You're listening to a Morbid network podcast.

I'm going deep into my wife's family history, digging up the cold case of her murdered great grandmother. And did I mention that I'm looking into whether the murderer was actually the beloved family patriarch? Binge. All episodes of Ghost Story ad free right now on Wondery Plus. Hey, we're, I'm Ash.

And I'm elena. And this is Morbid.

And I have that beautiful girl that TikTok's like in my head.

I love all the ones that's like me when I haven't eaten in, like, 4 hours. And I'm bitching at my husband and I walk in after a snack and he's like, I know. Those are funny relatable guys. TikTok is fun. I fucking love TikTok.

Sometimes I want to make TikToks, and then I try to the only TikToks I can do are the little generator things. Yeah, exactly. I don't know what else to do. I don't either. And it's hard because you have to use that cap cut thing.

Yeah, it's I get I gotta say, influencers content creators on TikTok killing. It like I would say when we talked to Tyler about this. Tyler, ghost honey, the most wonderful, magical, mystical, whimsical human ever. He is truly I told him how I was like, I don't know. How do you like, how do you live?

Having making one TikTok just destroys me for, like, three months. It's so much. I I feel like this probably happens to you, too. Whenever I make a TikTok, people are like, oh, my God. Ash, you posted.

Yeah. Like, wow, you exist. I'm like, yeah, I'll do another one in three months. Yeah, don't worry. We'll figure it out.

We have lots of ideas, and we always say, we should do that TikTok. Yeah, we came up with one today, but we'll do it eventually. I know. We should do that one. That would be funny.

I don't even think it's, like, a trend anymore. That's all right. But we're always I was going to say you're like, I am never trending. I am never trendy. I am never on trend.

I'm never any of that fun stuff. I love a good trend. Let's bring it back. Let's bring it back.

Hi.

I wish you guys could have seen the face and movements that went along with eyes with me and just did the whole thing. And I said, I'm so uncomfortable. My favorite is when they go, hey, that's on the Must plays at the Wedding list. There you go. I like that.

Goodbye. Must plays on the wedding. Correct. Correct. Well, here we are.

Here we are. Goofy UFI. What'd you say? I said goofy. UFI.

Goofy UFI? I thought you said, Good for you. Goofy UFI. Good for uefy. That's us.

All right. We should get into I got a chuckle out of Mikey. Mikey thinks we're funny. He's working on our headshots. We did headshots today.

Yeah. Cool. All right, so that's our life. Hope yours is good. Too.

Love you, love you, love you. Mean it like, genuinely? All right. I have a real bummer of a case for you today. Womp.

Womp. I know. This is a baffling one to me. Just the reaction of people to murder, like the reaction people had to the brutal murder of an elderly woman is wild. Oh, boy.

Yeah. We're going to be talking about Bernie TEAD and the murder of Marjorie Nugent. I know this one. Yeah, I've known I don't know the details, but I know of this one. That's exactly where I was before know, kind of dived in.

But then I dove in and I was like, I gotta get out of here because I got to get out of here. You all are fucked. So let's just go right into it. Bernie has a hard name to say because his real name is Bernhardt. Bernhardt.

I always want to pronounce the D like Bernhardt Hard. It's like letterboxed letterbox duh. There you go. Yeah. But Bernie TEAD was born on August 2, 1958 in Tyler, Texas to Bernhardt TEAD senior.

And I believe it's Leila May. Jester. Oh, what an adorable name. Leila May. Leila May is a really cool name.

Leila May. I love a first and last name combo that goes together like that. You know what I mean? Yeah, I like that. Now, Bernhardt was a music professor, which is really cool.

And Leila was a homemaker. Cute. Yeah. And for the earliest years of Bernie's life, the family lived in, I believe it's Kilgore, where his father worked as an instructor in the fine arts department at Kilgore Junior College. But unfortunately, in 1960, when Bernie was just two years old, his mother was actually killed in a car accident.

Oh, jeez. Yeah. Really tragic start. Now, his father waited three more years before remarrying in 1963 to a woman named Clara Wiley. And after the movie why did I say movie?

After the wedding, the family moved, that's why. To live in, I believe it's Abilene, Texas. Right. Abilene sounds good to me. I only say it once, so if you're cringing, you don't have to cringe once again.

So starting at an early age, bernie took on the role of caretaker in the family, especially after his mom passed away. And then when his father died in 1973 after battling a long illness, bernie immediately volunteered to get a part time job to help support his sister and his stepmother, his sister said in a 1998 interview with Texas Monthly magazine. I really think that because of the loneliness he went through in his childhood, bernie made it his calling to serve people in times of their own. So it's it's really interesting the path that you take throughout this case, because I'm like, where did you veer off course? Yeah, I think that's again, I don't know the details of this, but I remember that this case was one that was very confusing because it's like, what happened.

Yeah. It's like he just snapped. Really? But before that happened, that desire to take care of other people led Bernie to a part time job at a local funeral home, where, at just 15 years old, he spent his afternoons doing yard work. And then down the line, he eventually started helping with the funerals.

Okay. Now, in 1973, East Texas, where gender roles and heteronormativity were kind of expected, bernie was something of an anomaly. He was a presence that unintentionally, but directly defied those social expectations. But on the other hand, he was so charming and nice that everybody couldn't help but like him. So there were things about his personality, know, where he lived, people wouldn't usually be cool with, but just because of who he was, they were cool with it.

Isn't that funny that it's like yeah. So you didn't like these things, these completely just innocuous things that you decided aren't right or socially okay. But because he's such a nice person, he couldn't help but just ignore them. And it's like it's almost like you should look at who people are. Imagine that.

No, never. Let's not do that. No. Let's base it off of something totally ridiculous. Oh, yeah.

And that's not to say that there weren't people out there that just completely didn't accept him, because he would get bullied from time to time for having a quote unquote, effeminate personality. But overall, he was really popular with his classmates. There were, of course, the group of assholes that bullied him, but for the most part, he had a loving squad. Well, that's good. Yeah.

And I'm glad he had that when he was when he was, like, a decent person. Exactly. See, it's so confusing. It's such a tough case. Yeah.

But his sister said he was popular at high school, and for kicks, he'd sneak the hearse on Fridays out of the funeral home and drive a bunch of us around abilene. Sorry. I said it again. That sounds fun. Yeah.

I would have thought that was great. You would have been the one. You'd be okay. Okay. But Bernie's warm, friendly personality, it did make him an ideal fit for the funeral industry.

You need somebody like that when you're dealing with grief and everything that comes along with it. Yeah. And after graduating from high school, he enrolled at McNeese State University in Lake Charles, Louisiana, where he eventually got an associate degree in mortuary science, which pretty cool. That is pretty cool. Reminded me of you.

No, thank you. You're welcome. Mortuary science reminds me of you. I don't have that degree, but thank you. Oh, you don't?

No. Oh, I thought you did. No, that's a whole different one of those morticians that you don't like. Mortuary stuff is a whole different very involved ah. Shout out to my morticians out there.

Hey, yo. Hell yeah. Let's go. But after graduating, bernie found work at a local funeral parlor where he spent years and years learning the trade. And then he moved to Carthage, Texas.

And there he found work at Hawthorne Funeral Home. And he was able to get an apartment just behind the funeral home. So he lived close by. That's a nice commute. It's a great commute.

And he was close with the owner of the funeral home for a little while. Don Lipsit said he was probably the most qualified young man I've ever seen. He waited well on families. He would sing solos behind the screen during the funeral. And he was a darned good embalmer.

He had a talent of making the hair of the deceased look really natural. Man yeah. Loaded statement. I was just going to say so much to unpack in that statement. It's just like, he was a damn good embalmer, which it's like, you know what you'd hope necessary.

Yeah. The whole point is to look great. Absolutely. Like, to look nice and serene and peaceful and look like what your family members remember you looking like. So it's a skill that someone has to have.

Hell yeah. And he was also a good singer and good at dealing with the families. Yeah. I always thought about that. When we did autopsies, I was like the embalmers shout out to yeah.

Because a lot of times I was, oh, like, got your work cut out for you here. I would imagine that would be difficult, especially depending on how you leave this world. Exactly. So, again, shout out to Morticians. Hello.

But Bernie, he didn't just excel at work, he quickly gained a reputation around town as a helpful, cheerful man to just about everybody. Carthage resident Paula Carta said he was very quick to shake your hand and ask how you were doing. And if you told him you weren't doing too well, he would drop everything to talk to you and see what he could do. And when he wasn't sewing curtains for his elderly neighbors or helping them with their taxes, he was showering them with gifts and mementos. Yeah.

According to that funeral owner there, Don Lipsey, he said the Ups truck started arriving in Carthage every day with something that Bernie had ordered from a catalog, but, like, for other people. Wow. Yeah. And you're like, what the fuck is going on, Bernie? It's so strange.

