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Savage Murder & Strange Milkshakes - Arab, Alabama

189m 13s

Savage Murder & Strange Milkshakes - Arab, Alabama

In a disturbing small-town murder case from 1990 in Arab, Alabama, a woman named Kathy Kavanaugh is found stabbed 46 times in her bedroom, with evidence suggesting she was murdered and sexually assaulted after death. The crime scene shows signs of deliberate staging, including a body placed in an unnatural position and a still-intact alarm clock. No forced entry or theft occurred, which initially raised questions about the motive. A hidden child's key and a handwritten note about joint custody hint at an ongoing divorce, adding emotional context. The suspect, Larry Randall Paget, had an affair with neighbor Judy Bagwell, who kept his personal items and once disguised herself in a costume to confront him at church. Despite these details, critical evidence—such as a bloody fingerprint—was destroyed during investigation, leaving the case unsolved. Randall claimed to have gone to Florida with Judy and offered a blood sample for DNA testing, which could have exonerated him. However, no direct link to the crime was established, and the investigation ended without a definitive conclusion. The case remains a chilling example of how personal conflicts, flawed forensic procedures, and limited evidence can leave a murder unsolved, even with strong circumstantial clues. The story underscores the challenges of justice in small towns, where suspicion, secrecy, and emotional drama often overshadow factual clarity.

