This podcast is intended for mature audiences, listener discretion is advised.

Have your. Bottom line is we have video from the news people the last three weeks and 74 showing where Otis was dug up in relation to where the highway is. But we don't have one showing helicopters. You have it on the ground. That's not enough.

We have one showing the helicopter view in relation to after our failed attempt to locate the site where Otis Redding had been buried in hopes of locating the woman Davis had kill. We decided to give it another shot.

This time we would use every bit of information we could gather. And that meant Stoney calling on former GBI special agent Bob Ingram.

Every health official, every little man from whole county to Jackson Bear Walton Zevo. Can you possibly call your people and find out anything they can give us on for Otis or very any call, any information, footage from the bridge or anything of that nature?

I certainly try to give my best effort to work or contact or to try to find if there were.

So if you if you can do that, you can save us so much time and so much money. I know.

I know it'd be a whole lot easier because you're looking for a needle in a haystack without that.

And while Ingram went to work trying to gather information on his end, we gained access to the former Jackson farm to see what we could find there based on Berts map. We traveled down a long and winding dirt road to reach the banks of the Mulberry River, this time in a different county. But a short 15 minutes away from our previous location, Stoney and his son sat in the back of a pickup truck for the duration of the bumpy ride. It looked like something straight out of a Ford commercial once near the riverbank.

We parked and set out to search for one of the markings on Burt's map a pile of white rocks so that we could orient ourselves. And as luck would have it, we found them right there, not far off the side of the dirt road.

Stony poked around a bit and gave his son a bit of a history lesson about the farm his father grew up on, his family and families before him, people the sharecrop this day for so many years, their family, he will make it rich and play cotton. When he plowed to find the rock, they put it here to grow the map.

It was a marker that had been here when he came, when he lived. And that's first home. I know where those are, but nowhere else. All the only problem. Yeah. So it tells you that. He was here as a Boeing is with no legs related. So that's kind of what he used to have, people places under houses, in a church, whatever, flat wrong speaking. It took a little more than a year to do.

But you found the tip of rock. Yeah, that's similar to the Rock I to the house in 67, you get a bag of money. It seemed that this pile of white rocks was just that.

A pile of rocks. The map showed the rocks maybe 100 feet from the riverbank. And if you turn left and were to walk along the bank, the map showed there were two X's spaced out evenly over another couple hundred feet.

But as we scouted out the area, we quickly realized that the brush and undergrowth was far too thick here as well for us to even explore more than a few feet.

So we decided to rent a small tractor to clear the area that most look like the map marking locations.

And Stony Son went to work while we called it a day.

The frustration was beginning to set in talk of we might be out of our league here. What the hell were we thinking? Spread like wildfire through our little search group. And then something dawned on me that our CSI friend Sheryl McCollum mentioned a few days prior.

What happens any time you have a case this old near time decades? Right. The landscape does change. So we're used to be maybe an open field or an area where a body was buried. There could be trees, there could be an oak tree through the bones, for that matter. So finding the actual location is going to be critical. And that's where the equipment comes in, because a rough map of somebody's memory and somebody else saying, oh, I've been here, but it looks like anybody's ever visit their old childhood home.

Right. Everything looks very a lot smaller. Like I remember this hill being so big on my bike and now it's nothing. Look, it's a gamble, it's a long shot, but it's a shot. So again, you've got a map, you've got memory, I'm all about it. There's no failure here. Y'all being here is not a failure if we don't find anything at all. Here's the way I see it. We know where the body's not.

So we come back and we try again. Maybe we bring cadaver dogs. Next time we bring ground penetrating radar, we bring own cadaver dogs.

The fact that we didn't even think of this first shows our inexperience with finding bodies, those dogs will be able to do what I can't I could pick up.

Oh, no question. Really? Oh, no question. But what if they need to pick up nothing? Turn them loose. Even if it's three or four carnivalesque, the body has over 180 different chemicals. So when it decomposes, it's in that ground. It stays right there in that dirt. So even if you unearth it just a little bit, let down. Go right to.

One week later, we came back to the Mulberry River, this time with two cadaver dogs. And had no idea what we were in for. From Imperative Entertainment, this is in the red clay. What can you share office? Stone are is still enamored with his dad because of his dad, you don't know or your dad took them everywhere and did everything when the story was a teenager, very, very impressionable. You know, his dad was, you know, a good gambler, a good pool player, a womanizer, you know, drove the fastest cars.

