Of Mice & Men & Murder - Sidney, Montana

hello everybody and welcome back to small town murder express yay and choo-choo yay indeed jimmy yay indeed my name is james petra gallo i'm here with my co-host i am jimmy wissman thank you folks so much for joining us today on another insane edition of small town murder express you know you're gonna get crazy you know you're gonna get surprises you know you're gonna get weird little twists and we got it all for you today lots of crazy stuff we will get into that and much more but first definitely head over to shut up and give me murder.com get your tickets for live shows that is the thing to do right now next show up with tickets available may 2nd in denver and then may 30th in royal oak michigan also has some tickets then after the summer it's milwaukee minneapolis yeah that's right uh dallas san jose sacramento tarrytown boston so get your tickets right now shut up and give me murder.com and all sorts other stuff there too merchandise and everything like that so get your tickets 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about her to help her kids grieve as the way she put it and uh then she went to trial and looked like a real jackass and we're going to talk about all of it and more that's everything there patreon.com slash crime in sports and at the same time you're all the shows crime and sports your stupid opinion small town murder all ad free with your patreon free and you get a shout out at the end of the regular show where jimmy will mess your name all up don't you worry about that so that said i think it's time everybody what do you say let's all sit back here there are the lungs there we go here we go arms to the sky and let's all shout shut up and give me murder let's do this everybody okay let's go on a trip shall we yeah let's do it we are going up to a place we haven't been in a while oh we're going to montana this week nice it's been quite a while over a year since we've been in montana so uh reason is north dakota montana those states up there the people just aren't close enough to each other to murder each other very often it's just you're just too far away it's space equals happiness i'm not going all the way over there to kill frank he's a dick but i mean he's so far away screw it at least he's way over there well at least i don't have to deal with him uh this is sydney montana s-i-d-n-e-y montana uh it's in northeastern montana kind of over by the north dakota border this is in the where the oil boom was started in about 2012 here this area the the western north dakota eastern montana area like williston north dakota becomes a big you know big hub for it and so things kind of get wild we'll talk about they kind of go from a very small you know rural western town to oil people are coming in and the workers are transient they're they're wild they drink fascinating folks yeah they're single guys who drink and carouse and it's a lot old boy do that oh we'll talk about it here uh this is about four hours to billings montana about three and a half hours to bismarck north dakota so kind of right in the middle of them and five and a half hours to geraldine montana our last montana episode episode 569 this is good this is episode 694 by the way so it's been a long time that was a stalker to die for uh this is in richland county area code 406 population of this town pretty small still even after a boom uh 6420 so still a small town median household income here lower than the national average national average is around 70 here and there's a lot of people who live in the north dakota so it's a lot of people that live in the north dakota so it's a lot of people that live in the north dakota so it's a lot it's 55 611 dollars so all right pretty uh a little bit low and mediocre yeah and median home cost is high and it's expensive up there 397 100 is medium almost 400 grand that is pricey so it's tough it's tough to find housing up here from what i understand a nickname of this town sunrise city i mean i suppose i mean i think every city has a sunrise everybody's got a sunrise yeah it's probably really beautiful there because of the mountains and such i bet the sun sets are better yeah like arizona montana's a lot of plains too isn't it it is it's my it's yeah it's a lot of everything it's the size of like eight european countries it's huge up there it's enormous um a little bit of history of this town just a little bit the settlers began coming here in the 1870s established a post office in 1888 um a six-year-old named sydney walters and his parents were staying with hyrum otis the local justice of the peace and hyrum otis that he must have the justice of the peace has sweeping powers because he can just name the town and he did the jp is like that kid is cute he decided sydney's a pretty good name we should name the town that not i'll name my kid that i'll name the town that uh so that's what they did in the following year montana became a state and sydney was incorporated and for a long time the main source of everything here is sugar beets they grow sugar beets sugar beets here we've gone over this with some other show about five years ago i believe six seven years ago about sugar beets so that's what they were into then the oil boom came where they were you know the shale and all that stuff so sure and everything changed uh we've never been here so let's find out some reviews of this town see what other people think okay five stars sydney is a very small tight-knit town where everybody might know your name but you are very well cared for what i don't know what that means yeah that's not why the butt that's it's just gonna say the the butt is not really necessary and would have been a fine thing to put instead of but well they know your name but you're well cared for but i mean yeah they call you names they go hey jimmy you cocksucker but then they take care of you yeah uh we are a town 45 minutes in the complete middle of two opposite colleges in both williston north dakota and glendive montana the community is so great that when people leave to attend colleges for years and hundreds of miles away they're not going to they always find their way back home to sydney to raise their families how about it and that's what happens with one of our people in a story today as they leave and come back came back here yep that's what happened so must they must love it here's five stars i have loved living in sydney and i am happy raising my family here there are many uh well there may not be very many conveniences but the friendlessness friend friendliness wow they spelled that wrong the friendlessness that's what i'm saying what i saw at first was friendlessness well i'm like that is way wrong amazing but the friendliness and community makes up for that okay um two stars the cost of living is high due to demand of people needed here but not everyone makes the oil field money so for some it's difficult oil field money is big huh it pays for in the middle of nowhere it pays way more than anything else in the middle of it afforded matthew mcconaughey to go get aids treatment oh for so much so much of it he wasn't in the fields though you know what a big difference oh he was i don't remember that part okay didn't you didn't you see that movie yeah but like years ago i don't remember he's out there drilling and it's not getting knocked out he's getting punched not a movie that's uh a great repeat watcher so no i'm at yeah so once years ago once you're like all right that was that i'm uncomfortable put it on the shelf and there you go it's fine it's a good movie it's just you know i just i don't want to see matthew mcconaughey look like that for two hours no no yeah sad uh the town is small and not much to do unless you want to go to the bar and then there's like eight to choose from oh that's great and that's what these towns turn into when all the oil comes in bars open and roughnecks love to drink yeah like i was looking for murders in north dakota and there was several in williston and multiple of them were people getting murdered at strip clubs that were right next door to each other so i was like jesus this place is crazy um and then finally three stars this is the lowest rating they have by the way is a three star there's nothing to do here and there's no reason to stay no all right things to do in this town the richland county fair and rodeo of course oh yeah what began as a small community street fair has evolved into what is now the richland county fair and rodeo entertaining 30 000 plus people year after year it became official in 