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changer [Music] welcome to True Crime garage wherever you are whatever you are doing thanks
00:01:43
for listening I'm your host Nick and with me as always is a man who still still cannot believe that the Mets
00:01:49
traded Daryl strawberry he is the Captain Save the neck for me Clark it's good to be seen and it's good to see you
00:01:57
thanks for listening thanks for town of [Music] France this week I am more than excited
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to be featuring luau by the green Geniuses down at terpin beer company in Athens Georgia this year Captain is a
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true beauty we have passion fruit orange and guava all paired with big Hops and smooth bitterness garage grade four out
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of five bottle caps and this week we are drinking cold beer thanks to our good friends right here first up a cheers to
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Jordan and Fort Payne ouch Alabama and a big special shout out to DJ and Abby next up we have Shannon in Huntsville
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Alabama and we also have Phil in benfleet Essex United Kingdom and a big we like your jib to Patrick D in Los
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Angeles California and last but certainly not least we want to give a huge very big well I guess it's all the
00:02:58
same thing right a huge huge thank you to our friend Anthony quintessenza in Bronxville New York Anthony and I traded
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phone calls and emails last summer and he helped us with the Holly branagan case and I'm very proud to say that
00:03:13
while that case still is unsolved there has been an uptick in stories covering Holly's case on the internet and we even
00:03:20
appeared on the news in Pennsylvania so a big big cheers and thank you to longtime friend of the show Anthony Q in
00:03:27
Bronxville and everybody we just met went to True Crime garage.com and they donated to this week's beer fund and for
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that we want to thank you yes so thankful for you guys joining us here in the garage also joining us on True Crime
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garage.com sign up on the mailing list give us a festar review and check out our store Page the items are going fast
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so get one today and that is enough of the beers this all right everybody gather around grab a chair grab a beer
00:03:57
let's talk some true crime [Music] Columbus Georgia in the latter part of 1977 a series of terrifying crimes
00:04:49
started to occur in the Winton District this is a small very specific area for these types of extremely
00:04:58
violent crimes to be occurring the area itself was fairly upscale compared to some of the
00:05:06
surrounding areas the sudden outburst and uptick and thefts and violence was highly unusual
00:05:15
because these crimes remain unsolved the community was on high alert the crimes were break-ins
00:05:23
robberies auto theft but also a very specific type of crime sexual assaults and the rapes and
00:05:32
murders of six elderly women the six murder victims ranged from 60 years of age to
00:05:44
89 and the sexual assaults when the victims were lucky enough to survive the attacks fit the same
00:05:52
victimology these attacks and murders were occurring in such close proximity to one another and with such rapid
00:06:00
succession the Columbus PD believed that the thief the rapist and the killer were
00:06:06
one and the same it was as if something very evil moved into this area bringing death to
00:06:16
Town the attacks which mostly took place in the middle of the night shared so many common
00:06:23
elements almost all of the victims were strangled to death with their stockings first
00:06:29
a brutal attack with strikes to the Head Andor chest and then the application of
00:06:36
a stalking pulled from the victim's drawer and wrapped two or three times around the neck twisted and pulled
00:06:45
Tighter and Tighter until the life left their eyes the murdered victims were all
00:06:51
single elderly Caucasian women forensic evidence collected at some of the murder
00:06:57
scenes told the police that the killer they sought was an African-American male due to the manner of the
00:07:05
strangulations the perpetrator was dubbed the stalking Strangler the police were having no luck
00:07:14
finding this killer of women despite an increase in Manpower and man hours despite the heightened
00:07:22
awareness and the additional patrolling and the surveillance of Winton and good oldfashioned detective
00:07:30
work just was not working this serial offender truly was a phantom in the night the investigation yielded only
00:07:40
obstacles and dead ends but then in 1978 a possible major break in the case the police chief received a letter from
00:07:52
the chairman of an organization comprised of seven white radical Vigilantes this letter was a handwritten
00:08:01
formal introduction to a group that called themselves the forces of [Music] evil
00:08:31
on September 6th 1977 a nude and lifeless body was discovered near the women's Barracks at
00:08:39
Fort Benning this is near Columbus Georgia later the victim was discovered to be 24-year-old Army private Karen
00:08:47
Hickman the victim had been beaten with a blunt object and then run over several
00:08:53
times with an automobile evidence at the scene told investigators that this woman
00:08:58
was killed elsewhere and then her body was transported and left at this location about a month later an
00:09:05
anonymous call LED authorities to her missing clothes police worked the case and had some leads early on however
00:09:13
nothing was panning out this murder at the time was considered to be a oneoff unfortunately just 10 days later the
00:09:22
stalking Strangler claimed his first victim and very quickly the authorities found themselves Neck Deep
00:09:29
in a whole other set of homicide investigations I do want to take a quick moment here to address the attack on