You know, he was the best of the best at everything he did. He was able to kill it to. Billy Byrd is without a doubt one of the most prolific killers in the history of our country. Without a doubt, he was a bad boy who killed a lot of people and he just didn't do it for. So what about the multiple Bodos, multiple routes that he traveled? Did a killer for hire a contractor? He was more than just I mean, as a redneck from to Georgia.

You know, his son knows that very well.

A 14 year old Stoney would immediately set out to follow in his father's footsteps after Billy's dramatic arrest for bank robbery in April of 1974. He wanted to carry on the family tradition and keep the so-called Dixie Mafia alive. In his adolescent mind, he would usher in a new era and keep the empire his father helped create from ever falling. A forum forum for called along along when I was 15. It put me in jail. Oh shit, they put me in a hole.

If I told you they had a piece paper in the corner, steal my solid steel door still under the harness. It stayed there for two days.

My hair, you put lard and my mother finally get the juice when she got him up and see my condition with no I to see. But they couldn't get a word out of us. But they did because I was raised you know you wouldn't rat. Look, you have a word.

Just look at this, just turned 15, he said, we don't vote here right now. I'll see you. I won't at all. It did was emboli, way more so from that moment on, I turned to the.

But for now, 14 year old Stoney, for the first time in his young life, would have to watch his father paraded to the Lewisville, Georgia, courthouse in a spectacle not seen in the state before or since Byrd's arrest.

Jim West wanted the whole world to see that he had finally caught the infamous Billy Byrd, and he did it on a grand scale. What I see was four snipers on top of the courthouse, but they were dressed in black, but they were not, he said they were moving to make sure people see them.

They were no less than 24 state patrols with pump shotguns line 10 feet apart around the courthouse, the entire block for everybody to see. When they brought my father from the jail to the courthouse, they had three federal marshal cards in front, three in the back, him and a Candy Crowley's car with a candy put his car in a front the back.

And that convoy slowly brought him to, you know, the whole time a helicopter flew over him when he got out to walk from the car to the courthouse with the hassira machine. He walked through a strip search know, including the judge, the helicopter, whoever. Once a year for bogusly hung out with a rifle in front of my father. When the courtroom, there was 30 federal marshals and lawmen and only 20 spectators.

I saw the room was the unprecedented scale of security and massive show of force was very much intended. Jim West knew all too well with such a circus outside the courthouse, any jury would likely have made up their mind before they even took their seats. Just one more thing. To secure Burt's place in prison for the rest of his life, those who stood behind him had a pump shotgun.

It must be about 20 inches long and he would let him a stay behind him. Now, when he get up to go from chair to the witness stand two, three times during the trial, another officer in a public place. I got the good news about this. And they stand behind him up there with a jury of judges in your honor do have a cup of sugar and goes, oh, of this cold hit us. And the judge said these words, it's necessary.

And while Jim West was seemingly showboating, his capture of Billy Burt, the precautions they were taking weren't totally out of left field. There was worry that members of the Dixie Mafia may try to break him out of jail. And as far as the police and federal marshals were concerned, they wouldn't put anything past him. They would be prepared for anything. As the trial of Billy Burt, Billy Jean Davis and Bobby Jean Gaddis began, things started to really sink in with Stoney that his father may not be coming home this time.

It seemed that things were different this time. When the trial started, the first time I became concerned. And started the day when the teller get up there to explain how the robber acted and she said he jumped over a five foot counter as if it was with these videos, him he's all could do it used to have this in the pool where he used have flat footed Joe Puterbaugh, three foot tall. He's only a five foot counter. I may just jump over that.

He could do it. He was just blistered at. As the trial progressed, the charges mounted, they added assault charges to Billies rap because it was stated in a report by Jim West that billions slapped the young female bank teller in the cheek during the robbery.

But when the young woman took the witness stand, she provided a slightly different account when she said they had been charged with assault for a slap at the teller dissemination. She admitted that it was not a slap on Geep, a slap on the butt and furthermore, weened. But he didn't say anything at the lawyer yesterday. How did it make you feel? She said, would tell you the truth. It put me at ease and I see my mother's eyes across to him, who looks a little bit.

And I seniors are looking straight ahead of that. She and Ryan.

I knew I leave, but the real nail in the coffin would come from Billy Wayne Davis's testimony.

That's what I became concerned. I said, damn it, this is so real.

And sure enough, between Davis got up and told all the details they can do.