1920 and has continued to be successful ever since since then. they say here um some attractions we have the freckle farms pony rides and petting zoo yeah got that the world you got this is a this guy i'll be wandering around scott's crazy magic it's crazy magic it's crazy so crazy there's an off-axis stunt show oh which is they say high energy 60 minute action packed spectacle here right you get bmx and dirt bike stunts slam dunk aerial action that will leave you speechless jimmy it's all anti-gravity shit james pretty much teeter board acrobatics with jaw-dropping precision a hilarious comedy parkour chase scene so like keystone down yeah and then they just fall and another guy comes i mean that's the funny part of parkour parkour right when you fall well that's the good otherwise yeah you're just like look at this idiot jesus christ and the grand finale a mega ramp launched by bmx riders dirt bikes and every additional act they offer you come up on a moped you're going off this mega ramp they don't give a shit roller skates let's go who cares rocket skates let's go wiley let's go yeah let's see what acme has delivered today there's also the prca rodeo will be in town yeah that's the real one their big headlining band midland with special guest eli mosley i think i've heard of midland it sounds so it sounds like every i thought i did too but i'm like all those country bands of the same it's also the brand of a cb radio yeah midland is generic for a country group like young something is generic for a rapper you know what i mean it's like i don't know all the youngs and midlands i don't know where the hell they're talking about that said let's talk about a murder shall we here we go all right let's get into this now okay now sydney kind of has a pre-2012 post-2012 oh life you can put it a grace period yeah it's yeah um 2012 it was kind of a quiet place you know what i mean they said that all the social stuff revolved around high school sports like a typical changed very rural town uh quote this is from a writer quote respectable folks went to the bar on saturday nights nobody locked their doors just the respectable folks the respect yeah the really bad people for saturday really bad people have all been kicked out of all these bars already so they're not allowed in uh then the oil boom hit a massive underground deposit stretching across eastern montana and western north dakota and um basically this made it you know people rush up here for jobs essentially okay um so they're pumping out crude and now all of a sudden everything is packed you can't get even a hotel room up there because of the oil workers really there's probably staying in those huh yeah yeah temporary housing there's semi trucks you know flooding these small streets and everything like that it's a complete fucking mess um the police chief said he needed seven more officers and didn't couldn't get them yet because that pays less than the oil fields so is that right yeah so there's shit going on drug crimes in eastern montana more than doubled in only a couple years is that right um assaults in dickinson north dakota which is right across the border i think we've done an episode there um that increased fivefold in two years that's assault assaults the mayor said this about the oil workers and the spike in crime quote we own the day they own the night they've given up what it's just it's bedlam after dark it's like fucking deadwood after dark that's what this place is basically it's crazy and i i've heard the term roughneck i know that's what they call the oil field guys but i don't know why uh no either is their neck just blistered is that what it is they're just hunched over probably pretty rough from the sun beating on it yeah sun blistered though i'm not sure not positive um let's find out someone about someone who uh well comes in from a walk and probably isn't blood by sun blistered because it happened in the morning okay january 7 2012 this is in the afternoon there's a guy named gary arnold gary's got some kids and a wife we'll talk about all that he had gone for a walk that morning and when he gets back his wife sherry isn't home so he assumed that she had gone for her run because she runs in the morning too all right i don't know why they just don't run together but whatever maybe they solitude not sure um so he waits for you know figure she'll be back soon um time passes and he she never comes home huh so he goes out and goes looking for her himself you know driving around her usual running routes to find her and can't find anything so he gets home and reports her as missing to the police department wow my wife's missing she her running shoes are gone she clearly went out running and um hasn't come back and she's nowhere to be found wow so and she's a real these are real kind of stayed people these aren't like these aren't oil workers they're both he and his wife both gary and sherry are teachers gary and sherry gary and sherry and they're teachers and they have you know a very kind of calm life they don't go do crazy things that is a fascinating phone call to make to the police too of like yeah because i mean the the term is literally ran away and so you call the police and you go uh my wife you know what never mind my wife ran away but wait let me there's more she ran away i want you to look for but as i'm saying the words it's starting to occur yeah the problem is running away entails running back home and she hasn't done that part yet so she usually runs right the fuck back she's running somewhere we're not sure if it's away or towards something or whatever but you should find her this is fun phone calls all so within hours everybody is looking for her literally a thousand people are searching for her wow by late afternoon they have organized at the high school search like everyone get to the high school search parties all the firemen all that kind of shit everybody is out looking like they're very aware that this is not normal and everybody in town is like wait she didn't come back and she's a very popular math teacher at sydney high school too so everybody knows her she's worked there for years everybody knows her and basically about 20 of the town went looking for her about a thousand five thousand people went right um the police department they even sent 40 soldiers from the montana army national guard to look for they imagine that canine units hundreds of volunteers just walking the fields and you know this is january in montana it's cold and they're still out there doing it they don't give a shit uh then on holly street which is not too far from their house off in a ditch they find one of her running shoes a new balance running shoe that's a problem now that's a bad sign one shoe is missing yeah because she's probably not you know hopping around somewhere right now yeah if you run away you're gonna need both of those yeah and she's nowhere around the shoe which is a problem so they put up a big missing thing for her it's a newspaper sherry lee arnold is her name she's 43 years old uh she's white with black hair brown eyes five foot ten hundred forty pounds yeah and from what it looks like a very nice warm smile like so young she's a little bit older she's a little bit older she's a little bit older she's a so young she looks like um the math teacher you'd want to have because she looks like she would the good one explain it to you and you would get it you know what i mean without calling me stupid without calling me stupid exactly that's how i feel she'd be like wow i don't even feel that bad about not getting that the first five times she fucking said it so they say she has a slender build numerous scars on her left leg and was last seen wearing a blue hooded sweatshirt with white leggings and black gloves so they're begging people to call um now she is um sherry arnold she is uh she's born february 13th 1968 she's 43 years old she grew up on her family's ranch about 25 miles outside of town yeah i mean she's really that's a nice life she's come up with here sweet way to start you bet she's the daughter of ron and sharon uh whited whitted w-h-i-t-e-d whitted um she's got a sister named ronda and um you know they they all wrote they wrote horses growing up and they showed uh horses and and other livestock and 4-h shows and that kind of thing i mean she came up a rural ranch girl riding horses showing animals at the 4-h thing i mean that's what she's doing um yeah she was valedictorian of sydney high school class of 1986 she's a real achiever this one too that's that's the one you want teaching people she