The Cell Phone Murders /// Part 1 /// 784 | Forensic Files

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[Music] [Music] on September 25th 1996 just before midnight a 911 call came into the Madison County Alabama
Emergency Services Center a woman identifying herself as Linda Williams cried for help saying her nephew and
some of his friends had been shot the crying woman asked that police and ambulance Personnel be sent immediately
to her home at 6591 University Drive in Huntsville the first to respond was Monrovia assistant
fire chief Dale strong who lived right near the scene and had many years of EMT experience he arrived at the small brick
ranch at 12:01 a.m. lights were on inside the house but it was eerily quiet as strong pulled up he was joined by
other First Responders this was three Law Enforcement Officers armed and they entered the house through the open
attached garage guns at the ready walking through the garage and into the house announcing themselves as Madison
County Sheriff's officers the men were startled to see a bloodied young man run up to them the man yelled
they shot them all they shot them all this is true crime garage and this is the case of the cell
phone murders [Music] [Music] responding to the 911 call we have police on the scene guns drawn walking
through the garage and into the house announcing their presence when a young man covered in blood runs to them saying
they shot them all they shot them all one of the officers on the scene is Officer Solinski he asked who was the
shooter and the blooded young man responds Joey Wilson Officer salomonsky says Doughboy to which the youngster replies
yes this officer and the other officers told the young man to go outside then they walked from the garage area into
the house and found an elderly woman there this is Linda Williams she is the 911 caller she's the aunt of the young
man man who they just ordered out of the house she seemed dazed she was sent outside as well the officer then
beckoned Dale strong the EMT officer on the scene to come inside and bring his life-saving equipment with him the men
quickly came into a cluttered 13 by1 18 room that served as the living quarters of Ashley Rutherford and his fiance
Michelle hay the room was part of the home that was owned by Ashley's Aunt Linda Williams in
this room Captain we got beer cans clothing trash and other stuff that lay all over the floor and obscenity filled
graffiti covered the walls there were three aquariums that held snakes inside this room but more
importantly was the haze of smoke in this room this was not cigarette or pot smoke the place rre of gunpowder Dale
strong later testified that he had never smelled such a strong concentration of gunpowder in one place in his life
strong was an assistant fire chief with years of experience so he knows what he's smelling and he says that it
smelled like the 4th of July or a firing range but that wasn't all later strong would tell WHNT news
quote the next thing I remember is the shell casings as we cleared and went into this room I heard the shell casings
that we were actually kicking with our feet and I had never seen anything like that in my life there were so many shell
casings they were like peanut shells on the floor of the bleachers after a ball game and indeed the scene inside the
tiny room was a blood bath we have three people people in this room Michael bodette Brian Carter and Johnny couch
Michael bodette is 19 Brian Carter is 21 Johnny couch is 18 all three dead in this room Michelle Hayden age 17 was
alive but critically wounded she' been shot in the face abdomen and arm EMTs frantically tried to save the life of
Lamar Hemphill he was a marine reservist age 21 sadly he would die at the hospital
22-year-old Ashley Rutherford who managed to crawl to his aunt and yell to her to call 911 had been shot too but
was alive he was the blooded young man that ran up to the officers that was ordered to go
outside emt's placed him in an ambulance and rushed him to the hospital we end up
with four dead two too pretty close and a lot of people that are scared despite having been shot before he was whisked
away into an ambulance as we heard in the intro this young man Ashley Rutherford was able to talk to the First
Responders saying that he knew who the shooters were he told them the names of the three men who had been in his room
that night discharging guns shooting a total of 19 rounds their GES were Cory Johnson age 23 Joseph Wilson 19 years
old and Nicholas aklan age 24 and it took the police all of about 15 minutes to round up these rocket
scientists we have Solinski who was a lieutenant he was a Narcotics investigator at the time when Ashley rer
told him the name Joey Wilson remember Solinski responded Doughboy Mark so he knows who this
person was accusing of being the shooter that's because Joey Wilson had already had plenty of run-ins with the cops and
his nicknam Doughboy was known to the police as well I'm guessing this is based off of physique and not his
financial situation after securing the scene and making sure the three living victims were taken care of police issued
a bolo for Joey Wilson who was driving a white tourist so we got a car we're looking for we got a guy we're looking
for and we got three people being accused by one individual who's found shot at a scene where three were already
dead and one would later die at the hospital similarly upon hearing the name Joey Wilson over the police radio we
have another officer this is Officer Norse who pulled out a photo and Wilson's Huntsville address so this
officer Captain had had encounters with this Joey Wilson cat before and he kept a log of sorts of the scumbags that he
had interacted with in the past this dude was one of them he and his partner officer young headed to the Wilson home
this was on Dell nort Drive at 1215 a.m. so police on the scene at 12:01 by 12:15
a.m. 14 minutes later they are in pursuit of one of the Persons of Interest in this case of course there's
still a whole lot of things to sort out right is this the truth is this the real deal the person who's being accused
the other people that are being accused and named to the officers did this actually go down the way that they are