When's it going to happen? I'll let you know. But whether it was at the funeral home, in church, or literally just on the street, bernie seemed to add something to the community that everybody recognized as valuable. But at the same time, his gentle disposition, his love of Broadway show tunes, and his noticeably single relationship status did make him the subject of some small town gossip. Which is stupid, because you're like, here's this awesome person and we're all just going to quietly talk shit about him because he's single and likes show tunes.

I know people get a life. People need to mind their own fucking business to be honest. Just let him, like, show tune again. I don't know exactly what happens after this, so I'm sure I'll change my tune later. Fuck that.

But right now, I'm like, if somebody's being chill, just let them like what they like. That's the thing. If you like show tunes, you like show tunes. Get out of show tunes. I don't like show tunes, but I hope if you like show tunes, you have the best time singing them.

Just like, life's too short. Everybody just live. Stop worrying about what other people are liking. It's my favorite fucking way of my favorite motto, my favorite way of life. Live and let live.

Exactly. If no one's hurting someone, of course, if you're being a dick, don't let that happen. You're in trouble. But Don Lipsey said he wasn't bad looking, and there were numerous girls in the community who would have dated him, but he showed no romantic interest in women his age at all. I think some of the men, during their coffee shop talks, would insinuate that Bernie was a little light in the loafers, which in the loafers?

Yeah. It's a very rudely, insulting way to say that somebody is gay. Wow. I've never heard that. Nor had I.

I had to look it up strangely. I was like, Light in the loafers. And then I forgot that Google existed. So I was sitting there for, like, ten minutes, like, light and the loafers. And then you're like, oh, it's 2023.

I can google it. I can Google this. Although you're like, this is not a fun thing to have on my Google search history, but let's go. I didn't want my cookies to be a part of that. No, definitely not.

I don't even know what those are. But none of us do. Nobody knows what cookies are. Even if you say that you know what cookies are, you don't know. And you have to accept them everywhere you go now, and we all just do.

Yeah. But sometimes I say no. Me, too. Sometimes I get strong and I say no. Yeah, me too.

But other times I say accept all. Accept all. Yeah. Honestly, it just depends how I'm feeling that day. It's true.

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But yeah, so basically, people at this point, people really like Bernie, but he is the subject of small town gossip, of people insinuating that he's gay because he doesn't have a partner and he likes show tunes. And it's that time and it's all yes, whatever. Whatever. Either way, whoever he was, bernie did seem to have a way with older women, at least as far as things at the funeral home were concerned. According to Skip Hollinsworth quote, some of the older women in town loved him so much that they told their children bernie had to sing at their funeral when they passed.

I know. Like, they were like, listen, I'm putting it in my will. It's him. He's literally like Kirk from Gilmore Girls. Like, befriending all the old ladies and getting their rings at the end.

Yeah, for now. For now. But it was that strong empathy and compassion that drew a newly widowed Marjorie Nugent to Bernie. And their meeting set in motion, unfortunately, a chain of events that would forever change the lives of many people in, like it was also cheerful and jaunty. A lot of it was cheerful and jaunty.

And now we're going down. It's like going up the hill of the roller coaster and you're about to take that dive. See, that's actually my favorite part. No, not here entirely. So that's where I am right now.

Yeah, on the hypothetical no, not hypothetical. Metaphorical. Roller coaster. I don't like it there. But on like, the legit roller coaster.

I love that part. Oh, there you go. It's a little bit about us. Here we are. So let's talk about Marjorie.

Let's talk about her. Marjorie, her maiden name was Mid Yet, and she had been born in a small town just outside of Carthage in 1915, and she met her future husband, Rod Nugent, while they were both attending Louisiana Tech. After graduation, they got married. Rod took a job with Magnolia Oil and his job required them to move around, like, all over the place. They'd spent time in Louisiana, New Mexico, Texas, you name it.

But their longest stay was in Midland, Texas. They spent over twelve years there and mostly raised their son Rod Jr. There. Okay, then in 1989, they moved to Carthage, and at that point, Rod Senior was seriously considering retirement and just wanted to settle down close to Marjorie's hometown. Marjorie might not have been born in Carthage, but it was clear that the Nugents were the antithesis of other recent transplants like Bernie, who quickly and easily integrated themselves into the community.

Okay, that wasn't quite the case for the Nugents. After buying and controlling interest in the First National Bank of Carthage, the couple, quote, built a sprawling 6000 square foot stone home at the edge of town, surrounded by a stone wall and electronic gates. Damn. Goal. Holy shit.

I want electronic gates. Electronic gates. I'm going to put that on my vision board. Damn. So the high stone walls and the electronic gates surrounding the nugent house certainly didn't endear them to the locals.

And it was said that neither did Marjorie's attitude. I will warn you ahead of time that a lot of people didn't have nice things to say about her, which is really shitty reporting on the case, because I would have loved to find something that know could report. On. That doesn't sound, like, biased or anything, or, like, something just, you know, like, talking crappily about somebody, and maybe there's something in here. But a lot of people were kind of nasty to her.

But I would like to say that I bet there was a few things about Marjorie's. Of course. That's the thing. And that's why it sucks when you only hear the bad stuff, because it's like you don't want to only hear the good stuff, and you don't want to only hear the bad stuff. Like, everyone's a rounded out person.

That's the thing. No, that's the thing. And I think this was also later in her life, she'd also eventually will find out that she's going to lose her husband, so she's not in the best time of her life. If I was older and lost my husband, I don't think I'd be the most friendly human on the planet either. I'd be fucking miserable.

I can't give her I'd be a horrible person to be around. Same. You know what, Marjorie? I feel you, girl. I do too.

So you were great in your personal life. Absolutely. And Rob thought so. Yeah, let's go. So there you go.

So that, know, the house didn't really endear them to people because it was intimidating. Yeah, intimidating. Exactly. That's the perfect word for it. And it kind of said, like, we don't really want anything to do with you.

That's what these electronic gates are all about, so leave us alone. Meanwhile, that's just I'm like I'm like game. C game. I would actually have a sign on them that said, leave me alone. I'd see that and be like, hell yeah.

Fellow people hater you. Just go up to their security camera and do, like a rock. Like a rock on side. Like, hell yeah. Solidarity, brother.

We will never speak game. I'm totally kidding. Everybody don't.

So the thing was, Marjorie didn't leave the house very often to go into town. And whenever she did, people said she had a way of rubbing people the wrong way. One resident said if she had held her nose any higher, she would have drowned in a rainstorm. It's like, okay, God forbid anybody be confident. And you're like, wow, that was a funny way of saying that.

That was a read. Pretty means. Exactly. And also, you get to that point in life, you should be able to hold your head high I hope at that age I have my nose so high that I'll drown in a row. I don't have any problem with people's confidence.

Walk around feeling how you want to feel. The problem comes when you look down on people. Yeah, that's where the problem comes. You want to hold your head up high. Hold that head up high, girl.

Yeah, hold that head up high. I hope everybody feels that way sometime in their life. Exactly. Don't look down on people while you're doing it. Exactly.

And what people didn't know was that one of her relatives confirmed that she struggled with a kind of, quote unquote, low level depression. So she was struggling internally. And it's like nobody took the time to realize or empathize with that at all. That's the other thing. I know we're throwing a lot of life lessons in here, but I'm feeling it in this case because it's layered.

But it's like that's the other thing. You don't know what somebody's going through in their private life or their insides. You know what I mean? That's why don't just read people right away. People the time of day.

Yeah, that's the thing. But those low levels that she would hit, they were said to make her unpleasant and irritable. Okay. And this relative said it was like these blue periods came on, and when they did, she could be very biting in her comments to people. Margie was a difficult woman to love.

But I also think it's important to point out that this was a bit of a different time where people didn't really have the understanding of mental health that they do now. So I do wonder, had this happened more recently, if Marjorie would have had the same reputation, because she sounds like she was just struggling a, you know? But in retrospect, most people were able to realize that Marjorie wasn't exactly as unpleasant as she was guarded and uninterested in going out of her way to make friends. But if Bernie Teed's warm welcome into Carthage tells us anything, it's that in small town Texas, friendliness and good natured warmth can go a long way when it comes to integrating yourself into a community. And conversely, being a little closed off and guarded can have the opposite effect.

And that caused Marjorie to become something of an outcast in her hometown. Okay. Which sucks. Yeah, that really sucks. It does.

So her outcast status became starkly apparent when her husband died unexpectedly from heart failure in the 90s. In 1990, quote, only a handful of people came to the funeral to offer her their condolences, which like, that's shit, that's really shitty. That's shitty. I don't know. But I don't know about these people.

I don't either. I feel like even like because you're talking about the people who are like shitty to Bernie, because even though he's a good person, they're just mad that he likes show tunes. And then these same people were like, she's shitty to her, it's like I don't know. Yeah. Seems like the call's coming from inside the house town.

Sure does. But you know who did go and offer their support was Bernie. He was not only a comfort in his capacity as assistant funeral director, but also as a friend. According to one resident, Larry Brumley, I believe, quote, the Nugents, including Mr. Nugent, knew Bernie's parents, and their association goes back many years.

