00:00:06
[Music] [Music] No doubt she was there. It snowed on Thursday, so we know that or it freezing
00:00:59
rain on Thursday. And Nick, just to add, which Ed knows a lot more than I do, obviously he was
00:01:06
there, but she was cut. She had, you know, her wrists were the cuts on her wrist and she had a big cut on her left
00:01:14
leg if I remember. Had that child been like handcuffed and put over a pipe in the basement. Let's
00:01:22
just say that for the sake of this conversation. the pressure that would be put on her wrists would not do what that
00:01:28
what the cuts on her wrist. We tried to duplicate the injuries to her wrist as the with the handcuffs being the the
00:01:37
factor and we couldn't make that fit. We couldn't there's no way if she's handcuffed behind her back, if she's
00:01:45
handcuffed over the like I said a pipe in the basement to restrain her u those handcuffs just did not cut the wrist the
00:01:53
way they were cut. You guys have an extensive background in law enforcement, many years on the force, both of your
00:02:01
forces, respectively. How rare is it to arrive at any scene and find handcuffs? Bloody handcuffs.
00:02:11
I don't You don't put handcuffs on the dead person. I've always said that. You know what I'm saying? They were
00:02:15
obviously used for Yeah. So, I I have never I have never went to a crime scene. I've
00:02:24
investigated quite a few homicides or I've done quite I've done a an extensive number of death investigations. Never
00:02:31
before have I found handcuffs my victim the victim that is presented to me at that time.
00:02:40
And Nick, I'm the same just thinking about how many homicides I've done seen. [Music]
00:02:55
This case is one of the more difficult cases that we've had to and chose to cover here in the garage. But I think
00:03:03
that the great thing about covering a case like this is seeing how this one's for law enforcement because this one
00:03:11
goes out to all of the hardworking detectives that have been forced to to work a case for decades. a case that
00:03:20
would be and would have been from a stress level, from an emotional level, from just trying to have keep their head
00:03:27
and wits about them far easier to give up on. And this is a case and we see this and we and we're lucky that when
00:03:36
these horrible things happen, they should never happen at all. These evil people should not exist. These evil
00:03:41
people should not be doing evil things to one another, to our good people. But they do. This is about the stick to
00:03:49
itness for these detectives that have decided I'm I'm going to see this one through whether it kills me. No matter
00:03:58
how long or what it takes, I'm going to see this one through. And we we're living in that day and age, Captain.
00:04:06
We've talked about it so many times here in the garage where there are cases that
00:04:10
are being solved that that were crimes that took place 19 years ago, 25 years ago, 30 years ago. cases that I'm sure
00:04:18
that many people in the public or even family members of the victim had at some point resolved themselves to the idea
00:04:25
that they may never have the answers. Well, think about how difficult this situation would be cuz it's not just
00:04:32
Angie's case, it's multiple cases and then instead of going, well, we have one serial killer or we have one
00:04:40
individual that is responsible for all these crimes. Nope. we have different individuals and then we know how hard it
00:04:48
is. Okay, you might have a suspect, you might have pieces of evidence, but now you have to put together those pieces of
00:04:55
evidence to get a conviction. So, law enforcement had to do that twice already and then now deal with the fact and I
00:05:04
think the only thing well one they lose time, they lose manh hours because they have to focus on these other cases. But
00:05:11
now you have this the initial case that brought this all these law enforcement groups together and you have to then go
00:05:20
well okay we solve those other ones we got convictions on those other ones but we can't stop now that is one thing that
00:05:26
I think would keep you going right and there that is like the tiniest glimpse of maybe some kind of bright spot here
00:05:35
if you're a person living in this area because you're going okay look at everything else that they saw olved and
00:05:41
cleaned up throughout the course of trying to, you know, working this one and trying to solve this one. They
00:05:47
solved the Cassie Center case. They There was a bunch of They picked up the Stuffle Bean jerk down in Texas who was
00:05:59
who was molesting girls and and accusations from grown women that came about in other parts of the area and in
00:06:07
the country. So, they get two terrible people off of the streets, but then also a string of burglaries, car breakins,
00:06:14
and and all those other crimes that we had listed in episode two. So, a lot of good hard work is going into this, and
00:06:23
they are solving crimes. They are solving cases, just not Angie's case. And again, one thing that we point to
00:06:32
and that the detectives pointed to, and they're trying, they're not trying to make any excuses. It's just the fact of
00:06:38
the matter is that they had many people that looked good for this. They had great suspects along the way. And let's
00:06:47
touch on a few of those here. And I I want to kind of try to move through these at a at a good pace. So, if I slow
00:06:54
down, Captain, you smack me and I'll get back up and try to keep going. Where you want me to smack you?