Will they give two hundred, twenty, 25 years? But the judge ruling just sick and give it 25 years, so as they walked out of the courtroom last month before they might say he's nurser, when they ask Bobby, get yes or no, no. My guess is always we call it big dummy in the circle.

Bob Brooks, the man that worked at the bank when it was robbed, was present at the trial, too. I remember Gaddis crying, baby, when you are sentenced in Thunderbird, you have a crack smile. These stone cold. As Bert was led from the courtroom to the holding cell, he said nothing. He just whistled a song by Kitty Wells as he walked when they get back the sale.

And his mother sat beside his wife, my mother, me dead mother, he said, son. So I tell you that we go places. But he said with a yellow heart.

And then he said, Listen, we do this damn same year, eight year and get the hell out of here would be with Davis just.

They have a choice so that judge of the first time in history to burn from rubber to Marion, Illinois. Wow. Marion, because it was the most secure in the United States and 1974, that was it took place the actress most of the time.

And it was the one that cover actress with Billy's two hundred twenty five year sentence being run concurrently for all charges.

He would be eligible for parole after just a fraction of that time.

Concurrent means how many since you get it all boils down to the one has since you. So he. Twenty five years from that time you made parole and one third he'd been at least eight years.

He would bide his time until he was released and could take care of Billy Wayne Davis personally. And this wasn't lost on Davis or the federal agents. They all knew that the minute Billy Burt was released from prison, Billy Wayne Davis was a dead man walking on top of G.

Will you get out of here? DAVIS Oh, he was a dead ass. And to make matters worse for Davis, a month after the verdict was passed down, Billy Burt would be headed back to court, the judge citing an error in his original conviction. Here's what they done to him.

A month later, a judge ruled the tune in. Twenty five years a year. My father for the robbery that Davis testified had a mistake. They gave him a new trial. Jim West come to Davis. He says, you know, the Billy Burt is not going to let you buy with this. You know, he's got a new trial.

Your only way out is to put him away or put him to death. It didn't take much to talk him into that. So what did he tell you, he told about the thing he told about this raid on the Mulberry River. There's one family name that is synonymous with American culture, the Kennedys, they became a quintessential symbol of the all-American family of the 21st century. But as they cemented their place in history, the pressure to remain picture perfect became undeniable.

And in the end, it proved to be deadly. As a young senator, Ted Kennedy mysteriously drove his car off the road and into a lake. He survived the crash. Those passenger did not. Fearing his presidential bid would be tarnished, Ted waited 10 hours to report the fatal incident. As the investigation progressed, his story about the events leading up to the crash started to fall apart. And word of the deadly incident spread quickly. Soon, he faced accusations not even the Kennedys could overcome.

Subscribe to even the rich on Apple podcast Spotify or listen ad free on the one to rap.

OK, some good news during a challenging time for everybody in this could really help. You may know hundreds of thousands of people have already made the switch to Medicare, which is the affordable alternative to health insurance. And with so many people looking at how they pay for health care right now, seeing premiums going up or the cost of COBRA plans, Medicare has extended their special offer and a lot of people have taken advantage of it. Simply apply by September 30th and they will waive your new member fee.

That's one hundred and seventy dollars savings. And of course, that's just a start. The typical family saves 500 dollars a month after making the switch. Medicare is a Christian community that shares each other's health care costs, and it's worked beautifully for decades.

I'll give you the number here in a second. And if you call, you can get a price within two minutes. Just tell them the promo code share to get your additional savings. Here it is. Call 877 64 Bible. That's 877 64 Bible. 877 64 Bible. Davis, it implicated part in the torture and murder of Redeliver Flemyng and his wife, the elderly couple tortured and killed in their home in Wren's Georgia the year before. The FBI and local police immediately set out to find the body of 24 year old Otis Redding, who had been reported missing on November 4th of 1973.

Davis claims Burke killed him as well.

We're obviously looking for something. And what we're looking for was would best be remain unknown at this time. It's not a body, though, is it? We're looking for something that would if we find if we find it, would be subject to crime laboratory examination. And that's all I can tell you. Do you think it's your son? Oh, I can't believe this. Why do you think so? Well, he would run blue pants when he left, and that's what I have to ask a few minutes ago, said he wears his blue pants on and he's been missing since when?

November four. They said they will know for sure three minutes and I got the games fair, and you don't know if he was involved in any sort of trouble? Well, far as I know of the.

