We're All Lunatics /// Part 2 /// 172 | Forensic Files

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[Music] thank you [Music] shortly after my brother Edward came missing I kind of included the police chief of
Crawford County that there was somebody going around saying that will never hide Edward that we need
to quit looking and then we tried to push for the phone records early on and he was missing in April so
when we pushed for the phone records it was immediately and we were kind of told that there was
nothing we could do and then in August deegan's place got rated for a tip or something and they found multiple pot
plants 31 all over the house outside everything Deacon was still never arrested after that he kind of fled and
he fled to Colorado and I emailed him and I asked him I said is my brother with you
and he said in his email some people live full arrest ghosts along with some other things that he had said
I gave that to detectives and I gave that to the police Chiefs September we finally got Edward's records and was the
last book called in December 2016 I begged the sheriff to look into Deacon and I told him if
you can have this stuff growing on his property why is he still out there why is he back why is he not arrested
nothing and the fact that Edward was vegan was Edward's last phone call they told me that because of where the
plants were there was nothing that they could do come to find out the plants were right
in the middle of his property within a couple yards from my brother nothing was ever done it went on and it
went on until the fall of 2017 when the new chief of Crawford asked to bring on a different task force
and that being Franklin County and when they brought on Franklin County and within
I don't know a couple days of me talking to one Detective in September I found my brother in less than 20 days
so I was always told from the beginning two things can't do nothing on hearsay or they didn't have enough to bring him
in for a questioning [Music] foreign [Music] Hillhouse was last seen leaving his
sister's house in Bourbon Missouri back in April of 2016. now we had two local agencies
investigating this missing person's case the local police department and the Crawford County Sheriff's Office
well after a Changing of the Guard after the chief and the sheriff retired and we
brought in some new leaders maybe some better leaders one might think this investigation took a turn and this
was when a vice squad was brought in to launch a new investigation we have This Confidential informant that
emerges and I guess well we shouldn't say emerges because this person has really been there all along this is a
person that Edward's sister Kayla had told investigators early on to talk to this person and you heard her just in
that trailer there now regarding the confidential informant and the information that this person may have
provided to law enforcement we can gather this according to the probable cause statement filed in the Crawford
County prosecutor's office the informant connected to the investigation told authorities that Deacon J zelch admitted
to killing Edward Hillhouse by shooting him in the head with a 22 caliber rifle back in April of 2016.
the witness told authorities with the multi-county narcotics and violent crimes unit remember this is the vice
squad that was brought in yeah he told them that on the day after Edward Hillhouse went missing so this
would be April 27 2016. that he had went to the house and he had seen the body of Edward Hill House on
the couch in the home of Deacon zelch well and the Rumor then was that he shot Edward while he was sleeping on the
couch yeah and you know when we first saw this information come out my original thought was I was trying to
figure this thing out it and it was this you know was was this the type of situation where you know because with
the mafia when they have somebody that they want to kill you will hear them oftentimes say that well the best way to
do this is you you take the person out to a nice dinner and then you give them a couple drinks couple glasses of wine
and then you get in the car with them you put them in the passenger seat you get a couple guys in the back seat and
you shoot them when they're least expecting it right and I I wondered here if this was in fact true
was this that kind of situation where we have Deacon zelch who maybe have leading
up to the murder itself if he was still acting as the friend of Edward Hill House that because it
didn't seem from this rumor it didn't seem to be like there was any altercation between the two of them
right did they start questioning what the motive is yeah that they broke out into some kind of fight is this
something that Deacon had possibly planned and planned for days and just kind of lured him in as with using their
friendship to put down the guard of Edward Hill House now this witness he says that he saw the
body of Edward there on April 27th the following day this witness returned to Deacon's home right this time there's no
body there's no there's nobody on the couch first of all if you're hanging out somewhere
and there's a body on the couch dead you don't return the next day that's another thing that I question
here about this information do you think that there's a chance that at the time that he saw the body that
maybe this witness and I kept saying he he I don't even know if it's a he I think that's
what's implied yeah what I've heard yeah so do you think that this person may not
have known at the time that he was in fact looking at a dead body yeah it's possible that he just came in
and maybe maybe didn't even enter the room that where the couch was positioned yeah and just saw someone on the couch
or or was he threatened you know you know did Deacon tell him what happened and said hey look if you if you tell
anybody I'll kill you I mean there was a lot of rumors in town that Deacon often
bragged about killing people and has killed people also made threats uh to Ex-Wives or or not X wives but ex or
baby mamas right he had a lot of kids with different people yeah women that he had had relationships with and I
believed that he had threatened people close to them as well right let's get into this information about this backhoe
on Deacon's property yeah so the following day this witness returned after having seen the body on
the couch the following day he returns and this time there's no body there's no couch
and he sees a backhoe on zelch's property any information on where this couch went