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This week, in Arab, Alabama, a twisted tale emerges when a woman is found horribly murdered in her own bed. The case seems open and shut with DNA evidence and all, but that's before we find out about an affair, and one woman's cravings for the strangest milkshakes you've ever heard of, welcome to Small Town Murder. Hello everybody, and welcome back to Small Town Murder, yay! Yeah, indeed, Jimmy, yay indeed. My name is James Petrigallo, I'm here with my co-host. I'm Jimmy with Smen. Thank you, folks, so much for joining us again this week on Small Town Murder for one of the weirdest, craziest stories you've ever heard in your life. I can assure you that, this is even by Small Town Murder standards, this is a weird one, so it's a twisted, weird, crazy story and we cannot wait to get to it. Before we do, though, head over to shut up and give me murder.com. Tickets for live shows, next live shows upcoming. We have October 3rd in Dallas, Texas. Get your tickets right now. And hurry up. Hurry up. Yeah, get those. Let's go. Get's good in there. October 16th. San Jose, California. October 17th. Sacramento, California. They can't go. Couldn't be more hurry the fuck up, let's go. Yeah, it's in there. Terry Town, if you want those tickets at all, you get better hurry up because there's only a few left on, no, that's November 13th, November 14th, Boston, just outside Boston and Medford at the Chevalier. Get your tickets for that as well. Get in there, shut up and give me murder.com is where you get all of those tickets there. Also, listen to our other shows, crime and sports and your stupid opinions. You don't have to like sports. We promise. Just check it out. We assure you go like it. Definitely get yourself Patreon, that is where it's at patreon.com/crimeinsports, just like the name and other show you should hear there. Anybody $5 a month or above, you get everything. I'm talking everything as soon as you subscribe, you're going to get like almost 400 back bonus episodes, you've never heard before, immediately upon subscription. Then, new ones every other week, one crime in sports, one small town murder. It's there. This week, we're going to do for crime in sports. We're going to talk about the murder of a baseball player's family, so it's not going to do it sports whatsoever. We won't even go over a stat, I don't think, other than stab wounds or gunshot wounds or things like that. Central America, that kind of thing? No, no, no, no. This happened in America. The murderer was insane and the way they caught him was the craziest thing. This is a wild story. Then for small town murder, pretty sure we're going to do this, it might change, it will find out. I think we're going to do the trick or treat murder from 1957 back in California, which is coming to October here, we're in the fall, so Halloween time. It's a crazy story about- Is that the whole reason we check candy? That one? No, no, no. That's in Texas. We'll do that for a regular episode, the candy man down there in Texas. Either way, patreon.com/crimeinsports is where you get that. And everything we put out with that, you have that subscription, all of our shows you get ad-free as well. And in addition to that, you also get a shout out at the end of the show, so you can't beat it. It's a deal, everybody. Patreon.com/crimeinsports is where that is. Disclaimer time, there's a comedy show, people, everybody out there, work comedians. This is a comedy show. Obviously, there's terrible murder. You heard the opening of the show. There's a lot of terrible murder and there's also jokes. I mean, well, that is that work, really easily. That's the thing. It's super easy. All you have to do, this is what we- the formula we found, what we have to do is we never make fun of the victims or the victims' families. Why is that, James? Because we're assholes. But- But we're not scumbags. There you have it. Pretty simple. It's honestly pretty easy. There's plenty of other things to make fun of. We make fun of murders. We make fun. Let's say some small town police force screws up, wink, wink, hint. That's going to happen here. And bad stuff happens from that. Those are people that deserve to be made fun of. Other than that, you know, maybe a small town. Because who cares? We're all from a small town. For sure. We should all make fun of ourselves. It's a good time. So if that sounds good to you, holy shit, do we have a good show for you? If you think true crime and comedy should never, ever, ever go together, I don't know. Maybe listen to this first because it's crazy and check it out. And either way, no complaining later. That said, I think it's time to sit back, everybody. Say, clear the lungs here. Here are the lungs and let's all shout, shout out and give me murder. Let's do this, everybody. You ready? Yeah. Let's do it. Let's go on a trip. Shall we? Where are we going? Going to Alabama this week. Yeah. Alabama. Here we go. We're going to-- I just played trivia the other night and out of bar, and I got an answer right because of you. And it was Alabama. It was-- Good show. Where is the guy that the caller clearly has never seen my cousin Vinnie because he was like, well, the actor Joe pesky, he kept going, he read this question 17 fucking times calling him Joe pesky. I was like, if he was here, he would beat the shit out of your knees for the Lord. He would bite your ankle, something fierce. This is a rab Alabama. Yeah. It's spelled A-R-A-B, Arab Alabama, but they insist that it is pronounced A-rab down there because that is how they say Arab down there. So they've decided not only let's not only insult a people, let's insult our own town. Let's make-- It's wild. Which I can't-- If you're going to-- If you're going to do it, spread it to yourself too. That's fine. I guess, I don't know. And if there's a statin' this in this union that would do that, I would pick that one to do it. Someone there. It's in Northern Alabama, about an hour 15 to Birmingham. It's about three hours over to the east to Atlanta, and about an hour to our last Alabama episode, Gadsden, Alabama, which was episode 680, brutal idiocy, which it really was, too. There were some dumb things going on there. Dead person trail or bad stuff. Let's see. This is in two different counties. It's in Marshall and Coleman counties, just happens to be on the line. Maybe it codes 256 and 938, motto here. We're just like that town in my cousin Vinnie. Right. I don't think that's the motto, but it's the one I gave it. I don't even know what the town name was. I don't either, to be honest with you. I've only seen the movie-- Did they say it? They only seen the movie about 175 times. I think they do. Yeah. I remember the saca suds was the place they robbed. You're in Alabama. You come from-- They did. Yeah. They emphasized that part, but they don't talk about what town it is. So a little bit of history, what is now the town of Arab was established by a guy named Stephen Tuttle Thompson in the 1840s, and it was originally known as Thompson's Village. Oh. And they decided that wasn't quite insulting enough. So they needed to-- Yeah. What's really pissing people? Is there a way to make this town's name racist? Is that possible? Because that's what we're going for. The current name of the town was an unintentional misspelling. This town is based on a fucking typo. James, there are so many words that are mispronunciations misspelling. It's the opera. It's the opera. Yeah. No, we all-- Everyone outside of that area knows that. They mispronounced opera, and they run it still. They mispronounced Arab and call it Arab, and it's on the sign of their town. So the same thing. Yeah. You're shocked about this. What's the misspelling? Well, it's what I'm getting to here. The United States Postal Service in 1882 here was supposed to be Arid Thompson, the son of the founder, who had applied for a post office that year. Arid was one of three names sent to the post ARAD, one of the three names sent. These were the three they sent for consideration. Tell us which one we can use. Arid Inc. INK and Bird, Bird Alabama. They came back and said, yeah, you're all set. Here you go. Arab Alabama. Enjoy. They were like, that's not what we want. That wasn't even one of the three. Tough shit. That's what you got. Here's the sign for your post office. It was incorporated in 1892. Arab is a famously known sundown town as well. Not good. Is it really? Yeah. I'm fine and everything, that's the warning black people not to stay after dark. It's known over the course. I've read a lot of things about this for this episode that even during the day, they weren't really allowed to welcome them. It's sundown sundown. Even the clan was disseminating material in Arab in 2014 and 2015, fully uniformed up. So I mean, it's there. Reviews of this town here, unfortunately now that happens all over the place. Well, my step-brother had those flyers on his door in the 90s. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's for a long time. It's fucking gross. Reviews of this town. You don't see them on doors much around these parts. No. Better not step on my fucking property. Good luck. Yeah. Go to Pekipsi with a fucking clan thing and put on somebody's door, you'll be dissolved quickly, I would imagine. So the reviews of this town, here is five stars. A-rab is like Mayberry, nice quiet town with friendly people. The schools are great, plenty of small businesses to support along with the chain businesses as well. And those two. We have stores as what they're telling us here. Here's three stars, friendly people, not thing to do. I guess nothing is what they're going for. Not thing to do for the team. And not thing to do is what they say, actually, for the teenagers. Need more to do. - Need more to do. - Yeah, need more to do. Would like a movie theater or a bowling alley. Now we had one like last week where they were complaining all they had was a movie theater and a bowling alley. And these people would kill for a movie theater and a bowling alley. - But I love it. - To man, the school are okay. At least they are safe and no fighting. That sounds boring for the kids. Here's two stars, no jobs. This town is just about for people over the age of 45 plus and for people who are retired. The only good jobs is found in other cities nearby and you have to drive 45 plus minutes to get there. Family-owned businesses never survive and shut down along with anything fun like skating rinks or theaters. Favoritism from cops is high in this area. If they don't know you or somebody in your family, good luck in the courts. - Okay. - Yeah, my cousin Vinnie territory, we all got it. Yeah, okay. - I do like that he said it's for people over 45 and retired. - Yeah, who's retired, yeah. Wow, sign me up for that fucking life, I don't know. - How young are you? - No shit, yeah, all those old people are 45 and retired and kicking back. In the twilight of their life. People in this town, 8,462. So that's kind of in the whole area around the town and everything, so pretty small. By the way, Spurling's Best Places, which always has little descriptions of the town, says A-Rab is home to many businesses, including A-Rab Tire and Service, White's Auto Repair and the butcher shop. - Really thriving. - Thriving. - Full of trouble. - More women than men in this town, barely 50.2% women. So just over the line, their median age is 40.6, which is just above the national average. So all these retired, 46 year olds out there and they're not represented here in the median age. Family here, 52.6% married. A lot of people single with children, 23.6% are single with children. Yeah, which is more than double, it's like two and a half times the normal amount. - Leave it together. - Race in A-Rab here, 94.9% white, pretty white. 0.8% black in Alabama. There's a lot of black people in Alabama. That's interesting stat. 1.2% Asian and was at 1.5% Hispanic. So the religion here, 50.50 is the average for the country. 78.6% here are religious. - Oh, what? - And 47.4% of the population are Baptist. - God damn it. - This is a one, yeah, it's just, as we know, Baptist are the Catholics of the South. They're everywhere. There is not much of anything else. 0.0% a lot of other things here. Unemployment is low, very low actually. There's apparently jobs to be had. A median household income here also low. It's about 70 grand in the rest of the country here, 50,000, 321. - Wow. - Not great. Cost of living overall, normal as regular in the rest of the country is 100. Here it is 80.5, which is low. Healthcare is the really expensive thing down here. - For real? - It's way higher than anything else, yeah. A median home cost here, $205,900, which is well cheaper than the rest of the country. - Still incredibly expensive. - Still seeming no money. - Still seems high. - Yeah, it seems a little bit high. So maybe we've convinced you that this is the play, you want to go to the butcher shop. You want to see what they have in there. We have for you. - That's the whites. - Yeah. We have for you the A-Rab Alabama Real Estate Report. (upbeat music) Average to bedroom rental here, $810. So. - That's cheap. - Pretty low, about a third less than the national average there. Our first house though, what you get is not wonderful. Three bedroom, one bath, 1270 square feet on a small lot. This place is, from the outside looks semi abandoned, has a metal roof, some laminate floors, a kitchen that has been last renovated in 1987. It's not great inside. 115,000 bucks for that. - Oh. - I don't know if that's worth it. Our next house is a nice, move-in ready family house here. Three bedroom, two bath, 1426 square feet. So kind of your average, home, 0.44 acre lot. It's almost a half acre. And it's all grass with woods behind you. You know, a tree line behind you, not bad. From the outside, it's got a nice porch. It's a nice walk up, real nice. $4.5,000 price cut recently takes it down to $230,000 for that bad boy. And finally, six bedroom, four bath, 5,620 square feet. It's big house. It's got the pillars in the front like a fake plantation house 'cause it was built in 2000. So, you know, it's got a, that's probably good though because there's no ghosts there. No jiu-jiu there if we know what we're talking about there. 15.31 acres, a big old lot with, there's a little pond on there. Oh shit, real nice, $1,199,000. That's an unbelievable deal. Not in Alabama, it's not in the middle of nowhere. Location, location, location, but. In any desirable place to live it would be. That's incredible. A great deal, but not in the middle of nowhere. In Alabama, I would expect that to be cheaper. Things to do here. The poke, I don't know, I tried to figure it out. I don't know if it's poke weed. I think it's poke, poke salad festival. S-a-l-a-t, salad, salad, which means salad down there. I guess it celebrates the poke salad dish cooked from wild plants. And I look sees out about this. They do not look like anything you'd want to eat. It's just some shit that grows in my woods. Like if you just picked it up and said, I'm going to eat this now. It's crazy. It's a big plant, a large native herbaceous perennial plant known for its striking reddish purple stems, clusters of white flowers and dark purple berries, the American poke weed. Well, anyway, the festival has live music, artisan demonstrations, vendors, a food court, children's games, you know how it goes. All around a salad? All around a salad, salad. And we have one review from it, too. So we'll find that out. But the main stage, well, let's start with the gazebo stage. This is the acoustic stage. Oh, we got a, we had two stages. We got two stage, which means that they just, there's no plug-ins here. This stage has no power. It's just a gazebo. Here's the dry stage. We got Raven's Vail playing Dusty French. No, I don't know. And then she sounds like Dusty French sounds like a chick that's going to do a strip tease, like a body like 1940 strip tease with big giant pasties. He's got a feather, feather duster. And then at three o'clock, to be announced, which is my favorite band. I don't even have one yet. I wonder if that is the thing. No, it's just TBA. It's definitely not. All right. Then the main stage, the life gate Baptist church string band, Evan Spruel, Spruel, S-P-R-U-I-E-L. Change your name. This is from a guy named Petra Galov. Change your name, still, it's bad. Traditions rising will be playing after that. And then finally, my nightmare. Jake and L would return a tribute to the Blues brothers. So not even people who are comedians who think they're singers who can't sing. It's people imitating people who are actors and comedians who can't sing, but think they can. It is fascinating. I don't think there's anybody that's like in between on that. You either are, you love it or you're like, Dan, why are you doing this? Can't, I can't get through three minutes of that fucking movie. Can't do it. Can't do it. I'm not watching the movie. Can't do it. Can't watch them perform. I'm like, what are you doing? Yeah, that too. You're both good at something. Stop doing this. This isn't what it is that you're good at. I think the blue she was doing it as a gag and I think Acroid was taking it seriously. They seem to both be taking a little too fucking seriously to me. I don't know. I have one review of this festival from Elizabeth. One star. I am not sure why they called this the poke salad festival. There was no poke salad to be found. Oh, so there we go. Didn't even get it. There's also a feeling groovy festival. We won't talk about that. No time. Crime rate in this town. Here we go. Property crime. Town of 8,000. Quiet. Mayberry. Three times. Almost three times the national average. Property crime. Almost three times. Oh, my God. Violent crime. Murdered robbery. And of course, assault. The Mount Rushmore of crime. Also high. About one third above the average. This is not. That's crazy for a small town. That's what's happening. What's happening? I don't know. I don't know what's going on. Let's find out by talking about some murder. Shall we? All right. Let's do this. Let's start out. We're talking about a guy here. All right. All right. This is Larry Randall Paget. Paget with two tees. Randall has one element, by the way, which will be the, the bane of anyone's existence trying to research this goddamn thing because there's times when the court spells. it wrong. And it's like, come on, guys, please, please think of future podcasters and help us out here. Spell it right. He goes by Randall. Anyway, Randall Paget here. He's born in Marshall, Cali, County, Alabama, you know, in this area, kind of over toward the sand mountain and over there. Like I said, name gets spelled a million different ways. Always goes by Randall. That's what everybody calls him. That's they call him since he was a baby. So he's Randall. He grew up on a farm, just had brothers and sisters, at least two brothers and a sister that I know of had, you know, parents were church people. They went to church every Sunday and come back to the farm and, you know, bring the bell and everybody comes and eats them. It sounds like a real traditional, quote, unquote, big air quotes stop bringing here. His younger brother Kendall said that he and he and Randall shared a room together while growing up. And Kendall said that he wasn't popular in high school. Kendall wasn't not Randall wasn't. And he looked to his older brother as a role model. And he said, I saw how good he always was and I became a nurse. I wanted to help people like I'm like my brother helped people. Yeah. He said, I can never help people like he did, but, you know, I wanted to try Kendall and Randall. Kendall Randall. Yeah. Now his sister, Carol, Kendall, Randall, Carol. He said that she said that Randall quotes stood by us all so many times. So he seems to be kind of the older brother who takes the younger siblings under his wing. Well, good nice brother. He's the big brother and he's doing the job. He's doing the big brother job. Now Randall ended up going to Jacksonville State University and Alabama. I believe that's in Florida. I think it's Jacksonville State. Well, you never know this college is of all these different names. Especially in the South. They love Jackson. I mean, you can go to the University of Miami and it's in Ohio, motherfucker. So, you know, watch out. So you went to Jacksonville State, came out with a business degree. Wow. And, you know, he's ready to go. And then he moves back to Marshall County where, you know, having a business degree is a lot more than most people have in this area. So yeah, but it's much more useful anywhere else, right? True. True. But he'll use his business skills in his own operation coming up soon here. He takes a job at a manufacturing plant that makes electrical switches. Yeah. That's what he does here. Um, he's a big guy. Plus, by the way, going to college, think about he graduated in probably he went to college in 1968. Oh, fuck. That is that means you have two choices. You can go to college or Vietnam. Where would you like to go? So I'm going to college, everybody. Yeah. Yeah. So that's why a lot of people went to college back then. That's what they always say. That's where that's where baseball and football flipped on getting the best athletes and basketball started getting him yet because baseball, they draft you out of high school. You go to the minors. You're eligible to be drafted for the military. Oh, but if you play football or basketball in college, you're in college. You're not eligible to be drafted. So that's how that's a lot of guys did that to wait out those four years. That was a big deal. Um, sort of being fed into the buzzsaw. Exactly. You can go to college. So he takes a job making electrical switches. He's a big guy. 6 to 220, 230 pounds. Okay. Big strapping guy here. He'll end up after this, um, when he's done with the manufacturing place, I'll end up buying chicken houses, chicken coops, chicken coops. He will be producing chickens for a chicken distributor for someone who comes and gets the chickens. It's a six house operation. We'll talk about that. He's got a wife in 1974. He gets married. So a couple years at a college, he marries Catherine Kavanaugh. Um, Catherine Sheer's Kavanaugh to be exact. She is born August 19th, 1954. So a few years younger than him, but, you know, in the ballpark, she goes by Kathy and, um, Kathy is born in Memphis, but I believe the kids, her and her siblings grew up in Huntsville from what I, what I understand Alabama. Her parents are Frank and Haneta. And I said, I wanted to write Henrietta so bad. And I'm like, yeah, Haneta just doesn't flow from the layer tips. You've never heard of before. I've never heard of Haneta before in my life. Um, I had to make sure I wasn't a typo. I was like, is this, I found it in two different. Yeah. Later found it in two, two different newspaper articles from two different newspapers. So I'm like, I guess that's right. I don't know. He has. He's got three brother or she has three sisters and a brother, um, and, which I think his family, Randall's family, I think is three brothers and a sister. God. But this one is five kids, her Kathy and her three brothers and her three sisters and a brother. Kathy's small and thin. She's a, you know, a petite young woman here. Now they do pretty well for themselves, as we'll talk about, um, by 1990, they're doing great financial, but we'll talk about how they get there. Uh, by then they had 32 acres paid off, all paid off a house that was nearly paid off. Um, they have two kids. They have Micah born in about 1979 and then Heather born in about 1984. Yep. So they're doing the whole thing. They're living it, you know, wow. He described it as living the simple life. He said it's a simple life. I just, you know, family and a little business that you ran and chickens and all that. Business is doing well and taking care of everything we need to take care of. Now Randall also never arrested no DUIs, no disorderly conduct down in downtown A rap one day and, you know, no bad checks or frauds or domestic abuses or anything like that. Very law-biting couple and, you know, couple of kids doing normal things. Really doing it. Okay. Now when he's still worked at the electric plant, making the switches there. This is 1986 and he meets a woman at work named Judy Bagwell. Wrestling fans, I know your eyes just popped out of your fucking head. Yes, Judy Bagwell. If you're a wrestling fan, you may remember from the late 1990s when WCW wrestling was absolutely awful. The real late 90s when it was real bad, bad, bad, like 98, 99, 2000. One of their storylines was former crime and sports alumni, Buff Bagwell, was his mom Judy Bagwell was on the road with him all the time. And basically the shaved his balls. Yes, the exact that's Judy Bagwell. Yes. She would come out in wrestling and like, you know, yell at people for being mean to him and stuff like that and like walk him to the ring and make sure it was weird as fuck, a real weird storyline. But that's Judy Bagwell. So I was like, I had to make sure they weren't the same person, but they're not, it is not the same person. Okay. So she was married to a man named Tommy Smith. So she was technically at that time, Judy, yeah, Judy Bagwell at the time. Tommy Smith is later. Okay. She had a swimming pool. That's important, by the way. Yeah. That a big deal for this area. Not a lot of pools, but she had a pool and that'll come in, it'll count. She's also Randall's neighbor. They live very close to each other with an walking distance. No, no, but close by and they also work in the same place at the electrical switch plant and she lives right on his root home. I mean, she passes her house. She was known amongst her friends for being obsessive and a bit jealous with her men folk that she'll go out with. Yeah. Well, obsessive little jealous. She's not married. At this point, she is married. Yes. Okay. And she'll be married again later. So this is what happened here. Okay. They're at work one day, Randall and Judy Bagwell. Somebody made a joke apparently about Judy's pool and how she probably uses it for skinny, dipping parties or some bullshit like that. They're working on an assembly line breaking each other's balls and they're like, yeah, I know what you're doing with your pool and blah, blah, blah. Although not with that accent, I assure you. Hey, I know what I know what she's doing with a fucking pool. That's that accent's pretty ugly too. I don't don't don't just count that. They're both they're both pretty bad. So yeah, you know, Judy would a fucking pool of you know. Yeah. So just bullshit and this is I apparently a lot of ball breaking going on in the assembly floor there, the shop floor, tons of all that kind of shit going on. It's a ball breaking locker room type environment. Yeah. That night he was driving home late and he saw Judy. This is Randall driving home sees Judy on the road in her car ahead of him. And she turned into her driveway. Now he put his headlights on behind her just to spook her as a gag. He she didn't know who had her had the headlights blaring on her. He put his high beams on like behind her. Then he drove home and thought it was a joke. Okay. The next day at work though, he finds out that she knew it was him. Oh, she said, quote, did you chicken out last night? He was like, it's a good joke because he's a chicken man. But right now he's not. He's not, he's nothing to do with chickens at this point. So what? Did you chicken out last night? And that's what he was like. What does that mean? So the next night, same stretcher road sees her, sees her in the driveway. This time he pulls in and stops to talk to her. She begins undressing herself, apparently, according to both of them. She just starts getting nude because she said, well, you're here to go skinny dipping. We were talking about it at work. That's the whole joke. But she just starts getting her tits out, which is not a joke anymore. And he said that he thought it was still a joke right up until the time he looked down and saw his balls exposed, and she's completely naked. So they're both naked. Okay. Did she undress him? No. He was going to dress too. And he was like, oh, this isn't a joke. Oh, she's like matchin' her. Yeah. Yeah. Haha. Let's get undressed. And then her pussy's out. And now it's like, oh, I got to pull these out. Oh, no. What have I done? So what he does is, guess, uh, picks up his clothes and gets back in his truck to go home. Absolutely. It's exactly. Really? Yes. That's it. That's why I know you are. I thought he was going to light him on fire and go fuck her in the pool. That's the point. Yeah. Instead, he picked him up and went home. He left, got in his truck and went home, covered his balls back up and got the hell out of there. So that's a very awkward strip together. And then, uh-oh. Uh-oh. He thought we were. And what do you say? I thought we were joking. I'm sorry. As you pick, you're fucking underwear up off the floor. It's so weird. So a long weekend, a long weekend goes by. That was on a Friday, I have like a three-day weekend after that. And he said, this is amazing. The way he put it was, the devil got in his brain all weekend, telling him he should just do it one time. No, you saw it hits. Yeah. Well, the devil that's, he's not in your brain. He's on your right shoulder. I mean, he's going, come on. She wants you so bad. Come on. Look at her. She was naked in her own lives. They're all, they're all uneven and weird. She didn't even care. Come on. Get in there. It was, it was talking to, it was the serpent in your pants that was talking to you. It was a no, no devil at all. So he decides he's going to go for it one time. He's going to just do it once and get it over with. Um, there was so, yeah, that's definitely an invitation, right? Getting naked in front of, yeah, usually. Yeah. That's definitely an invitation. I've never had a chick get super naked in front of me. We were alone and just, and have her just be like, I just wanted to show you my stuff and then put her clothes back. I usually, it means something, you know? Yeah. I'm not good at naked. I'm not screaming rape. That's a rough one. I'm not an expert at women's signals, but stripping down is usually a pretty good one. It's a good signal. Yeah. Yeah. So he does it one time and then this obviously progresses because he's a guy and it's just going to weigh. It's going to go. So he does it again and again and again. This goes on for years, Randall, Randall Randall Randall, um, he said that during the whole time he was miserable and, um, through all of it, though, he said it's just the lying in the both women and he was a lot, which it seems like awfully exhausting, especially for years. That seems like a lot to do for one of them. You don't have to lie at all because she's married too. So it's like, I don't know lady. What are you going to do? Yeah. No, that's true. Socks, he, she's acting like they're going to have a future together and he's like, wow, we're not going to have a future together probably. So he felt, he'll talk about later on how he felt like he was leading her on a little bit and then he felt like he was also screw with his wife over her, obviously. So that's not great. Kind of lead out on because he got to make a choice. Yeah. Well, yeah. Obviously. Yeah. That's bad. So now Judy is a little nutty. And we'll talk about that. She does, she does some nutty stuff. It's stripped down in front of co-workers, but okay, this is after the affair started and all that. It's a little bit later on, but I'll put it in the wacky category here inside her own house. This is so fucking weird. Randall has two kids, right? She built a duplicate of their bedrooms in her house. What? Bedrooms, exact, exact same furniture, exact same lamp, exact same dresser, exact same wallpaper. Everything exactly the same built replica rooms of this man's children's rooms in her own home. How of everything of everything of his house in her house, exact replicas of the rooms of both kids rooms in her home, exact same room she got Jesus like a three bedroom, four bedroom whatever. So she had guest rooms. That's what she decided to do with them. This is weird. Then this is Strange at Judy's house one time Randall finds a sealed plastic bag. It was a block bag. Inside of it, he finds one of the creepiest combinations of things ever. His own cigarette butts and his own fingernail clippings. Why does she have those? He has discarded all this shit and now she has retrieved it all and put it into a Ziploc bag. That's DNA. How did? This is 1987. Yeah. Yeah, but I mean she's collecting like organic matter of his why is he clipping his nails at her house? He's hanging out there. He's comfortable there. Yeah. So he said what the fuck? Yeah. What is that? She told him, well, I love you so much that I wanted to save them. It's stuff. It's part of you. It's cigarette butts and fingernail clippings. That's creepy. It's my trash. Yeah. So Randall, this is one of the things that Randall thought was weird. That's actually the most normal thing that a woman does. Yeah. If you've ever had sex with a woman, you'd know this. Randall thought it was super weird that right after sex, she'd run and go to the bathroom right away. That's the least weird thing she's done. Every woman does that. She just being hygienic. And they go pee right after once. That's what they do. Make sure she doesn't get a yeasty. Yeah. I've never met a woman who doesn't pee after