Now, when they went to the Milbury River to dig for Odiase, he could Damasak where there was they had been for two weeks to find him. Because he did not bury him there, he killed Otis, but my father probably didn't get it buried over there.

And after two weeks of searching there on the red clay banks of the Mulberry River, the FBI found Otis Redlegs body buried face down in a shallow grave.

Though there would never be enough physical evidence to link Burt directly to that murder, they did indict him on the murders of the Flemings. And Burt once again headed back to trial. Davis for providing the information to Jim West, would receive immunity from any connection to these murders. Also, having numerous murder indictments in other counties dropped as well as part of the deal.

It seemed as if Burt was being railroaded by Jim West and Davis for the rest of his life. He would vehemently deny that he was a part of this particular murder.

When he took the witness stand, he made sure the court knew they were being fooled by Davis.

He's a German man, someplace where he had the more dirt to interpret, given the true faith, meaning he is just as bad a person as anybody ever know. And I am to. Get this is not nothing like this, if you believe anything he says, then you believe anything I say. He let it grow a former rather than stay right there in the damn Poli's River out there like clockwork. They have like him, too, but he did about four murders right there and they put.

Davis and Burke gave conflicting accounts of what happened on December 22nd, 1973, when the murders took place. This is where things get complicated, and while there's far too much to this story to go into every detail, it's basically this. Burt admitted to robbing several homes in Rin's, Georgia, on the night of Friday, December 21st, with Dixie Mafia member Charlie Reed, the home of Jerry Hayman being one. That's where the valuable guns and coins were stolen from a safe.

Burt stated that he was not interested in robbing the Flemming's because he felt more money as well as drugs were to be found at the other homes, some of which belonged to small time drug traffickers.

He insisted that it was Davis and Bobby Jean Gadis who committed the murder, and the Davis had taken a fourth accomplice to the Fleming home the month prior with the intent of robbing them, but decided to leave when they noticed an unfamiliar car in the driveway.

Gaddis would later go back to scout out the Flemings, pretending to be interested in a used truck the man had for sale.

So there is the telltale sign. Bobby Geddes was five foot six inches tall, white, three hundred thirty pounds. He was so big that when they arrested him, he couldn't get his arms together. For the Incas, the most identifiable of all nine of the whole gang, you don't see him in broad daylight to the town that you're about to murder. Two people never seen before. You don't send that identifiable person to do the pre investigation. Then what you're going to do that night and asked him about a trip, unless you just are not a good criminal, much less a career criminal.

And then Bobby was back in there and, by the way, tortured, and people trying to make them give up more than the four thousand they had found in that house. He would never go back to such a horrible scene. Why did he go back? Because of some of this list. Go in there. Why am I dead? Go at this point, it was damage control.

If David gets caught, we all call the handgun would prove to be a key piece of evidence as it is one of the few things both Davis and Burt mentioned in their testimonies. Davis said that Burt borrowed the gun from him and they would later ride back to the house together in a green Cadillac, also borrowed by Burt for him to retrieve it. Realizing it had been left at the crime scene after the murder, Burt claims he was asked by Davis to come with him to friends to retrieve the gun that he had left.

And on that ride there in a green Cadillac, Davis told him about the murder he and Gaddis had committed.

Maybe the most crucial piece of evidence was the testimony of two key eyewitnesses saw my father with a speech impediment flag down, you know, to working guys come alone talking for five and more than two men.

Getting off a late night work shift at a local stone quarry had stopped to assist two men who flagged him down on the side of the road just ten miles outside of Rends. The men were having problems with the fan belt and their green Cadillac, and Burt was positively identified by both witnesses. With Davis's testimony, the gun and the two eyewitness accounts, the jury found that there was sufficient evidence to convict Byrd of armed robbery, for which he received two life sentences and first degree murder of the Flemings, for which he received two death sentences.

Oddly enough, he was found not guilty of robbing Jerry Heyman's house, the crime he openly admits to committing. In my entire life, I've never been able to come to terms with the. The depth and the severity of that crime associate my father. It's one thing to kill. Another side to torture as a people. The day he sat in court and he said if he looked at their son, he said, I did not kill your momma, Daddy.

A. Coro, he said, I did not kill his own people. I knew he did. And I understand Stoney's logic, as unusual as it may sound, the Flemings were brutally tortured for several hours. They had been repeatedly beaten and strangled with the wire coat hangers and electrical cords in hopes that they would tell where they kept the rest of their money hidden. Mrs. Fleming was strangled so severely that her eyes and tongue protruded from her skull. They would then torture Mr.

