The Small Town Murders /// Part 2 /// 250 | Forensic Files

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[Music] thank you [Music] foreign yesterday we presented the case of 19 year old Todd Schultz an 18 year old
Annette Cooper a young couple that is murdered in a small town in 1982 in Logan Ohio and one thing we also talked
about a little bit about was a man named Kevin Meyer who was reported by his employers to the police the butcher yeah
and said hey these kids were butchered this guy Kevin Meyer he's a weirdo he works for us and he's a butcher we think
he had something to do with the murders of those two teenagers but what we talked the most about was a
guy named Dale Johnston The Stepfather of Annette and the local rumors at the time was that he was molesting or had
molested a net Cooper at some point and that he was either jealous of her relationship with Todd Schultz and
killed the couple out of jealousy or he was trying to cover up the molestation of his stepdaughter well let's not
forget that there was a media circus in this town that's only 6 500 big well at this point in the investigation Dale
Johnston starts telling investigators as well as the media about Annette being involved with an older man before she
died and public speculation stirs as to who this could have been allegedly this turns out to be an
officer of the law Lieutenant Mallory yeah he quickly becomes Under Suspicion this is because of his alleged romp with
Annette just weeks before her disappearance so she was dating Todd but the rumor is that she had sexual
relationships with this cop yeah there's some there's some kind of rumor to this
and I think on the surface it looks like Dale Johnston's just kind of pointing out a possibility like I couldn't be the
killer because guess what she was involved with somebody else and you've not spoke to that guy yet right what's
weird about this is that when it first comes out it looks just like Dale Johnston presenting another option
taking suspicion off of himself where it holds a little bit of water is the people in town start talking and they
name a name Lieutenant Mallory right and I do continue to say alleged because I couldn't find any actual proof that the
two of them had a relationship well and this gets tricky because in such a small
town the rumor mill Works fast and it's kind of like the game of telephone so all you
have to do is and and maybe the stepfather knew this maybe he knew all you had to do was put out the rumor and
that rumor would grow and grow and grow so that rumor could have been started by
the allegations I love small towns Captain I always have always will but the thing that I've always said
about small towns is what's really great about this small town is everybody knows everybody what's
really bad about the small town is everybody knows everybody meaning like you just said if there's rumors about me
or you everybody in the town has heard them if you or I got any business going on everybody knows our business there's
plenty of rumors about us on the internet well here's the other weird thing regarding this Lieutenant Maori
and if they actually had any kind of relationship or if he had any involvement in their disappearance and
murder right so listen to this we have two witnesses that come forward and this is a father and son that come forward
they say that they saw someone matching Lieutenant Mallory's description emerging from the cornfield in which the
bodies were later found on the early morning of October 5th so the morning after the young couple were last seen
now we also have this ongoing situation we have Jill and Dan Frey who continue reporting that Kevin Meyer is the person
they should be looking at that authorities should be looking at and they have some new and interesting
tidbits to report to police this time they are telling police that Dan Frye intentionally got Kevin Meyer drunk and
during the course of that evening Kevin Meyer he had said undisclosed unreported
information concerning the double homicide to Dan Frye and they report this to police
so do we know what this information is no and I'll tell you why several reasons one as soon as this report comes out
Kevin Meyer quits his job in about time I don't know how much of this was trickling down to the media I don't know
how much of this was behind the scenes right or we also have to keep in mind if if it was making its way to the media
Kevin Meyer may not have known at the time that the accusations were coming from his employers right and also
this is a very small town I mean I worked at a lumber yard one time and probably 90 percent of the employees
were from Logan and they had to drive about an hour and a half to get to work so there's not really job there's not
even to this day there's not a lot of jobs there right and it is great little town but Kevin could have been going I
don't care who the rumors are coming from I need a job not only does he quit his job but he also leaves the town of
Logan moving away and he hires an attorney and he moves away even though he's still
considered a suspect at this time right now it's a little fishy the victims uh were eventually buried in separate
cemeteries and during both burials there was Heavy media coverage and then a public Halloween party is held in
downtown Logan to help boost the spirits of the Logan citizens and Lieutenant Mowry is promoted to Captain
then we have trick-or-treat night is set for daylight hours due to the murders you know nobody wants to send their kids
out after dark or as the Sun is setting when we still have a murderer on the loose
Hocking County seals Annette and Todd's autopsy reports this is to keep them from the media
while the media reports more public opinion of devil worshipers killing the teens right and then there were rumors
of cattle mutilations dating back all the way to the 1970s and a lot of people suspected that the cattle mutilations of
the 70s were connected to the double murders of 1982. yeah they're probably more connected to Quaaludes well then we
