Rainbow Family Murders | Morbid | Podcast | Forensic Files

hey weirdos I'm Elena I'm Ash and this is [Music] morbid you were juny about that hay I
know I was maybe it's the ey shadow of it all it's the ey Shadow you're great you've never looked better one of my
daughters while we were getting them ready for dance decided to give me a makeover cuz while you're waiting you
know might as well and she grabbed a Halloween palette yep a Halloween palette that I have and I actually kept
that palette haven't used it cuz I wanted to wait for Halloween we and I figured they could use that palette cuz
I'm sure they're going to want to be something fun and fancy and you know all that fun stuff did they use there is
pumpkin orange glitter and glitter glitter in this palette like drag queen glitter like so glitter so glitter yeah
so glitter and she said mom close your eyes and I said Okay and she she did it she lipsticked you too but thatp sticked
me too but that would way but the ey Shadow remains it might remain until the day I die because it's really it's
really embedded in there but I feel uh spooky ooky and you look great you know what she gave me a gift she gave you her
all she did they were like what did they say oh the other one wanted to do mine and I was like I already have makeup on
and elen goes you can never have too much and I was like nope you can less is more bye have fun at Dan so here I am
here I am sitting with with my fancy eyeballs okay I got out I'm sorry that you feel inadequate I don't I don't I
feel safe over here I've been you feel safe because of this disco ball you know on Facebook when people are like I've
been marked safe from like safe from glitter I was it was I to was you know what I wasn't mark saer my the bottom of
my hair is so crusty wow okay like dry what's so funny over there glitterhead that made it sound weird the
fact that you had to like like clarify what you meant you were like you like dry dry like not just crusty like these
crusty crusts I got on the bottom of my hair for gazelle it was her lips for me it's my ends there you go that speaks to
someone I'm sorry about that but Summer's almost over everybody so don't worry about it yay because spooky season
is coming is upon us it's here as far as I'm concerned yeah and I have a hair appointment tomorrow so party oh my God
for I I saw I was really trying to connect that you're like what does that have to do with spooky season but it
started with hair I was still on my hair I see it's called being self-centered look it
up um so I guess there's no better way to go into no a case than that yeah what better way um this I have a bummer one
today obviously um and it's it's interesting I was reading like articles to try to find my next couple of cases
and I saw a book pop up and I was like whoa that looks interesting and that's how I discovered the rainbow family I
don't think I have ever heard of this one nor had I yeah so it all starts with a girl named Nancy okay and from a very
early age Nancy Santo knew whatever she ended up doing for her career she wanted
it to be something that helped people and I think that automatically is just really [ __ ] sweet yeah her mother
Jean told reporters in 2000 she had such promise such a free spirit she wanted to
be a forest ranger it was the end of the 1970s and she was non-materialistic she
just wanted to improve Society oh Nancy it was almost like Nancy was born a couple years too late in the late 70s
her love of Nature and you know her deep feelings of empathy and compassion for others reminded most people of the
hippie subculture that had recently kind of been left behind now most people were
going on to a period that was you know maybe a bit more self-centered and definitely a whole lot more
materialistic but nany's family always encouraged her interests and respected the kind of hippie ass culture that she
felt so close to that's a good family it is they just supported her and loved her
for who she was and she had a lot to offer her mother later said I didn't even worry when she was hitchhiking
because her family and her mother included knew she had a close-knit group of girl friends and just friends in
general who could very much hold their own in a potential conflict I love that she was like I wasn't worried like
they're boss [ __ ] I'm not worried about them at all no she's like they got this awesome now one of those girls was
26-year-old Vicky durian Vicky was known to her friends as bright star stop it like immediately I was like I love Vicki
I was just going to say this like I just want to be around these people right and
so Vicky being also known as bright star you can see why she and Nancy H it off immediately they both had very free
Spirits they were open people friendly people Vicki was born and raised in actually a very rural area Wellman Iowa
it was a town where there were only about a thousand people whoa yeah but like Nancy Vicki had a strong sense of
empathy and compassion she really liked helping people what a Duo I know after high school she became a licensed
practical nurse so she was also like like a multifaceted chica there oh yeah and it seemed like a natural fit for
somebody with her SK skills and personality now even though she had a wellestablished career and she was very
much professionally trained Vicki still identified it seemed even more so as like a free-spirited person who wanted
to get out and experience the world yes I love it I it starts off so beautifully now Vicki and ny's friend
Liz johnra told reporters bright star was a loving person she was real open to everybody even if they weren't like her
oh I love that yeah that's like the kind of people should be yeah that's the kind
of people you want to surround yourself with yeah just be open to people yeah so
Liz actually had met Vicki outside of a food co-op and Tucson in the late 70s and the two of them became really fast
friends because Vicky let then teenage Liz stay at her apartment when she had nowhere else to go now it was through
Vicky that Liz eventually met Nancy and then the three girls bonded together over their increasingly uncommon
interest of the hippie lifestyle which is crazy that like like even the even like at the end of the 70s it was pretty
much done yeah like that it it changed over so quick it seems like it was just all of a sudden like oh nope that's not
okay yeah like we're on to new things on to material items but look the hippie like you know look at least and like
aesthetic is still it's constantly in style I feel like some ways yeah and I think there's like a lot more music
festivals now that kind of try to like borrow from the ones back in the day yeah but yeah so they were there were a
couple of hippies and they loved hitchhiking okay it was just a good way to get around now as we all know it was
obviously wildly popular in the 70s to hitchhike the in the early 70s but by the end of the decade most of the
general public kind of realized how dangerous it could be like accepting a ride from a stranger it's so sad which I
think the the reason a lot of people started to realize that is because the news and the Press started covering more
serial killers and more instances of violent crimes from hitchhiking yeah you're never hearing about like like I'm
a like I would never hitchhike just because I'm scared of everybody but well now it's now it's so different but like
you also back then were not hearing about the millions of successful hitchhiking that happened every single
day where somebody was brought to the place they were looking to go and had a nice conversation and met somebody kind
and great and Y was better for the experience like you didn't hear about any of that you only it's like a plane
crash exactly only hear about the bad ones you're not hearing about the thousands that take off a day that
successfully get where they need to go precisely look at you just you get it yeah the girls that get it get it that's
me now but listen even with that awareness there were still people who felt like the benefits like we were just
saying outweighed the risks and they were comfortable taking rides from strangers Liz would later tell reporters
hitchhiking is a cheap easy free way to travel we could get off anywhere we wanted no worries about gas or cars you
meet people who are just interested in hearing about your travels we were no strings attached people and wouldn't it
be nice if that's all it was you just meet people get a little different perspective on stuff yeah hear about
their fun trip they're taking and then be like bye and like you said like maybe leave better for it you know like oh
what a cool guy what a CO that was just the way it was and we could be that way as a species it would be so sick it
would be but we're one of the most terrifying species ever yeah sure are so in June of 1980 Vicki traveled from
Wisconsin where she had recently moved for work to her family home in Wellman because she was attending her brother's
graduation and Nancy planned to meet Vicki at Vicki's parents house in Iowa after the grad party was over and
together with Liz the three of them were going to hitchhike their way to the rainbow family's Fourth of July
celebration in marlington West Virginia otherwise known as a rainbow gathering this sounds adorable oh it's it's just
so pure like I could see myself wanting to go to this when I if I like lived back then you would have been all over
this 100% now the rainbow family was started in 1971 it's like very interesting reading
about it because you're like who exactly started thisen there's a couple people that started it but they're like we're