Fleming in the same manner and use wire cutters to split his thumbnail down the middle, making his wife watch in hopes that she would tell so that the men might show mercy. But they never did. It was awful as too awful to even think about. Deep in the conservative south of 1970s Atlanta, Mike Thebus, the son of Greek immigrants, was a man driven by endless ambition. He had everything a wife and five kids, the largest mansion in Atlanta, and a rumored 100 million dollar fortune.

But the success came at a price as the community shunned him and he became entangled in a web of murder, mob connections and love affairs.

It is the money, obviously, that attracts organized crime.

I don't have any knowledge as to what happened to Mr. Hanna. He was a personal friend of mine, and I just think it's a terrible tragedy.

There's no doubt in my mind that they are nervous at first about having to do business with Mike Davis society.

Do not take it seriously when criminals kill each other. So Mike Thebus walked out this door to freedom. Some are speculating he may be in Colombia or Costa Rica, countries which before have harbored United States criminals.

This is Gangster House, the unbelievable story of Mike Thebus family man and the so-called sultan of smut.

Listen and subscribe to Gangster House right now on Apple podcast or wherever you get your podcasts.

True features the often weird but always true stories of strange events and unforgettable moments.

Each episode explores unusual, obscure, sometimes funny, sometimes creepy stories, stories that are so bizarre that you won't believe that they're real, but they are because, yeah, they're true.

Listen and subscribe to True right now on Apple podcast or wherever you get your favorite shows. One time I asked my father said, Dad, why don't you do something? He said, Listen, this is my job to keep my damn Dalmatia in a lousy job due there. And it's your job to keep your mouth shut. Now, Linda, that. He said, I said what I had to say in court, and you cannot do 10 minutes or 10 murders and wait, they get you once a wolf.

I take a lot more. Can't do it. I see his point. The Mustang was. The way that I carried from beginning to end about the one thing. If you was a 14 year old child and your father was arrested and all that come and that came light, and you were not ashamed if he'd done really that one thing, that one thing is saving my life for the rest of it. In your mind, you could justify with some kind of reason like vengeance, self-preservation hit for her.

But that one thing just made him an animal. This made him something you couldn't fathom. Don't want to have it come up or how you talk about it.

You could not sugarcoat it. You could not take away from it.

You just had to buy your head and just in your heart and mind, you know, that you didn't do it.

But when you mention it to him, he was so hardcore that he said your job is to keep them out of mind is to.

So my point is, if a man don't talk, you don't talk even to save yourself for his man, he was just as guilty as hell and all that goes with it.

It's the first time he shot the two men across the bridge. Going to take the woman, I believe, with all my heart.

That's why he was told he right one commandment, you megamall and I believe his mind, he rationalized that his soul was gone anyway.

Stoney's one goal in all of this is to prove that his father is innocent of this murder. And in the end, after nearly 50 years, he may just have the evidence to do that. But Billy Sunday, Burt wouldn't go down without a fight. He was as rock solid as a gangster could be. And Davis had broken the code, the unwritten law he had ratted to save his own ass. And in the gangster world, nothing is worse than a rat.

So when the judge handed down the death sentence to Birte, he made his final move in dramatic fashion.

It will just him there, he said he thinks he said yes, your honor, can I make a phone call? He said he won't call his will call first, but two more murders. And the judge said, sure, by all means, yes, manyfold. The call Burt made was to Bobby Lee Cook, the attorney who, along with Hilton Dupree, represented the seven men convicted for the murder of two elderly doctors in 1971, dubbed the Marietta seven Oscar winner.

Burt, I just can't just get to this to cynicism. Murder years seven finish.

You must have pretty heavy in prison and there are innocent and I can prove it probably could ask him two questions he asked. And Bob was just telling the truth.

Billy Burt had just confessed to the murder that resulted in one of the largest trials in the history of the state of Georgia.

And he was taking Davis down with him. It would be Burt who would have the last laugh all the way to the electric chair.

Earlier, Davis, who testified at a south Georgia murder trial that had resulted in a death sentence for Burt today in Douglas County. Burt was on the witness stand giving testimony which could put Davis on death row beside him. More than 100 witnesses have been subpoenaed to testify in the Billy Wayne Davis trial. GBI agents, sheriff's deputies and state troopers were here this morning to provide security.

