want to make
an announcement that we will have a part two to this episode because you answer that question
so greatly that that I have to let you stay on board for at least another episode like
they like the young lady said in Ferris bu's day off to the principal Ed I want to thank you for
your warmth and your compassion now here's you want to get down into the muck and the merer of this
and yeah a lot of people love these kind of things and so I want to make sure that I included it because this is where
you start to go hm you know CNC Music Factory things that make you go hm remember we have Amy who's talking to
the newspapers openly and and and good for her right John Walsh told us to keep all these cases in the media and so
she's talking to the media and she gets hit with a with a big question in a big spot The Independent Mail reporter asked
Amy about Facebook posts that she had made months prior believes I I I didn't record dates for most of these posts but
from my understanding captain and what I reviewed this was from months prior to the
murders but these were Facebook posts from the daughter made about her mother Kathy one of the deceased and these were
not posts that were you know speaking highly of her mother these older posts in them she publicly referred to issues
she felt her mom suff suffered from and she said things like narcissism and other various personality disorders
valard said Facebook postings in which she criticizes her mother came from years of ill feelings she said her
mother had asked her not to talk about these ill feelings Amy went on to say that for a
time she had refused to let her mom see her kids without Amy present but they had
changed lately at the family had begun to make up recently as she put it begun to make up recently are her words I
don't understand people that air all their grievances it's not it's called Facebook people it's not called Festivus
and you don't need to a all your grievance to the whole world um I think my mom was a bad mom and I'm I'm so mad
at her so I got to go tell my 30 followers on Facebook all about it yeah and it sounds like on occasion she's
recording stuff on her phone and I look that's some low down stuff right there because there are people that do this
that they'll have their phone recording look and if you're in a situation where somebody's abusing you or someone is
tormenting you or doing things that are illegal I'm all for it hit hit record on
your phone and catch them in the act and then show it to somebody cuz sometimes that's what it takes I mean we've seen
some stuff where people are being abused at work right being mistreated at a workplace that they can't afford to lose
their job but somebody's trying to push them over the edge and up in their face and cussing them out and things like
that that that's a nogo man you can't do that but but to just set up and hit record on your phone and do something
that's there she recorded an argument this is just a verbal disagreement and it was actually her
husband Ross who was in a verbal disagreement with the elderly Barbara Scott both are seen on the video but the
video ends with Ross saying quote I hope you die so if she's trying to make this
recording to make her mother or the other family members look bad my opinion Ross is the one that comes out looking
like the like the total jerk here so at some point regardless if they've made up
or not clearly things were bad between Kathy and Amy at some point yeah just a PSA for anybody somebody goes missing in
your family somebody's murdered in your family some crime happens to your family
you're a part of that inner circle you're going to be looked at I don't understand these family members
that claim that they want a a case to be solved for justice to happen and one or
not Cooperative with law enforcement and then question why why is law enforcement
looking at us it baffles me every time it's like well they have to look at the Inner
Circle first that these are the pieces of of the puzzle that they have they have to start ruling people in or out or
even yes no or maybe categories this is what they have to do the more Cooperative you are with law enforcement
and that doesn't mean you have to be dumb about it if you want to get a lawyer and have the communication go
through your lawyer well that makes a lot of sense but the more Cooperative you are that they can rule you in or out
the sooner they can get to other individuals yes so a lot of this came from early in 2015 this bad blood
situation now I do want to be clear here that we're basing some of this information off of hearsay this is
things that other people either related to the news or to authorities yeah but the Facebook messages that's proof of
some B blood one bit of hearsay that did make its way to Cold Justice was that at
least one person had said that Amy and Kathy had actual physical fights not just arguing or yelling at one another
but at least on one occasion a physical fight and went on to say that they believe that Amy used the kids as
weaponized the kids right Ed them as Weapons against her mother the two often argued over money in this person's
opinion and they thought that Amy would deny the grandmother seeing the grandkids when she decided that they
weren't getting along one thing that we do know that led to a big disagreement between the couples right we have
stepdad and mother Kathy and we have Amy and her husband Ross in fact this was before they were
married but they were had been living together Mike and Kathy took the kids and they were watching them they took
