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i mean the thing i think it's important to say about kevin is that he is a really like deeply nice guy you know
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he's not the kind of person you would meet and think like oh he's like a dark you know
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lost soul i mean he is he's he's kind of jolly you know he's he does impressions he's like deeply funny he's
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very snarky and just really really sweet and so i kind of didn't realize that he had been pulled this far in and
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that you know things were getting kind of bad for him really for a little while i i just knew that he was corresponding
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with a serial killer and yeah that was weird but he was also really nice so i really
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didn't think i didn't think about it that way for a while this is rebecca levoy and she's talking
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about a reporter named kevin flynn rebecca is now married to kevin but when she first met him in 2007 he was working
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at a tv station he was married to someone else and had a kid he was 37 years old and like rebecca said he was
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exchanging letters with a serial killer flirtatious letters i'm phoebe judge this is criminal
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[Music] so we were i should say i was waiting in the lobby of the police station
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waiting for someone to give me a comment before the six o'clock news about what was going on this is kevin flynn and the
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wall was sort of paper thin and i heard two guys walked by and i recognized the voice um of one of them as being with
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the state police and he said i have seen more [ __ ] in my life that you would not believe
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and then he said do you think she chopped up the body before she burned it or burned it and then
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dismembered it and that's when i heard them say what is what is uh what is sheila's date of
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birth and i knew okay they're looking for somebody named sheila that sheila was sheila labar a woman who
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lived on a horse farm in the outskirts of a town named epping in southeast new hampshire
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kevin was reporting not far from epping where police had found the burn body it was 2006.
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labar had come to new hampshire from alabama some 30 years earlier responding to a personal ad from a widow doctor and
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he she responded to the lonely hearts ad by sending topless photos of herself and so
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she's like in her late 20s he's in his i'm thinking like his late 60s and she comes to town and she
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moves in on the farm is super affectionate and sexual with him but also would go around town dressed very
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provocatively and they had a nickname for her around town which was sheila the peeler
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because she would definitely like to flash her cleavage and she was known for answering
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the door for deliverymen wearing um lingerie or being naked when when like the fedex guy would come
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she would answer completely naked yeah you know the the plumber uh yeah anybody uh the the the local police actually had
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a policy that if uh if one of them had to respond to any incident with sheila a second
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officer had to go along this is like for a police force of i think they had like
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five or six guys but she they literally had to have backup dealing with sheila not because she was violent because but
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because she was there was the risk that she would do something sexually provocative
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and then you know sort of you know put the patrolmen in a compromising position where he has to
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say defend himself from an accusation he came on to her so they needed yeah they needed absolutely they needed
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a witness to sort of verify that you know that sheila wasn't um uh you know that sheila was the
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instigator of any sort of bad behavior [Music] the guy's name was kenneth county he was
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about 21 years old he was developmentally delayed sheila went on a blind date with kenny
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and kenny ended up never sort of going back home to to his his house and his family
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he basically immediately moved in to sheila's farm the last time anyone had seen kenny he and labar were in a
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walmart kenny had bruises all over his face and labar was pushing him in a wheelchair
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two police officers showed up and asked kenny if he was okay she wouldn't let him answer wheeled him out of the store
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and that's basically the last time anyone saw him kenny's mother was growing more
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concerned about her son and called the cops to do a welfare check when they went to sheila's farm
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what they discovered was a burn barrel you know it was like just like a like a oil drum
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that you would throw refuse and burn leaves or whatever and they found it was smoldering and they started to poke
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around in the barrel and they saw what looked like a human femur with a sort of glob
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of burnt flesh on the ball joint at the top and uh you know they realized that the guy that
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they had been looking for and was the that they were trying to check on the welfare on that you know
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it was too late he was he was dead and killed in a horrible way of course the bar was not at the farm
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when the cops arrived they combed the hundred acres for any evidence they could find they even flushed the septic
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tank and they did find the remains of another victim a man named michael delos who had been missing for two years
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they also found some human toes but were never able to figure out who they belonged to
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labar in the meantime was on the run it was another week before the cops caught her in massachusetts
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she dyed her hair and was staying with some guy she had just met he saw her face on tv and turned her in sheila
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labar was arrested in a taco bell and charged with murder [Music] i didn't want to just sort of you know
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reach out to sheila uh immediately when she was put behind bars i think that you know i knew that
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it was going to be at least one maybe two years before she um she went to trial so
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i was i i waited and and didn't write to her until christmas time and i figured by that time all of
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her friends who had been you know by her and a lot of her family would have disowned her and that would
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have been a pretty lonely time and i guess i thought this is the time she's going to really want to read a letter
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from somebody who sounds like they're interested in in her story according to kevin the first letter said
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something like i'm sure this is a difficult time for you someday i hope to speak to you merry christmas
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and he got a letter back and then another so they went back and forth it got kind
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of intense i remember reading uh one of the letters that sheila sent to him this
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is rebecca lavoie who we heard from at the beginning um she drew on the outside of the envelope