so here's what they have the witness tells them that at a later Point Deacon zelch allegedly admitted to this Witness
that Deacon had used the equipment used the backhoe to bury Edward Hill House along with the remains of the couch
right and other evidence in the crime I don't know what other evidence uh refers
to oh yeah because you got to think that law enforcement is going to be looking for this gun because we can assume that
that's the murder weapon yeah yeah they're going to be looking for a 22 caliber rifle like the witness had told
them about and we spoke earlier about that profitable cause statement well this is they're going to use this new
information the the new task force that has taken over this investigation as you
heard Kayla say earlier they're armed with this new information that they have and very quickly they're going to get a
search warrant to go back and search the property of Deacon zelch and this time they're not just there looking for
marijuana plants with some volunteer cadaver dog right they're going to go in there and they're going to search this
place from top to bottom and they have this information about this tobacco so they're going to have to do some digging
as well well on Wednesday September 20th 2017 they went to the residence of Deacon zelch the property that is
located on Highway J letter J outside of bourbon This was um now here's the thing when you look at
this search warrant captain we see that this is now being called a homicide investigation right
so invest for law enforcement yes and so now investigators search the home and after an extensive search of the
property they dug up and located an unidentified body they also located a couch later the deceased was positively
identified as that of Edward J Hillhouse who was 28 years of age when he went missing a medical examiner ruled that
Hill House was killed by a single gunshot wound to the head by a small caliber weapon yeah so
what do we learn from this the the informant is telling the truth yeah or at least most of it is truth yeah we we
have evidence backing up this witness's statement now during the investigation and upon
the discovery of Edward hillhouse's body the person of interest in the death of Hill House well this is obviously Deacon
zelch and who is he's 40 years of age from Bourbon Missouri while police issued a warrant for his arrest and in
their pursuit of Deacon they announced that he is to be considered armed and very dangerous and he should not be
approached by anybody in the public well and if you talk about Deacon's land for
a little bit what they were searching I mean this is a bunch of shacks right the
way I kind of visualize this is if you've seen True Detective season one uh were they fine Nietzsche man or whatever
they call them um similar to that and because he was living off the land because Deacon was
this you know he was this mythical in his head he was a mythical god-like creature and he was living off the land
and he was you know a hippie but at the same time crazy and threatening people's
lives and telling people he's killed people and He will kill people again yeah I saw Ariel photos or aerial images
of the property itself and it looks to me to be like a ranch like a typical rectangle shaped ranch right the news
referred to it as a rundown dwelling it didn't look overly run down to me from the outside but it probably did so
on the inside would be my guess and but your standards are a little lower than most people well and then what we
learned from the um from when they collected the marijuana plants is that there were two there were two outside
structures on this property there to what they refer to as two outbuildings these could be simply just be sheds or
or a detached garage or what you like to call a mansion a mansion yeah hey can we call the show
show True Crime Mansion I was like No it's it's a freaking garage Nick wake up yeah the situation is
we're doing the show in the garage well once they started looking for Deacon zelch it's just a matter of a few
days on September 24th 2017 Deacon zelch was arrested at about 1 15 p.m now he's
located in Bloomington Illinois rested on the warrant for the alleged murder yeah it sounds like he was taken
in without incident they didn't list any type of altercation with him uh but Deacon zelch's connection to Bloomington
is not known or at least uh had not been reported well like we said his father knows law enforcement is it possible
that he was tipped off I mean when they found marijuana plants all over your property you fled town
so now that they're digging on your property it's likely that he was flee in town yeah I I tend to agree with
you when it when they found the marijuana plants it sounds like he took off to Colorado right and then he may
have caught wind somebody may have called him maybe even his father called and said hey they're digging on your
property yeah I mean maybe he caught when or he blew in I'm not really for sure he may not have fled though I
mean the the arrest report states that he was arrested at a residence in Bloomington Illinois it may just be as
simple as he went up there and was staying with somebody that he knew um and maybe the person wasn't
comfortable stating that they know this person who's wanted for murder so they the news is convenient and says uh you
know he's arrested without incident and the the connection to Bloomington is unknown
now he he was later extra extradited to Missouri and Deacon zelch was charged in
Crawford County for the marijuana plants finally charged for that I mean you're talking about that thing was 13 months
old and then charged for the murder of Edward Hillhouse as well and he was also charged with armed criminal action of
course that's going to be involved with the murder case there and he is being held at Crawford County Jail
on one million one hundred and forty five thousand dollar cash only Bond that's cold Hard Cash that's what you
strapped to somebody if you don't ever want them getting out before they can go to trial well I like when law
enforcement does this I mean you know a lot of people go well you got to charge them with the marijuana plants for you
know he's going to be charged with murder well you you tack on every charge so even if the as you're collecting
evidence so you can go to trial you're holding this loser's ass in prison on a different charge yeah you you slap him
with everything you can and you see which one sticks now Captain the obvious question here is why did it take a
separate law enforcement agency to break the case open big enough that Edward's body is finally recovered and an arrest