clearly gets this yes she didn't just choose you know teaching as i don't know what else to do and they're always hiring because that's why a lot of guaranteed paycheck i know many people who have gone into teaching just because there was nothing they didn't know what else to do and whatever they went to school for wasn't really mad you know working for them so they end up you know going and getting the teaching degree and that's what they get yeah and uh those who can't think you know what i mean yeah yeah and then some teachers are just great some teachers are awesome and they're engaged and they want to teach and they're into it and then some people are like you know i'm just doing this until my resume gets picked up by somebody else yeah they said no kids left behind So get the fuck out. Get out. She went to college. She played volleyball at the University of North Dakota in Williston. She earned her teaching degree from Dickinson State University in 1990. And then she started teaching in Tioga, North Dakota. And then she taught at another school in Minot, also North Dakota. And then she ended up coming back to Sydney. How about that? And for the last 18 years, she's been teaching math in Sydney. Loves it. So, I mean, back in her hometown. And, yeah, it's really nice. She got married in 1994 when she had just gotten back into Sydney. She married a guy named Jerome Papanow, P-A-P-I-N-E-A-W, Papanow, in 1994. She has two children from that marriage, Jason and Holly. They end up getting divorced at some point in the year. So, maybe 97-ish. By 98, she is in a relationship with somebody else, Gary Arnold, her current husband, who's looking for her, who's also a teacher at Sydney High School, which seems convenient. You can carpool at least. That's nice. Yeah. I mean, I've seen many couples through my high school that were married. And they were teachers at the same school. Yeah. Yeah. And a couple of teachers that were, like, at different schools. But in the district. And they were married, you know. September 12, 1998, they get married. So, she brings two kids to the table. I believe Gary brought, I think he had one kid. And then, I believe they have two kids together. If not, it might be three. She has a daughter named Holly, and they live on Holly Street? They live off, that's down the road there. Oh, that's where her shoe was found. That's where her shoe was found. So, yeah, she's got, so there's five kids all together here. They're both teachers. You know, they're doing their thing here. She told one of her friends that her description of her life is, quote, I love our rut. So. Say again? Yeah. She likes the groove they've made. Oh, got it. Yeah. All right. Rut's usually not a positive word. That's what I asked. No. Well, yeah, you have to put love in there or else it's bad. Yeah. If you say, I'm in a rut, that's not good. If you say, I love this rut I'm in, then it's like, okay, I guess you're happy. Oh, groove. Yeah. Groove and rut. Groove and rut are synonymous, although. That's what I took it as. Rut sounds terrible. Rut sounds, because that's what you say. I'm in a rut right now. Yeah. That's what people say. You're stuck. When you're stuck. A rut's never not stuck. You don't know what to do. Yeah. You're, you know, in a shit of a mess. You say, I'm in a rut. Yeah. So, yeah, she teaches algebra. Her husband teaches algebra and her kids go to school at this high school as well. Okay. So, you know, couldn't be better for them. In fall of 2011, she was named KTVQ. She's a local TV station or radio station, one of the two. KT, I assume TV, KTVQ, Teacher of the Month. Of the Month, that's great. Yeah, she's Teacher of the Month. She also had cancer. Jesus. She had beaten cancer as well. Really? After this time. She had, I don't know what kind, but all I keep finding is that it was a rare cancer, not a common one. And she survived it. She was fighting it for six years. Six years of constant going. And she has come out the other side, it looks like here, and she's in remission. So, I mean, yeah, it's, you know, maybe. That's got to be exhausting. Six years of it? Six years. And maybe there's something to karma here. She's a nice lady and she got through it, you know? So, that's good. Yeah. Yeah. Beating it is the key. Yeah. If you're like, if you see progress or like something, then you can certainly have a desire Totally. To keep fighting it. My dad died of it after six years. And boy, oh boy, he was on the ropes from month one. I was going to say, when they, when you were saying when he first got diagnosed, they didn't, they wouldn't have given him six years. They didn't think he even had that long. Yeah. It was already severely, you know, into it here. But Sherry, she beats it. And she runs half marathons now. She coaches softball. She likes to do yard work and go horseback riding and all that kind of shit. So, loves sports too. She seems cool as shit. Yeah. Big Cubs fan. Oh. She loves the Cubs and the Minnesota Twins. I'm like, man, she is a glutton for punishment. No kidding. Just a glutton for punishment. And also. She's got two, baseball, both. Yeah, they're American and National League though. Okay. So, you can do that. You can kind of do that. Yeah. And that to me is, it seems like she's also in football, her team is the Vikings. Okay. So, Minnesota is the Plains team. Yeah, it is. It goes over all the way to there. And the Cubs. Seattle only gets to halfway through Idaho. Yeah. Well, and the Cubs were on WGN. Yeah. So, I bet you anything, she grew up watching the Cubs on TV. And that's probably how she got to be a Cubs fan. Because that's how I started liking the Cubs was when we first moved to Arizona. The White Sox were too. WGN. Yeah, but fuck the White Sox. I don't know. Didn't care about them. I loved Frank Thomas. I loved watching. I did too. It was so much fun. I did. I liked Frank Thomas too. And Bobby Thigpen, was that his name? The pitcher? He was a White Sox fan. White Sox. Yeah. White Sox. Reliever. Yeah. Bobby Thigpen. Yeah. All that. They had a, I remember those bad 80s teams like Dan Pasqua and Ron Hasse and all those guys. They would trade back and forth with the Yankees. Miserable. I mean, the White Sox ran shitty right up until the late 90s, I guess. No, it was further than that. They've been bad pretty much since the Titanic went down. Yeah. They won a World Series and then went right back to historically sucking. Yeah. To really being bad. Yeah. She and Gary would take the kids to Disney World. Okay. Down in Florida. So they would go do that. She was a big baker. She liked to bake desserts. Oh. So, I mean, she's doing great. And her and Gary would, they would go out for long walks together and big long walk and talks together to hang out. And it seems like she's in a good relationship, you would imagine. And January 7th, 2012, she got up before dawn, put on her New Balance shoes and, went out running and she had recently run a half marathon in Deadwood so she runs all the time. Oh, she did that, huh? So the scene of the shoe now at the scene of the shoe they also find her hat as well off a little further, you know, like a beanie cap there. Sure. There is evidence of a struggle in the loose gravel and frozen mud. The frozen mud seems to be disturbed. Footprints and scotch marks. Yeah, you can see that. There's no witnesses to anything that happened here. They can't find anything. It's the area it's like an industrial area they're in. No. This isn't like, you know, in a neighborhood. This is kind of often an industrial area. There's a truck route that runs along the Sydney Sugars plant. So that's what it is. It's basically and where she was in January in Montana, it's very dark and very cold and there's nobody there. Yeah. So just this industrial area by the sugar plant on a truck route she's running on, which they probably run that because there's no cars going down there because the trucks aren't going there yet. There's that so they don't slide off the road and hit you and such, but less traffic means more ice, doesn't it? I'd be afraid to slip and fall on my fat ass. It can, but I mean, if you're running in Montana in January, you figured out ice. She probably puts you might put those little ice clips. I suppose you could put like little spikes on your shoes. Yeah, I have those little ice spikes for Oh, do you? Yeah, I have some for like shoveling. If it's really frozen out, you you know, they're just like you clip. They just go in your shoe. Yeah, you pull them and they like pop on the bottom. Oh, got it. Okay. They're pretty simple just to kind of break