00:09:37
this poor woman most reports state that she was beaten and then run over several
00:09:42
times and she was killed elsewhere and I know there are many great TCG Army armchair detectives out there thinking
00:09:51
of the obvious reasons that investigators would come to these conclusions but I want to include my own
00:09:56
Theory here plus a little more sight into the victim's injuries and what was likely not found at the body dump site
00:10:05
there is one rather gruesome report out there that says that the victim was not necessarily run over I mean I guess she
00:10:14
was technically but a report suggests that that might not be the full intent of the killer this report states that
00:10:22
the evidence showed that the victim was attacked this is the beating part she was knocked on conscious and then
00:10:30
propped up like in a sitting position against a tree and then the killer drove the car into her wedging her between the
00:10:40
vehicle and the tree my guess here is that this report is probably correct a portion of the
00:10:48
body may have been run over when the vehicle was then pulling away from the tree but I am guessing due to this type
00:10:55
of specific injury and likely the lack of of what should have been a lot of blood at the scene the investigators
00:11:03
were able to very quickly discern that the victim had in fact been killed elsewhere and then moved and dumped in
00:11:10
this location I'm curious though was there evidence at the location of the missing
00:11:17
clothes that determined that she may have been killed at that location on Friday March 3rd
00:11:25
1978 Columbus Police Chief Curtis m received a letter the letter read in part dear sir we are an organization
00:11:35
composed of seven members I'm writing this letter to inform you that we have one of your Columbus women captive her
00:11:44
name is Gail Jackson since the coroner said that the Strangler is black we decided to come
00:11:52
here and try to catch him or put more pressure on you I see now more pressure is
00:11:59
needed at this point Gail Jackson is still living if that Strangler is not caught by one June
00:12:08
1978 you find Gail Jackson's body on Winnington road if he is still not caught on 1
00:12:16
September 1978 the victims will double you have until Sunday for reply don't think we are bluffing we are
00:12:26
called the forces of evil the letter was written on stationary embolized with the
00:12:31
Great Seal of the United States and the paper had United States Army printed in one corner the handwritten letter
00:12:40
claimed to be from a group of seven people calling themselves the forces of evil as you can see this letter was in
00:12:47
direct response to the information released regarding the stalking Strangler of Columbus in the winon
00:12:54
district more specifically right police announced that the stalking murders were
00:12:58
committed by an African-American offender and this group the forces of evil has spelled out their plans for
00:13:05
retaliation in this letter and sent it to police the group claimed to be made up of seven white men from Chicago as
00:13:14
the Atlantic Constitution put it the writer coily suggested to authorities that anyone could come across such
00:13:21
stationary and not to assume that he was a serviceman surprisingly enough or maybe not the writer implied a return
00:13:29
address however it was quickly determined that this address was a fake again this it makes not much sense here
00:13:38
right we have crimes happening and now we have this group of Vigilantes that are going to come in and they're going
00:13:44
to commit other crimes until the police solve that crime of the Strangler yeah and but this gives you a little bit of a
00:13:54
sense of what was going on in Georgia back in the late' 70s remember when we watch mind Hunter and leading up to the
00:14:01
Atlanta murder cases they talked about the the racial divide at the time in that area right and then on top of that
00:14:09
they were a little bit worried to there was a lot of Rumblings behind the scenes
00:14:13
on whether to say that they belied that the offender was white or black in the Atlanta case because they were worried
00:14:20
what effect that would have on the general public and this case is really just Echoes all those fears that
00:14:28
everybody had right and this this is previous we know we have the coroner who says hey there's evidence we found
00:14:34
evidence at a couple murder scenes of the stalking Strangler and we believe our offender here is an African-American
00:14:40
male this letter claims to be seven white guys that are obviously full of hate and ignorance and they are going to
00:14:49
retaliate by killing African-American women while this other killer the stalking Strangler is killing Caucasian
00:14:57
women yeah and what's group called again it's a forces of douchebags so the letter writer claims to be the chairman
00:15:05
of the forces of evil so while this letter provided a good deal of information it did not provide any
00:15:12
assistance toward the ongoing stalking Strangler investigation this stocking Strangler investigation we're not going
00:15:19
to get too much into it because it's a completely different story just keep in mind this was a huge investigation this
00:15:26
was a huge undertaking for the Police Department right a second letter was received a little more than a week later
00:15:35
this letter too contained a fake return address this letter was a little different though it was the same in the
00:15:42
sense that this letter too would be from the forces of evil and again stated that
00:15:47
a woman would be killed if police do not catch the stalking Strangler but this time the letter included a ransom
00:15:55
proposal $10,000 in return for the victim's safety this whole Gail Jackson the the
00:16:04
named victim in the letter this whole Gail Jackson thing is all sorts of bad right so first we have a rapist killer
00:16:12
of single old ladies the stalking Strangler who was terrorizing Columbus Georgia and now not connected if you
00:16:20
believe the writer of these letters right not connected to the Strangler we have a whole another series of murders
