Black Candle Murder Party - West Liberty, Iowa - Part 2

Hello, everybody, and welcome back to Small Town Murder Express. Yeah, cho-choo! Yeah, indeed, Jimmy, yeah, indeed. My name is James Petrogallo, I'm here with my co-host. I'm Jimmy Wiseman. Thank you so much for joining us today on another crazy, wonderful adventure known as Small Town Murder Express. We're going to do part two today of last week's West Liberty Iowa episode. And by the way, this was not intended. We did not intend to do a two-parter. Express is an hour for a reason, and we didn't expect it, but I got to say, out of hundreds of times, this is the first time we've done that, so I'm trying my best here. I was like, maybe. It's a shit. It's a reason this thing. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So just to let people know that's not something that's going to be a thing all the time. Consistent thing? No. From now on, we're doing a lot of two-parters here. It's not going to be it. So, just so you know there, anyway, definitely head over to shut up and give me murder.com. Oh, my goodness. 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Now the murder, just to catch you up quickly, because there was a lot of players and a lot of characters here. So we'll do like in the when an 80s sitcom had a two-parter and they had like a minute long recap at the beginning with some highlights. I've been watching the office lately, James. It is crazy how many two-part episodes they did and there was a week in between where you would forget everything. So please catch me up. That's what I mean. You never know. So we were talking about the murder of Corey Lee Wenneke or Wenneke who was 22 years old when he was killed in 1992. He was brutally beaten in his own bed, blunt force trauma, didn't look like he ever woke up, just beaten severely. I mean, horribly, horribly beaten to death. And the problem is, is there's a lot of suspects because he has like four girlfriends and a fiance and he's a bartender who sort of sells a little drugs and does a little drugs and has a little gambling operation going on in there. So there's like five different, you know, there's women, there's drug people, jealous husbands, there's, you know, I think there's so many different people, gambling people, somebody that might have not wanted to pay a debt and they thought it'd be easier to just kill the guy, who knows what it is or he owes them, whatever it is. The main people are Jody Hots who was one of the people that he was, no, no, that's a different one here. Jody Hots was a 22 year old, the two that they lived together. That's his live in fiance, girlfriend, okay. Then there's the ongoing other sexual relationships as a police officer put it, ongoing sexual relationships with at least three women, but we know of like five actually, Hots, Wendy Marshall and, and that K Hill who we talked about, and Wendy Marshall was the woman he got pregnant, I find that mistake, and yeah, she was pregnant. Jody, his live in girlfriend, knew about all these women, which makes her more of a suspect at that point. Maybe she couldn't take it anymore. Maybe she snapped and got tired of this bullshit, but she's got a pretty good, alibi. Yeah. Or that maybe a lemonade, so there's a suspect because maybe she's just cool. You never know. She's got a pretty good alibi because she was at work all day and they think he was killed long after the time she got to work, so that is a problem there. Then there's Wendy Marshall, the one who gave birth to Cory's daughter, there. He didn't really have much to do with the baby, but she, Wendy told everybody she loved him and wanted a future with him, and so she definitely didn't kill him. Then of course there's the Missy Morrison who's married to the farmer named Bob, who later on three years after the murder, murdered her and then off himself, Bob, so, yeah, which I mean, she was going to have fucking bar tenders and stuff, and I think Bob just snapped and couldn't take it anymore. So I'm sure. Maybe she shouldn't have been together anymore. No, that's what I'm saying. I don't make an excuse, but I mean, I think the dude probably wasn't there to begin with all that well, and then this was a messy relationship. But then there's also Annette K. Hill, who is another one that wants him to run away with her to Branson to buy a car. Now, on the night before this all happened, he got off of work. Wendy was with him. They end up going, Annette wouldn't leave his car. Him and Annette got in a huge fight. He dumped Wendy off and then went back had a hangry, angry sex as she put it, angry sex with Annette then went to Wendy's, talked to her for a while and finally went home and fell asleep seven o'clock in the morning. His girlfriend got up, went to work. And allegedly and that was that. So that's where we ended up and of course the baseball bat found on the road and Annette went right to the, which they believe is the murder weapon and Annette went right to the police when she heard about all this because she knows that she was at the house that morning and she also knows a farmer drove by and could probably identify her and he did, as a matter of fact, as being at the house that morning. He was there with her sister in law to, to give him a note or to say goodbye or whatever the hell her excuse was. So that's where we are right now. Okay. He was going to run away with Wendy Marshall. He's going to run away with, because there's the other quiet him and Wendy were going to run away. So he had two plans to run away with people, neither of which were his fiance who he lived with. Like it's just a lot going on here with this whole thing. You got that much action happening in one town. You can't run away from that. Yeah. You got to stick around. You're going to rebuild that life in Branson. Yeah. It's like the burbs. You're like Cory Feldman in the burbs. Yeah. Man, I love this neighborhood. Man. This is fucking great. I love this street. I love this street. So the baseball bat that they found had no usable fingerprints and at the time the only way they, the only thing they could determine was the blood type on the bat, which matched Cory's blood type and Jody said that neither Sheenore nor Cory owned a bat of any kind and the bat was pretty new. So anyway, so we're looking between, is it drugs? Is it an angry husband? Is it one of his girlfriends? Is it we don't know what the hell's going on here? So they said he was a strong young man and for that type of crime to have been committed, it think a lot of had a lot of people scratching their heads asking for one, who could have done this and two, how could they have pulled it off because it did not appear that Cory had fought back? Well, we knew that a long night of, we've heard about his night. angry sad. That just came a little bit ago. Yeah. Okay. He's he's talked to three of his girlfriends tonight, too. That has to be I don't know what that's like, but it has to be exhausting. It's taxing. So he's sleeping. So yeah, we had the Jody said she was not or Jody is not a suspect due to her alibi Bob Morrison is dead. So, you know, and also Bob Morrison miss his husband who killed her and killed himself. He took the day off the day after the day of the day of. Yeah. So that's something also that or the day of the murder. So, and a net has passed a polygraph examination as well as we know about that happened at the end. The case has gone cold, very, very cold in 1995. They had an investigator meeting and they came up with a guy named Jeff Murdock who named a guy named Scott Payne who knew something about the whole thing. By 2009, that's when they set up the cold case unit then they lost their funding. Okay. And here we are in 2011 after that where there's no funding the cold case unit is closed in this case is all but over. It's almost 20 years old. It's 20 years old. 10 years old. 20. 