have Annette's biological father Ben Cooper he makes the Spotlight by giving interviews and blaming the murders on
Dale Johnston Sheriff Jones brings in a psychic this is Shirley Saunders now wait so we have
two this is what's a little strange about this case okay first off we have a man Dale Johnson
who's considered to be an outsider considered to be different than the people of Logan and when he has nobody
else to turn to who does he turn to he turns to a psychic I mean if you're already the guy that's labeled is
different right in a small town you don't go well I found one person to support me and it's this guy that says
he's a psychic that seems a weird thing but that backfires on him because his psychic friend then tells Dale Johnson
and the media look I think you killed them uh and and I'm taking the police's side
here now we have the sheriff himself bringing in their own psychic this this is going to sound very strange but I
tried and I spent a lot maybe way too much time on this one aspect of this case this individual Shirley Saunders and
it's kind of a common name so that does not help when I was trying to research this but
a couple of the things that I found Captain she's labeled as a FBI psychic like she
either is employed or contracted by the FBI to go into these areas and give psychic readings or tell us her her
insights we know that there has been mediums and stuff that have worked for law enforcement before and then on top
of that we know that a lot of detectives will use psychics not necessarily that they have to
believe in them but just that sometimes by getting a reading they're getting a outside perspective of possibly where
they could look especially if a case goes cold well and I couldn't believe that the FBI would would employ
as psychic or somebody to be in that hold that title of psychic as a job title for the FBI as a full-time
employee I wouldn't be shocked if they're contracted on occasion but I couldn't find any information on this
Shirley Saunders I was hoping maybe she went on to write a book or something where her her credentials would be
outright stated other than this could this could just be public opinion where somebody stated this wrong and again
certain aspects of this case have become local Legend and folklore well maybe they reported it wrong maybe she works
for the fpi right or federal psychic institution well and maybe she's brought in from out of town and people had
already seen the FBI coming in from out of town and thought but she must be FBI right well she reports she came in with
their crystal ball I was like [ __ ] must be the FBI well she reports to sheriff
Jones now Sheriff Jones is the one that brought her there and she reports to Jones that Dale
Johnston is innocent in her mind and that the murders were committed by two killers and not one I'll just let the
cat let him go well this is not going to sway the sheriff he he still believes that Dale is the
killer and his team of investigators gather more damaging reports of Dale a lot of these they're starting to get
stories of Dale owning a large amount of knives and guns and we know that they were shot we know that the victims were
dismembered so this does not look good for him now we have 31 year old Mike dividend he alleges that Dale Johnston
is a is a Satanist or at least involved in satanic activity right he doesn't base this off of anything well I can't
say that he doesn't base it I don't know what he's basing this off of a dream but
he's he doesn't dream he doesn't put forth any concrete evidence to to back up this statement this this again we
just have another person that lives in the area coming forward with information that we have no way of deciphering if
it's true or false right and again with this town being so small the rumor mill is going to just keep going and keep
going then we have another individual and I'm going to totally screw up his name I I can't figure this one out 25
year old Scott fujit I think fuget I'll spell it if anybody wants to look this up sounds great uh
f-u-g-e-t-t I'm probably getting that completely wrong but so this 25 year old man named Scott he reports that Dale
Johnston fired shots at him when he rode his motorcycle on Dale's property the this again not looking good for Dale at
a town meeting this is a town meeting of 250 citizens they are vocally outraged about the
killer not being apprehended and the lack of police officers in Logan so this would
fully point out the fears of the citizens of Logan at that time not only are they saying hey
we're afraid because you haven't arrested anybody but we're also afraid because we don't think there's enough
law enforcement in this area but we know that they we know that they were getting
help from the Columbus PD unofficially right and and maybe Sheriff Jones didn't want that quote-unquote
help now the meeting ended with the citizens of Logan demanding the arrest and conviction of the major suspect who
they considered to be the major suspect Dale Johnston regardless of conflicting views and regardless of the lack of
evidence we've seen this in Ohio before up north withhold Dr Shepard right the the you know the public outrage and
so then it's weird how public outrage actually gets the criminal justice system moving yeah it's the the public
uh controlling the hand of the law or the media directing the hand of the law well the sheriff's department shows up
at Dale Johnston's property this is unannounced so he's butt naked well what I will say in his defense here one thing
that points good for him in his Direction they show up unannounced and Dale says go ahead and search the
property he's he's willing to let them he doesn't fight it you know he doesn't say no you need to come back with a
warrant um they don't specify by the state of circumstantial evidence but they what they state is that
circumstantial evidence was retrieved from the edge of the property that links The
Stepfather to the actual murders all right let's talk about this here captain because we have no list of what this
