FRUITLOOPS SHORT: Walter E. Ellis

[Music] True story media. Hey y'all, this is Wendy and Beth from Fruit Loops, serial killers of color. We just wanted to let you know that we're going to be at CrimeCon, May 29th through the 31st, and we would love for you to join us. There's going to be so much true crime goodness there. I mean the merch, thus celebrities, speakers, creators, so much more, but of course, can't forget we will be there as well. Yes, we will be there. So if you're planning to go, we've got a discount for you. That's right. Use our code Fruit Loops 10 to save 10% on your tickets. Just head on over to CrimeCon.com and enter code Fruit Loops 10 at checkout. Come on and hang out with us. Yeah, we'd love to see you there. Yeah. This podcast contains adult themes and language and some of the things that we discuss may be disturbing to some listeners in this podcast. We discuss sexual assault, torture, race, and murder. Listener discretion is advised. Please take care of yourself. Let's get into the early life of Walter E Ellis. Hey Beth. Walter E Ellis was born on June 24th, 1960 in Holmes County, Mississippi as one of six children to LaRoy and Mattie Ellis. His nickname as a child was what L. And I think that was like a contraction of Walter and Ellis or something like that. If totally makes sense, it totally makes sense. Yeah. It's kind of cute. I knew a Waddle once. I did you, but I never like inquired because it's a name I never heard before. Yeah. And right. Right. Right. Yeah. Now this is the second time. Oh, there you go. There you go. In the mid 1960s, the family left Mississippi and resettled in the north side of Milwaukee. They joined millions of black Americans who left the South for economic opportunity and safety in places like Milwaukee and Chicago. Beginning in early childhood, Walter showed signs of anti social behavior, acting impulsively and aggressively towards his peers, frequently assaulting classmates and neighboring children. And he had a reputation as a bully and was frequently disciplined. And I just have a teeny tiny culture corner with Wendy. Okay. Now while we don't know very much about Walter's childhood, given the time frame of his early years and considering, you know, America at the time. One can imagine that life for his parents was not easy given segregation, racial violence and the struggle to survive in Jim Crow America. Right. And black men, Walter's dad's age would leave their homes and go to work. And out in the world, they were bullied and bruised sometimes physically and often emotionally by the conditions of the Jim Crow era. And they had nowhere to place that energy and negativity until they return home and their families could sometimes be the victims of this maybe misplaced retaliation. Take it out on their family. This is pure speculation, but it does appear reasonable to me to consider that there could have been some tension bullying and or abuse at his home. Yeah, of course, not all those were bullied become bully some cells and certainly not all bullies become serial killers. So there's that. Yeah. In 1974, after finishing the eighth grade, Walter dropped out of school due to poor academic performance and chronic absenteeism at 14 Walter was charged with attempted murder and attempted robbery. But he faced no time since he was a minor. Those are heavy charges though for so young 14 years old. He was charged two more times before he was 18 for robbery and theft. Ellis was arrested 12 more times between 1981 and 1998 and was in and out of prison during that time. But neighbors who knew Ellis when he was an angry kid agreed that he grew gentler as he grew older, but it was probably just a facade. Yeah, because little did they know that he was actually an abusive boyfriend and a serial killer. Right. Yeah. He grew gentler and grew older, but really he just grew better at hiding hiding hiding. Yeah, anger. Yeah. So now let's get into the timeline. Here we go. Deborah Harris was 31 years old and was Ellis's first known victim. She was described as generous, a loving person who had moved to Milwaukee for a better life. And Deborah was murdered on October 10th 1986. Her body was found in a local river. 