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

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uh nothing but up for next year all right that's suppressing everybody gather around grab a chair grab a bunch
of beers let's talk some true [Music] crime [Music] uh shortly after my brother Edward came
missing I kind of cluded in the police chief of Crawford County that there was somebody going around saying that we'll
never find 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 Deacon's place got graded for a tip or something and they found multiple pot
plants uh 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 um
some people live Fuller as ghosts along with some other things but he had said I
gave that to detectives and I gave that to the um police chief uh September we finally got Edward's records and Deacon
was the last vo call in December 2016 I begged the sheriff to look into to Deacon and I
told him 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 West Deacon W 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 um 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 within I don't know a couple days
of be 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 he day or they didn't have enough to bring him in for a
[Music] requesting 28-year-old Edward 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 multicounty 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 27th 2016
that he had went to the house and he had seen the body of Edward Hill housee 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 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 often times 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 you 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 no body on the couch first of all if you're hanging out somewhere and there's a body on the
couch dead mhm 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 but I think that's what's implied from
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 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 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 Ex-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 believe 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 back ho on zel'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 back to bury Edward Hillhouse along with the remains of the
couch right and other evidence in the crime I don't know what other evidence uh refers to well yeah because you got
to think that law enforcement is going to be looking for this gun cuz 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 probable cause statement well this is they're going to use this new information the the new task force that
is 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 time they're not just there looking for marijuana plants with some volunteer
kadaver dog 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 backhoe 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 for law enforcement yes and so now investigators searched 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 Hill Hill
House who was 28 years of age when he went missing a medical examiner ruled that hillh housee was killed by a single
gunshot wound to the head by a small caliber weapon yeah so what do we learn from this that that the informan is
telling the truth yeah 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 Hill House's body the person of interest in the death of
Hill House well this is obviously Deacon zelch and who is he he's 40 years of age
from Bourbon Missouri well 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 deacons land for a little bit like 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 1 uh
where they find nii man or whatever they call him MH um similar to that and cuz he was living off the land cuz Deacon
was this you know he was this mythical in his head he was a mythical Godlike creature and he was living off the land
and he was you know 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 aerial photos or aerial images of the property itself and it
looks to me to be like a ranch like a you typical rectangle um shaped ranch right um the news referred to it as a
rundown dwelling it didn't look overly rundown to me from the outside but it it probably did so on the inside would be
my guess and but your standards are a little low 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 two what they refer to as two out buildings 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 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 arrested on the warrant for the
alleged murder yeah it sounds like he was taken in without incident they didn't list any any type of altercation
with him uh but Deacon zel'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 uh fleeing Town yeah I I tend to agree with you when 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 win or he blew wi 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 somebody yeah 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 extr extradited to Missouri and
Deacon zel was charged in Crawford County for the marijuana plants finally charged for that I mean you're talking
about a that thing was 13 months old and then charged for the murder of Edward Hillhouse as well MH 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 $1,145 th000 cashon 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 hit you know a lot of people go well what 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 them 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 uh Deacon's father
was snooping around and looking into EV 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 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 or another so now Vernon zelch has a website out there um and I believe it might be Vernon z.com I
don't know but yeah I thought it was uh I have ugly kids with weird beards.com but according to Vernon's website he is
a police officer that works to pay for his farming hobby um he now keep in mind this website was
last updated in 2012 uhhuh um but it states that he served as the assistant chief of the
department for 25 years so we're talking about if his website is correct we're not talking about just some lowlevel cop
you know we're talking about somebody that's that's higher up in the r me that 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 beffo what I didn't misspeak there he raises be okay I I have a farm okay you
know what I raise what's that slim gems there you go okay well be is like half cattle half bison okay sounds delicious
I raise a thing called a 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 solivan Independent News so this is a person that is well known around town uh not
only has influence because of his career 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 Dukes of Hazard just the good old boys these were just pieces of [ __ ]
well the always causing some harm the the crazy thing here is that shortly after this case broke after they
recovered the body of Edward and made the arrest on zek and zel Deacon zelch mhm sorry about say that pretty zek and
zelch 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 side 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 Deacons 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 doct and jaal 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 the whole 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 and 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 up to cover up this murder
investigation and Wyatt said while he has no doubt that Deacon killed Edward he's not certain about any type of cover
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touchdown from every game on Sunday afternoons with NFL Red Zone from NFL Network included in sports pack on
Direct TV so you'll never miss a big moment hey we kind of shared a big moment learning about all this great
football on Direct TV didn't we I know I'll never forget it stop compromising get Direct TV with or without a
satellite when you visit [Music] directv.com [Music] all right we're back cheers me matey
cheers to you captain from the other side of the garage other side of the Mansion the
Mansion yeah uh New Year hopefully new Nick that's my resolution that's funny all right so we need to look into we
need to explore did Vernon zelch interfere with 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 zel'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 deacons sometimes threatened her yeah 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 dink uh Deacon dickan whatever you want to call
him super glued one of his sons and his wife to ad door I don't have any knowledge of that
that was a rumor that I heard that he had super glued the son and his ex-wife to
adore yeah I mean 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 superglue somebody to the door you're
saying this is like he was malicious he was punishing somebody for something who