00:06:59
Let's go forehead or back of the head. Well, so one one man that was looked at was a guy down in Florida.
00:07:10
So his name is John Wayne Parsons. So they pick up this guy. He gets picked up in the state of Florida
00:07:18
for molesting two 9-year-old girls. Well, that victimology seems right. The ages, the gender that's lining up. But
00:07:28
during the course of those that investigation, he gets charged with molesting another girl in the state of
00:07:34
Missouri. Now, this is about 75 or 80 miles southish of our murder investigation in St. Anne.
00:07:45
When he's arrested in Florida, this is what ties him, not just the Missouri connection, but this is what ties him to
00:07:50
Angie's case. when he is arrested in Florida on sex offenses, police find a whole bunch of
00:07:57
newspaper clippings on Angie Houseman's case. So, he's following the case even though he lives many states away. So
00:08:05
they talk to him, they look at him, and at one point I believe that he says, or I'm sorry, at one point I believe that
00:08:15
at least one of the detectives or one of the members of that task force, Major Case Squad, is is on the record saying
00:08:23
he's our best guy. And I take that to mean best guy to date. Now, is he does that mean he's the guy?
00:08:31
Well, no, it doesn't. Because after a while trying to pin this to him, trying to work him to this, they're able to
00:08:39
eliminate him based off of the forensic evidence that we've already discussed that they were using to eliminate people
00:08:48
like the psychic boy and other suspects. Then we get Bryant. His name is Bryant Squires. the strange stories that come
00:08:57
out of this murder case. There's no shortage of them. So, he's in this retirement home. He's dying dying a
00:09:08
pretty slow death. He he had cancer or AIDS or both, depending on what reports you read. And during the course of his
00:09:15
decline, he's telling the nurses there that he and another individual were responsible for killing Angie Houseman
00:09:26
and that they were responsible for some other crimes that had took place in the past as well. And he's saying, "Look,
00:09:34
I'm I'm dying. I want to get this off my chest. I'm trying to confess. I'm trying
00:09:38
to get right before I before I go." the nurses, they're hearing his confessions.
00:09:44
And and the way that I take this here, Captain, is that he's giving them little little tidbits of information, but a lot
00:09:53
of it's very detailed. And the nurses would later say, "He told us this for an extended period of time. We didn't
00:10:02
report it because the stuff he was telling us was so horrible, right, that no way could it be true. We just
00:10:09
assume that the guy is completely lost it. He's, you know, he's in a experiencing a lot of dementia due to
00:10:17
his health and declining health. And there's no way that these stories could be true. Well, one of them, one of the
00:10:24
nurses at some point finds out that, wait a second, some of these names that this guy's saying
00:10:31
are actual victims that are out there. Yeah. And so eventually they do report this. He didn't commit Angie Houseman's
00:10:42
murder. These other crimes that he said he had some involvement with that he was
00:10:47
involved with another individual. He says he did the Angie case with with the Angie murder with this other guy. This
00:10:55
other guy, it was confirmed that he was in prison at the time that Angie was abducted and killed. So that other guy
00:11:01
didn't have anything to do with Angie's case. He physically could not have been had any involvement. But now here's what
00:11:10
gets here's what gets dicey when trying to just say, "Well, maybe this guy completely lost it." No. this other guy
00:11:18
who is supposedly his good friend Nathan Williams who was in prison at the time of the Houseman case. He is that man is
00:11:28
a suspect in other cases. He is known to be good friends with this Squire's guy,
00:11:35
right? So there could be some truth to some of these confessions. It gets difficult to
00:11:41
say how much truth there is because what Nathan Williams was in prison for at the
00:11:48
time was rape. So it seems plausible that uh these two could have been involved in in something together.