19 year old Tanya Miller was found dead the following day. So one right after the other. Yeah, that's time and all. No. She had been strangled to death and her body was found between a house and a garage. It kind of makes you wonder because some of these do happen in rapid succession. Yeah, why they do why there was I'll get into this in my taste. There's so much opportunity for this to have been stopped the saga. But in January of 1990 Ellis joined a drug dealing gang known as the brothers of the struggle which sounds like a good thing. But it is not a better struggling together. Exactly. Yeah, let's lift up lift our community guys ready. Brothers of the struggle on three. One, two, three brothers. Yeah. But it wasn't that at all. So in June of that year 1990, he was arrested for distributing drugs and convicted in November 1990 of the charge sentenced to 30 months. Not very much time Ellis served his time in Minnesota prison and was released early in May 1992 for good behavior. He returned to Milwaukee and tested positive for cocaine three times before his probation officer actually ordered him back to prison. Oh my goodness. Yeah. There are little lacks on that a little bit a little bit. Yeah. But the parole system now it's much different than it was back then. But it's really easy to get sent back to prison for for simple violations drinking alcohol. Being around somebody who's drinking alcohol is smoking weed being in contact with other convicted felons which if you know anything about the prison industrial complex is almost impossible to not do if you are already in the system. Right. So yeah, there you go. There you go. All right. Then in November of 1992, Ellis was sent to a salvation army halfway house which was used for federal prisoners inmates were allowed to leave the facility with permission for work, school and church, but they needed a pass. Of course. Yeah. So Ellis recognized one of the workers at the halfway house, a man named Carl Porter. They had served time together in prison in Green Bay. Ellis learned that prisoners would bribe a porter and others for passes. Their names were never put down on the past list and it would look on the record as if they had never left the halfway house. Not good. No, not get it on on November 27th 1992. Ellis's pass records showed that he left the halfway house at 9 a.m. to look for work. And then he was back at 3 p.m. that afternoon. But actually he left later on that day and under the bribe system, the log did not show it. So this system is quite flawed. Yes. As are many systems, including the policing system for the person system. All those things, the criminal justice system. But yeah, this is maddening. Yeah. Anyway. So early the next morning, the body of Irene Smith, 25 years old was found in the prison system. And the next year's old was found in a trash bin in an alley off of north 7th Street. The same alley that ran behind the house where Ellis is mother lit. Just a few blocks away. Irene had been stabbed in the neck and strangled detectives found DNA on her body that was later much, much, much later. Yeah. Link to Ellis on December 13th 1992. Ellis left the halfway house and never came back. He was later arrested and faced a new charge for the escape. And they returned to prison to do more time. So Ellis then offered to make a deal with the federal investigators. I wonder if he this was his plan the whole time. You know, probably not to get leverage just always looking for leverage. No. Yeah, I don't I don't think so. I think he probably. It was a spur of the moment. Oh, yeah. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. So he told authorities about the bribery system at the halfway house and offered to help get the corrupt halfway house workers who are selling prisoners passes for cash. Oh my God. I'm Ellis officer. I'm here to help my name is Walter Ellis. Oh, rest them. These people are doing something very, very bad. You're not gonna believe this. Oh my gosh. It's so terrible. I'm a shame even to say. But I'll tell you all of it. He said if they would give him his freedom. He was interviewed by a US Department of Justice special agent in January of 1993. After which time they set up surveillance on the halfway house and soon have the proof to back up Ellis's allegations. Federal authorities signed Ellis up as an informant and he walked out of jail three weeks after he was arrested. He was off probation a few months later. So that was a good deal for him. It was a good deal for him. I just not a good deal for the community. Everybody else. So Ellis was a key piece of the government's bribery case again. and another worker, Marlon Horde. Ellis was the first