knows yeah right and he superglues these people to adore 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 Vernard 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 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 saterfield 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 detectives 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 for 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 Wyatt Wyatt and Wyatt's
going the whole family's crazy we're bunch of 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 got to play both
sides of the coin and 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 it's 22 and what if
he took that gun and he turned it over to law enforcement yeah then we wouldn't be badmouth and that's all I'm saying I
no and I'm glad you brought that up because okay so there there's only a few um 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 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 Affairs in
there Affairs in there right away and investigate this guy cuz 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 uh 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 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 murdered is 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 back ho 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 that gun was I agree with I agree with what you're saying and
we will never know the answer to that because that's not what happened 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 he potential yes he had
information that everyone else didn't have that he had in 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 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 Vernon zelch has has denied interfering with this investigation in any way possible right 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 son just because his one nutcase son said hey we're all crazy and it's Jackal and hide
and my dad has it too well maybe the Jackal and Hyde that he's talking about is when Jackal and Hyde what did I say
Jackal great band I like that band um the point is is that maybe this Jackal and hide right yeah side of his father
that he's talking about is every time that his sons get in trouble he gives him a little tough love he's he's in
their face he's being aggressive or whatever mhm 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
caver dog you don't find anything but what you do find is you find guns and you find marijuana plants MH 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 well but
this is a very tough case for us cuz 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 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 MH you know and it
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 had 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
Hillhouse 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 cuz maybe he just wanted to know like he need 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 I 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 there a Christmas miracle
yeah we baby's on the doorstep but uh we you know and then we talk about whyatt 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 MH 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 and 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 little more catch right maybe if they check the homework a little more
that their 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 uh police officer very good uh cop who's had a great career in law enforcement MH 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 I want to make sure that I include this before we move
on from her when she spoke 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 Hillhouse 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 some yeah he did this with Edward's sister Kayla as well was just weird cryptic
again though I mean this guy thought he was some Godlike character mhm 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 ship
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 if if Wyatt got in trouble Wyatt 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 this is a simple as this a deputy son killed her brother and she feels like it was a coverup 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 cab 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 yeah so the the hearsay in this story is this is kind of what happened like I
said this is here say 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 um 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 no 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 uh 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 that 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 Middle America small towns you know I was from Richmond
40,000 people and 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 snapped because he was on some kind of
drug the second reason he gave was that Edward Hillhouse worked for the mafia again this seems farfetch 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 this is not what kind of person he was
you know he was a friendly person he' help anybody out so again but 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 was 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 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 Hill House right I'll tell you the same thing I told Kayla when I spoke with her he
may have killed unfortunately killed her brother for 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 e he's an evil so 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 insanity 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 I mean he he buried Edward and then he you buried the
couch too yeah so you know I I think trying to prove that he's insane in court is 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 it's go well and is
that weird we just randomly decided to cover this case and he's going to trial today well and yeah he's going to trial
later today and the thing is I here's what I think's going to happen in this case I think that eventually Deacon is
probably going to plead guilty to this I mean the 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 a 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's 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 housee 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 right but think about a person as dangerous as Deacon zelch living in your
neighborhood yeah well 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 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 solved 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 cuz you might be able to solve this
[Music] case all right Colonel do we have any recommended uh yes we do on August 15th 2006 someone
or someone's broke into the home of Candace hilts she was murdered she was s 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 hilts 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 hilts 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 promise the hilts 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 hilts 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 in
some information that we received from Heather hiltz and you can do that by going to True Crim garage.com the blog
comes up on the main page there uh Candace hilts 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 hilts family good luck in 2018 with the case
and may you get the justice that you deserve for everything true crime go to True Crim garage.com and there 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 [Music] litter [Applause] hey I'm Travis Kelce and I'm here to tell you that you can get every
touchdown from every game on Sunday afternoons with NFL Red Zone from NFL Network included in sports pack on
Direct TV so you'll never miss a big moment hey we kind just shared a big moment learning about all this great
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satellite when you visit directv.com

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

Part 2 of 2

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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 was later arrested for his murder after new evidence emerged.

Key points

The Search for Edward Hillhouse. Edward Hillhouse went missing in April 2016, leading to a complicated investigation.
Deacon Zelch's Arrest. Deacon Zelch was arrested in September 2017 for the murder of Edward Hillhouse.
The Zelch Family Dynamics. Wyatt Zelch describes his family as 'lunatics', raising questions about their motives.
Deacon's Threats. Amanda Zelch reveals Deacon's violent threats, hinting at his potential for murder.
Vernon's Involvement?. Questions arise about whether Vernon Zelch interfered with the investigation.
Deacon's Cryptic Letter. Deacon sent a letter cryptically hinting at buried secrets before the body was found.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

Some people live fuller as ghosts.

Deacon's email response about Edward's whereabouts.

5:08WatchNov 16, 2023

Tension

75/ 100High tension

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