92. It's almost 22. Yeah, it's 20 years old almost 19 years old. And they have no more funding to run the cold cases. So basically that's that. Whatever. Unless some cop wants to work on this on his days off. It's really nothing's going to come of this. So they pretty much just let it die years more go by from December 2011 all the way to December 2017 goes by. Okay. So this case is closed and over pretty much. It's yeah, unsolved poor core, nothing you can do. Nope. Then December of 2017 at the University of Iowa hospitals and clinics in Iowa City. Yeah. Okay. There's a special agent named Trent Valetta of the Iowa Division of Criminal Investigation. He's at the hospital to interview a stabbing victim of a case that just happened. Somebody got stabbed and he goes to who stabbed you basically. That's it. He's been playing clothes. He's standing on a floor where, you know, there's no obvious reason for him to be there. Just he's not visiting anybody. He's not, you know, he's not a doctor. So he's just standing there. And the charge nurse for that intensive care unit was a 34 year old woman named Jessica Becker. And Jessica Becker sees an unidentified dude standing in the hallway and says what the fuck are you doing here essentially? Yeah. So Valetta, the Valetta, the cop says she came and kind of aggressively asked me when I was doing there and basically told him me I told me I needed to leave, which is reasonable. Yeah. Yeah. You shouldn't be here. So he then identified himself as an investigator as a police officer and he explained I'm here to interview the guy in this room who's been stabbed. So then Jessica Becker changes the subject on him. Complete goes from you need to get out of here to let me ask you a question. Yeah. Quick, she says, do you know anybody who works cold cases like old murders? Yeah. And he said, and I'm like, well, actually, I'm probably one of the two in the state that actually does them. There is nobody working these fucking murders. By the way, I do. Me. Yeah. He was me like me. Two people working all the cold cases for a state is crazy, by the way. There's no way they can solve that shit. There's a lot of murders, though. That's the problem. It's not like there's no murders. There's no, why only me? Because there's no people. But there's people in Iowa. So she said, and I said, well, or she said, well, why is that? And she said, well, because I know who killed someone back in musketeen county a few years ago. That's what Jessica Becker said. Well, you know. Now, how would she know anything about this, this 34 year old charge nurse who was a child when this all went down? She would have been fucking. All right. She'd been seven nine bear with me here. Okay. All right. Lester McGowan, remember him, the roofing guy who took a netk hill on the day of the murders took him to work with him for a minute. I want to do a shit ass job, pulling shingles. She fucking did a half ass job of yanking shingles off a roof. And then left. Yeah. Well, Lester McGowan had picked a net up at around seven or seven thirty that morning of the murder drove her to the roofing job site in West Liberty, where she did the shingle tearing for a minute. And then her sister in law came picked her up. And that's when they ended up at Cory's house. Yeah. And the farmer passed them. Okay. Just to get the timeline down. Now Lester McGowan was married to a woman named Cynthia. Okay. His affair with the netk hill contributed to the downfall of that marriage, because the net was having affairs with everybody. Cynthia's daughter, so Lester's stepdaughter from that marriage was a nine year old named Jessica, Jessica Becker, who will be the charge nurse later on. So this girl said that this is what she saw. She said she was 1992 or in 1992. She's nine years old. Her mother was Cynthia and her stepfather was Lester. And you know, basically by that fall, they had been divorced and everything because of a net. Okay. So her family kind of got ripped apart by a net. Jessica was best friends with a girl named Kayla Hazen. Okay. Kayla was Denny and and Jacque or Jacque or Jacque or whatever her sister in law. That was her their daughter, Kayla. So that would be a net's niece, I suppose. So a net's niece as Kayla is over at Jessica's house, all right, or whatever. Jessica then that's they hung out. Now Jessica on this night slept over at the Hazen family farmhouse, which is where a net was staying with the brother and the and Jacque there. Okay. Jacque. Okay. Now she liked a net, but they all liked a net, by the way, because a net's fun. Yeah. She's a fucking party is what she is. Yeah. This is Jessica said she would take us to get movies, scary movies, pizza, the fun lady. She was the fun, the favorite aunt and we spent quite a lot of time with her too. She was the cool and I had an aunt like that. Yeah. That kind of thing. You know, you're 14, she lever cigarettes out, you know what I mean, and look the other direction that kind of. So she described Corey also as a big brother type who lived down the street. By 2007, Jessica Bakers and I see you charge nurse at the University of Iowa hospitals and clinics, obviously. She was an officer in the Army Reserve. She has a master's degree, a family. She's established. She's really doing it. Yeah. So this is what she has to say. She said that I know that a net killed Corey. She knows is what she said. Yeah. Now remember that's taken a polygraph. So essentially she's kind of been not taking off the suspect list at this point. Okay. So that's what she said. I know that a net killed Corey. Now Valetta, the cop says it's a one in a million chance that he goes to this hospital, meaning him meets this person and tells him about a case that's more than 25 years old at that point in time. And then I confirmed that the crime took place and that all the details essentially match. He didn't even know this was a crime that took place. He was like a great job at the cold case. Who? Yeah. Barely not. But I mean, it's been, that's, I mean, there's just how many cold cases you think there are. He hasn't gotten here yet. Yeah. Look up unsolved Iowa murders. There's hundreds of them. I mean, hasn't. And his last name starts with W. He hasn't gotten that far. He hasn't gotten. That's right. Now Becker said this. She said for some reason I just felt comfortable with him and that I could share that knowledge and share that burden. And at least if nothing else to get it off my chest to share it with somebody that had the potential to do something with it. Okay. So she's not just telling the janitor because with the fuck does he care. So here is what she said. She saw she saw here. Okay. Oh, she saw something. This is what she said she saw at the farmhouse sleeping over with her friend here. All right. Sometime after Cory died fall of 92. So sometime in about a month after Cory died, she couldn't give an exact date or an exact month, but she said it was definitely cooler outside and was the same year. All right. She was at a sleepover at the Hayes and family farmhouse with Kayla. They were upstairs late at night, staying up late like kids do at a sleepover. And they decided to sneak down stairs. She doesn't remember why a snack who the fuck knows kids to be awake. Kids like. Yeah. It feels fun. It feels like you just to sneak down the steps and the adults are doing. It's fun. So she said I'm not exactly sure we were up to, but something that we weren't supposed to be doing being kids. So they got to the bottom of the stairs or the last step of the stairs. She didn't know which. She doesn't know if it was the floor or the last step, which is really irrelevant. Anyway. So this is what it goes. This is from later on. They say and you said that you heard a net. She said yes. And what did you hear? She said, quote, well, we heard a net crying and sobbing in the dining area, which is fine. Cory just died. That seems reasonable. And we heard her make several statements, including Cory. I never meant to hurt you. Cory. I'm so sorry. I never met. To kill you, Cory, and Cory, I love you. These are the things that she said, okay. So, and she said she was sobbing. And they said, was there anything else unusual in that front room that she was in? And she said, yes, there was multiple candles. She was also lighting candles, black candles to be specific. What? She had like a whole candle set up of black candles while sobbing and saying, I'm sorry, I killed you, Cory. Which is a really deep fucking weird set up. I mean, that's how she gets horny. I'm not sure, but it's weird. Yeah, maybe she masturbates to the memory of him with a black hand, but so none of that on it's face, none of that necessarily screams guilty. It just screams, well, like a weirdo. I'm sorry, I never meant to kill you, Cory, is pretty, I've never said that. No, but you know what I mean? Yeah, I'm just saying you could interpret somebody's death as your fault and say that, you know. True, well, I could see I never meant to hurt you emotionally. I'm so sorry. Well, you know, I get it. I never meant to kill you is really, that's a, you got a, that's weird. But it's still not proof of anything. It might seem weird. We don't know if she had half a bottle of whiskey and she's just spouting off at the mouth and thinks she had, you know, maybe somebody that she had something to do with she thinks did it or something. Who knows? She's doing black candles. It could be some sort of say aunts that she's just saying random shit. Maybe that's how you get Cory to come back from the grave and talk to her. To what I'm told. Well, you don't know, that's who the fuck knows. I read it on the internet, so I'm doing it. Yeah, in 1992. I read it on the internet. She saw, now Jessica saw a net from behind. Never saw her face, but she knows what she looks like. Her hair, her voice. And she's the only other person in the house. It's not like somebody broke in and had a say aunts. You know what I mean? She could see her pacing. She could see that she was