00:11:58
Definitely seems like Nathan Williams was involved in kidnappings and possible murder as well, but the Squires guy
00:12:05
could could be involved as well with with those other crimes. Yeah, I think it's strange. I mean, obviously
00:12:13
a bad dude does some bad things in his life and as he's dying, he wants to confess his sins,
00:12:20
but to the nurses or whoever, or maybe he wants the family members to hear about it. Maybe he wants forgiveness
00:12:27
from them. So, it's possible that he's involved in some of these crimes, but when we know he's not involved in
00:12:33
Angie's crime, then that makes you wonder, is he just also just like kind of losing his mind? And maybe he because
00:12:41
of uh his sickness really and because of his evilness, was he just fascinated with these types of cases? and he looked
00:12:51
into them and he has some of the details in his his brain so he can tell and talk
00:12:59
about the cases, but maybe he is just so far gone that he doesn't understand that
00:13:04
he's not responsible for that case. Does that make any sense? Yeah, that makes absolute sense. So,
00:13:10
regarding Bryant Squires, he passes away in September of 1996, and it looks like
00:13:16
this information was didn't make its way until after he passes away to law enforcement. Again, further complicating
00:13:25
investigating these his his confession, not just to Angie's case, but to other cases as well. And so that's 1997 in our
00:13:37
timeline, which is only four years after Angie's murder. If we go out a little bit further to 2001,
00:13:46
there's another individual. This guy comes forward, right? He's already locked up for murder. He he he's not
00:13:54
getting out uh from my understanding or shouldn't get out. But his name is Corey
00:14:00
Lynn Fox. And this guy comes forward to police saying that he wants to talk, saying that he was involved in other
00:14:08
murders. Some persons, I've not seen the the written confessions or his exact statements here, but many of the reports
00:14:18
here, Captain state that he confessed to a dozen murders, if not dozens of other
00:14:23
murders. He seems to me to be like one of these Henry Lucas types. Old Henry Lee Lucas,
00:14:31
right? So he's locked up. Cory Lynn Fox comes forward. The thing that makes him a different hurdle, a difficult hurdle
00:14:38
to clear here is that when he's talking about Angie's case, he is speaking in detailed information. He is speaking in
00:14:48
specifics. And I think I think a lay person, someone who's not an expert on this case, could look at this because
00:14:57
the public was really concerned about this guy. And I think the public thought this is the guy. Finally, after all
00:15:03
these years, after nearly eight years, we finally figured it out and found the guy because he knows detailed
00:15:12
information about the case. But the police weren't quick so quick to fall for that. The detectives weren't there.
00:15:18
Like, look, this guy, this is what he does. He comes forward claiming to be some mastermind crazy criminal that he
00:15:26
he really is not. He's terrible. He He deserves to be locked up. He deserves to be where he is, but he's not good for
00:15:34
these other murders that he's claiming. He likes the attention. He's got nothing
00:15:39
to do all day, all week long. This guy got nothing going on, right? Sitting in a cell.
00:15:45
This is his way of getting out, maybe getting some good food to eat, some fast food, smoking some cigarettes,
00:15:52
what have you. Flicky flicky. Yeah. Tell telling lies. And and and look, a lot of these bad guys, they like messing
00:15:59
with the police. They like wasting their time. They like they they look at it like, "Oh, cool. I pulled one over the
00:16:07
police. I'm I'm taking advantage of the police." He just like some of the others
00:16:13
that we've discussed, he's not the guy. Now, sadly, Angie's mother passes away in 2016.
00:16:23
She died from cancer. She wouldn't find out what happened to her only daughter, Angie. And the reports that I found say
00:16:34
that after her daughter's death that she just really sank into deep, deep depression.
00:16:44
So, not much of a life for her after that time and and and more than 20 years between the time of her daughter's death
00:16:53
and her own passing. This this case has so many similarities to like Amy Mahalovic's case, but do you
00:17:01
think that these sickos do they get the detailed information? Do you think it's from news reports or you just wonder
00:17:10
like before the internet these guys they always these creeps these uh pedophiles they
00:17:18
they always find a way of finding each other. So you wonder if some of the details that they're getting are stories
00:17:27
that were passed on to somebody else. And it's um very fascinating too because also like there's there's some killers
00:17:35
that have killed children that will never admit to it because they're afraid of what's going to happen to them in
00:17:41
prison. But some of these other killers and I don't know if it's because maybe they're in a situation that they're
00:17:46
like, I can confess to anything and and either just lie about it or I'm not in a
00:17:53
situation that other prisoners can get to me. So, if we we're trying to talk about a whole bunch of criminals, it it
00:17:59
would be difficult to say obviously, but with this Corey Fox, right, that came forward, his situation is he
00:18:07
he's serving life in Illinois in in an Illinois state prison, it looks like. So, he he got 30 years for armed
00:18:15
robbery. He got life in prison for murder with intent to kill. And he also got life in prison for murder slash
00:18:24
other forcible felony. Again, on the surface, he's going to look good for it because we know he's capable of murder.