sex. That's just what they do. Right. Okay. Now, Kathy knows about the affair, knows about it several times over. It's a small tiny town and this is the neighbor that he works with from across the street. So it's been going on for years. She knows. Yeah. But after the affair became known at work, he was asked to leave his supervisors job because he was technically her superior at the job, even in 1987, in rural Alabama, someone was like, it looks bad, you know what I mean? So later, that is how that's when he purchased the farm with the six poultry houses. So technically, this affair kickstarted him into being a businessman if you want to get technical about it. You bet I am. That's right. Now, you know that car that she knows about the Kathy knows about the affair, because even if she didn't know about it before, she certainly found out about it one night in late 1987. Okay. It's a Wednesday night where at Kathy's church, okay, this is fucking wild. Kathy comes out of church, gets in her car and has a great surprise when she finds out Judy is hiding in the backseat of her car. Not only is she hiding in the backseat of her car, she's fucking dressed like Carmen Sandiego. She's got a fucking raincoat and sunglasses on. Like she's like, like a private investigator from the 50s or something or terminators. I'm shit. It's weird. We're a 1990s flasher. Yeah. Here we are, the fucking striping gremlins when he flashes the the bartender. But this is in August at night in Alabama. She's been hiding in a car with a trench coat and sunglasses on, which means she's pouring sweat under there. Yeah. Her under tits are soaked, soaked. So she pops up and there's a confrontation. And this is how Judy describes it. Okay. Um, wow, an incident at the church, she said she put on a black wig and sunglasses and a wig and a trench coat and got into the backseat of Kathy's car to wait, but just to talk to her. Yeah. You could have stood next to the car in normal clothes and said, hi, Kathy, I'd like to speak with you like a normal human being in, not a disguise any clothes, but a normal clothes. You could have just put jeans on and went and stood there and said, hey, Kathy, how you doing? Instead, she said, this is the only way you can talk to a person is to hide in their car. Uh, hide in the car and disguise myself so that it, well, yeah, they said, why'd you wear the, you know, what's up with the wig? Right. She said she wore the wig. And I mean, obviously, quote, to be discreet, okay, you know, to look crazier with a person in a wig instead of a normal person standing there, so we were talking. Well, she said she knew several people who attended that church and didn't want them to know it was her. Okay. Oh, so I, I don't want to draw attention to myself. So I dress up in a silly costume and hide in a woman's car, social screen, because I want it to be a real chill like, um, now she goes on to say here, uh, Judy does. I told myself that was not a good thing to be doing. She said that Kathy screamed when she first saw her. Then she recognized her. First, she thought she was being murdered by a stranger. She had no idea. That's one of those, uh, you know, things that everybody has. What if someone was hiding in the backseat of my car type of shit? So the reaction you're going to have to that is every time terrified. Terrifying. It's fun. Yeah. Especially at night. And it's really unexpected, too, because in the church parking lot, I would think you'd feel safe on a Wednesday night in the church parking. a lot as everybody leaves the church, you know what I mean? - That's almost down your guard's ever gonna be. - Yeah, totally down. So you're gonna get in and then this person pops up, "Cathy," and you're like, "Ah, Jesus Christ." Then she recognized her. Okay, and then come to down for a second, like, okay, you're not a stranger, but why the fuck are you in my car, Judy? What the fuck? - I know who you are, but uh-oh, yeah. I know who you are, that's bad. - Totally. - But Judy says, "I told her I was in love with Randall and that he loved me." So this is her play right now, to get Randall. She said, "I hoped she would do like any other wife and ask Randall to move out." So she thought this was the way to kickstart his marriage dissolving. I'll tell the wife, she'll get mad, kick him out, and then guess who's fucking him now, now he's all mine. - And he's mine. - Now I have nail clippings and plastic bags for the end of eternity. Instead, Kathy tells Judy that she loved Randall. And this is the quote from Judy. Quote, "She told me she loved Randall too and that I could not have him." She said, "No, he's my husband, you can't have him. We have two kids, we've been married for 15 fucking years, or 11 years or whatever, I'm not giving him to you." Each shit. - And now it's Paul McCartney and Michael Jackson fighting over the same girl. - Same girl, and also the same Beatles catalog as a matter of fact. - Yeah. - That's not over that, too. - How about that? How do you do a song with a guy and then take all his shit? - And take all his shit because he told you that's what he was doing, was buying back all his stuff. It wasn't like, so he told Michael Jackson, I'm buying back all my shit, blah, blah, blah. This is my plan anyway. Yeah, it's a good idea and he did it. He just bought all his shit out from under him. That's pretty fun. Yeah, and then he looked at his butthole for a long time, real long time. - That's so crazy, it took Paul McCartney's music and other people's face, it's crazy. - That's crazy, that was it. - That's what allowed Michael Jackson to keep living crazy rich lifestyle till the end was the song catalog. He kept borrowing against it 'cause it would keep going up in value. So a church deacon had to break up this little scuffle between the ladies, yeah, which it's an exciting day for a church deacon. How a service tonight. - Amazing, it's cool. - Yeah, I found Carmen Steeveago, that's the good news. - It's the important part. She was in A-Rab, A-Rab Alabama, which wasn't on the map. I was looking at Rick Chavick the whole time and I couldn't, I was wrong, it's A-Rab Alabama. - I found a henchman somewhere else but I was not on her trail. - Not even close. So Randall asked her about it afterwards. Judy, what the fuck are you doing? And she said that she just wanted to talk to her, I'm sorry. - I was trying to rectify this, I want you. - Wow, so she said Randall was super angry about this incident. And they took a two-week break after that 'cause he was so mad at her. - No dick for you, too. - And then they resume fucking after two weeks. It's a nice two-week break. It's a two-week suspension of dick is what that is. So they started going out and she said that he told her, he felt guilty about the relationship but that he didn't love his wife quote like a husband should. That's what he told her. I feel bad, but at the same time, I'm super into you and not as into her as I should be. Now, so Randall, let Judy talk him out of this being a serious thing between Kathy and Randall and him and all this. She was like, it's fine, I just want to talk to her. Everything was fine, it was fine. Kathy was telling him this chick is nuts, dude. She showed up, well, you know, in a costume, it's crazy. So he's, you know, and he didn't believe her though. He was like, oh, she's not that bad. Judy's fine. - You fucked her crazy, Randall. - Yeah, I would say you fucked her zip lock bag full of cigarette but it's crazy. So Randall and Kathy, they survived this little thing but then they separated and go back, separating, go back, separating, go back more than a few times. They go back and forth together. It's not a violent marriage. There's never any beatings or headings. It's just they argue and then they separate for a minute and that's that, you know, no orders of protection or any crazy shit like that. Nobody ever said that, yeah, I always suck Kathy with a black eye or anything like that or yeah, I saw Randall scratches on his face or anything. So that's good anyway, they're at least, they fight like mature adults, so that's good. - Yeah. - But there is, they do leave and come back a lot. That happens a lot. Which is tough because they have two school age kids at this point, so that's pretty brutal. But every time he ended up going back to her, Randall always went back to Kathy, that. Now by the summer of 1990, Kathy and Randall are separated but not divorced. - Oh. - But they are separated living apart. She was living in the family home with both children. He was living in a trailer near the chicken houses. That's what divorces like, everybody. That's a trailer near the chicken houses. You want to bang that broad, do it in a trailer next to a chicken shack while you smell shit. - If you're doing well, you get a trailer next to the chicken house. - Yeah, if you don't, you get your mother's couch. Those are your options. You're not doing that. - Yeah, so keep in mind, if you're not doing well, this isn't it, this is higher than you're gonna get. - Yeah, this is a man with a successful business here. (laughs) - So, she, Kathy's working too. She goes to church regularly. She's just living her life, raising her kids. She's living with the kids doing that. Thursday evening, August 16th, 1990. Kathy was at a revival service, Jesus Christ. Which is-- - She's always a church. - Yeah, there's probably healings and every other poor shit thing going on there. Good Lord. That same Thursday night, Randall has both children with him at his trailer. He's got the kids tonight. The younger one is six at the time. She's sleeping in bed with him. And both children, you know, say he was there the entire night with them in the trailer, okay? The next day, Friday, August 17th, 1990, Kathy does not show up for work. - Oh no. - Which is unlike Kathy. They call her house periodically all day. Nobody ever answers. Tell her like, "We don't know what the fuck, no call, no show Kathy over here." So Randall, then because no one can get a hold of Kathy, he drops the kids off at his aunt's house to watch them and he goes to work at the plant because it got to work. Apparently he's working there too or goes to work at the chicken house as he goes to work somewhere. So that afternoon, this is a crazy weird thing. Without telling anyone where he was going or even asking his aunt, "Hey, can you watch the kids for a couple of days?" He and Judy just take off and go to Florida for the weekend that afternoon. They go to Destin, Florida in the panhandle. Yeah, yikes. So he just takes off midday. Like I said, leaves the kids with his aunt and just leaves, figures, you know, I guess they'll get dropped off later or something with Kathy. Destin is about six or seven hours away. They're going to go scuba diving. Doesn't arrange child care, leaves his kids with his aunt and they're in the car and that's that. Now, that evening at Kathy's house, this is technically in the community of grassy, but it's right outside of Arab and it's not big enough to even talk about. So Arab is the thing here. Randall's cousin, who is the aunt's son or daughter kid, takes the children back to Kathy's house to get a change of clothes because they're going to the revival service that night. Another fucking revival. God damn. Jesus, they need a bowling alley and a movie theater in this town. Bad, bad, real bad. It's that much of that and that's what they do. So Randall's cousin does that. Now, when they get into the house, we're not sure who walks into the bedroom first. Randall or the kids are not Randall, Randall's cousin or the kids. We're not sure, but they do find Kathy and she's in the bedroom, not in good shape. - Oh boy. - Kathy has been absolutely brutalized. There's blood everywhere. She's been stabbed 46 times. - Fucking wow. - I mean, that is a lot of stabbing. - Ooh. - A lot of stabbing. And the first thing that the police notice is she's still wearing jewelry. - So that's not robbery. - So it'll be that or a terrible robber. - Yeah. - Now they said the body was not in a normal sleeping position. It was laid out across the bed. Her left leg was down and her right leg was propped up on a bedside table. Okay. A bedside that had an alarm clock sitting on it undisturbed. - Yeah. - So this isn't a natural position. - No. - This would be. - Yeah. - This is like somebody threw her on the bed. - Or placed her very specifically where we wanted her. One of the two. So there's a leg, like I said, hoisted onto the nightstand which is weird and the clock didn't get knocked over. So you can't imagine the struggle went to the nightstand because her leg is on there but it didn't get knocked over. So it looks like it was placed there. The blood patterning on and around her body was consistent with her body having been moved after bleeding quite a bit. So someone's posing or something. So yeah, they think she bled where she fell and then someone arranged her the way they wanted her. Okay, her underwear had been cut off with scissors, but neatly, not like a slice in a rip, snipped very neatly off. Like someone wasn't struggling when they did it or something like that. There is no vaginal trauma, okay? But there is seam in present inside of her and that's the other thing. And we'll talk about when they think that arrived in the system here. The lead investigator Strickland, remember his name 'cause he'll be a jackass for the next two hours or so. He said there was, quote, a tremendous amount of blood on the body. The woman's night shirt and bed covering when he arrived at the home or on her body and her night shirt and her bed covering when he arrived at the home that night. He said cuts were apparent all over the body, including her hands. There's a lot of defensive wounds here. A lot of defensive wounds. So she was definitely alive. Most of the wounds were defensive out of 46. A lot is a long struggle. I mean, you have that many wounds on your hands. This is a fight, it's horrible. There's no forced entry and nothing is stolen from the house. Okay. Which again, strange. - Let me say 46 wounds, does that include defensive wounds? - Yes, that's just 46. Yeah, totally, yeah, that includes defensive wounds. 46 times a knife entered. So seam in like we said, recovered from the vaginal canal, they decide the pathologist says that she was dead before the seamen entered her body. - Oh, what? - Yeah, that's, yeah, that's a-- - That's so personal and gross. - Somehow that's not even the grossest thing that'll happen in the story, but in terms of violence it is, but in terms of other things that are even sort of gross or somehow this is weird, but that's horrifying. That's necrophilia, obviously, somebody having a, I don't know if they're super into dead people, that would be necrophilia, but they're, somebody raped a dead body. - God, what? - After they killed them, I assume. I assume someone didn't come in rape, kill or leave, and then another person broke in and was like, "Hey, I can get a lot of time to rape." - Look at this. - Yeah, hey, it's rape in time, everybody. Look at that. - I don't even have to murder this time. - No. Now they said, this is Strickland said that she was sexually assaulted after she was repeatedly stabbed. They said the evidence indicated that she did not move during the act of sexual intercourse. - Right. - So she was dead. They find a bloody fingerprint on her body. - Awesome. - That is game set at slam fucking dunk. Luckily, though, for whoever did the killing, an investigator destroyed it during the processing process. - Yeah. - No. - When he say, "We make fun of a bumbley," this is what we're talking about. They said, "Here we go, case solved." - No, it's not. - So when you say that, it wasn't like, it wasn't like he picked it up and was like, "Well, we don't need, it's not her fingerprint. "We don't need this." - No, no, no, no. - They collected it and then he fucked up in the processing process and destroyed it. Or she, I don't know who it was. It's a sub investigator, it doesn't matter. So another thing, there's a hidden house key around. - Yeah. - So they're like, "Okay, there's no forced entry." So is there a hide-a-key? Is there a hide-a-key? And they found out there is a hide-a-key. It's the key that children use to let themselves in after school. 'Cause they're still too young to be trusted with keys. Its location is not general knowledge. It's not like everybody they know knows where the key is. It's only the kids and a couple close people, maybe an aunt that comes over to feed the dog when they go out of town or something. So they strickly in the investigator said, "Evidence of the impending divorce was found in the home with the form in the form of a handwritten note stating that the parents would have joint custody of the children, and that Kathy would be able to keep this house for several years and stay here with the kids." All right. So that night, they called to Florida. Now, he had, Randall had been notified apparently ahead of time in Florida that something had happened to Kathy. And then the police called him to right away. He said he called his brother to find out what happened 'cause the police said they wouldn't give him any information. They just said, "She's passed away. Can you please come back here?" His brother told him that there was a knife involved. That's what his brother had heard, round the A-rab campfire here. So Randall said, "I get on the phone and call my brother." And he said, "There's a knife involved. I must have vomited twice, I think." Oh. He said he threw up. He and Judy get immediately into the car. Snorkel still attached and all, big flippers. Hard to drive with those flippers. Let me tell you something. But even harder to get in that seat with that tank on. That's the tough one. We put it back far enough. It's okay. So they get in, start driving north. Judy drives first. Now, within about a half hour, she was drifting all over the road because she'd been up all night, she said. Right. Which, she was like, what the fuck were you doing up all night? Why were you up all night? That's stupid. So Randall took over and drove the rest of the six hours home while she slept in the passenger seat. Just slept it off. So Randall and Judy arrive back home. Randall drives directly to the ARAB police department. Which sounds like a, that ARAB police department them sons of bitch bastards. They question him because he's the husband and he ran away to Florida the next day without telling anybody, that doesn't look good. How you doing, Randall? We got a lot of questions because everything you did was suspicious. Yeah, you still smell like saltwater. So this isn't good. Everything you did suspicious. He and Judy are interviewed separately as everybody is. When he asked the last time he had sex with his wife, he said three or four months ago. That's what that was Randall's time. So he could have said, well, we got into it last night and it was all whatever. But he'd said, not three or four months ago. So keep that in mind, don't tell they want another room. So he then, well, he might have been back with Kathy at that time too. We don't know if they were breaking up, making up. Then he voluntarily gives blood samples. So he gave voluntarily asked him, would you give a blood sample? And he said, there you go, no problem. Shoot me out. Suck it out or whatever you do. He said that he figured, 'cause they told him, look, we'll get DNA and there's this new thing, DNA, 'cause it's 1990, DNA is, your average layperson has never heard of DNA in 1990 by any stretch. So they're like, we have this thing called DNA. So if we take your blood, we can eliminate you like that if it's not you and he said, fucking awesome. Take my blood and clear me and that's great. So Sunday, August 19th, 1990, the murder happened on the 17th, he came home on the 18th, now we're on the 19th. Randall invites detectives out to the murder house, his old house, 'cause they ask, will you walk us through the crime scene, you know, and show us the house, show us if anything's missing, just walk us through since you know the house so well. Now the point is they suspect him, obviously. So, their point is they want to film him walking around the house, saying something incriminating for 45 minutes, that's essentially what the goal is here. So they, it's a 45 minute tape and he, they asked, there's scuff marks on a door that looked like it was kicked open and they said, are these fresh? Now he could have said, I've never seen those before, they must be fresh, which mean it would be a fresh break and he said, no, they're old, those have been there for like a year, that's nothing. Okay. Well, that's, that's an out he could have taken and didn't take it and also he, you know, during a second meeting or they're talking about all that. So he said that, he's been, the crime scene, he doesn't seem like a guilty man when it comes to the crime scene too, but they said maybe he's just being very, you know, careful. They have a second meeting with him and he said, 'cause they said, well, did you kill your wife and he said, no, not at all, you know, I was home with my kids, I asked my kids, they were there, blah, blah, blah. So they said, do you know anybody who may have, 'cause that they always ask that, either you might put them on to somebody that's the right path or it might be very telling who you blame it on. Sure. Either way. So he says, well, if I were you, I might look at Judy. What's up? She's pretty possessive of me and she keeps like a bag of my cigarette butts and fingernail clippings and then tells them about the time in the church parking lot where she dressed up in a costume and hid in the back seat of her car. So the cops are like, yeah, that sounds very interesting. We'd really like to talk to her too. Yeah, she's done some real suspicious things for me. So maybe you guys alike are even better. Yeah, I mean, by the way, if you talk about skinny dipping, get ready to take your balls out 'cause she's gonna take you up on it. So August 29th, 1990, Randall Pageant, Randall and Judy are given polygraph tests, okay. Judy, by the way, said she was home alone watching television that night. Oh, no one can verify that whatsoever, but her. Yeah, that's a bad home alone, not good. Yeah, at least now, like you could at least say, well, my phone didn't move. My phone was home. You know, you can even see digitally what you watched. You can look at that and see if you switch apps. Oh, yeah. There's ways to tell ship. But back then, it was clicked. Yes, I'm still watching four times. Yeah. Otherwise, you could say it was Friday night. I was watching fucking full house and family matters. And yeah, what are they going to say? You know what I mean? Yeah. And to corroborate that, they just ask you what was the plot of those shows? And if you if you nail them, it's over. It's pretty easy. Well, Uncle Jesse's got a hot date, but Danny has something to do with the kids and Jesse's got to figure out what's more important? The date or the kids and Dave Cullieres an annoying twat. That's the plot of the show. Got it? Okay, great. They said have mercy and. Oh, yeah, that's in there. And the little girl said, dude. And on family matters, Erkel comes over and madness and sews. Erkel came over and fucked up a lot. Fucked up a whole bunch of stuff and then asked if it wasn't for him. Who did that? He was dumbfounded. Completely dumbfounded. So he took, he took, he took it. He took that biome polygraph, he takes the polygraph, the head of the Alabama polygraphers association here and says that he passed. He says you passed. They tell him he passed his polygraph. Judy's given the same polygraph and examiners conclude that she showed deception in the areas regarding knowledge of who killed Kathy Pageant. Oh, which does it mean that could mean that she knows Randall did it in his lying or she knows whatever. So now Randall, the other thing they find out is that Randall is a, you know, shitload of debt, which is not really. He's in about $207,000 in debt. House is almost paid off, but he's got debt elsewhere. Yeah. And a lot of that has to do with the chicken houses because the, well, the, the whoever he sells them to, the chicken distributor or whatever, they have very specific things they make the chicken growers do that fit their things. So they told him he had to get some new equipment right now. So he had to like take out a huge loan for all these equipment for tens of thousands of chickens to be able to keep selling his chickens to people. Um, he also owes Kathy's parents money as well. A good amount of money. Um, money all over. Yeah. Now the family here, um, her family, talk about class. This is a classy group of people. They put an ad out in the Huntsville Times saying, quote, "Card of thanks." We would like to express our heartfelt thanks to all of our dear friends and neighbors for the outpouring of love and concern shown to us following the tragic death of our beloved daughter and sister, sincerely, the family of Kathy Kavanaugh pageant. Okay. How classy is that? Yeah. We don't have time to call everyone who's been so nice to us. We're going to just put an ad in the newspaper. That's a press release about. Thank you. That is pretty goddamn classy. I got to say it's smart too. It's a, that's time saving shit right there. That's, that's it. That's it. Now here is how DNA works in 1990 by the way, because that's way different than it works now. DNA evidence entered courtrooms in '87. That was when they were first used. Yeah. First DNA. Um, she was killed, obviously, three years later, 1990. In 1990, it is very different. Um, it's new. Uh, it ran through a handful of private labs. It wasn't like every police state force had a DNA lab they could work with here. And, uh, basically, they told juries at the time, this is a magic thing. Yeah. This little bit of whatever's there can tell us exactly who who was there like it's fucking magic. The juries believed and the courts allowed it in. So the juries believed this was basically like having a picture of the person doing it, essentially. Um, video. Yeah. I would absolutely. Um, it's numbers and the numbers don't lie. And that's it. That's all. There's no national accreditation requirement for forensic DNA labs at the time. It is, uh, catches catch can Wow. Whatever. Yeah. Whoever's got equipment, they just do it. So it's a real wild west for DNA. There's no mandatory proficiency testing. There's no any of that shit. If you, you say, I'm a lab I can do DNA tests. They'll start sending samples in charge. You can charge your money. That's just how it is. So, um, the scientific fights about population frequency statistics that are a lot of the mid 90s with OJ and all that shit here. This was just starting in this time. It wasn't a big deal as far as is it one in this many people of this race or one in that many people, which seems to make a big difference to people. Um, and there was also they weren't thinking about a comparison sample. Basically, um, like having about both samples. It's all. Yeah. They're just thinking about getting a profile at the moment. Yeah. Basically the blood in the tube. We don't know who it belongs to. But if, you know, we have it. And now a days they would get another sample to compare them to make sure they're comparing the DNA of the right person, but they didn't do that back then. Okay. Now, now, let's talk about secreters and non-secreters, which is pretty gross. Okay. Um, basically secreters are people who have traces of their blood and their semen. Basically, their blood type comes out and they're semen like that. Um, that's terrible. That's roughly 80% of the population. That's amazing. That's 80% of the population. That means they're just swallowing blood all the time. Well, it's not, it's not blood. It's trace amounts of whatever. I'm, you know, so you're, you eat more shit when you go out to eat. I'm sure that blood isn't a load of gizz, you know what I mean? It's still happening. So that means their ABO blood group antigens show up in their bodily fluids, saliva, semen, and so on. That's secreter. The other 20% are non-secreters, meaning their blood type doesn't express in those fluids. All right. Randal is a non-secreter. He doesn't express. He does not express. So whoever left, so was, whoever left the semen in Kathy. That's also non-secreter semen. So we're down to 20% of the population. Okay. Now before DNA was routine, it's a, it's a big deal here. Basically, that's right away. You're getting it narrowed down to 20% of the population, which is way better than you could do 10 years before that. Even if you had a blood type, it would be more than that. So yeah, and further down. I mean, it obviously not further down. It's 20%. But it's like, it's all dudes. It's 20% of dudes on this planet. One of them did that. Well, someone, yeah, one of those 20% did it. There's also an enzyme called, whews, phosphogluco mute taste, phosphogluco mute taste. Okay. There's a shortened version of that. Don't worry. We'll get to it. So we'll talk about that later, but that's, keep that in mind. Then a truck driver comes forward to say he saw something the night the day of the murder. He said he had seen a car matching Judy bag wells, leaving the vicinity of Kathy's house in the middle of the night, the night before she was found murdered. The vehicle was identified by a specific detail. It's a white Ford station wagon with a missing hub cap. Me seen moving fast on the road in the area in the early morning hours. So they describe. So the missing hub cap is the, the thing that they're focusing in on. It's not exactly, you know, a VIN number, but it's how many white station wagons with a back left missing hub cap are there. You know, yeah. So it's, it's the kind of thing that at least gives homicide detectives something to go on. Yeah. Because rarely are you missing a hub cap and at the event that one falls off. Most people just go to auto zone or pet boys or whatever and just get all four of the cheap plastic ones. Just a shitty one. Make them pop on. You kick them on there. Yeah. Box whatever. So October 5th, 1990, Randall is at his in-laws house. His dead wife's parents house with the kids about 30 miles from where he's living. There's a knock on the door. He comes to the door and a detective says, you're under arrest for your wife's murder and take. There you are. There you are. Um, he said, well, can I go back inside and tell my children and he said the cops said, absolutely not. We can, can I go back inside and get a shotgun and come out here with it? Yeah. Can I go back inside my house where my things are including all my. Well, my in-laws house, but still there's stuff in there. Um, he spends about three days in and jail before making bond. They give it to him. It's only a hundred thousand dollar bond. So he makes it. He raises it. Um, he goes home and runs his chicken houses because he's got a business to run. I mean, those three days he was in there, those chickens, someone had to take care of him. Yeah. Now October 8th, the day he gets out of jail is the same day that the DNA results come back. Okay. Uh, here we go. Uh, the sample was compared with his sample was compared with samples of semen found at the crime scene and a Maryland lab reported that there was a match in the genetic patterns between his blood and the semen that only occurred at a frequency of one. and 940,000 people, which still is, it sounds like a lot, but in the grand scheme of things are not really that many people. No, what is that, uh, uh, 30th of the, of the two Wyoming's, you know what I mean? Like, so, yeah, half a person in Wyoming, you know, so if in the population further down, but it's not, yeah, it's not down to one. They said the state tested a blood sample taken from Randall, it was PGM. That's that thing I couldn't pronounce. Type two dash one. The same day, the state also tested a sample from another suspect in the case that we've never been known. We don't know who that is. The same sample, uh, that sample typed as either PGM one dash one or PGM one dash zero. All right. So now there's another suspect too, which is interesting, and we never find out who that is. The sample labeled as pageants then went on as our guy here, Randall, then went on to cell mark diagnostics in Maryland. That's the DNA analysis and they reported that the DNA in the blood matched the DNA in the semen. So they're saying it's Randall semen, yeah, with a one in 940,000 person, you know, that's how it is. So now Judy's blood was never drawn. Her DNA was never tested. We don't know shit about that. So she wasn't the other suspect. We know that. Yeah. She doesn't have semen. So it doesn't matter. That doesn't matter. Her house was never searched. Her car was never searched. Oh, they didn't do anything. And she's the one who blew the polygraph. Right. Um, they said that according to the defense, Randall Paget's own trailer and vehicle weren't searched either. They didn't search his home or vehicle. Ever. Why? Because what's that going to help them? Nothing stolen. They have his blood. That's the only thing they need to search through at that point. They don't have what he needed there. Anyway, you took it with them and threw it out. I'm sure. I mean, I'd be looking for a knife. I'd be looking for a murder weapon. Maybe some clothes with some blood on them, things like that. If I thought I had a suspect, you know, you never know. How many times do we go? Well, people will get rid of that shit. How many times have we found that they