They knew him as a child. Wow. Over the years, they've maintained their connection and had an interest in him and helped him. So both of them did. Yeah.

Now, while the majority of Carthage residents did their neighborly duty of politely passing on condolences after the funeral, on the rare occasions that they did see Marjorie in town, bernie was really the one among the residents who took a genuine interest in Marjorie. District Attorney Danny Buck Davidson would later say, I don't know if Miss Nugent had a single friend in the town other than him, which is heartbreaking, really sad. And according to Skip Hollinsworth, bernie, quote, would later tell others that he could see the loneliness etched in Miss Nugent's stern face as she stood by the casket. Oh, my God. She was internally going through a lot.

And it's sad because he is good to her for a while, for a little bit, and sees this, but it's weird because he is good to her for a little bit, but then it really quickly veers off course. Yeah. This is just such a strange one. There's no warning signs. It feels like I'm not seeing anything here that's like, oh, okay, eventually.

Do we get some eventually? In my opinion, sure. Okay. Because so far, I'm like, this just seems like whatever. Two sad souls that are misunderstood.

Exactly. That's exactly what it is. But that's the thing. So he saw know as this lonely woman, and it kind of activated his caretaker personality and drew them to each other. Okay.

So in the months following Rod's death, bernie started carving out larger and larger chunks of his time to check in on the newly widowed Marjorie. Okay. And by then, she was living alone in that sprawling mansion that they had built just a couple years earlier. Wow. And Bernie would visit the house for lunch.

He would take Marjorie to see plays and musical performances at the nearby college, and he would leave notes of endearment around the house for her to find after he and Marjorie's stockbroker Lloyd Tiller said Bernie made her smile. He gave her plenty of attention, and he was an excellent conversationalist. It was like he made her feel young again. Damn. So it all seems lovely.

It kind of like revitalized her spirit a little bit. Yeah. And before long, Bernie and Marjorie seemed inseparable. However, despite what the local gossip said, their relationship was purely platonic and never remotely romantic. But Marjorie quickly grew possessive of Bernie, they thought, and she started repaying his acts of kindness with her own demonstrations of affection, typically in the form of expensive gifts, like a $12,000 Rolex that she bought him.

Damn. A rolly, rolly, rolly with a wrench. So, for a woman with the reputation of being cheap and curmudgeonly, margie and Bernie's relationship baffled a lot of the town's residents, who just clearly have a lot of time to gossip. Yeah. And Bernie's friend Larry Brumley told the reporters she depended on him a lot.

She would cling to him. And people looking on could see that Marjorie was becoming very possessive of Bernie. And even though I just said that their relationship was never anything but platonic, that didn't stop some other residents from speculating and spreading rumors that Marjorie and Bernie were not just friends. Most of the rumors actually seem to come from the other widows in town, because they were jealous that Bernie had been spending less time with them as he and Marjorie grew closer. Yeah.

Which is interesting. Yeah, that is. But eventually, innocent acts like Bernie napping at Marjorie's house or the two sharing a cabin on a cruise were being interpreted as evidence of a romantic relationship or something unsavory, of course. So you can see where people got their ideas from. Yeah.

People love some gossip. Oh, they sure do. But one of Marjorie's relatives said of the relationship, quote, I think Margie truly enjoyed the companionship with Bernie, and I think Bernie truly enjoyed Margie's money. There you go. Black and white right there.

There you go. And that's where you start to see, like, maybe that was a little bit of a warning sign that he really liked her money. Yeah. Marjorie's family, I could see that for sure. Red flag, red flag.

Red flag. That's a red flag. Yeah. And Marjorie's family's feelings about Bernie may not have been entirely misplaced. In the early 90s, Bernie was earning an annual salary of $18,000 per year as an assistant funeral director.

That was barely enough to cover even the essentials, much less the excessive spending on gifts for friends and neighbors that he quite frequently engaged in. Bernie'sister told writer Skip Hollinsworth, bernie was a buyaholic. He not only wanted to experience the finer things in life, he loved buying as much as he could for others. He'd order the same items over and over, like three of the same chairs or boxes of cross pens just so he could give them away. Wow.

Now, the overspending constantly put him behind on his bills. And to make matters worse, he owed the IRS around $4,000 in back taxes. And under the circumstances, bernie's acceptance of the lavish gifts and large sums of money from Marjorie makes sense, but that doesn't mean that his friends and family necessarily approved of the arrangement between the two of them. Yeah. At the end of 1993, bernie told his boss, Don, that Marjorie had actually offered to hire him as her business manager and.

Quote, escort her on trips around the world for a much higher salary than he was making at the time. Now, the owner of the funeral home, Don Lipsey, was stunned by the news, and he warned Bernie he was a little concerned. He said, you know what kind of woman Miss Nugent is. Whatever you think you're going to get out of her, you're going to have to earn every penny of it. Damn.

And Don's wife Sally agreed, saying, mrs. Nugent is already so possessive of you. She's already making you drive out there every morning just to fix her coffee. Is that really what you want for yourself?

I don't know if it was the coffee making that he wanted for himself, I don't know. I think it was like, I'm going to travel the world and get paid handsomely. Who the fuck really would say no to that? Exactly. That's the thing.

Now, this wasn't the first time somebody had warned Bernie about the rumors going around town about his relationship with Marjorie. In fact, about a year earlier, don Lipsy had expressed to Bernie that he was concerned the relationship could affect his business at the funeral home. He said, quote, they did a lot of things together. People probably assumed it was romantic. I told him, Bernie, you can't be funeral director here and do that.

This is a small town. So everybody was also falling victim of the small town of it all here. That's the thing. Yeah. Very much the small town of it all.

But about a month after that conversation, marjorie ended up offering Bernie that job as her business manager. And he did end up quitting his job at Hawthorne Funeral Home to become Marjorie's full time companion. Oh, boy. And quote unquote, business manager. I was like, his degree is in mortuary science.

Does he have a business degree? I don't know. No, I don't know about that. No. But as Marjorie's new business manager, bernie had access to a lifestyle that had always been very far out of his reach, but very much desired.

So, with money borrowed from Marjorie, he bought a small house about a mile from her estate, and he would throw lavish parties to show off this upgrade of his and social status. His sister said Bernie found himself living a dream for the first time in his life. He got to be somebody. All right. Yeah.

So everybody's getting something out of this, I suppose, for a little bit, and rightfully so. In the beginning, I was going to say, right now, it's like, okay, if it's working for everybody, you are performing a service, you are being paid for it. That's wonderful. I'm not here to say anything, but shit gets not okay. Wiley because he wasted no time acclimating to his new role and access to wealth, which several people in the Nugent inner circle found suspicious, which personally, I know, if some random man started showing up and hanging out with my grandmother.

Yeah. I would be a little suspense about that. That's where it becomes an issue, I think. Remember, she has, like, a child. I would have some issues with that.

Yeah. I'd be like, what's the deal here? What's the end game? And if somebody that was not a family member had access to my grandmother's bank account, like, Bernie had access to Marjorie's bank account and also had check signing privileges yeah. I would not feel good about it.

I would not be happy about that. No. But he did have all those privileges. And when Marjorie's stockbroker questioned know he could be trusted to have access to so much money, I guess Marjorie exploded and told Tiller the stockbroker, she could absolutely trust Bernie, and that if he had a problem with that, she would move her stocks elsewhere. Whoa.

So she was like, how dare you insinuate that I can't trust him. Damn. Which makes you even sadder when you find out that she stood up for him like that. Yeah, I was just going to say, because, Jesus, he really must have brainwashed her. Yeah.

So similarly, when Marjorie changed her will in late 1993 to make Bernie the sole beneficiary of her entire estate, family members had questions. Yeah. When one of her family members asked her why she would cut her only child out of her will, marjorie said, quote, she didn't want to leave a cent to her son or her immediate family because they didn't appreciate her. Whoa. And appreciate with, quote, unquote.

But can you imagine your mom cutting you out of her will because she says you don't appreciate her? Fuck. Shoot. That would be a devastating blow. That would be not well, bitch.

Not for the material reason, but just for, like, the damn. Yeah. That's sending a message. Someone taking you out of their will. Not the monetary part of it, just the message that's big, because that is your last.

Like, that is you shuffling off this mortal coil and saying Fuck you to the person you took out of your will. Birds in the motherfucking. Literally. That's upsetting. Behold my field of fucks.

It is barren forever. And then to leave it to another young man who's probably similar in age to you that you may have known, because, again, the Nugents knew Bernie when he was a child. That would fuck me up. Yeah. In addition to Bernie's considerable salary, he also accompanied Marjorie on trips around the world to places like Egypt, Russia.

They took various cruises all over the place together. And soon enough, it seemed that the access to Marjorie's fortune was too much of a temptation for Bernie. And this is where it goes awry. We go completely off course. He started regularly withdrawing small, quote, unquote, small to medium amounts of money from Marjorie's account and handing it out around town to people who most needed it.