circumstantial evidence is it doesn't exist but I like I I think this is where you
have the sheriff's department going look we did a search and we found some stuff yeah we found some [ __ ] boys okay
so the the citizens have pushed our hand now we're going to release this information
conveniently to the media which is again going it's going to keep the cycle going
it's going to keep the circle going right you wanted us to find evidence we found it
well then we have a statement that's very interesting and this is where I think we
can come up with an idea of what that circumstantial evidence may or may not be we have FBI ballistics expert this is
Thomas Nicholson he reports publicly that Dale Johnston quote might have committed the murders
all right well what is this guy's job he's a ballistics expert right that stuff that's tough to say
well we also have this guy earlier that says hey I was riding my motorcycle on Dale Johnson's property and he fired a
couple shots at me my idea here is that maybe they recovered bullet casings from somebody
right right and these bullets could have been 22 caliber right it could have been
on the edge of the property because he was shooting at a guy to get off his land or
somebody not Dale Johnston was shooting their gun on the edge of his property Dale Johnson's property is depending on
which report you read it varies from 52 acres to 54 Acres I've labeled it as 53 just to be
consistent so very clever dude 53-acre property you can't you don't know what the hell's going on on your property
that's a huge amount of land anybody could be on the edge of your property firing a gun at any time now let's say
it did come from let's say it was from Daryl Dale Johnston target shooting hunting animals or shooting at this
motor this motorcyclist yeah or you could be going out there you know with his dong flapping in the wind and he's
just firing bullets up in the air you know and I think he has the right to it says
land but 22 is an extremely extremely common gun yes um and to the point where that's you
have the FBI ballistics expert Thomas Nicholson stating Johnston might have committed the murders and he's basing
that I believe off of them finding casings of 20 of 22 caliber bullets on the property at some point also seems
like they haven't done the test yet because the test would prove if it was that gun or not well that's why I think
he had to publicly say might right because I bet you they did do the test and they didn't match but because they
were the same caliber of God he's saying well he had access to a 22. we can't prove that they're the same it came from
the same gun right but maybe they couldn't prove that they didn't come from the same gun therefore he might
have the the thing that the reason why I include these tidbits though Captain is
all of this stuff is finding its way to the media there's nothing that happens in this case that doesn't get released
publicly I mean they they did lock up the autopsies they did seal the autopsies but outside of that any little
inkling anybody had of Dale Johnson being guilty Finds Its way to the newspapers right which is very
interesting to me because in Ohio we have another set of murders that people have been talking about a lot is the
Pike County murders and and that's a very very small town and there's not there's not much happening in the media
about that case no so it's kind of the reverse now we also have Dr Luis Robbins a forensic anthropologist reports that
Dale Johnston's boot matches the print found at the crime scene and then we have 19 year old Steve Ryan
this is Todd Schultz's cousin he comes forward as a possible eyewitness later he is hypnotized by police and
well not by an actual police officer but I'm sure they hired somebody to hypnotize this individual and during
this interview he says that he saw Dale Johnston Force the two teens into a car on the evening of October 4th so now we
have eyewitness we have an eyewitness that vocal that names David Johnston or Dale
Johnston now Dale is interrogated he's he's picked up for this he's interrogated in what is later reported
as a smoke-filled room for seven to eight hours during this and I don't think this was by choice captain
during this he's wearing nothing but undershorts and socks feeling good well they basically tell
him to strip down he wants to get in his element and they're going to interview him in his undershorts and socks and the
reason they did this they were convinced that they would find some kind of markings on him scrapes
bruises something that would have been defensive wounds there was no there's no sign of trauma to his body at all he
well there's signs of trauma to my body he continues to deny the allegations against him agent remember agent Henry
from the FBI he disapproves he publicly comes out and disapproves of the way that detective Thompson interrogated
Dale Johnston he called it barbaric right but he he has his suspect in his sights right right so I mean this is a
classic example of people can tunnel vision and not jumping on board during this interrogation the Logan police
detective constantly he just kept telling Johnston to confess we know that you killed the kids you know that you
killed the kids you need to confess you need to make this right um make it easier on yourself and he
kept in he kept reminding him that the town was in fear the whole town was in fear can you help us out by
confessing to this so that the town can continue to go on he said hold on a second let me take off my socks well
they also brought in Sarah his wife and they brought in his other stepdaughter Michelle Michelle was reportedly kept in
a room for eight hours for a solid eight hours and what I mean by that is during
that that eight hours she had nothing to eat she had no restroom breaks and according to Sarah her mother she said
that they just grilled and grilled and grilled Michelle until she finally just shut down uh she just wouldn't respond
to anything right and like that's what we're talking about um the other day on off the Record is