is finally made now Kayla his sister believes that her brother's case was covered up as an act of public
corruption she says this is not only because of the lack of movement early on in the case but of course also because
Deacon zelch is the son of Vernon zelch a Crawford County Sheriff's deputy yeah and this is just not going to be Kayla's
Theory this is actually going to be the the detective that became the chief he actually believes that and in the rumors
that he heard was how Deacon's father was snooping around and looking into evidence and there was a bunch of rumors
in town that his his father was his main thing was trying to find that gun well if Kayla is right this means that
for over you know for about a year and a half the Crawford County they were keeping this a secret yeah
and okay so let's talk about Vernon zelch here for a little bit now I before I get any people calling me out and
saying you know he wasn't a deputy he was a police officer um I want to be clear about this it's a
little confusing as far as his career goes because I have information stating that he had worked for both of these
agencies at one time right or another so now Vernon zelch has a website out there
um and I believe it might be vernonzelch.com I don't know but yeah I thought it was uh I have ugly kids with
weirdbeards.com but according to Vernon's website he is a police officer that works to pay for his farming hobby
um he is now keep in mind this website was last updated in 2012. but it states that he served as the assistant chief of
the department for about 25 years so we're talking about if his website is correct we're not talking about just
some low-level cop you know we're talking about somebody that's that's higher up in the rent in the nicest way
I mean it exactly the way that I said it um it seems that his true love is farming hunting and his tractor
um Vernon zelch raises Beefalo what I didn't misspeak there he raises Beefalo okay
I I have a farm okay you know what I raise what's that Slim Jims there you go okay
okay well Beefalo is like half cattle half bison okay it sounds delicious I raise a thing called a
foreign let's move on from this all right well at times he had been a reoccurring guest
host on two different radio shows and I don't know if this is still current but as of 2012 Vernon zelch had penned a
monthly column for the Sullivan Independent News so this is a person that is well known around town uh not
only has influence because of his career at being in law enforcement right but also has influence as a farmer as
somebody that's a radio personality as someone that's Penning a monthly column in the local news so this this is a guy
that has a lot of influence amongst town but Deacon's not his only son right correct so we have Deacon zelch and we
have his brother Wyatt zelch yeah and the two of them could never seem to stay out of trouble uh they were you know we
have this respected Lawman and then we have his troublemaking sons yeah they weren't like the looks a hazard look
just the good old boys these were just pieces of [ __ ] well they're always causing some harm
the crazy thing here is that shortly after this case broke after they recovered the body of Edward and made
the arrest on Deacon's out Deacon zelch sorry say that Zeke and zilch five times
fast go they interviewed Wyatt zelch the brother and he had just been recently released from prison he did a stint
there for drugs and theft right and his interview and I know you've seen this Captain it's it's strange to put it
politely he's basically he's outside and he's smoking a cigarette and he's talking about his family right and the
big question like we were talking about before is what the hell is his motive what the hell is Deacon's motive I mean
it seems like everybody even even uh Edward's sister says look these were friends you
know and yeah Deacon's this horrible dude but Edward's at least his friend so what's his motivation and so that's what
they're asking Deacon's brother yeah and Wyatt basically says we're all lunatics everyone every last
one of us the whole goddamn family right we're all lunatics and he says this he said it's the the person you don't see
is the doctor and Jekyll and Mr Hyde Persona and he says that his father has that his brother he has that his sisters
his mother the whole family he says damn family are not nice people we were not raised to be nice we were raised to be
mean and hateful people he also told reporters that he has no doubt that Deacon killed Edward he also
stated when talking about Deacon that he didn't know if there was any good left in Deacon and he thought that that
probably was lost and had lost that a long time ago yeah he was directly asked if his father Vernon zelch could be
involved in a cover-up to cover up this murder investigation and Wyatt said while he has no doubt the Deacon killed
Edward he's not certain about any type of cover-up foreign [Music] [Music] all right we're back cheers me mateys
cheers to you captain from the other side of the garage other side of the Mansion yeah uh New
Year hopefully new Nick that's my resolution this is funny all right so we need to look into we need to
explore did Vernon zelch interfere with the investigation in any way and for this I think we should introduce
Somebody by the name of Amanda zelch who is she she is Deacon zelch's ex-wife and she herself she questions why
absolutely nothing turned up in the investigation for approximately 17 months and as for her thought about her
ex-husband deacon she said Deacon sometimes threatened her she feels he is capable of murder
saying that he once wrote in a letter to her and a friend of hers that if it was
not for their daughter that he would have filled that hole with their bodies well is this the one
that at some point think uh Deacon Dicken whatever you want to call them super glued
one of his sons and his wife to a door I don't have any knowledge of that that happened that was a rumor that I heard
that he had super glued the Sun and his ex-wife to a door yeah and this is this is a real animal here
right but when you say that you're saying it it's not like oh we were goofing around no and you know super
glue somebody to the door you're saying this is like he was malicious he was punishing somebody for something who
knows right and he super glues these people to a door well well listen to this though because you
had hinted about something earlier and this is where I think that that hint and that information comes from regarding