So you're like, he's like a weird, but, like, yeah, but like, with stolen money. I was just going to say and with money that it's not like this lady has done anything terrible and no, it's not like she kills kids or something. Yeah. There's really nobody to rob her money and give it away. She doesn't deserve it.

But it's like, yeah, no, you can't do that. You sure can't. But I don't know if in his mind he's thinking or convincing himself that he's like, I think and it's like that's not how that works. Most definitely. I think so.

Oh, Bernie. I think he thought he was some and this is just my opinion. It's just my opinion he thought he was doing good here. I think there's some missing pieces here, Bernie. And I'm sure and again, this is just my opinion.

I'm sure it was one of those scenarios where it's like, well, she's rich as fuck, so she's not going to miss it and she's not spending it, so I might as well give it to people who need it. Yeah, but it's like, that's almost like, for lack of a better term, like playing God. Yeah, well, it's just like that's not yours. That's not your role to divvy out. Yeah, exactly.

But he sure did. With money stolen from Marjorie's account, bernie, quote, bought at least ten cars for people who couldn't afford one. A home. Shit. A home for a struggling young couple.

Scholarships to students at Panola College. And he pledged $100,000 to the new building campaign at First United Methodist Church. Damn.

I'm just like so I'm like you have, like this one part of that is good question mark. Like, it's there the idea yeah. It's the methodology correct. That I have a problem with. But you're like, yeah, that's awesome.

So nice. That feels great, but invest your own money and watch it grow. Or to be that her, or say yeah. And be like, you know, this is just like a really great thing that you would be able to do. And since I can see what's happening in your financial life here yeah.

If you felt so inclined, it might be nice to help some people out, get some of those good feelings going. Just start talking to her about it and be like, I could help you. We could do this small. And if you wanted to do this, you can't take it with you when you leave, so you might as well can't take it with you. It's a tax write off.

That would have been the ideal thing. If you have this notion, Bernie, then just talk to her about it, at least. At the very least. And at that point, just be like, okay, if you're not willing to do it before you depart this earth, maybe put it in your will that you'd like to do some good with your money and stuff, or just fucking wait it out. My guy.

She left her entire fucking estate. Yeah. Then you can do whatever you want with it. You can help everybody out. Like, apparently, you want to just wait it out.

Strange about this. I'm like, it sounds like you want to help people, but he definitely you're not doing it in a good way. There's really no doubt about the fact that he wanted to help people, but there's just, like I said, so many other ways to go about this, and this case is it's just so bizarre. Very strange. Yeah.

How to feel. I'm feeling stressed. You'll know how to feel when we get to the end of it. That's good. This ends.

I like to know how it ends very brutally and very, very I mean, murder is always uncalled for. And this specific one is just like, wow. So with Bernie as her business manager, marjorie assumed that she didn't need to monitor her accounts. That's what she hired him to do. And the thing was, though, if she had been monitoring those accounts, she would have realized know, bernie had kind of become the community's one man social safety net.

Yeah, it sounds like it. And developer using her money to help residents go to college, open small businesses, stay afloat until their next paycheck, you fucking name it. All the good things that you could do with money that is yours. But while she did place absolute trust in Bernie, the real reason for her ignorance of Bernie's, I guess you could say well intentioned thefts was likely due to the onset of dementia, which was first noticed by Bernie in 1995. So that makes it even more fucked up, in my opinion.

It absolutely does. Now, just a year after going to work for his friend, bernie started to feel like Marjorie had become more controlling of everything around her and far less willing to tolerate any inconvenience or disappointment, which is a symptom of a certain kind of dementia. 100%. Like, we've all seen the commercials or unfortunately have had to deal with it. People that we love.

People can change when they're going through that. Now, in a conversation with his own sister, bernie said Marjorie had fired the gardeners, quote, because the flowers hadn't bloomed in time and became vigilant and almost paranoid about the armadillos that occasionally made their way into the yard. And his sister actually remembered this conversation and said, I asked him why he didn't quit. And he gave me this tortured look and said, because I'm her only friend. I have to stay.

I'm the only one she has. Which is interesting, because you're actively stealing from an elderly woman, woman with dementia, but you also maybe care about being the only friend that she has. And it's like, do you care about being the only friend she has, or do you care about the good feeling that you get when you donate her money to others? That's the thing. It feels like he's positioned himself as the only friend she has.

Which is a powerful thing in someone's life to have that much authority over everything with her. And also, you've positioned yourself as her only confidant, which, I mean, obviously, she's been lonely a lot in her life that it feels like you're taking advantage. Yeah. This feels like a vulnerable situation, a vulnerable woman, and you've positioned yourself as someone she can trust and that you'll be here for. And then you're going around being like, I'm the only one she has.

It's like, I don't know my guy. That seems like you put yourself in that position. That's the thing. And that takes away any of the good deed points you would have gotten at any point during this. And it's like, great, you're doing good deeds, like, fantastic.

But I do think there's something to be said about people that do good deeds because they genuinely want to make people feel good or get people out of a tough situation, or people that do something good because of the feeling that it gives them. And it's usually like, a lot of people do these things silently, and they don't tell anyone, and they just do it because they wanted to do it, and that's it. And it always seems to be a thing where if you don't shout it from the rooftops, you're not doing it, or you're somehow so it feels like he was doing it to get some of the pats on the back here for doing it. Which I'm not saying you shouldn't get pats on the back for doing great things. Like, by all me, I love being like, Hell, yeah.

People doing great things. Totally. But there's a balance. Yeah. This feels imbalanced.

Exactly. It feels like it's imbalanced onto a more taking advantage side of thing than doing good for doing good. And it has now, even though Marjorie hadn't been a very social person to begin with, as 1997 dawned, there were a few people who found it OD. That they hadn't seen from her or heard her excuse me. Seen her or heard from her in months.

But when people would ask about her, bernie would say she was away, or she'd been ill and bedridden for weeks. In December of 1996, he lavishly decorated her estate for Christmas. But when anybody would ask where she was, he would say, she'd gone to her family. She'd gone to Ohio to visit family. It's like, okay, but all right.

Yeah, sure. So by the spring of 1996, Marjorie's absence had become noticeable to more than just those close to her. But Bernie continued to explain her absence away by saying, actually she'd suffered a stroke and she was in a nursing home outside of town, recuperating. And at that point, Marjorie's cousin, Ruth Cockrell, had become deeply concerned that something had happened to Marjorie, but she didn't really know what to do about it. Which I understand.

Yeah. What do you what would you do at that? Like, can you call the yeah. Nothing to really be suss about. And I'm sorry, I forgot.

How old is she? She was like in her early eighty s at this point. I think she was probably 80. Really elderly. Yeah.

And remember, she has dementia. That's so so marjorie. I know. And now finally somebody is like, wait a second, this is weird, but they're not quite sure what nobody knows what to do. This cousin of hers, Ruth, said, I was worried something had happened to her, but I didn't know who to talk to about it.

Bernie was so beloved in Carthage that if I suggested he had done anything wrong, I would have been laughed out of like that. And that shows you how beloved he was. Which you also have to wonder, did you do all of these things maybe in the back of your mind somewhere, knowing that you were going to get rid of this woman, and you could because you were so beloved and she was not necessarily by the people in town. And it's like when you start thinking about it, because now that I know that he's like a murderer, it taints all of this. Because it's almost like you look at, like, John Wayne Gacy, everybody love that guy.

And it's like that's a tactic. Absolutely. Because then when it comes down to brass tax at the end, everybody's going, well, no, like, shut up. Anybody who brings it up would be like, shut up. Not Bernie.

We love him. And it's like they all get shut down. And it's like that's a tactic. It's almost like a cult leader thing. It's like you take control of everybody's minds and then everybody will fight for you when the truth comes out.

That's why this case is so interesting, because you can look at it through so many different lenses, and I have writing it, and then I am right now all over again. Yeah. You really can look at this like a hundred different ways, because down the road, when we do find out what happened, you look at it through another lens entirely. Like, maybe he did just snap. Damn it's.

Interesting and tragic. Yeah. But honestly, Marjorie's cousin was not far off feeling that way to the residents of Carthage. Bernie was a beloved man for more than a decade. He was so sweet to everybody that the idea of him harming anybody literally seemed impossible to people.

And since taking his job with Marjorie, he'd become like the town benefactor, which only increased his I was going to say, and that's more power. So, put simply, even if something had happened to Marjorie, it would have never occurred to anybody that Bernie had something to do with it. Which is interesting, because, again, he's literally like one of the only people she has. Yeah.

But finally, in July of 1997, an unidentified person had become so concerned about Marjorie's welfare that they did call the sheriff's department to request a well being check. Now, maybe it's a testament to the local sentiment about both Marjorie or Bernie, or maybe the sheriff's office was just really fucking busy, but for some reason, that well being request went unnoticed for nearly a month. I'm sorry, what? A month? Somebody called that check in, and they didn't get around to it for nearly a month.

So you call the authorities and say, hey, haven't heard from my loved ones. My elderly loved one. Very worried about them. I'm so worried, in fact, that I would love you, the authorities, to go check on her. Check on her well being.

