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Tails hey I'm Travis Kelce and I'm here to tell you that you can get every touchdown from every game on Sunday
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afternoons with NFL Red Zone from NFL Network included in sports pack on Direct TV so you'll never miss a big
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directv.com [Music] [Applause] welcome to True Crime garage wherever you are whatever you are doing thanks
00:01:42
for listening I'm your host Nick and with me as always as a man that thinks the easiest job in America is an Amish
00:01:49
electrician he is the captain hold on one second I have to wire this candle it's good to be seen and it's good to
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see you thanks for listening and thanks for telling a friend [Music] today we are drinking cast iron oatmeal
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00:03:17
and click on the Donate button and a little announcement from Parts Unknown there will be a party to celebrate the
00:03:24
Browns perfect season so give it up for the Browns I think Hugh Jackson is jumping in Lake Eerie ow and 16 baby hey
00:03:33
uh nothing but up for next year all right that's suppressing everybody gather around grab a chair grab a bunch
00:03:39
of beers let's talk some true [Music] crime [Music] uh shortly after my brother Edward came
00:04:16
missing I kind of cluded in the police chief of Crawford County that there was somebody going around saying that we'll
00:04:25
never find Edward that we need to quit looking and then we tried to push for the phone records early on and he was
00:04:33
missing in April so when we pushed for the phone records it was immediately and we were kind of told that there was
00:04:40
nothing we could do and then in August Deacon's place got graded for a tip or something and they found multiple pot
00:04:50
plants uh 31 all over the house outside everything Deacon was still never arrested after that he kind of fled and
00:04:59
he fled to Colorado and I emailed him and I asked him I said is my brother with you and he said in his email um
00:05:08
some people live Fuller as ghosts along with some other things but he had said I
00:05:13
gave that to detectives and I gave that to the um police chief uh September we finally got Edward's records and Deacon
00:05:21
was the last vo call in December 2016 I begged the sheriff to look into to Deacon and I
00:05:29
told him you can have this stuff growing on his property why is he still out there why
00:05:33
is he back why is he not arrested nothing and the fact that Edward West Deacon W Edward's last phone call they
00:05:41
told me that because of where the plants were there was nothing that they could do come to find out the plants were
00:05:48
right in the middle of his property within a couple yards from my brother um nothing was ever done it went
00:05:56
on and it went on until the fall of 2017 when the new chief of Crawford asked to bring on a different
00:06:07
task force and that being Franklin County and when they brought on Franklin County within I don't know a couple days
00:06:15
of be talking to one detective in September I found my brother in less than 20 days so I was always told from the
00:06:27
beginning two things can't do nothing on he day or they didn't have enough to bring him in for a
00:06:34
[Music] requesting 28-year-old Edward Hillhouse was last seen leaving his sister's house
00:06:52
in Bourbon Missouri back in April of 2016 now we had two local agencies investigating this missing person's case
00:07:02
the local police department and the Crawford County Sheriff's Office well after a Changing of the Guard after the
00:07:08
chief and the sheriff retired and we brought in some new leaders maybe some better leaders one might think this
00:07:17
investigation took a turn and this was when a vice squad was brought in to launch a new
00:07:24
investigation we have This Confidential informant that emerges and I guess well we shouldn't say emerges because this
00:07:31
person has really been there all along this is a person that Edward's sister Kayla had told investigators early on to
00:07:39
talk to this person and you heard her just in that trailer there now regarding the confidential informant and the
00:07:45
information that this person may have provided to law enforcement we can gather this according to the probable
00:07:51
cause statement filed in the Crawford County prosecutor's office the informant connected to the investigation told
00:07:58
authorities that Deacon J zelch admitted to killing Edward Hillhouse by shooting
00:08:04
him in the head with a 22 caliber rifle back in April of 2016 the witness told authorities with
00:08:12
the multicounty narcotics and violent crimes unit remember this is the vice squad that was brought in yeah he told
00:08:20
them that on the day after Edward Hillhouse went missing so this would be April 27th 2016
00:08:30
that he had went to the house and he had seen the body of Edward Hill housee on the couch in the home of Deacon zelch
00:08:36
well and the Rumor then was that he shot Edward while he was sleeping on the couch yeah and you know when we first
00:08:45
saw this information come out my original thought was I was trying to figure this thing out and it was this
00:08:53
you know was was this the type of situation where you know because with the mafia when they have somebody that
00:08:59
they want to kill you will hear them often times say that well the best way to do this is you you take the person
00:09:06
out to a nice dinner and then you give them a couple drinks couple glasses of wine and then you get in the car with
00:09:12
them you put them in the passenger seat you get a couple guys in the back seat and you shoot them when they're least
00:09:18
expecting it right and I I wondered here if this was in fact true was this that kind of situation where we have Deacon
00:09:28
zelch who Maybe have leading up to the murder itself if he was still acting as the friend of Edward Hill House that
00:09:39
because it didn't seem from this rumor it didn't seem to be like there was any altercation between the two of them
00:09:45
right you start questioning what the motive is yeah that they broke out into some kind of fight is this something
00:09:50
that Deacon had possibly planned and planned for days and just kind of lured him in as with using their friendship to