witness called in the trial. Porter pleaded guilty and received 14 months in prison. A Horde was acquitted. By the way, I just was thinking about his experience in the courtroom. Like he's probably been in front of a judge numerous times. - Oh yeah, multiple times. - No, exactly what to say, how to finesse this and that to essentially get the best outcome for himself. - Yeah. [Music] [Music] [Music] So freed by federal authorities, Ellis entered what state prosecutors later called his most violent years. On October 13th, 1994, Karen Kylpatrick, 32, a mother of five, was found murdered. Her body had been stuffed in a trash bin in the same alley behind Ellis's mother's house, where Irene Smith's body had been found also in a trash bin. A little girl named Ebony Owens, who was nine years old at the time, found Karen Kylpatrick's body. A neighbor paid her and her cousin 50 cents each to haul some trash to the neighbor's backyard bin. When Ebony opened the bin, a woman's legs popped up. When she was interviewed 15 years later, so she's 24, Ebony was still haunted by the memory, but remember that the woman's nails were painted red. - Yeah, it's funny how your memory is like, I'm sure in her mind she sees those nails. And it is haunted by it, as she said. - Haunted, yeah. - Yeah, yeah. - Poor thing. - Awful. Ellis was a former neighbor of Ebony's and a man she had known virtually her entire life. Later, when he was arrested, she said in disbelief, quote, "I knew his whole family. They lived around here for years." Unquote, commenting that he had come across as a regular old Joe. - Hmm. Karen's live-in boyfriend, Curtis McCoy, was charged with the murder. Preparing for court, his attorneys, investigators found eight unsolved homicides. They believed were similar to Karen's. But the judge would not allow the defense to argue that there could be a serial killer loose in the city. Nor would he order the police to turn over records in the other cases to the defense. One of the investigators was so distraught by the decision that he actually wrote a letter to the judge. - Good, good. - Yeah. I sometimes wonder what is going through these judges' heads when something that clearly needs to be looked at. - It needs to be looked at and they just will say, "No, no, no, thanks." - Yeah. - And because they're the judge that essentially the final say, unless you have the resources to appeal, you're. - That's kind of it. - That's it. - Yeah. - Yeah. So luckily, Curtis McCoy was eventually acquitted. However, at the time, there was a public outcry and people complained McCoy had gotten off on a technicality. And he lost everything. His children were removed from his care. His house was vandalized. His vehicle was towed and never returned. And by 1997, he'd just moved to Mississippi. - That's sad. - Yeah. Not only that, but his girlfriend was murdered. - Right. Yes. Thank you. Beth. Oh my gosh. Yeah, just, I mean, this ruined his life. - His life? - Yeah. - Was not responsible for it, but yet made to be re-victimized in numerous ways because of the miscarriages of justice. A month after Karen was murdered, Ellis was charged with attacking his girlfriend, Ethel Hardman, with a screwdriver. The charges were later dropped without explanation. - Yeah. This is another opportunity. - The domestic violence. - Yeah. Intimate partner violence. A red flag. - Yeah. - By true crime watchers. But in the 90s, I don't think it was that big of a deal to be honest with you. - Right. - Yeah. - I mean, I think in some states, it was like legal to sexually assault your wife. You know what I mean? So, yeah, it's really unfortunate, but in 1995, two women and a teenage girl were murdered. Their bodies left blocks from Ellis's home. All three were eventually connected to Ellis's DNA. The first was Florence McCormick, 28, on April 24, 1995. She was found dead in the basement of a vacant home by workers doing repairs. The home was boarded up, but had a broken window. Florence had been strangled to death and a clothes line was still wrapped around her neck when she was found. And Florence was the mother of five. - Hmm. Gosh. On June 27, 1995, the body of Sheila Fariore, 37 years old, was found. She had been strangled to death. The owner of the vacant residence went to inspect remodeling work when he discovered her body in a bedroom. On August 30, the body of Jessica Payne, a 16-year-old runaway from South Milwaukee, was found under a