The media would explode after burts courtroom confession of the Mathew's murders. After all, the DA's police and federal agents that had spent years working the Matthews murder case had been absolutely certain they had the guilty men in prison, or so it would seem. They had the eyewitness account from Deborah and Kid, the young woman that confessed and testified in exchange for immunity. Suddenly, public officials had a lot of explaining to do. The story reeked of corruption, and Billy knew that by taking down Davis, he would, of course, be implicating himself.

Davis comes from a well thought out family in Cobb County. If there ever was a person who fits the mold of a black sheep, he would be. Bette Davis appeared to be doing well with a legitimate business, a used car lot on the banquette highway. And still, apparently, he liked to gamble. One could only speculate that his hunger for money stemmed from his gambling or his need for capital to finance his business, whatever it was. Davis apparently developed a gun for hire relationship with Billy Sunday Bird of Winter in Barrow County.

Some officers have described Davis as the brains of the partnership. Davis would decide what they were going to do. Either one would pull the trigger. As Bert said in his testimony, it was situations like this which he and Davis were involved in many times.

When a man like Burt Ho's life so cheaply, is there anything that he values? Yes, his family, his wife and five children. Why would a man whole life so cheaply when he's concerned about the future of his family? I don't know. But that's the way it is with Burt. As for Davis, he's just as much a puzzle as most black sheep are. Burt says he doesn't like being a snitch, but he places a higher priority on getting back at Davis for his testimony against him.

And friends with Burt already given two life sentences and two death penalties, how much worse could it really get for him? Defense attorney Bobbie Lee could ask Burt things that only the murderer would know to substantiate his claim. And for his signed confession, Burt made a deal for the families of the Marietta seven to pay his wife, Jenny twenty thousand dollars in exchange for his confession, which they happily did. He asked him the other bullet. He asked him who was leading.

He told him in Wayne and Hester. The Miller went in to pull his bill away, his mask off. The woman was a professor, the shooter. Williams drove the car, although he shot all the way out.

The police sources say Bertus told them that the murder weapon was used on the Mathew's are buried somewhere in this area near a rotten wood creek just behind a Sheffield north apartment on Franklin Road in Cobb County. If Byrd is telling the truth, police haven't been able to find anything to prove it. So it's still all theory. The speculation is that Byrd is a pathological liar. I've learned that there is little to support Burt's story, except he did pass a lie detector test.

So did Debbie Kidd when she named the original seven persons convicted in the case, Bert's sister, Mrs. John Dale. Gladys also appeared before the grand jury this afternoon. The grand jurors also heard a videotaped interview with Debbie KITT. The decision to indict or not to indict Billy Sunday bird could come before the end of the week.

Willie Hester, who Byrd implicated in the murder, was still missing. Burke claim Tester had been shot by Mrs. Mathews, who ran down the stairs wildly firing a handgun during the robbery. Burt himself was nearly hit by Matthews to stony shed some light on what happened to him when stray bullets caught him.

But they brought him into our house on Virginia Avenue, the same house we lived in. When they get the political table to put him back on the show, to totin back in, it's not totally Vietnamese, Mr.. If you miss that Stoney said his father brought Hester in, put him on the eating table, took a bullet out of him, put him on his shoulder, toted him out. And the next night, Redstone, Jack and the Beanstalk, when Willie died, they were sort of in the house thing and there was a good reason for Hester had begun to get excited by the reward money being offered for information on the Matthews murder case, which continued to rise each few weeks.

He would talk openly about it in front of people at the poolroom, hurt, warned him several times to keep his mouth shut. But clearly, Willie Hester wasn't taking the hint. But two weeks after Matthew's dying, Willie walked in the room with the paper. Leonard Constitution said, look here. Ten thousand dollar reward. They said, son, what did he give them? But don't be bringing that. Don't we talk about that no more? Well, next week here.

Come Will look here, Tony. Not a reward. That damn son. I don't tell you what's wrong with. But we had what was in the program last time, I get the fifty thousand dollars, well, that pretty well sealed his fate at the three times. So William wife was working at Bilks over here, which was highly Humeau, and they were playing the rubber to Bertolaso. So my father got otes to help him and I guess he made this plan and said the way we did that was when he got through Robin Bilks coming out and Madeley shot with.