00:09:59
put down the guard of Edward Hill house now this witness he says that he saw the
00:10:05
body of Edward there on April 27th the following day this witness returned to Deacon's home right this time there's no
00:10:14
body there's no there's no body on the couch first of all if you're hanging out somewhere and there's a body on the
00:10:21
couch dead mhm you don't return the next day that's another thing that I question
00:10:27
here about this information do you think that there's a chance that at the time that he saw the body that maybe this
00:10:35
witness and I kept saying he he I don't even know if it's a he I think that's but I think that's what's implied from
00:10:42
what I've heard yeah so do you think that this person may not have known at the time that he was in fact looking at
00:10:48
a dead body yeah it's possible that that he just came in and maybe maybe didn't even enter the room that where the couch
00:10:57
was positioned yeah and just saw someone on the couch or or was he threatened you
00:11:04
know you know did Deacon tell him what happened and said hey look if you if you tell anybody I I'll kill you I mean
00:11:11
there was a lot of rumors in town that Deacon often bragged about killing people and has killed people also made
00:11:19
threats uh to ex wives or or not Ex-Wives but ex or baby mamas right he had a lot of kids with different people
00:11:30
yeah women that he had had relationships with and I believe that he had threatened people close to them as well
00:11:37
right let's get into this information about this backhoe on Deacon's property yeah so the following day this witness
00:11:44
returned after having seen the body on the couch the following day he returns and this time there's no body there's no
00:11:52
couch and he sees a back ho on zel's property any information on where this couch went so here's what they have the
00:12:03
witness tells them that at a later Point Deacon zelch allegedly admitted to this
00:12:09
witness that Deacon had used the equipment used the back to bury Edward Hillhouse along with the remains of the
00:12:17
couch right and other evidence in the crime I don't know what other evidence uh refers to well yeah because you got
00:12:24
to think that law enforcement is going to be looking for this gun cuz we can assume that that's the murder weapon
00:12:31
yeah yeah they're going to be looking for a 22 caliber rifle like the witness had told them about and we spoke earlier
00:12:38
about that probable cause statement well this is they're going to use this new information the the new task force that
00:12:44
is taken over this investigation as you heard Kayla say earlier they're armed with this new information that they have
00:12:52
and very quickly they're going to get a search warrant to go back and search the
00:12:56
property of Deacon zelch and this time time they're not just there looking for marijuana plants with some volunteer
00:13:03
kadaver dog they're going to go in there and they're going to search this place from top to bottom and they have this
00:13:09
information about this backhoe so they're going to have to do some digging as well well on Wednesday September 20th
00:13:18
2017 they went to the residence of Deacon zelch the property that is located on Highway J letter J outside of
00:13:27
bourbon This was um now here's the thing when you look at this search warrant Captain we see that this is now being
00:13:37
called a homicide investigation right for law enforcement yes and so now investigators searched the home and
00:13:44
after an extensive search of the property they dug up and located an unidentified body they also located a
00:13:52
couch later the deceased was positively identified as that of Edward J Hill Hill
00:13:59
House who was 28 years of age when he went missing a medical examiner ruled that hillh housee was killed by a single
00:14:07
gunshot wound to the head by a small caliber weapon yeah so what do we learn from this that that the informan is
00:14:15
telling the truth yeah at least most of it is truth yeah we we have evidence backing up this witness's statement now
00:14:24
during the investigation and upon the discovery of Edward Hill House's body the person of interest in the death of
00:14:31
Hill House well this is obviously Deacon zelch and who is he he's 40 years of age
00:14:37
from Bourbon Missouri well police issued a warrant for his arrest and in their pursuit of Deacon they announced that he
00:14:44
is to be considered armed and very dangerous and he should not be approached by anybody in the public well
00:14:52
and if you talk about deacons land for a little bit like what they were searching
00:14:57
I mean this is a bunch of shacks right the way I kind of visualize this is if you've seen True Detective season 1 uh
00:15:07
where they find nii man or whatever they call him MH um similar to that and cuz he was living off the land cuz Deacon
00:15:16
was this you know he was this mythical in his head he was a mythical Godlike creature and he was living off the land
00:15:22
and he was you know hippie but at the same time crazy and threatening people's lives and telling people he's killed
00:15:30
people and He will kill people again yeah I saw aerial photos or aerial images of the property itself and it
00:15:38
looks to me to be like a ranch like a you typical rectangle um shaped ranch right um the news referred to it as a
00:15:47
rundown dwelling it didn't look overly rundown to me from the outside but it it probably did so on the inside would be
00:15:55
my guess and but your standards are a little low lower than most people well and then what we learned from the um
00:16:04
from when they collected the marijuana plants is that there were two there were two outside structures on this property
00:16:10
there two what they refer to as two out buildings these could be simply just be sheds or or a detached garage or what
00:16:18
you like to call a mansion a mansion yeah hey can we call the show show True Crime Mansion I was like No it's it's a
00:16:27
freaking garage wake up yeah the situation is we're doing the show in the garage well once
00:16:35
they started looking for Deacon zelch it's just a matter of a few days on September 24th 2017 Deacon zelch was
00:16:43
arrested at about 1:15 p.m. now he's located in Bloomington Illinois arrested on the warrant for the
00:16:52