00:18:31
His rap sheet tells us so. But him being in the state of Illinois, keep in mind Illinois and St. Louis it this so close
00:18:40
to the state line that often times there is a crossover where in where Illinois state police might be involved in
00:18:48
investigations in Missouri. So it's not difficult to surmise that he probably read a lot of the newspaper coverage and
00:18:58
saw it on the news. There was so much news coverage on the Angie Houseman case that it would be nearly impossible to
00:19:07
live in this general area and have no familiarity with with the information that was released to the public. So, he
00:19:16
probably just picked up on it over the years. He wasn't arrested until years after her murder. So, how how much
00:19:23
information did he soak up in the course of that? And again, there were other cases like you said, I I think you
00:19:30
nailed it. This was unfortunately the Amy Mahalavic case of this area, which if you're new to the show, Amy Mahalik
00:19:38
is a case that we've covered out of it's out of Northeast Ohio. We covered it a couple times here in the garage. Like
00:19:44
Amy's case, Angie's case refused to leave the news. And and good good for the media. They didn't they never lost
00:19:52
sight on this story and on this case because everybody the whole community wanted it solved. They wanted to find
00:19:59
the monster that killed this little girl. This is one of the worst murders I've we've ever covered in my in my
00:20:04
humble garage opinion. The way that she was left, the cruelty that was shown to this little girl, the tor the torture
00:20:11
leading up to her death is it's unfathomable. It's it's it's something that that putting together the story was
00:20:19
very difficult to do because it was something that that we didn't want to spend too much time pondering and
00:20:26
thinking about. So this guy he keep in mind some of the other crimes that he air quote confessed to were other
00:20:34
highprofile crimes in this area as well. Some that that we are not so familiar with just because we are not
00:20:42
from that area. But again, he had details. This is all stuff that that jam up the police and detectives. Angie's
00:20:49
mother passes away in 2016. 2018 is when we have the the different counties that were involved in Angie's
00:20:58
case, taking another really hardcore look at the case. I hate to say the way that it's been reported in on the
00:21:07
internet that, oh, they decided to re-examine the case or to look at it again. They never stopped looking at it,
00:21:14
right? I just named in episode two, I named three detectives that never stopped looking at it. They took it home
00:21:21
with them. They would they would work the case in their personal time. One detective would go and work with other
00:21:27
agencies, sometimes weeks at a time, working on different leads or different suspects they had. So to report it that
00:21:34
way, I think is is a disservice to the men and women that worked this case so incredibly well. and and put so much
00:21:44
time, effort, and emotion and heartache into it. Yeah. And I think it's just probably a
00:21:49
generic way to report. Yeah. You're bang you got to bang out an article real quick. It's got to be 600
00:21:56
words. Uh you you just kind of revert back to what you know. But even if and it's hard to do. I mean,
00:22:05
we've been doing this for heck, it's what almost 10 years. and the friends that we have made that that have these
00:22:13
if you want to call them pet cases that they've been working on for so long. Sometimes it's hard to cuz they're so
00:22:20
far down the path that and some of the information becomes and we've talked about this many times. Sometimes the
00:22:28
speculation becomes fact over time and so sometimes you have to do a reset. Now, that's really difficult unless you
00:22:35
have other people in the room with you to help you do that and to get out of whatever tunnel vision that you might
00:22:43
have got into. Captain, when we come back from the beer break, we'll have some behind the scenes information on
00:22:49
what was going on in the investigation in 2017, 18, and 19, as well as the conclusion to the Angie Houseman case.