pretty informally led oh so they started by an informally connected group of mostly young people with pretty
Progressive ideals and they're known for organizing really large Gatherings that
are just supposed to celebrate the spirit of the counterculture movement from the 70s oh that's fun hippies yeah
they don't really have any specific agenda there's not really any organizing principles they're mostly understood by
the public as a well-intended group Who quote are out to seek a little Earnest spiritual fulfillment learn a thing or
two and have a good time in the process that seems wonderful like who the [ __ ]
doesn't want to go to that yeah now their annual Gatherings were pretty free form they included events and activities
that Drew from spirituality like new age spirituality and the Back To Nature movement and they also uh Incorporated
cultural elements of the 1960s like music and sexual Freedom oh lots of stuff going on it's [ __ ] awesome yeah
it's like very Woodstock it sounds like yeah you know we loved it we loved it as
the Washington Post described it it was a it as if the rainbow people had slipped through a Time Warp a slice of
the 60s suddenly wedged into the 80s that's interesting sign me up yeah let's do the time warp again yeah I mean I'll
watch from far away yeah I'll I'll make sure you have like Po I'll support you okay I I'll write you a postcard from
there cool now while the attendees of the rainbow family gatherings may have been mostly well- intended it seems
their annual convergence on very very rural locations had a tendency to worry local law enforcement over what they
referred to as quote the high potential for user conflict essentially they were worried
about the largely Progressive counterculture attendees coming up against the largely conservative locals
eek who really resented public nudity the like flagrant drug use and what they felt was a general disregard for
Authority okay just two different sides of a coin coming together very opposite ends of the spectrum here luckily the
troublemakers seem to be pretty few and far between and most attendees overall were like Vicky Nancy and Liz just
free-spirited people trying to keep up the ideals of hippie culture alive in a very different world mhm but still in
the weeks before this Gathering was set to begin in marlington West Virginia the
Secretary of State James mansion um excuse me a James mansion actually filed a suit to against the group in an
attempt to stop this Gathering from happening allog together he told reporters West Virginia didn't need this
bunch of derel Misfits I mean that was a choice having it in West Virginia I will
say that it was a choice I'm not saying it was a bad choice I'm not saying it was a good choice it was just a choice
it's simply a choice Choice derel Misfits I mean I think they're just trying to Vibe that's what I think it
sounds like they're not doing anything like let them hang let them V let them hang let them just do their thing it'll
it'll end and then they go home and then that's it who cares now his suit was unsuccessful at keeping the rainbow
family from coming to West Virginia I figured but that specific instance definitely highlights the tensions that
we building over before the event had even begun you can see that it was clearly like an issue and and people in
town were not excited about it in a big issue this isn't like a bunch of people just being like oh this is annoying it's
like the secretary of state is trying to see them that's a lot that's pretty big
now when Liz Nancy and Vicky left from the durian house on June 20th their plan was to hitchike to the Gathering which
was going to be held and I looked this up so I'm going to do my best West Virginia's mananga hila for National
Forest wow yeah impressive very cool you're talking about my pronunciation right thank you very impressive so that
was the plan they were going to hit Chik there and then when they got there they
were going to meet up with Nancy's sister Kathy who was also going to be going to the festival okay Cathy's plan
was to drive herself down a few days later okay however their plan changed just a few days later when they reached
Richmond Virginia on the 24th of June the day before the three friends were picked up in South Carolina by the
driver of a commercial bus and Liz later told reporters it was raining and as I stared out the window something told me
not to go to the rainbow gathering ooh she just had like a premonition oh always listen to your gut man and she
did so many times I have not listened to my gut and I regret it every time yeah she said it was just something like
telling her not to go wow so instead she placed a call to her father in Connecticut and she arranged for
transportation to get back home she really listened mhm she's a spiritual girlly of course she did and actually
her dad was going to be getting married the next weekend so going home seemed like the right thing to do anyways even
despite her feeling and like there was a lot of convergence of some signs there that she was like you know what yeah
that's the thing and I wonder if she just kind of like kept the feeling to herself and was like it's about me like
not about them kind of thing so they the three of them made plans to get together
in Vermont later that summer and they were they totally understood that Liz didn't want to go anymore and the last
thing Vicky and Nancy said to Liz was be careful and then they proceeded on their
way to West Virginia to the rainbow gathering oh boy now around 900 p.m. on June 25th so just 1 one day after Vicki
and Nancy parted ways with Liz a student walking back to his leant to in Bri knob
near droop Mountain Park discovered two bodies lying face down in the woods both
dead from apparent gunshot wounds oh now they were nearly 40 mil from the rainbow
family gathering but police immediately believed that these two women had attended the Gathering due to one of
them wearing a shirt with a rainbow Motif Motif similar to emblems used by participants of the Gathering ing okay
now other than that neither woman had any identification or other clues about their
identities so the news of the two murders excuse me came as a shock to some but not all attendees at the
rainbow family gathering one of the organizers of the Gathering Tony Crow told reporters about an unrelated
instance he said quote there were 11 shots fired into the site it looks like some of the locals have gone a little
gun crazy oh so basically people were targeting this event wow and like the site where the Gathering was actually
taking place that's what had happened people shot into it now but like I said unrelated inance or incident excuse me
that's scary but despite the deaths the event continued without a second thought
one attendee told reporters it's a really bad thing that it should happen but I know that those two sister who
have passed on to another realm would be very unhappy if they saw that it affected the energy of this
Gathering no comment I'm just going to stay here I don't know how they would feel I have no idea I yeah we'll leave
it at that yeah but since the deaths did not affect the Gathering the identities
of the victims were still unknown and ny's sister Cathy had no reason to change her plans so at the end of the
excuse me at the end of June she and some friends traveled to West Virginia to meet up with her sister oh mhm years
later Cathy told reporters when I arrived no one knew where Nancy was that week I heard two girls were killed in
the country but there were no photos I was a little worried but someone said the victims were American
Indians now when Kathy still hadn't been able to locate her sister after several
days she just figured that Nancy had found something that interested her more so she left the area oh she said that
would have been pretty typical of her cuz again like very free spirited people say that's the thing and she I mean this
is like in your wildest nightmares you couldn't imagine that this happened to your sister
no of course not and nothing in your brain wants you wants to believe exactly so it's going to tell you no way there's
no way right so Cathy and her friends drove back to New York on July 5th but when she got home some friends had
received a copy of the Pocahontas times and showed Cathy the pictures of the two
young women who had been killed now at first Cathy wasn't sure the girl in the photo was her sister there definitely
was a resemblance but she couldn't be sure so she drove back down to West Virginia to see if the girl in the photo
really was her sister I wonder if it's one of those things where she was pretty sure but like again her brain didn't
want to be like no that's definitely her yeah so as she made her way back to West
Virginia investigators continued to struggle to make any kind of Headway in this case and like I said a minute ago
neither girl that was found had any identification and the only personal items found with them were a Swiss army
knife and a pocket comb and then the postmortem exams were just as unhelpful the cause of death was gunshots this is
horrible Vicky had been shot twice in the chest Nancy had also been shot twice in the chest but also once in the head
jeez with what the technician believed was a high-powered rifle wow now although they hadn't identified the
bodies yet local authorities felt confident that the killer was local quote because of the rural area in which
the bodies were found and they were also pretty certain that the girls had been killed in one location and then dumped
where they had been found because there was no blood pooling around the Exit Wounds okay now Kathy