tearful. She saw her wipe in her eyes and things like that as she was crying and sobbing and saying that. The two girls, a, the last thing you want to see when you're nine is some freaked out adult crying. That's the worst thing you could say because it's just weird. Yeah. I'm going back upstairs. It means this, yeah. We're not safe with this person. Or yes, so what is something bad happening that I don't know about? That they're not. You have no idea what's happening when you're nine and you just look for cues. And if you look to adults for cues and if they're crying, that's a cue that you should maybe be worried. Oh, great. We're all going to die now. Yeah, Jesus, the house on fire. I don't smell smoke. Okay, good. So the two girls went back upstairs so they wouldn't get caught me in downstairs. All right. Now what happened next in 1992 was Jessica tried to talk to Kayla about it, but Kayla didn't want to talk to her about it. No. She didn't talk about it. The Jessica said she became defensive and had explained that her aunt was in love with Corey and was very upset about his death and she didn't want to talk about it anymore. So she's like, well, that's not making me feel any better. I don't know. I'd like to know your aunt didn't kill this guy, but so Jessica then went home and told her mother. All right. So she said, I was here and this is what I saw. Yeah. And they said, what did your mother tell you when you told her this? And she said, quote, sometimes people light black candles and it means they can speak to, you know, spirits or bring out evil spirits. Yeah. Or that's the color candle she had left in her closet. It, I mean, if it, you know, yeah, plural could be two, but if she's got 12, that's a different story. It's a little weird, but evil spirits and all that, that just sounds very, very just, come on. Give me a fucking drink. Yeah. Yeah. It sounds really stupid. So this woman did not take her daughter to the police to talk about that. She just like, I got this. It's fine, which is very, very odd. And this is what her mother said after that. Oh, I'm sorry. Oh, yeah. Okay. That's exactly it. This is her mother. Quote. I was scared. Ron Hazen was the sheriff at the time. Hazen. To a net. And that was a hazen and also her brother. And I mean, he's a relative who was going to, who was going to believe a nine-year-old child and who was going to listen to her, plus the fact that my ex-husband was still friends with the hazens, this family. And he had threatened me on a separate occasion that if I didn't keep my mouth shut, that he would kill me. So I was scared. Her ex-husband would threaten her. Yeah. Yeah. Because I figured if I told the sheriff that his relative was in on this and how do I know it, my nine-year-old told me they wouldn't believe it anyway and my ex-husband would kill me. So it seemed better to just let it lie. They weren't going to listen and it was going to die, so you know. So this is crazy. So Ron Hazen is a net's uncle and her, it's just so much. And the ex-husband, the ruffer, who had cheated on her with the suspect had threatened to kill her if she talked, cheated on her with a net. That's her ex-husband. So it's a, this is a mess of a, of a small town, just entanglement of shit here. So Jessica in 2001 graduated from high school shortly after that, she was at the West Liberty Police Station over an issue involving somebody's pet. And in a conversation, the Corey Winneke murder came up and she said, I said something about a net and I believed the officer dismissed me and I couldn't even tell you which officer it was. So they, they said, well, did you tell the officer that you'd seen a net say that she killed Corey and she said, well, no, I didn't say that. And they were like, oh, well, that's probably why. So her mother though, in a deposition, said her daughter mentioned the candles. Her mother remembered the candles too. Remember to have in the candle conversation. Now here's the problem. This Valetta guy, this sounds all great and good, but he said you can't just take a confession and charge someone with it, especially a confession you didn't hear. Even when someone makes a confession in an interrogation room, they have to ask a lot of follow-up questions to make sure they're actually, they actually did it. They want details of the crime that no one else would know, things of that nature. Yeah. I'm sorry I killed you, Corey, in a living room 25 years ago that a literal third grader heard. It's a lot. That's a big stretch for evidence. He said you have to corroborate facts within the confession. Obviously, otherwise you get false confession. So he decided, let me run a background check on this Jessica Becker just to make sure she's not a nutcase who like goes to the cops all the time with wild stories. She seemed fine. She's like, okay, she's not a criminal. She doesn't do this all the time. Then he read the whole Corey Wenneke homicide file, which is the last episode and a half and a fucking mess. Great read. If you're looking for a good story or you're like, wow, then he's fucking this one. Oh, wow. Then him to what? How do you get away with that? Yeah. This is fun. So then his team went and interviewed Cynthia Kroge, who confets Jessica's mother, who confirmed her daughter had come home from the sleepover, told her about the black candles and what a net said. And it's the same story 25 years later that from then. So they were like, okay, that's important corroboration the cops thought. This child didn't just hold this in for 25 years. They told her mother, she told her mother and the mother remembers it and remembers exactly what she said. And it's the same thing she's still saying. So that's good. He said, it's also worrying. She said, I'm concerned because memories change over a long period of time. I didn't think that maybe she was being dishonest, but I was concerned that the memories from something that happened to you when you're nine years old and you're now almost 40, which is true. So many things that you remember, how many movies have you seen, not seen in a long time and then seen them and go, I remember this totally differently or just like you, I don't remember this plot point that I don't remember this changes the whole fucking movie. Forgot that person was in it. How did I forget that? Yeah. Yeah, it's, it's the weirdest thing in the world. So they said, okay, let's test this out. He has Jessica draw the area from her vantage point on the steps in the dining room. Show me what you saw, show me how the room is set up down there and all that kind of thing. So she did. Then they went to the house, which was still there and structurally unchanged and photographed it for multiple angles. And they decided, yes, she could have seen what she said she saw and exactly the way she said she saw it. She drew exactly how it was. That's exactly the view she would have had. That all matches up. So memory wise, she's matching up with the views. And then also this is interesting. In spring of 2018, a DCI agent named John Turbitt goes and talks to a net and asks a net to draw a diagram of the Hayes and Farmhouse like it was in '92 to jog her memory here. So she drew it. She draws it. Her diagram shows a fully enclosed staircase with a door at the base coming down the stairs. The door hinges on the right and swings away from the stairs, so the landing at the bottom of the stairs is a tiny space, barely deeper than the door itself when open. It's just a step worth, it's not much. So that means to see into the dining room a person coming down those stairs would have to open the door then close it again behind them. To see because it's swinging out in their face in their view. Otherwise the open door blocks the sight line entirely So you have to open it and then close it again to be able to see it or be basically outside of it in the middle right standing next door essentially So they said the two nine-year-old sneaking down for a stack a snack don't open the door close it behind them Then stand in the open lit room where they can be seen because they're trying to sneak Yes, I'm trying to get snacks so then they realized that there was no door there in 2019 or 17 there's no door the only evidence that there was a door there was a net's drawing no one else says there was a door there Oh, that's the thing so a net drew a door, but no one else saw it said a door Jackie and that sister-in-law who lived there said that there she was never asked about a door, which is interesting the cops never asked her so they said The door if there is a door maybe it was open basically is how they did it so The door is a thing now they did find at the house and evidence of hinges There's a fringe with his hinge marks there, but they don't know when that door was there when that door wasn't there the frame. Yeah, the frame. Okay So that's what they do now the other girl in the stairs Kayla who was standing next to Jessica here