00:16:28
that are going to occur based off of these threats that are in the letters so we have what we refer to here in the
00:16:34
garage as a double whammy situation whammy whammy well no and then on top of that you have one Strangler but you have
00:16:41
these seven forces of evil guys from Chicago and as former FBI criminal profiler and I will say this until my
00:16:51
dying day friend of the show John Douglas put it this development represented everyone's worst nightmare a
00:17:00
brutal killer stalk in Columbus was horrible enough an organized and murderous vigilante reaction to it could
00:17:07
tear the community apart it's not that far of a stretch to think that possibly this forces of evil is somehow connected
00:17:14
with the KKK or white supremacy and so I think what law enforcement is scared of
00:17:20
is not only do we have the Strangler but now we have these white vigiles killing
00:17:25
black women is this going to create some kind of race Riot now one big problem right from the
00:17:31
start with this investigation they did not have a missing person matching that of Gail Jackson as stated in the letter
00:17:39
however what we do have is a woman named Brenda Gail fison who seems to have disappeared the car she was driving was
00:17:49
discovered on March 5th 1978 at the Sand Hill Bar in Grill in Columbus Georgia she was last seen on February AR 27th of
00:17:59
that same year just 6 days before her abandoned car was found her car was found abandoned
00:18:06
probably this probably did not raise a whole lot of red flags and soon it would be learned that Brenda Gail fison went
00:18:14
by several names one being Gail Jackson so now we have our link to the threat in
00:18:21
the letter about a week or so later another letter was received repeating much of what was stated in the first
00:18:28
letter however this time they stated that a woman named Irene no last name given had been abducted as well and
00:18:36
would be executed a letter received on March 27th 1978 stated that one of Mrs Jackson's arms would be broken and that
00:18:46
there would be a sharp blow to her head that caused death the author indicated that the authorities would receive a
00:18:54
telephone call to detail the location of the body meanwhile the FBI is going to get involved in this case keep in mind
00:19:03
by this point they have already been involved in the stocking Strangler investigation as said in the trailer the
00:19:11
general plan of attack in the stalking case is simple and makes a whole heck of a lot of sense the break-ins rapes and
00:19:19
murders are happening in such a confined stretch of land that if they increase Manpower and increase
00:19:27
hours you increase the police presence in that immediate area since the offender just keeps returning to that
00:19:34
same spot the idea being that you catch him in the act you catch him red-handed at some point once apprehended you can
00:19:43
hold him for the breaking and entering charge for which he was arrested and then from there any of the forensic
00:19:51
material you have collected from the previous sexual assaults and murders you can compare that to your God
00:19:58
and then charge him accordingly well this is actually very similar to what they did with the Elena Child Murders
00:20:05
where they go hey we know that the perpetrator is returning to to the scene or using in in the Lan of child murders
00:20:14
using these Bridges to dump the body so let's stake out and we'll catch them in the ACT yeah let's be there so given the
00:20:21
strategy by this point in the investigation the FBI would still be offering up resources but pretty PR much
00:20:28
reduced to more of a hands-off role in the stocking Strangler case however they will be getting involved in the forces
00:20:35
of evil case the hunt for the chairman and his six disciples right yeah so Robert K wrestler was in town and he was
00:20:46
having dinner with a friend who is the deputy director of the Georgia Bureau of Investigation gbi for short this is Tom
00:20:57
McGreevy side note El capiton uh McGreevy passed away in 2012 if you need some inspiration anyone
00:21:07
out there look him up that's Thomas McGreevy uh McGreevy spelled MCG re v y uh as Ted Theodore Logan would say he
00:21:20
is a most impressive dude wrestler says McGreevy asked him to review the letters
00:21:26
that were sent along with some voice recordings for some of the phone calls so some phone calls went to the MP's
00:21:34
desk the military police desk at Fort Benning Fort Benning is a United States Army Post straddling the Alabama Georgia
00:21:43
border next to Columbus Georgia Fort Benning supports more than 120,000 active duty military family
00:21:52
members Reserve component soldiers retirees and civilian employees on the rag wrestler agreed to help now this all
00:22:02
came about because of another great man Judson Ray Jud Ray was a shift Commander
00:22:10
for the Columbus Police Department he suggested to the Columbus Police Chief that we should get the gbi involved the
00:22:20
chief prior to this was reluctant to do so after Jud convinces the chief gbi gets involved and then through the
00:22:28
McGreevy wrestler connection the FBI's Elite serial crimes unit gets involved another side note El capiton Judson Ray
00:22:37
would go on to become FBI and working at the Atlanta field office and eventually
00:22:44
at quanico while in Atlanta he worked the Atlanta child killer case with Douglas Judson Ray is in my opinion the
00:22:53
inspiration or real life version of the character Jim Barney M Hunter Series 2 played by Albert Jones right so wrestler
00:23:04
and Douglas get to work on this case analyzing the communications from the forces of evil wrestler the senior agent
00:23:12
has the lead on this investigation also you have to wonder if in some cases with this team if someone
00:23:20
may take the lead just based off of their personal life experiences or how they may have how they may be able to
00:23:28
apply to a particular case or the profile of the offender yeah and some people don't like to take the lead in
00:23:34
cases and just sit back and give their opinions is a very good possibility here in this case this is example of such