told that it went down and what will the evidence at the scene tell police now in route to the home where
Joey Wilson was living at the time these two officers they saw that white tourus
pulling out of the easy service convenience store inside it appeared to be two individuals our officers pulled the car
over luckily thankfully this didn't go this could have been could have went down
very badly pulling these guys over inside the vehicle they found a revolver Lieutenant Charles Franklin read Wilson
his rights and cuffed him Wilson complained that he had a recently had shoulder surgery so cuffing his hands
behind his back hurt then he falls into an asthma attack so he has to be taken to the hospital he ends up at the same
hospital where the shooting victims were being treated finally Wilson and Johnson
were processed at the station and the interviews began so we have four persons dead and we have two that are locked up
they're going to be held at the police station they're going to be interviewed well anybody that thinks it would be
easy to be law enforcement this is a situation that would test you test the best of them you go into a scene of a
crime there's multiple people dead it's bloody you're stepping over shell casings you have a name of a person that
you know as a scumbag but you also know is now a violent vicious murderer that is in charge of this horrific scene that
you are at you get this name you get others names you now have to go look for these people and then you come upon two
of the suspects but what is going on with the third suspect so this is going to take a little bit more time with
suspect number three so about 5:30 A.M we get officers arriving at the home of suspect number three Nicholas aklan he
lived somewhat nearby I believe this is a neighboring town he's living in a trailer with his then common law wife
her name is Candice Wilson and they're two children okay well Wilson's a pretty common name common last name but she is
in fact related to the other suspect that we mentioned previously Joey Wilson he is her
brother once on the scene aklan opened the door he's he's in his underwear it's early in the morning is under R he
identifies himself as Nicholas aklan the person that they are looking for the officers with guns drawn told him to get
dressed he did they cuffed him they told him he was under arrest for murder and they placed him in the back of the cop
car now we have Sergeant Paul Ys of Madison County Sheriff's Department he's interviewing The woman there at the
trailer Candace Wilson the common law wife he asks her does aklan have any guns she says yes when asked where they
were she said they were under the bed she gave permission for the sergeant to search the trailer for weapons in the
course of the search police found a Ruger P89 they also found two 9 mm loron pistols and an H&R nickel-plated 32
caliber revolver so we got four guns found the sergeant asked Candace if she knew what aklan had been wearing that
night she turned walked into the bedroom she bends over and picks up a pair of jeans and a white T-shirt off of the
floor hands them to the officer in the pocket of the jeans was Michael bod's driver's license he's one of our murder
victims that was found at the scene just hours prior so that's a fine piece of evidence right there yeah and just
because you have somebody that can ID these killers you're going to need to pad your evidence you want physical
evidence that places them at the scene or would be indicative that they were once at the scene yes the sergeant then
obtained written consent to search the premises the evidence was piling up on Wilson Johnson and acklen all three were
both hooked on capital murder charges less than 24 hours after these four homicides after a thorough forensic
examination of the crime scene the next order of business was to interview the survivors the ones that were there that
night when the shooting took place four young men died in the space of about 15 seconds on that horrible evening
19-year-old Michael bodette was a jokester but a hardworking guy who was saving up his money to move out of his
mother's home he worked about 60 hours a week and was considered a very reliable
employee 21 year-old Brian Carter had been through a rough patch but had recently joined a church and was working
to straighten himself out Johnny couch was only 18 he lived with his mom he liked to collect baseball cards and
Lamar Hemphill the only one of the crew to graduate from high school played golf
and football and played the flute in the high school band he was a marine reservist and Was preparing to go on
active duty but there were also three survivors of the shootings in that small room Ashley Rutherford lived having
received just a superficial head wound to the surprise of many so did his fiance Michelle who was shot in the face
elbow and abdomen she would go on to spend a month in the hospital to recover but there was another Survivor
who had not been shot at all Michael skirk had been in the room during a home invasion what can only be described as a
home invasion he had actually run out the back door as the shooting started his name
was withheld from the media reports early on out of fear for this man's life that that maybe somebody
would come and find him and finish the job so to speak now when you say home invasion when I think home invasion I'm
thinking robbery do we have motive for robbery this just seems like they invaded the
home to assassinate people well as as bad as that is they they were in there and terrorizing them for a period of
time too unfortunately this this we say that for lives ended in the matter of just 15 or so seconds but that's when
the shooting started that's just the shooting right part of the evening so here's the story this is the story that
we get from the three survivors Michelle and Ashley had been at home in the room
that they shared this we're going to go back a week before the shootings to kind
of set this up so we're we're at September 18th now okay keep in mind Ashley he lives there with his
girlfriend and they live in his aunt's home they're basically renting a room renting space inside her home right on