They interviewed Kayla and they asked her some questions here. They said did Jesse Becker give you any other names of anyone else who may have been a witness to the event she described and She said she said that Kayla, which was her friend at the time because this is a an agent being Deposed about what they were told she said that Kayla, which was her friend at the time Kayla Hayes and would have seen and heard the same thing she did So they said in the deposition did you follow up on that and he said we did not interview Kayla Which seems like the first thing you would do yeah They said and who made that call like who the fuck decided that was good who said this? We don't need to corroborate this and they said well, he said well, I don't remember specifically who said don't talk to Kayla And they said, well, why didn't you contact Kayla Hayes and He says Jesse makes it very clear that even immediately after a net had made the statement she talked to Kayla and Kayla had said she did not want to talk about it based on Jesse's statement It was thought that Kayla would not be forthcoming or cooperative and speaking with law enforcement. Oh because her grandfather is the Yeah, and also because they think she didn't want to talk about it at the time when she was nine then she won't talk about it now either basically Which isn't it your job to kind of get people to talk about shit? Isn't that the art of interrogation? Yeah, and not even interrogation the art of just this is the whole thing if you're a homicide cop Your number one job is get people to tell you shit period. Yeah, it's hard to sometimes words matter as much as evidence Yeah, and you don't you don't collect evidence. That's the crime scene guys a lab where they do all that shit your job is to get people to tell you things Right, that's how you solve it and then if you get lab shit and great, but you want people to tell you but anyway Kayla When the officials finally did talk to her she said she hadn't heard anything at that time. Oh, wow she heard nothing So now spring of 2018 comes around now so 26 years later Special agent John Turbitt drives to a house and tipped in Iowa and knocks on the door and that's a net's house. Okay Now and that has is a completely different human being that she was in 1992 totally different She has been married for 25 years. Oh, wow to the same man. She's now in that K. Hill She's 55 years old. She has three adult children four grandchildren The married to the same guy forever. She's in Atlanta. She hit 30 and completely said time to settle down and that was that So and she did Wonder if she'd understand if her husband of a long time was fucking somebody else wonder if she get that. Yeah, I mean So she worked since 2009 as a proofreader and a customer service assistant at the police law institute a company that produces online Continuing education training taken monthly by roughly 10,000 police officers nationwide. That's what she's doing What did she got that job? Wonder I doubt her uncle had anything to do it. So so basically she's a grandmother who does police training work That's who she is now grandma who works the police department. Yeah, she used to be a party though. Oh, she was It's you never know kids when you're looking at your grandma. You have no fucking idea what she was about Especially kids now, right? Because your grandparents and like the 70s and shit. Oh my god They were doing coke off each other's dicks back then and you have no clue And now like go fishing the same thing they just did it in fish nets and neon colors. Absolutely so Jeff Turbett as he's walking up to the door He said my goal is I'm walking up to the door of a suspect's house is what are the hurdles this going to be the What are the hurdles going to be this person wanting to even sit down and talk to me and I don't know That when I come up and I know that when I come up and knock that this is going to be a really difficult conversation for this person to have For sure. Yeah. Hey, remember your whole past that you've forgotten and everything. Let's talk about it in Extrushyating detail. What do you say? Very very specific things. She let him in the house. She didn't tell him to fuck off She didn't seem surprised that this conversation was coming, which is odd He said she does at least create a perception of cooperation. She does invite me in after I identify myself and I tell her who I am She does not seem at all put off or surprised by the fact that I want to talk to her about this murder that happened a Number of years before which at this point is about 27 years 28 years or 26 years So they talked for about 25 minutes at her home and then he said hey, let's move this to the sheriff's office if we could So he sees she's being cooperative and talking and says I'll take a shot and try to get her at the sheriff's office and That's when they they go to the sheriff's office. Um, okay She's they sit down in a room at the sheriff's office and she tells him I have an hour. It's all I have one hour for this Yeah, now earlier the day in the day in her living room She was telling the cop that this was the most important thing in the world and now she's like I only have an hour for it By the way, I'm not gonna be late for some shit. It's not that important So it's interesting. She said Corey's the love of her life. He was always the love of her life back then He's she still loves him and she's waited she was said she I've been waiting decades to hear who killed him and they hear the outcome of this and he get some justice for Corey So um, he then says it seems to me at this point that a net is trying to create the perception of cooperation versus actually being cooperative She's willing to cooperate with me to the extent that she can control that and then no more So in the interview, this is where the angry sex came from it was this interview that she described it as we had angry sex after I'm that night when he drove me home 30 years later. She remembers that really rough sex that we had angry sex And she then says something that has never come up in an interview in the last 26 years She said quote and I don't know if I've mentioned this before that was the first night Corey ever told me he loved me Which would seem strange I When our relationships could I love you? But when I'm trying to hang out with some other chick and you won't get out of my fucking car And I take you home and have angry sex with you now I'm gonna tell you I love you That doesn't make a lot of sense He was trying to ditch her and literally kick her right of a car an hour earlier He used her with the sex made her a slam pig for a minute. Yeah, and then told her that he loved before or after the slam pig sex Not sure about that. So They said why is this the first time we're hearing about this? Why didn't this come up in any of the other dozen interviews that we've Conducted with you over the years very first time. He said it. You'd think that would be so significant And she said that you know listen. I why would I be mad? He chose me. He told me he loved me things could not have been better Why on earth would I kill him? I thought things were great Well, because he left your house to go then drop another woman off and then go sleep in his fiance's bed. That's possibly why So he said she said about Corey that she said, you know that he didn't do anything to deserve this Yeah, it's just It's weird. So She basically says look Corey deserved to get beat badly, but he didn't deserve to die. That's what she that's what this cop said Yeah Because she it's weird. She said, you know he doesn't deserve this and then One of the things that she said was that they have a quote from the kid was her saying go knock the shit out of somebody if you're that mad don't do this Okay, so that means she's kind of saying someone else did it at that point So he says she says bait this is the cop she says basically look Corey deserved to get beaten badly, but he didn't deserve to die Now you would have to ask yourself why would someone who's being accused of beating someone to death say he deserved to be beaten It's almost we call it a cold case confession for lack of better terms because she's admitting to a exactly what she did without saying she did it. Okay, I don't know if I'd call it that or if I'd call it her just saying that, I mean, he was fucking around with a lot of people. So maybe people thought he deserved to get beaten up, but no one should have killed him. I could see that too. - And keep in mind it's a small town, and she's not necessarily a CEO of anything. She's gonna talk like a, - Yeah, you know, I mean, people say, yeah, she's not a lawyer. - That's it. - Speaking in legal terms. - And out of nowhere also, unprompted, she offers a comparison about her first marriage where her husband cheated on her and she got a divorce. She said, I didn't kill him, did I? So that means I'm free on the cheating though. - No, but