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a picture of a rose vine and they were sort of crossing each other that the rose vine and it sort of
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made like a crucifix shape there was a poem that she had written inside the letter inside this
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illustrated envelope and it was called two roses on the cross i think it was called
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and i remember reading this and thinking like you know whoa like she's you know she's you know she's really something
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and then i remember turning to kevin and saying you know is she like you know kind of going coming after you a little
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bit after enough correspondence labar agreed to let kevin visit at this point he was thinking this could
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be more than just a tv interview he was thinking about writing a book sort of early on she she sat down and
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and was very demure and very coquettish and was oozing of southern charm and first of
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all i could see why men would fall for her and do what she wanted them to do because she was
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very flattering at the end of of the conversation she was trying to get me to find
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her animals from the farm her horses her rabbits what do you mean she's like straight up saying can you go check on
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my rabbit she said can you find them for me yeah can you find them for me and oh and i i think the idea was
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where wherever they went i know that one of them is dead you know passed away and i can't i think
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i shared that with her and she was you know devastated but she thinks that what i'm going to do is find her animals
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and hold them for safe keeping and uh until she is acquitted and can come home and that's you know sort of
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where i realized like i have been totally sucked in no i didn't go looking for the animals i mean i wasn't gonna if
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i knew where the horse was i wasn't gonna put it in my backyard um but but i mean you're kind of in it
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deep here like yeah when do you when do you realize this is having some like impact on like your personal life
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your professional life it was when it was when the um the mailing got to the point where i was
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i was getting mail prison mail from sheila at work and people were opening up the mail and
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reading the letters out loud um you know as as entertainment um did you walk in on them
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reading the letters out loud no i would no i wasn't even there i came back like then after a day off
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and someone's you know i said someone handed me a letter that had been open and i'm like oh okay and then it wasn't
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until delayed until somebody said you know they opened the letter and they they they read it at the morning meeting out
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loud and uh you know i was i was i was more than embarrassed i was i felt kind of violated why were you
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embarrassed what would have been in it that would have been embarrassing to you i i i
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think she was she was talking sweet to me um i think i might have encouraged it because i thought it just meant
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the relation to the you know the the relationship was going on that i was you know still going to be
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uh able to get land this big interview when it was all over and you were you were married though yeah yeah and about
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my relationship i i wasn't romantic i wasn't trying to you know seduce her in any way but it's kind of i
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i i i believe that kind of of course but like it's kind of like you are in a relationship like your seduction can't
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feel too false or flirting and all that stuff because she might pick up on that so you kind of do
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like necessarily enter into this little bit of a it's a the reason you were embarrassed
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right like there was something there that you were doing that you must have thought
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i should be a little embarrassed about yeah i i think you're right i you know i i feel like i kind of lost
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my way with the story [Music] so i i wrote a letter to um a prosecutor that i um that i knew and i i obviously
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you know they were aware that sheila was talking to a reporter and i i try to explain myself to you know in a friendly
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way and saying look i i just want you to know you know i'm not trying to mess up your
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case i'm not trying to solve it for you i'm really just you know there to gather
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information and i said something along the lines that hey if she said something to me you
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know you would know about it and under you know the the judicial ethics rules of the state
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that could be interpreted as the state soliciting my help with that phrase i totally screwed the
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whole thing up i now i now i could be called as a witness in the case and so now i'm
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i have a conflict and i can't do the story anymore kevin lost his job at the tv station his
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first marriage ended around that same time we asked him if his fixation on the bar
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had anything to do with his divorce and he said no he thinks it's the other way around that
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his general unhappiness with life made him a bit reckless and more likely to engage with the bar in the first place i
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mean what i've i've come to understand was at that time in my life i was deeply unhappy
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you know in a way that i couldn't articulate or couldn't really feel i guess advancing the story and getting
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closer and closer gave me some sense of accomplishment that temporarily filled the void that i had
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and so when it was when it was over i had lost my job i had lost my marriage i was
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drinking too much i was gaining weight and i had a hell of a book sheila barr was charged with two murders
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kenneth county and michael delosh she pled not guilty by reason of insanity the jury found that she was
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uh criminally uh responsible for their deaths they didn't buy the insanity defense and then
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she went to state prison and she has been moved from one state prison to another because with
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her kind of personality disorder she she gets into trouble and she threatens people and she threatens to burn people
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she's currently serving two consecutive life sentences she has no possibility of
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parole kevin isn't in touch with the bar anymore he realized it wasn't healthy although he does stay in contact with
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her sister they're pretty good friends on facebook [Music] criminal is produced by eric menno
00:15:10
lauren spore and me julian alexander does our episode art kevin's book about the sheila labar case is called wicked
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intentions the sheila labar murders you can find all of our episodes on itunes or at our website
00:15:24
thisiscriminal.com we're on facebook and twitter at criminal show and we'd love to hear from
00:15:29
you like what we're doing are you getting sick of it let us know and leave us a review on
00:15:34
itunes i'm phoebe judge and this is criminal [Music] you