00:23:43
wrestler was former military he was a military police at one time so this might give him a little more insight
00:23:51
into this case or the offender knowing that Fort Benning is right there that's where one of the bodies has been found
00:23:58
we have calls going to the military police desk so given his background wrestler might just be the right fit to
00:24:05
be the lead on this case the first letter received contained the Seal of the United States and had the US Army
00:24:13
printed in one corner the writer says anyone could have stolen the station area but right from Jump Street wrestler
00:24:20
and Douglas notice the choice of words in the communications specifically noting the 1
00:24:27
June 1978 and 1 September 1978 this is more military lingo as most of us would just say June 1st or
00:24:38
September 1st next we have a phone call this call is going to tell police where to find the body of one of the captives
00:24:48
of the forces of evil as the police have failed by this time to apprehend the Strangler or to pay the
00:24:56
ransom on March 30th the Fort Benning military police telephone operators received a call from a man identifying
00:25:04
himself as the chairman of the forces of evil the chairman described where Jackson's body was located 100 m from
00:25:12
Fort Benning this led mpce to the discovery of a shallow grave the body was in fact found there that same day
00:25:21
Jackson's entire face and the front portion of her skull were smashed portions of her Jawbone teeth and Bone
00:25:28
fragments were discovered at the scene her left elbow was completely dislocated according to the medical
00:25:35
examiner the cause of death was multiple blows to the Head inflicted by a heavy metal object likely A Tire Tool or Jack
00:25:44
handle simply put she died by way of savage [Music] beating this show is sponsored by better
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00:28:00
holiday weekend today it's like a Hawaiian party here in the garage with our luow beer so yes everybody out there
00:28:07
have a great and very happy and safe and wonderful Thanksgiving I make sure you spend it with the ones you care about
00:28:15
the absolute most let's go through the basics of this offender profile or their theories and thoughts as they analyze
00:28:23
some of the stuff we need to keep in mind Robert wrestler and and John Douglas of the FBI's Behavioral Science
00:28:31
unit it's had so many different names throughout the years I always stumble when it comes to to saying what unit
00:28:37
they're in um at the time when they're analyzing the first series of letters there is no
00:28:45
victim yet they've not found anybody they've not found any bodies this is one of those rare situations where we have
00:28:53
communication from a soon Tobe offender or someone who has offended but based off of the information in the letters is
00:29:01
only threatening to kill and they don't actually have a body yet so some of that
00:29:06
stuff that they were able to deduce from those Communications rather interesting here
00:29:13
and again let's get into this a little more into this offender profile here so when the chairman described the location
00:29:20
of the body Now by this point we have a phone call that describes the location of where they're going to find the first
00:29:27
body he referenced meters to supply the appropriate distance multiple times the chairman
00:29:35
referenced Vehicles so what the FBI is working with here Captain is the choice of words the
00:29:42
the choosing of using the words meters opposed to feet or yards right again this is military lingo writing one June
00:29:49
and one September instead of June 1st or September 1st the use of the word vehicle or Vehicles rather than
00:29:57
automobile car or truck wrestler and Douglas both thought this to be more military than citizens
00:30:05
speak wrestler concluded the following first he says there was no Group of Seven white racist radicals from Chicago
00:30:15
seeking retaliation for the stalking murders he felt that the sole purpose of the letters and the creation of the
00:30:23
forces of evil was to steer law enforcement in a completely opposite direction from the actual killer because
00:30:32
there was some connection between the Killer and the victim or soon to be victims Jackson was killed before any of
00:30:42
the communications this is wrestler's belief she was not abducted and then held in wait for the police to catch the
00:30:48
Strangler right she was already dead and the killer came up with this whole thing
00:30:53
post murder simply to cover up the crimes they believe that both Gail Jackson and
00:31:00
Irene were already dead there was no opportunity to save either one of them no matter what the letters
00:31:08
said the opposite of seven white guys wrestler believed would be a single black male operating alone and even
00:31:17
though he is referencing the stalking Strangler westler believed that the Strangler and the forces of evil were
00:31:23
two completely different Killers operating inde dependently of one another his profile goes on to say that
00:31:33
the offender is an enlisted man at Fort Benning he would be between 25 to 30 years of age the Killer is possibly
00:31:41
military police or an artillery man with a rank no more than a E6 rank we are looking for a man with a modest
00:31:50
education and a middle rank the coroner also concluded that the body of Gail Jackson as the caller put
00:31:59
it was in fact Brenda Gail fison and she was killed about five weeks prior to when they found her so
00:32:07
wrestler was right she was killed before any of the forces of Evil's letters started to arrive yeah before any of the
00:32:15
communication happened April 4th another call LED military police to an almost nude
00:32:23
headless body this was found behind a pile of logs at a Firing Range located on the Fort Benning property this woman
00:32:32
too was beaten to death this is just this is just downright horrible but she was she was not decapitated in the usual
00:32:41
sense she was beaten in the face and the head so badly that the head came off and
00:32:48
a lot of brain tissue was exposed skull fragments were found in the area and there was evidence that the