Clearly, the reason he Kulwin really couldn't keep his mouth shut, he began not trusting you and you don't get a man like that paranoid him, a Otis Byrd Willy just outside American. Throughout the five different trials in the Mathew's case, people had begun to question kids story, including several police officers who would even be fired for publicly speaking out about it. It just didn't add up and there were inconsistencies in her story each time she told it in court.

David Morrison, a journalist for the Atlanta Constitution, had begun his own investigation as well. And by the time of Byrd's confession, the investigation he spearheaded in the kids shaki story had proved fruitful. He even began to sort of pen pal relationship with Birte, writing him letters in prison about his findings on the corruption in the system.

But would someone really lie about their friends and their self being involved in a double murder? Why would anyone do that? It just didn't make sense. What they uncovered was nothing short of shocking. The girls got all kind of personal problems. She's she's a pill head. Typical Patsy does, as she told by ambitious police, open Deborah and Kid was not only fabricating her story, she was actually put under hypnosis and fed information about the case by federal investigators.

This was even reported in the papers. It's also rumored that she was being fed black beauties taken from the evidence room. During this time, while under hypnosis, agents were walking her through the evidence they had gathered from the crime scene, such as what the interior of the home looked like, what Mr. and Mrs. Matthews were wearing, how they were killed in the positions their bodies were left in. Kid was sent to temporarily stay with a police officer during the trials, which resulted in the two having a romantic relationship for months.

After the defense team looked into Kidd further, they found that she wasn't even in Georgia on the night of the murder, she was actually in Greenville, South Carolina. The seven men initially convicted of the murder were set free within a month and later attempted to sue the county officials for wrongful imprisonment.

There is still civil litigation pending in connection with the case. Copp District Attorney Buddy Darden and others have been sued by the seven originally convicted, charging that they were unfairly prosecuted in the file in the case, more than 10 notebooks full of photographs and other evidence. But as to the crime itself, the file and the Matthews murder case remains open but inactive.

When George Buzby put it in the Constitution, the state of Georgia would cover all calls in defense of what these guys done to cover their tracks after they framed all these people. And then the same people turned and joined forces with Jim West to convict my father and let me away was a drop of all his murders, knowing that in the big picture it didn't matter because he would never get out and that probably in their reasoning there. So what if you don't know the murders all week here, but he don't get out?

That's the way loudly.

With the state of Georgia paying for the legal costs of the corrupt politicians, the Marietta seven were left with virtually no hope of winning their case. They couldn't afford it. Kid would eventually be tried for perjury, but would serve no time in jail. It seemed that there were so many public officials involved in the corruption of the Matthews murder case. And while several would step down from their positions because of this, the seven innocent men who were framed for murder would just have to take this one on the chin.

When will it all be over? When will we know about everyone that Berte says they've killed? We may never know when Davis is sentenced to the electric chair. If he is, Birte may stop talking and they'll take the rest of their secrets to the electric chair with them.

And Stoney's anger over all of this is palpable.

Davis and Virt would stand trial for the murder of the Mathew's couple. Burt would take the witness stand several times and implicate Davis on other murders as well, like that of Harold Amole, the public notary gunned down in his driveway, and Charles Mack Sibley, who Davis hired Bert to kill to avoid a gambling debt. He told that they had only ever intended to rob the Mathew's. But when Mr. Matthews pulled off the ski mask Davis was wearing, Burt stated, we had to kill them.

It was plain to see that he wanted revenge for his former partner rolling over on him. He hated Davis and wanted him dead. When asked in open court by a D.A. if you wanted to kill Davis, Burt said plainly, I would kill him slow. When the dust finally settled, Burt and Davis would be spending the rest of their lives behind prison walls with Burt facing the electric chair, so much had happened already. And still our story doesn't end here.

In the red clay is a production of imperative entertainment. It was created, written and reported by me, Sean Qype and I wrote and created the original music score. Executive producers are Jason Hoak and Jeno. Falsetto story editor is Jason Hoak, produced and engineered by Shane Freeman, Jason Hoak and myself, cover art and design by Gina Sullivan. Voice Sessions recorded at three Sound Studios in Atlanta, Georgia. Archival footage licensed courtesy of Brown Media Archives, University of Georgia in WSB TV in Atlanta, Georgia.

In the Red Clay is a 12 episode series with new episodes available every Tuesday. Follow us on Instagram at In the Red Clay podcast. Have questions. Email us at Podcast's at Imperative Entertainment Dotcom. If you like the show, tell your friends and leave us a review. Thanks for listening.