Vernon zelch what he did after Deacon was arrested Amanda said that she found this strange
of course and I think anybody would find this strange she said that Vernon had come to her house and she asked Amanda
if Deacon had given her any guns yeah she told Vernon that that he did that he had given her a gun now Vernon
immediately asked her if it was a 22 caliber gun to which she told Vernon it was not it was a 20 gauge
she said that upon Him hearing that it was a 20 gauge that Vernon zelch seemed to be relieved that it was a 20 gauge
and not the 22 caliber that he was asking about right of course we know this to be the same caliber with which
Edward had been killed now Amanda zelch said maybe Vernon was looking for the murder weapon obviously
she can't say for certain though right uh but Chief Satterfield this is the new Chief yeah I like this guy said that
Vernon had done um he was talking about what Vernon had done in the past also was not sitting
well with him stating that he had received information early on that Vernon zelch was going around and
inquiring about the investigation into his son right this was reported to to the detective's superiors it is unclear
what they did uh with that information if anything at the time uh but it seems like the new Chief is handling that
information appropriately well let me put this let's pose this question right right you
always want to talk about your situation let's pose this poly D question right okay
so whether your son is guilty or innocent whether you are trying to find out if he's guilty or innocent or whether
you're protecting or trying to protect this person aren't your actions going to be the same
on some level you know you have this kid that went missing there's rumors around town that your son
is involved and you worked high level law enforcement in this town for years this person's not going to call around
they're not going to pick up the phone start asking some of their connections what's going on
okay so that that's that's the problem here in my opinion that's that's where it makes it very hard to say what were
the intentions of Vernon zelch right was was his intentions to hide what his son had done or was his
intentions to just simply find out what his son had done yeah because some of it
is that okay first of all he's on the right side of the law four years 25 years something like that
right his both of his sons are on the opposite side of the law that doesn't necessarily mean that their
father is evil and yes you have now this guy that's in prison that gets out of prison his other son
what's that dick Face's name why why and why it's going the whole family's crazy
what's your lunatics right well speak for yourself you're the one that was in jail your father was in law
enforcement there is no record or evidence that this guy is a corrupt cop there's no as far as I could tell
this guy has served and protected his community and again maybe there's some rumors that
he was a shady cop I don't know I I just couldn't find those so I just want to pose that you know as much as
cop conspiracies they're interesting they're fascinating any conspiracy is right but
you know you gotta play both sides of the coin and and again it could have him it could just be him trying to figure
out you know or maybe he thought I'm going to go ask these people and what if she said you know what I do have a gun
22. and what if he took that gun and he turned it over to law enforcement yeah then we wouldn't be bad mouth and
that's all I'm saying no and I'm glad you brought that up because okay so there there's only a few uh news
articles on this there's only a few people that covered this case and one of them
and I won't mention who it is but one of them when they tell the story they say that they they don't say this but they
all they tell it in a way that seems like Vernon Deacon's father was asking about the gun the 22 caliber gun
while before they even found Edward Hill House right right and when I saw that and that report I was like oh my God
they need to get internal fares in their Affairs in there right away and investigate this guy because he's up to
no good he's trying to cover up a murder committed by his son and then when I looked at other accounts
of this story and these are the ones that I believe both of these ones say that after Deacon was arrested is when
he went to his ex daughter-in-law's house and asked inquired about the gun which would make
more sense because when you think about that maybe is it not the perfect thing to do right it's not he probably should
have been escorted by somebody or told officers where to go and what to ask that would have been a little more
kosher in my opinion however but hear me out it doesn't matter if it's before or
after because if it's before yes it does hold on let me explain to you why okay if it's before
is it is it possible when he's calling his connections and saying okay so we have this guy that we think is murder is
it is it possible that he found information through the cops or through his son or through rumors around town or
this informant that nobody is taken serious right there's rumors around town and
somebody goes hey look there's this rumor that your uh your son killed this boy he was laying on your boy's couch
the next day there's a backhoe and it's probably a 22. that's why like I said what if he found the gun before they
found the body and he turned it in and we don't know that because the gun was never found I think I agree with that by
Deacon I agree with what you're saying and we will never know the answer to that because that's not what happened
right the thing here is had he was he inquiring about this before Edward's body was found then there's a potential
there's a potential that more of a potential yes he had information that everyone else didn't have that he had an
Insider information about the crime and he may have received that information from the murderer himself right that's a
possibility now hearing that it that it's after the fact that it was after Deacon was arrested after the body was
found then I have to go you know what he's not working with any information here that the rest of us didn't already
know and at some point he may have just said you know what there's a person you know who knows he could have been
driving home from work one day and said you know what something might have clicked in his mind and said you know
what there's somebody we should talk to in this investigation now again it would
have been a little more on the up and up had he got somebody else involved in my