reached Pocahontas County on July 8th and immediately went to the local police who took her to see the bodies she later
recalled quote my girlfriend knew right away but I could not believe it was Nancy then I saw that she was wearing
the silver bracelet I had given her like that's an awful way I can't imagine having to identify no a family
member let alone like your sister yeah so after identifying the bodies Kathy was able would to help the investigators
get in touch with Vicky's family and then she got in her car and drove back to New York to deliver the news to her
mom in person she said I didn't want to have to tell her about Nancy on the telephone wow that's yeah can you
imagine just having to like it's just you in your driving knowing what you have to do after just seeing what you
saw like that's your sister and her friend who you probably knew and you're showing up at your mom's house she's
probably going to answer the door being like Oh my God hey girl you know like so
happy to see you like blah la la like Mom stuff MH and this is what you have to and to think too that like you were
at the Gathering and you like you had no idea yeah it's awful oh so a couple days
after Nancy and Vicki were identified the state police held a conference a press conference to announce the
identification other information about the investigation was still really scarse investigators didn't believe that
the motive was robbery and actually sometime later nany's backpack was found about 50 miles from where the two bodies
were discovered and this is strange nothing appeared to be missing but strangely a Confederate flag was found
among the possessions and like neither one of them would have had that Vicki or Nancy that's strange and when Liz was
asked about it she said she didn't remember Vicky or Nancy being in possession of one and she elaborated
that it would have been very odd given who they were and what they believed in yeah that seems to go against so it
seems like whoever did this to them left that there as like a [ __ ] you wow mhm
now as far as motives went though there was no evidence that either had been sexually assaulted so that was ruled out
as well and in fact aside from the murders there had actually been no reports of violence in the area so
investigators had no suspects what the [ __ ] like nothing now the biggest and most unexpected information revealed
during the press conference was that in addition to the murders Vicki and nany's
friend Liz who had been traveling with them was still missing ah because obviously nobody knew that like only
Vicky and Nancy knew what had happened that she had gone off so it took nearly a week before West Virginia authorities
were actually able to track Liz down she was in Vermont vacationing with her family and had no idea how close she was
to becoming the third victim of this wow now unfortunately while Liz was able to
fill in the timeline between when they left Iowa and got to Richmond there really wasn't much else she could
do or provide Beyond hitchhiking from one destination to the other now when reporters asked her whether she would
continue hitchhiking she said right now I don't think I'll do it again it's kind
of scary I guess not all the good rides make up for the one bad one exactly which like what a haunting statement I
know for the one B one like oh I it gives me like chills cuz usually that's all you get is one bad one yep oh so
local authorities investigated the case for two 2 years but they kept hitting dead end after dead end after dead end
they weren't able to turn up any leads any additional evidence nothing of course they had some theories due to the
remote location in which the bodies were found I think I said this earlier they definitely suspected that a local was
responsible but who and why completely with them and then their investigation was further hindered by the fact that
most local residents were pretty tight lipped when it came to talking to law enforcement m and especially when the
crime was committed against two quote unquote Outsiders they're not going get involved they're not going to concern
themselves which is really [ __ ] up cuz it's like these are two young girls two
people no one in this town had like teenage sisters teenage daughters teenage cousins like Jesus
Christ but the first break in the case finally came in July of 1982 when Vicky's family reported that they had
received several anonymous calls from a man who seemed to know something about Vicki's murder whoever was calling
refused to identify himself but claimed the local police police excuse me quote were not doing their job when it came to
the investigation and this caller said as somebody who had a daughter himself he was really sympathetic to the family
suffering huh but it was odd like they were they were turned off by these phone calls so later that month the police put
a tap on Vicki's family's phone and that led them to 36-year-old West Virginia tractor salesman and F
and father Jacob beard now in 1982 Jacob beard he was actually already pretty well known to
the police due to a few charges of animal cruelty he was facing at the time and he was facing those charges at the
time that he was making the calls to Vicky's family trigger warning here I'm just going to quickly tell you what
those call those um charges were about so if you want to skip forward I would do that now according to the charges he
had killed his girl his former girlfriend's cat and left it in in her bed for her to find and he had also been
accused of trying to kill her dog but luckily the dog was able to be saved oh he also did this on Christmas Eve what
mhm now because the charges were still pending the County prosecutor actually offered to dismiss those animal cruelty
charges in exchange for Jacob Beard's cooperation in the case holy [ __ ] and they also offered to Grant him immunity
for any after theact involvement that he may have had in Vicki and ny's deaths damn crazy I know they were desperate to
get this solved now but if it was found that he was directly responsible for the
deaths immunity would be off the table wow okay yeah so according to Jacob beard he had left for work about 5:15
that night the night that Vicky and um Nancy were killed then he said he went home to eat something for dinner and
then headed off to a school board meeting with his wife he told author authorities that he and his wife were
returning from that meeting around 9900 p.m. that night when they saw three local residents Christine cook Palmer
Atkinson and William McCoy entering into the woods near Dro Mountain park with two women he said resembled Vicki and
Nancy oh now he also claimed that there was actually a third victim from the rainbow family killed by Palmer Atkinson
and he knew that because Palmer and another local resident Arnold cutlip had brought the body back to his own
property Jacob's property and disposed of the body by putting it into his corn chopper what so this is like a very
Fantastical tale if this is all true o yeah so the police arrested the men that Jacob claimed were responsible for
the murders but after 2 months of Investigation they determined his story was a hoax what and all three men were
released from custody so he just just came up with this entire story and named random
people involved supposedly wow maybe it gets hairy just wa okay so the shift and focus away from
those suspects coincided with suspicions falling on two new suspects 42-year-old
Gerald Lee Brown and 20-year-old Bobby Lee Morrison now according to Morrison he had been out driving around with
Gerald Lee uh Brown Excuse me on the night of June 24th and he said they picked up Nancy and Vicky who were
hitchhiking and then he claimed the four of them spent some time drinking he passed out in Gerald Brown's van and
when he woke up Morrison claimed he witnessed Brown shoot both women and then he said he helped Brown move the
bodies out to Brier knob before returning to town why are so many people admitting to having some kind of part in
this oh so many people you're barely at the tip of the iceberg right now what the [ __ ] it's w this case is one of the
craziest ones when it comes to the investigation I think that I have ever personally researched like wow it's wild
now both men were arrested in April 1983 bail was set at $100,000 for brown and 50,000 for Morrison and in a press
conference prosecutor J Steven Hunter told reporters he quote in all probability would try to seek Morrison
as an adult or excuse me would seek to try Morrison as an adult even though he was a juvenile at the time of the
murders so this is public now wow now while the arrest of Morrison and brown seemed like a pretty positive turn of
events in the case a lot of people in town were pretty confused or weary about how investigators actually became
suspicious of those to in the first place prosecutor Hunter told reporters quote at the time he meaning Morrison
wasn't a suspect it just happened that this turned out to be the lead that led to an arrest but he would never say what
the lead was that led them to Morrison and brown yeah because there wasn't one in all reality Morrison himself went to
the police out of nowhere to report himself and brown as the men responsible for Vicki and nany's murders what so
strange okay but a few weeks later during the I can never say this preliminary hearing Morrison recanted
his initial confession and told the judge and prosecutor that Jacob beard had manipulated him into confessing in
order to take the heat off of himself so Jacob beard is back back again what the [ __ ] Moran claimed