it up a little bit. They're not like thicker and they're long or anything, but this is a safe place that she's usually running in. This is Sydney. There's no crime. There's no anything going on here. So the running shoe on the side of the ditch signaled something's wrong mixed with the signs of a struggle and that, you know, you know, she didn't just like kick a shoe off because she was not hot or something. So now she's not usually the type of person no one would think of her as someone who would take off and run away and especially with one shoe. She's probably not going to run away. So her husband, Gary, is obviously the first person they look at to say what the fuck it went on here. But he's question. Yeah, he is cleared by law enforcement because for the sole reason that he was fully cooperative from the first moment, which a lot of people are fully cooperative and also fully guilty. Yeah, they're fully cooperative and fully full of shit, fully questioning what you know. Yeah. Yeah. But Gary, they seem to really believe him and a criminal profiler speaking to the news in the days after this disappearance said about the shoe that shoe in the ditch. Not a good sign. Looks to me like it's an abduction. Something somebody pulled her into a vehicle. I'd go with somebody over something right. Unless but also Sasquatch pulled up in his van and yanked her in there. I don't think I think it's probably somebody I'm going to just. Yeah. Nice job. Something you went to school for that. Yeah. Yeah. No, he's FBI all the way. This guy. It's this is huge news around here. Yeah. Not only because women don't usually disappear, but also she is a popular figure. She's a local teacher. She was just, you know, profiled on the news as a teacher of the month. you know, like two and a half months ago, so. - And a mom, a responsible mom, for five children uh yeah yeah she's got she's got shit going on you don't just disappear absolutely i mean this is national news too the washington post picks it up albuquerque stations pick it up you know everywhere albuquerque all the way down there all the way down there yeah even the uh the noaa weathers website even had look for her yeah the national organization of something yeah of um i can't remember what the hell it is it's weather i'm too focused on this now to get into weather yeah that's that's what it is that's a big one though that thing's important it's yeah yeah no that's the that's they they look at all the storm shit i believe there yeah um and also sydney high school they have a basketball game and they have a moment of silence before the game for her even though she's just missing um now the profiler who said you know she's probably been abducted by something or someone something or someone fucking idiot he also noted that when looking around because they clear the husband and there's nobody else it's not like she's had an affair or anything like that so they're kind of a dead end there so they start looking at are there registered sex offenders around oh someone that might pull a woman into a car you know what i mean they're getting like dead serious oh absolutely they want to find who her bad and uh they said sydney had 41 registered sex offenders all male within approximately one mile of the jogging route so there's 41 perverts in a good lord in a one mile circle of this place can you imagine that what a what a shit-sowing circle that is yeah i assume that that there's quite a bit pretty much everywhere we don't know unless you like really look at but i mean if you look at your neighborhood it looks like it has chicken pox on that website absolutely it's ugly it's but this i mean 40 41 in a mile a mile that's a lot that's a lot i don't know it feels like they did that on purpose yeah well i mean how many of these oil workers are registered sex offenders probably probably quite a few it's kind of a nomadic lifestyle and shit probably a lot of unregistered too plenty of unregistered so you put that in there and then they probably all have to stay in one area because there's a school over here they can't be here so they i'm pretty sure they're all in there or there's a house that's like designated for it this is yeah pervert house and we all stay here um that by the way 41 in that small average is uh four times the national average per capita so this is like sex offender wow this is like a sex offender vacation spot or some over here on average it's 10 per square mile we got it we got work to do i don't even know if it's that but in the town they have yeah four times the cap per capita i don't know how they're doing the math jesus christ um ten of them were non-compliant with register uh registry requirements and had potentially unreported addresses too um one was a level three offender which is the highest risk for repeat sexual offense and the highest threat to public safety out of 41 only one was a level three that's pretty interesting um so that's what they have so they got to go on a pervert roundup now and go talk to all these perverts and find out who did what here hey uh knock knock knock hi is there yes we're looking for the local sex pervert hi oh it's you okay yeah um hi there pervert can we search your house for one new balance shoe please yeah have you got a left of this man then january 11th so four days after she disappears an anonymous tip comes in okay okay sydney police receive it um and it is an anonymous tip saying that a 22 year old man that this person knows named michael spell s-p-e-l-l has been overheard talking to family members about a woman that he and another man kidnapped and killed so overheard this is a very yeah you know this is a real family members heard that there's a real nebulous anonymous tip here he was overheard saying this and that doesn't really register a lot but they do also give a description of a vehicle that he might be traveling in that's good so it's a 1993 green ford explorer so that's what they're saying now the guy that they're they're talking about is michael keith spell he's 22 years old he's from parachute colorado oh um he has an iq of 70 okay um is illiterate as fuck and um described later as having the mental age of about an 11 year old and the education what his dad says of a kindergartner yeah that's what we got here that's what was absorbed uh all the way up until then or a first grader i apologize okay that's his functioning level they say yeah first grader oh boy how long did when did he drop out do we know when he finished oh yeah yeah he didn't finish school at all yeah no he dropped out pretty early here he had uh he's had some criminal problems in the past few years which is why they want to look at him even more he had been declared incompetent to proceed on two prior legal matters in colorado because of his stupidity he's already gotten off on two charges because of it oh yeah one of them was a colorado case in 2007 involving drug possession contributing to the delinquency of a minor and sexual contact without consent oh that's called rape what are we talking about well it's not rape if it's not penetration of some sort yeah it's not technically you can't if you grab somebody's ass they can't say rape that's not rape okay that's like a rape saying it's raining out when it's just not sexual contact yeah that's sexual contact without consent now okay i don't know if maybe that law needs to be updated for whatever but you know it doesn't seem like it's rape um no but it's gross whatever it is it's certainly not good no one should be touching anybody but um in and if it was all in the same account too with the alcohol and such that's not good yeah i think so he gave whatever drugs to this person and then had contact with sexual contact with consent is just sexual contact it's not against the law so without consent is implied if you've been arrested arrested for it uh also in 2009 that was dismissed due to his dumbness then in 2009 he was arrested after asking a student at was that what was then saint john middle school uh to text a fellow students and ask any of them if they wanted to buy some weed oh well at least he wasn't slinging dick but still yeah um uh the arrest affidavit said the student who was 14 uh said spell provided him with weed and the two had smoked and he said hey text all your friends and see if any of them need weed that's just trying to make money okay yeah so he faced charges of contributing to the delinquency of a minor attempted distribution of marijuana and solicitation to commit distribution of marijuana yeah um he was represented by a public defender who twice