They say, totally, totally, absolutely. Cool. Cool. And they hang up the phone, and then they don't do it for a month, nearly 30 days. That's incredible.

The lawsuit that would lost. Incredibly shocking. And just like, how do you what? How and then after the 30 days, you're just like, oh, I guess we should go check on her. That's the thing.

I don't know if I'm astounded by that. I'm literally shocked yeah. When somebody from the sheriff's department finally did reach out to Bernie in August small town, too. It's not like this is like, a big, bustling city that they've got the same billions of welfare checks. The same person that took that wellness call probably fucking drove past her home on the way home.

It's like, just stop in. Yeah. Do the welfare. Nope. Nope.

But when somebody finally did reach out to Bernie in August, after getting that wellness check in fucking July, receiving the request for it, bernie was out of town at a concert in Vegas, and he said Marjorie had actually recently checked into a hospital and temple under an assumed name and that she didn't want to be bothered. So sheriff's deputies were like, okay, that's a little sus. Maybe we should have checked on this sooner. And they called the hospital and were informed that nobody matching Marjorie's description had been admitted and nobody had been checked in under an assumed so. For the first time since Bernie arrived in Carthage, some residents of the small town did start to wonder, perhaps Bernie Peede wasn't quite the angel everybody had judged him to be.

Yeah, maybe we should start looking into that. And now, unable to verify Bernie's story about Marjorie checking into the hospital, deputies ended up calling Marjorie's son Rod in Amarillo, who came to Carthage with his daughter to help locate his mother. So Rod and his daughter went to the house and searched for any sign of Marjorie, but came up completely empty handed. It was like she just literally vanished into thin air. But Rod's daughter did mention that she thought it was strange that the large chest freezer in the kitchen pantry had been taped shut, which, like, why did it take the granddaughter noticing that and not the deputies?

Oh, man. So the comment prompted sheriff's deputies to take a look inside the freezer and when they did, they discovered the body of Marjorie Nugent wrapped in a white sheet, buried underneath a pile of frozen food. Oh, my God. So, so fucking what the fuck? So given the extent to which Bernie had gone to put off questions about Marjorie's whereabouts in the months leading up to the discovery, it was pretty obvious to investigators that at the very least, he knew how she ended up in the freezer.

Yeah. So sheriff's deputies spread out across Carthage and eventually found Bernie getting ready to take the local Little League baseball team and their families out to dinner. That's where they found him. What, still doing good deeds? Yeah, he's just out there knowing what's going on, knowing that he placed an elderly woman in a freezer, but he's out there in front of everyone being like, aren't I great, let's so nice.

Can you fucking imagine if your child was on that Little League team? And then later on, you found out why the sheriffs approached Mr. Bernie Teed as you were about to go out to dinner with him, with your whole ass child. This is outrageous. Outrageous.

Yeah. Truly. He was then, once he was located, brought into the sheriff's office for questioning. Now, at first, he feigned surprised that they would even want to speak to him at all. And he actually started crying when they told him about Marjorie's body being discovered in the freezer.

And confronted with the truth, bernie told the deputies she'd been kidnapped months earlier, and he'd been negotiating with the kidnappers by phone ever since. Shut up. Panola County Sheriff's Captain David I believe it's Jeter said he said he got one phone call from the kidnappers a month, and then he said that he got a recent call that informed him, quote, the time is near. I can't we're getting very theatrical. Now, he loves a show tune.

So unfortunately, not being very skilled in the ways of deceit, it was very apparent to Bernie that the investigators were not buying his act. No. But for some reason, he stuck to his story. It was only after Jeter and his partner returned from searching Bernie's home and informed him they found, quote, unquote, unchristian, like videotapes in their search that he caved and admitted to killing Marjorie Nugent. So this is speculation, but to me and to probably everybody, it sounds like what they found was movies that confirmed people's thoughts about Bernie's love interest.

Yes.

Which it's like, why would that have anything they were intimidating him because they were like, oh, we found these movies and it's going to get out. Sorry, I was not putting that very obvious thing together. No, that's okay. I didn't at first either. Like, they were saying, we found these and we're going to let people so you want to tell us something?

Exactly. Okay, that makes sense. So according to Skip Hollinsworth, when investigators asked why he'd done it, quote, bernie looked at the officers in bewilderment as if the answer were obvious at last. He said that Miss Nugent had become, quote, very hateful and very possessive. And with that, he was charged with murder on August 9.

I mean, you can't murder people because of that. Sure. Can't murder people. You can just like, leave. Yeah.

You could quit and just not hang out with her anymore, but then you wouldn't have access to all her money and be the town's hero. Damn. And that would really stink. Damn. So his bond was set at $1.5 million, while the district attorney reserved comments until they received a full autopsy report.

Now, the news of Marjorie's death came as a big surprise to the small community, but it was nothing compared to the confusion most people felt when they learned who was responsible for her death. Oh, people must have lost it. They lost their shit. They didn't believe it. Even though he quite literally he was like, he admitted it.

Don Lipsey told reporters, we're just shocked. He was just a pillar of the community. And another person, Twink Ross, spokeswoman for Pinola College, where Bernie had donated generously to the arts programs. She echoed that disbelief, saying, a lot of our students are devastated over this. It's shocking.

It's just the most absolute tragedy. Damn. And the sad thing is, the tragedy I think they were talking about was more about finding out that Bernie murdered someone, not that an elderly lady had been murdered. Yeah. You know what I mean?

100%. It was focused on who did it and not what happened was killed. Right? Yeah. It's like, everyone's like, wow, this is a tragedy.

And it's like, I know, right? Like, this poor woman lost her life and they're like and it was Bernie. And it's like, maybe we could just talk about the person who's dead in a freezer. I don't know. Yeah, maybe that would be great.

Fucking covered in frozen food. Oh, God. You were this woman's friend, apparently. Allegedly. How do you spent all this time with her?

I'm sorry.

There has to be something very wrong with you if you can leave an elderly woman's body in a freezer, cover her up with frozen food, and then just go about your life spending her money. No. Like, something is wrong with you. Something's very like I don't know about that. So within days of his arrest, it was becoming clear where people in Carthage stood on the matter.

While Marjorie Nugent was commonly described as possessive and a quote unquote wealthy recluse with a hard, tough side to her, bernie was described by friends and neighbors as the kindest, most gentle man, a very compassionate and caring elderly woman. I don't care if she was grumpy or not. Yeah, you can't kill grumpy old people. No. All old people would be dead.

You can't do that. And it's like and they've earned the right to be grumpy. Yeah. They lived a fucking life, bro. Yeah.

When I'm old, I'm going to be grumpy as fuck. I'm already grumpy. And I'm 37 me. So it's like, I'm going to be intolerable when I'm old. That's fine.

And it's like, take care of you. And it's like, thank you. I appreciate you, girl. Same. I won't spend your money.

I appreciate that. But it's like you're all talking about the good deeds he did with this woman's money and without consenting, consulting with her first. What about the really bad deed that he did? You guys want that? One?

Should overshadow the good deeds. I would, you know, that's just me, though. But it wasn't just like the residents in the town. It was even investigators that seemed reluctant to investigate the, you know, to consider Bernie a murderer. Yeah.

But the more and more they investigated the case, the more obvious it became that this was not a crime of passion. Two days after his arrest, the Panola County District Attorney added a charge of felony theft and increased Bernie's bond to $2.75 million once it was determined that he'd been stealing hundreds of thousands of dollars from Marjorie's bank accounts after her death. Holy shit. District Attorney Danny Buck Davidson told the press, quote, he had the power of attorney to sign checks for her, but that terminated after her death or at her death. So it's like, what the hell?

So it's like, yeah, you're continuing to write these crazy checks. And the fact that he did continue to write the checks after Marjorie had been killed suggested that he, in fact killed her to continue accessing her fortune. Absolutely. And if that were determined to be the case, that would elevate the charges to the case to a case of capital murder. Damn.

Yeah. But even the news of the new charges had little effect on how people in town viewed Bernie, knowing full well that he continued to access this woman's money and forge fucking checks. Or I guess not. Well, yeah, it is forged. She's dead.

You can't sign checks. At that point after he killed her, people are like, well, wow, she was grumpy and we love Bernie. Wow, she was grumpy and we loved Bernie. Look in the mirror and say that's the thing. It truly is like, she's grumpy.

That's literally all it is. She's unpleasant. Like, she never did anything to hurt anybody. Yeah. So, like, she's walking around to her fucking self beating people with a cane as she goes down the street.

Like, Jesus. Even like, you know, just like, stay in your but like, nobody can't kill people that's over this shit. No, you sure can't. And like, what the this is layered. It's layered and it's fucked at.

It is. Reverend E. B. Beasley of the First United Methodist Church, who got a lot of money from Bernie, told reporters, that makes it even more difficult to deal with. But he was quick to add, it doesn't mean the church has decided to.