don't? Oh my God. So many times they hang on to it. This is behind the couch stuff back there or something. And the knife is in their fucking butcher's block again. It's crazy. It's wild. So, now they didn't photograph her like to see if she had any wounds on her arms or anything like that. Scratches or anything. They didn't photograph her like defensive stuff. Nothing. The other thing is nobody realized that she took two weeks off work after that too, Judy. From that time they came back from Florida till then, she took two weeks off of work. Which could just be I'm going to be, you know, might they just arrested my boyfriend from murder. So, I'm a little flustered right now. Who knows? Can we think? No. So anyway, he's freed on a $100,000 bond. Now, Randall's lawyers, let's find out a bit about them. They are John Mark McDaniel and William P. Burgess, Jr. Here. Very experienced criminal defense lawyers with good reputations, strong, you know, competent reputations. And, you know, they're hired. They're not public defenders or anything. So that's to say right away. He's got good lawyers. So they move for a change of venue due to pretrial publicity because this is the biggest thing that's ever happened around here. And they're denied a move. Oh, we're going to stay here. denied. Yeah. They also retain an independent DNA expert, which is not cheap or easy to find at this time. That's difficult. They advise their client. Look, this is what you need to do. They offer us a deal. Take the plea, take the life in prison. Just take it. They got your DNA. They might as well have a video of you raping your dead wife. Just take the deal, take life without parole. They'll take the death penalty off the table. And we can do life without parole. That's the best you're going to get. That's a wild deal. Yeah. It's the best you're going to get, basically. Okay. So which is what a lot of people do when they're dead to rights on DNA, they'll say, fuck, I got a police. Yeah, rather than go through all the costs and expense of the trial, they'll just say we'll take the death penalty off the table. And that'll be that. So it's interesting. Now he tells his lawyers, look, investigate Judy Bagwell. I think she had something to do with it. But his lawyers are like, dude, we have they have your DNA inside of her. Yeah. Unless she figured out a way to shoot sperm out of herself somehow. It ain't hers. So stop saying you didn't do anything. What are you talking about? And also too, the defense doesn't have like the state can just spend anything they want. They can spend anything. I need this test. I need that test. I want that done for trial. The defense, this is real money coming out of somebody's pocket. Like it's not just the state's funds. So they're like, look, dude, you know, you can't afford for us to do a whole investigation, run down scientific shit on Judy anyway. It's a waste of time. Yeah. Especially when they have this, this particular evidence is really fucking tough to overcome. Totally. So June 1991, the trial is delayed here. Prosecutors said in a recent court ruling that tightening's on the tightening of the rules on in the use of DNA samples, which is a key part of their case means they need more time to prepare for trial to get their science ready the way they need to present it. So then it's expected to take place October, and then October, it's delayed again. It's postponed after a motion by Randall's attorney for a continuance to allow for an independent lab to examine evidence found at the scene of the death. All right. So here is something that the judge ruled on that the jury didn't hear about. This is a pre-trial thing. Some forensic shit here. Before trial, the judge held a hearing outside the presence of the jury on whether to admit DNA population frequency statistics, meaning the numbers that tell you what the match actually means. Is it one in is it one in 50? Is it one in a million? You know, what are odds here? So those numbers are excluded. Nowadays, they'd never do that. That's that's part of how DNA is looked at as how accurate it is when they say one in 18 billion, you go, well, you know, that's pretty way more. Yeah, that's more people than will ever live on the earth. So probably it's, you know, whatever. So they're in narrow. But if someone says one in a hundred, you go, well, I'm not sending someone to death row over one in a out of a hundred. That could. There's a hundred people in this courtroom could be one of us. A hundred thousand. Yeah, even that. So they don't hear those numbers. And he's the judge said that the reason was that he didn't want to put any odds in front of the jury is like I said, this is new. So at the time, they think this is the way you go about presenting DNA to a jury is you don't confuse them more with numbers and odds and all this shit. So the jury was just told the samples matched. Never told that what rate they matched. That's that. So they'll never hear that. Now, December 1992, the defense has a DNA sample of their own. Okay. With the trial approaching, they have a result of Randall's blood tested. The PGM type of 1-1, not 2-1, which is what the other lab said. They're saying 1-1. So the defense gives the prosecution the test results here. And in normal discovery, they go back and forth. And basically we'll talk about what happens there. Now, like we said, Randall's attorneys are still advising him, plead no contest, take the life. Just do it. He's saying, no, no, no, I didn't do this. And I'm not fucking doing it. And then also he said, again, you haven't looked at Judy. She's got replica bedrooms of my kids. She hit in the back seat. She's got a bag of my fingernail clippings and fucking cool butts. This isn't okay. She saves my new ports, man. This is fucking weird. So the nothing ever happened though. Now, Alabama did not at the time fund indigent capital defense the way most states do. And they still don't today. So how do they do? There's some states where it's just absolutely fixed for the state. If you if you're up in a capital case, you're going to fucking prison. They have literally an open checkbook for a whole states budget. You have nothing. They have to approve everything you ask for a DNA sample of this and they don't give you shit. There was a, yeah, there's a huge thing in Texas because they were doing that for years. And people's lawyers were asleep. They didn't even give a fuck. You know, which states do it in which states don't you can name them all up top your Adam. So they're asleep through the trial. Absolutely. Yeah. Oh my god. They don't care. Once you're convicted, you're convicted and you're going down. So now he was an indigent at the time, either he owned a farm. So he had some income. He mortgaged his farm and eventually had to sell his 32 acres to pay his lawyers. Oh, fuck sold the house too that Kathy goes killed and had to sell the chicken houses everything to pay for lawyers. Between him and his family, the legal bills came from about $200, $200,000. That's $200,000. $1990. So we're talking, you know, 600 grand now or something that range. That's a lot of fucking money. Especially for a poultry farmer in rural Alabama. He's not a lot. So he's not Frank Perdue, this fucking guy here. April 1992 is the trial. This shit is crazy. Okay. Now he's obviously charged with stabbing his wife during the commission of a rape or attempted rape. Yeah. That's what they're going on. Now they're trying to pick a jury, which isn't easy, obviously. The defense is asking that some of the 50 jurors also be questioned separately, not just in a group, like they do sometimes. Like, raise your hand if you're this or that. You have law enforcement in your family or whatever the fuck. So they only had 11 jurors questioned by noon. And so the questioning of small groups of potential jurors began after that, not enough time to do them one at a time. Jury selection had to resume the next day. So basically this is just a long process. And this jury's going to be sequestered during the trial, which they think could last for two weeks. So in addition to finding qualified jurors that don't know a lot about the case or haven't formed an opinion on it, you also have to find people who don't, you know, who aren't their primary child care person or every other whole lot going on. Yeah. A trip booked or basically have the next two weeks just off to dick around. So April 7, 1992, the state retests its own sample. By the way, this is right before the trial. This is the one from October 1990. They sent it to Selmark. And the result was PGM 1 to 1 again, which is the same result the defense got. Remember, same tube, same laboratory, different answer, same blood in the same tube. Got a different answer from the lab. So everyone's very confused now. How would that even happen? I'm not sure. Now this PGM just to tell you about what that is. It's an enzyme found in human blood. Comes in variants and those variants are inherited, which means they can be typed, which they can include or exclude people from a sample. By 1990, this PGM typing was already old. This was already last year shit. This was not cutting edge at all. It had been in routine forensic use for years, but not as it's not as discriminating as DNA. A PGM type shares with you a large chunk of the population, but it's also cheaper. And that's the one thing. So that's why they do it. They said also your PGM type does not change no matter what you do, no matter what you eat, no matter how many years go by. It's basically your bloodstream's fingerprint. That's what they're saying. So that's why they're like, well, how the fuck does the same sample come back as two different things that? If it came through the same all the way around. But the DNA, it still matches the DNA. That's just the PGM thing. So now they're wondering, well, is that even Randall's blood that you're testing for the DNA? That's what they're saying at this point, because you got two different test results from the same fucking tube. So April 9, 1992 is the second day of the trial. The state receives their results, but the trials are already underway. The jury's seated, the state's DNA experts are waiting to testify under subpoena. So they just sit on the state. They just sit on this result. Because like I said, it doesn't affect the DNA. Whoever's blood is in that tube matches the semen. But is that Randall's blood in that tube with the vognos? So April 13, four days later, near the end of the state's case, there's a recess. And the prosecutor tells the defense attorney about the April 7, three test, which is a fucking week ago, which is crazy. By this point, all the DNA experts have already testified and left town and there's no DNA experts that live in ARAB, Alabama. You know what I'm saying? These people all flew in from, you know, civilization to come here. Yeah, from the big city. So they said by that time, the record shows the state's DNA experts had already testified. Therefore, the only witness subject to cross examination on the ramifications of the different PGM types was the serialologist, serialologist, which is the blood person, but they're not an expert in this. So it's a mess. The defense asks for a mistrial. Right at this point. There's also a new DNA study that just came out also that is the problem here. I'll read you this article. This is I believe from like the New York Times or this is the Huntsville Times, but a reprint of other shit. The murder case against Larry Randall Paget hinges on DNA genetic match between the blood of Paget and the scene and found at the crime scene and the validity of the evidence appearing in Jeopardy on Tuesday, the New York Times reported Tuesday that the National Academy of Sciences issued a report that DNA fingerprinting should not be allowed in court into laboratory standards have tightened and a firmer scientific basis of the method established. Okay, so we need to get to a tighter window of people and you can't do that at the at the present usage and application of this. Pretty much. Yeah, the National Academy of Sciences their report just basically says nothing to do with with Randall's case just says we're not at the point yet where we should be able to use DNA in court because there is no standards for shit basically anybody could come in and say I know DNA. He's guilty or she's guilty and that's that. They said a key link in the state's case for a capital murder charge against Paget here has been DNA match provided by a Maryland lab. The times report which also carried was carried on wire services said the Academy reported that the technique must be regulated and controlled by sciences and federal agencies that have no stake in the method success. You can't have everything be like prosecutors into this because they have a they want this for their own purposes. Yeah, we need third parties who don't give a shit. It behooves them much more. Absolutely defense attorneys for Paget here made a motion for a mistrial on the basis of the report which was denied by circuit judge Bill jeton. The trials expected to continue later the DA noted that Victor McCusdick of Saint John of Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore chairman of the committee on DNA technology and forensic science for the National Research Council had responded to the news report earlier in the day. That guy said he was quote very upset when he saw a news article on the report earlier that day. He said it's seriously Miss represents our findings. So the guy that did the study says the report actually misrepresents what it is. Okay, which is why the judge denied the mistrial based on it. He said the impression it gives about our conclusions is misleading. He said the committee had quote worked very hard over the past two years to resolve a question that has caused a great deal of controversy in both scientific and legal circles. He said the facts reported in the news article are quote basically correct, but what is wrong is how they are put together and interpreted. Interesting. Okay, meaning yeah, the sky is blue, but it doesn't mean that it'll rain tomorrow. That's not what the sky is blue means, you know, it's that sort of shit. So whether the article stated that DNA evidence should not be allowed in court unless a more scientific basis is established, this guy said on the contrary because he said that's not our conclusion. The article said that was the conclusion, but our conclusion wasn't it shouldn't be used in court. That was just they took our data and said they think it shouldn't be used in court. So he says on on the contrary, we confirm the general reliability using DNA typing in forensic science when perform properly the technique is capable of providing strong evidence for solving crimes. While the time story said the court should stop admitting DNA evidence until lab standards have been tightened. The guy who ran the whole study said that that's not what the report says. He said our report emphasizes the need for a high level of quality control and collecting analyzing and interpreting data. That's all we're talking about. We say that some degree of standardization is needed in lab procedures and that a mandatory accreditation program should be established, which that should be obvious to everybody I would imagine, right? So this guy went on to say that the group here, the research people feels that DNA evidence is a powerful tool for criminal investigation and one that should be used even as standards are strengthened. He said we do not say that court should cease to admit this evidence during this interim period court should require laboratories to at least demonstrate they are effectively in compliance with the requirements for accreditation. So maybe they're not accredited yet because we don't have that program, but here's we have all our shit lined up. Yeah, there's no health board coming to look at it, but check it out where we where we grind our meat is clean. You know, I assure you this is going to be used in the future when it gets more refined. We're doing great. He said that the much of the controversy surrounding the DNA evidence has surrounded population genetics, which is exactly what this case is the problem. Oh, fuck. So okay, the serialogist is up there, the defense counsel, [BLANK_AUDIO] a few hours to prepare for this person. Yeah. We've all the sides, so this DNA is going to be useless, useless. So this guy is the only witness. His name is Roger Morris and the state's seriologist and the cross examination on him. This is verbatim, what it says. This is a defense council said, would a person with a PGM type 1, 1, would that same, would that be the same blood as a person with the blood type PGM 2, 1? And this person said not generally, which is not no, by the way. So the defense council said they would be different people, wouldn't they? And the witness said, well, and the defense council said different blood. And the witness said, yes, sir. So that's all they can get out of that. Okay. Now the defense witnesses, they present more than a dozen witnesses who all testified that they were friends and co-workers of Randall and that Randall as a great reputation for quote, truth and peace in the community where he lived to grew up. We've all known him forever and we all like him forever. And we don't think he did it. Also testifying for the defense was a Coleman County locksmith who said he had gone to the house where Kathy was found. And he said, you didn't really need a key or to break in. He said that he was able to the locks were so bad in that house, he was able to enter the house within two seconds with the use of a state driver's license, like a bedroom door with just the knob turns. You know, you can just pop those open in your house. Yeah, especially if you have the strike or going the opposite direction. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So you could pop those no fucking problems. So that's, they said, this, this is anybody could have broken in without the key or or forced entry. Yeah. Now a defense expert, they hire their own DNA expert on cross examination by the state. That expert had to concede that the DNA in the semen was consistent with Randall Paget. The sample he got and that. Yeah. So that's not good. That's the defense his own DNA expert said. Yeah. The semen's Randalls based on being a secretor, but there's, there's no other being nonsecretor. Right. Right. Right. Now the only question is that they were saying what the different bloods is, is that his blood that they're testing? Now this guy, he's saying, you know, as far as everything official is going, he was handed Randall's blood. He's not the guy to say it wasn't Randall's blood because he doesn't know. He just knows the blood you gave me matches the semen. That's it. Okay. And if that's Randall's blood, then that's Randall. And that's that's that. Yeah, brand hugely damaging, obviously. It sucks. Yeah. Have your own expert say that, yeah, that's your fucking semen in there. So then there's a station wagon witness here, Jimmy Gullian, a poultry feed truck driver. He delivers poultry feed who delivers to farms during the night and early morning. Could you get a worse job? I guess shoveling that you can shit. That's about it. That's about the only way. The only way this would be good as if like he hates people and he never has to see one of them if he does this job. That's it. Well, he said he remembered seeing a car speeding on bridge road toward Alabama 69 route 69 about 2 a.m. The night Kathy was killed in her home on bridge road. So saw a car speeding away. He said it was a white station wagon with wagon with a missing hub cap, a one missing hub cap and had two people in it who appeared to be men. He said the driver had bushy black hair. He testified. Okay. Now this driver also said that he knew Randall know him. He's a chicken feed guy. We got a chicken farmer. And he said, I didn't see him in the car. He wasn't one of the people I saw in the car. Okay. So two, one, not him. Now keep in mind, two o'clock in the morning on a there are no street lights. This is a rural road into in the morning. So your headlights might have flashed on it for two seconds. It's really hard to say I definitely saw or didn't see anything in a car. It's completely. So the district attorney challenges this man's testimony saying that he had been, quote, real specific about events that happened seven years ago, but you're not real specific about this shit. But you knew stuff that happened a long time ago. And he also said the, the DA said this witness also told him personally several days earlier. He didn't know if he had seen the car on the night at the Kathy was killed on the, or on the night she was found. So they're saying, now you're positive. It was the night she was killed and you're positive. You didn't see him in the dark at 2 a.m. Whereas when I talked to you, you said, I saw a car. Didn't see who was in it. And I'm not sure if it was the right night or not, which is a big difference. And there's preliminary questioning. So then it happens. Randall testifies. He's got a, yeah. He's got a, um, he has to be more believable than DNA, essentially, as if he wants to get out of this. So he said, yes, he admitted that he had begun an affair with another woman in 1986 and that had continued until the time of his wife's death. Um, he said he discussed the affair with his wife several times, discussed as a fun way to put that. By the way, I discussed it with her. She yelled a lot. I sat there and nodded. It was a discussion. Um, it was, it was discussed, discussed. Yeah. So several times and that several months before his wife's death, he suggested they separate because he was confused. And he was thought he was being unfair to both Judy and Kathy. So he said, let's just separate. So the defense attorney said, okay, that makes sense. Did you murder your wife? Ah, he said no, sir. Yeah. Then here's the best one. Did you have sex with their corpse? Oh, Jesus. That's been in open court. Lyndon Johnson has the famous political line of someone saying somebody fucked animals on a, on a farm. And he said, they said, well, he, that guy doesn't even go near farms. He doesn't fuck animals on farms. And he said, I don't give a shit. Make the bastard deny it. So that's, that's why that's how you see dirty, mud-slinging politics is from make the bastard deny it. Just say anything you want. They can now when they say they didn't do it. Now that's all they're going to talk about. So that's why you see that often. This is his own, his own fucking attorney saying, do you bang that corpse there, buddy? He's no, sir. Um, so he admitted, yes, I did lie when I told an aunt that I was going to work at my poultry farm when I left my two kids with her. That's right. I did lie to that. He said that instead I went to Judy's house and banged her and then packed up and went to Florida for scuba diving. It's like none of that. None of this looks good, Randall. Um, he said the other woman was notified. Judy was notified by her sister that Kathy had been killed while they were in Florida. So that's how he originally found out. And he said he vomited his supper up upon hearing the news. Hooked up his supper. He said he immediately returned to a rab, cooperated with police, gave a blood sample. He said I arrived at the police department at seven a.m. And found no one to talk to the next day. Um, he said, so he went to his parents home. And they said, well, would you do there? And he said, I went to my parents house and hugged my children and parents. And then he got choked up several times during testimony. He said that he had taken his two children to counseling for several months after the incident as well. It messed us all up. Yeah. Now cross examination. And you, you'll never get a district attorney who is more, he could be stone sitting before a buffet and wouldn't be more hungry than to have a murder suspect on the stand. They fucking live to have a murder suspect on the stand live for. Yeah. Yeah. So this DA said he this again, talked to him and Randall said he had taken the two children to visit their maternal grandparents every other week after his wife's death, but that he stopped after several months. He said the maternal grandparents who live in Huntsville, quote, took me to court over custody after his arrest. So that's why I stopped taking them. They said, what kind of woman was Kathy Paget? And she said, he said, quote, she was good as gold. And they said, yet you went out to the next door neighbor and had an affair. And he said, yes, sir. Yeah. So he's had to answer some tough questions. Let's just say there. Things that you don't do to your wife, right? Yeah. I would say, yeah. For sure. And that's why you got the mistress because this shit's crazy over here. I suppose I mean, maybe his wife is down to, I don't know, but she seems like she is nuts and down for whatever this Judy. So she'll do anything, anything. She was, this is crazy too. She was never called to the stand by either side. Kathy wasn't. Judy wasn't Kathy's dead. That's right. That's Judy. Yeah. The mystery. Judy was not called by either. She was like this weird, like nuclear weapons sitting in the middle of the floor that nobody wanted to get to near or touch because she could fuck up either side's case pretty much. So Geneva Convention, but they didn't agree to it. They just were both fingers crossed that they don't call Judy and no one called Judy luckily for them. It's weird. So the reason this is per the defense that the state had offered her immunity if she would implicate Randall, if she would say that he told her, you know, that he did it and all that. And he said, well, he never said he wouldn't she would never take the deal. So I mean, that's nice of her. So the state said, fuck it because a witness who won't give you what you want under immunity is not a good witness to put in front of the jury. And the defense letter alone too, because she might have been a hostile witness and they didn't know. And, you know, he said, I don't want to get up there, argue with her and fuck our whole case up basically. So the result was both sides going, are they going to call her, they rested. Yeah. Never mind. I guess you just kind of, right? I don't know. It could be beneficial to you, but it could also damage you if she, if they get crossed and they get to cross. So one thing lawyers hate is asking questions. They don't know the answer to already. Yeah. Yeah. You don't get it. Somebody up there and go, I'm just going to explore and see what happens. That's not what any, especially in a capital case. That's not the time to fuck around with this. You were salivating to ask, did you bang your wife's corpse? Oh, yeah. Did you add, well, no, that was the defense attorney. He had to ask him that just to take, to take that grenade away from the, how to take it away from them because they would have put it with some stank on it. You had sex with your wife's corpse. Whereas he was just like, did you have sex with your wife's corpse? No, sir. That's what I thought. All right. Good. Yeah. Just checking though. Because you're a good guy. You're a good, you're a good fellow, aren't you? Yeah. So the verdict here, verdict, it's a jury of 11 women and three men. So it's 12 plus two alternates and the way they do it is they don't, in this area, they don't, none of the jurors know who's going to be the final 12 yet. They pick the final 12 after the trial. They pick the 12 who are going to deliberate. So all 14 have to pay attention, essentially, because they might be jurors. That's a way to keep the alternates from not paying attention is why they do that. So the deliberations come deep into the deliberations here, which is only a couple hours. The jury sends a question to the judge. That is quote, does the defendant have to have intent to commit rape while on the way to commit murder or before the murder or can the intent come during the commission of the crime or the commission of the crime of murder or directly after which one is a capital murder? What about afterthought? What is meant by that or a forethought or whatever. So what's meant by that? So they're, these are bad questions for the defense counts, not good at all. That's like, yeah. Oh my God. They're deciding whether or not to kill me. They're just deciding, yeah, did he go over there fixing the rape or not? That's how they're trying to decide. Oh, boy. So that's bad. If you're him, you're going, oh, fuck, they definitely think I killed her. This is bad. So it's interesting. It's a, it's a very, by the way, apt and sophisticated legal question that they put together. Very good. Then they go in. It's three hours of total deliberation, including the question. And they find him guilty of everything. Yeah. Okay. A good thing. Guilty of everything. Capital murder. Oh my God. Oh my God. Death penalty shit here. So now, sentencing won't be for another two months, I believe, a month and a half. So after trial and before sentencing, some crazy shit happens. The defense attorney receives a letter signed by just a man named Phil. That's all they would sign it, claiming to confess to Kathy's murder. Phil. Phil. What's you doing? All that going to Phil. Phil. When I was putting this together, I was on the couch and I read that and I went, Phil, and I looked up at Sarah and she was like, oh, boy, here he goes again with the Beverly Hills cop references. It's huge. It's a very cliche name of Phil. So funny. Phil such you. Such you Phil. What you doing? Oh my God, Phil. You changed, man. So the letter bore a Baton Rouge Louisiana postmark. It's typewritten and includes numerous crude sexual remarks, which is what you want to put in your confession letter. Yeah. Now details of the crime are noted in the letter. But most, if not all of the details, we're part of the testimony presented during trial. So anybody could have heard these details. The judge refuses to allow it in his evidence and just goes on with the sentencing. They say it's obviously horseshit. It's a hoax who cares. Clearly a hoax. This guy did it. Yeah. May 22, 1992 is sentencing. Okay. Following the penalty phase here, several jurors and family members here were weeping openly. Okay. Family members are pleading for his life. And jurors are openly weeping, which is a bad sign for the prosecutor. The jurors are openly weeping. Neighbors, friends, co-workers, church members that know him all testified that there's no way they could believe that Randall committed this crime and that if he did, he had worthwhile enough qualities that would make it better for him to be imprisoned for the rest of his life than to kill him. Even if he did that, there's still enough good in him that we don't have to kill him. He's redeemable, at least in his soul. At least in prison. Yeah. He'll be fine. So several testified that they didn't believe in the death penalty no matter what. While others said they would accept it under certain circumstances, many said they would have to have seen physically seen him murdering and raping his wife in order to believe that he was capable of it. I would have to watch him do it, which I wouldn't. I'd be whacking it too. Let me tell you, I'm into that. That's one of the guys said. Super weird. No. That's a real interesting. I mean, there's a lot of evidence that can prove that you don't need to see it happen. That's true. That's true. Don't scar yourself with that. Well, just you don't want to see it, but you're saying I wouldn't believe it unless I saw it. If someone said you were raping and killing people, I would say I don't believe it unless you, you got to have some serious, beyond a reasonable doubt, beyond beyond for me to believe that. Yeah. Whereas if I didn't know you, I'd just go, yeah, there's a rapist who kills people, yeah, sure. So he's a creator, leave him alone. Leave him alone. A non-secreater, actually. He's a non-secreater, so what? When they bring up his mom, Vera, who's all frail and old, I'm not attended the trial, she took the witness stand to say that she was proud to be Randall's mother. She said, quote, he is a fine, fine man. He has always had a good heart and he has two wonderful children who love him. I beg and plead with you to spare my baby for his babies just for his kids. So an old lady saying, that's tough, right? The prosecution does not cross examine any of the family members because what are you going to say? Oh, he's a good guy, huh? And then the old lady is going to cry. Is that going to win you points with the jury? So the most emotionally upset of all was his older brother, Thomas. This is Randall's older brother, Thomas, who with a younger brother and a sister attended every day of the trial. He said, I had to go home Wednesday and tell us two kids that he wouldn't be coming home. His kids need him. They don't have anybody else, which, yeah, their mom's dead. He just got convicted of murdering her. So, yeah. So he left the courthouse and went and told the kids just gave him the bad news. Yeah, because they said your dad's either coming home today or he's not. One of the two. So, now his younger brother, Kendall, was talking about how he helped him out when he was a kid so much and he became a nurse because of his brother helping him out. And that's what a good person he is. And he said, quote, I could never help people like he did. And now I would trade places with him if I could. He said, I love him that much. His sister said about, you know, he stands by us