mattress in an area behind two houses, one vacant and the other unknown location to obtain drugs. She was Ellis's only white victim. - Interesting. - Yeah. It's also interesting that he took the time to cover her, because some of the other victims were just left in trash. - Right. - Yeah. - Or naked in houses. - Hmm. - Yeah. I wonder if her age had anything to do with it. - Yeah, I wonder the same. - I also wonder if her race had something to do with it. - Maybe. - Like, you know, I wonder if he felt like he was doing something really wrong because it was a white woman and didn't feel. I don't, he's a piece of bus who'd had anyway. - Yeah. - But it's hard to say with this one, but questions that will remain unanswered forever. So anyway, her throat was slashed. Her shirt had been partially raised and her pants were pulled down to her ankles. An autopsy indicated that Jessica had been sexually assaulted before she blood to death. A rape kit was collected and semen was determined to be present. One month after the discovery of Jessica's body and inmate at the Milwaukee County Jail told authorities that a man named Richard Gwynn was involved in a young white woman's murder. Gwynn made a statement implicating himself and two others. 20-year-old Sammy Hadaway and 21-year-old Shantay Ott in Jessica's murder. Shantay Ott was eventually convicted of Jessica's murder. Also in 1995, Ellis was charged with choking his girlfriend Ethel until she passed out. Again, the case was dropped without explanation. Yeah, and I don't know if we'll ever know, but I mean, if the. Again, it's the night. It was the 90s. - Nice to meet you. - Nice to meet you. And I don't think we took intimate partner violence seriously as we do today. And also, if the victim and the officials don't want to pursue it, then it doesn't get them. They don't suit. Right. So on June 20th, 1997, another woman, Joyce Mims, 41, was strangled to death. And her body dumped in a vacant house blocks from where Ellis lived. Building renovators went to the house to perform renovations and found her dead on the second floor. She was last seen by family members two days earlier walking from her home. On February 17th, 1998, the body of Mariette Griffin 39 was found partially clothed amidst a pile of garbage in a garage on North 7th Street in Milwaukee. She had been strangled. I can't say enough how the pattern of dumping black women in garbage is really disturbing to me. And now we're disturbing. Now we're how many years in? Maybe five years into his murderous. No more than that. Yeah. And it just makes my blood boil. Yeah. So in March of 1998, a man named William Avery 25 was questioned about Mariette's murder after she was linked to Avery's crack house on North Palmer Street. When Avery was questioned by police, he acknowledged being with Griffin early on February 17th. But with little evidence linking him to the murder, police did not charge him with it. However, they did charge him with drug dealing. And William Avery was convicted in 1998 on narcotics charges and sentenced to 10 years in prison. It's interesting. So there's pre-crime bill. Right. He was getting in and out parole, parole, parole. La la la la. Post-crime bill gets 10 years for drugs. Yeah. And it's kind of interesting. Like I get societies want to make everybody safe and put people away who are hindering that. Yeah. But the crack epidemic was really mishandled if you ask me. Vote for me. Wendy Williams for president. I just think, you know, gosh, it's all it's also frustrating looking back. But I get at the time, you know, maybe these were the best solutions. So charge him 10 years in prison for crack cocaine dealing. But by the way, the same, you know, I don't know how much cracky head on him, but people who had tiny amounts of crack would get 10 years in prison, but people who had the same or more amount of cocaine, which was back then in the 90s and 80s considered a white drug, a white affluent drug would get much less time. So yeah, anyway, Merck up then in 2004, after three prison inmates alleged that William Avery had confessed to killing Mariette, Milwaukee County authorities charged him with reckless homicide. One of the inmates recanted prior to trial and did not testify. The other two testified that Avery admitted to the murder. Avery was convicted on March 9th, 2005 and sentenced to 40 years in prison. The system caught up with Ellis again in 1998. This time for beating a