00:23:01
[Music] [Music] And we are back. Cheers, mate. Cheers to you, Colonel. He's back. I'm back. He only had to
00:23:23
smack me once. Couple times in a couple times in the buttox. No, this is such a odd case and bizarre
00:23:33
and and it's also there's there's just cases that hit you different and and maybe it's the manner in which he is
00:23:41
found and and the visuals that that gives you looking into this case. Uh but it also just like you were saying
00:23:48
earlier to me about this being like the Amy Mahalavic case. I mean it and you know they they started doing some
00:23:55
testing on items in Amy's case. So hopefully we get some of those results back soon cuz I think that started in
00:24:02
April. So u maybe there'll be some movement on Amy's case. Fingers crossed. Well, and for the general public out
00:24:12
there, one thing that I don't think is perfectly clear to everybody that's not as dialed in as our garage listeners,
00:24:21
the best listeners in the world. Look, these police departments, these sheriff departments, the FBI,
00:24:30
state investigating bureaus, they all are doing very good work. They are all trying their damnedest and they are all
00:24:38
trying their best. They have different budgets oftent times than some of these privatized labs. And because that their
00:24:48
budgets aren't the same, the technology is not always the same. It's not cutting
00:24:53
edge like you will get with some of the private labs. And we have seen this in plenty of cases. Once a case gets sent
00:25:03
off, evidence gets sent off to a private lab. Authorum's a really big one. Bod's
00:25:08
a really big one. Parabon nanolabs is a really big one. the just to mention a few here in the United States that are
00:25:16
solving cases. These are all three of these are different labs that private labs that the porch light project here
00:25:25
in Ohio has used to solve old cases. Sometimes it takes it going from these public entities to going to a private
00:25:35
lab to get the information that you need to find the perpetrator of these horrific murder cases that have sat I
00:25:44
shouldn't say sat because we know in this case they were working it. So and with they were working on doing DNA work
00:25:52
on this case for several years now. One problem they ran into was the fingerprint. While they could use that
00:25:58
fingerprint to to get a match, a onetoone match if they had something to compare it to, they weren't able to pull
00:26:06
any touch DNA off of that duct tape because remember, they kept thinking that they could pull a better print from
00:26:14
it. So, it had been tested and worked and tested and worked and tested and worked. It it wasn't going to be a
00:26:19
reliable source to try to pull some DNA off of it. So, that was a bit of a Yes. this thing. What
00:26:26
happens here is you get detectives, the detectives I mentioned, working this case for all of these years. We didn't
00:26:33
even get into Roger Martin, who is somebody There's a Paula episode on this that came out I think 2021.
00:26:42
Paul, which sounds like a salad dressing. It does. Parazon. I don't want the Or a nice piece of nice piece of outdoor
00:26:52
furniture. Yeah. or a nice steak. I'll take the PaulaN cut. Roger Martin is heavily featured in that
00:27:01
episode and man does he look like he's the guy. He's he's a child molester. He he raped girls in the area. Actually
00:27:10
would take them to that. Remember, we have Detective Ed Copelan who was once a deputy. He was the first one to find the
00:27:18
first member of law enforcement to find Angie's body who said that look I would go back in there and look check cars.
00:27:24
This guy would go in that general area to rape and molest girls. And so there was a lot of connective
00:27:33
tissue, if you will, to to a lot of red strings that you could draw a line from him to possibly being involved in Angie
00:27:41
Houseman's murder. They spent a lot of time, law enforcement spent a lot of time on this guy because he looked so
00:27:46
good. PaulaN with a uh side of beans and potato please spent a lot of time in her
00:27:53
episode on on Roger Martin as well. He wasn't the guy. So we we won't bog you down with that here today. But what
00:28:03
happens here is one of the detectives goes to a seminar at Bod Technologies talking and and explaining DNA and how
00:28:13
they can collect it, DNA evidence and what how they can use it to to solve these crimes. And what he said was this
00:28:21
was Captain John Langford and he he went and attended this talk simply to learn more to educate himself because he
00:28:29
thought, well, how could I apply it to some of our old cases like Angie's case and others other cases? Well, he learns
00:28:36
a lot during this talk and he comes back and he he approaches Ed and says, "Look,
00:28:41
Detective Copelan, we we might want to consider Bod or some of the information that I have recently learned in this
00:28:50
case because we're just not getting anything with the testing that we're doing here." And that's not anybody's
00:28:55
fault. It was just the technology at the time. Captain Langford credits Detective
00:29:02
Copelan for having the brilliant because you can't just take in this case the item one of the items that they were
00:29:11
testing was her underwear. The underwear that was recovered, remember it was torn, not
00:29:17
cut. Some articles in news reports say that it was cut. It was torn. And they're you can't just take that
00:29:25
whole article of clothing, throw it under a light, and then they go, "Well, we found DNA here, here, and here. Now,
00:29:32
let's test it." No, they they're they're testing small little pieces of that article of clothing. And every time you
00:29:40
do that, you you're running the risk of destroying evidence. You're also running
00:29:43
the risk of I mean I mean, you're testing this stuff over and over again. That doesn't it's not free. And so,
00:29:50
Captain Langford credits Detective Copelan, both the two who' worked this case for many, many years, where
00:29:56
Detective Copeland said, "No, if you can only test a small piece of this article
00:30:01
of clothing, let's test right here. Let's test right here." And that's where they end up finding the suspect DNA. And
00:30:09
what's what's interesting about this is it's a complicated crime scene. Again, it's an outdoor crime scene. Lots of
00:30:15
debris. Some of this debris may have physical evidence tied to the crime. Some of it may just be happen stance
00:30:22
that it's there. Yeah. But a lot of items. There's sometimes where you find a victim and
00:30:27
there's no items. The great part of this evidence is that this DNA is collected from an item that
00:30:33
belonged to the victim. It was found on the victim or with the victim. the person that that it leads you to when
00:30:41
they get the onetoone comparison on the fingerprint, it matches his index finger.