September 18th a week before the shootings three three guys that Ashley knew Joseph Wilson
Nicholas aklan and Corey Johnson stopped over to buy some marijuana it's unclear
generally who was buying PT or who was selling pot Ashley claimed that Wilson was his dealer at one time but on this
day according to the story Ashley was the seller akan Johnson and Wilson hemmed and hauled they kind of talked
about you know what's the price oh let's take a look at it uh and they decided to
not buy any weed from Ashley that evening they kind of flipped and flopped and left without buying any weed then
one of this one of these guys Cory Johnson comes back into the house grabs the bag of weed and just runs out
without paying for it now Ashley felt like that was the plan all along right they just came in made
sure that he had something that they wanted pretended that they were going to buy it and then left and then run back
into the home and just come in and steal it right like we talked about couple weeks ago with that case
from Cleveland somebody steals your illegal drugs you can't just call the cops and say hey I need a report of
theft well you could you I mean you could I would advise against that I'm not an attorney though you might want to
seek legal counsel so after these three guys leave they already stole the weed he knows that but then Lamar realized
that his cell phone which he had sat down was gone the cell phones missing keep in mind we're going back to 1996
cell phones were not nearly as common they're simply they're certainly not as connected as they are today there's
probably a flip phone too they didn't have find my iPhone or Life 360 for easy tracking to to go find one's phone once
the phone was gone it was potentially gone for good Lamar used another phone to call his phone and guess who answered
Joseph Wilson we don't know what was said in this conversation or whether Wilson admitted to taking the phone but
we can presume that when Lamar asked for the phone back Wilson used some Choice language and simply hung up
so Lamar did what anyone would do he called the sheriff's department and reported the cell phone theft right cell
phones were very expensive back then they in large part still are today he wanted his cell phone back and because
it wasn't illegal like the pot that was stolen he was going to place a complaint
with the sheriff's department right so he's not calling up the sheriff and going hey by the way uh uh these guys
stole my weed and they stole my cell phone he's just leaving the weed out of that conversation yes and I would
imagine that that report would include hey I called the phone with another phone and a guy I know Joey Wilson
picked up the phone yeah the guy that we believe stole it yeah answered the phone
so now let's go to the afternoon of September 25th a friend of Joey Wilson's the name is Christian Ashby told Wilson
that Ashley Rutherford had arrest warrants out for Joey Wilson okay so these guys all kind of know each
other obviously if they're coming over to the house to to buy weed but now we have this other individual who's sort of
in the middle he knows both parties and he's letting Joey Wilson know look there's an arrest warrant out for you
and Ashley Rutherford the guy that you stole the weed from and his buddy that you stole the cell phone Ashley
Rutherford is responsible for getting those arrest warrants on you so this pissed Wilson off and he starts telling
his other buddy Corey Johnson who he's driving around town with about these warrants and saying look I'm he he
wanted Vengeance he wanted revenge on on Ashley Rutherford well think about how silly this is you you stole somebody's
drugs then you sell their cell phone you answer the phone you talk [ __ ] about it
now they're going to have you arrested and and you're upset right and and here here's the
other thing I purposely called these three suspects rocket scientist earlier because there was no arrest warrant
there was no warrant out for this Wilson cat right it was simply a complaint that
needed to be verified it's calling it's a police report that's all that was filed was a report at 7:15
p.m. we have Wilson remember he's in the car with Cory Johnson going on and on how he wants revenge they pick up the
third guy Nick aklan they rode around for a while they're drinking they're smoking they're
really working themselves up into quite the tizzy they decided to go to Ashley's
house because they wanted to let him know that they were pissed off for him getting these this warrant out what they
believed to be an arrest warrant out for Joey Wilson they get to Ashley's house around eight but the only ones there
were Michelle Brian Carter and Lamar Hempel the person they're looking for is Ashley
Rutherford who's not there according to the book murder in the Heart of Dixie by
Fred Simpson and jacin Proctor gray Aken Johnson and Wilson are three suspects they show up brandishing handguns and
asking about these arrest warrants Brian Carter denied knowing anything about it
Lamar Hempel didn't respond but was visibly angry remember it was his cell phone that had been stolen Cory Johnson
punched Lamar in the face and the three left warning that they would be back when Ashley Rutherford got home from
work Ashley Rutherford was at work at the Circle K convenience store around 8:30 p.m. his fiance Michelle came in
during his shift along with Lamar and Brian they told Ashley that Joey Wilson and some of his cronies had shown up at
their house and they were angry with Ashley the group discussed whether the guys would actually do anything to them
but it seems like they agreed that they didn't think they thought that these guys were all talk and that nothing bad
really was going to happen that these were just threats So eventually they go home by 10 p.m. Michelle Lamar and Brian
were hanging out in their room waiting for Ashley to get home he's still finishing up his ship the three were
watching TV and just hanging out but pretty soon two more buddies stopped by that's Michael skirack and Johnny couch
they were planning on going to pick up their buddy Michael bodette but they would not get the