all the time. She also said, his kids need to know their father is not going to die right now. Much of the time during this testimony, Randall is sobbing just as his hands and head in his hands on the table, openly sobbing, the old times is happening. Yeah. But you don't see very much in defense, you know, out of defendants. My favorite was Corey Richens, because she didn't cry one fucking bit when hearing about her husband or about what her kids have been through. But then her brother got up and said what a great guy, or a great woman she was and she just started crying then only when it was about her and how wonderful she was you talk about me like that. Yeah. Now, the closing arguments, the district attorney Thompson and Jolly, these two guys told the jury during their arguments that it was evident that many good people testified on Randall's behalf. Hey, we can't say shit about those people. They're nice people. But they didn't hear all the evidence that you guys have the jury. That's the problem. Why they're so behind their friend and their relative. You guys know all the evidence. He said you can't help but feel something for the pageant family. They didn't put Randall, Randall, pageant here. He did. He asked what kind of man, if he's such a great guy, what kind of man would mutilate the body of his children's mother, then allow them to be put in the position to possibly discover the body as they did. That's a great point. Yeah. He said, if you say he does not deserve the death penalty, then no one does. No one ever has or ever will. Which, come on, the Ted Bundy and this guy aren't the same. Relax. Yeah. He didn't go back, cut her head off and rape it afterwards. That puts some more stank on it to me. No, they're in their beds with their teddy bears. Yeah. Exactly. So the defense attorney said life without parole would mean that he'll never be back in this county again. You'll never run across, just not your problem anymore. Just ship him off. He said, Mr. Page, it has done a terrible, terrible act, but he has done some good. In prison, it's possible that he could maybe help somebody. He's willing to help people. Maybe that's his what he can do. I could train dogs for the police or some shit. Something to help do counseling, you know, other and make counseling with each other or whatever. The defense attorney said the character witnesses were speaking from their heart and they were here to say that you can't judge a whole person from one act. That's what they told you and that's what we believe. That's what the defense attorney said. He said, if this was such a horrible act or if he was, if this was such a horrible bad man, I don't think so many people would be speaking on his behalf. If he was that bad, so many decent, obviously decent people prosecution comes back again and they say, look, I don't fault those people for speaking on his behalf. You don't know what people do behind closed doors. He said, he has had a lot of rights along the way and the rights have been protected. I wonder where we would be today if Kathy Paget had the same rights that night. Would there be 25 people in the front yard of her home pleading with Randall Paget not to kill her because she was a good person? Would Mrs. Kavanaugh, um, that's Kathy's mom, be out there pleading for the life of her daughter. That opportunity didn't exist for Kathy Paget. So really, regardless. Now, the jury comes back with a nine to three judgment, nine to three in favor of life in prison. That is their recommendation. So nine to three is their recommendation is that life in prison. Okay. So going, it's about to you, sir. Hold on. Let me get the gavel here about to put it just about the judge says not so fucking fast. Hold on. One second. He says, no, no, no. The judge describes a woman sleeping in her bed. And this is he does it like in a creepy way and a man coming down the hall toward that bedroom with a knife in his hand. And he goes in and begins to stab and stab and that's not enough for his sick desires. He then has to rape the corpse. He's a monster. He also said that he has his own reasons for believing Randall killed Kathy. I don't know your own reason when they're constructing a jury. They don't say, take all the evidence, all the statements and your own reasons and mix them all together. Yeah. Do whatever you think, you know, whatever you came up with, whatever evidence you have. And he overrides the jury and says you, sir, may fuck off death in the electric chair. Oh my God. So he just, we have a jury then, judge. That's the point. Why bother? Why not just let this guy decide everything if he's the guy has decided. So that's fucking wild. By the way, you might be going around the country in other places. How the fuck can a judge do that? Yeah. Because I've seen judges set aside guilty verdicts and say, no, no, they didn't meet the burden actually. And it's, we're going to call it not guilty. That's one thing to err on the side of the, of the, of the, of the, of the, no, of the person who's, yeah, the, exactly the person whose rights are we're talking about and the defendant, but to just unilaterally decide on the death penalty yourself, when the jury's supposed to do that. It's a wild thing that you're allowed to do. So is he allowed to do that? That feels like an appeal to the thing. Wow. It's Alabama. They, this is everything is set up for you to basically be on a slip and slide to the electric chair. That's what they have their whole court system set up for until 2017, by the way, which is 20, fucking five years later than this case. The judges could override a jury sentencing recommendation in a capital case. The jury says life judge says death. It's death. Period. That's a, since 1976, Alabama judges did this 112 times dude. That is sick. That's a system set up to kill people and death row that the, that a jury said, no. I do. Put them to life life. Yeah. Okay. That's 91% of those overrides, basically of all the overrides, because 112 times was just all the overrides. Okay. Got it. Either way, but 91% of those overrides were a judge saying death when a jury chose life. So they don't do it the other way around nine percent of the time. That's crazy. You should be able to flip it, to get them all, everything should be to protect the rights of a person that might be put to the death penalty. So everything should be to protect the citizens from getting counter sued for that's the other thing. Wrongful shit. And that's more tax money out of the fucking window. Ask Arizona how they felt about everyone a fucking Joe Arpios fucking lawsuits because everything he did was illegal. We paid 50 million plus. Millions of dollars, taxpayers of Arizona, Jimmy and myself included paid out of that bullshit. So for years and years, because he's a twat. Yep. At the peak of this, roughly one in five people on Alabama death row had been put there by a judge that overruled. Is that right? Right. Overruled the jury. One in 50. One in five. One in 20%. That would mean 150. Yeah. Yeah. Florida and Delaware, the only other states that allowed it, ended the practice in 2016. Yeah. Delaware is an odd ball. One for that. But Florida I get. Yeah. Alabama kept it going until 2017. It's over. Alabama became the last state in the country to do a lot of things first of all. But yeah. Yeah. To graduate high school. Well, especially to abolish is the next word. They don't abolish shit unless forced to do their ABCs. To abolish judicial override. Yeah. And that was in 2017. The bill though was not made retroactive. So all the people that got that can eat shit, it's only for the future. That's fucked up. It's fucked up. So that's it. Wow. Now the judge does this. That's crazy. Now, the other thing is they test the DNA on the envelope of the confession letter they got. Yeah. Saliva from the envelope on this letter is not a DNA match with the evidence taken from Kathy. So he's not him. Well, whoever licked the law envelope or the stamp is not is not the murder. Didn't do it. Phil. No. May 16, 1993, while Randall is on death row. Here's an ad in the paper in the Huntsville Times, $25,000 reward for information which leads to the release in all capital letters of Randall Paget now held for murder of Kathy Paget. Okay. And they give the times that happen around 2 a.m. just off Highway 69 in the grassy community near Arab. So that's what we're talking about here. He's the public, 25 grand, please, anything, nothing ever comes up. So he's on death row. Yeah. And he's chilling on death row. As much as you can shell on death row, every day's a, every day's a anxiety bomb. I would think he's at the Holman correctional facility outside at more Alabama near the Florida line, 350 miles from home. Yeah. Now obviously the electric chair is the state's method of execution. He said the cell is about five by eight. Yeah. Very fucking small. He has no light of his own, only light that comes in from other places. He only gets natural light or from the hallway or whatever. The door, then the doors, you know, they close the door. There's no light. He's just sitting there. So he said his first description of sitting there was quote, I'm all alone on a different planet. This is crazy. Where am I? So he said the first night there was one of the strangest things in his entire life. In midnight, two men and cells above him were talking by his account. He said it sounded like a black man and a white man were talking. One of them offered to end the night with a prayer. And Randall said he said a beautiful long prayer that was just everything everybody needed to hear. And he laid there in the dark thinking, well, maybe this place isn't as bad as I thought it was going to be. Maybe at least there's something soothing for the soul here. Then the other man suggested they wrap it up with a moment of silence. Then the guy who just said the beautiful prayer asked whether he was making fun of him. You making fun of me? Is that why you said a moment of silence because it was too long? Then a racial slur came out and next thing you know, they proceeded to curse each other for minutes and one of them threatened to have his mother and cousin killed. He said, so in a five minute time, it went from, "Hey, let's say a nice prayer together, too. I will have your mother killed in five fucking minutes," which is death row, you know? So Randall was lying on his bunk bed and he said, "Man, people were dying around him. They executed Varnell Weeks in 1995. By the way, he described the death row ritual around someone being killed, someone being executed. He said, "A trustee goes sell to sell collecting candy and potato chips in a bag so the condemned man could have them on his last night." So you go around, they go around, "You donate. This is some stuff I have for him, basically. So your last night you have a trove of some candy and some, you know, maybe a ding-dong and some ramen or something." So yeah, it's interesting. Now Randall thought that was weird because he's like, "What the hell's the guy want a party for? They're going to kill him. What the fuck is he, what are they partying about?" So he's laying in bed on his bunk there at the home and correctional facility and he's thinking and he keeps, he just keeps going back in his head that every time he had sex with Judy, she would immediately get up and go in in the bathroom and he's like, "Why did she do that? Why did she do that?" And then his thoughts went to something else. But as it goes on, he starts to come up with, and a lawyer he talks to after a minute starts to come up with, did Judy collect his semen and deposit it in the body? Oh my god. Is that what happened? 'Cause they're like, 'cause he doesn't, we don't think he did it. So, is that what the deal is? Is what his attorneys were thinking about? And that's what he was thinking about. And that's why he said, "Holy shit, she used to go to the goddamn bathroom all the time. She saved my cigarette butts and my nail clippings." Right. She'll definitely save some jizz. I mean, that's like a fucking. That's crazy, though. That's like Dom Paranion for the horrific. How much if a fingernail clipping means a lot to her? Think about what a load's going to mean. But how much can you, I guess, like, I guess all of it comes out. But. If you had a condom full of it? Yeah. That's all you need. Over time, too, if you just keep putting it, like, like. You get as much as you want. All of tinfoil, you know what I mean? If you just keep. Keep putting a little bit into the baggie. You bad into it. Yeah. A little more big league chew in the mouth and keep getting that gumball bigger. How long does that keep? You got to just keep it from drying out, right? Yeah. No shit. Jesus. I don't want to think about it. Okay. Now, he has appeals here. Now, the PGM, like I said, it was old technology kind of by that point. Your PGM doesn't change. Here's something that no one ever resolved is what the fuck happened in that tube of blood? How did that blood get to be. How is it different blood? One test from another test from the same tube. That's what they don't get. Was it mislabeling? Was it somebody messed the numbers up? Was it a dyslexic lab assistant? Yeah. That's what I mean. Who put a wrong label on wrong something? Was it degraded or contaminated? Was that it? Was it typed wrong the first time? A clinical. A clerical error? A whole bunch of shit could happen. Maybe a lab. Maybe the Sheriff's Department? Maybe the lab in Maryland? Maybe who the fuck knows? So. But one thing's for sure, that's a mistake because that's. There's some mistake. Yeah. Yeah. Your blood doesn't change. So they said. And his lawyer said they don't know. They said they don't know if it was a blunder and accident, a deliberate thing. They have no idea who knows. So, well, they never know. Now, here's the appeal. First off is a Brady violation, which means that basically they didn't get all the defense didn't get all the evidence they should have. It's what that means. There was withheld evidence from them. So, basically, the way they worked this out is the state. The test of this has three elements. The state suppressed the evidence. The evidence was favorable to the defense and the evidence was material to the goings-on. They hid shit that you could have used, basically. It's culpatory as fuck. Yeah. Yeah. The Court of Criminal Appeals found all three factors in that particular case. All three. All three. All three. Mixed. Because that's from the not telling them right away about the test was different blood. That's what this is from. So, they're saying, well, they could have probably used that when the DNA experts were on the stand, but they didn't tell you until after the DNA experts were going to ask. So, that's interesting. Now, the state's argument on a peel of that was, it was no harm because you got to cross-examine the seriologist about it. Or the serologist. The Court was not impressed. It's basically said this. It's said that the Court already rejected the notion that a defendant who gets through a cross-examination on disclose material has suffered no prejudice. The Court said cross-examining the serologist did nothing to allow the appellate to determine what the different PGM types would mean to the DNA experts whose testimony was key in convicting the appellate. Because they're the ones who said it was his jizz. All right. So, they're the ones that needed to figure that out in front of a jury and they were already gone and didn't get a chance to. The reliability of DNA tests would be dependent upon the integrity of the samples tested. Therefore, as the appellate contends, the DNA experts were entitled to know about the possibility of a mix-up or a tainted sample before giving their conclusions to the jury. Okay. Now, the judge, one judge said it's hard to imagine scientific evidence more crucial than blood test evidence showing that the blood found at the scene of the crime was not the blood of the defendant with holding such evidence to prevent testing by the opposing party as equivalent to concealment and contrary to the ideal that a court must be a truth seeking for them. We're not, we're not a train station getting ready to railroad people. We're supposed to be to find the truth and figure out if this is right or not. Now, one thing that's interesting, the judge's phrasing blood found at the scene of the crime is weird because there is no, do we know that? Yeah, there is no mystery blood. And a lot of people have talked about this case have taken that sentence and said there was mystery blood. But there is not. But there isn't. So it's not what the record says at all. The whole thing is about the PGM typing of the blood sample contributing to him. That's it. And the separate existence of a second sample type that day. And that's just early DNA too, right? If they tested today, it would be much more specific, right? It's much better now. Yeah, they have much, much more DNA, you know, exact specific specific specificity. There it is. There you go. It's a fun word. It's a good word. I like it. Hey, specificity. It's, it's poetic. So it's interesting. So stats that the judge excluded also that they're trying, are peeling on in the appeal. Randall argues that it was error because a bear assertion of a match without any frequency figure is scientifically meaningless because remember the judge didn't allow the one in this many people or the odds it's his. The criminal court of appeals held that the trial court had discretion to exclude the statistics and that excluding them was within that described, in that discretion. So at the time, I don't think they even knew enough to know what a big deal that was. So it's interesting. So he, so he loses that point completely. So the conviction, though, because of the total Brady violations is overturned. Oh, they got to retry him if they want to put him away again. Does he come off of death row then? Off of death row, but to county jail to go right, put off of death row, which is a plus. That's great. The state applies for rehearing the judge, the case was assigned to a judge. And this is a rehearing on this appeal, by the way. The rehearing their side is that Randall already knew about the PGM discrepancy because his own expert testified his blood in February had gotten one to one. So there was no real suppression. Okay, the court, the judge said there's no way that the defense's test on its own sample in February could have made Randall aware of the results of a test. The state ran two months later on their sample. Okay, impossible. So then the judge explained the difference that actually matters here. He said, it's one thing to argue that your expert disagrees with their experts. That's normal, dueling experts. It's every case we talk about. And they tuned that out. Jerry's kind of tend to whatever. Yeah, they'll take. They pick, they pick with they believe and they pick the one that they feel is legitimate and they discard the other one. Yeah. It's something else entirely to stand up and say the state's own lab got two different answers out of the same tube. That's not possible. That's impossible. So that's different. Because from that, the court said a jury could conclude the sample was tainted at the time of the first test or that it belonged to somebody other than him. Which one of those was his? Yeah. Yeah. So the court rule calls the state's four-day delay and telling the defense inexcusable. And the application for rehearing was overruled. Yeah. So one thing the court didn't do too, it did not find the evidence insufficient though. Never said that. Said the opposite actually, because Randall also argued that the state failed to present enough evidence for any rational jury to convict and the court rejected that. Oh. Said he got Brady violations, but there was plenty evidence, asshole. viewing the evidence in light, most favorable to the state, no forced entry, nothing taking jewelry still on the body, a sex act after they're at or after the time of death, a DNA match, a rational jury could find capital murder in that pretty easily. So because of that, he has to stay in jail. He's not a complete overturning, but he will get a new trial. Okay. So he goes back to Marshall County here to be tried again to the county jail. And I'm sure his family was happy to see him. They didn't have to go all the way down there. So retrial shit now. Okay. This is where shit gets crazy. All right. Because the case was going back to retrial, the court of criminal appeals had to tell the judge what to instruct a jury the second time around, because it was already overturned. In doing so, this is what they say. Okay. Capital charge was murder committed during rape under Alabama law during means in the course of or in connection with or in immediate flight from an underlying felony. Okay. You know where we're going with this? Yeah. Because the affiliate does not count. Rape as charged requires sexual intercourse by forcible compulsion for somebody. The state's own pathologist testified that Kathy was dead before the semen entered her body. The 11th at that evidence allowed for the sex act occurring to up to 15 minutes after her death. So before rigor sets in. Yeah. So the court reason if the intent to have intercourse arose only after she was already dead, there could be no forceable compulsion of the victim because there was no victim left to compel. You can't rape the dead. What in the fuck is that logic? That's the same guy says that is the guy who says, I'll try and I can't get AIDS twice. That's the same guy who says that. It's the same thing. I don't care. Can't get AIDS twice. Yeah. Is that guy? Yeah. We've all worked with that guy. And yeah. We are the guy. Every job I've ever been to. I can't get AIDS twice guy. But that logic is crazy because if she's allowed, she's certainly not going to allow this. Yeah. But she's dead. Yeah. So if you want it, that tells me if you want to rape someone, make sure to kill him first. Yeah. That's what that tells you. And do it in Alabama. And do it in Alabama and murder them and rape them. So finding no Alabama authority on the point, on the point, the court went looking elsewhere and found it in Pennsylvania and Kentucky. Women, wealth versus suddler holds that the crime of rape applies only to indignity is to the living. And Smith versus Commonwealth holds that intercourse with a dead body is not rape. But it is prohibited under the abuse of a corpse statute. It just goes to that once you die, the corpse is not the same punishment as what rape is. Exactly. Much worse of the rape of a corpse is that that's the person we least want hanging around anywhere. That wouldn't mean that. That would do like eight years in Alabama. Yeah. Shit. He's just been a normal guy down there. It sounds like he didn't kill anybody, right? That while I guess he may have killed one person, right? Oh, he killed people. Yeah. For sure. He definitely killed that lady. Oh, too. Go to a couple of people. Yeah. Yeah. So anyway, about Alabama court of appeals, hell holds a corpse can't be raped, can't rape the dead. No. In that case, the court said that the offense would be the abuse of a corpse under Alabama code knowingly treating a human corpse in a way that would outrage ordinary family sensibilities. Oh boy. Okay. Well, I mean, that could get real when we're talking about raping them. That's one thing. That could be anything ordinary sense of the family of the family sensibilities, right? Go back to the hall or anything, but those families are fucking each other back there. Yeah. It could be anything, man. Here. Right. So, okay. The court wrote the appellance theory of the case is that, wow, if he did not commit the crime of rape, then he cannot be convicted of Capitol murder as charged in the indictment and he would not be subject to the death penalty. He is, in fact, using the crime of abuse as a corpse as a defense to Capitol murder, which is super weird. I raped her after she was, she was long dead on that one. Come on. And the court said, yeah, the court said that's the law. Yeah. They said on retrial, if the evidence supports it, page it as entitled to a jury instruction that abuse of a corpse is a defense to Capitol murder. He can go up there and say that all day that he killed her before he raped her, so you can't even say he's not entitled to an instruction on rape as a lesser included defense because if she was already dead, there's no rape to be a lesser offense on. Wow. So yeah, that's, that's, so his formal position becomes, I didn't rape my wife, I desecrated her body and that's not a crime. That's the formal defense. Yeah. So now he says he did neither, by the way, he's still good saying he didn't do anything, but that's his defense's deal, which is just fucking wild. So 1997, there's going to be a new trial. He gets a new defense attorney. His mother, who's at this point, 78 years old, mortgages her house to hire him a defense attorney. This poor woman, I feel so bad for people who have to do that. She believes in his innocence though. Yeah. She absolutely does. Yeah. So this is Richard Jaffy, J-A-F-F-E. He's a Birmingham retrial council. This is his specialty. Yeah. It's a big deal. I'm a best known capital defense attorney's in the state too. So they put it out there. Now over his career, he's secured the release of multiple men from death row. And we're talking in Alabama where everything's against you, including Gary Drinkard. And he has been counsel in some of the highest profile cases in the state, including representing Eric Robert Rudolph. He's one of the scumbag Timothy McVeigh buddies, isn't he? Yeah. Yeah. He's the Olympic Park Bomber. Was he the Atlanta guy? Yeah. But I think he was one of those guys too. He's one of those types of guys. Yeah. He wrote a book called Quest for Justice Defending the Damned, which he has there. He wrote the book and he said his purpose in writing it was to get people to reconsider the death penalty saying it's really, the system is enormously expensive. It produces exonerations at a rate that should terrify everybody and it does not reliably reserve itself for the worst offenders, which 100% true on all of those fucking things, all of those things, totally. So this is how he heard of the case in 1992 when it was going on, he was speaking at a small death penalty rally at a Baptist church, an anti-death penalty rally, which nowadays I think the Baptist church have pro-death penalty rallies today. I can't imagine. Switch that. Yeah. I can't imagine there's an anti-rally there at all back in the day. That's what the church people used to be about. Yeah. I mean, Jimmy Carter's whole evangelical shit back in the day, all those people, they were all, they were all the big smiley nice people and we shouldn't kill and we should nice and friends. And Jesus loves everybody. Jesus is just all right with me. I mean, it's all the whole fucking, that's the 70s. Things got, things got nasty after 9/11, the church has completely changed. Then they wanted to kill everybody. But everything used to be love and preach or love and peace and fuck the cops. For a bit. Now it's turned to this entirely opposite and broke back last. Every, every cops the best. Are they? Look at this shit. It's all backlash though. This we need to kill them all was backlash to the Jesus loves everybody. Yeah. And it became well, he loves everybody, but everybody's doing crazy shit. There's crime in the streets. So there's crime in the streets because they closed all the fucking mental hospitals. They have no programs for anything. Drugs exploded. Crack came about in the 80s. So that's all going that way again. Crime in the street. Yeah. Just a different powder. Yeah. Unless crime in the street is the thing. Yeah. They figured that out a little bit. So anyway, they said at this point here, a woman came up to him and asked him whether he'd heard about Randall Paget's case. This woman's name was Brenda Massingill, like the douche, nice. He said he'd never heard of it and he didn't want to get involved. Anything he wanted. He didn't want to know about it basically. This lawyer. He said, I've heard of the case and she said, yeah, she said, well, you get involved and he said, I have no interest. He already, because she told him who his council was and she said, this guy said, oh, that's very competent lawyers. I'm not going to get involved. He has good lawyers. And he said, I never expected to hear about it again in this case. That was that. Three years later, after the reversal, Paget's family called his office the same guy and his brother. and his sister came to Birmingham and sat in Jeffie's office for five hours going through the entire transcript of the first trial with him. And he saw it all and said, fuck, all right, I'll take the case. This is crazy. This whole thing's crazy. Now, Brenda Massingill had been a co-worker of Randall and Judy's at the electrical switch plant. Okay, they barely knew each other. They weren't tight. They didn't hang out. No skinny dip in. But. We had employee numbers that were close. And she knew that he was a nice guy, basically. That's all she knew. She believed he was innocent. She said she always had a heart for the underdog and she believed that God was guiding her and that she wanted to do for his children and his mother what she would hope somebody would do for her or someone in her family. That's incredibly kind. As a kind person. That's what I mean. When you say I was believing in God's guiding her and all of that, that's what we want for new people. That's. I mean, I've heard stories where I'm like, I don't think that person did it. But then I fucking go about my day. Then you go about your day. If you knew the person personally, you might be a little different. Maybe. You know, I would. You wouldn't do this, but. No, I won't. I might still go about my day. If it was me, you better not go about your fucking day. You know where your brother. Our employee numbers are one and two, so we're way too close. No shit, that's awesome. So anyway, she started writing to him on Death Row. She organized a support group of his friends. She helped raise money at yard sales for his defense. She set up a reward hotline. She's the one who put the ad in the paper for the $25,000 reward. She wrote to legal aid organizations and the governor. Imagine all of that. What a nice lady. She's selling used power wheels on a Sunday. This lady's working her ass off for you. You know what Randall thought? She's a plant from the state, I don't buy it. He thought she was a plant the whole time. He said the retrials coming up, he's positive. The state is trying to get a woman to get him talking. That's what this is about. So he said, a woman, I don't barely know her. Don't know this lady. All of a sudden now she's writing me letters, doing all this work for him, for me why? Because she's a plant, this is bullshit. He refused to let her visit. Really? Wow. His reasoning was that if she came to see him, then she could never testify. If she never came to see him, she can't testify to anything he says, basically. So over the next couple years, people stop writing to Randall. They stop talking to him, but she does it. She stays and keeps going and keeps going. And eventually he decides, I guess I got to trust this lady because she won't stop. So. I want to give it a shot. Give it a whirl. Yeah. Now, her family. No, no. Her family thought she was fucking nuts, obviously. Really? Imagine your mom was doing all of this. You'd be like, mom, stop it, stop doing this. Jesus, he's going to get out and murder you. Is that what you want? You fucking idiot. And then rape your corpse, which isn't raped by the way. So watch out. The mom would be getting a lot of antifers, dinners, no shit. So her son was a police officer. Yeah. Again, that's not helping any. That's like love after lockup, the lady was going out with the inmate and her daughter was a corrections officer. She's like, my daughter is not going to like this. Yeah. She also said her politics and everything, just everything she's very conservative. So this is very unlike her to be doing this. She said that she, in her opinion, she said, if you did something wrong and a jury convicted you, then you're guilty and you belong there. And her son was lecturing her about it. Not everybody is innocent. You can't save all the puppies, that type of shit. Not everybody's in jail for the reason Randall is. Some people might be innocent, but he's a fucking murdering corpse abuser. So then, Jaffee has to decide, do I allow, do I try to get the judge off of this case? Because obviously the judge has some stank for my client. He said, I have my own reasons why I think he's guilty, death penalty. So he had to try to figure that out. But he said, if we lose again, this judge sentences my death, my client to death again, obviously. So do I try to recuse him? He read the transcript and said, actually, after reading the whole transcript, he said, the judge was actually beside that last thing that I disagree with. He was completely fair the whole way. He was really a good judge in letting things in and not letting things in and doing a lot of fair things for both sides. So he said, I could get somebody much worse than him. Right. So I'm going to keep him. Super shitty judge. Yeah. So I'm going to keep one that doesn't even pay attention or something. He said, I'm going to keep him. Then his in house investigator, Jaffee's in house investigators, a guy named Rick Blake. Rick does all the