different girlfriend, Karen Thomas, with a hammer and doctors needed 52 stitches and staples to close her head wound. My God. My God. Ellis pleaded guilty to the attack on Karen and received five years in prison, but he would serve less than three. One year of that was spent in a Texas prison where Wisconsin was renting space in the late 1990s. Oh, interesting. That's crazy. Yeah. I don't know. I might have my Midwest states that start with W mixed up, but one of these states is either Wisconsin or, I don't know, the one where Paul Ryan was in leadership for a while. Their state makes a lot of money on prison inmates bodies. They produce a lot of goods and they also get to count their constituencies, prisoners in Wisconsin are counted as constituents, even though they cannot vote. And so that gives these Midwest states that don't have enormous populations like on the coast, a lot more power than I think is fair, if I may. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Also at that Texas prison was a man named Napoleon Clark, who was in prison for first degree sexual assault of a child. The two men would meet again in May of 2000 when they were moved to the Ashkosh Correctional Center. Ashkosh. Ashkosh. Ashkosh. Ashkosh. Ashkosh. Ashkosh. Oh my gosh. Was it called Ashkosh. Yeah, it's closed. Yeah. They were Ashkosh. Ashkosh. Ashkosh. It was the, the bagosh was included. We didn't just make that up in like nurse revamps. It was Ashkosh. Okay. Bagosh. Fire. Yeah. That was I hit my bear horse for Ashkosh. Sorry. I love that shit. Um, so there we go. As a sex offender, Clark had been forced to provide the state with a DNA sample under the law. Then on January 1st, 2000, all felons, again, all felons were required to provide DNA samples. That included all state prisoners, which would have included Mr. Ellis. And on February 4th, 2001, Ellis and 57 other inmates were ordered to give their DNA. By this time, there were at least eight homicide victims with Ellis's DNA on them, providing an incentive for Ellis not to take that test. It was easy for him to dodge it, which is so disappointing. Yeah. DNA is my hero. And this time, DNA didn't come through at this moment. Well, it did eventually. It did. But it not at this moment. But prisoners took their files and they stood in line to have the insides of their cheek swabbed. No photos were attached to these files or the DNA results. And Clark got in line with Ellis's paperwork and gave his DNA under Ellis's name, which is just crazy. Yeah. The sample went to the crime lab where an analyst spotted it as a duplicate of someone else. They already had in the system. And noted to a supervisor, it was submitted under another person's name, but no one contacted the prison. Really. Yeah. So Ellis left the prison in July of 2001. His DNA was still not in the system. He was not the only one who gave the system though. Officials later revealed that at least 12,000, again, 12,000 DNA samples for felons convicted since 2000 were not in the state database. That's a lot. That's too many. That's too many. I'm sure people have, I'm sure there are arguments against being able to collect your DNA once you've been convicted of a crime. But I think it's, I'm for it. I'm just going to say that. I know people think I'm like, what is what do you think that people should just not go to jail or not get in trouble or never never be any police? But I do think that this, you know, keeping track of people's DNA who've oh done wrong. Because I think you certainly have. But can also exonery. Yes. Exactly. Yeah. So I'm I'm all for it. Sorry. Officials said they didn't think there was widespread fraud as occurred in Ellis's case. But no one has explained why the samples are missing. I'm sorry. 12,000 doesn't seem widespread to anybody else here. I know it's Wisconsin. And there's not a lot of people there. But 12,000 is is a lot than just. Yeah. It is definitely widespread. Yeah. Wide and deep. Yeah. No one has explained why the samples are missing beyond saying they were busy at the time. Too busy. Too busy. Can I ask you a question if at your job something disastrous like this happened. Could you just be like, I was just too busy at the time. No. And be totally like unscathed. No, I didn't think so. Me either. After Ellis slipped through the federal and state systems, he would kill at least one more woman in 2007. Quathran Stokes, who was 28 years old, was found murdered on April 