that means I'm free and clear. Anybody could die around me and I obviously didn't do it. I mean, so then she gave them some inconsistencies. Her account of October 13th, 1992, no longer matched her old account on several points, which is to be expected over 26 years. That's memories change over 26 years. So that's actually normal, especially if she didn't do it. She wouldn't be, the stuff wouldn't have been that. - Yeah. - Stand out. - But if it's a, if it's a moment in history that changes your life so dramatically, 'cause this is a man that he just told you he loves you. - Yes, true. But 26 years, night, long night of drinking, long night of all that kind of shit. - I guess the fantasy of being with him fades. - It's what I mean, anything could happen in 26 years. Well, she initially claimed that she couldn't remember stopping at Corey's house at all that morning until they put her prior statements in front of her. So in this interview, she said, I wasn't at the house that morning and they were like, not what you said when you ran to the police station and told us that after he was dead. - Oh my god. - That's weird. It's very interesting. And in these interviews also, she had talked at some length about her lifelong love of gothic candles as well. That comes up. I always have candles, I love candles. I just like them, they're just cool. 48 minutes into the interview. Remember, she said, I have an hour. 48 minutes, she said, I'm done. So she's, I don't know if she's a psychiatrist or what, but she said, I got a 50 minute hour and that's all that I'm doing here. - Yeah, I got a trip from my next client. - Yeah, she said the hours up and she'd come back and do another one at some point. Then she called and said that an old friend from high school had turned up unexpectedly and she had to go out to dinner so she couldn't meet. So she had made another appointment to talk to the cops and then when that came up, she was like, oh, surprise dinner, I can't make it. - I feel like life's gonna get in the way of her talking to the cops a lot now. - A lot. - Then she left the state for a couple of weeks, which they're like, okay, then she came back but didn't do the interviews again. So they're like, this is not what we were expecting. - Another friend from Facebook popped up. - Yeah, and later in counter, agents came to her home again, according to her daughter who got a text message about it. And that had initially been excited, believing there was new information in Corey's case. Then it became clear she was the one under investigation and she said that basically they came to the door and she said, leave, I'm calling my lawyer. Now, now she's calling a lawyer. Okay. So I've tried to duck you guys and I can't do it. - Yeah, if it's figured it's been this long, maybe you guys will retire eventually and then I can deal with the next batch of cold case investigators. May 31st, 2018, they walk up to her door, knock again. This time they arrest her. They have an arrest warrant for a net this time. And the cop said, told her she was under arrest and she was being charged with murder. She was just very stoic. Just sat in the back and didn't say anything. You would hope that she'd be screaming in the back, saying that we got the wrong person, but it seemed to us like she knew it was coming. So we don't know if she's just a calm 55 year old woman. - Yeah. - Very stoic or if she is, you know. - We're so waiting to find out what they know. - Yeah. So she is charged with first degree murder and Bond is set at a million dollars. - Oh, wait. - Yeah. So the criminal complaint here that went out to the whole nation said that a net K hill had told someone Corey was killed with a baseball bat before that information was public or the weapon had been recovered. That's part of their thing here. That's a damn enclaim. That doesn't sound good. But later on, the authorities told them that was wrong. But that's what went out in the media 'cause that's what they put out in the media. It's not the media's fault. This was the cops fault that she knew about the baseball bat, but that wasn't true. She didn't say anything about a baseball bat or anything else before it was public. So, but by then it had been in every, it was on the Associated Press, the local papers. So Corey's uncle Ken here said that, this is a lot of reactions to this whole case being solved. He said he got to be a young gentleman and the next thing you know, they take you away from him. So he was very excited. Someone was being held responsible at this point. And they also said, you wanna throw up. You know, you don't think anything like that can ever happen to your family. And he said, for years, we heard all these rumors. Well, we heard this and we heard that. And I just look at them. Just look at them and shake my head like, well, if you know more than I do good, I mean, I don't know. If you know something, tell somebody basically. He said he's filling in the blanks a little bit more now, but that doesn't help any 'cause he said, you know, that was their, his parents only child. Corey, they said they took it away. How do you tell them you're sorry? Sorry doesn't cover that. And he said, I've been asked a million times who did it? Who did it? I don't know. So maybe I do know now, I don't know. We'll see. People come to her defense like crazy, by the way, and now, oh, big time. Yeah, within two weeks, it was a big deal. The David Oliver of North Liberty was her boss at the police law institute. He donated $1,000 toward her defense. He said, I've known her for the better part of a decade, and this is not the person that I know. She believed fully in our mission. She was very much about due process and how to do it. She's very pro law enforcement. Okay. Well, yeah, they never murdered anybody. Hey, everybody, if you love cops, it means you're incapable of murder. It's a crazy thing. It doesn't mean you think you're above the law 'cause you know a bunch of cops, which is about, I'd say it's 50/50, you either think you're above the law or the other way around, one of the things. Before you want to kiss their balls so that they leave you alone, which is also chicken shit pussy stuff, though. Yeah. Well, yeah, I said I remember through my childhood, her talking about her best friend being killed. There's no doubt in any of our minds she did not do this. Okay. He described her as a sweetheart, a quilter, a great cook, and a crossword puzzle enthusiast. I mean, yeah, but bad people have a lot of good qualities. Especially 30 years later, they have fine, I mean, if you, let's be realistic here. If you let Ted Bundy go, by the time he was 60, he'd probably have stopped. He might be free to actually. Yeah. He'd have gray around the ears, some bifocals on, sitting there reading the newspaper. He'd go, "There's no way he could have fucking rape people's heads after he cut them off." No way. He might have been doing that New York Times every morning. Yeah, I think a BTK didn't do shit for the decades. Yeah, at the end there, he was just mad that they weren't talking about him anymore. He was just bored, yeah, had no life. So it's crazy. Her son, John, said, "We don't have any doubt that she's not capable of this." When this first happened, I was around seven years old, and I remember her being absolutely heartbroken, and also said he had nothing but love for this Cory guy. Her other son said, "They need to find the answers they deserve, but I'd love to see my mom back." She's not the one who did it. I think to figure out who really did it would help not only the family, but her too, because it's someone she cared about very, very much. I think I'm a little upset by this, but I do understand how the justice system works, and I don't think it has any truth. They claim the word of a witness from 25 years ago that sat 25 years with this information on a murder. That just doesn't make sense. There's a serious disconnect in my brain right now. He called her a selfless woman, and she said she's so selfless. She said she's planning to use a public defender so her family wouldn't bear the cost. Well, that's nice. She didn't use a public defender, by the way. No, she didn't put it on the taxpayers. She was, quote, "talked into hiring a good lawyer." Yeah, our family talked her, I know it. And her cop dad said, "Lady, everybody goes to jail that gets those." Yeah, that's what happens. So she sat in jail until September 2018 when a judge decided to release her to electronic monitoring. Besides, she wasn't a threat. Even if she did do it, it was 30 years ago, and she's obviously not in the same position now, so. Yeah, she's a training videos to make. She kept working at the police law institute while awaiting trial on a murder charge, which is, wow, for 10 months, American police officers got their continuing legal education from a company whose customer service is handled by a murder suspect and a rusted murder suspect, an