legwork and does all of this type of shit looking ask the shit the cop should have done the first time asking everybody interviewing a million people instead. He does it. And this is where the craziest shit in the whole story comes out. Okay. They looked around and this guy Blake said, it's a small town that has a limited number of beauty salons. Judy Bagwell's a woman who lives in this town. She goes to one of these salons. Yeah. She's hot. She's here. Women talk to their hairdressers and hairdressers remember everything, which is true because I know I barbers in my family to tell they'll say anything in front of a barber. It's fucking crazy. And women are worse with their hairdressers. Oh god yeah. They look at them as like a fucking psychiatrist that also can give them a perm and some highlights. It's weird as shit. Oh my god. Good fellows. They were describing murders in front of the bar. Yeah. I can't tell you how many times I'm sure my grandfather's gotten somebody's hair while doing any guy. Two big fat guinea's we're talking about doing some crime. Then he's just like, who cares and none of my business, eight bucks, please, the toned fucking cellar. I know he was. I know he would. All right. Digging. So he went around to the salons asking who knew her. He found three separate women who didn't weren't connected in any way that didn't hang out or anything. So they didn't like get a story together all independently who all told them the same story. Oh. Okay. All three said that Judy had talked about at the time she's married now to a man named Tommy Smith. She. Oh god. She told all these women that she likes to save Tommy's semen after sex. She's still this guy too. She's saved. She likes to save the semen. Three women. Three different salons. No, they don't even know each other. These fucking women. Okay. There's a connection between them. They all have the exact same story that she told. I like to save my husband's semen. Yeah. Now, there's not even a joke that can override what's going on. I know. Yeah. She's glad. I'm just saying. Never mind that. Yeah. No. Just focus for once. This is too gross to even fucking sidetrack. Okay. She's got a reason though. Oh. Yes. One, only one of the three could be brought into court because it's the same telling. So the lady who gets brought into court is known as, quote, the milkshake lady. Yeah. And that's how she is now. Let's find out what she fucking says because it's horrifying. Yeah. Harf. Just keep in mind, milkshake lady. Okay. Forings all of them. Yeah. Okay. Retrial. During the pretrial rulings here, the judge delayed a ruling on whether a motion by defense attorney on whether Randall's alleged girlfriend, meaning Judy, should be fingerprinted and her prints compared with those found at the murder scene, not the bloody print, but other prints. We don't have it. Because we don't have it. They don't have her fingerprint. The judge also delayed ruling on a defense request for special expenses for an expert witness. The defense attorney told the judge he plans to have a jury survey conducted in the county before deciding if he will ask the trial, that the trial be moved to another county. Yeah. But they do it here. Now, the defense case is that Judy killed page it, killed Kathy page it after collecting Randall's semen and then depositing them in the body. That is their, their case. That's the theory. They said that Judy was so obsessive to the point of building a replica of another woman's children's bedroom inside her own house. That's right. That's weird. She was at a patience. This man kept coming and going from his wife separating, going back and coming and going. And she got impatient. She knew where the house key was. Yeah. She knew where the hidden key was. She collected biological materials from not only Randall, other partners, cigarette butts, fingernail, clippings and semen. After sex with Randall, she'd immediately get up and go to the bathroom, which is, like I said, the least suspicious thing. She took two weeks off immediately after the murder and according to witnesses, had scratches up and down her arms during that time. She took two weeks off also. A truck driver recorded, reported her car, a car matching hers, missing hubcap at all, leaving the area in the middle of the night. She made repeated phone calls to Kathy Paget, pushing her to give Randall a divorce. She had a hidden, she'd hidden in Kathy's car in disguise. She was also never tested. searched or treated as a suspect ever, so that's that. So they said a body moved after bleeding laid across the bed with one leg propped on a nightstand next to an undisturbed alarm clock with underwear cut off with scissors and zero vaginal trauma. That's why they were like, they couldn't understand the zero vaginal trauma, even if it was afterwards, but this explains it if someone just put the semen in there and didn't actually do any raping or any sexing or whatever the fuck you wanna call it. Corpsing. So the state DNA expert here, he testifies that the semen found in the body came from Randall Paget based on DNA. Lockstock. - You can't refute it. Irrefute it. - His jizz. It is, his jizz. Judy takes the stand. - Oh, really? - The first time anybody's, she's been the boogie woman in this entire trial, the first trial appeals everything. - She's subpoenaed and called. - She takes the stand. The state was still dangling immunity if she would implicate him, but she wouldn't. She didn't take it. So she did it. The apparently the prosecutors did not expect the defense to call him or to call her at all, 'cause they didn't call her and they were like, holy shit, they call Judy, that's crazy. Everybody was shocked. She's unprepared, hostile, has immunity. She could do anything she wants in here and you don't know what she's going to say. So this is really a wild card. So anyway, she's on the stand. She's now Judy Bagwell, a tennis off. Oh, I don't know what that is. She, Judy said she broke down several times during questioning from Richard Jaffe. She was questioned for more than two hours by defense and prosecution altogether. She said she worked at the A-Rab Eaton plant for more than 10 years. She said she moved to Huntsville five years ago and remarried about two years ago. This is from the 1997. So she moved out of the area after '92, after everybody thought she was a weirdo. And then-- - At the Eaton switches? That's what it is, it's Eaton switches. Those are like, those are everywhere. Those are like in every house. - That's where they come from. Wow. So she had been married and was a neighbor of Paget and his wife, Kathy, when they had become an affair in '86 and she gives all of that kind of stuff. Several months before she and her husband divorced. So she was freshly divorced when the affair started. She just came out of a marriage horny and he just happened to be there. So Judy testified that she'd drove to Destin, Florida the same day that Kathy's body was found, were notified via phone call about midnight that she'd been killed. She said that that Randall shook his head in disbelief and had little to say on the long drive home, which she slept most of the way to. So she said she hadn't spoken to Randall since the morning they returned to A-rad. The morning they went into the police station and it's the last time they spoke to each other. Not amazing? - Well, I mean, they didn't arrest him that day, though, either, right? - No, no, no, no, no, they were still talking to him. So they never talked after that, that's crazy. - No, he said you need to look at her and then they never got together again. She described the church parking lot incident where she was trying to be discreet by disguising herself in the least discreet costume possible and hiding in a fucking woman's goddamn back seat. - Dick Flasher's house, too. - Yeah. She said that Kathy told her she loved Randall and that she loved him, too, and that I couldn't have him. She said that Randall was angry about that incident but they continued to see each other after the two week break. She said that he told her he felt guilty but he didn't love Kathy like you should. Asked about her ability to get into the pageant house, she said she knew where the hidden key was. It was the one the kids used when coming home from school. They said, "Do you know about a hidden key?" And she said, "Do you mean the one the kids use when they come home from school?" And then she tried to take it back saying, "Well, I don't know where it is or anything." - I've heard, I've heard tell. - I don't know where it is. - I don't know. - She said that, wow, she said not hearing from Randall after Kathy's death was painful. She said, "I loved him very much. It took me a very long time to get over him." This is while she's crying and she added, she still cares about him now. - Yeah. - Okay. She said she was alone at home watching television. They said, "Anybody, anybody verify that?" She said. - One single person. - Just watching her. I'll ask for cheese, nothing more. Looking at some phone bills, she said she made numerous calls over a six to seven month period to a Mormon missionary in Utah. She had met at her home soon after Kathy's death and her own separation from Randall. So I don't know if she's trying to join Mormonism or hook up with a missionary. I'm not sure what you want. With her, it could be anything. - Her position's great, come over. - Come on over. She denied that she had ever driven or ridden in an old model white station wagon that several witnesses said they had seen her in or near driving at the time of the death. She drove that car. She denied she ever had that car. We're like, "Can't you look at the DMV records and find out what she had registered?" Or maybe it was someone registered to somebody else. - Maybe it throttled me earlier. - Maybe back then, I'd be in rural Alabama too, where they might not have computer systems they could afford. Another witness testified, he saw the car leaving the area that we know about that one. Then he asked the question here. He asked her, "If that is Randall's DNA in Kathy's vaginal canal, how do you think it got there?" Which is an interesting question. There's generally only one way. Well, you could object to that call for speculation. She's not a medical witness or a police, she doesn't know anything about crime scene stuff. But I basically, anybody could, I know to object to that as speculation, you know what I'm saying? But the prosecutor didn't object because. - How indeed. - Yeah, well, they probably figured she'd say, "The fuck do I know?" Or she'd say, "It would make sense." - It's his Seaman, he probably had sex with his wife. - Yup. - But instead, she said, and I quote, "If that was Randall's DNA, it had to have come from me." What the fuck does that mean? - How? - How? - Where do I have a lot more questions? - You just put yourself at a crime scene with a dead woman is what you just did. - Why did she say that? - Why would you say, "It had to have come from me." - It's his DNA, then it came from, I would never say that about your DNA. - No, had to have come from, I must have put it there. Now, the cross on her, the prosecutor can't get up fast enough to cross examine her. She testified that Randall was very protective of knowledge of their affair getting to his family. Quote, he said his mother would hate him, even though he told his mother about the separation in 1990, he still didn't want to tell her he was having an affair. - Wow. - She said she had no reason to kill Kathy or frame Randall by placing Seaman on the body. Well, then why'd you say it had to come from me? That's crazy. - Wow. - So she said, "I care about him very much." So, Jaffee asked her, the defense asked her in the redirect. If Paget was, quote, "Week about leaving Kathy," and she said he was, they said, "Did you ever think about Kathy Paget dying?" What do you answer? You just say, "I mean, no, I just wanted him to leave his wife." - I mean, that's the answer, right? - If you're being honest, and you swore on the Bible, and you're a very religious person, you'd probably say, "I don't know, I may have dreams about it." - She said, "Yes, I used to go to sleep at night praying she would die. I'm not proud of that." That's what she said. If there's jizz in there, it came for me, and I would pray she died every night. - That's a lot about it. - Naston, pretty police. (laughing) - That's why when you said, and if I'm a religious person, swore on a Bible, I'm like, "Oh my God, if you're a religious person, you're asking for the wrong favors probably here." - She said, "Please, please kill that innocent woman who just wants to have a family with her husband and children. Please strike her from this earth so I can continue to fuck her husband, please God." That's what you do, right? That woman, so I don't have to say cheese anymore. - God damn it. She said that she had gotten bunk beds like the one that the pageant's children had had, weeks before the murder and anticipation that pageant would soon divorce his wife and that his children would spend time with them. - I didn't even think about that being the reason. - Think about it. - Yeah, that's crazy. - So that the transition into my house is seamless and they won't even think twice. "Oh, look, it's my same sheets." - Same exact shit. - Wow. - Isn't that crazy? Then he says, "This is jaffy. "Would you admit it if you killed Kathy Pageant?" And Kathy said, "I don't know how you could hide something "like that while she cried." - Judy. - She didn't say no or Judy said that, yeah. She didn't say no. - No. - I don't know how you could hide that. - Well, you're doing a good job. - Yeah, now comes the grossest shit in the hit. Groster than murder, Groster than rape and jizzin'. planting and anything else we can come up with here. The milk shake lady testifies. But not only did she save her lover's seam and after intercourse, she used it as facial cream and mixed it into her protein shakes. Oh my God. In the morning and protein shakes. She dug it out of herself or put it into a receptacle of some kind of watered over her hand and then stored it for. Keep it coming. You got to build it. How much does it take? Is there a few drops like vizine? Do you need a lot to make it a consistency? Do you need, will you want to cover the whole face? You really want to scrub it in and then you got to have enough left for the milk shake. Now the milk shake is this just like a flavoring agent like if they put like a squirt of something in or is this the main is it a giz shake? You know when you make thin set, it's got to be like the consistency of peanut butter. Do you want that in the shape? Do you want to be able like a blizzard to tip it over and go? Well, I mean, you go, you get a vanilla shake, but sometimes they sprinkle a little like broken up Oreos on top of it. Is that what it is? Is it a giz flavored milkshake and that's the vanilla? Or do you always, every time go, I wish I would have put more in it like with the or yeah, like with the American, no matter how many I put it, it's not enough. I always want. Okay. So that is hideous. That's hideous. And they bring, they bring her up after Kathy testified to so the jury's like, oh, oh, oh, she used it for the crow's feet and for and for her fucking overnight. Oh, sir, doesn't shake in the morning. Doesn't say, I don't think it's a time of day thing, just whenever she gets giz she puts it in a post. Yeah, whenever she wants to break out, Randall's kids both testify. They didn't testify at all on the first trial. He says a lot, right? Well, she could have saved multiple loads. Yeah. We're talking about it. So the kids testify and they testify that they spent the night. Their mother was killed at home with their father in his trail or at the poultry farm, never saw him leave. Couldn't have done it. Now they were sleeping because they were small children at the time. They were like 13 and or shit, 11 and fucking six at the time or something. But the girl was sleeping in bed with him, right? She was in bed. Next one. Randall testifies again, has to. He said, you know, he was asked to leave his job as a supervisor. He has the poultry houses. He said that he never completely agreed to marrying Judy, but quote, I may have led her to believe that I never spoke to her again after we came home from Florida. He said he never harmed his wife physically, but said he was very ashamed about what I did to her emotionally. Asked by Jaffe, if he killed her or had a reason to kill her, he said, I was home with my children the night she was killed. Cross on Randall said, let's see, you had $207,000 in debt from the poultry farm. And he said, well, I didn't feel any financial pressure. Even though I owed my wife's parents money for a loan, they made the poultry company and ordered him because the poultry company ordered him to install new feed bins. They said, you didn't think the other woman could do it in 1990 and in 1992, you've changed your mind about her. And he said, after learning a lot of, quote, a lot of things, specifically about her, just milkshakes. Yeah. And that an old model white station wagon had been seen near his wife's house that night too. He's like, that's what she fucking drove. They then said, if your semen is in the body of Kathy pageant, you don't know how it got there. And he said, that's right. That's, that's the most, that's the most I believe the most wild thing anybody's ever said about their own semen that I actually believe because the most wild thing you've ever heard about someone else's semen is if it's Ryan's winds up in this person's vagina had to have come from me. It's crazy. Cause I got a tube of it in closings. The defense talks about the positioning of the body. Jaffee's central argument here is that Randall was a big, a big man. He wouldn't have needed 46 stabs to kill her. If it was Randall, there would have been no struggle. Also, because she wouldn't have struggled because she knows him. He said that all of this, then he also said, nobody could be raped in the position she was in. You can't rape a person in that position. Right. It's not a fuckable position is what he basically, the legs aren't open. The legs are, yeah, they're up. Well, they're up. But he also said that no one could, that, uh, corpse, corpse can't be raped anyway. The rest of the defense case is the pathology, the state's own pathologist said Kathy was dead before the semen entered her body, the position of the body, it moved after bleeding, laid across the bed, one leg on the nightstand, absence of vaginal trauma, underwear cutoff with scissors, calmly and apparently the time already dead. Yeah. Size differential between Randall and Kathy. Also, the missing investigative steps, uh, no test on Judy's blood, no search of her house, a bloody fingerprint from the victim's body destroyed by an investigator, the PGM problem that the defense could finally put in front of the jury. All this shit goes to the jury three days of deliberations days. Randall said Randall said not a drop of sleep for three days up the whole time. Yep. Um, the initial vote they voted was eight to four guilty. That's the initial poll they took. Then the third day the judge said, fuck this. He called both people in the chambers, both sides and said, I'm going to declare a mistrial. I don't believe enforcing jurors to give up their beliefs, which is what happens after a few days in a jury room. Someone's going to just give in other people's shit. The defense attorney tried to talk them out of it. He said, come on, we can't, my client cannot do another trial. He literally can't afford it. We can't, he's going to be fucked if we do another trial. And, you know, it's crazy. His family sold everything they own to try to get him out. But the judge said, sorry, that's what I'm doing. As they're coming out of the courtroom, the jaffee was the chambers. Jaffee was the last one with the judge behind him. He turned around and said, judge, just ask the jurors if they think they can come to a verdict, please. Yeah. Judge ignored him, took the bench, went to the jury, commended them for their fine work, says it's begin been two and a half days. He said, ladies and gentlemen, after two and a half days, I feel I have no choice to. And then he stopped, looked at Richard, Jaffee in the eye, and then turned back to the jury and said, ladies and gentlemen, is there any one of you who feels that more deliberation would be fruitful? Two jurors answered, yes. Then the judge said, you know what? Go back in the jury room. Fuck, go back in. Go chat. Go chat it up. Maybe we'll give you another time. So 45 minutes later, they have a verdict. Okay, we got to get through the end here. Not guilty on all counts. How did they do that? And someone saying if his giz was there, it must have been from me is a pretty good way to I don't know how you got anybody saying guilty after that. It's that's wild. So not guilty. Yeah. He said it felt like I had been underwater, like I had been held underwater to the point of drowning and then the not guilty verdict just pulls me up to the air. I can breathe again and I'm going to live. There is one particular juror who is the the main juror here. Okay. Walking to his car, the lawyer walking to his car after the trial, he was approached by a woman in her 40s. She was one of the two jurors. The defense had read basically the juror the defense all has a big thing of the jury on the wall. They fucking cross jurors off who hate them and shit. Like that one is not voting for us. She hates us. That one and we got a chance with her, whatever. They read her as hostile the whole trial thought they hated the defense and thought for certain she'd be voting guilty. Yeah. She asked if she could have a word. So this guy's like, great. This lady's going to yell at me now. She said she'd been sitting in the jury room listening to 11 other people. Most of the men discussing discussing a crime scene photograph and then she realized something none of them would know and only a woman would know is you can't have sex in that position. That's what she said. She climbed on top of the table in the jury room to demonstrate, put herself, she put her right leg up, put her left leg down, replicated the exact position compared to the photograph that they had in front of them and then looked around and said, could any of you fuck me now? No. And it went from eight, eight to four for guilty to 12, nothing for acquittal. Wow. They said, you can't. It would have just somebody put the jizz in there. That's it. That's it. So the whole case is flipped on some 40 year old woman climbing up on a jury room table and going, Could you get it, my pussy? Good. Yeah. I mean, Rick, somebody could take your dick out. Try. Just try it. Yeah. I'm dairy. I'm confident. None of you fucking punks can enter me. So then she said, you tell Randall Paget to stay away from Judy and go spend time with his kids. Stay away from that psycho. Go spend time. So the judge says to Randall, you're free to go. Yeah. He's like, what? This is crazy. So they walk him back across the street to collect his belongings, which I go, you can keep him. Yeah. I don't want anything I had in there. Not any of them. Yeah. And yeah, apparently the inmates, I love the jail all beat on the windows as he came out because they saw he's out. They're like, holy shit. He's not cuffed. Yeah. Look at that. He's not cuff means he's not guilty. He did. His son drove him home. His son who was 11 when he was arrested, drove him home. Yeah. I mean, they saw the milkshake lady, this jury, the replica bedroom, the raincoat, the Ziploc bag full of fucking DNA evidence, two weeks off, scratched arms, truck driver, missing station with a missing hub cap station wagon, destroyed fingerprint. Judy never investigated. And they were like, this is not beyond a reasonable doubt. Right. And the fact that she said it must to come from me. Must have. There's two possibilities here. Either Bradley may have done it. We don't know. I don't know. Yeah. And the the PGM discrepancy might have been a clerical error that happened to help a guilty guy. We don't know. Or there's also maybe Judy did it. Right. Seems like maybe a likely scenario at this point, but we don't know and we can't blame a person for murder or accuse them of anything. We're doing that. How many shows have we done that a guy or a woman cheats on their spouse, and then, and then conspires with that person? None of them ever without that person go kill the spouse. Usually that would be this is this may be the first time it's ever happened. It's fucking great. I'll do it without him knowing about it. Yeah. And then there's a third possibility that who the fuck knows basically. Well, if someone had to have his jizz, so it's definitely Randall's jizz in there. So someone had to have a seaman and get a stranger and it happened after death. No one is ever charged with this after that. That's it. They don't even bother trying. They don't even they didn't investigate Judy in the beginning. So they'd have no way of in all the evidence that would have been against her's gone. All the evidence that would have been against anybody would have been gone because all they did was talk to Randall. They didn't even investigate it. They just focused on him and that was that. So you can't investigate a 1990 murder in 1998 like it's fresh. So the scene's gone. Everything's gone. In 2001, the Alabama legislature passed the compensation for wrong wrongful incarceration act. Exonerees are supposed to receive $50,000 for each year wrongly served. That's how this works. He applied in 2003 and they denied him. The statute requires that the charges have been dismissed because he was totally innocent. Meanwhile, he was found not guilty, which that's not in it. That's not as innocent as the prosecutor dismissing your charges, even though that is the basis of guilt and innocence in our entire judicial system. And you convicted him. Therefore, they were dismissed after that. Yep. He was. Yep. They was a that's it. So they said he had has to be dismissed, but it's not. They whatever. So anyway, they didn't dismiss it. He was found innocent. He said not guilty is not innocent. According to the state of Alabama, the only way you're not guilty. The only way you're innocent is if the prosecutor says you're innocent, not if the jury says you're innocent, which is again, like everything else in Alabama, the exact opposite of what we were going for. Like a law. I mean, legal shit that happens here. And whatever that Pokey salad was or poke salad, that sounded gross. And then the act prevents any money from a state settlement going to pay legal fees, which is what you need the fucking money for. So the just it's so stupid. They're stuck in the deck. Yeah. But the politicians come out and say, we did we passed a thing saying there's compensation funds. And people go, oh, see, they're not that bad, even though it's not really helping. We're tough on crime. And in the event that we messed up, we got a compensation fund. Yeah. No. In the 15 years after the act passed, one case resulted in payment, one 15 years. Tell me there was one wrongful conviction in all of that. And it wasn't this guy. No. It was a guy who received it. The guy who did receive it died a year before the claim was sent money went to his family. Sons of bitches. He said, I'm not asking for a million dollars. I just like to be put back where I was. That's all Randall says. This, this is the cost. He lost his home 32 acres six chicken houses. And he jobs he might have had 200 grand and legal fees him and his family lost a bunch of shit five years and custody three and a half of them on death row lost his children's, you know, one's 18 now for Christ's sake. Also a felony arrest record that doesn't go away when he's found not guilty as well. Is that right? He applied for temp work with the census bureau after his acquittal, ace the test, but they explained we can't hire you because the FBI says you have a felony arrest record and we can't aren't allowed to hire felons. So he went back to poultry farming and married Brenda Massingill, the lady who fucking helped him through prison and all that he ends up marrying this lady. Oh wow. Not crazy from work. The one who helped him. Yeah. That's awesome. Yep. She did all the sort all that kind of shit, all the, you know, groups and everything like that. In the pageant household, the years in jail are referred to as quote when he left or quote when he was on vacation. So they're like mob guys in prison going, yeah, your father's a college. Don't worry about it. He's being a cowboy in Montana. I'll be back in a couple of years. In 2004, he's married to Brenda. He is carrying 86,000 chickens in a continuous cycle of grow out and catch out. So he's got he's got 86,000 chickens he raises at a time. Yeah. Brenda said, quote, it is stinky, but it is their life. It smells terrible. Oh, it's the worst thing in the world. And he said trail or next to that. God. Remember Bill Strickland, the investigator. Yeah, it's kind of a dick. He said in 2016, there is no doubt in my mind that we arrested the right man in that case. In my opinion, it was a travesty of justice that he wasn't convicted in the second trial. And I think most of all law enforcement who are involved in the case feel that way too. We're all dummies. Wow. By the way, there's a thing here where Tim Robbins and Susan Sarandon were reading exonerated stories. There was a play or something like that. Pageant story was in the interview pool and he was read in early stage readings. Tim Robbins playing him. Yeah. Old Nuke-Lushtair playing him. And I always think it Bull Durham first. And Susan Sarandon. Yeah. I like it better. Yeah. Shawshank borrows the fuck out of me. It's also rated movie of all time. It's fine. But it's people say it's the great. It's not the godfather. Calm down. It's finally great. Some twist and everything. It's but there's holes in it too. It's fine. It's a fine movie, but it's not. Oh my god. The greatest. It's not that. It's it's like it's the in-and-out burger of movies. It's fine. Calm the fuck down. But that I think that movie either lended to or he chose that script to be a part of it because Susan Sarandon is real strong with the advocacy work for the wrongly convicted. That's probably right anymore. So who gives a shit? No, it's been a long time. So the final published play in the 2005 court TV film used six other exonaries. His story wasn't one of them. Oh. Yeah. But they had, but he and Brenda went to the premiere and they have framed photographs of the two of them with Tim Robbins, Susan Sarandon and Danny Glover, who's just too old for this shit taking pictures and everything. Danny Glover? Robbins came over and asked by the way from what you saw was my portrayal of you fair and are you upset of how I portrayed you when it was going on before the film and Pageant said, why should I be mad? And Robbins was like, I just didn't want you to think I overdid the Southern accent at all, which it's rural Alabama. You, it's really hard to overdo it. It's tough. It's like overdoing a Brooklyn accent. It's really hard to do. It's just going to happen. Overacting on the on the Alabama. I don't think so. For years and years and years after his acquittal, maybe still to this day Randall's still making the payments on his mother's mortgage that she had to take out to pay his lawyer. $527 a month every month. Oh my God. He returned to Marshall County, moved in with his mother at 47 years old without a pot to piss in. He speaks at colleges, churches, death penalty conferences all over the country. He works as a peer specialist with witness to innocence and organization founded by the sister Helen Prejohn, the lady from the Sean Penn movie with Susan Sarandon played, I think, as a matter of fact. Number that murder in the first was it, maybe that must be it. Yeah, it might be a bad choice for a date when you're 16. That's what I went. That girl was crying. I'm getting nothing tonight. This girl's crying. His son became an architect, graduated from. from Auburn and currently lives in Nashville. His daughter also went to Auburn, and at one point was running the company she worked for. He has three granddaughters now. - How? - And he said, quote, "I always thought that if you went to trial in the United States of America and you told the truth, the truth would come out. I found out that's not the way it works." So, there you go. - I feel so happy about him. - Yeah, it's a crazy thing. It doesn't seem like he did it. - You generally don't. - You're generally incapable of living a normal lifestyle like that, and then coming out of prison, going right back into it. If you're a cold-blooded fucking murderer. - Yeah, it seems more likely someone else did it in a particular someone with a milkshake and fatuation as a matter of fact. So, anyway, there you go. There is A-rab Alabama, and they did not disappoint everybody. - That is so. - That's a wild, it's such a gross case. So, there you go. If you enjoyed this disgusting case, or seminal milkshakes or facials, please get on whatever app you're on and give us five stars and tell us how grossed out you are by Stephen Facials, and get on there and do that. Also, Netflix, Double Thumbs Up helps a shitload. Shut up and give me murder.com is where you get all your tickets for live shows, and you need to get them. They're coming up. 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Podcast Summary