27th, 2007. City inspectors found her body in a vacant, boarded up residence, which had previously been used as a rooming house. So now we're going to move on to the investigation and the arrest. What the what? As police searched for a suspect in the killings of several Milwaukee women from 1986 to 2007, local media dubbed the killer the Milwaukee Northside Strangler or the North Side Strangler. The media loves a good moniker, don't they? Yeah. They do. Yeah. Well, it sells headlines and all that stuff. Yeah. It's eyes on their programs. I get it. I get it. Yeah. It's America. Yeah. But imagine if you didn't get money for salacious headlines or catchy, catchy things, you know? Like if imagine, but in 2000, the Wisconsin Innocent Project began reinvestigating Shante Aught's case and filed a motion seeking DNA testing on semen from the rape kit collected during Jessica Payne's autopsy. The motion was granted. Oh, finally a judge doing the right thing. And the Wisconsin State Police Crime Lab developed a male profile that excluded Aught. However, police still maintained that Shante Aught killed Jessica. Come on. I know. So get this. And we've heard this before. They claimed that Aught killed her after someone else had sex with her. So a serial killer had sex with her. And then this guy killed her. Yeah. Wow. Okay. Okay. Yeah. Makes no sense. I'm going to get into it in my takeaways. But basically, I want to say to the Daily's Ike ice and they were talking about like true crime in a nutshell is essentially harm against vulnerable people plus police incompetence. And then you end up with this recipe of true crime. And that's exactly what's happening here. Yeah. But on December 23rd, 2008, the Wisconsin Court of Appeals overturned Aught's conviction and ordered a new trial. Two weeks later, on January 8th, 2009, Aught was released a bond. And on June 5th, 2009, the Milwaukee County District Attorney's Office dismissed the charges. Good. Finally. Yeah. Gosh. This poor man. Yeah. Also in 2009, Milwaukee detectives began reviewing the murders of 20 women in Milwaukee over a period of over two decades. Ellis's name kept popping up in crime reports. So interesting. Yeah. Police went to his home and got a DNA sample from his toothbrush. Eventually DNA evidence. Oh, thank God. DNA. Your back. Eventually DNA evidence linked Ellis to nine murders. But the Milwaukee County District Attorney didn't feel that they had enough evidence to win convictions for the killings of Karen Kilpatrick in 1994 and Jessica Payne in 1995. So Ellis was charged with seven counts of first degree murder in the deaths of seven women from 1986 to 2007. That's a lifetime. That's a whole lifetime of murders. Yes. It is. And in April of 2010, William Avery, who had been convicted of killing Mariette Griffin, wrote to the Milwaukee County District Attorney's Office, requesting that DNA tests be performed on a sample taken from her body. The DNA tests excluded Avery and matched the profile of Walter Ellis. So that made 10 victims total suspected to have been murdered by Walter Ellis. (upbeat music) Pärhaan äitien päivä lahjan löydä tänä vuonna instruista. Instruun kattava näen tutkimus on äidille täydellinen lahja. Sillä siihen sisältöjymys silmän pohjakuvaus. Muista äitien lahjakortilla, joka tekee silminnäden hyvää. Vervet tuloa instrumenttaariumin. Allright, so now we are going to move into the trial. Okei. - Initiali, se on seuraavaksi jälkeen. Ellis on seuraavaksi jälkeen. Feb 18 2011 on seuraavaksi jälkeen. Ellis on seuraavaksi jälkeen, joka ei ole katsotaan 7 kertaa, ja se on seuraavaksi, joten ei ole kertaa jälkeen. Myös on, että se on seuraavaksi jälkeen, ja se on seuraavaksi jälkeen. Ja seuraavaksi jälkeen. Ja, ja seuraavaksi jälkeen. Seuraavaksi jälkeen. On seuraavaksi jälkeen. Ellis on seuraavaksi 7 kertaa. Seuraavaksi jälkeen. Seuraavaksi jälkeen. Seuraavaksi jälkeen. Seuraavaksi jälkeen. että vuoden sis nosaltres survait helvopnauria testedi myös vaiheita. Rihan tossa pirmaa puличelleins 장난ista檇ta- - estкіplusamasaistalla ja Cutee удив giraffein Ke Baronestos Reg parting. Ruimi on buoyuttaa 2011. Eli valitพäyy on indentammit pohicseaatюksossa puh EMIn Co, - että puh impactavisaa. - Nelmiin enthusiastic eruks automotive meitä monellisibility. - Kaat ABOUT krichina mounteen. - Za na Bul on hautia, että me olen päälle rihtekytä. Wow! Oh my gosh! - I was gonna make a joke, but I won't. No, we're gonna get into where are they