accused murder. And a murder suspect with an ankle bracelet. Unbelievable. Yeah, coming to work at the police, whatever police thing. I get an ankle bracelet on, that's hilarious. Innocent, so proven guilty, but that is really fascinating. Hey, fascinating position to be in. Suspended with pay, how about that? Look, we don't think you did it. We got your back, we want you to keep your butt, but it looks bad. It just looks bad when you walk in with the bracelet. It just makes us look like we're really not serious here. You can't have a cop that shot people be out on the street the next day. He goes on paid administrative for a minute until they start fucking, until they investigate, until they get to go find me for him. Yeah, people he killed. If they find that guy guilty, then I got to, or at least arrest him and put him on trial for it, they're not going to let him out with an ankle bracelet to go. No, no, no, no, no, go out there and pull people over with the gun. Can you help them write some tickets, Johnson? Yeah. So now before the trial, the defense filed two motions had either succeeded. Basically, the whole thing would have been over. So January of 2019, a motion to dismiss for pre-accusatory, acu-satorial delay. So a long delay in accusing her. 26 years has passed. Nine people who'd given law enforcement information about six other suspects had died or lost their memories, the defense named them. Jeff Murdoch, who confessed twice, was dead. Bob Morrison, Missy's husband, dead. Missy's dead. Jeff Lobdel, dead, Nancy Powers, Stanley Phelps, Harvey Podon, Brenda Peterson, dead, dead, dead, dead, dead, dead, dead. Jamie Marin had suffered strokes in 2014 and '18 and could no longer recall what he told the DCI about a suspect named Joey Brockert. And it's a mess. But the judge denies that, saying no actual prejudice had been shown and the delay was not designed to gain a tactical advantage. It was just because they had nothing to charge. February 2019, a motion to exclude a couple of witnesses here is what they need here. They said their testimony was so impossible, absurd, and self-contradictory that it called in a 1909 case that, you know, with precedent. It's denied. The court said the issues raised by K. Hills Motion are more appropriate to be decided by the jury as a matter of credibility. So OK. It affirmed the court of appeals and said-- and again, by the Iowa Supreme Court, which pointed out that a net could not cite a single reported Iowa case holding that inconsistencies and recollection are by themselves grounds for excluding a witness. All right. March 4, 2019 is the trial. The Attorney General here, the Iowa Assistant Attorney General, 16-minute opening statement, which is brief for a murder trial. It's very succinct. Very-- so you don't want to wear the jury out before they've even heard anything. So he said actions and consequences-- that's what this case is about. OK. Now K. Hills lawyers are casting claims on Jessica Becker, because that's the whole case is Jessica Becker. She did it, yeah. Well, yeah, nine. She went in there, really tied one. Didn't know the guy was swimming in that thing. She was upset. Or maybe, yeah, maybe it was-- instead of Jessica, maybe it was Kayla. Can you imagine she was the two of them? But Jessica and Kayla, yeah. You hold one side, all the other. So they said that they say K. Hills confessed as tainted by animosity, basically. So this girl is upset that her family got broken up. So maybe she's making this up out of animosity, basically, because K. Hills had an affair with a step father, which contributed to the end of the parents marriage. A childhood memory expert hired by the defense called Jessica's testimony extremely questionable. Do you say it's a best? Can you remember things that clearly at nine years old at 35, basically? Questions. It's a good question. So the cop here, they put up a DCI agent here, Kenneth Sandy, he investigated a net in '92 and cleared her. Really? Yeah, he was one of the guys that did the polygraph and all that. He said there was no physical evidence at the scene of the crime, including no fingerprints to link a net to the crime, right? And that's the question. And he said correct. He also got them to say on the record that another investigator had been interested in the theory that Bob Morrison killed Corey because Corey was banging Missy. Bob's wife. All right. So they said also was he involved with gambling? Was he involved with drugs? Yes, and yes. Right, so. OK. Jody has lived in fiance at the time. She said that he was called them an easygoing, just lighthearted, easy to talk to. He was sweet. He was just a kind person. And they said, what about all this fucking sleeping around? Right. And she said, I ignored a lot of that and internalized a lot of that myself. Just held it in. Just so it was fine. Internalized it. She said she loved him despite the other women and that after his death, she never wanted to go back to that house. Wendy Marshall testified about a net being in the car with the argument that whole evening of what happened. Jessica Becker testifies about black candles. I'm sorry, I killed you, Corey. Yeah, Cynthia here also testified about being afraid of the sheriff and her ex-husband as well. So there's all this going on. Now deliberations. It is five women and seven men on the jury here. Yeah. They come back deadlocked. Yeah, because what? It's not a lot of evidence. It's a tough case. Judge sends them back again. Go back as they always do. You're deadlocked. No, you're not. Keep trying it. They say again, yeah. They asked to the judge ask the four person. Is time the issue? Are you close? Is there would time help? And she said, not going to work. We are setting. We're set. We're split. That's that. One juror appeared to be confused by that answer and appeared to nod. Yes, when the judge asked the question. So then the judge pulled them one by one. All 12 agreed with the four person. It's a mistrial. Oh my god. Okay. County attorney says I was gutted. It's really a hard thing to go through a trial of that length and that intensity and that it ends up with a hung jury. And you find out that the jury did not really resonate to your case, your case theory and wanted a lot more. That was a low moment. He said, everyone gets up, leaves the room and we're left standing and everyone looked around and they said, let's get this stuff cleaned up and we'll meet in a half hour at the County attorney's office and talk about the next trial. So they never had a thought to not have another trial. We're going to read, we're going to retry. Now what went on in the jury room? Okay. On the first round of voting, it was 11 to one for acquittal. Wow. That was the first vote, 11 to one. Then they were sent, that was when they came in deadlock. They were 11 to one. The judge said, go back. They deliberated again and they came out again. This time it was nine for acquittal, three for conviction. So, oh no, it's spread. It's spread, it's getting, yeah, that's why they said it's not more time isn't going to help. Unless you give us another six months, maybe all those people will turn to guilty, but otherwise, we're stuck. Second trial set for September 2019. In July 2019, we have a new witness, which you wouldn't imagine there'd be any new witnesses after all this fucking time. 30 goddamn years. But there is Scott Payne, okay? It's interesting. Scott Payne's mother was talking to Corey Wenikie's mother in the course of that conversation and emerged that Scott Payne was surprised that he'd never been called as a witness. An investigator opened a case file on the computer search Payne's name and found him and said in his own words, why would we have called this witness? I don't understand what he's talking about. Did he have information? So they went out and talked to him again. And this time, Scott was all fucked up back in the day when they talked to him. He's on drugs and booze. Now he sober, okay? He's an older sober man now. He'll change. Yeah, and he had a huge drinking and drug problem and all that kind of thing. And at the time, he had a policy of never talk to the cops ever. That's a policy, yeah. Especially if you're a young guy, it does a lot of drugs in Iowa. Don't ever talk to the cops. He said. He's punk rock against the grain shit. Shut the fuck up. Yeah, and he was a drug buddy of a net's brother. That's how he knows a net. He said that he saw, on the day of the murder, a net burning blood stain clothing outside the house on the day of the murder. That's not good. When asked why he didn't notify police, he said, quote, "I tried to avoid the police as often as I could." Which if you have drugs on, you avoid the police as often as you could. He said, "I was not in a good place at that point in time in my life. I was driving illegally and doing illegal substances and I tried to avoid the police as often as I could." He knew Denny and Jackie Hayson. He