you know if you're if you don't have any information or they're accusing you of a
crime and you claim that you're in innocent how many times should you have to claim this before they're forced to
leave you alone and I'm curious as to her age we I know that she was not an adult I believe that she would have been
15 or 16 at this time now what her mother Sarah would later tell us is that the police the sheriff's department they
were angry they that they couldn't get anything out of Michelle they got nothing out of her out of eight hours of
grilling her she confessed to nothing right and Sarah says that what they wanted her to say was that she was there
that she had witnessed the the two being killed or saw them after they were killed and that the mother Sarah had cut
up the bodies or helped her husband Dale cut up the bodies yeah it's and if you have no evidence of this and
you they must have believed that this is how it went down to try to get this teenager to turn on her mother I mean
it's one thing to turn on your stepfather especially with the rumors around town but to turn on your mother
as well that makes me really question if Dale's guilty or not I almost feel like
this poor girl that's grilled for eight hours it could have been easy to turn on
your stepfather especially if there was actually any kind of molestation or or sexual abuse going on in the household
if how long would it take you to tell him hey yeah I do think he did it maybe I didn't see anything but I still think
he did it you know so it makes me question his guilt but he's arrested Dale Johnson is arrested
he's denied bail the same day that he is arrested Michelle the other daughter is
picked up and placed in foster care this is in another County they take her out of the area
and we have the the wife that remains Sarah she is basically ostracized in town right
she married a murderer because she married a murderer and now they don't and they think maybe she's involved so
they take her daughter away the townspeople seem to think that she is involved and maybe the police just don't
have anything on her in the course of weeks man this woman Sarah lost her daughter to to
being murdered her husband to the arrest of that murder and her daughter to foster care
[Music] [Music] yeah everybody if you're driving to work or home from work make sure when you get to your
destination that you treat yourself well Captain as the trial for Dale Johnston neared Sarah Johnston she continues to
be harassed by police and the public she was let go from her job at a doctor's office she was a receptionist
there her car insurance was canceled this is the right this is the lengths that that this news spread to yeah the
people that insured her car for her to drive canceled her car insurance they said we don't want you as a customer we
don't want your money we will no longer insure you as a driver um if she went into a store
she was told to leave so again being ostracized by the entire town that's awful and then she starts
having panic attacks we pointed out before the break all that she lost in a short period of time she starts having
severe panic attacks if she's secluded for so long that could become you can get a lot of social anxiety from being
secluded at some point she sent off for treatment because she decided in a Haze of probably severe depression
yeah I mean let's let's keep in mind let's let's forget that her husband's been locked up let's keep in mind her
daughter's been murdered right regardless of who did it her daughter has been killed at the young age of 18
years old and her other daughter was taken from her taken from her home she's not allowed to see she's lost both of
her children I think the key thing here is the reason that you wouldn't feel sorry for her is if you think she's
involved but there is zero evidence of her being involved well like I said in in what can only be assumed in a moment
of severe depression she decides that the town the prosecutor the police the sheriff the judges yeah people in power
the mayor she she decided that these people must have conspired against her and that they may have
killed her daughter and arrested her husband and taken away her other daughter she makes up a list of people that are
in power in the town of Logan and she intends to kill people that are on that list she actually came up with a plan
that there was there was a place and a location that most of these individuals were going to
be at the same time and she was trying to figure out a way to plant a bomb at that location now she
is kind of so far gone by this point she starts to tell people of these homicidal
Tendencies and thoughts that she's having yeah and thank God for that that's that's something we have said a
billion times over and over on this show if you are thinking things that you think are strange right tell somebody
tell somebody because you you can get help and you can't look if she would have planted that bomb or figured out a
way to do so we would have a whole nother story to tell here right and yes I'm sure it'd make a great episode but
all jokes aside if you do feel like you're having thoughts that are not normal the first step that you can do is
to talk to somebody that you trust and it might take a lot of power and effort but say to them I think I need a little
help and sometimes by releasing that uh to a loved one that they can come around
and they can give you the help that you need she eventually is sent away for treatment and I believe that this
treatment lasted eight or nine months and a lot of it I'm assuming Captain was probably a good amount of grief
counseling which would have been much needed for her to set her back on the right path so good for her and good for
the people that helped her and mind you not only is there no evidence but there's not even hearsay evidence the
only thing they that they had was the idea that they were trying to get the daughter to to make up some story that
that she was there and that she uh conspired in this murder well regarding Dale's trial he opts for a three judge