alleged murder yeah it sounds like he was taken in without incident they didn't list any any type of altercation
00:17:00
with him uh but Deacon zel's connection to Bloomington is not known or at least uh
00:17:07
had not been reported well like we said his father knows law enforcement is it possible that he was tipped off I mean
00:17:15
when they found marijuana plants all over your property you fled town so now that they're digging on your property
00:17:23
it's likely that he was uh fleeing Town yeah I I tend to agree with you when when they found the marijuana plants it
00:17:31
sounds like he took off to Colorado right and then he may have caught wind somebody may have called him maybe even
00:17:38
his father called and said hey they're digging on your property yeah I mean maybe
00:17:43
he caught win or he blew wi I'm not really for sure he may not have fled though I mean the the arrest report
00:17:51
states that he was arrested at a residence in Bloomington Illinois it may just be as simple as he went up there
00:17:57
and was staying with somebody that he knew somebody yeah um and maybe the person wasn't comfortable stating that
00:18:03
they know this person who's wanted for murder so they the news is convenient and says uh you know he's arrested
00:18:09
without incident and the the connection to Bloomington is unknown now he he was later extr extradited to Missouri and
00:18:20
Deacon zel was charged in Crawford County for the marijuana plants finally charged for that I mean you're talking
00:18:27
about a that thing was 13 months old and then charged for the murder of Edward Hillhouse as well MH and he was also
00:18:35
charged with armed criminal action of course that's going to be involved with the murder case there and he is being
00:18:43
held at Crawford County Jail on $1,145 th000 cashon bond that's cold Hard Cash that's what you strapped to
00:18:54
somebody if you don't ever want them getting out before they can go to trial well I like when law enforcement does
00:19:01
this I mean hit you know a lot of people go well what you got to charge them with
00:19:04
the marijuana plants for you know he's going to be charged with murder well you you tack on every charge so even if the
00:19:13
as you're collecting evidence so you can go to trial you're holding this loser's
00:19:18
ass in prison on a different charge yeah you you slap them with everything you can and you see which one sticks now
00:19:26
Captain the obvious question here is why did it take a separate law enforcement agency to break the case open big enough
00:19:33
that Edward's body is finally recovered and an arrest is finally made now Kayla his sister believes that her brother's
00:19:40
case was covered up as an act of public corruption she says this is not only because of the lack of movement early on
00:19:48
in the case but of course also because Deacon zelch is the son of Vernon zelch a Crawford County Sheriff's deputy yeah
00:19:56
and this is just not going to be Kayla's Theory this is actually going to be the
00:20:01
the detective that became the chief he actually believes that and in the rumors that he heard was how uh Deacon's father
00:20:09
was snooping around and looking into EV evidence and there was a bunch of rumors
00:20:14
in town that his his father was his main thing was trying to find that gun well if Kayla is right this means that for
00:20:22
over you know for about a year and a half the Crawford County they were keeping this secret yeah and okay so
00:20:30
let's talk about Vernon zelch here for a little bit now I before I get any people
00:20:36
calling me out and saying you know he wasn't a deputy he was a police officer um I want to be clear about this it's a
00:20:43
little confusing as far as his career goes because I have information stating that he had worked for both of these
00:20:52
agencies at one time or another so now Vernon zelch has a website out there um and I believe it might be Vernon z.com I
00:21:03
don't know but yeah I thought it was uh I have ugly kids with weird beards.com but according to Vernon's website he is
00:21:11
a police officer that works to pay for his farming hobby um he now keep in mind this website was
00:21:20
last updated in 2012 uhhuh um but it states that he served as the assistant chief of the
00:21:27
department for 25 years so we're talking about if his website is correct we're not talking about just some lowlevel cop
00:21:35
you know we're talking about somebody that's that's higher up in the r me that in the nicest
00:21:40
way I mean it exactly the way that I said it um it seems that his true love is farming hunting and his tractor um
00:21:50
Vernon zelch raises beffo what I didn't misspeak there he raises be okay I I have a farm okay you
00:22:00
know what I raise what's that slim gems there you go okay well be is like half cattle half bison okay sounds delicious
00:22:10
I raise a thing called a let's move on from this all right well at times he had been a reoccurring guest
00:22:19
host on two different radio shows and I don't know if this is still current but as of 2012 Vernon zelch had penned a
00:22:27
monthly column for the solivan Independent News so this is a person that is well known around town uh not
00:22:36
only has influence because of his career being in law enforcement right but also
00:22:42
has influence as a farmer as somebody that's a radio personality as someone that's Penning a monthly column in the
00:22:51
local news so this this is a guy that has a lot of influence amongst town but Deacon's not his only son right correct
00:22:59
so we have Deacon zelch and we have his brother Wyatt zelch yeah and the two of them could never seem to stay out of
00:23:07
trouble uh they were you know we have this respected Lawman and then we have his troublemaking sons yeah they weren't
00:23:14
like the Dukes of Hazard just the good old boys these were just pieces of [ __ ]
00:23:20
well the always causing some harm the the crazy thing here is that shortly after this case broke after they
00:23:29
recovered the body of Edward and made the arrest on zek and zel Deacon zelch mhm sorry about say that pretty zek and
00:23:37
zelch five times fast go they interviewed Wyatt zelch the brother and he had just been recently released from
00:23:44
prison he did a stint there for drugs and theft right and his interview and I know you've seen this Captain it's it's
00:23:54
strange to put it politely he's basically he's outside side and he's smoking a cigarette and he's talking