that beard told him quote something would happen to his family if he didn't make the statement and that was the only
reason he made up the story about picking up The Hitchhikers in the first place wow so under those circumstances
the prosecutor had to drop those charges against Morrison and brown and the case
went cold again this is a whirlwind and this is barely even the beginning jeez it didn't
take long before investigators had a new suspect though on March 1st 1984 while being interviewed by Special
by a special agent from the Wisconsin Department of Justice for unrelated crimes I feel like they should shorten
their name maybe convicted serial killer Joseph Paul Franklin confessed to murdering two white female hitchhikers
near droop Mountain Forest and he even provided a crudely drawn map of the location where he left the bodies what
now I just want to give a trigger warning probably I would say for racism here because this guy is a racist piece
of [ __ ] so skip forward if you don't want to hear about him I feel like his name is familiar yeah you probably know
about him he's he's a Monster yeah so Joseph Paul Franklin had actually been born James Clayton Von Jr but changed
his name to honor Benjamin Franklin and a Nazi leader named Paul ysep GBL I think is how you say it uh it sounds
right to me he's pretty terrible so I don't actually care how to pronounce his name yeah uh Franklin himself was a
[ __ ] deplorable monster he was a member of the American Nazi party a member of the KKK an avowed white
supremacist and a serial killer oh he checks all the the really bad guy boxes all the deplorable boxes at the time of
his confession he was already serving multiple life sentences for murder uh he mainly targeted black men and
interracial couples and he would eventually be convicted of killing eight people but suspected of killing more
than 20 wow he confessed to over 20 murders but they were never able to completely pin them down wow so this
would be out of his victim profile it would be but when you hear his quote unquote motive or what at
least what he says it is not necessarily so according to his confession he picked
Vicky and Nancy up in West Virginia and the three had been just engaging in small talk and the subject of
interracial dating came up I'm sure he was the one to bring that up and he was disgusted when neither woman objected to
the idea of dating a black man he said one of them said she had and the other said if the opportunity arose that she
would yeah now it was then he claimed that he decided to quote waste both of them right there jeez he's a disgusting
human gosh in a prison interview he said it only took one shot for the first one
then I just turned real quick over the seat and shot the other one okay later that's awful horrible and just like to
think that one question and then that's it but later he said he regretted killing Nancy because according to him
it was Vicky that was the one who had an interracial relationship before and he said when he asked Nancy if she would
consider it she said she would but he said he still wished he didn't kill her what the [ __ ] he it's he's I don't even
know if he did this like I don't really know what my opinion is because it get it gets so convoluted along the way but
I'm like either either way like you're a [ __ ] [ __ ] yeah you're disgusting so Franklin's confession would seem to
have brought the mystery to an end but there were more than a few unanswered questions and a lot of people suspected
he wasn't telling the truth because after his initial confession he refused to discuss the murders with law
enforcement again and while he may have confessed to these murders he actually seemed to have very few details about
the crime and some of them Stu wrong right exactly for one thing you you probably noticed he said he only shot
each girl one time before dragging their bodies out to the woods when like I said
earlier the technican who had performed the examinations the postm modum examinations was clear that Vicki had
been shot twice and Nancy had been shot three times yeah and then in addition to
that it was believed that the um a high-powered rifle was the murder weapon that's what I didn't get a gun like that
would be very awkward to use in the close confines of a car and and it it just didn't make a lot of sense none of
it lines up so finally there was also the fact that he had a history history of making supposedly false confessions
there you go so they were like I don't know about this what kind you I I'm like you monstrous like truly monstrous to
try to take credit for this kind of stuff it's like my goodness and by the time he was executed by lethal injection
in 2013 oh like not that long ago he had confessed to more than 20 murders across
the country wow including the shooting of Hustler magazine founder Larry Fint in
1978 and Urban League president Vernon Johnson in 1980 oh so he was just like taking credit for everything MH they
were never able I guess to prove that he like didn't uh do either of those shootings yeah but but they weren't able
to prove he did either correct exactly correct correct I always sound very condescending when I say that corre
correct now given the questionable validity of his claims authorities in West Virginia declined to prosecute
saying that the confession quote lacked the requisite guarantees of trust it doesn't line up for me no now in the
context of West Virginia law the confession fell into the category I thought this was interesting of what's
known as a statement against interest or a statement that is so contrary to the declarant interests that it's unlikely
to be true huh yeah now because they're mostly determined to be false a statement against interest is typically
not admissible in court oh okay and without any more corroborating evidence West Virginia prosecutors were like yeah
he's not a viable suspect would be Supreme waste of time that's basically how they felt now I don't know I'm not
sure what I think about it because when you think about the fact that a Confederate flag was left with their
belongings oh yeah but I mean he's not the only and that's what I was just going to say like he that seems like
something he probably would have done but again he's not the only person that would do that I don't to me I don't just
from hearing that I would say no but yeah the fact that he didn't know how many times each was shot and I guess and
it was a high powerered rifle that would be very difficult to do in a car in a car right and um the map he drew was not
it was like all right but they were like I don't know like you could have got that from Reading different sources
about this case nope don't buy it yeah well you're not the only one and law enforcement officials were not the only
ones who considered this confession self-serving wildly inconsistent with the details all
of the above a lot of people including actually ny's own family found these claims hard to believe and like many
investigators Nancy's sister Cathy believes Franklin had picked up a few details from magazines or news reports
which would account for the lack of spec specificity in his claims cuz he gave no
details that would be something only the killer would know exactly and if you can't give me that then you weren't
there exactly that's the thing if you can read it in a magazine azine or a newspaper I don't I don't trust it
that's the thing and actually at the time he was arrested he supposedly I couldn't like totally pin this down but
I read in a couple sources that he was said to have a magazine in his possession that laid out a couple of the
key details from the case and those were the ones he pointed to there you go so authorities in West Virginia they shared
Cathy's Theory an anonymous source from the prosecutor's office told reporters his story has evolved over the years
when he when he began this scenario he really knew none of the details he did not know how many times the women had
been shot he did not know what areas of areas of the body the wounds were sustained and he could not accurately
describe his roote before and after the murders Yeah by so [ __ ] yeah now after the quick collapse of his
confession the investigation into Vicki and ny's murders went inactive yet again
getting you know the occasional review every so often but other than that remaining mostly cold and it wasn't
until late 199 when a new group of investigators decided to give the case a second look
now in that review this is so interesting detectives or at least to me detectives found a note from
1985 regarding a local woman named Alice Roberts who had contacted them and they
had never followed up with her initial like reaching out to them what so when detectives got in touch with Alice these
new detectives she redirected them to her daughter Pam Wilson saying that she actually knew her daughter thought or
she believed that her daughter knew something about the murders oh wow so and they just ignored her the first time
around just never got back to her cool right so according to Pam Wilson she had been in town on the day that the murders
occurred and she said she saw two quote unquote hippie type women get into a blue van belonging to a man named Richie
Fowler and she said Richie Fowler wasn't alone that afternoon he was in the company of two other local men Winter's
Peewee Walton and Willi William McCoy William McCoy had previously been arrested say that rings a bell yeah um
and that he was arrested alongside Jacob beard so the tip was definitely of Interest yeah so around the same time
investigators were also contacted by an inmate named Keith CER I believe is how you say his last name he was serving a