chance as they went to leave our three suspects Wilson acklen and Johnson barged into the home they just charge
into this home Michelle who lives there says get the hell out of my house they say we're
not going anywhere Cory pushed Michelle down in a chair by her throat he said you keep your mouth shut or I'll shoot
you Wilson demanded to know who had filed a warrant against him for stealing a phone according to
al.com Madison County Sheriff Joe weisson later said Wilson was misinformed no warrant had been issued
right citizens don't file warrants you file a complaint or a report with the police they take it from there but
Wilson was convinced that one had been issued and that the police were coming for him and so now he wanted retribution
now not taking this bullying laying down remember Lamar is our marine he started
arguing with The Intruders Cory Johnson started to get violent this is from a later report that says Johnson then
started slapping hemp Hill couch and Carter using a Jack Daniels whiskey bottle he hit Lamar Hemphill in the
head and Carter Brian Carter in the mouth with this bottle with this glass bottle he also grabbed Johnny couch by
his hair which was long and he's repeatedly slamming his head into a dresser multiple times Wilson also
repeatedly stomped Johnny who was lying on the floor and Johnny was essentially beaten
unconscious at that point while he was passed out Wilson Johnson and acklen cut off Johnny's ponytail with a pair of
scissors and they were calling him a girl he's unconscious we have the other four victims in the room who are
terrified because the guys that are threatening them they're all packing they're they're waving around guns and
threatening all four of their lives and this is when Michael bodette had The Misfortune to walk in to that
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[Music] back all right we are back you silly little [Music] monkeys cheers to you Colonel cheers to
you Captain talk cans in the air everybody out there power to the people this is a
horrifying situation me this is something that you'd see in a action film and we're trying to do our very
best to describe everything that's happening a lot of the stuff is happening very quickly and for the most
part the only reports that we are going to get about what actually happened in that home leading up to what would be a
quadruple homicide comes from the survivors who had to been terrified out of their minds once the once it went
from threats to violence actually occurring because remember the the the victims earlier had talked and said no
we we think that yeah a little worried but we think these are just threats we don't think these guys are actually
going to do anything yeah and just because they have guns on them doesn't mean they're going to use them but when
you're in a scene like this you're thinking well once they use those guns it's not going to be good for anybody
and with every case that we've reviewed that has similarities to this case one thing that I've always found and this is
terrifying where we left off Michael bodette arrives at the home he walks he just he's think about this steps three
four five steps before he is none the wiser he has no idea what's going on inside that home and walks in himself
placing himself In Harm's Way and every time we've reviewed one of these cases when a new person shows up to a scene
basically where we have people being held by gunpoint or hostage in some form or fashion right it always seems to make
things worse right not just have we upped the potential victim count but it seems to really stress out the the the
people that are holding these people at night for gunpoint and that's exactly what happened here so Michael bodette
walks in and now guns on Michael he's forced to the ground forced to empty his pockets note reminder his driver's
license was missing from his pants pocket from his jeans pocket and later found at one of
the suspect's home Joey Wilson held a gun to the head of Michael skirk and demanded to know about the
warrant well Michael skirk had no idea what this guy's talking about Wilson then put his gun down on the dresser and
was yelling and daring the prisoners to grab it you know there's the gun get it go get it and of course the other two
bad guys are still holding their gun so so nobody moved Wilson continued to terrorize these poor people he he made
the men take off their pants sitting their underwear he gathered up all of their IDs or driver's license for
reasons we don't know why he starts yelling at this group that you all blamed us for robbing you well now we
are going to rob you Nicholas Akin really started getting into it at this point he put the barrel of his gun into
Ashley's mouth making him gag he put Mike bodette in the headlock and held a gun under his chin but this
is also mob mentality I mean this is just going to escalate even worse and some of these scenes too what you see is
when one of the suspects one of the perpetrators starts to ramp up it only ramps up the other guys involved as well
yeah and we got like you said not rocket scientists we got three piles of [ __ ]
here well Nicholas anlan took Michelle outside and he's grabbing her inappropriately this is I mean this is
sexual assault at this point and it's unclear why he's never charged with sexual
assault but we can get into that later after one of these excursions of taking her outside he comes back in and he says
to Ashley Rutherford sorry and there's no nice way to say this he says quote your girlfriend gives good head which
none of that happened so he's simply just trying to you you get the impression that these guys are
terrorizing these people but also giving them a chance to either retaliate like here's the gun go get it or oh I did
this to your girlfriend yeah get making them angry hoping one of them might Punch or push or fight back yeah it's
like it's the whole time they're like give us a reason to more exctly give us a reason give us a reason I mean these
guys aren't douche canoes these guys are like douche cruise ships I mean these guys
are awful these are the type of guys that you know if they said you can be alone in a room with them for a couple