00:32:56
body was dragged from the nearby access road and then concealed behind this pile
00:33:01
of logs this turns out to be the body of Irene thi the the Irene named in the letters
00:33:10
and in the calls right but we had no last name provided in those Communications on Monday April 3rd 1978
00:33:19
the body of Irene theld age 32 was found near a remote Fort Benning rifle range authorities quickly learned that Irene
00:33:27
was last seen at a local bar on March 13th in the company of an African-American
00:33:34
Soldier Columbus PD and the Fort Benning CID put out all known and suspected information when making their rounds
00:33:45
questioning and looking for a possible lead in this case the profile directly led to several eyewitnesses saying on
00:33:54
separate occasions and in one victim case more than one location eyewitnesses placed Gail Jackson and Irene with a
00:34:03
soldier and because he frequented two of the local bars as did the two ladies these Witnesses could provide a name the
00:34:12
victims were seen either in the company of or leaving the bar with William Henry
00:34:17
Hance Hance joined the Marines after graduating high school in 1971 then he joined the army in February
00:34:26
of' 76 he was assigned to Fort Benning in April of 76 before that he was stationed in
00:34:33
Indiana and Hance was recently divorced his former wife Wanda says she divorced him in
00:34:40
1977 because he beat her at this time Hance is 26 years old and a specialist grade four with the
00:34:49
197th infantry Brigade and one nice thing for law enforcement when your suspect lives at a
00:34:58
US Army Post they're generally pretty easy to find yeah right so think about this Captain this is all happening very
00:35:05
quickly we have the threat of there being murder victims then eventually a call comes in that leads military police
00:35:14
to the actual victims right and from that profile and from some of the information learned about the victims
00:35:22
we're able to very easily get a really big lead in this case mhm because what that profile provides the investigators
00:35:31
when they go out and they start questioning people that may or may not have seen
00:35:36
something they're saying we have reason to believe that the suspect is 26 to 30 years old and is a soldier that really
00:35:45
jogs a lot of memories especially when you're talking about somebody who's disappeared five weeks before right so
00:35:52
this is going to lead them to this 26-year-old William Henry H so police round up Mr H and they bring
00:36:04
him in for questioning during this time the FBI is Consulting with uh psycholinguistics FBI consultant Dr
00:36:11
Murray myON now I know this is going to sound strange but I can guarantee that this is not going to be the last time
00:36:19
you hear the name of Dr Murray myON on the show MH so anyways the doctor comp comps hance's voice with the recorded
00:36:29
calls to the military police desk and states he believes it's a match m one of the witnesses told agent Richard Fox of
00:36:39
the United States Army Central Intelligence Division C that Hance was the soldier seen with Irene and stated
00:36:47
that the two left Vice Mitchell's Tavern together tape recordings of the phone calls to the Fort Benning police which
00:36:55
indicated where the body IES could be found were taken by C agent besser to hans's company Commander and First
00:37:04
Sergeant who they play these tapes and he goes yeah that's a match I think that's hance's voice on those tapes so
00:37:11
that's two of them yeah then agents Besson and fox told the commanding officer that they wanted to interview
00:37:18
Hance Hance agreed to be taken to C headquarters where he was advised of his rights and informed that the interview
00:37:27
concerned the murder of Irene theld with whom he was the last person seen Hance was advised of his fifth and
00:37:36
sixth amendment rights and he signed a written waiver waving those rights the interview was conducted from
00:37:44
about 100 p.m. until 10:20 p.m. Hance was then interviewed by the FBI in the Columbus Police for another hour during
00:37:53
the interviews Hance admitted writing the letters in making the telephone calls for the forces of evil but he says
00:38:01
he was forced to do so by the organization yeah the racist guys sounds about right yeah the next morning he was
00:38:11
interviewed again and again Hance was advised of his rights which he again waved it was in this interview when
00:38:19
faced with all of the evidence you know by this time they have had some time to collect more evidence make some
00:38:26
comparison and then present all of that evidence to hats this is the handwriting comparisons
00:38:33
voice recordings and they also found footprints found at the dump sites he when looking at all this evidence
00:38:42
goes all right I did it he confesses providing a signed written statement concerning each murder now two days of
00:38:51
interviews is stressful and maybe a bit over the top mhm but C and the Columbus PD state that throughout the two days of
00:39:02
interrogation and those are their words they chose to use the word interrogation
00:39:06
Hance was given restroom breaks food breaks coffee cigarettes and at no time did he request a lawyer or at no time
00:39:14
did he ask that the interview be terminated okay right now how much is the military involved in these
00:39:22
interrogations for the most part I believe they they were the lead on this because Irene thel's body was found on
00:39:30
their property so it is a military matter what I would think that the rules you don't don't apply as much to
00:39:39
them yeah I don't know but we have his his written statement of waving those rights so we know he's he's made aware
00:39:48
of his rights and he was told of his rights and he chose to just go along with the interview or interrogation
00:39:55
however you choose to to see it I went into that on purpose because there are some people that believe that Hance was
00:40:02
treated unfairly I can see I can see that argument yeah there's this thing called water boarding I don't know if
00:40:09