panel instead of a jury trial I think this is a smart move on his behalf he also requests for a change of venue
which normally I think would be granted seeing how there's been so much rumor and accusation amongst the citizens of
Logan as well as the media coverage that surrounded this story however this change of venue is denied also denied
were his motions to find and present the idea that the death penalty is unconstitutional
because they were going to sentence him to death if they found him guilty now the trial begins as a fist fight on the
courthouse steps between relatives of the friends I'm sorry between relatives and Friends of both victims and the
reason why who won this is an interesting thing here because you don't typically have this in a lot of murder
trials both of the victims here their families and friends are made up of people that are that are also on one
side friends and family of somebody being accused of the double homicide right this fist fight breaks out the
fistica the police the sheriff they're having a hard time kind of keeping Law and Order an organization here the the
courtroom in the hallways were standing room only we also have dozens of citizens out front of the courthouse
picketing each day that the trial went on and they're picketing for a conviction of Dale Johnston they're
screaming get her done when opening arguments commence uh there is to say the least heavy media coverage and armed
security in and outside of the courtroom the three judges along with the prosecutor defense Witnesses and Dale
they all go to the Johnston farm and to the riverbank and to the cornfield area the little field trips so to speak and
this is so that everybody can see the air areas in question the defense presents a valid perspective regarding
the weakness of the state's case while showing multiple suspects that who could have equally been as guilty as Dale
Johnston the defense also presents the theory that satanists killed the victims the judge's permitted testimony from a
specific witness and this is key to this trial this is the witness Steve Ryan we've talked about him already now to go
a little bit more in depth with him the first time that Steve Ryan was interviewed by sheriff's deputies he was
not sure of the day that he was quoting he was not sure who the kids were that he saw when he later referred to the
teenagers that went missing and were murdered or who the person was with the kids that he saw so really he knew
nothing he was also captain on paper this is on in the police report he's also not sure of the kind of
vehicle that he saw basically what he says is he comes forward to the police to the sheriff's deputies and say I have
some information that might help the case this is before the arrest was made right he says I saw
two people with some guy getting into a car and I'm not really sure what day it was
on but it was in that corn field where you found those kids right well the sheriff's department that's
when they decide to hypnotize him because sometimes you can hypnotize somebody and draw details out of what
they can't seem to remember all right so we have get out your crystal ball already in this case and then on top of
that get out your pocket watch and you're getting sleepy very sleepy well what happens here Captain is that Steve
Ryan who would eventually testify at Dale Johnson's trial and which led to the arrest of Dale Johnston after he
spoke to detective Thompson several times and was hypnotized now all of a sudden he's is telling in his statement
his latest statement is I saw Annette Cooper and Todd Schultz who eventually were murdered
forced into a vehicle and it was Dale Johnston that forced him into Dale Johnston's vehicle in that area on the
day that they went missing well you know what this is right this is a Halloween Miracle that's right well
this is going to lead to Dale Johnston being convicted and sentenced to death he is going to appeal this and he's
actually lucky I believe that he got the death penalty now keep in mind this is Ohio back in the early 80s so he's
sentenced to sit on the electric chair yeah these appeals will eventually Grant him a new trial and this is because the
prosecutor and investigators it becomes known that they withheld statements and evidence from Johnston's defense team
that could have cast major doubt on his guilt and that they failed this is the investigators failed to pursue leads
that could have helped to exonerate him and what that means is investigators when they took tips when
that phone was ringing off the hook they were listening to the ones that said hey
I saw Dale Johnston do something right they weren't really working the leads that said hey I saw something else going
on and it didn't include Dale Johnston right like I've said before it's it's classic tunnel vision well it was
determined at a new trial captain that Johnson should have been found not guilty based on the withheld evidence
which included eyewitness testimony that placed other individuals at the cornfield and not Johnston as well as
the testimony that was ultimately ruled that should not have been allowed at trial since it was only brought about by
hypnosis So eventually Johnson is freed in 1990. now he would go after the state for a
wrongful imprisonment claim in 1993. this is denied by the state and technically well it's denied on
multiple occasions and technically to kind of sum it up best that I can Johnston still to this day has not
received a cent from the state for the years that he spent not only in prison but on death row and why I find it so
hilarious it'd be like giving me the power where I could punch you and then I say well I know I punched you but you
can't sue me well and the thing too is that there was language that was put into law at a later date that basically
says people like Dale Johnson while technically as it's written somebody that's wrongfully convicted can and should be
rewarded money by the state however they've put language into that that it's they make it damn near impossible that