00:24:01
about his family right and the big question like we were talking about before is what the hell is his motive
00:24:08
what the hell is Deacon's motive I mean it seems like everybody even even uh Edward's sister says look these were
00:24:17
friends you know and yeah Deacon's this horrible dude but Edward's at least his friend so what's his motivation and so
00:24:26
that's what they're asking Deacons brother yeah and Wyatt basically says we're all lunatics everyone every last
00:24:33
one of us the whole goddamn family right we're all lunatics and he says this he said it's the the person you don't see
00:24:43
is the doct and jaal and Mr Hyde Persona and he says that his father has that his
00:24:49
brother he has that his sisters his mother the whole family he says the whole damn family are not nice people we
00:24:56
were not raised to be nice we were raised to be mean and hateful people he also told reporters that he has no doubt
00:25:06
that Deacon killed Edward he also stated when talking about Deacon that he didn't
00:25:12
know if there was any good left and Deacon and he thought that that probably was lost and had lost that a long time
00:25:20
ago yeah he was directly asked if his father Vernon zelch could be involved in a up to cover up this murder
00:25:29
investigation and Wyatt said while he has no doubt that Deacon killed Edward he's not certain about any type of cover
00:25:38
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touchdown from every game on Sunday afternoons with NFL Red Zone from NFL Network included in sports pack on
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Direct TV so you'll never miss a big moment hey we kind of shared a big moment learning about all this great
00:27:36
football on Direct TV didn't we I know I'll never forget it stop compromising get Direct TV with or without a
00:27:43
satellite when you visit [Music] directv.com [Music] all right we're back cheers me matey
00:28:07
cheers to you captain from the other side of the garage other side of the Mansion the
00:28:12
Mansion yeah uh New Year hopefully new Nick that's my resolution that's funny all right so we need to look into we
00:28:23
need to explore did Vernon zelch interfere with with the investigation in any way and for this I think we should
00:28:32
introduce Somebody by the name of Amanda zelch who is she she is Deacon zel's ex-wife and she herself she questions
00:28:40
why absolutely nothing turned up in the investigation for approximately 17 months and as for her thought about her
00:28:49
ex-husband Deacon she said deacons sometimes threatened her yeah she feels he is capable of murder saying that he
00:28:58
once wrote in a letter to her and a friend of hers that if it was not for their daughter that he would have filled
00:29:05
that hole with their bodies well is this the one that at some point dink uh Deacon dickan whatever you want to call
00:29:17
him super glued one of his sons and his wife to ad door I don't have any knowledge of that
00:29:27
that was a rumor that I heard that he had super glued the son and his ex-wife to
00:29:34
adore yeah I mean this is this is a real animal here right but when you say that
00:29:40
you're saying it it's not like oh we were goofing around no and you know superglue somebody to the door you're
00:29:47
saying this is like he was malicious he was punishing somebody for something who
00:29:52
knows yeah right and he superglues these people to adore well well listen to this
00:29:58
though because you had hinted about something earlier and this is where I think that that hint and that
00:30:05
information comes from regarding Vernon zelch what he did after Deacon was arrested Amanda said that she found this
00:30:15
strange of course and I think anybody would find this strange she said that Vernard had come to her house and she
00:30:21
asked Amanda if Deacon had given her any guns yeah she told Vernon that that he did that he had given her a gun now
00:30:33
Vernon immediately asked her if it was a 22 caliber gun to which she told Vernon
00:30:39
it was not it was a 20 gauge she said that upon Him hearing that it was a 20 gauge that Vernon zelch
00:30:47
seemed to be relieved that it was a 20 gauge and not the 22 caliber that he was asking about right of course we know
00:30:56
this to be the the same caliber with which Edward had been killed now Amanda zelch said maybe Vernon was looking for
00:31:04
the murder weapon obviously she can't say for certain though right uh but Chief saterfield this is the new Chief
00:31:11
yeah I like this guy said that Vernon had done um he was talking about what Vernon had done in the past also was not
00:31:19
sitting well with him stating that he had received information early on that Vernon zelch was going around and
00:31:26
inquiring about the investigation into his son right this was reported to to the detectives superiors it is unclear
00:31:36
what they did uh with that information if anything at the time uh but it seems like the new Chief is handling that
00:31:44
information appropriately well let me put this let's pose this question right right you always want to talk about your
00:31:51
situation let's pose this poly D question right okay so whether your son is guilty or
00:32:01
innocent whether you are trying to find out if he's guilty or innocent or whether you're protecting or trying to
00:32:09
protect this person aren't your actions going to be the same on some level you know you have this kid that went
00:32:20
missing there's rumors around town that your son is involved and you worked high level law enforcement in this town
00:32:30
for years this person's not going to call around they're not going to pick up the phone start asking some of their
00:32:36
connections what's going on okay so that that's that's the problem here in my opinion that's that's
00:32:45
where it makes it very hard to say what were the intentions of Vernon zelch right was was his intentions to
00:32:53
hide what his son had done or was his intentions to just simply find out what his son had done yeah because some of it
00:33:01
is that okay first of all he's on the right side of the law for years 25 years something like that right his both of
00:33:14
his sons are on the opposite side of the law that doesn't necessarily mean that their father is evil and yes you have
00:33:21