Turn its back on Bernie. The Bernie Teed that's being discussed in the news today is not the Bernie Teed this congregation knew. He was a very popular member of the church. I'm sure he was. He was a leader, know, until he murdered an elderly woman.

Yeah. And also, he was a leader there because he was giving the church the elderly woman's money that he stole directly from her account. Hold on to that cash. Hold on to that cash. Wipe your eyes with that cash.

Methodist church, right? Jesus. Come on. Come on. You got to come out and be like, this is fucked up, and we'd like to give it back, and we'd like to just put it back in her account.

Or it's like, at least say, like, wow, this is wild, and he's terrible, and we don't condone this and then come out and say that. Period. Period. But that's not the Bernie that we know, because guess what? I don't give a shit about the Bernie that was before this.

I care about the Bernie that's a murderer and him going to jail now. Well, and guess what? It was the Bernie that you knew and love, because he was still coming to church, spending her money after he murdered her. My God. So as locals worked through their confusion and conflict, investigators started putting together the pieces of what had led to Marjorie's death.

They were like, how did we get here? According to Bernie's confession, he arrived at Marjorie's house a little after 07:00 a.m. On the morning of November 19, 1996. November. She was discovered in August.

I was just going to say, wait a second. Wait. So november, December, January, February, March, April, May, June, July, August 9 months she was in that freezer, and he's just walking around spending her money. Almost a year. A whole pregnancy.

Shit. Nine months. Yeah. Damn. And also, it's like that fucking welfare check.

Yeah. One of those months. On another level, on the morning of November 19, 1996, he prepared her morning coffee, and then he went back home to shower. Before going back to Marjorie's house around 10:00 a.m., he told deputies, quote, she had become evil and wicked and very possessive over my life. And according to Bernie, this was actually not the first time he had considered killing Marjorie.

He told them, I thought of hitting Marjorie in the head with a bat or anything for a couple of months prior to November 19, 1996, but I did not want her to suffer. Oh, I thought of murdering this woman for a while, actually. You could have just not hung out with her anymore. You could have just left your job. Yeah.

You could have just not been there. But once he returned to Marjorie's house that morning, he said she almost instantly began ranting at him, which, remember, she's suffering from dementia. Then at one point, Bernie noticed the 22 caliber rifle that Marjorie had actually told him to buy to deal with pests. And he saw it leaning against the wall, and so he picked it up and started going into the garage to put the gun away. But Marjorie was following closely behind him.

According to Bernie, there was nothing in particular that caused him to shoot her on that day, he told his sister, I started thinking about having to live with her for the rest of her life, and I just couldn't take it. I realized I couldn't stand it another day. So Bernie decided he had had enough of her nagging at him, and he turned the rifle on her. He told sheriff's deputies, I took the rifle and shot Marjorie in the back. She fell face first, but was still breathing heavily, so I shot her again.

I may have shot her again. I didn't want her to suffer. I would like to stop saying I didn't want her to suffer. So then why did you shoot her? Because I would call that suffering murder.

I would call suffering, sir. So when he was completely sure that Marjorie was indeed dead, he dragged her body from the garage to the freezer. And once he removed the food, he placed her body inside and covered her with a sheet, which he kept telling investigators throughout this conversation that they were having. Was a land's end sheet. Like that made it any better?

He kept saying over and over again that it was a land's end sheet. It's like, I don't care if you cover her in a bougie sheet or not. You've just murdered her elderly woman. Oh, my gosh. And then put food back in the freezer, fully covering her body.

Holy shit. Once he'd stashed the body, bernie returned to the garage and swept up the bullet casings, along with a pile of large leaves, which he threw in the trash and then used the garden hose to wash the blood away. Finally, he sealed the lid of the freezer with two large strips of tapes. Tape. Excuse me.

And in the weeks that followed, he kept going to work and keeping up appearances at the house to make it seem like she was still alive and active inside to avoid questions from the neighbors. Oh, come on. So for nine months, he kept going back to the house where he killed her. He went through is dia fucking bolical. Like there's something happening in your Brainium.

Cranium. That is something's wrong. Dorksided. That is dorksided. That is so I haven't said that in a while.

It'sinister vibe. That's honestly definition of sinister vibe. Truly. So when the autopsy came back, it confirmed exactly what Bernie had told authorities. Marjorie had been shot in the back four times with a.

22 caliber rifle. That's the other thing. A rifle. Damn. Horrible.

So unable to make bond, thankfully, because he didn't have Marjorie's money anymore, bernie sat in a cell at the Pinola County Detention Center while the sheriff's department conducted their investigation. Now, meanwhile, the IRS had to be called in to aid the case, primarily to perform forensic accounting services to determine just how much money Bernie had stolen from Marjorie and where it had gone. My God. According to court records, he had stolen over $250,000 in about a dozen transactions, most of them in amounts over $10,000. And in addition to that, several other transactions showed that he had cashed almost $400,000 in checks drawn from Marjorie's account, the majority of which he distributed to neighbors, charitable organizations, and art programs around the community.

I hate that he's, like, doing good deeds with this because you're like, Fuck, dude, you could have been such a good person. You had all the parts. There over half a million dollars from this woman. He had all the parts to be a charitable man, a charitable human. And what the fuck happened?

I have no idea. But in one instance, he invested almost $10,000 into a play that he was producing. It was written by local video store clerk Jeremy Jones. And Jones told reporters, we all assumed he was very wealthy. I never questioned it.

Yeah, why would you? That's the thing. Why would you? Yeah. And on August 27, 1997, a Panola County grand jury indicted Bernie on, quote, charges of murder and theft in the death of Marjorie Nugent.

The indictment noted that he had spent, quote, extensive and extremely substantial amounts of Marjorie's money in the months since her death, which caused the IRS to seize his property and consider additional charges of money laundering. Wow. I was wondering if they were going to go that route. Yeah. So while the local and federal officials worked to build a case against Bernie, many in town rallied around him.

Not long after he was arrested, several friends and neighbors actually pooled their own resources to hire a man named Clifton, quote, unquote, scrappy Holmes, an East Texas criminal defense attorney famous for defending wrongfully accused or incarcerated individuals. But like, honey, he confessed. Correct. Now, luckily, not everybody was an enthusiastic supporter of Bernie. District Attorney Danny Buck Davidson found the unconditional support for Bernie infuriating same.

He said, Bernie is a con man and an accomplished actor. He duped a really nice, trusting town. He's evil. Which, like retweet. Yeah, re ex.

Now, Davidson had actually known Bernie Teed as long as everyone else in Carthage had. And up to this point, he always thought that Bernie was a nice man. Yeah. So he understood why locals could struggle to reconcile the man they knew with the man who murdered Marjorie, which I can understand that being like, holy shit, he duped us all. Yeah.

I can totally understand having to reconcile that. Absolutely. And struggling with that, like, for sure, 100%. But it's the willingness to look past what he did. That's the thing.

Just because they preferred him to Marjorie. Yeah. He said that was baffling. And he said, a couple of people have said to me that Bernie deserves to fry for what he's done, but I know there are a lot more who just want the whole thing to go away. They keep asking me if there aren't some extenuating circumstances that would help his defense, and I think, Good God Almighty, do people really think Miss Nugent was so mean to him that he had to shoot her in the back in self defense?

That's the thing. She's an elderly woman. I don't know how many times I have to say it. Don't drink every time I say it because whoa. Jeez.

But, like, wow. So the support for Bernie Teede in and around Carthage was not just inexplicable to law enforcement. It also proved to be a really big problem when the case made its way to court. Yeah. Of the 350 prospective individuals considered for the jury, all but 100 were dismissed for various reasons unrelated to the case.

Wow. And when Judge Guy Griffin asked the remaining about 100 prospective jurors whether they could impartially Judge Bernie for the murder, less than half said they could. Wow. Less than half? Judge Griffin said that was just the first question.

Their attorneys hadn't even begun their questioning at that point. We felt we needed to try again somewhere else. So they had to declare a mistrial wow. And relocate the trial outside of this county. I'm just, like, shook by this.

They supported this man so much that no one in town could impartially be on a jury to convict him. I don't even know what to say about this. I'm, like, looking up pictures of him because I'm like, do you have a kind face? What is going he does kind of have a kind face, I will say that. Wow.

But while the district attorney's office worked to get the trial moved to nearby San Augustine, which is about an hour from Carthage, scrappy Holmes there, the defense attorney, was in deep negotiations with the DA to arrange for a plea bargain that would make a trial unnecessary. But by February of 1999, the negotiations stalled, and all Scrappy would tell the press was plea negotiations did not turn out. So they weren't able to get any kind of plea bargain here. Yeah. Now, with no plea bargain in sight, bernie's trial began February 1, 1999, before the same judge, judge Guy Griffin, in the 123rd District Court.

Now, despite being just an hour away from Carthage, residents of San Augustine hadn't been following the story. And only a handful of those interviewed for potential jury duty seemed interested in the case, which wow. That's good. Yeah. So, that being the case, the jury pool was quickly reduced from 341 individuals to 104, which was just as quickly reduced to the requisite number.