you're going to get paid for anything and the sad part of this to me and we still got a bunch to get through is that
but before Dale Johnston was sentenced to death in 1984 he had a wife he had kids he owned 53
acres of land he had no debt he had no pants on but when he was released he was released as a free man and he had
nothing other than an old pickup truck that was given to him by his lawyer look if you're gonna take the the right away
to be sued if you put the wrong person in prison then you need to spend more time trying
to put the right person in prison amen I also want to point out too we talked about his wife Sarah going and seeking
treatment because she was had fallen on Hard Times to say the very least they would end up getting a divorce and
I think this should point out to whom I believe the real Dale Johnston to be they got a divorce because of him he had
nobody he's on death row he had nobody and he told his wife who it seems like he loved very much right he said to her
he said Sarah we need to get a divorce because I'm locked up I'm the monster that they
locked up the monster that they think I am they locked me away but you're on the
outside and everybody thinks you are a monster and you've been ostracized from town and everybody hates you and you
having my last name and you being married to me is going to destroy the rest of your life he says to her I would
much rather have a friend that I got a divorce yeah from than to have a wife that ends up
committing suicide and that was the path she was on yeah and even once he was released she continued as well as her
daughter Michelle the living daughter they continued to support Dale Johnston all of this time through all of his
appeals and through uh his release they were there to greet him we should point out too remember Michelle who was taken
from her mother's home placed into the foster care system in a different County when she was 15 or 16 years old at the
day that she turned 18 and was released from Foster Care where did she go back home right back to her mother right back
to her mother and that again kind of points out that maybe some of these rumors weren't true maybe they just were
not true well Johnson after he's released and he's broke and he has no land nothing he does go to live with his
mother in the village of Asheville Pickaway County which is 20 miles south of Columbus yeah
um he said that he still was receiving quite a bit of prejudice from the people of that area and he decided that
Asheville was not going to be where he stayed he was still very much under a cloud of Suspicion you know and even the
people that didn't believe that he was guilty of murder they still thought and still suspected him of molesting his
stepdaughter before her death he would eventually try to move on with his life while in prison he did commit himself
and his life to Jesus and after his release he actually became a head Usher at the First Baptist Church in Grove
City Ohio and later a member of the congregation this is Roberta Crocker she took a liking to the Head Usher she said
in an article quote he was a handsome dude so in 1998 I never get married again I
hope she says hey he's one handsome dude I would just love to be described as a handsome dude I strive to be a handsome
I want to make a shirt with your face on it that says handsome dude well I'll give you the short of it Captain uh
Roberta and Johnston's relationship grew serious over the years eventually they were married uh in June of 2000 and they
lived in a home in Grove City Ohio this was not without Roberta's son's blessing
who is Brian Corbett which was the pastor at the First Baptist Church he had heard the rumors and even heard
Johnston talking about uh spending time at Lucasville which everybody in Ohio knows hey Lucasville is not just a
prison it's maximum security and oh yeah there's death row there too yeah so he did a lot spent a lot of time with Dale
Johnson getting to know him before he gave his Blessing for the the marriage to his mother
the strange thing here though Captain is after he's released after Johnson's release this technically becomes a Cold
Case yeah and people would still speculate as to Johnston's kill and a person that refuses to there's an evil
person that continues to haunt True Crime garage and his name is William wickline yeah he
has been considered a suspect in this case by the public for many years once this became a cold case and he is
William the butcher wickline is his nickname he's an animal he was found guilty of murdering decapitating and
dismembering Chris and Peggy Lurch and he was free at the time of Annette Cooper and Todd Schultz's murder yeah
and so he was long suspected of this case he has been executed by the state of Ohio so good luck investigating that
at the time yeah if you haven't looked up wickline you should because he is I mean he is a scary monster you could if
you wanted to write a a murder book or a mystery book right you could you could look up his life in base a criminal or a
murderer after him and have a have a good selling book now out of nowhere Captain there is a break in the Long
Cold Case this didn't come until June of 2007. this is when a woman Sandy Linscott she
is visiting her probation officer and they're talking through some things and she says to her probation officer
I think that 25 years ago that those two people that were murdered taught in a net I think they were at my house the
night that they disappeared and I think that they left with my husband and a man
that she she didn't know his name she described the man as looking like a chipmunk
okay okay so you want to be described as a handsome dude and not a chipmunk right
note to self well her husband is Kenny Linscott we've heard that name before haven't we he was the man in the corn
stalks that were watching the police when they found the bodies yeah and they questioned Kenny Lynn Scott the one with
the cut and she says when her husband Kenny came home that he was covered in blood and he had a bad cut to his arm