now this guy that's in prison that gets out of prison his other son what's that dick Face's name Wyatt Wyatt and Wyatt's
00:33:30
going the whole family's crazy we're bunch of lunatics right well speak for yourself you're the one that was in jail
00:33:39
your father was in law enforcement there is no record or evidence that this guy is a corrupt cop there's no as far as I
00:33:51
could tell this guy has served and protected his community and again maybe there's some rumors that he was a shady
00:34:00
cop I don't know I I just couldn't find those so I just want to pose that you know as much
00:34:07
as cop conspiracies they're interesting they're fascinating any conspiracy is right but you know you got to play both
00:34:15
sides of the coin and and and again it could have him it could just be him trying to figure out you know or maybe
00:34:22
he thought I'm going to go ask these people and what if she said you know what I do have a gun it's 22 and what if
00:34:31
he took that gun and he turned it over to law enforcement yeah then we wouldn't be badmouth and that's all I'm saying I
00:34:38
no and I'm glad you brought that up because okay so there there's only a few um news articles on this there's only a
00:34:45
few people that covered this case and one of them and I won't mention who it is but one of them when they tell the
00:34:53
story they say that they they don't say this but they they tell it in a way that
00:35:00
seems like Vernon Deacon's father was asking about the gun the 22 caliber gun while before they even found Edward
00:35:10
Hill House right right and when I saw that and that report I was like oh my God they need to get Internal Affairs in
00:35:17
there Affairs in there right away and investigate this guy cuz he's up to no good he's trying to cover up a murder
00:35:24
committed by his son and then when I looked at other accounts of this story and these are the ones that I believe
00:35:31
both of these ones say that after Deacon was arrested is when he went to his ex uh daughter-in-law's house and asked
00:35:41
inquired about the gun which would make more sense because when you think about that maybe is it not the perfect thing
00:35:48
to do right it's not he probably should have been escorted by somebody or told officers where to go and what to ask
00:35:55
that would have been a little more more kosher in my opinion however but hear me
00:36:00
out it doesn't matter if it's before or after because if it's before yes it does
00:36:04
hold on let me explain to you why okay if it's before is it is it possible when he's
00:36:14
calling his connections and saying okay so we have this guy that we think is murdered is is it possible that he found
00:36:23
information through the cops or through his son or through rumors around town or
00:36:28
this informant that nobody is taken serious right there's rumors around town and somebody goes hey look there's this
00:36:35
rumor that your uh your son killed this boy he was laying on your boy's couch the next day there's a back ho and it's
00:36:44
probably a 22 that's why like I said what if he found the gun before they found the body and he turned it in and
00:36:53
we don't know that because the gun was never found I think that gun was I agree with I agree with what you're saying and
00:36:59
we will never know the answer to that because that's not what happened the thing here is had he was he inquiring
00:37:05
about this before Edward's body was found then there's a potential there's a potential that he potential yes he had
00:37:13
information that everyone else didn't have that he had in Insider information about the crime and he may have received
00:37:19
that information from the murderer himself right that's a possibility now hearing that it that it's after the fact
00:37:26
that was after Deacon was arrested after the body was found then I have to go you
00:37:30
know what he's not working with any information here that the rest of us didn't already know and at some point he
00:37:36
may have just said you know what there's a person you know who knows he could have been driving home from work one day
00:37:41
and said you know what something might have clicked in his mind and said you know what there's somebody we should
00:37:44
talk to in this investigation now again it would have been a little more on the up and up had he got somebody else
00:37:50
involved in my opinion right um but like you said had that gun been found we don't know what he would have done with
00:37:57
it now Vernon zelch has has denied interfering with this investigation in any way possible right again like I said
00:38:06
he has we don't have evidence of him being a flaming pile of dog [ __ ] like his sons right you don't have evidence
00:38:13
of that just because his son just because his one nutcase son said hey we're all crazy and it's Jackal and hide
00:38:19
and my dad has it too well maybe the Jackal and Hyde that he's talking about is when Jackal and Hyde what did I say
00:38:29
Jackal great band I like that band um the point is is that maybe this Jackal and hide right yeah side of his father
00:38:41
that he's talking about is every time that his sons get in trouble he gives him a little tough love he's he's in
00:38:47
their face he's being aggressive or whatever mhm like I said there's no as as what I can see there's no evidence
00:38:55
what to me points as more fishy is that you search his property you have this volunteer
00:39:03
caver dog you don't find anything but what you do find is you find guns and you find marijuana plants MH and whether
00:39:10
you're for marijuana or against marijuana that's not the point the point is is that in this part of the country
00:39:15
it's illegal and this is enough evidence to arrest somebody and they're not arrested to me that points to a
00:39:25
situation well and the other thing I don't like here is that we don't have any what I believe to be a real response
00:39:34
from the local law enforcement you know why don't they just say hey look we would have liked to have arrested Deacon
00:39:42
zelch on the marijuana charges back when we found them in August of 2016 but we couldn't because he was in Colorado and
00:39:49
we didn't know where he was you know something as simple as that rather than just nothing no information um well but
00:39:57
this is a very tough case for us cuz one we like to have multiple sources you know what I mean and in this
00:40:04