Key Points:

  1. The murder of Kathy Kavanaugh in Arab, Alabama, in 1990 involved 46 stab wounds and was initially believed to be a violent crime with no forced entry.
  2. DNA evidence and a bloody fingerprint were expected to solve the case, but the fingerprint was destroyed during processing, leaving a key piece of evidence missing.
  3. A hidden child’s key and a handwritten note about joint custody suggested the couple was divorcing, raising suspicion and providing context for the crime.
  4. The suspect, Larry Randall Paget, had an affair with Judy Bagwell, who kept his cigarette butts and fingernail clippings, and staged a confrontation at church by disguising herself.
  5. The crime scene showed signs of deliberate staging, including the body positioned unnaturally and blood patterns consistent with post-mortem movement.
  6. The victim had been stabbed and sexually assaulted after death, with a forensic pathologist confirming she was dead before the sexual assault occurred.
  7. Randall claimed to have been in Florida with Judy and left abruptly, but the prosecution questioned his alibi and behavior, especially his lack of a clear explanation.
  8. Despite strong suspicions, the case was never conclusively solved, and the suspect’s guilt remains unproven, highlighting the limitations of evidence in small-town investigations.

Summary:

In a disturbing small-town murder case from 1990 in Arab, Alabama, a woman named Kathy Kavanaugh is found stabbed 46 times in her bedroom, with evidence suggesting she was murdered and sexually assaulted after death. The crime scene shows signs of deliberate staging, including a body placed in an unnatural position and a still-intact alarm clock. No forced entry or theft occurred, which initially raised questions about the motive.