hours and and I'll buy the way we're going to tie them up and we're going to give you a baseball bat you'd go okay
let's have some fun well and one of the survivors would also say that there was a situation too where one of the perss
took a knife and threw it at the feet of one of the victims and then tries to tell the
other two perpetrators like look he's got a knife he's trying to pull a knife on us very strange Behavior yes yes well
and and what what this shows us too is that while it may have been planned to go in and terrorize these people or
maybe it was even planned to kill them as unfortunately we know was the result with some of the victims yeah none of
this other stuff was really well thought out or planned it's a bunch of idiots just going three- ring circus on
everybody they would say girlfriend gives good head I'd say your mom gives good head you sick son of a [ __ ] this
went on for nearly 2 hours so at approximately 11:30 there's all of these victims
inside this home meanwhile the Aunt Linda Williams had managed to stay hidden from all of this chaos and
commotion and and truly terrifying what's going on I that I don't know that part I don't know cuz you think that if
she heard any of this or if she would have saw any kind of assault that she would have called the police or if she
knew that they had guns I do know that at one point one of the victims said to one or all the perpetrators like uhhuh
you guys are freaking out you're being really loud if if his aunt hears this she'll call the police there was a
concern she was elderly though too so I don't know you know some some some of our fine elderly citizens you could have
a bullhorn and stand right next to him and they they might not hear very much what at 11:30 everything goes from bad
super bad to incredibly horrible okay so we got Ashley Rutherford in there that's
the person that it seem seems like these three guys were really looking for and everybody else is just happened to be
there that night or in Michelle's case lives there they start demanding that Ashley get on the ground
empty his pockets the same thing that we saw with some of the other victims yeah
and they wanted to know they're yelling things at him like who signed the warrant who signed the warrant and of of
course he's replying it's like I don't know what you guys are talking about right so they're not getting the answers
that they want these Jack wagons they're not getting the answers that they want but
what they don't understand is this guy can't give you the answer you want cuz he doesn't know what you're talking
about he didn't sign a warrant he didn't even call in the complaint yeah but this
is where it gets bizarre because you just wonder if if is this all escalating because
like you said they're not getting the answers that they want but he can't give them the answers cuz there's a just a
simple dumbass miscommunication mhm well who signed the warrant well I don't know you dumb [ __ ]
you know I I don't know what you're talking about yes we we called the police they
filed a report they didn't file a warrant well and what based off of all of the statements from the survivors it
appears to me that this Joey Wilson guy and my he's the first name that's tossed
out to police as soon as they arrive on the scene this Joey Wilson guy either was the leader of these three idiots or
clearly wanted to be and this is Joey Wilson AKA Doughboy this doughy pasty hick just appeared to want to be some
kind of badass alpha male so he's at some point yells let's buck them the captives knew that to
Buck to mean shoot or kill them and he was you all don't know who you're messing with you're all fake we're real
you said we robbed you now we're going to rob you but they did Rob them yes at some
point Nicholas aklan says ain't nobody leaving and then yells we ain't going to leave no
Witnesses according to the survivors Johnson was not as into terrorizing this group as the other two
Wilson and aklan were the survivors even said at some point that this third suspect Johnson he he tried to reason
with the other two saying like hey you know calm down there's no need to shoot anybody nobody's going to talk they you
know they're not going to they're not going to ran us out yeah but this is one of those situations hey come with us
we're going to go we're going to go [ __ ] those dudes up and oh we got some guns
and this guy's probably going why we got to bring guns or we're not going to shoot nobody we're just going to bring
guns Just for protection but why would we need guns if we're not going to shoot nobody and now they're in this situation
where this harassment and and the torture is not what this guy expected but he didn't leave he could have said
I'm out I don't want to be a part of this he could have left and called the police
and he could have said in that moment you know what I came here to to scare the [ __ ] out of this guy but this went
too far and I would I would argue that he might not be charged with anything if he would have he had so many
opportunities to do the right thing and that's what is so crazy because you also
wonder in this case if the guy that they were looking for was there when they got
there CU to me it seems like well Ashley he's not here yet right so we just got to stay here whole place is on
lockdown until he gets here yeah we're and we're just going to stay here and then escalation upon
escalation it's just I mean this is and and could you imagine the fear in those victims and what they had to go through
I mean you have guys with guns and and they're like you said they're taunting these victims do something make us shoot
you and you don't know every second that passes you're probably thinking oh thank
God they haven't shot us yet I mean this the these guys are bags of [ __ ] just before midnight Nicholas
aklan went outside and he starts up Joey Wilson's car that's the the tourus the white tourist that we talked about
earlier he starts up the vehicle leaves it running in the driveway he comes back
into the house holding his handgun and at that moment we have Joey Wilson who says to Nicholas a aklan if you shoot