opinion right um but like you said had that gun been found we don't know what he would have
done with it now Martin and zelches has denied interfering with this investigation in
any way possible Right and again like I said he has we don't have evidence of him being
a flaming pile of dog [ __ ] like his sons right you don't have evidence of that
just because his sons just because it's one not case son said hey we're all crazy and it's Jacqueline Hyde and my
dad has it too well maybe the Jacqueline Hyde that he's talking about is when Jekyll and Hyde what did I say jackal
uh great band I like that band um the point is is that maybe this Jekyll and Hyde right yeah
side of his father that he's talking about is every time that his sons get in trouble
he gives them a little tough love he's he's in their face he's being aggressive or whatever like I said there's no as as
what I can see there's no evidence what to me points as more fishy is that you search his property you have
this volunteer cadaver dog you don't find anything but what you do find is you find guns and you find marijuana
plants and whether you're for marijuana or against marijuana that's not the point the point is is that in this part
of the country it's illegal and this is enough evidence to arrest somebody and they're not arrested to me that points
to a situation well and the other thing I don't like here is that we don't have any
what I believe to be a real response from the local law enforcement you know why don't they just say hey
look we would have liked to have arrested Deacon zelch on the marijuana charges back when we found them in
August of 2016 but we couldn't because he was in Colorado and we didn't know where he was you know something as
simple as that rather than just nothing no information um you know but this is a very tough
case for us because one we like to have multiple sources you know what I mean and in this case
you know this was a a listener request basically yeah we had a few few listeners that had suggested this this
case to us yeah and when somebody titles the case we're all lunatics your ears go
what what is this all about right when you start diving into it you go well man there's just not a lot of information
here and that's sad you know on multiple levels but I think the main level is that you know Edward
seemed like a very nice person he seemed like somebody that was striving to be a
good citizen good friend good family member and his story is cut short by somebody that by all accounts was just
not a good dude you know and didn't seem like he was contributing anything to society other than gluing people to
doors yeah and as far as Vernon zelch goes like I said he denied interfering in this investigation in any way
um when asked about this you know did he do anything what was his opinions on the
case right he simply States you know I'm I work for law enforcement there's there's a pending trial that's going to
take place here I cannot give a comment and I agree with that statement he did add though that when
when uh talking about Edward Hill House and talking about Edward's family he says that he he prays for them uh every
day he said that they have lost a son and that he is probably going to lose one too and he prays for them both yeah
and I think like I said I mean what a tough place for a father to be in because look is it wrong for a father to
go look I understand that my son isn't doing much for society and and maybe he's a little bit of Lost Cause but to
then go to the category of murder and You're a murderer your son's a murderer he's going to take an innocent
person's life is it wrong that he was snooping around and asking questions because maybe he
just wanted to know like he needed to know for his soul well and I'm I'm very curious about the actual relationship
between Vernon and his two sons right and I bring this up because you know I've I've snooped around on his website
uh and looked at all the pictures he had there and read everything that he had he
had wrote and posted on there and he talks a lot about Vernon talks a lot about his parents about his in-laws his
his wife's parents he talks about his grandkids and you see pictures of of these you
know I know that Wyatt said they're all lunatics but the pictures of these people they look like nice people to me
right and the way that Vernon speaks about these people seems like there's a real relationship
there between Vernon and the people that he talked about on his website who was missing from that website was the two
sons right it's almost like I mean you you read this website and you see these pictures and you wonder where these
grandkids came from because there's no mention of of Sons of sons at all and and maybe you know Christmas miracle
yeah we baby's on the doorstep but uh we you know and then we talk about why it makes reference to his sisters there's
no mention of the sisters either so maybe maybe that's just something he didn't include on his website or maybe
there's no relationship there now well and look you could be a very good cop and be a bad father you could yeah that
happens all the time you know you know you know it's like teachers you know my sister's a teacher and you know she
always says you know the thing that she feels bad about is she gives so much attention and love to these 30 some kids
every day and then when she gets home sometimes she's just exhausted and so she feels like sometimes she's a little
neglectful to her children you know so you see this all the time you know where maybe he's like and also cops
especially in these small towns might be working way too many hours I'm way too too much overtime and they're just not
there and then they feel some inner guilt or some responsibility that maybe if they spend a little more time that
maybe if they played a little more catch right maybe if they check the homework a
little more that they're their kid isn't going to grow up and glue people to doors
well the and shoot people the other thing though too is if and I don't know if he's a good cop or a bad cop I really
have no proof of this either way but let's say if Vernon if Vernon zelch is a good cop
well then he might want to distance himself from his law breaking Sons right you know this this could be very
embarrassing on several levels it's heartbreaking as a father but as a police officer it's embarrassing yeah
and you know okay so here's one thing that I do want to mention and and I heard this put better years ago than
what I'll probably put it now but I know a police officer very good uh cop who's