but he refused to discuss what had happened investigators very quickly zeroed in on
Kenny Linscott and then they also zeroed in on the man that looked like a chipmunk and this was Chester McKnight
who was in prison for possession of child pornography and attempting to arrange sex with an under undercover
officer posing as a teenage girl real winner now Lynn Scott Kenny Linscott told investigators that there was a
chance a small chance that the murdered couple had been at his house that night and that he might have even been in the
cornfield with them that night but he said he did not kill them okay but what happens is once they zero
in on this McKnight guy that's in prison already he very quickly says I killed them and Lynn Scott helped me really
yeah so do you want to hear how this goes down yeah but do we have a why we do and this is this is what is so sad
about this our show and about our world and about these stories a lot of times it's very clear that
these murders are just senseless that there are people that are wiped off of this Earth that are taken from their
loved ones way too young and almost for no reason at all or reasons that don't make sense to to good people to good
normal people right this is the story that was told to police that on the evening of October 4th 1982 Todd and
Annette went to a local Small Time drug dealer's house this is Kenny Linscott the thought was that they were there to
purchase a small amount of marijuana and have a couple of beers they're just going to have a little party a little
get-together they're adults we've all been there the drug dealer Kenny Linscott he had his friend at the house
this is Chester McKnight at the time McKnight was a Drifter who was also nicknamed Chester the Molester
well all right this this is really sad that the young couple was lured to a cornfield near Kenny linscott's house
allegedly after more partying went down McKnight was high on LSD and cocaine and
he told Lynn Scott that he was planning on raping Annette and it sounds like Kenny Linscott was
into doing the same the four of them left Lynn Scott's house and when they left Lynn Scott handed a 22 caliber
revolver to Chester McKnight and he said if Todd Schultz puts up a fight use this
gun to control him well they did start to assault Annette and as expected Todd Schultz came to her
rescue and started to protect his girlfriend right and so McKnight shot Todd six times twice in the head
and Annette started to scream and that's when McKnight panicked and shot her in the head and neck the men then grabbed a
machete from Lin Scott's garage they stripped the bodies McKnight masturbated over the body of the female
victim I wasn't prepared for that and Lynn Scott held the limbs while McKnight cut away at the bodies at one point
McKnight apparently slipped badly cutting Kenny Lynn Scott's arm the men then lugged the torsos to the riverbank
and threw them into the Hocking River apparently the men washed up in the river and went back to Kenny linscott's
house afterwards McKnight says he let the body parts lie saying that he left the home at some point and that at some
point Kenny Linscott must have returned to the cornfield and buried the remaining limbs
investigators withheld a witness report that a man not Johnston followed the couple into the cornfield and then heard
gunshots and screams that man that was reported to police back in 1982 was Kenny Linscott but the caller didn't
know Kenny linscott's name right this was the lead that should have been followed up on instead of honing in on
Dale Johnston on September 2nd 2008 McKnight and Lynn Scott were both indicted on charges of aggravated murder
McKnight demanded lethal injection to pay for his sins but later ultimately accepted a pair of life sentences he
will die in prison with the case against him shaky given McKnight's varying stories so keep that in mind McKnight
was giving multiple stories and confessions it had been a long time you know it had
been over 20 years Right Lynn Scott 48 years of age at the time pled guilty to abuse of a corpse and was released from
prison after only serving 10 months so to put this in perspective Dale Johnston who killed nobody
served a longer sentence in prison for the death of his stepdaughter and her boyfriend then Kenny Linscott who
participated actively and willingly participated in events that led up to the murder and led to the concealment of
the murders right Johnson served more time than this guy he lost everything and then Kenny Lynn Scott
gets 10 months and both these killers actually remained free after killing these two young people longer than the
victims lived on this planet it's a sad sad set of circumstances but just because there's a rest in this case
that doesn't mean there's Justice right they're there actually feels like there was no justice in this case now Kenneth
Robert Lynn Scott of Logan Ohio passed away on Monday November 25th 2013 at the age of 52.
foreign [Music] do you have any recommended reading for us this week you know that I do Captain
this week we are recommending the acid King by Jesse P Pollock very very exciting stuff Captain I cannot lie
though I have not actually read this book because it just came out yesterday but I have ordered my copy and Jesse is
a great author and a good friend of our show we've had him on before the captain
had him join the captain on our other great show off the Record and the acid King is about a murder in a small town
that local police in the international press dubbed a satanic sacrifice the short of it four teens went into the
woods and only three came out the long of it the murder became the subject of several popular songs and tv specials
addressing the issue of whether or not American teens were practicing Satanism and debating the symbolism and songs by
AC/DC and Ozzy Osbourne so make sure you check out the acid King and support our
buddy Jesse p pawlik and thanks to all of you for supporting the garage until next week be good be kind and don't
litter [Music] [Applause] [Music] foreign