the first one I'll shoot the rest of them shortly after that comment Nicholas aklan grabbed Rutherford thrust the
muzzle of his gun up against the young man's head just as he felt that cold heart steel he instinctively ducked his
head when the gun discharged Jesus it grazed the back of his head the bullet he falls to the
ground and he's bleeding profusely that in this situation the bleeding profusely
is a good thing okay because Wilson Joey Wilson he follows through on his promise you shoot the
first one I'll shoot the rest of them and he starts shooting when the shooting started skirack ran out of the back of
the house Michelle Hayden later said that Michael bodette was shot while he was sitting right next to her she was
next a bullet shattered her elbow and then another hit the right side of her face passing through her cheeks and
blowing out six of her teeth [ __ ] it was chaos in that room and every one of the victims was ducking
for cover or shielding their faces or dying yeah some of them were shot twice some of the victims shot once some of
them shot multiple times but remember where I said the bleeding profusely is a good thing in
the situation yeah well that's because the two Shooters stood over stood over Ashley Rutherford trying to decide if
they should shoot him again and they they arrived at the conclusion that no he's already dead and they move
on all in all 19 shots were fired in this tiny little room some of the shootings were Point
Blank and now several people in this room are either dead or are dying Ashley Rutherford who had been shot in
the head he gets lucky because they he pretends to be dead he's bleeding enough that they stand over top of him and
think that he's dead and after the blast from these handguns ceased those guys they leave the room they they they take
off they jump into the Taurus and they speed off Ashley hears the car leaving the
driveway he gets up somehow makes it to a phone he dials 911 he can't communicate with the 911 operator and
hands the phone to his aunt Linda who took over the phone call pleading for help let's get Emergency Services here
stat meanwhile Michelle Hayden crawled into the kitchen and this is where First Responders later found her just minutes
later spitting out her teeth Michael who's able to get outside of the house he was hiding outside and he I mean he's
hiding fighting outside is one way to to state it but really he's he's in complete shock like he's just Frozen
he's out he's out there vomiting from the stress and he's out there kind of Frozen
just too terrified to even run Madison County authorities arrived Johnny couch was dead on the floor in a corner
Michael bodette was dead on a bed Brian Carter was slumped over dead on a beige upholstered chair
and then we know our other victim they attempted to get him to the hospital to save his life and they unfortunately
could not we have coroner Bobby Barry Hill who had to help sort out what was happening happening or what had happened
in the room to report all these shootings and of course he States it was definitely
Overkill every one of the deceased victims had been shot at least once in the head and some in the neck as as well
this is all referred to as execution style intended to kill the victims this is a horrific
crime but it's a crime that's also unique in the sense that horrific crime but we have survivors yeah that know the
attackers M but then we have law enforcement that knows the victims and also knows the attackers yeah knows some
of the attackers here and our three suspects were a mly crew of losers youly crew Nick akan who washed cars at
Bentley Pontiac we got Corey Johnson who work at stake escape and Joey Wilson who
said he was a plumber but was really just a drug dealer and everybody knew it but regardless of their jobs or
occupations at the time could you imagine though knowing that guy and you know he's a drug dealer and then you're
at a party with him and he's like hey how's life going he's like well the plumbing business is hard and you're
like I'm sure it is Joe plumber couldn't you lie about something cool like tell people you're architect or something
well I'm sure the people that he wants to be customers he tells them I sell drugs and the people that he wants to
hide that from he tells them he's a plumber yeah um needless to say there was ample evidence right away right out
the gate against These Guys these guys everything points to them being the perpetrators of
this heinous crime remember Michael's driver's license is found in Nicholas Akin's pants at his home second the guns
found in Akin's home were ballistically matched to several of the shootings forensic testing showed that Brian
Carter had been shot with a Ruger P89 the three surviving Witnesses said it was Wilson who had been carrying this
model of gun third several witnesses had survived and talked telling police what happened who
was responsible Ashley said that Nick aklan had shot him and others and Joey Wilson had shot at least one person and
then we get to item number four on our evidence list there is confessions so Kevin Turner was a juvenile and gang
investigator for the sheriff's department he interviewed Joey Wilson that night the night he was picked up
Wilson knew him and it sounds like they were not just familiar with one another but casual with one another in fact Joey
Wilson called Kevin Turner KT he said if KT got him a cigarette he would talk so
of course the officer got him a cigarette Wilson told the officer that he had armed himself with a 357 Magnum
and gone over to Ashley Rutherford's home to confront him because of the dispute over the stolen self phone he
said that he had a revolver and aan and Johnson also had weapons he admitted that they slapped some of the victims
that one thing led to another and the shooting started those are his words Wilson told Turner he didn't remember
specifically who did the shooting and said quote that's my crew you all got locked up out there I'm not going to
turn and rat on them [Music] thank you so much for joining us here in the garage so much more to get to stay
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The Cell Phone Murders /// Part 1 /// 784