had a great career in law enforcement and he has um a son that has broken the law several
times and has been rather embarrassing let's say to his father and this man I've seen him on more than
one occasion you can tell that there's inner turmoil there for him that he questions himself as a father and as a
man for having a son that breaks the law when he is in fact somebody working in law enforcement right and somebody else
told this man you know even the best mechanic in town his car breaks down on the highway
sometimes yeah good analogy I like that and I that I think means something that should mean something I know that to
this man it made him feel better about his situation that could just be the situation that we have here with Vernon
zelch now before we move on from the zelch family too much we did talk about Deacon's ex-wife Amanda I want to make
sure that I include this before we move on from her when she spoke to reporters not only did
she say that she believed Deacon is capable of murder and passed along those threats that he had made to her and some
of her friends she also passed this along saying that Deacon had sent her a letter in
September of 2016 so one year before they found the body of Edward Hill House and in this letter Deacon had wrote
cryptically of what lies below the fields of my favorite back roads and of people feeding his Gardens
so once again we see these these weird tellings where he's almost telling people that he's killed and buried yeah
somebody did this with uh Edward's sister Kayla as well it's just weird cryptic again though I mean this guy
thought he was some god-like character you know so it's just he's it's a real piece of work now when
I did get the chance to speak with Kayla and we were talking about the Vernon's relationship with her with his sons
Kayla had an opinion on this and her opinion was that Deacon was the quote-unquote favorite son
that that Vernon had protected him that he was kind of always a bad guy he was always kind of involved in wrong things
and it is of her belief that that he that Vernon has kept Deacon out of trouble and when I asked her regarding
well what about Wyatt you know he's he's known to have gone to prison for drugs and for theft and she said that the
relationship was not the same with Vernon and Wyatt that uh if if Wyatt got in trouble why it had to to take the
punishment with for whatever he did now we said Kayla had done everything in her power to help find her brother to
help the investigation as she has publicly stated that in her opinion the facts are this
is as simple as this a deputy's son killed her brother and she feels like it was a cover-up she told reporters she
wants anyone who may have withheld Justice to be held accountable and she is grateful to the Franklin County uh
for that squad for that unit for getting involved and finally solving potentially
solving this case now some officers including the former bourbon police chief argued that they
did make some attempts to find her brother that they did make attempts to find Edward giving the example of the
cadaver dogs that were used to search the property the thing here though Captain is it's
very unclear to what may have motivated this murder to me it looks like we have a guy that's extremely guilty Deacon
zilch we we have a witness putting the body in his residence and then it's later located on his property I see no
question of guilt here in my mind the question I have is what the heck is the motive
yes so the the hearsay in this story is this is kind of what happened okay like I said this is hearsay they're going to
try to prove some of this in court taking us through from when um at the beginning when Edward went
missing yeah so Edward was going to meet somebody it's not clear if it's going to
be two individuals or one but he did meet up with two individuals they drove around for a while it's not clear of
what they were doing obviously friends with Edward he gets a call the call makes him upset
for whatever reason they end up going to a convenience store or gas station where he is then picked up by Deacon
they go back to Deacon's house the four of them are just the two of them or do we know
just Deacon and Edwards Okay so so Edward is there and like we said now what we do know from or what we can
assume that happened was that at some point he either fell asleep or he was on the couch that's where he was shot with
the 22. but now for motives the again this is hearsay but what he has told law enforcement the rumors are that he has
changed his story three times the first one being that maybe there was an argument or
something happened but he just snapped now I'd argue if there's that much pot on the property right what other drugs
are you doing is it is that a possibility or what other other drugs are being sold
right and we have also look there's tons of evidence and everybody and especially
at Middle America small towns you know I was from Richmond forty thousand people
and what you're talking about probably weekly heroin deaths yeah so is that something
that was happening there and he said he just snapped did he snap out of anger or
did he snap because he was on some kind of drug the second reason he gave was that Edward Hillhouse worked for the
mafia again this seems far-fetched zero right evidence that we know of makes no sense uh was he was Deacon
trying to come up with some kind of excuse who knows and then the third was that for whatever reason
Edward was going to hurt Deacon's brother Wyatt who was going to be getting out of prison for those drug
charges soon right and this again this doesn't go with the a lot a lot of witnesses and a lot of people that knew
Edward going hey this is not what kind of person he was you know he was a friendly person he'd
help anybody out so again but I like I said I don't know what drugs Deacon was on or wasn't on but if he was
on a bunch of drugs he might have been making up a bunch of stories in his head and it seemed like even if he wasn't on
drugs with everybody he built up stories in his head well and here's what I can see this is what I see Captain when I
see when I talk about Edward Hillhouse I see a guy a young man that looks to me like he was trying to move on with his
life he was trying to move forward it looked like he was you know he was moving in with a friend or taking up a
new residence elsewhere yeah I wonder if he was in part moving away from certain
people and that wouldn't be his sister that wouldn't be his future brother-in-law or their children this
would have been people like Deacon zelch he would have been moving away from these bad personalities somebody in in