And Danny Buckdavidson DA prepared to give his opening statements on February 3. Okay. Now, the prosecution's case was simple. Bernie TEAD had enticed Marjorie with promises of constant companionship, spent years manipulating her with romantic promises, they said, in order to access her fortune. And on the first day of testimony, davidson called several witnesses to the stand to give the jury details of what they claimed was a sham romance.

When you look at pictures yeah, it sure seems like he was angling some way. It sure does. Robert Evans, who was a friend of Marjorie's, because Bernie was not the only friend she had. Robert Evans told the jury how, while having lunch with Marjorie in her home, they were interrupted by Bernie, who greeted Marjorie with a kiss. And he told the jury he definitely believed this was just one of the ways in which Bernie had manipulated oh, damn, that's fucked up.

Yeah. And Angela Rowe, an acquaintance of Marjorie's, offered similar testimony, telling the jury about one instance where Bernie, quote, brushed up against Mrs. Nugent with his body in a way I did not think was appropriate. And she also told the jury about a shopping trip she'd taken with Marjorie where Marjorie purchased some lingerie. And she elaborated, it wasn't the kind of lingerie a 75 year old woman should wear.

I wouldn't think my grandmother should wear it. So she was saying, like, something was going on, something strange was happening here's.

Now, the second day of testimony included a number of law enforcement officials and experts who explained the evidence and gave descriptions of how the investigation had come together. Bernie just sat there sobbing as the prosecution showed the court photos of the crime scene and the freezer where he had stuffed body. Oh, well, I mean shut the fuck up. You did that? Yeah.

Why are you crying now? You weren't crying for the past nine fucking months. Are you crying because you'reaping what? You sowed you were literally walking past that freezer for the past nine months? That's the thing.

I'm putting fucking crocodile tears elsewhere. Fuck you, dude. You put her in a freezer for nine fucking months like you said, walked right by it, went out and spending her money, and you're sitting there crying at crime scene photos. Shut up. You're crying because you got caught.

Yeah. I don't buy this. And you're crying because you probably see how fucking terrible that looks now that you're sitting in front of a room full of people who know, accepting your good deeds, quote, unquote. Yeah, it feels like it even feels like he can manipulate you through a story, the whole thing. Because in the beginning, you're like, oh, what's going on?

Bernie seems fine. And then when you get to the end, you're like, fuck you, Bernie. Yeah. Now, the final photo shown that day, which was the final image the jury saw before being dismissed for the day, was the interior of the freezer. The image showed, quote, bags of ice, a white tray, and some boxes of food.

Below which could be seen the small gray oval that was the back of Mrs. Newton's head. Like gut wrenching. My God. Now, the next day, the jury was again confronted with photo and video evidence, and this time, they actually showed Marjorie's body being removed from the freezer.

Wow. Once it had arrived at the state police lab, and the images were so disturbing that the jury sent the judge a note requesting a 15 minutes break to compose themselves. Wow. Because, remember, this is an elderly woman who was shot four times. We all have grandparents or elderly parents.

I can't imagine having to anybody. Everybody knows somebody who's elderly. Yeah. Now, Bernie's defense attorney, Scrappy Holmes there lodged a formal objection to the video, claiming that it was Macabre and was shown only to prejudice the jury. Or shown to show what your client did to this and confessed to yeah, yeah.

But yeah, it is macabre. You're right. But ask Bernie about it. And outside the courtroom, he elaborated his objection, saying to reporters, stephen King couldn't have done it any better. Feel like he could have?

I mean, shut the fuck up. It's also just like, well, we're not talking about novels here. We're talking about actual crime. Sound like a piece of shit. Talking about a fucking fiction writer in comparison to you're.

Like. Oh, Stephen King. Couldn't written that any better. It's like, this is real, mother. Maybe just look at the video and see that that's real.

And that's what that guy did to her and admitted to doing to her. And we're not talking about yeah, you should take another avenue here to defend your client, because you're not doing a great job. Maybe just don't say anything. But despite having confessed to the murder, bernie did plead not guilty, so the trial was necessary to determine his responsibility. And in his defense, scrappy Holmes told the jury, bernie was never motivated by money.

Wow. Never motivated by money? He stole over fucking half a million dollars from this woman. Yeah. Never motivated by money.

That's a bold move to go in that direction. He said instead that it was Marjorie's, quote, unquote, possessive, demanding nature that had become intolerable, and his client simply, quote, unquote, snapped. So what you're saying is that when that becomes too much to handle in your work environment, that you should just kill your boss? Yeah. Is that what you're saying?

And that's okay, you should get away with it because you snapped? Absolutely. Which, like, I do wonder if he did just snap. You can look at it through that lens, because he has no priors here. Like, you're like, well, this whole thing is very shocking.

It's a shocking a to put Marjorie in a freezer and walk by her for nine months something's got to be and spend her money. Feels more that feels like more than a snap. It does. You can snap oops in the moment. You made a big mistake.

But this is a lot more than that. It just feels like you got to have a lot fucked up inside you to be able to do that shit and to be able to walk by that freezer and be able to spend her money and go home every day and tell her loved ones that she's fine. She's just like, she doesn't want to talk to you, or she's had a stroke at one point. He make up stories and shit. That's really diabolical.

And he had that inside of him. Absolutely. But they said, in time, Marjorie became overbearing and demanding of all of Bernie's time, which eventually pushed him to the point of an impulsive action resulting in her death. And they said, if his motive was indeed greed, as the prosecution had alleged, why would he have gone out of his way to give away the vast majority of stolen funds to the community members and civic organizations? I don't know.

Because he has a hero complex. I think he has a Robin Hood complex. I think that is what is at the root of all. Yeah, so it's like, that's a problem too, my friend. That's not good.

Big time. So given Bernie's confession, scrappy Holmes objective was more or less damage control in a lesser sentence. That was what he was out for. So he needed to convince the jury that Bernie had acted in a moment of passion and impulsivity and that he actually didn't pose any threat or future danger to the community. But unfortunately for the defense, the prosecution did a more than adequate job of portraying Bernie as a con artist after one thing and one thing only.

And in his closing statements, the DA told the jury, from this evidence, you can find this defendant was a liar, a liar, coward, and backshooter. So having no other context or familiarity with the defendant, the jury had no trouble believing that this was the case as presented by the prosecution. And after less than an hour of deliberation, they returned with a guilty verdict. I mean, I would he literally confessed at one point. Now, given Bernie's confession, the guilty verdict was pretty much expected.

When it came to the punishment phase, however, Holmes was hopeful that his client's reputation would go a long way to secure a lighter sentence. Davidson the prosecutor, on the other hand, was pushing for a strict sentence. He told reporters, I think you've got to look at the crime, and the punishment should fit the crime. And Marjorie's family was also hopeful for the maximum sentence. Her granddaughter Susan said, we're relieved that there was a guilty verdict.

He deserves 99 years. I mean yeah. So the next day, on February 11, the court reconvened for the sentencing phase, where the jury deliberated for less than 2 hours and returned with a sentence of life in prison. Wow. Which, I mean, you murdered someone.

Yeah. And stole all their money. Exactly. And they also gave him a fine of $10,000. Wow.

Now, Marjorie's granddaughter Susan told reporters, this was a horrible terrible crime, and he deserved the worst sentence he got, he could get, and obviously the jury thought so too. And Marjorie's son, Rod Jr. Was also in town for the trial. He was actually expecting to be called as a witness, but he wasn't called. So the sentencing phase was the first time he could speak in the courtroom since the trial started.

And when he finally was able to talk, he said, I'm really here to see justice done and foreclosure. This crime, to me is about finding old people who are vulnerable and stealing from them. Yeah, it's like 100% absolutely. Now, after he was convicted and sentenced and the whole nine, defense attorney Clifton Holmes immediately fired papers requesting the judge declare a mistrial, which was rejected, but followed by the usual round of appeals, how it always goes. Now, among the issues cited for the appeal was the claim that the judge refused to allow the defense's psychiatric expert to testify, which they alleged could have confirmed Bernie's, quote, unquote, lack of future dangerousness and provided important evidence as to, quote, unquote, his mental condition during and after the offense.

So they were saying, you didn't let our psychiatrist come in and talk about his condition, which would have showed that he wasn't dangerous, and this is what he was dealing with at the time of the murder. And it's like, okay, it's valid. Yeah, to an extent, for sure, but it's like but he put her in a freezer and went around and just lived his life and spent her money. That's the thing. So I don't know if that would have helped you, I don't think, quite honest.

I think they would have been like, yeah, this is fucked up. Agreed. Dr. Frederick mears explained that in his opinion, at the time of the murder, bernie was under considerably more stress than normal and, quote, might have had some disassociative event that made him temporarily psychologically degraded. Now, in addition to that, when they asked whether Bernie would pose a future threat to the community, the doctor stated, it is my opinion he absolutely would not pose a threat or danger to inmates, cellmates guards, anyone in that.