Part 1 of 2

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On September 25, 1996 just before midnight, a 911 call came into emergency services. A crying woman requested police and ambulance personnel to her home. She reported a lot of gunfire in her home with several people down. Within minutes, Police, Fire, and EMTs were on the scene. A young man covered in blood ran up to the responding Sheriff’s deputy saying “They shot them all, they shot them all.” The savage brutality of these murders is shocking. The 1996 Cell Phone Murders would be better described as a massacre.

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Brief Summary

A home invasion in Huntsville, Alabama, leads to four murders and reveals a violent dispute over stolen drugs and a cell phone.

Key points

The 911 Call. A frantic call reveals a shooting scene in Huntsville, Alabama.
The Bloodbath Scene. First responders encounter a horrific crime scene filled with shell casings and blood.
The Accused Shooters. Survivor identifies the shooters, leading to a swift police response.
Escalation of Violence. The situation in the home escalates from threats to actual violence, leading to chaos.
The Aftermath of the Shooting. In a horrific scene, multiple victims lie dead or dying after a brutal attack.
Survivor's Struggle. Ashley Rutherford pretends to be dead to survive the attack, showcasing sheer will to live.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

They shot them all! They shot them all!

Bloodied young man runs to officers

4:36WatchSep 3, 2024

Tension

85/ 100High tension

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