case you know this was a a listener request basically we had a few few listeners that had suggested this this
00:40:12
case to us yeah and when somebody titles the case we're all lunatics your ears go
00:40:17
what what is this all about right when you start diving into it you go well man there's just not a
00:40:24
lot of information here and that's sad you know on multiple levels but I think the main level is that you know
00:40:32
Edward seemed like a very nice person he seemed like somebody that was striving to be a good citizen good friend good
00:40:40
family member and his story is cut short by somebody that by all accounts was just not a good dude MH you know and it
00:40:49
didn't seem like he was contributing anything to society other than gluing people to doors yeah and as far as
00:40:56
Vernon zelch goes like I said he denied interfering in this investigation in any
00:41:00
way um when asked about this had you know did he do anything what was his opinions on the case right he simply
00:41:08
States you know I'm I work for law enforcement there's there's a pending trial that's going to take place here I
00:41:15
cannot give a comment and I agree with that statement he did add though that when when uh talking about Edward
00:41:23
Hillhouse and talking about Edward's family he says that he he prays for them uh every day he said that they have lost
00:41:31
a son and that he is probably going to lose one too and he prays for them both yeah and I think like I said I mean what
00:41:39
a tough place for a father to be in because look is it wrong for a father to go look I understand that my son isn't
00:41:48
doing much for society and and maybe he's a little bit of Lost Cause but to then go to the category of murder
00:41:56
and You're a murderer your son's a murderer he's going to take an innocent person's
00:42:01
life is it wrong that he was snooping around and asking questions cuz maybe he just wanted to know like he need to know
00:42:10
for his soul well and I'm I'm very curious about the actual relationship between Vernon and his two sons right
00:42:20
and I bring this up because you know I I snooped around on his website uh and looked at all the pictures he had there
00:42:28
and read everything that he had he had wrote and posted on there and he talks a lot about Vernon talks a lot about his
00:42:36
parents about his in-laws his his wife's parents he talks about his grandkids and you see pictures of of
00:42:45
these you know I know that Wyatt said they're all lunatics but the pictures of these people they look like nice people
00:42:51
to me right and the way that Vernon speaks about these people seems like there's a real relationship
00:42:58
there between Vernon and the people that he talked about on his website who was missing from that website was the two
00:43:05
sons right it's almost like I mean you you read this website and you see these pictures and you wonder where these
00:43:11
grandkids came from because there's no mention of of Sons of sons at all and and maybe you there a Christmas miracle
00:43:20
yeah we baby's on the doorstep but uh we you know and then we talk about whyatt makes reference to his sisters there's
00:43:27
no mention of the sisters either so maybe maybe that's just something he didn't include on his website or maybe
00:43:32
there's no relationship there now well and look you could be a very good cop and be a bad father you could yeah that
00:43:40
happens all the time you know you know you know it's like teachers you know my sister's a teacher and you know
00:43:48
she always says you know the thing that she feels bad about is she gives so much
00:43:52
attention and love to these 30 some kids every day and then when she gets home sometimes she's just exhausted MH and so
00:43:59
she feels like sometimes she's a little neglectful to her children you know so you see this all the time you know where
00:44:06
maybe he's like and also cops especially in these small towns might be working way too many hours and way too too much
00:44:15
overtime and they're just not there and then they feel some inner guilt or some responsibility that maybe if they spend
00:44:23
a little more time that maybe if they played little more catch right maybe if they check the homework a little more
00:44:30
that their their kid isn't going to grow up and glue people to doors well the and
00:44:35
shoot people the other thing though too is if and I don't know if he's a good cop or a bad cop I really have no proof
00:44:42
of this either way but let's say if Vernon if Vernon zelch is a good cop well then he might want to distance
00:44:53
himself from his law breaking Sons right you know this this could be very embarrassing on several levels it's
00:45:00
heartbreaking as a father but as a police officer it's embarrassing yeah and you know okay so here's one thing
00:45:08
that I do want to mention and and I heard this put better years ago than what I'll probably put it now but I know
00:45:15
a uh police officer very good uh cop who's had a great career in law enforcement MH and he has um a son that
00:45:25
has broken the law several times and has been rather embarrassing let's say to his
00:45:31
father and this man I've seen him on more than one occasion you can tell that there's inner turmoil there for him that
00:45:40
he questions himself as a father and as a man for having a son that breaks the law when he is in fact somebody working
00:45:48
in law enforcement right and somebody else told this man you know even the best mechanic in town
00:45:56
his car breaks down on the highway sometimes yeah good analogy I like that and I that I think means something that
00:46:04
should mean something I know that to this man it made him feel better about his situation that could just be the
00:46:10
situation that we have here with Vernon zelch now before we move on from the zelch family too much we did talk about
00:46:18
Deacon's ex-wife Amanda I I want to make sure that I include this before we move
00:46:23
on from her when she spoke reporters not only did she say that she believed Deacon is capable of murder and passed
00:46:30
along those threats that he had made to her and some of her friends she also passed this along saying that Deacon had
00:46:38
sent her a letter in September of 2016 so one year before they found the body of Edward Hillhouse and in this letter
00:46:47
Deacon had wrote cryptically of what lies below the fields of my favorite back roads and of people feeding his