successfully requested psychological evaluations for him and the case was dismissed and sealed so yeah um so imagine getting off being he's too dumb to understand that that isn't okay yeah he's too stupid like they looked at it and they were like the 14 year old who he asked is way more mature than him wow so what do we do here basically and what do you do with a guy like this i don't know he's a big guy too like he's a he's a lenny like he's a big a big lenny like what do you do with a guy like this honestly it's this is a go to a legal state first of all that would be one thing it's a very of mice and men situation uh with him and his friend here that we'll talk about so he was initially free on a personal recognizance bond co-signed by his father with whom he was living and then in 2010 he was arrested on a failure to appear warrant in that case as well um the bond carried a five thousand dollar penalty in case of default and his father was issued a notice of forfeiture but it all ended up being just dismissed after it didn't matter because it's two he's too dumb he has a girlfriend named angel cruz everybody again we've said this we've said it once we've said it a thousand times i don't want to hear that you can't find somebody this man has an iq of 70 and a criminal record that includes words like sex sexual and without consent and he's got a girlfriend you can do it fellas i'm sorry charges dismissed because he's too dumb too dumb to even deal with it that's sorry um they have a son together this woman lets him impregnate her somehow she gave him consent oh god he had consent at one point here um so he's got about a one-year-old kid at this time that they're looking into him and he's got a one-year-old son a girlfriend named angel cruz he's got a father named harry who sounds like he's exhausted by him completely i can't imagine he still loves him and he's you know there for him they say his family said he left colorado on january and he's still there for him he's still there for him he's still there for him he's still January 4th to pursue oil jobs in the Eastern Montana, Western North Dakota area. In this area spells father, Harry said that his son had traveled with a friend of his to up to the oil fields after his friend, meaning, you know, Michael's friend had guaranteed work that pays up to $2,000 a week. Damn good money. If you can go up there and make a hundred grand a year and you're in parachute Colorado a month. Yeah. To make that. To make that in a rural area without owning a ranch or your own business is impossible. It just doesn't work like that. So that's great money. Yeah. That, That's why a lot of them like just drag a trailer and go from field to field because you can make two grand a week and not have any fees to pay. That's amazing. And that's why these states do this also, because places like Oklahoma, they went from having zero earthquakes to having like 800 earthquakes a year because they're doing this crazy shit. But people want the jobs. It's like putting a it's like putting a fucking prison somewhere. It's the same thing. Well, there's jobs there. Yeah, but it's also to work full of felons also. So what are we doing anyway? His father, Harry, said that his son was anxious to prove himself to his parents and his girlfriend and even his son, who doesn't know anything yet. But we'll someday know as much as he knows. They're pretty similar. Michael found work in the past in oil fields near parachute and on a fire damage cleanup crew, but was unable to keep the jobs because and I quote, this is his father. He didn't quite understand what to do. Yeah. He's too dumb to work on a fire damage cleanup crew. He doesn't know rake putting bag. See that shit that's burnt. Yeah. Clean it. Get rid of it. Can't process that. I mean, this guy is get it out of scary. Dumb. His dad said he might be 22 years old, but he has an education less than a kindergartner. Wow. So the man he drove to Montana with is Lester Van Waters, Jr. Van is his middle name. He's 47 years old. So 27. 25 years older than Michael Spell. He's a Florida native. Moved to Parachute, Colorado. He's originally from Indian River County, Florida, which is on the east coast of the state there. He grew up with an alcoholic father who more than once apparently fired shots at him. Oh, boy. Like bucking shots toward your kid. He also has four sisters. He worked construction and roofing, which is the. That's maybe the rapiest of all the construction workers. It's a tough one. It's a tough roof. It's certainly some of the hardest work. It's the shittiest work. It's the work that you are doing. You'd be moving somewhere else on the crew unless you had a long criminal record that makes you do whatever the hell you can. You'll take whatever you can get. Basically, go up there. We're tired of you down here. Yeah. Roofers are scumbags. Sorry if any roofers are listening. Look around. You're probably not a scumbag if you're listening to this show. But look around you right now. How many scumbags do you see? A bunch, right? Would you trust any of them around your daughters? Put it that way. Probably not. So he's a construction. They're here because they can't work indoors. No one will allow them indoors. That's why they're here. No one will even allow them to on ground level. They have to be up closest to the sun. Go up top and outside. Mop that tar, buddy. Also, he has seven felonies that we'll talk about. His lucky number is seven. Seven, by the way. He's got seven felonies and seven children. Wow. With five different women. Okay. I was hoping for seven. I was hoping for triple sevens, but fives. He's done three stints in state prison. So his numbers are seven, seven, five, and three at this point. He should really play that in the lottery. If there's one of those quick picks or something, he should do that. He did three prison stints between 2002 and 2010. His criminal history in Indian County dates back to the late 80s. It includes weapons possessions, narcotics possessions, theft, trespassing, leaving the scene of a crime, possession of a firearm by a convicted felon, sale of cocaine, burglary. He fucks up a lot. Contempt of court, resisting an officer, multiple counts of driving with a suspended license, and then, of course, failure to pay child support because at this current time, he's $84,000 in arrears on child support. $84,000. Jimmy. You're never clearing that up. That's like what we hear from some NFL player who is getting sued or something. He owes $112,000 because he has to pay like $8,000 a month or whatever. Yeah, he's only six months behind. Yeah, this guy's probably 12 years behind. He's never paid anything. He also uses about a dozen aliases as well, and he's also been charged with giving police a false name, as it makes sense as well. Because he's got aliases. His former Florida co-worker and roommate remembered him thusly, and wow, quote, He worked hard and partied hard. We made money and he partied real hard. That was his main goal. And girls, I know that he was wild, and I know that we partied a hell of a lot in our years, but there was never any violence in it. Just party, babe. He said the word party three times in two sentences. And girls also, which is funny. And he has one asset, and that is a green 1993 Ford Explorer. Oh, I didn't know that. August of 2010 is when he moved to Colorado after he was released from prison in Florida. That's when he met Michael Spell, so pretty recently. And he told Spell, there's money in them thar hills and them oil fields. Let's go get it. So January 12th, the day after the anonymous tip, the FBI, interviews Angel Cruz, Michael Spell's baby mama and girlfriend. And she tells them what Michael Spell told her. And that was that, quote, he and a man named Lester had abducted a woman. Why would you tell your girlfriend that? I mean, what have you been up to? Well, sometimes you're just honest to a fault. You know what I mean? To a fault. That's the problem. The guy's just too honest. Yeah. But we got such a great relationship. I tell her everything. I just tell her everything. Including when I abduct women. Yeah. And also, Michael had told her that they strangled the woman and shoved her face in muddy water until she was dead. That's what Angel tells the FBI. Yeah. I didn't hear a single why. None of that. If I'm her, I'm not getting that far in the conversation. No. Past you abducted a woman. What? You did what? That would be the end of it. And then you came home? She got all the way down to this shit. Where he did all of this. He told her that Lester forced him to