Huh. So initially, the court of appeals ruled that the lower court actually had error in their refusal to admit dr. Meir's testimony into evidence. But when it was sent back for reconsideration, the appeals court did determine that the error was, quote, unquote, harmless and ultimately upheld the sentence. Because it's like, are we really trying to say that he was really stressed out, more stressed out than normal?

So he murdered someone? Pretty much. Because right now, in this moment, I am very stressed out. I have a lot of stress in my life. I don't expect to get away with murdering someone because of it.

That one's not no, I'm glad that one didn't hold up. And they weren't like, well, he was stressed out because it's, like, never an excuse for murder. I don't know about that. Now, usually that would be where the story would end in a typical case. They said, like, fuck you to the appeal, and then you sit in prison the rest of your life.

Yeah. But as we know, Bernie Tete's case is far from typical. No. And there were going to be some more twists and turns before Know faded from the spotlight. About a decade after Bernie entered the Texas Department of Criminal Justice, the story of Marjorie Nugent's murder at the hands of the town's beloved former mortician made its way to the desk of screenwriter Richard Linklater later.

Now, Richard had read Skip Hollensworth, who I've quoted here, his 1998 article about the murder, midnight in the Garden of East Texas. It was published in Texas Monthly. I definitely recommend reading it. But he approached Hollinsworth about collaborating on a screenplay about the case. Now, the film, you might remember it.

It wasn't too long ago. It was titled simply Bernie was released in 2012. Do you remember seeing commercials for that? Oh, my God. Yeah.

I haven't watched it still. I haven't either, but it was a pretty big movie. And overall, it was well received by critics. It was Jack Black. Yeah, I think you're right, actually.

I hope I'm not remembering that wrong, but I feel like that just popped into my double check. That for me. But I want to say I think it's Jack Black as Bernie. I feel like you're right. Yeah.

So the critics, they liked the movie, but in Carthage, Linklater's Hollywood adaptation of Marjorie's murder was not as well received. One resident said of the film, if it was fiction, it might be funny, but this was a real person in a real town. And no, I don't think it's funny at all. Yeah, that's the thing. It is Jack Black.

And the way it's played off on here, from what I'm seeing, is like, this looks like a from I i didn't see it, so I won't say it is, but the way they're advertising it is a little comical. Don't love that. Very off putting when you know the actual yeah, so and District Attorney Danny Buck Davidson agreed, telling local news station KLTV he put Miss Nugent in a freezer and then went and preached in churches. Yeah, if it was a dark comedy. You can't make a dark comedy out of a murder.

You want to make a fiction story out of Know. I've seen dark comedies happen all the time. Fiction. Yeah, like, you made it actually, in fact, on Google, when you type in Bernie the Movie and this movie comes up, google says, why? To watch delightful, dark and hilarious, dude.

Yeah. Like delightful dark, hilarious. That's upsetting. That's wild. Yeah.

That's on a damn level, that just shook me. Yeah. Well, despite local criticisms of the film, some people close to the case actually felt like it was an accurate portrayal. Marjorie's nephew, Joe rhodes said, there are little things in Bernie that aren't exactly true. Bits of dialog and name changed here and there, but the big things, the weirdest things, happened exactly as the movie says they did.

Wow. Now, more than ten years after the murder occurred, the residents of Carthage actually reconsidered their stance on Bernie TEAD after that movie, which is interesting that this fucking Jack Black movie made these people change their opinions. Diane Davidson said the community has completely turned 180 degrees. They want him to service time. Wow.

Wild. But while locals had turned on the man they once rushed to defend, austin based attorney Jody Cole reached out to Linklater to find out more about the story. She saw the film and told him it, quote, raised some issues. I wonder. Huh.

Now, like many people who had seen the movie or simply heard about the case, to her, something just didn't add up. Like why Marjorie's closest friend would turn on her so quickly without acute provocation. And how one of the area's most beloved residents could be so easily convicted and received the harshest penalty, which, if you're looking at it from an outside scope, I mean, I've said it this whole time. This case is wild. I understand having questions.

Yeah. So attorney Cole there ended up speaking with Bernie after reaching out about the film's making and watching it and just having questions upon questions. Yeah. So she ended up talking to Bernie multiple times and eventually filed a writ of habeas corpus on his behalf, arguing that the jury had been prevented from accessing critical testimony that would have likely influenced their understanding of the crime and their attitudes during the penalty phase. After several interviews with the clinical psychologist, cole actually learned and this is a trigger warning for sexual trauma cole actually learned that Bernie had experienced considerable sexual and psychological abuse as a child, which significantly influenced his cognitive ability at the time of the murder.

According to Bernie, Marjorie, quote, often demanded and ridiculed him and became critical and accusatory toward a male gardener with whom Mr. TEAD had a clandestine sexual relationship. Oh. So the effect, they said, was essentially what one would experience in an abusive domestic relationship, which ultimately led to Marjorie's murder. Wow.

Now, a second psychological evaluation conducted by Dr. Edward Gripen or Grupin, actually produced similar findings. In his report, the doctor wrote, after years spent repressing the effects of childhood abuse and hiding his homosexuality in a community he worried would not accept him, mr. TEAD learned to compartmentalize his emotions, allowing him to act normally for months after the murder. So that can explain that.

Yeah. Now, given the extent to which Bernie's attitude and behavior after Marjorie's death factored into his sentencing, cole succeeded in winning Bernie a new sentencing hearing, and he was released from prison in May of 2014 and actually took up residence in Link leader's garage in La while he awaited a new. Hearing. What crazy twist of events. Now, in addition to the new psychological reports, cole also indicated Bernie's confession had more or less been coerced, arguing that law enforcement officials threatened to release scandalous information to the public if he didn't tell the truth, which is what we touched on earlier with those movies that they found.

Now, the allegations of both new evidence and a potentially coerced confession didn't sit well with DA Danny Buck Davidson. I actually really like this guy. He told reporters a new hearing felt like the right thing to do considering the circumstances. Wow. He said, prosecutors are good guys and we're supposed to do what's right.

So he wanted to stand by doing what's pretty badass. Now, another granddaughter of Marjorie, Shanna Nugent, disagreed and told the hosts of the Today show, it just doesn't feel like this is right. It doesn't feel like justice. I get that. And I totally get that her grandmother was brutally murdered.

Yeah. So Bernie's new hearing finally came in April 2016, and a new jury learned of his history of abuse and how it affected his actions at the time of the murder and in the months that followed. Defense attorney Mike Degurin told the jury that Bernie, quote, killed Nugent because her abuse triggered the trauma he had faced when he was younger. But it's still not okay to kill someone. Exactly.

They were trying to say, like, psychologically, they were trying to that wouldn't happen again for sure. Now, the attorney also alleged that, contrary to what the previous jury had heard about Bernie manipulating and isolating Marjorie in the months before her death, it was, in fact, Marjorie who, quote, alienated most of her relatives and who had a reputation of being unlikable, which is like, oh, we're going back to this again. Exactly. Okay, cool. So the new jury deliberated for a little over 4 hours before returning with a sentence of 99 years or life in prison.

Wow. Which weirdly feels like a nod to what her granddaughter said before that he deserved 99 years. It really does. Did you all get together and help that girl out? Which he deserves it.

He kill her no matter what. True. So with the new sentence on the record, bernie was returned to the Texas Department of Criminal Justice to continue serving his sentence, and he remains there to this day. Damn. What a wild fucking story.

That is a roller coaster. It is. And poor Marjorie. That's the thing. To get the reputation that she not only got in life, but in death is just really sad.

Yeah. It doesn't sound to me like most people took the time to try and understand her and no one did what she was, regardless of her attitude, regardless of what it was or wasn't exactly nobody deserves. Yeah. That's fucked up. It's really sad.

And I just can't believe I understand movies being made about big cases and all that. That's going to happen that's happened forever to make a case like this, a dark, delightful, hilarious movie is like, whoa. And I never saw it. No. Neither have I.

And I genuinely like everybody who's in that movie. I'm like I like those. It's, like, shocking. I'm like, this is strange. It was an interesting to see.

It was an interesting decision because it's Jack Black, Shirley McClain and Matthew McConaughey. Matthew McConaughey, like, all three of them were like the like, Shirley McClain plays Marjorie. Wow. And it's like, did nobody looked into is it's just a strange yeah, but again, I haven't seen the movie, so maybe it's being described wrong. Maybe not going to say I know anything about it, because I don't I don't really have any interest in but very strange watching it just after I don't either.

After hearing the story. I don't want to watch it at all. But damn wild. That is the tragic case of the murder of Marjorie Nugent. Poor Marjorie.

Just the small town that really paraded around a man that murdered someone. He really manipulated everybody. Truly. And he really placed himself in a position of looking like a hero. Yep.

And with that, we hope you keep listening and we hope you keep it weird. But it's weird that you manipulated an entire town into thinking that you're some kind of hometown hero. And realistically, you're walking past a freezer where you are holding the body of an elderly woman that you murdered nine months ago. Don't keep it that weird, you piece of shit.

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