went out to the Hayson farmhouse to use drugs with other men who were there to use drugs. He said at one point, he worked butchering hogs, draining out the blood from pigs as he put it, which is a job that leads you. He said with a lot of expertise about what blood so clothing looks like. He goes, "I know what clothes look like when they're soaked in blood 'cause I was soaked in blood all the fucking time." He said at some point in the mid-90s he loaned a hazen family $5,000. They never paid him back. And he said that he felt he felt they had lied to him. He said that a day or two after Cory's death, he was at the hazen farm, a net came speeding up the driveway drove around the back toward the burn barrel. He said, quote, she got out of the car and opened up the trunk and took out a paper bag with clothes in it and dumped them out. And Jackie met her out at the burn barrel with a gas can and they lit the clothes and clothing on fire. Oh boy. He described her as frantic like. He said the clothes look blood stained. He knew what blood stained clothes looked like, obviously. And he asked a net, what the fuck are you doing? And she hurt her explanation was the clothes were covered in red paint. So I just got rid of them. I just wanted to burn them, not throw them out, not use them as rags or, you know, look at this paint. I'm shit to wear next time you paint. As you save, I have clothes with paint on them and shit that I use for whatever. Burn them. He said one red paint, I know blood, I know how blood dries on clothes. That was blood. So he is added to the witness list. There is a motion to exclude him, though, because they said in 1996, they interviewed Scott pain. And the report of that interview quotes him saying that a net hazen was seen burning a bunch of stuff after Corey was killed and attributes that information to a woman named Nancy Powers. So they were saying that this is second hand information. Yes. Now, and also in 1996, pain told them that this stuff she was burning was a diary. And he said he hadn't heard, he hadn't seen it. He just heard about it. In the same interview, pain named Jeff Murdock as a man who had bragged at two local bars about killing Corey. At his 2019 deposition, pain never mentioned the person who he said in 96 told him about the burn barrel. And he denied knowing Jeff Murdock at all. Now he doesn't know him at all. He couldn't explain why his 96 account different from his 2019 account. He just said, I don't recall that it is different to me. That's what I remember. Okay. He couldn't remember when to pose details from a law enforcement interview. He gave a month earlier. He couldn't consistently say where he'd been living in October 1992. Yeah. In 1996, he was living in Kiyakok and moved back after the murder in 2019. He said he may have been in the musketeen area, but couldn't recall. And also that he had been at the Hayes and Farmhouse for a multi-day hard drug party immediately after the murder at the sheriff's house. Holy shit. Now he offered that he was drinking heavily in 96 when he was interviewed because they came right around the anniversary of his younger brother's death. So he knew he was really drinking a lot and he might have not might not have been in the mood to talk essentially. So they deny the fact that they deny keeping him out and say, this is up to the jury to decide credibility. Trial number two, nine women, three men on the jury, a plus two alternates. The states, it's the same trial as the first one plus Scott pain with him saying the blood staying close. On day three over the lunch break, the state handed the defense a document. It was an incomplete DCI lab report. No date, no signature, no case name on it. It was identified as belonging to Wenneke and that file only because the exhibit letters and descriptions matched the other DCI reports in the case. Okay. The report said that four human hairs recovered from Corey's left hand were not suitable for DNA STR analysis. The state had discovered that morning after Agent Valetta called the lab prompted by the fact that the defense had spent two days cross-examining state witnesses about four hairs. The parties made a record outside the presence of the jury the next morning. And this is what happened in chambers. The court said, have you developed a plan with this document? They said, well, as much as I'd like to introduce the fact that the hairs were not suitable for analysis, I don't really know how I can do that. The report's not signed. It's not in the minutes. So my plan was just not to use it at this point. So if council wants to use it, I would not object to them offering it as an exhibit, but the state plans to basically let it lay. So the defense can use it as they want, but we're not going to use this because it really doesn't have any information. And we don't even know we can't we can't investigate the veracity of it because there's no signature on it. We don't even know we can't bring a person up and say you did this, right? Which is what you're doing court. So they said, all right, with that, what does the defense wish to make of it? The defense said, just to be clear, the state is not intending to offer this. And they said, yes, and they said, okay, I think with that mind, we don't have any fighting issue here. So we're not going to fuck with it either. We'll just leave it alone. The report was never admitted. The issue never came up again during the trial. Problem is what the defense won't know for months from until months from now was that a second might a conjugal DNA testing works on old small degraded samples where STR testing fails. We all know that now, but seven years ago, we didn't know in closings, the defense said there were four human hairs found in when he's left hand. Now they're going to use it, not for evidence, but for this. Look at the scene in the facts. Does that seem more likely than a killing by a 120 pound five foot seven woman or more something more likely done by a powerful man? And the state has presented no evidence that the human hairs matched a net's hair either by microscopic comparison or with known hairs through slides or DNA comparison. Moreover, the hairs tell us it's unlikely that Corey was unaware of his assault, meaning he did wake up because he fought the fact that he was an experienced fighter. He's a bartender and does drugs. Yeah. Wade 230 pounds and was a football player make it unlikely that there was only one assailant unless that someone was very powerfully built. The defense argued alternative suspects, Bob Morrison, Joey Brockert. Um, he's the other guy who beat another man to death at some point. Okay. So goes to the jury here around four o'clock. They come back and say, deadlocked. No verdict. The judge says, Nope. Here's what you do. Break for the day. Yeah. That's not going to be emotional. Go home, sleep on it, come back the next day. And we'll talk about it. Okay. So two o'clock Thursday afternoon after that's after the Wednesday was when they were sent home after 16 total hours of deliberation they have a verdict. Okay, verdict is guilty of murder in the second degree, which is a lesser included defense. They made a compromise as what this is. Okay. Um, and that's daughter said we absolutely did not believe there was going to be a guilty verdict. The first trial, having been so much in my mom's favor with the jury, we just anticipated the second one will go the same way. Wow. Interesting. Now the prosecutor said the jury was smart. They probably believe that a net went over there with the intention to seriously assault Cory and that led to his death, which is second degree murder. I think they took their time and reviewed the evidence and I think they got it correct. Before sentencing and that's lead attorney dies of a heart attack. So that's not good. So the judge, uh, anyway, denies a motion for new trial and the motion to compel mitochondrial DNA testing on the four hairs, which seems like whatever we got, let's test it. What the fuck? What are we doing here? Um, the courts reasoning on the DNA was even if it showed the hair belong to someone other than a net has a fiance who lives there or himself, it would leave the jury only with in a slightly better position than they were during the trial. Okay. And they said it was not reasonable or feasible to require the state to test the hair against every possible suspect the defense had raised as they raised 20 people. So victim impact here. Um, his mom, Cory's mom said her family was robbed of a future with him. She said that, uh, Kay Hill should receive at minimum the number of years the family had spent without him 30 years. And she said, yeah, he's not coming back. We didn't have my son for 27 years. This woman lived 27 years of her life with her family, her grandkids, her husband, her children. We didn't have that. She's where she belongs. And the judge says you, ma'am, may fuck off the maximum 50 years in