10-year prison sentence for forgery and he said that he was willing to trade information about the murders in
exchange for better prison condition going to pause there better prison conditions just saying I'm like if you
got something gain I don't know if I but he claimed that he had actually been at Gerald Brown Gerald Brown's home
several months after the murders and while he was there he overheard Gerald Brown confess that he Richie Fowler and
two other men had been responsible for the murders and that quote everyone should just keep their mouth shut whoa
so that's pretty interesting interesting jeez this is like set of people number four the amount it got so confusing at
the end because there's going to be even more players and a bunch of them have the same last name or like one has a
last name that's somebody else's first name I was getting really confused but after investigating Pam's tips as well
as Keith's investigators learned of more eyewitness accounts who had spotted a group of men including peeee Walton
William McCoy and Richie Fowler together on the day of the murder oh now one Tipper claimed they actually saw three
of the men hosing out the back of the van on the same night mhm that's chilling now based on the and remember
they had said they didn't believe that they had been killed there they believed that they had been killed elsewhere and
dumped there so that's interesting that they maybe were posing the van out allegedly now based on the tips arrest
warrants were actually issued for a man named Richard Lewis who also eventually was brought into the equation Gerald
Brown Peewee Walton and Arnold cutlip all of them denied any involvement but still obviously they were not like yeah
your word's the best ever yeah they're like oh sounds good oh okay never mind you're free to go so they were held on
$100,000 bond all of them now in his statement to the Press prosecutor Walt wayford refused to speculate on any kind
of motive but he said the arrests to date are the result of an intensive investigation conducted by Sheriff Jerry
Dale and Sergeant Robert a alire they worked a lot of long and hard hours now Sheriff Dale was also pretty vague about
what led investigators to these four men who had been arrested and all he really
said to the public was people got older and became less intimidated and frightened about the subjects who were
responsible for the murders okay which like sure okay he declined to add any additional details but to me it sounds
like they probably um should have listened should have listened to the original tip from six years ago yeah you
know but like okay maybe just call her back just call her back call her back she reached out for a reason and it
looks like she had some valuable information you've just arrested how many people so within a few days
actually additional charges were brought against three other men believed to have
been involved in the crime Johnny Lewis Jaa beard yet again and William McCoy now all three of them had been suspected
of some involvement at some point as we all know at this point in the previous decade how many men were involved in
this jeez I think seven total wow one resident told reporters a couple of those are very surprising and then
there's a couple of people that's not so surprising o now within a few weeks of the arrest people in town were talking
and they had their own theories about the motive of The Killers most people agreed that it was anger surrounding
this supposed hippie invasion of the rainbow family but the prosecutor's office had yet to make any formal
statement as to what they believed was the motive Gerald Brown's defense attorney Paul DCH was suspicious though
when it came to the evidence that led to the arrests and he told reporters it's a
bunch of police officers who are on a Witch Hunt they've got people held on paperwork that wouldn't hold an assault
and battery case whoa so it was it was shaky grounds here that they were holding them on and Arnold cut lips
lawyer Martin safer agreed saying they're going to have to flush out the allegations of the Warren if they can EK
so he was like I don't know now DCH safer and many others in town actually suspected that the prosecutor's office
didn't really have any new information about the case but they just wanted to clear the notorious Cold Case to make it
seem like they were getting [ __ ] done I mean and that does happen of course it
does and the County prosecutor on the case Walt wayford wasn't doing much to stifle those suspicions he wasn't
talking a lot yeah he which you can look at two ways one he's not talking cuz he
barely has anything or he has a [ __ ] ton and he's keeping it close to the chest
exactly we said that how many times all he would say to the public was that the evidence would be presented at the Grand
Jury hearing but other than that nothing okay so by the time the case did reach the grand jury things did not appear to
be going smoothly for the prosecutor's office the charges against Peewee Walton had been dropped for lack of evidence
William McCoy was already serving a sentence in Nevada for an unrelated crime Jacob beard was living in Florida
at this point and fighting extradition and the two others who were involved were invoking their Fifth Amendment
rights and refusing to cooperate cool in fact by May 1992 only two cases Arnold cutlip and Gerald Browns were Bound for
trial wow two months later the cases against the seven men charged with these two murders had pretty much Fallen apart
wow and the prosecutor Walt wayford had no choice but to drop the charges what he told reporters I'm sitting here with
a case that's been torpedoed now what he was referring to was some new information that had come
to light about investigation procedures uhoh according to the prosecutor's office Trooper Michael Jordan of the
state's Bureau of Criminal investigations had used improper investigation procedures and quote
unquote seriously compromised the case oh no wayford said he still planned to present the case to a grand jury in
August of 1992 but he wasn't hopeful that it would go anywhere oh man now he was right to
be discouraged by the time the grand jury did review the evidence and considered the accusations of uh police
misconduct all the charges were dropped oh man and in the weeks that followed they kept on trying new indictments were
issued against Jacob beard Richard Fowler Fowler William McCoy and Arnold cutlip but of all of those new
indictments only Jacob beard would end up going to trial I mean he's been a consistent name in all of this for sure
he has now his trial started in late May of 1993 and he was facing first-degree murder charges for obviously the murders
of Vicki and Nancy from the moment the trial began the prosecution's case seemed pretty flimsy they relied on
hearsay testimony from some of the men that had previously been charged alongside Jacob beard oh boy and they
alleged the prosecution that after picking up Vicki and Nancy Jacob beard attempted to convince one or both of
them to have sex with him and when they turned down his advances he shot them both and dumped their bodies in the
woods that was their Theory their quote unquote evidence against him included one statements from that previous inmate
that we talked about Keith um and Pam Wilson which placed him at Gerald Brown's house on the night that the men
were heard confessing okay two a statement from a man who claimed he saw beard quote driving at a high rate of
speed away from droop Mountain which was where the bodies were found on the night
of the murders and three statements from Johnny Lewis and peeee Walton that implicated Jacob beard as the killer it
should be noted that these two men men had actually been beaten by investigators previously and that's why
they had confessed previously that's what I meant earlier by improper investigative procedures oh yeah that
would be improper mhm and actually one investigator previously stated that Johnny Lewis quote could be talked into
saying anything wow Lewis only this is like sad that they went after him if he had nothing to do with this he only had
an education up to the third grade and he didn't even know who the president was at the time he was being
interrogated oh man that gives me Jesse muscelli Vibes that is immediately what I thought of and I knew you would too
and the same investigator he didn't have something to do with this of course the
same investigator I don't I I don't know if I think he did the same investigator
said Lewis only gave the confession because he was scared and he had previously been hit he actually I think
the direct quote was that he was so scared he felt like he was going to pee Oh which is like heartbreaking again if
he had nothing to do with this yeah but both of those men had been beaten previously into confessing so yeah I
don't really know how we're going to believe their testimony either way not great now Jacob Beard's defense attorney
Steven framer of course claimed his client's innocence but he and he noted that the cases there excuse me the
States's case relied almost entirely on testimony from known liars and accusations from two men who had only
recently been given immunity in exchange for their testimony against Jacob beard
again not great not great the defense also made several motions to introduce evidence that maybe wouldn't necessarily
prove innocence but at the very least would have cast doubt on these charges against Jacob beard and that evidence
included uh ysf I guess Paul Franklin's confessions from years earlier but the trial judge refused to admit any of the