now? So I'll tell you, Ellis died. He did. D-E-A-D-D. He died at Sioux Falls South Dakota hospital on December 1, 2013, - of apparent natural causes. Being evil isn't a cause of death, apparently. So according to the South Dakota Department of Corrections, - that's what they said. So he was 53, and he served less than 3 years - for the serial murders when he died. - Right. - Yeah. - Seems unfair. - It's very unfair. The family of Irene Smith, the woman killed in 1992 - while Ellis was bribing his way out of the halfway house. Wonders what might have happened if the system had done its job with Ellis. - Girl. - Me too. - Yeah. - Yeah, this is a failure of many systems. - Yeah. - Now Irene's daughter, Dominika Walton, said, - "It brings a lot of trouble to my heart because if they would have kept this guy incarcerated, - like he was supposed to be, then at least my mom would still be here. It's hard to trust a system to protect the families and keep the violent people off the street, - because there is always a glitch in the system, - or somebody is always doing something unjust, unquote." - This ought to be the exact-- - Exactly. No lies detected. Chante Ott received $25,000 in compensation from the state of Wisconsin, - the maximum the state allowed. He also filed a federal wrongful conviction lawsuit that was settled in March 2015, - when the city of Milwaukee agreed to pay $6.5 million. - Good. - Good. - They should have paid a lot more, and William Avery was released from prison in May of 2010, - and on September 23, 2010 his conviction and sentence were vacated, - and the charges were dismissed. In April 2011, Avery filed a wrongful conviction lawsuit in the U.S. District Court in Milwaukee. During the civil lawsuit, both of the inmates who testified at his trial, - recanted their trial testimony. The Wisconsin claims board awarded Avery $25,000 in compensation in December of 2012. In June 2015, a jury hearing the federal suit awarded Avery $1 million in damages. The trial judge set aside the verdicts, but in 2017, - the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 7th Circuit reinstated the verdict. The U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear the case, and in October 2017, - the city of Milwaukee agreed to pay the $1 million judgment, - plus 987,000 infies and costs. But William Avery died in 2018. - So. - Yeah. Didn't have that money. - Didn't have. - For very long, if he even got it at all. Yeah, and I would think that, well, they say, - when the person making the claim dies, then the claim goes away. The claim dies, too. But I wonder if maybe his family got it. - I hope they got it, too. - I hope they got it too. Somebody got it. I hope so. So now we're going to get into our takes and what we think made Ellis Snap. What are your thoughts, Beth? Well, something I've noticed recently when we've talked about these killers early lives, - is that a lot of serial killers come from big families. Yes. And Ellis was one of six children. Yeah, that's too many kids. Yeah. Well, not as big as some of the other families of serial killers, like 10 kids. But still, like you said, six kids, a lot of kids. That's a lot. Yeah. It's really hard to make sure that all your kids' needs are met. When you have so many of them, and I'm not talking about food and clothing. - Disemotionally. - Which is hard. - But just, yeah, emotionally. - Yeah, it's tough. It's tough. Yeah, it is. And I was listening to a podcast recently where they were talking about the fundees, like the Duggers. And how they have so many kids, which means that the kids are almost guaranteed to be at the very least emotionally neglected. - Because they're just. - There's not enough to go around. Oh, my God. And they have the older kids taking care of the younger kids. I remember the Duggers saying. So the older kids are purentified, and they have to take care of these younger kids. So the younger kids are not getting the attention from the parents, and the older kids aren't either. And so, yeah, it's not kind of fucked up. - Wow. - Yeah. - Wow, wow, wow. - Yeah. Thank you. I mean, I'm taking that nugget and receiving it and like implanting it in my spirit. Because it's an important thing to consider, I think, when we're. Yeah, thank you, Beth. Oh, my God. What else? More fire hot takes, please. So also, he dropped out of school in the eighth grade. He was like 14, so he probably didn't have the skills, never acquired