you heard of it but technically it would have been allowed during this time I mean I'm not saying that there's any
00:40:16
evidence of them doing that to him it would appear none of tactic like that was not used I mean their words are we
00:40:23
gave them restroom breaks food breaks coffee cigarettes he was he could have he could have asked for a lawyer he
00:40:29
didn't plenty of water yeah they they weren't they weren't torturing this guy I think where people call this into
00:40:35
question is the length of time that he is being I don't I don't know if I even want to use the word held because it
00:40:44
sounds to me like he had every right to just walk out of there if he chose to do
00:40:49
so well this is also where he lives I mean they're questioning him on the base which he lives right yeah and in his
00:40:57
confession Hance he's going to give some detailed information regarding these murders he stated that Jackson
00:41:05
propositioned him at the Sand Hill Bar and Grill he said the two left and got in his vehicle they only drove a short
00:41:13
distance and pulled over wait so he's claiming that she's a sex worker correct okay she began to disrobe and Hance said
00:41:21
he flipped out he started yelling and screaming at her and he grabbed her he said when she attempted to escape he
00:41:29
struck her with a karate chop across the head she fell across the door bleeding hansin pulled her out of the car
00:41:38
dislocating her elbow in the process he returned to his car he got a jack handle
00:41:44
from his car returning to her he finds Jackson still breathing right this he says surprised him so he repeatedly
00:41:54
struck the helpless victim in the face with this Jack handle the beating was so severe that Gail's entire face was
00:42:01
destroyed and Bone fragments were scattered about the area this guy has Beyond vicious some of her brain tissue
00:42:07
was literally beaten from the skull the force of the attack was so great It produced a depression in the
00:42:16
ground behind Gail's head Hance then buried Gail's body in a shallow grave he dug the grave with an entrenching tool
00:42:25
so anybody that knows military you know the little like uh I'm guessing that's one of those the folding shovels that
00:42:32
they put on in the backpacks Hance also admitted to killing Irene thi but alleged that he had lost
00:42:40
all sense of control and that his mind flipped he accepted responsibility for the murder stating that he had begged
00:42:48
God's forgiveness okay now in a very big surprise to investigators Hance also admitted to the
00:42:56
murder of 24-year-old Army private Karen Hickman remember we mentioned her at the
00:43:01
top of the show right her body was found September 6th 1977 they had some leads in that but it
00:43:09
was considered to be a one-off at the time and then when the stocking Strangler case took off they were all
00:43:15
wrapped up in that and her unfortunately her murder and that investigation kind of got lost in the shuffle so is it
00:43:23
believe that that that one happened first and then it seems like then he could control him flipping out he could
00:43:32
control himself flipping out um right and and if you want my humble garage opinion here I think that this probably
00:43:41
all stemmed with it may have started from his divorce we talk many times about uh the behavior of offenders
00:43:49
before and after a series of murders and one thing that they always point to is that there would be some kind of stress
00:43:56
something happened in this individual's life that they took it something went from being a fantasy to being a reality
00:44:03
they acted upon their their true thoughts and feelings right and this could be someone who hated women who
00:44:11
just hated women and he used to beat his wife we have a divorce and now these murders start he's beating these women
00:44:17
to death right and well look if his wife didn't leave him she was going to be his
00:44:22
first victim yeah so in a sense this isn't so much we talk so much about these type of Serial offenders they're
00:44:29
most always sexual in nature this is just pure brutality yeah I mean like you said this is just Destro this is looking
00:44:36
at someone and and destroying them and physically destroying them well like you said I mean he's pulling her arm out of
00:44:43
the car and dislocating it in the process I mean this is these attacks are vicious and you should have gave us a
00:44:51
warning because I'm going to be thinking about this when I asked Mom can you pass
00:44:56
the gravy well according to the newspapers for the arrest as far as the papers are concerned gbi agent Bruce
00:45:05
picket and Columbus detective James Jones were credited with the leg work which led to the apprehension of William
00:45:13
Henry H okay but question maybe you know this maybe you don't did they get to the
00:45:19
bottom of why he came up with this ruse or tried to come up with this ruse to to
00:45:27
cover up his crimes as dumb as it's going to sound he thought it would work so it was exactly they're not going to
00:45:36
get this straight up from him but he does say that he made up the forces of evil eventually and that he wrote the
00:45:43
letters and I think what we can do here is truly believe what Robert wrestler thought in his theory his theory was
00:45:53
there's a connection between this killer and the victims the Killer is afraid that somebody's going to make that
00:46:00
connection he's going to be apprehended right so to kind of cut that off at the pass I'm going to create this whole ruse
00:46:08
of the forces of evil are killing African-American women and it's going to be something so totally the opposite of
00:46:15
me the forces of evil will be seven white supremists right from Chicago from Chicago yeah I wonder what he had
00:46:23
against Chicago that's that's a really good question why would you just pick randomly Chicago so exactly that he he
00:46:32
thought it would work he thought that it would put them off of his Trail here's the crazy thing though it's it's already
00:46:38
been pretty crazy guess why why does that phrase even come up everything's been crazy yeah I'm not going to be able
00:46:44
to get out of my head that about the decapitation in a waym he injected himself into the