bettering his life in the process from not being friends with people like that anymore now as far as motive goes why
would Deacon zilch kill Edward Hillhouse right I'll tell you the same thing I told Caleb when I spoke with her
he may have killed unfortunately it killed her brother for reasons we may not understand right you know it was it
was Kayla's words and it was the words of people in town that said Deacon zelch was known for saying crazy things and
doing crazy things I don't think he's crazy in the sense that the law would consider him to be
crazy I see what I would say is garage crazy that he's a you know he's somebody that doesn't make sense he does things
that are irrational but the thing that makes him so dangerous he's a violent individual yeah he's a you he's an evil
SOB yeah and he and he doesn't obviously care about anybody but himself and you know I know Kayla
she didn't want to hear me say that so much because I know her concerns her concerns are that that Deacon is
terrified of going to prison and because he is rumored to around town to be this
crazy guy that maybe he's going to claim some kind of I'm saying Insanity defense
and the thing here is though the problem with that is he's only crazy if he didn't know what he did was wrong and
proof that he knew what he did was wrong was he tried to cover it up afterwards well not only did he try to you know
well he did cover it up yeah I mean he he buried Edward and then he he buried the couch too yeah so you know I I think
trying to prove that he's insane in court it's going to be impossible and if anybody buys that well they're just as
you know they're just as evil and shitty as he is well and what's crazy about this Captain is this will actually
be um they're going to have this is going to trial and it's going to trial very soon it's going to trial this Wednesday
well it's today yeah yeah let's go well and is that weird we just randomly decided to cover this case and
he's going to trial today well in yeah he's going to trial later today and the thing is
I here's what I think is going to happen in this case I think that eventually Deacon is
probably going to plead guilty to this I mean the the evidence has got to be overwhelming uh in his guilt I don't
know if it will happen today you know he'll probably push for continuance to try to maybe form some kind of case
build some kind of case yeah I don't think there's any defense out there for this guy he's probably going to try to
plea plead guilty to this thing to get a shorter sentence is what I think is going to take place but the thing here
is is that it's because of Kayla it's because of the new detectives because of the new sheriff because of the new
police chief and Kayla's family the Hill House family that's why this case got solved yeah and
if it had not been for the efforts of Hill of Edward's family I wonder if this would have ever been
would have ever been solved and and then think about how dangerous a person like
Deacon zelch is to be out running around you know it see it doesn't seem so bad when we mention Bourbon Missouri a place
that most of us have never heard of but think about a person as dangerous as Deacon zelch living in your neighborhood
yeah why like I told her I mean I talked to her first and then you end up talking to her
and what I told her I said the key thing that I'd like to reiterate if you didn't get it
is that you have a sibling that went missing and how many missing person cases have we covered and because of his
sister not stopping that she was able to get answers and we're talking about years later and and
one one of the cops told her after a Time passed well you know cold cases normally don't get soft
and it was because of her effort and you know what if you have a missing person in your family and you have been trying
and you've been knocking on doors and you've been Gathering evidence this is proof that just you need to keep going
because you might be able to solve this case [Music] thank you [Music] all right Colonel do we have any
recommended reading uh yes we do on August 15 2006 someone or some ones broke into the home of Candace hiltz she
was murdered she was shot six times with three different guns so of course the possibility of maybe even three people
having committed this horrible horrible crime now we covered this case back in September of last year we covered it on
September 12th and 13th of last year right well Candace hilt's birthday would have been last year just before
Christmas and around that time I was able to speak with Candace's sister-in-law this is Heather hiltz
she was able to answer some of the questions that we posed during our coverage of this now Cold Case some of
you may remember there is a retired lieutenant Robert Dodd of the local sheriff's department that was not only
involved in the murder investigation but has also been suspected by some as maybe
having been involved in Candace's murder something you and I certainly took a look at and I know you and I have some
suspicions of our own when it comes to this case now having spoke to to Heather it is very obvious and rightfully so
that the hilt's family have they've not received any justice and they are still very heartbroken and quite angered by
the lack of effort that is the investigation into their daughter and sister's murder I promised the hilt's
family that the captain and everyone in the garage would do their best to keep Candace's case and memory alive on our
minds and on our hearts so if you have not yet well then please check out our two episodes on Candace hilt's case a
case I believe could still be solved and that is episodes 140 and 141 released September 12th and 13th of last year if
you have listened to them already go to our blog I have added some updates and some information that we received from
Heather Hills and you can do that by going to True Crime garage.com the blog comes up on
the main page there Candace hilt's case and the blog with comments is on the bottom of the second page just click on
there to see my post and of course we want to wish the hilt's family good luck in 2018 with the case and may you get
the justice that you deserve for everything true crime go to True Crime garage.com and thanks for listening
thanks for telling a friend thanks for sharing on social media thanks for spreading the word about the garage
onward and upward to the top of the pops this year in 2018. all right and until next time everybody be good be
kind and don't litter [Music] [Applause] foreign