00:30:48
Bingo. Boingo. Got him. Got him. What a piece of [ __ ] Well, this guy is Yes. He's an He's an
00:30:56
extra-lar piece of [ __ ] with a side of gravy. This is His name is Earl Cox. Mazan.
00:31:04
Earl Cox. Yeah. and he was he had been a sex offender for a very long time. The short
00:31:10
and not so sweet of it, as one of the detectives put it, was this is a man who had
00:31:18
mistreated girls and women his entire life. Never been nice to a girl or a woman. In fact, spent a lot of his time
00:31:26
the time that that he was out, he was abusing and raping females. He was born in St. Louis, Missouri. He graduated
00:31:35
high school in se in 1975 and then he enrolled in the United States Air Force. While he was in the Air Force, he gets
00:31:42
in trouble when he's stationed over in Germany and he gets dishonorably discharged. Not just discharged, but he
00:31:49
gets sentenced to go serve out a prison sentence in Fort Levvenworth prison in Kansas for sexually abusing several
00:31:57
girls, young girls, while he was stationed in Germany. Now, well, good for them cuz we've we've also heard
00:32:04
about cases where they get discharged and they try to sweep that under the rug. So, at least they followed through
00:32:11
with charges and followed through with him serving time for those crimes. So, he gets locked up. The detectives said
00:32:18
that getting the detailed information from the mil military on all of that information was was difficult. So, they
00:32:26
didn't want to comment on those charges and what he was locked up for to a great
00:32:30
extent, but just know that he was locked up for several years for some pretty nasty stuff.
00:32:37
And then once he is released, he sexually abused these two little girls that he was in charge of babysitting.
00:32:46
Okay, this is a grown man, you know, he graduated in 1975. These charges come from the late8s.
00:32:56
We said we've said it before and and it's just true. So I'll say it again. Grown men normal grown men do not want
00:33:03
to hang out with your kids. No, they don't want to. Especially if they're kids nor Well, the
00:33:10
key word in that sentence was normal. Normal grown men do not want to hang out your with your kids. Especially if
00:33:16
they're not kids that that they don't know, right? He's babysitting some lady's kids. He's doing that because
00:33:23
it's an opportunity for him, right? It's an opportunity for him. Normal grown men want to be out on the golf
00:33:29
course. They want to be drinking a beer with their buddy. They want to be watching a football game or sitting in
00:33:33
the garage and having a beer with their buddy. All right, we're sorry. We're a selfish gender. This is a guy who's
00:33:40
taking advantage of a situation. These poor girls, we won't get into any details here. I I can report that they
00:33:48
grew up to be happy people, normal people. So there's the silver lining there, but they I mean, you want to talk
00:33:56
about survivors. Yeah, they were he abused them for a year and a half approximately. Could wink the mom
00:34:03
into letting him babysit time and time again. Meanwhile, when she's gone or being absent, whatever, he's an absolute
00:34:11
monster to these these tiny little kids. He was living in the area very near Angie's bus stop, very near Angie's home
00:34:19
at the time of her abduction and murder. It's the what the best that they could put together. He does plead guilty
00:34:26
ultimately to this, but he doesn't offer up any great detailed confession. And often times what we see here, Captain,
00:34:35
when these bad guys do talk, they lie to minimize either their involvement or or
00:34:42
minimize what kind of monster they really are. His confession says something like, "Oh, I I happened to be
00:34:49
driving through that neighborhood and I had some kind of vehicle trouble, so I stopped stopped to to to
00:34:55
diagnose a problem and this this little girl comes up to me and she engaged me in conversation." Now, now that doesn't
00:35:02
seem outside of the realm because we we do we talked about her personality, but this doesn't his confession doesn't ring
00:35:10
true. He says that that she said she was cold and hungry, so he was kind enough to put her in his car and take her to go
00:35:18
get something to eat, some fast food, but Oh, then he magically decides, I'm going to take her
00:35:23
home and terrorize her. Oh, also, uh, how did you you never told anybody how you fixed your car or what was wrong
00:35:30
with your vehicle? Yeah. See, if if if these individuals confess multiple times, and I'm not
00:35:35
saying he did, but when they the monsters do confess multiple times, I tell people the one the confession you
00:35:42
should believe is the one where he's the worst. Yeah. He he doesn't confess multiple
00:35:46
times. What happens in this case is he pleads guilty. The judge, this is how it was explained to me from the detectives.