00:46:53
investigation Hance wasn't somebody that they were considering for any of these murders hell at the time they didn't
00:47:00
they weren't even aware that there were murders that there were victims until he
00:47:04
starts writing letters he injects himself and it's through this profile through the the profilers that they come
00:47:12
up with this dude so they link him to this in a way you have to wonder had he never started writing those letters
00:47:20
would they have ever caught up to him right well in the first murder they believe is a oneoff right
00:47:26
and but that was somebody that it's thought that they may have dated at one point or had some type of Mak sense some
00:47:34
kind of relation some kind of friendship I don't want to use the word relationship because people's minds
00:47:39
wonder when you say that I they they were acquaintances or had hung out on occasion something like that is what is
00:47:45
believed right but the next two they believe were sex workers these would have also been regulars at bars where he
00:47:52
was a regular so yes they according to him and according to some of the other people eyewitnesses and such they were
00:48:01
sex workers or beli to be so but my point being is that the first crime most people thought this is a one-off we
00:48:08
don't have many leads now we're not really looking into it because we have this serial murderer and serial rapist
00:48:16
on the loose attacking older women that's right and now so we're not focused on that first case and and
00:48:24
without drawing attention to to it how many times have we seen when there's rumors that somebody is a sex worker
00:48:31
that their their crime just does not get uh the attention and doesn't and doesn't
00:48:38
get the effort put into solving the case as as somebody else's case would well and when people live a highrisk
00:48:47
lifestyle or what can be uh viewed as a high-risk lifestyle it makes it difficult to hone in on a particular
00:48:56
suspect because the suspect pool could be so much larger well look if you're spending a lot of time at a local bar
00:49:05
whether you're a sex worker or not you're coming in contact with a lot of people throughout your week you know
00:49:11
what I mean like if I if I come up missing the suspect's pool is really small but if you're going to a bar that
00:49:20
has a decent amount of regulars now it's a lot harder to invest but like I said when there's rumors that these women are
00:49:29
sex workers their cases are just not taken as serious and so if he would have never brought attention to these cases
00:49:38
look the these investigators are on high alert and there is a small possibility even though their profile is saying that
00:49:46
this this is this guy is different this killer is different than the the Strangler mhm but there's a possibility
00:49:53
that they're connected there's a small slim chance so when he's given us these leads saying hey we got there's this
00:50:00
body and you're going to find it they they took those cases way more serious because of the letters it the letter
00:50:08
shot himself in the foot it it was the letters that made it possible for them to identify the suspect right so if I'm
00:50:16
at a bar and I'm interviewing people that are regulars and say hey did you know Gail
00:50:23
Jackson uh describe her and then say she's been missing we found her dead but she's been missing for 5 weeks or so you
00:50:32
might get you might not get any answers but when you have this profile and you say oh you didn't see Gail Jackson with
00:50:40
a a 26 to 30y Old Soldier you know it's a different line of questioning and it's a different
00:50:47
response that it's going to conjure up I laugh kind of because the effort is made
00:50:54
to cover up his Crimes by creating this forces of evil and I kind of believe he may not have been apprehended or at
00:51:01
least not identified so quickly had he not wrote the letters right but to top all of that off man he was on orders to
00:51:10
be assigned to Korea this guy's a military man he was going to be sent to Korea in September of
00:51:17
1978 So Not only would he may not have been become a suspect so quickly he had a he had a there was a way for him to be
00:51:27
out of the area shipped far far away right and look chances are law enforcement and Military get along
00:51:35
pretty well law enforcement could have said okay well we we have reason to believe that this is our suspect
00:51:41
military reaches out questions him at the Korean base he says I don't know what you're talking about they re lay
00:51:50
that to the police and now he's off the suspect list never caught I think I think had he been shipped out in
00:51:56
September I don't think they would ever linked it to him if if he would have never wrote those letters but here is
00:52:01
this monster that smashes oh he would have he would have resumed killing as soon as he came back right right but
00:52:08
here's what's interesting to me here here's this guy that I mean just look You Yank somebody's arm so hard that it
00:52:18
dislocates it you can't stop beating these individuals to the point like you said it's not a decapitation it's just a
00:52:26
it's a smash call but still has something inside him saying this is wrong there's something inside
00:52:37
him that he says he begged God for forgiveness so let's go into that and we're we're kind of skipping ahead here
00:52:45
but I think this is appropriate because this is kind of where it's leading anyway there are a lot of people you
00:52:51
know last week we discussed a very controversial case that the the result was death sentence and the appearance
00:52:59
now is that an innocent man may have been killed not a good man a horrible man but one that may have been innocent
00:53:06
for the crimes that he was specifically executed for yeah real [ __ ] princess so
00:53:13
here is another death penalty case that is it's not without controversy there are people that believe that the way
00:53:21
that Hance was treated is completely unfair there are many out there that say he was mentally ill and mentally
00:53:29