defense's evidence calling it hearsay and unreliable o but it's like I think it's hearsay that all these other people
who were previously accused and unreliable that we would believe them too this is a mess like I'm not saying
that Jacob beard didn't have anything to do with it because I don't know one way
or the other but I mean this is who we have testifying against him yeah I mean this is what what's really sad about
this whole thing is that Vicky and Nancy are just at the center of this chaos but
got like completely lost in this Bullit we don't even know anything about what happened to them and it sounds like
the it in my opinion it sounds like the investigators didn't even really care to
find out what happened to them they just wanted to close the case that's the thing that's what it kind of feels like
it became less about let's get Justice for these two young girls who were just going to a music festival yeah like some
little get together [ __ ] rainbow gathering right instead of really focusing on that part of it they're
really just focusing on clearing their books and it's like doing it quickly and they're not even doing it prop like
beating people to confess you really feel good about that it really it like West Memphis 3 Vibes because in that
case it's the same thing they grabbed the three kids who they could pin this on yep because they needed to clear this
off the books and it's like that never works man like nobody wants you to just [ __ ] everybody into into thinking
it's been solved right cuz eventually we're going to find out that people are going to find out no it wasn't and
they're going to find out that one you didn't care about the actual video victims and two that you put everybody
in danger by letting the real people get away with it exactly it's it's really honestly this is like a tragedy in so
many different ways I mean I can tell you right now I have no [ __ ] clue who is innocent here and who isn't I have no
idea I have no opinion on it cuz I it's all lost by the end of this I had read so many different things to try to
convince myself whoever did it yeah or whoever had done it did but I'm still at a loss I have no idea so far I'm I have
no opinion I just just think it's a mess to be quite honest with you by the end I
don't think you'll be convinced probably not either way so in his closing statement Steven framer reminded the
jury of the unlikely scenario presented by the prosecutor and he told them if the state is Right Jacob beard would
have had to kill two girls in front of a group of people he mostly did not know that's true it's pretty weird framer
also reminded the jury that his client actually had an alibi that contradicted the statements made by the men formerly
accused alongside him and this included evidence showing that Jacob was almost certainly at work the night like that
night and around the time that the murders were committed however that's interesting I did read that his time
card was handwritten so that could easily be changed all right and I just will say that now in hiso in his closing
arguments prosecutor Walt wafer told the jury quote the only person who has testified here who can tell you where
Jake beard was between the hours of 3:15 and 8:00 p.m. that day is Jake beard implying that the accused can't be
trusted which is fair even though most of his key Witnesses had actually been the Accused at one point or the other
legitimately no one can be trusted here none now on June 4th 1993 the jury deliberated for 6 hours before returning
with a guilty verdict on both counts of first-degree murder and Jacob beard was sentenced to life in prison without the
possibility of parole otherwise known as life without Mercy damn yeah now we're not done
because what should have been a moment of relief for you know Poss I know you can't necessarily get closure but some
kind of closure for Nancy and Vicky's friends and family was instead completely suspicious and most people
were still skeptical about all the details involved nany's own mother Jean spoke to reporters about the conviction
later saying you should have heard the testimony I didn't think there was enough evidence and I wasn't convinced
he was the one wow so like that tells you something one of the victim's own mothers is like I this evidence was Wild
and the testimony was insane and I don't think he did it because I wasn't convinced he did it as a loved one of
somebody who this happened to like you would want to be convinced that they have the guy who did it to your child or
your loved one like you don't want to just go okay I guess like you want to you want to walk out of there being like
yes they convince me that is him right cuz that's the thing essentially if you're not convinced then the question
on your mind is like well is this another life lost in this case like is is this it or like are there more that
we don't know about like yeah you know there's just a lot here I feel really bad for the family members here they did
not get that moment of at least for a minute Justice being served and unfortunately I don't think they ever
did I think that this family was left with more questions than they probably had even in the beginning of wow the
tragedy that happened to again I have no idea if this man did it or not I really
don't feel com thing either way nor do I so in January of 1995 this is where things get a little bit complicated
there's a lot of legal jargon here but I did my best to kind of I looked into it
myself and I was like I am not quite sure what that means so then I kept looking into it and I broke it down in
an ashway for you okay cool so in January 1995 Jacob beard appealed his conviction to the Supreme Court of
Appeals of West Virginia among other things the appeal cited the refusal to admit key pieces of the defense's case
like Franklin's confession the result of Beard's polygraph test the fact that he
had actually been granted immunity from prosecution in 1983 oh yeah and the fact
that 11 years had passed between his arrest and his conviction wow now the appeal also cited numerous errors
supposedly committed during the trial those uh errors were allegations of police misconduct to what was considered
credible evidence everything in between now regarding the claim of immunity Beard's attorney acknowledged that the
1983 deal didn't necessarily protect him if he was the principal actor that's true however his role in the crime was
supposed to be determined in what's known as a cagar hearing well and that never occurred now a cagar hearing is
based is excuse me a hearing based on a 1972 Supreme Court case and essentially it states that a witness who is
compelled to testify after they've been given immunity but then is later prosecuted has a right to this hearing
where the state has quote the heavy burden of proving that all evidence it propo it proposes to use was derived
from legitimate independent sources okay now that makes sense right I thought so
in their decision the justices wrote the state argues that the failure to Gran a
castigar hearing is harmless where it is otherwise evident that any immunized evidence admitted at trial did not
Prejudice the accused and that's where things get hairier because in order to invoke this harmless error rule there
would have had to have been a cagar hearing so it all goes back to the castar hearing right yeah so after
reviewing the evidence and the trial transcripts the justices upheld the lower Court's conviction but they did
remand the case for a review in the L lower courts quote to determine whether any prosecution evidence had been
developed from leads beard provided after being granted limited immunity okay because if he provided those leads
that like led to him it would [ __ ] things up from my understanding it wouldn't necessarily be derived purely
that makes sense right yeah it's very convoluted but you made it easier to understand okay I hope so thank you for
that you're welcome so Jacob beard finally did get his cagar hearing which was held in early September 1996 in the
Circuit Court of Greenbrier County the judge in that case ruled that the evidence was properly obtained he wrote
that quote the state had not violate excuse me violated the use of immunity agreement and entered to with beard okay
but undeterred Jacob beard and his attorney appealed the lower Court's decision again in
1998 but again the Supreme Court of Appeals upheld the lower Court's conviction okay now with no additional
errors to claim in the trial Beard's lawyer lawyer filed a petition for a writ of habius Corpus MH now that is the
fundamental instrument for safeguarding individual Freedom against arbitrary and
Lawless estate action okay so the argument there was that certain evidence mainly the sworn deposition from ysf
Paul Franklin's confessions was barred at J uh Jake Beard's original trial now the petition also included the earlier
testimony from Arnold cutlip which had also been barred from evidence at trial in which he admitted he had actually
been with Richard Lewis on the day of the murders and contrary to what he said at trial the two men actually had not
seen beard that day that previously wasn't allowed in court so in layman's terms Beard's defense attorney Steven
framer was arguing that this was crucial evidence that should never have been withheld from the jury and that with his
this evidence his client could likely be proven innocent yeah so that makes sense
basically saying I have evidence here and it wasn't allowed and that's why we should retry this yeah cool so in a
statement to the Press Steven framer indicated his intent to request a retrial saying Franklin certainly has