A hidden child's key and a handwritten note about joint custody hint at an ongoing divorce, adding emotional context. The suspect, Larry Randall Paget, had an affair with neighbor Judy Bagwell, who kept his personal items and once disguised herself in a costume to confront him at church. Despite these details, critical evidence—such as a bloody fingerprint—was destroyed during investigation, leaving the case unsolved.

Randall claimed to have gone to Florida with Judy and offered a blood sample for DNA testing, which could have exonerated him. However, no direct link to the crime was established, and the investigation ended without a definitive conclusion. The case remains a chilling example of how personal conflicts, flawed forensic procedures, and limited evidence can leave a murder unsolved, even with strong circumstantial clues.

The story underscores the challenges of justice in small towns, where suspicion, secrecy, and emotional drama often overshadow factual clarity.

FAQs

The name 'Arab' is an unintentional misspelling from a 1882 post office application. The correct name submitted was 'Arid Thompson,' but the postal service mistakenly chose 'Arab' instead. The town was officially incorporated in 1892 and has since kept the name despite the error.

Arab was established in the 1840s as Thompson's Village by Stephen Tuttle Thompson. It later became known for its sundown town policies, where Black people were historically excluded from staying after dark, and for a small-town economy heavily reliant on older residents and retired lifestyles.

Kathy Kavanaugh, the wife of Randall Paget, was found stabbed 46 times in her bedroom, with defensive wounds and no signs of forced entry. Her body was positioned oddly, and evidence suggested she was sexually assaulted after being stabbed, with no vaginal trauma but a recovered seam inside her body indicating post-mortem rape.

The investigation began after Kathy was found murdered, with no stolen items and no forced entry. Forensic evidence showed she had been stabbed multiple times, had defensive wounds, and her body was staged. A hidden house key and a handwritten note about joint custody were discovered, indicating evidence of marital conflict.

Yes, Randall and Judy Bagwell had a long-term affair that began at work in the 1980s. Judy collected Randall's cigarette butts and fingernail clippings, and there were multiple incidents, including a time when she disguised herself in a costume and hid in Kathy’s car to confront him.

The police suspected Randall due to his absence from the area, his trip to Florida without informing anyone, and his involvement in the affair. He provided a blood sample for DNA testing, and investigators noted inconsistencies in his alibi and statements, though no direct evidence linked him to the murder.

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