00:46:57
Gardens so once again we see these these weird tellings where he's almost telling
00:47:02
people that he's killed and buried some yeah he did this with Edward's sister Kayla as well was just weird cryptic
00:47:09
again though I mean this guy thought he was some Godlike character mhm you know so it's just he's it's a real piece of
00:47:19
work now when I did get the chance to speak with Kayla and we were talking about the Vernon's relationship ship
00:47:26
with her with his sons Kayla had an opinion on this and her opinion was that Deacon was the quote unquote favorite
00:47:34
son that that Vernon had protected him that he was kind of always a bad guy he was always kind of involved in wrong
00:47:42
things and it is of her belief that that he that Vernon has kept Deacon out of trouble and when I asked her regarding
00:47:50
well what about Wyatt you know he's he's known to have gone to prison for drugs and for theft and she said that the
00:47:56
relationship was not the same with Vernon and Wyatt that if if Wyatt got in trouble Wyatt had to to take the
00:48:04
punishment with for whatever he did now we said Kayla had done everything in her power to help find her
00:48:11
brother to help the investigation as she has publicly stated that in her opinion
00:48:17
the facts are this this is a simple as this a deputy son killed her brother and she feels like it was a coverup she told
00:48:25
reporters she wants anyone who may have withheld Justice to be held accountable and she is grateful to the Franklin
00:48:33
County uh for that squad for that unit for getting involved and finally solving potentially solving this case now some
00:48:42
officers including the former bourbon police chief argued that they did make some attempts to find her brother that
00:48:50
they did make attempts to find Edward giving the example of the cab dogs that were used to search the
00:48:57
property the thing here though Captain is it's very unclear to what may have motivated this murder to me it looks
00:49:07
like we have a guy that's extremely guilty Deacon zilch we we have a witness putting the body in his residence and
00:49:14
then it's later located on his property I see no question of guilt here in my mind the question I have is what the
00:49:20
heck is the motive yeah so the the hearsay in this story is this is kind of what happened like I
00:49:28
said this is here say they're going to try to prove some of this in court taking us through from when um at the
00:49:34
beginning when Edward went missing yeah so Edward was going to meet somebody it's not clear if it's going to be two
00:49:40
individuals or one but he did meet up with two individuals they drove around for a while it's not clear of what they
00:49:48
were doing obviously friends with Edward he gets a call the call makes him upset for
00:49:56
whatever reason they end up going to a convenience store or gas station um where he is then picked up by
00:50:02
Deacon they go back to Deacon's house the four of them are just the two of them or do we know no just Deacon and
00:50:09
Edwards okay so so Edward is there and like we said now what we do know from or what we can assume that happened was
00:50:20
that at some point uh he either fell asleep or he was on the couch that's where he was shot with the
00:50:26
22 but now for motives the again this is hearsay but what he has told law enforcement the rumors are that he has
00:50:36
changed his story three times the first one being that maybe there was an argument or something happened but he
00:50:43
just snapped now I'd argue if there's that much pot on the property right what other drugs are you doing is that is
00:50:53
that a possibility or what other other drugs are being sold right and we have also look there's tons of evidence and
00:51:01
everybody and especially Middle America small towns you know I was from Richmond
00:51:07
40,000 people and you're talking about probably weekly heroin deaths yeah so is that something that was happening there
00:51:16
and he said he just snapped did he snap out of anger or did he snapped because he was on some kind of
00:51:22
drug the second reason he gave was that Edward Hillhouse worked for the mafia again this seems farfetch zero
00:51:35
right evidence that we know of makes no sense uh was he was Deacon trying to come up with some kind of
00:51:43
excuse who knows and then the third was that for whatever reason Edward was going to hurt Deacon's brother Wyatt who
00:51:52
was going to be getting out of prison for those drug charges soon right and this again this doesn't go
00:51:58
with the a lot a lot of witnesses and a lot of people that knew Edward going this is not what kind of person he was
00:52:07
you know he was a friendly person he' help anybody out so again but like I said I don't know what drugs
00:52:16
Deacon was on or wasn't on but if he was on a bunch of drugs he might have been making up a bunch of stories in his head
00:52:23
and it seemed like even if he was wasn't on drugs with everybody he built up stories in his head well and here's what
00:52:30
I can see this is what I see Captain when I see when I talk about Edward Hillhouse I see a guy a young man that
00:52:38
looks to me like he was trying to move on with his life he was trying to move forward it looked like he was you know
00:52:44
he was moving in with a friend or or taking up a new residence elsewhere yeah I wonder if he was in part moving away
00:52:51
from certain people and that wouldn't be his sister that wouldn't be his future brother in-law or their children this
00:52:57
would have been people like Deacon zelch he would have been moving away from these bad personalities somebody in in
00:53:06
bettering his life in the process from not being friends with people like that anymore now as far as motive goes why
00:53:14
would Deacon zilch kill Edward Hill House right I'll tell you the same thing I told Kayla when I spoke with her he
00:53:21
may have killed unfortunately killed her brother for we may not understand right
00:53:27
you know it was it was Kayla's words and it was the words of people in town that
00:53:32
said Deacon zelch was known for saying crazy things and doing crazy things I don't think he's crazy in the
00:53:40
sense that the law would consider him to be crazy I see what I would say is garage crazy that he's a you know he's
00:53:48