the resume to have done what he uh done what he says he's done so talking about that original confession serial killer
the serial Killer's confession that we weren't so sure about yeah I don't know about that one but again that all I have
to go on is very little information so right and it's valid to bring up in in that trial I would say because I would
it's a valid argument to be like well multiple people have confessed to this so look at these people also doing the
same yeah and he also talked about the seriously question able sources that the prosecutors used as evidence for their
conviction specifically peee Walton who like I said earlier only accused Jacob beard after he had been wildly
intimidated which is a new legal term that I made look it up freemer told the Press quote he didn't remember anything
about this until he was beaten by State Police talking about Arnold cutlip now in January of 1999 the RIT of habius
Corpus was granted and Beard's conviction was vacated with orders for yet another new trial wow now Jacob
Beard's new trial began in May 2000 this time in Braxton County because there had
been so much press coverage and public awareness in Pocahontas County that he was never going to get a fair trial
there yeah now in this trial he actually testified on his own behalf admitting he
couldn't remember his actions the night of June 25th 1980 but he maintained that
he had never met and definitely did not kill Vicki and Nancy yeah which I think is a fair thing to say who the hell
would remember what they were doing on June 25th 1980 but you can definitely remember if you killed someone 100% Fair
statement to me yeah now also testifying now in his defense remember a man previously testified against him was
Arnold cutlip oh [ __ ] he told the jury he had lied in his earlier testimony and
that he had in fact had not seen beard on the day of the murders instead Steven framer told the jury it was you uh Paul
ysf Franklin who had committed the murders and this time his confession was entered into evidence okay now nany's
mother Jean actually also wrote a letter for the defense stating she believed Jacob beard was innocent wow yeah now
when it came time for the prosecution's case the most damning evidence they still had were the two calls that Jacob
beard had placed to the durian home Vicky's family home two years after the murders I actually forgot that that was
him I don't believe glad you brought that back a lot of characters now that had actually gone a long way in his
original trial to convince the jury that he was guilty yeah but he didn't he didn't say any it's weird that he called
them in my opinion but wasn't he just saying I have a daughter and it bothers me that you are not getting the
information that you should be getting yeah he was sympathizing them which again I understand why the family
members were like this is strange and freaking me out definitely but it sounds like if you look at it just purely from
what it is it's like okay it doesn't look like he if he's innocent then it looks like he just didn't have any
malicious intent and literally was just trying to share information or sympathize that's the thing because I
can't tell I I think I would feel differently if he had been like calling them in heavy breathing on the other
line hanging up like a creep exactly like harassing them I mean he he did refuse to identify himself which was
strange but maybe it was like him just being freaked out cuz he was under those animal cruelty charges charges at the
time so not great which Al that's not a good thing he maintains he had he didn't
do anything to do with that and those charges were dropped so okay we don't necessarily know say he maintains he
didn't do it and the charges were dropped then we'll negate that and the charges were dropped again because of
these new charges where he was granted immunity it's all very complicated but it makes sense not to even go there at
this because let's just look at the information we have and then you think he was criticizing the police in this
case yeah he sure was and that's just a statement that's that's that's just a statement that he was and yeah and I
mean I'm just the fact that ny's mother Jean wrote a letter for the defense stating she believed he's innocent that
compels me to stand more on her side right not only that but even when he had been
previously uh convicted of this crime she spoke to the press and was like yeah I wasn't convinced and the evidence and
testimony at that trial was insane and now she I mean if she's willing to have this guy out that tells you a lot really
doesn't believe that he did it no like there's no way you're going to want the somebody who killed your daughter in
such a callous and awful way just walking around if you don't truly believe in your heart that he didn't do
it m exactly so this is very interesting I will say that Nancy sister Cathy wasn't so sure she didn't it doesn't
seem like she thought did it but I don't think she thought that he didn't do it she wasn't convinced either way she was
like us I have no idea what happened here and it's a tragedy either way this is awful for this these families it's
horrible because I'm frustrated right now I can't even begin to Fathom how they feel exactly now again just going
back to the prosecution's main case here again was those two phone calls that he
made to the durian family in his defense beard said he read an article in 1982 about how the murders remained solved
and as a father himself he was sympathetic he told the jury I was sorry the police hadn't followed up the way
many people in the area thought they should okay you know when you hear that you're like okay that makes sense yeah I
don't know if you necessarily need to like call a grieving family I do not agree with your methods here sir but but
okay if you're if you're saying it's pure I'm hoping the thought was pure behind it correct correct correct now
the jury deliberated for Less Than 3 hours this time and came back and acquitted
jacard on all charges on May 31st a year later Jacob beard filed a wrongful conviction lawsuit against the
Pocahontas County Police Department and in January 2003 the county agreed to settle the case awarding him $2 million
wow yeah I will say I saw $2 million in some sources and 1.3 million in other sources still a lot of money either way
he got millions he got a lot of money yes I think he said he bought a new tractor but he wasn't about to buy like
a bunch of other [ __ ] okay that's what he said all right now I don't I don't know I don't I just don't know how to
feel about any of this so neither do I I'm just going to say okay I know that Kathy nany's sister didn't love that he
was awarded that money because she again she still wasn't convinced that he was innocent or that he was guilty and in
her mind if he was guilty he just got awarded millions of dollars absolutely that's why I'm going to stay over here
and just and then I think Jean was just like good for him like I I can't like whatever yeah which is awful so the
rainbow family continues to hold annual Gatherings around the United States actually incidents of violent crime
remain low at the Gatherings but murders continued to occasionally take place at
the events with the last murder as recent as 2021 oh I'm going to look into some of those and potentially update if
it's got enough for a full case wow but interesting very interesting and sadly as of today the murders of Vicky durian
and Nancy sanero remain unsolved that that's awful that's honestly the biggest thing in this case is I can't
believe that just they got lost in it and I I blame the investigators in this case you can't intimidate people into
confessing because it muddies the waters yes you've lost all your credibility any
trust any kind of anything professionalism whatever you have going in it's taken all out and you [ __ ] up
the case and it's like if you have if you do your job then you and you are good at your job mhm then you will
convince somebody to give you information or you will have evidence to keep them exactly like you don't need to
beat it out of them I really hope that like someday there's some form of you know DNA that gets found or I I think
they would have found it at this point you I guess you would assume but I just hope somebody talks I want someone to
talk somebody to make a real confession like like you just said actual meat like
somebody can sit there and go this is what I saw this isly who I saw there and you they can put the pieces together but
now there's so much information out about muddled the case exactly it's so muddled but I just feel bad for their
families like their their brothers and sisters just not having any idea what happened and like their parents and to
be like conflicted on whether this guy is really innocent or not or guilty or not it's like that's really hard it is
you don't know and for him it's like if he's guilty walking around with that much money it's like Jesus [ __ ]
Christ dude but if in but if he's innocent then and he got lamb basted like that yeah then he lost like you
know years of his life and everything really you know yeah it's it's really tragic all around it is and to think
that again if he's innocent to think that he spent that much time in prison holy [ __ ] yeah so that wow is UN a very
unfortunate case that's a sad one it is I mean they're all sad but that one's just like you don't get that sense of
like at least we know who did it yeah no justice and just a very layered case like LED with tragedy yeah but we hope
you keep listening and we hope you keep it weird not so weird that not so weird not that weird don't keep it that
[Music] weird [Music]