bury the body. And that Michael said he was just wracked with guilt. And he was terrified of what Lester would do to him if he said anything. So, she also gave a vehicle description of a 1993 Green Ford Explorer. So, they locate the Green Ford Explorer. Lester Waters Jr. is taken into custody because he's the one inside the vehicle. Michael's not in the vehicle. They don't find him in there. They're not together anymore. Okay. Inside the vehicle, they find a Walmart receipt dated January 7th, 2012, the same day Sherry disappeared, for items including a shovel. Oh, boy. Yeah. This is a way to hear about the shovel. Now, Michael had stolen Lester Waters Jr.'s phone after the murder, apparently, and began hitchhiking towards South Dakota. Wow. So, he's just on the side of the road with a thumb out with a stolen phone. Somebody else's phone. A bad man's phone. Yeah. The SWAT team pulls up and gets him off the side of the road. So, that's where he is. He's taken into custody and transported to Williams County Correctional Center in Williston, North Dakota, because he was in North Dakota at the time. Now, Michael's spell when he's booked into the jail, the only things he has in his possession are a stolen phone and $11. $11. That's what he's got to his name. It's a good thing y'all got me. I'm out of money. I'm about out of money. Yeah. I had about one extra value meal left in me, and that's about it. Wow. One extra value meal or about two hours at a motel. Yeah, totally. So, the FBI brings him in for formal questioning because he was in another state, and he's from another state, and it's all very confusing, and the FBI was doing a profile anyway. Now, he is going to spill it. He confesses, but the problem is he tells them what happened, but with certain tweaks on it and changes to it that make himself a little bit less guilty here and kind of shield himself a little bit here from guilt. It's one of those things, but he is the first to talk here. His dad, you know, talks to the media and says he's got less education than a kindergartner, and, you know, my son is all messed up, and he left with some criminal asshole who told him that. There's all sorts of money in the oil fields. Now, what Michael tells them is, first of all, they ask him if he understands his Miranda rights. They go through it all. They go, do you understand your rights, as we've told you? And he said, a little bit, which I've never heard that response to, do you understand your rights? A little bit. This is like Brendan Dassey up there. It's worse. It's worse. This is a guy that's been fired because he didn't understand his job. He didn't understand cleaning up burn things. So, the FBI agents give him a second opportunity to decline to speak without speaking to an attorney, and he said, well, I'll just talk to you, I guess, but he understands his rights a little bit. A little bit. He insulted him a little bit. He gave him his rights a little bit. So, he says, January 4th, we left to get oil jobs. Our destination was Williston, North Dakota, and this oil boom, you know what I mean? So they said that the trip was basically Basically, a marathon of crack smoking the entire time. Nice. That's how they started. They loaded into the Ford Explorer. Day one. Day one. All the crack. As soon as they got in the car, he said Lester Waters was already high on crack when they got in the car for the trip. And basically, the drive is 800 miles, and they basically just, quote, consumed crack cocaine for three straight days. God damn. Just three days of crack smoking and driving. Okay? He said that Lester Waters smoked crack continuously, and Michael told the police that Lester forced him to smoke crack, too. Forced me. Forced me to smoke. I had to do it. Yeah. So he says somewhere on the drive, this is January 7th is when this happened, Lester Waters told Michael Spell that the crack cocaine, quote, brought the devil out in him. Oh, boy. It's been known to do that, by the way. Yeah. It really has. It'll bring the devil out in quite a few people, crack. You chase the dragon with heroin, but you bring the devil out you with crack. You bring the devil, yeah. You chasing the dragon? Nah, man, bringing the devil. That's what I'm doing right now. So that shit is evil, though. We are running with the devil. Crack is fucking evil. I mean, not that that's a hot take, but if you've ever known anyone who's severely addicted to crack, it is a fucking mess. It's a mess. Yeah. I mean, thankfully, I've only seen. Really? Close up a lot through documentaries. And obviously, that is, boy, oh, boy. I've known dudes that smoke crack, but. I had friends that were absolutely addicted to, like, they'd bring home whole pay phones. Yeah, the whole phone. To try to crack them. They'd bring in cigarette machines, Jimmy, entire cigarette machines. They'd bring it in the fucking house. You're like, what's going on? They're like, you want a pack of cigarettes? The money box in that is so buried. It's so buried, but they're going to get it. They got it. They made a key. They poured. They smelted, Jimmy. They smelted a key to make a master key. Out of, like, nickels or something? They, I don't know. The one guy was an older crackhead, so he had tricks, but that's Satanic Bill. And he, they made a key out of metal, and they made it and poured it into a lock and all this shit, so they could unlock. They had, like, a master key to phone boxes. I mean, you better pray to fuck that that works, because if it doesn't, now the keyhole's full of molten metal. That's full of that shit. Only crackheads would think to do that. That's what I mean. I was like, you guys are nuts. So, it's a lot. So, anyway, he apparently began talking about kidnapping and killing a woman. Lester does. Now, Michael Spell said, I thought he was kidding at first, but then I realized he kind of wasn't kidding. It's a shit joke. Yes, it's a real weird joke. It doesn't come up very often. So, they're driving through Sydney that morning. The streets are quiet. It's still dark. They initially, they found a woman they were going to kidnap. She was at a laundromat, but she got in her car and left before they could do it. Like, they were planning it. Like, okay, you're going to do this. And then she went and took off. So, there's no way to get her. Imagine being her. Then they went down Holly Street, which is known as the truck route that runs past the Sydney Sugars Refinery. Right. And, as we know, also running on that street is Sherry, Sherry Arnold. Apparently, they drove up behind her. It's about 6.30 a.m. They drove up behind. They drove up behind her. And, according to Michael Spell's confession here, Lester told him to get out of the vehicle, so he got out. Yeah. And he jogged slightly ahead of Sherry. Oh. Looked like, acting like he was jogging. There's a lot of people super high on three days' worth of crack cocaine jogging at 6.30 in the morning. It's a very normal thing to do out there. I'm sure he's got all of the jogging apparatus. Oh, all the accoutrement, yeah. Crack clothes, crack shoes, all of it. It was a 2012. He's got, like, the iPod. He's got the iPod on his arm. That's what people used to have back then. Yeah. Strapped to it with that little rubber sleeve. Yeah. He's got all that shit. He said hello to her as she passed. She smiled at him, and he smiled back. Then, because she's faster, she's running, he ran up behind her and tackled her from behind. Oh, God. He called it a rugby tackle, which I don't know how much rugby this guy is. A tackle, I think. Yeah. It's a football tackle. He said he forced her face. He forced her face into the muddy ground, and he choked her. And then they dragged her into the car, into the Explorer. Good Lord. Into the back seat. Now, he's going to give a couple conflicting accounts to different people of exactly what happened inside the vehicle. Yeah. In some versions, he killed her, and in other versions, Lester Waters choked her in the back seat. Okay. But we do know that he said that she was choked to death, basically. She was strangled. Then, she's dead back there. So, they covered her up in the back of the Explorer under a blanket. That's it? That's it. They didn't realize that they left a hat and a sneaker at the scene, either. They didn't realize that. You know, when you're high on crack for three days, shit slips by. Certain things fall in the cracks. Yeah. You don't pay attention to details. Certain things get lost in the ether. You know, that's how it works. On the wayside. Lost in the crack smoke. Yeah. So, the Explorer, they drive east. Across the Montana