somebody that doesn't make sense he does things that are irrational but the thing
00:53:53
that makes him so dangerous he's a violent individual yeah he's a e he's an evil so yeah and he and he doesn't
00:53:59
obviously care about anybody but himself and you know I know Kayla she didn't want to hear me say
00:54:08
that so much because I know her concerns her concerns are that that Deacon is terrified of going to prison and because
00:54:17
he is rumored to around town to be this crazy guy that maybe he's going to claim
00:54:22
some kind of insanity Insanity defense and the thing here is though the problem with that is he's only crazy if he
00:54:31
didn't know what he did was wrong and proof that he knew what he did was wrong was he tried to cover it up afterwards
00:54:37
well not only did he try to you know well he did cover it up I mean he he buried Edward and then he you buried the
00:54:45
couch too yeah so you know I I think trying to prove that he's insane in court is going to be impossible and if
00:54:53
anybody buys that well they're just as you know they're just as evil and shitty as he is well and what's crazy about
00:55:02
this Captain is this will actually be um they're going to have this is going to trial and it's going to trial very soon
00:55:10
it's going to trial this Wednesday well it's today yeah yeah it's go well and is
00:55:15
that weird we just randomly decided to cover this case and he's going to trial today well and yeah he's going to trial
00:55:25
later today and the thing is I here's what I think's going to happen in this case I think that eventually Deacon is
00:55:34
probably going to plead guilty to this I mean the the the evidence has got to be
00:55:39
overwhelming uh in his guilt I don't know if it will happen today you know he'll probably push for a continuance to
00:55:46
try to maybe form some kind of case build some kind of case yeah I don't think there's any defense out there for
00:55:52
this guy he's probably going to try to plea plead guilty to this thing to get a shorter sentence is what I think's going
00:55:58
to take place but the thing here is is that it's because of Kayla it's because of the new detectives because of the new
00:56:06
sheriff because of the new police chief and Kayla's family the hill housee family that's why this case got solved
00:56:14
yeah and if it had not been for the efforts of Hill of Edward's family I wonder if this would have ever been
00:56:22
would have ever been solved and and then think about how dangerous a person like
00:56:26
Deacon zelch is to be out running around you know it see it doesn't seem so bad when we mention Bourbon Missouri a place
00:56:34
that most of us have never heard of right but think about a person as dangerous as Deacon zelch living in your
00:56:39
neighborhood yeah well like I told her I mean I talked to her first and then you
00:56:45
end up talking to her and what I told her I said the key thing that I'd like to reiterate if you didn't get it is that
00:56:56
you have a a sibling that went missing and how many missing person cases have we covered and because of his sister not
00:57:05
stopping that she was able to get answers and we're talking about years later and and one one of the cops told
00:57:14
her after a Time passed well you know cold cases normally don't get solved and it was because of her effort and you
00:57:22
know what if you have a missing person in your family and you have been trying and you've been knocking on doors and
00:57:28
you've been Gathering evidence this is proof that just you need to keep going cuz you might be able to solve this
00:57:37
[Music] case all right Colonel do we have any recommended uh yes we do on August 15th 2006 someone
00:57:59
or someone's broke into the home of Candace hilts she was murdered she was s shot six times with three different guns
00:58:07
so of course the possibility of maybe even three people having committed this horrible horrible crime now we covered
00:58:14
this case back in September of last year we covered it on September 12th and 13th
00:58:20
of last year right well Candace hilts birthday would have been last year just before Christmas and around that time I
00:58:28
was able to speak with Candace's sister-in-law this is Heather hiltz she was able to answer some of the questions
00:58:35
that we posed during our coverage of this now Cold Case some of you may remember there is a retired lieutenant
00:58:42
Robert Dodd of the local sheriff's department that was not only involved in the murder investigation but has also
00:58:49
been suspected by some as maybe having been involved in Candace's murder something you and I certainly took a
00:58:57
look at and I know you and I have some suspicions of our own when it comes to this case now having spoke to to Heather
00:59:07
it is very obvious and rightfully so that the hilts family have they've not received any justice and they are still
00:59:15
very heartbroken and quite angered by the lack of effort that is the investigation into their daughter and
00:59:22
sister's murder I promise the hilts family that the captain and everyone in the garage would do their best to keep
00:59:28
Candace's case and memory alive on our minds and on our hearts so if you have not yet well then please check out our
00:59:37
two episodes on Candace hilts case a case I believe could still be solved and that is episodes 140 and 141 released
00:59:46
September 12th and 13th of last year if you have listened to them already go to our blog I have added some updates in
00:59:54
some information that we received from Heather hiltz and you can do that by going to True Crim garage.com the blog
01:00:02
comes up on the main page there uh Candace hilts case and the blog with comments is on the bottom of the second
01:00:09
page just click on there to see my post and of course we want to wish the hilts family good luck in 2018 with the case
01:00:17
and may you get the justice that you deserve for everything true crime go to True Crim garage.com and there for
01:00:24
listening thanks for telling a friend thanks for sharing on social media thanks for spreading the word about the
01:00:30
garage onward and upward to the top of the pops this year in 2018 all right and until next time everybody be good be
01:00:39
kind and don't [Music] litter [Applause] hey I'm Travis Kelce and I'm here to tell you that you can get every
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