the skills to get a decent paying job. Right. And people who fall through the cracks like that often turn to criminal activities. Survival crime. Yeah, stealing, dealing drugs. And it sounds like he was also. Do you know what I mean? Rips! And then, yeah, yeah, I'm sure that he was probably angry. And his lot in life probably, you know, stuff happening as childhood. Don't know. Yeah. But he was probably also hardened by prison. Yeah, I mean, some of the clever schemes, like the DNA scheme, I never would have thought of something like that. Like, he, you know, and they say that sometimes when people go to prison, they learn to be better criminals. Rather than be rehabilitated. And that. It's true. Definitely think that that was the case for that's what happened. Yeah. Also, as I was digesting this case, I never thought I'd say this in my life. But I was disappointed that DNA didn't come through earlier. Right away, yeah. It could have, it could have saved so many people. And. They just had a dumb system collecting the DNA. Yeah. Yeah. The system was fucked. And lastly, I feel terribly for the victims. But this man, who murdered women was allowed to keep doing so for a long time. And part of me can't help but think more would have been done to end this decades-long time of terror. If those who, you know, we tasked with solving crimes and doing the job of like public safety had done what they were supposed to do. Yeah. Because a lot was lost. I also can't say enough to mention earlier in my culture corner about the generation of black men who were Ellis's father's age. And I've heard recently on a number of podcasts, I don't know what's going on. But a lot of men who are in Ellis's age range describing their fathers who were out in the world during the Jim Crow era. And their fathers were essentially emotionally unavailable. Yeah. Or really hard on them when they came home. and everybody at home got it. And so, you know, it made me think of that. And the ramifications that being treated as a second-class citizen and always trying to survive and just the ramifications of that for generations. - Yeah. - And also, you know, he finally gets convicted and only served a few years in prison. And it's so, it's unfair. - Yeah. - Yeah. - No fair. - Yeah. - I can't think of a better word. - But I'm just these dead. - Yeah. - Yes, yes. - Yes. - He only could think. - Yeah. He's not around to hurt anybody else. - Yeah. - Or scheme anybody. I mean, he was really a destructive, he destroyed a lot. - Yeah, he did. - And he had no remorse. You know, he didn't talk about the cases. - Never explained himself for anything. - But by his actions, I mean, it seems to me like he really did not care about human beings. - Life. - Yeah. - Or life. And he also didn't seem to give a shit about the people, or the families, or the three men who were wrongfully convicted for his crimes. - Yeah. - What is it? Chante Aote, Mr. Hardaway, Mr. Avery. Then I also thought about intimate partner violence and how, you know, if the officials had of intervened in those cases, we might be talking about a completely different scenario at this point, right? Also, he was really callous with regard to how he treated women. Part of me wondered if maybe he saw women being treated that way in his youth. - Very possible. - And he left them in like humiliating positions and just like dumped, again, amongst trash. - Trim of garbage. - Trim of garbage. - And then there were so many system failures. Someone should be held responsible for those failures. Like the crime lab, the group home, and the wrongful convictions. And it's clear that Ellis was a very dangerous person. And these systems were supposed to prevent somebody that dangerous from being allowed to harm other human beings, you know? - Right. - And it's discouraging, but if those, I like to think that if those systems were created by people, they can be undone by us. And they can be improved. But again, it's, you know, the True Crime 101, vulnerable people being harmed, plus police/official incompetence. - And then you got a winning recipe. - It equals True Crime. - Crime, yeah. - So let us know what you think, Beth, where can the people find us? - Our website is fruitloopspod.com and we use fruitloopspod for all of our social media. - This is a weekly podcast and new episodes drop every Thursday. So until next time, look alive, y'all, it's crazy out there. (upbeat music) (upbeat music)