line into North Dakota. They reach the area around Williston, which is kind of the epicenter of the whole oil boom here. And the streets are jammed, and there's all sorts of, a lot of chaos going on in this town. They stop at Walmart, buy a shovel, keep the receipt, smartly enough. Wait till you hear why, because this is amazing. They then drive to a rural area outside Williston. Lester tells Michael to dig. You know, he's younger. If you're 47 and you're with someone that's 22, they're digging. Sorry. Hey, if you're digging a hole and there's someone 22 next to you, who's digging? Who's taking first shift? You're not going to feel this in the morning. No. So, you start. I'm going to feel this for five days if I do this. I'm going to take Advil for the next three. Yeah. Yeah. It's going to be amazing. I'd love to remember, because I've always been sore. But I'd love to remember what it would be like. To do something like that without taking Advil first. Like, I preemptively take Advil now when I do things. I'm like, well, that's going to hurt. I better do things. I went to my daughter's volleyball. We're not even that old. This is scary. And they had the parents participate. Oh, no. That was Tuesday, James. I still hurt. Still limping around? I went bowling Tuesday, and I'm still sore, too. My leg is sore. It's fucking horrible. Okay. So, he's digging. Spell's digging. He says they dig about a three-foot grave. They place Sherry's body inside the grave, and they cover it up with some dirt. Oh, boy. What a stupid thing to do. Insanely stupid. This is so stupid. Nothing to gain. She's jogging, so you're not robbing her. She's not wearing her jewelry or carrying her fucking purse with her credit cards in it. It's stupid. It's just pointless. So, then they drove from there. You know where they drove, Jimmy? Home? Back to Walmart. Can you imagine why you'd go back to Walmart? They are not going to return this shovel. They absolutely returned their grave-digging shovel for a refund. How crackhead is that? Yeah. Yeah. That is buying a circular saw to fix up your house and then taking it back. And then returning it. You asshole. You fucking jerk. At least you didn't buy a circular saw to dismember a person. And then bring it back. This is even crazier. This is crazy. Yep. Then he got his money. He got his money back and he walked out. 11 bucks. He says that Lester ordered him to grab her and that he didn't know what else to do. Wow. He says he's afraid of Lester Waters. He's older. He's scary. Yeah. The next day, he's in jail talking to a fellow inmate, Michael Spell is, and he tells the inmate the story he told his girlfriend, the version where he's the one who grabbed her and he pushed her face. And the money water and all that. So that's corroboration from all sides. So he's told that to multiple people. So they charge both men with deliberate homicide and attempted or aggravated kidnapping. They initially faced the death penalty here as well. Yeah. They both plead not guilty. Wow. Okay. March 21st, 2012. This is almost two months later. Yeah. Finally, Lester Van Waters Jr. agrees to lead the authorities to the location of the body. They still haven't found her. They haven't. Yeah, they haven't. Oh, my God. Nope. They haven't recovered her. So she is found in a rural area outside of Williston in about a three-foot hastily dug grave. The autopsy finds black, gritty, unidentified material in her stomach and trachea consistent with her having had her face forced into the muddy ground. Unbelievable. Horrible. Fucking horrible. Alive. She aspirated it. She didn't do a fucking thing to anybody. For no reason. She beat cancer and teaches kids fucking algebra. She's an angel. That's crazy. Wow. This is ridiculous. I can't believe these people exist on this planet. I don't even know what to say about it. I mean, the other guy, Lester, you look at this is exactly what you'd expect from him. I just can't believe. I can't believe anybody does this. Yeah. I can't believe I expect that from someone. Yeah. Now, the fact that they brought this up. this body across the state line triggers federal jurisdiction. for kidnapping, giving the FBI Salt Lake City Division a role in the investigation as well. So now you've got the federal government up your ass. They have a funeral for her. 2,000 people attend this funeral. This is in a town of 5,000. 2,000 people attend the funeral. They have it at Sydney High School's gymnasium. They put a Chicago Cubs hat and flowers on her casket. Her husband, Gary, said he'd like to thank the police, the FBI, and the people of Sydney and the people who have turned out to help and the role they played in bringing Sherry back home. It wasn't how we wanted her to come home, but she came home to us. Jesus, even he's a nice guy. Yeah, I mean, at least he's got her. I mean, there's a lot of the don't, and that's fucked up. That sucks so much. There's a lot of tributes to her, and there's a lot of be careful out there shit. There's a shutupandrun.net, which we have shut up and give me murder, so that's pretty good. They have a bunch of posts about the whole thing, keeping everybody updated. So, the defense for Michael Spell wants to suppress his confession. Really? His defense attorney said, basically, he's a fucking moron. He had no idea what his rights were. Yeah, you can't take any of his words for anything. Yeah, he didn't know what his rights were. They asked him if he understood. He said, a little bit. A little bit? That's not enough. You can ask if you want ketchup. Yeah, a little bit. Yeah. They said, Mr. Spell believed the FBI agents were his friends. And he was simply helping them solve the disappearance and murder of Mrs. Arnold. Well, he happens to know all of the answers. That's the problem. That's the problem. They say they tricked him. And with dumb people, that's what they do a lot. I need your help. We're all in this together. You're practically an FBI agent. That's how they would treat him and then do this. Your badge, deputized. Yeah. And the prosecution countered. Law enforcement did nothing wrong. It's not their fault he's a moron. You know, he's a moron, but he's still. He's out murdering people. So what do you want? They said they'd been patient, deliberate, and that his disability, quote, while relevant, must be assessed in the totality of the circumstances. The judge is going to allow the confession into the trial. Is he competent? Because he's been said he's not competent. He didn't get charged for weed possession. Yeah, this is a big deal. This is murder. Defense psychologist, but in the eyes of the law, it's not. It doesn't matter whether it's jaywalking or murder. You're either competent or you're not. Yeah. My point is just that he wasn't competent enough to sell weed. Exactly. Now we're going to try him for murder. What are we talking about? Oh, you're saying. Yes, that's what I was saying, too. We were agreeing on that one. Okay. So I misunderstood. So, yeah, this is defense psychologist testified that Spell has a child's mentality and a subservient personality that makes him easily manipulated, especially by older people. Okay. He's gullible. He's gullible. His intellectual disability has been. It's been documented all the way back to age five as well. There's plenty of school thing. They said he played Sonic the Hedgehog with his toddler. He played Kingdom Hearts. His aunt-in-law. I heard that one. Aunt-in-law described watching him play. She said, he's like a kid playing those games. You saw the light on his face. Well, I got news for you, James. You're a dum-dum, too. Yeah. You don't sound real smart either, aunt-in-law. Aunt-in-law, Tina. You've seen me play those games? I look like a moron. Oh, yeah. I look like an idiot myself. So, meanwhile, August of 2013, Lester Waters Jr. pleads. He's going to plead guilty. Yeah, he's got to. To deliberate homicide by accountability, meaning he was held responsible for the killing even if he did not personally perform the fatal act. They're leaving that in the wind. Under the plea agreement, prosecutors dropped the death penalty and kidnapping charge. He has to agree to testify against. Against Spell if it goes to trial. Okay. So, he's going to plead to that. Now, there's a three-year battle for Michael whether there's going to be a trial over his confidence. Could they? Basically, they're talking about his intellectual disability. They're saying, could he be sentenced to prison or a treatment facility? Can the death penalty legally apply here because he's not bright enough in the Supreme Court and said you