00:35:54
The judge is telling him, "Well, you have to give a confession." He refuses to do so. So, the judge is asking him
00:36:02
questions in the courtroom. He's saying yes or no and then offering a little bit
00:36:06
of information along the way till the point where they got to the point where they're I mean, look, the guy did it.
00:36:13
It would be helpful to to have some of that information, but at the end of the day, the guy did it. You got the right
00:36:18
guy. Yeah. Yeah, I question that though, like in these cases where there's not a
00:36:23
detailed confession, is it is it better or worse? I mean, obviously, as far as a
00:36:29
law law enforcement uh and and sometimes the family wants to know those details, I think the details
00:36:36
would only help with law enforcement or correct further investigation or further
00:36:42
studying these sick individuals. But other than that, like I don't know if I necessarily need all the details.
00:36:51
The reason why they were trying I think that they were trying to pry this out of
00:36:56
him with such force is look how long the investigation took and how much effort was put into it, how many different
00:37:04
suspects they had over the years. Plus, right, there was always thought that it was
00:37:08
tied to other crimes. And then you find a guy that you know committed other crimes. If you can get him to give a
00:37:14
detailed confession on this, what other detailed confessions will he offer? What
00:37:18
other cases could you close out? Um, what other information could you glean from this? The
00:37:24
Well, this monster might understand that that's what they're doing. The more details I give them, the more that they
00:37:32
possibly can link me to another crime. The problem with with Cox here is that he Earl Cox was going to be stuck in
00:37:39
prison for the rest of his life anyway by the time they caught up to him. So, he was This is one thing the detectives
00:37:46
said that they they take mild satisfaction in this because this guy was such a monster.
00:37:54
he was always mistreating, harming, raping women and girls. That the only satisfaction they could take out of this
00:38:02
was that he spent very little amounts of his adulthood walking around free out. That's because he was such a monster
00:38:12
that he'd get out and then I got to commit another crime. There's something that's very
00:38:20
It's not satisfying. It's not satisfying when you're like, "We got him." Oh, but he's already in prison and he's
00:38:27
already he's already planning to spend his life in prison. So, even if you get give him another life sentence or
00:38:35
whatever, you it's almost like you feel like he's getting no punishment for this crime.
00:38:41
True. Doesn't it feel a little It's not It's not as satisfying where when you hear the guy is caught and he's
00:38:51
sentenced to 120 some years in prison. He's never going to get out. Yeah. So, he was already never going to
00:38:57
get out from the way that I understand it because he was picked up in 2002 2003. The conviction may have been in
00:39:04
2003, but he was so he's only out for 10 years after he killed Angie. and he moved around a little bit during that
00:39:13
time, but he's ultimately picked up in some type of sting operation where he's meeting an underageed girl. He gets
00:39:20
picked up in that and then when they when they go to jumped out. Gotcha. where he's living,
00:39:27
they find over 40,000 images of child sex abuse material. And given his background and his history,
00:39:38
um, he was due to be released from those charges in I believe it was 2012, but they under Adam Walsh pro so sorry under
00:39:49
the Adam Walsh Child Protection and Safety Act of 2006, he was deemed to be a threat, a sexual a
00:39:58
sexually dangerous person. And so he was going to be committed for the rest of his life. They they they deemed him to
00:40:05
be unfit to live amongst the rest of us. So he was sent off to federal prison and actually serving time
00:40:14
in North Carolina. That is when they traced this DNA to him and then the fingerprint to him as well.
00:40:24
And like you said, it's um it's a victory, but it it's one that never feels good and it's never going to feel
00:40:31
good. We can't bring Angie back. We can't take away what happened to her. The the
00:40:38
monster died in prison. He was pronounced dead in December of 2024. Does it say what he died of? Hopefully,
00:40:47
he suffered a little bit. The information I have says he died of natural causes and that was one of his I
00:40:55
his health was declining. I before he it seems like his health was in decline for
00:41:00
for many years leading up to this. So if there were some complications that I'm unaware of. But yes, Earl Cox, one of
00:41:10
the worst people monsters that we've ever covered and he died last year at the end of last year.