We're All Lunatics /// Part 2 /// 172

Part 2 of 2

www.TrueCrimeGarage.com

On April 26th, 2016 a 28 year old man went missing from the small town of Bourbon, Missouri. Edward Hillhouse was last seen leaving his sister's home. He was going to get some of his belongings he had stored at her home and take them to his new place. He never did. Edward was seen walking down the driveway toward the highway. He never returned to his sister's home. Tonight we discuss the case of a missing man in a small town that turned into a small town murder.

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Brief Summary

Edward Hillhouse went missing in 2016; Deacon Zelch allegedly killed him, leading to a complex investigation and eventual arrest.

Key points

The Disappearance of Edward Hillhouse. Edward Hillhouse went missing in April 2016, leading to a complex investigation.
New Investigation Uncovers Shocking Details. A new task force discovers crucial evidence linking Deacon to Edward's murder.
Arrest of Deacon Zelch. Deacon Zelch was arrested in September 2017 for the murder of Edward Hillhouse.
The Lunatic Family. Wyatt describes his family as all being lunatics, reflecting on their dark nature.
Amanda's Alarming Claims. Amanda reveals Deacon's threatening behavior and her belief in his capability for murder.
Cryptic Messages. Deacon's letter hints at buried secrets, raising suspicion about his involvement in a crime.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

Why is he still out there?

Frustration over Deacon's lack of arrest despite evidence.

4:35WatchNov 27, 2022

Tension

75/ 100High tension

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