In the summer of 1980, nineteen-year-old Nancy Santomero, and two friends, twenty-six-year-old Vicki Durian and nineteen-year-old Liz Johndrow, left Durian’s parents’ home in Iowa to hitchhike to West Virginia to attend a gathering of the Rainbow Family. Five days later, Santomero and Durian’s bodies were discovered in the woods in West Virginia, shot to death just hours before being found, and Johndrow was nowhere to be seen. More than a decade after their bodies were discovered, police in West Virginia had identified several suspects and eventually charged thirty-four-year-old farmer Jacob Beard, who was convicted in 1993 and sentenced to life in prison. Upon appeal, however, it was revealed that the investigation into Beard was rife with dubious circumstantial evidence, police misconduct, and perjury, which led to a new trial and Beard was exonerated.

Thank you to the lovely Dave White for research assistance

References:

Associated Press. 1992. "W. Va drops Rainbow charges." Roanoke Ties and World-News, July 21: 6.

—. 1992. "Arrests in women's deaths 'witch hunt' attorney says." The Daily Progress , April 25: 7.

—. 2000. "Jury finds man innocent in Rainbow murder trial." The Roanoke Times, June 1: 21. Behrens, David. 2000. "Too many years without answers." Newsday, February 16: B6.

Daily Press. 1980. "2 murdered women in 'Rainbow Family'." Daily Press, June 27: 44.

Danville Reigister and Bee. 1993. "Jury deliberating in slayings case." Danville Register and Bee, June 4: 10.

Darling, Lynn. 1980. The Rainbow People. July 7. Accessed August 7, 2023. https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/lifestyle/1980/07/07/the-rainbow-people/80aadbf3-ef61-4d43-9d62-766d4d01fc56/.

Horn, Dan. 1997. "Franklin's boasting may unlock convict." The Cincinnati Post, April 18.

Lovegrove, Richard. 1980. "Rainbow camp still going up despite slaying of women." The Roanoke Times, June 28: 1.

—. 1980. "Two women slain near 'Rainbow' camp remain unidentified." The Roanoke Times, July 10: B-8.Possley, Maurice. 2012. Jacob Beard. July 30. Accessed August 8, 2023. https://www.law.umich.edu/special/exoneration/Pages/casedetail.aspx?caseid=3963.

State of West Virginia v. Jacob W. Beard. 1998. 24644 (Supreme Court of Appeals of West Virginia, July 15).

State of West Virginia v. Jacob W. Beard. 1995. 22504 (Supreme Court of Appeals of West Virginia, January).

The Gazette. 1983. "2 West Virginia men charged in death of Wellman woman." The Gazette, April 8: 14.

—. 1992. "4 charged in Wellman woman's 1980 slaying." The Gazette, April 17: 10.United Press International. 1980. "Young woman who skipped tragic hitchhiking trip found." The Daily Progress, July 17: 7.

Wallace, Terry. 1992. "Seething hostility led to killing of hitchhikers." The Daily Progress, April 20: 1.

West Virginia Public Broadcasting. 2020. Two Women Murdered Traveling to Rainbow Gathering. June 25. Accessed August 8, 2023. https://wvpublic.org/june-25-1980-two-women-murdered-traveling-to-rainbow-gathering/.https://kmbllaw.com/dont-just-ask-to-suppress-the-involuntary-statement-and-the-evidence-thats-fruit-of-the-poisonous-tree-ask-for-a-full-kastigar-hearing/#:~:text=In%20other%20words%2C%20the%20Kastigar,compelled%20after%20an%20immunity%20order.https://www.upcounsel.com/legal-def-habeas-corpus#:~:text=The%20writ%20of%20habeas%20corpus%20serves%20as%20an%20important%20check,290%2D91%20(1969).

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Brief Summary

The episode discusses the unsolved murders of Nancy Santo and Vicky Durian, highlighting the investigation and various suspects involved.

Key points

The Rainbow Family Discovery. Elena and Ash discuss the intriguing story of Nancy Santo and the Rainbow Family.
Vicky and Nancy's Friendship. The bond between Vicky and Nancy is highlighted as they share a free-spirited connection.
A Premonition Before the Gathering. Liz feels an unsettling premonition about attending the rainbow gathering and decides to go home instead.
Kathy's Heartbreaking Identification. Kathy identifies her sister Nancy's body, a traumatic moment she never expected.
The Press Conference Revelation. Authorities reveal that Vicki and Nancy's friend Liz is missing, raising alarm.
Confession of a Serial Killer. Joseph Paul Franklin confesses to murdering two hitchhikers, but details are suspicious.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

I wasn't worried; they're boss b****es!

Nancy's mother reflects on her daughter's independence and friendships.

5:06WatchAug 25, 2023

Tension

75/ 100High tension

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