00:41:19
I wish I would I wish I would have been able to light him on fire and put him out with a shovel. Thank you to the
00:41:25
detectives that helped us with this week's story. The officers voices that you heard played throughout these three
00:41:31
episodes in order of appearance are Detective Mickey Morris, St. Charles County Police Department, Detective
00:41:38
Lieutenant Ed Copelan, St. Charles County Police Department, and Captain John Langford, St. Anne Police
00:41:46
Department. All three lived, worked, and helped to finally close out this case. Detective Mickey Morris was brought on
00:41:53
the case after years of investigation as the other detectives were nearing retirement. Detective Lieutenant Ed
00:42:00
Copelan and Captain John Langford both put in over 20 years on this case. Ed Copelan responded to the scene where the
00:42:08
little girl was found. It was only through their great work that this case was finally solved. Thank you to all the
00:42:16
dedicated members of law enforcement who worked this incredibly difficult case throughout the years and who helped to
00:42:22
get justice for a little girl. Angie Hman, who was stolen away from her family that loved her and a community
00:42:29
that prayed for her. Before we were done talking with Detective Mickey Morris, we
00:42:34
asked her what closing this case meant to the community, the officers, and the departments that worked the case, and if
00:42:41
she remembers how she felt when she first learned of the news that the case had finally been solved. This is what
00:42:50
she had to say. Angie, oh my gosh, it's about like like I'm behaving now. It was just Thank you, Jesus. Oh my
00:43:00
goodness, that poor little girl. And her mom had passed, which was just heartbreaking that uh her mom had passed
00:43:07
before they figured out who it was. But it was just it was so important for us or I guess for us to show Angie that we
00:43:19
never stopped never stopped fearing that she deserved someone to be held accountable for the horrific way that
00:43:26
she died. and just jubilation just yay finally. And then when you see him it's just like ooh well no doubt that poor
00:43:38
girl that made it even worse. So it was we were all incredibly happy. Oh my goodness. There was some pride I
00:43:47
think but there was more a grateful that no more children were going to be hurt by this so and I was grateful for
00:43:57
Angie that we identified it that she mattered you know that that she mattered enough that we could help her. Proud
00:44:04
that I could contribute for certain. But when all of this was over as you said it
00:44:09
was such a collective effort of so many dedicated people. We just I just happened to be in the last bunch. Um but
00:44:18
yeah, that was probably one of the most gratifying experiences of my entire career. That to retire right after that
00:44:25
happened was just beyond perfect timing. Nick, if you had just been a person here
00:44:32
that lived here and doing your podcast, even if you had all the research that you have now, you would not be able to
00:44:40
stop thinking about this until it was solved. You know what I mean? You you just can't
00:44:47
or it's not inherent in in most of the people I know. You know, if something this horrific happens, you just you
00:44:54
can't let it go. You're dogging about it. It It's just the way it's going to be.
00:45:01
Yeah. A lot of people that It's just That's why we're cops. That's why we do what we do cuz we're not going to stop
00:45:08
until the bad guys are are taken care of if at all possible. I'm the one who is blessed. God chose me to help the
00:45:16
vulnerable pe vulnerable people who did it or need help. And uh I hope I've contributed to that and made made a
00:45:23
difference. [Music] Want to thank you all so much for joining us here in the garage. Make sure
00:45:38
you check out our website trueimerg.com. Go to the store page. Hey, maybe you pick yourself something up so you look
00:45:45
sexy looking fresh for the summer. or sign up on our mailing list or or cover yourself up with some true
00:45:52
crime garage swag so you don't look too sexy. Colonel, do we have any recommended
00:45:56
reading for the beautiful, beautiful listeners? Yes, of course. I've referenced this
00:46:00
book in part one of our case coverage here this week in the garage. This is very easily one of the very best true
00:46:09
crime books to be released in 2023. I've recommended it before. I just read it again for the second time. It's in
00:46:19
light of all darkness inside the polyclass kidnapping and the search for America's child by New York Times
00:46:28
bestseller Kim Cross. This is available in all formats, ebook, print, Kindle, Audible. Go and pick this one up if you
00:46:38
need more true crime for your earballs because or your eyeballs because Kim Cross is a historian known for her
00:46:46
meticulously reported narrative non-fiction. The layout and the organization of this book is absolutely
00:46:52
incredible and Kim's research is much more thorough than most writers out there. That title is in light of all
00:47:03
darkness. You can find that title and many other great recommendations on our recommended page. Go to true
00:47:09
crimegar.com now. And until next week, be good, be kind, don't litter. [Music]