prison. She must serve 75%, which is 35 years before parole eligibility, which would make her 90 when she's, holy shit, uh, 91. Sorry. Um, court of appeals affirms it. They were going for a Brady violation about witness credibility. And they said, well, that's left to the jury. The jury can decide witness credibility. The Iowa Supreme Court said one could question the severity of Hazen's knee injuries. And she was mobile enough to go on a shopping trip. Treatment turned out to be unnecessary in the ailment for the diagnosis was pulled muscles. Is there a trying to say, was her going out the next day going to the doctor and all that shit that that was basically a cover up. And then that woman didn't need to go to the doctor and all that kind of shit. So they said she, uh, she said Hazen also shopped that various locales around Iowa City at a time when the family budget was so tight they couldn't pay the phone bill. The Iowa Supreme Court says, uh, it took, if it took the defense, even with the incentive of a guilty verdict and alluming 50 year prison sentence. Just two months just to arrive at a theory why earlier disclosure of the draft lab report would have been beneficial. What are the odds that anything different would have happened had this report been disclosed before? So they also deny it. Now, 2022, it's on date line, all right. And something it's interesting. Basically they put this out and date line is, hey, look at this murder and this awful murder they did. That's date line. This is different after it. Everybody who saw it said, hey, I don't think she did that. No. Yes. So Jody Ewing who runs the Iowa cold cases and has spent two decades cataloging unsolved murders wrote publicly she does not normally question law enforcement's decision to indict and then said this case left her with a sick feeling in her gut and she saw no credible evidence to support even the indictment let alone a guilty verdict. Oh shit, interesting. And they're even saying that one commentator said that he and his wife watched thousands of true crime things and ranked this among the three weakest cases they've ever seen along next to next to Brendan Dassy, basically. Yeah. So yeah, it's interesting. So October 20, 2023, the wrongful conviction unit of the Iowa state public defenders took a look at the case so did the Drake law school wrongful convictions clinic here. They all looked at this sort of thing and they the court entered an order for post conviction DNA filing in 2023 and other testing of physical evidence based on agreement between the defense in the state on September 25th, the state filed a motion to dismiss arguing the application and not been properly served the judge denied the state's motion. The testing went forward on the back DNA testing. Okay. Three findings found first on the prosecution's presentation to the jury. They said we discovered that the prosecutor lied to the jury telling them they couldn't do DNA testing on the baseball bat when they knew of mitochondrial DNA. Second, they didn't consider the alternate suspects. They had a box of documents and evidence they didn't turn over to a net trial council. And third, they tested the bat, neither Cory nor a net's DNA is found on the bat, neither of them. Oh, no. So at this point, they don't even know that there's the fucking bats, the murder weapon. Right. This might have been a couple of kids left a bat on the side of the fucking road. Oh, no. There is DNA on it. Both male and female DNA, neither of them low belonging to either of those two. So they said the state doesn't want to know who in the state won't compare it to the alternate suspects. They previously identified. So the Iowa State Bar Association's own publication summarized it, thusly, recent and conclusive DNA testing has incontrovertibly shown that neither Cahill's DNA nor Wienke's or Wienke. Wienke, yeah. DNA is present on the bat. The new scientific evidence does not support Cahill's conviction. I would say not. So they said it doesn't explain why there's male and female DNA doesn't explain anything. So there's post-conviction petition claims here. They said there's newly discovered evidence that Cahill did not receive a constitutionally fair trial, credible alternate suspects with motive opportunity and means to murder Cory and advance forensic scientific evidence that shows by clear and convincing evidence that a net K-hill is factually innocent. So yeah, it's a lot. And nationally, by the way, out of 3,735 exonerations, 636 have committed DNA. So this is how you clear people. That's it. So Iowa has 17, by the way. Not one of them was attributed to DNA evidence in Iowa, though. They said it's proving much more difficult than anyone thought when we started this effort to correct an injustice and correct the wrongful convictions. Other states jump at it. Iowa does not. They don't like releasing people. They don't like saying they're wrong, apparently. So the national average to correct a wrongful conviction is 6 to 10 years. And she said, Iowa is not average. So a net is at the Iowa correctional institution for women in Mitchellville. She's in her 60s now, never confessed, maintain her innocence. She could be released as early as 2042 at the current set in structure when she's 79. So that's good. I guess they adjusted it. As she got post-conviction trial relief, they're talking about here set for 2026. Her family says she's not well. Her daughter said, I know that she's hurting now. She's physically and emotionally she's hurting. She's not able to be able to take care of herself like she should be. And that's really hard for me to know and not be able to do anything about it. It's hard when my kids ask how's drama. So she quilts and makes art. And her art was projected on a screen in a Detroit or a Des Moines music venue here while her lawyer told several hundred strangers about her. So it's, it's a lot. Now the Winnickies are really upset because they're like, well, we don't want the wrong person in jail. They said, that's the part. You don't want, you want your relatives here. But you don't want the wrong person to be serving time for it. No. And they left the town. They said, here's how you carry around uncertainty in a small town. You know that every day when you walk down the sidewalk, that the person that you're meeting on the sidewalk might be the person that committed homicide on your son because they don't know who it is. It was, I was so left back in the 90s and I just could never get over it. It was always on my mind. First couple of years, I don't think I had a day go by that I didn't think about him almost constantly. So 2025, that's what they're, they're still pushing it. The wrongful conviction unit, they're still making speeches. They said, here's one saying, Annette Kay Hill, as you can see from her artwork is a kind loving talented woman. We want you to learn about Annette's case because we're going to trial soon. It's a tragic injustice that she's sitting in prison right now instead of being with her family for a crime she didn't commit. She was married. She was a grandma. I've heard she's a great baker and have a had a nice normal quiet life. Cory's murder never being solved. So they said, yeah, who the fuck knows? There's a change.org petition. They're looking for 500 signatures. They have 239 at this point time. They're getting there. They want the baseball bat tested compared to the other suspects essentially. That's what they want. That's the hope here. She's at the correctional facility for women in Iowa and Cory is buried at the Oak Ridge cemetery with the rest of the Oak Ridge boys in West Liberty. So there you go, everybody. That is West Liberty. Oh my god, that's the end. Iowa, that's the eye. That's it. It's 20. That's till right now today. We have no idea and that sits in prison. We don't know if she did it. I mean, it doesn't sound like it if she's, yeah. I mean, if Cory's DNA isn't on the bat and there's blood on the bat, then that ain't the murder weapon. Period. What are we talking about? There'd be plenty of DNA on a bat if you beat someone to death with it and there was still blood on the, on the, on the, on the side of the road. So I don't know, everybody. Your guest is as good as mine. Tell us what you think about it. Oh boy. Let us know because we'll, I'm open to talking about it because I think it's interesting and shit. So we got a gram until season 90, James. Discuss your theories amongst yourselves. So or with us. So anyway, there it is. There's West Liberty, Iowa and you could see why this didn't take one episode because it was almost that we're even long on this one. So anyway, there you go. If you like this episode, get on whenever app you're on. Give us five stars. It helps so much. We don't know why. But it helps. So thank you. The Netflix thumbs up. Thank you for watching. Two of them. Two of them. Double it up there. 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