incompetent to stand trial or at least be executed for the charges right here here's a couple problems I have with
00:53:39
those thoughts and those feelings first off let me just get this out of the way the death penalty is always a touchy
00:53:45
subject for anybody regardless of what side of the fence you are on I am firmly straddled right in the
00:53:52
middle but the the issue here is mentally ill and mentally incompetent to the point that he didn't know what he
00:54:01
was doing was wrong he says his own words I begged God for forgiveness also the thing about being
00:54:10
incompetent I've never believed that when we have clear-cut evidence that somebody did something wrong and then
00:54:17
they went out of their way to try to cover it up right he obviously knew it was wrong if he's trying to cover it up
00:54:24
and he went to Such Great Lengths and efforts to do so it was just a bad dumb idea yeah didn't work out there was also
00:54:33
some talk of his IQ there was some statement there are statements out there that his IQ was 70 and then he was
00:54:40
tested again at a later time and the number was 91 so I either he got much smarter uh at some point or the the
00:54:51
first test one of the tests has to be wrong they both can't be right he got more smartest more smartest yeah yeah so
00:54:59
it's not without controversy but the problem the problem that I want to keep going back to on hans's case
00:55:06
is he killed three people that has never been in question that has never been part of the question of was he
00:55:14
wrongfully executed he absolutely killed these three people we know that to be fact and if not more he is suspected of
00:55:22
killing somebody in Indiana and this may have happened before this would have had
00:55:26
to have happened before he was uh shipped down to Fort Benning we're talking about an incredibly dangerous
00:55:32
man he's beating people to death yeah the the tricky thing here uh in in response to the people that have bad
00:55:40
feelings about his execution or if he was treated fairly I I can see and empathize with
00:55:48
some of those arguments and some points of those arguments but I think they got this one right as meaning that he was
00:55:55
guilty he was found guilty of these three murders other people sentenced him to be executed and They carried out that
00:56:02
that penalty okay I'm not clear on something is he sentenced well by the state of uh Georgia or is he is this
00:56:12
military well good to call that into question I was going to kind of Breeze through that and and gloss over it but
00:56:20
where his case gets a little more complicated is for two of the murders he was charged in military court court
00:56:28
marshal or whatever they call that right one of the murders he was charged in our
00:56:33
normal court or civilian Court did he work for Colonel Jessup I I don't know um I don't know what that means I'm
00:56:45
sorry there a Few Good Men reference Colonel Jessup oh I actually watched that a week ago yeah you should have got
00:56:52
the reference then the thing here though is Captain he was sentenced to life imprisonment with hard labor in the
00:56:59
military courts and he was sentenced to execution in Georgia so a bit of a conflict there um it's just really truly
00:57:10
in the sense that two of the bodies were found on the Fort Benning property so it
00:57:15
is their jurisdiction one of them being one of the victims being an army private
00:57:20
herself right but yeah that that's how that whole thing went down now he did receive a ton of appeals one of the
00:57:27
appeals I believe went all the way to the Supreme Court in Georgia at no time was any of this overturned I think he
00:57:34
may have I think something may have got commuted to a life sentence at some point but basically I mean are they just
00:57:41
arguing mental illness because look list if you are beating somebody to death there is something wrong with you
00:57:50
mentally and but that should not change the punishment I don't know that that would fall under the classification of
00:57:57
true mental illness in the sense that he is not to be held accountable for his actions or his crimes right so William
00:58:05
Henry Hance was convicted by a jury in the superior court of Mogi County Georgia uh he was convicted of the
00:58:14
murder of Brenda Gail Faison AKA Gail Jackson and also convicted of attempt attempted theft by extortion because
00:58:24
remember he asked for a ransom during the guilt phase of the trial the prosecutor lived up to his promise to
00:58:31
portray the crime in Vivid detail after presenting numerous photographs of Gail Jackson's mutilated and largely
00:58:39
decomposed body the prosecutor introduced fragments of her corpse during closing arguments he reminded the
00:58:47
jury that near the place of the murder were found pieces of Jawbone with the teeth attached fragments of human skull
00:58:55
no larger than a dime individual teeth and he said you'll have that with you to take out in evidence the jury sentenced
00:59:04
him to death for the murder under Georgia Code section 2725 34.1 and he was sentenced to 5 years
00:59:13
imprisonment for the attempted extortion right April 3rd 1994 you mean 3 April 3 April 1994
00:59:24
William Henry Hance was electrocuted in Jackson Georgia a few minutes after 1 p.m. just minutes before they flipped
00:59:33
the switch Hance maintained his innocence in a seven-minute statement he said in part why are you
00:59:41
executing an innocent man he asked why why why the stalking Strangler would eventually be caught and apprehended for
00:59:50
the murders but that is another story you know what I'm thankful for Captain for me that's right I am thankful that
01:00:06
everybody got together and joined us in the garage this week and I'm hopeful that everybody comes back and joins us
01:00:12
again next week yeah gobble gobble ghee you filthy animals I'm thankful for you be kind to one another until next week
01:00:22
be good be kind and don't litter [Music] [Applause] [Applause] [Music] you can live out your master Che
01:00:55
dreams when you find a professional on Angie to tackle your dream kitchen remodel connect with skilled
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