can't execute people that are this stupid? One guy, also a clinical professor. He's a professor at the University of North Carolina School of Medicine, interviewed Spell twice and testified, quote, He's not smart. We got that. I observed him being really confused most of the time about the questions he was asked and not being able to provide adequate answers to show he could understand the conversation. Uh-oh. They said that he's prone to distort past events and he's basically just a mess. They said during his two-month evaluation, he'd been observed playing video games. Video games, doing laundry, playing cards, and manipulating other patients. That's what a state psychiatrist said. Yeah? They said he earned video game privileges by behaving well and he had shown rarely seen perseverance in reaching level three of whatever game he was playing. He can't get to level three? No, but also he could be good at video games and still be a moron. That doesn't, you know, you could have little, you know, you could be an idiot savant like that. He complained. He complained of depression, anxiety, paranoia, voices, poor memory, and his behavior was not consistent with those complaints, they said, though. Okay. He enjoyed child-friendly video games. They also, this doctor from the state, said his cognitive limitations were unusual. Patients with intellectual disabilities that are genuine about it pretend they understand. They try to fit in. They don't like an emphasis on their impairments. But we know he's not fake. He's not faking being a moron. We know that. It's documented. He's been a moron since jump, so. And he probably doesn't like the pointing out of his disability because in the past it's probably been a subject of fodder. Yeah. Bullying and such. Absolutely. But the judge rules in May 2014 that he is competent to stand trial. Okay. The defense appeals. The Montana Supreme Court denies the petition. They move the trial out of this area anyway. But October of 2014, he's going to plead guilty as well. Okay. To deliberate homicide. The attempted kidnapping charge was dropped. Under the plea agreement, it also removed the death penalty. And he admitted his role in the abduction and killing. Sentencing for Lester Waters. He is sentenced. The state recommends 100 years in prison. 100 years? 100 years. They said that there's a defense investigator that testified this is a guy that had some potential. He has major life problems. Or his major life. His problem was cocaine addiction. Okay. He also spoke and said, I'm very sorry for your loss. I truly am. That's what Lee Waters said. I'm sure he is. Or Lester Waters said. Gary Arnold, Sherry's husband here, said, time doesn't make it easier, but it does change things. My life is different now. It's too late and it's after the fact. Your apology. It doesn't change a thing. Right. The judge said, Mr. Waters, you're losing your freedom. Sherry Arnold lost her life. The victims aren't limited to Sherry's family. They include friends and residents of eastern Montana and western North Dakota. You set in motion those events that led to her death. You, sir, may fuck off. 80 years in prison with 20 suspended. So he got 60. He got 60 and he's not eligible for parole for 20 years, which is coming up pretty soon. Yeah. And he's ordered to pay $21,448 in restitution to Gary Arnold. They take his Ford Explorer to be sold. A 15-year-old Ford Explorer. I don't know what that is. I don't know what that's worth, but that goes toward restitution. Four grand. Michael's sentencing. He tells the court, I know I've hurt a lot of people. I'm just hoping that someday they'll be able to forgive me. Uh-huh. And the judge explained that, you know, basically at Walmart while her body was in the vehicle. Right. You didn't ask for help or attempt to leave. I don't want to hear you're afraid of that guy. You bought a fucking shovel. Yeah. They said they don't want to hear any of that shit. You may fuck off 100 years in prison, no suspended years. Oh, shit. But he's eligible for parole in 2037. So I don't know if you only have to serve like a third of it, it seems like. Yeah. They should have both gotten the same thing, right? Because the other guy clearly manipulated him. And he was the first one to come forward and admit it. So I feel like, if anything, the dumber, younger, first one to admit it should have probably – They got the deal. Right. But I think they gave Waters the deal because they took him – he took him to the body and he could remember where it was probably. I don't know. And he took the plea first. That's also it. Also, 2018, more trouble for Michael. He faces a separate charge in prison of trying to kill a fellow inmate. Oh, my. Yeah. He and another inmate beat a man with a lock and fractured bones in his face and ribs. Jesus. There's a running trail dedicated to Sherry Arnold's honor in Sydney. Jesus. In the same area she ran. June 2024, Michael Spell in prison. He allegedly forced – he and another inmate forced a female corrections officer into a prison cell where Spell allegedly held the cell door closed and the other guy tried to remove his belt so he could start raping the guard. Other corrections officers responded, opened the door, subdued Spell while the female corrections officer was able to overpower the other guy and handcuff him. Wow. They were checking cell doors and this happened. and Spell is accused of distracting the female officer, grabbing her around the waist, pulling her into the cell oh my holy shit he's dangerous he is fucking dangerous he is a dangerous idiot basically yeah um so he's going to be charged with felony uh aggravated assault or aggravated felony charge of aggravated kidnapping and attempted rape as well final reactions here um wow the lifetime sydney resident said the things we've always taken for granted we can't take for granted anymore like sherry uh sherry's family uh her sister said um about she said she wanted justice and the death penalty in the early days she said i wanted to drive over them but we don't do that death is not the ultimate goal just don't let them out that's all i'm worried about whether it's in prison or an institution or whatever a very kind reasonable person is what she is intelligent and reasonable i just don't want her out i don't want these people out on the street that's it uh her father sherry's father ron said it turned this little town upside down there's evil in the world and it just happened to touch down in sydney montana on january 7th yeah that is sydney montana everybody in a fucked up ass story right jesus christ two terrible people terrible terrible assholes yeah just awful fucking people for nothing he might be he might be dumb but he's a nasty dumb scumbag scumbag yeah so very quickly at the end of the show we're going to talk about the show here if you like the show first of all give it five stars on whatever app you're listening to tell netflix you like it do all that stuff head over to shut up and give me murder.com get your tickets for live shows denver may 2nd still a few tickets there and broil oak michigan may 30th still a few tickets there and then of course milwaukee minneapolis in september get your tickets right now for those shut up and give me murder.com you can follow us on social media at uh at uh small town murder on instagram at small town pod on facebook got my things mixed up there yeah uh so you can do that you can also get patreon patreon.com slash crime in sports which is the name of another show that we do that you should listen to because it's hilarious crime and sports and your stupid opinions check them out but patreon.com slash crime in sports anybody five dollars a month or above you get hundreds of back bonus episodes as soon as you subscribe new ones every other week one crime and sports one small town murder this week crime and sports the ecclesia athletic association supposed to be keep kids off the street with sports and it turns into diddle kids and be gross and have a cult weird small town murder cory richen's part two she killed her husband she wrote a book about it for her kids it's gross and weird and she's a mess and we can't wait to hear about more of that patreon.com slash crime in sports plus you get a shout out at the end of the regular show you get all the shows we put out ad free as well get yourself patreon do that keep coming back and hanging out with us shut up and give me murder.com as all the every links to everything us on social media all that good stuff so keep coming back and seeing us and until next week everybody it's been our pleasure