The Small Town Murders /// Part 2 /// 250

Part 2 of 2

www.TrueCrimeGarage.com

Back in 1982 murders in a small town in Ohio rocked a community to it’s core. Rumors in town swirled and circled around one suspect in particular. But most feared the worst. Some said a group of drug addicted satanists were sacrificing the lives of the town’s youth. Others believed a deranged psycho was just starting to spill blood in their town. Either way, the local law enforcement, the FBI and outside agencies could not agree on a prime suspect. This week we visit a small town that was visited by murder. Beer of the Week - Brick Kiln Bourbon Barrel Aged by Jackie O’sGarage Grade - 5 out of 5 Bottle Caps

Beer Fund: https://truecrimegarage.com/home

Brief Summary

The episode details the wrongful conviction of Dale Johnston for the 1982 murders of Todd Schultz and Annette Cooper, later solved by new evidence.

Key points

Welcome to True Crime Garage. Hosts Nick and Captain introduce the show and their drink of choice.
The Case of Todd and Annette. A young couple is murdered in a small town, sparking rumors and investigations.
Dale Johnston's Allegations. Dale Johnston, the stepfather, faces rumors of jealousy and molestation.
Witnesses and Speculation. Witnesses claim to see a man matching Lieutenant Mallory's description near the crime scene.
Public Outrage in Logan. Citizens demand justice and express fears over safety after the murders.
The Grilling of Michelle. Michelle was interrogated for eight hours without food or restroom breaks, leading to her emotional shutdown.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

I love small towns, Captain. I always have, always will.

Discussion about the nature of small towns.

5:38WatchNov 24, 2022

Tension

75/ 100High tension

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