them to a a a Fourth of July Festival Church festival and when they come home they go
to return the kids to Amy and Ross who had a bunch of friends over had a little gathering and Mike and Kathy believed
that Amy and Ross were both tanked when they got there and so they didn't feel comfortable leaving the kids with them
but of course you can imagine how this plays out right A lot of times somebody might say Well they're my kids
you can't tell me you know what to do in my house they're the reason that they were drunk the kids
were having kids makes you want to drink but but it's one of those situations where it's like the daughter and her
husband they're a little bit let's just call it what it is they're a little bit losers so they have
to be somewhat dependent on her mother mhm but then ALS also doesn't want the mother to have much involvement or don't
tell me what I'm doing wrong yes you know help me out I I I want your help but I don't want your
advice and that's normally just not how it works look here's the thing too I want to be clear because we got a lot
of can we do it again shout out to the moms we got a lot of moms and dads out there listening especially the ones that
have younger kids and you don't get many breaks from your kids when they're young
and they're drunk right now they're all drunk right now I love garage so I understand like you when you get that
rare free time you want to you might want to hang out with some friends if that's a possibility it's Fourth of July
man I have beers on Fourth of July it fire up the the stereo the the gas grill and hand me a cold one because I'm going
to be doing some eating and drinking on that day to celebrate our independence this beautiful country mhm so I get it
but you also hope that somebody could be mature enough to make a quick phone call
to Grandma and say look we had some people over since you guys got the kids thanks for taking them to the festival
I've had a couple drinks could you keep them for the night if not no big deal I'll I can switch to water right well
right next door exactly exactly so but what that none of that did happen and so when Grandma and Grandpa come home and
in their opinion find Amy and Ross tanked or or half in the bag they they get into this argument now
this is going to be on display for the grandkids going to be on display for the potential guests that were still there
for the celebration but this seemed to be a big argument because this is when Amy Says like you know what you're not
going to see the kids mom stepdad you're not going to see the kids but what changed between 4th of July that
incident and Halloween was you know as said Mike and Kathy were very involved with Amy's kids they were little they're
six and four at the time they would keep them overnight they would take them to church they' buy them clothes buy them
toys things like that like the very involved and what changed here was that in late October it appears that they
made up so we what happened from my understanding is that at some point Grandma and Grandpa want to see the kids
the grandkids very badly and so Mike goes over knocks on their Amy and Ross's trailer door and has a discussion with
them and basically says that look we're sorry kind of falling on his sword right
if this what it is what it means to see the grandkids then we'll let you guys think that we're to blame here but we'll
we'll we'll try to be the we'll extend the olive branch and we're sorry we won't do this just trying to appease Amy
so that they could see the grandchildren and I guess late October was finally when Amy apparently
decided to allow her family to see the kids and she promised to bring them over on that
Halloween night [Music] want to thank you guys for joining us here in the garage big shout out to all
the moms out there so much more to get to stay tuned for part two until then be good be kind and don't litter
[Music] I'm Elliot kin and I cannot wait to tell you all about the new podcast I'm
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Pendleton Quadruple Homicide /// Part 1 /// 818

Part 1 of 2

www.TrueCrimeGarage.com (http://www.truecrimegarage.com/)

On Monday, November 2nd, 2015 a little after noon a call came into emergency services. The female caller described to dispatch the bloodbath they had discovered. Four people were dead, killed in their home. Amy Vilardi called in the horrific discovery. The victims were her family. It was a massacre that shocked the tiny town of Pendleton, South Carolina.

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Brief Summary

The episode details the brutal Pendleton quadruple homicide and the investigation into the shocking murders of a family.

Key points

A Frantic 911 Call. A woman calls 911, sobbing, reporting four dead in her mother's house.
A Horrific Bloodbath. Deputies find a gruesome scene with four victims shot and blood smeared everywhere.
The Investigation Begins. Investigators face challenges due to the lack of signs of forced entry.
The Brutality of the Attack. Details emerge about the violent nature of the killings, shocking the community.
The Victims' Background. The victims were respected members of the community, raising questions about motive.
A Family's Simple Life. Mike and Kathy lived a simple, happy life, making their murder even more shocking.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

What in the hell happened here?

The initial shock of the crime scene.

5:00WatchFeb 5, 2025

Tension

75/ 100High tension

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