The Cheat Sheet: Football and Fathers

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[00:00:24] I just recently got their 100% European Linen Utilities shirt in Martini Olive. It's just like the kind of shirts I'm used to wearing, only it feels better made, so it's like an elevated version. I love how comfortable the fabric is, how it breathes. What's most important is that Anya likes what the color's doing for my eyes.

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[00:01:30] Hey, Murder Sheet listeners, it's Anya. I wanted to pop in here super quickly and tell you all that we're doing a number of events and book signings around our new book, Shadow of the Bridge. We'd love to meet you, sign the book, say hi, talk about fish sandwiches, whatever you want to do. I will be including a link in all of our future episodes that goes to our website, which is murdersheetpodcast.com slash events. And that way you can follow along with this and get any links you need to get in order to purchase tickets.

[00:02:00] Our launch event is going to be on Tuesday, August 26th from 7 p.m. to 9 p.m. We're so excited to be doing an event with Turn the Page Books, and it's going to be taking place at the Christ United Methodist Church in Westfield. This is a ticketed event, so please purchase your tickets. In addition, we're going to be doing a August 30th, 2025 signing from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. in Delphi, Indiana at the wonderful Buttermilk Biscuit Company.

[00:02:24] You can also go on our website and check out what events are coming up in the future. We're going to Greenwood, Columbus, Noblesville, Hendleville, Franklin, and Carmel. And we'll also be going to Louisville, Kentucky. We're probably going to be doing even more events than what I just listed. Please keep an eye on that events page, and you can follow along. And we'd love to meet some of you, and it would be just delightful. And we'd love to sign your book and get to thank you in person for supporting us. Content warning this episode includes discussion of murder.

[00:02:55] Including the murder of a child. That's correct. So today on the cheat sheet, we're going all around. We're going all around, but recently you've had us jetting all over, going through tunnels and tunnels and windmills and in balloons and all this other stuff to go all around the world. But I think this time you're tired, as we all are tired from all of that travel. And I think we're going to be just in America, right?

[00:03:21] Well, we're going to be in the Americas because we're actually going to Mexico, our southern neighbor here in the United States. I gotta go dig out my passport again. You have to dig out your passport again. But, you know, we share a border, so, you know, we're right there. So we don't need a plane. The cane train can take us to Mexico. Yeah, we don't need to do any special planning. And it's, you know, we know a lot of people who like to vacation in Mexico and visit there.

[00:03:48] So I think that's going to be a very easy thing for an easy jaunt. Easy jaunt on the train. We're right in comfort. Air conditioned for our comfort, right? Of course. What do you think? The cane train is some kind of like steerage class thing on wheels? What about the dining car? We haven't talked about the dining car. Sumptuous. Yeah. Only the finest are the cane train passengers. Let's get on with it. My name is Anya Kane. I'm a journalist. And I'm Kevin Greenlee. I'm an attorney.

[00:04:17] And this is The Murder Sheet. We're a true crime podcast focused on original reporting, interviews, and deep dives into murder cases. We're The Murder Sheet. And this is The Cheat Sheet. Football and fathers.

[00:05:16] I have to say at the end of the program, after the promotional announcements, there'll probably be a Mr. Cotter-like anecdote. But now we're going to begin the episode with Anya making some comments about a case she found of interest. Yes. So this is an Indiana case, and this is a tough one because this involves the murder or the alleged murder of a child in Elkhart County, Indiana.

[00:05:41] And this, you know, was a six-year-old little boy who, again, early reports, and my sources for this were WHSV, but also reviewing the probable cause affidavit in the case. A little boy who was killed and is now dead.

[00:06:01] And the Elkhart County Prosecutor's Office has charged Franklin Elmore Jr., the child's biological father, and his wife, the child's stepmother, Cheyenne, with charges relating to the death.

[00:06:16] So what the probable cause affidavit notes is that on August 3rd, 2025, a, you know, 911 is called emergency services are dispatched to a residence in Elkhart, Indiana. And what's been conveyed to first responders is that this six-year-old boy had been hitting himself in the head, self-harm, behavioral issues, things like that, and then was unconscious and not breathing.

[00:06:46] And they transported him to Elkhart General Hospital, where he died. And then the county homicide unit comes in to investigate this. So Detective Zach Uless of the homicide unit goes to the hospital, observes the child's body, observes bruising, abrasion on his buttocks, back, hips, legs, arms, hand, face, head.

[00:07:15] And he's covered in injuries. He's underweight. He looks malnourished. Medical staff are telling him this kid had a brain bleed. This kid had a punctured lung. All of these different injuries. And the trauma surgeon and another emergency room doctor tell him, we do not believe all these injuries were self-inflicted. So immediately looking bad.

[00:07:41] I mean, obviously in any situation, Kevin, I would imagine the death of a child is going to be looked at. But when claims are being made about self-inflicted injuries, that's going to be something that can be cross-referenced to the actual injuries. If you're saying the kid did all of this to himself and doctors are saying, we don't think that's possible, we don't think that's likely, that's going to be a problem for the parents who are making these claims. Exactly.

[00:08:10] So they talked to the child's father, Franklin Elmore, and he waived his rights to, you know, not incriminate himself. Is that so that would be something. What does that mean in this situation where you, you know, you get the Miranda warning and you say, I'll talk to you anyway? Well, of course, as American citizens, we have the right not to be forced to give testimony against ourselves.

[00:08:35] You know, the government can't like put a gun to your head or any equivalent and say you have to talk or you're going to get in trouble. You have a right not to do that. You have the right to remain silent, which is why in all the police shows you've watched over the years, that's one of the first things that the police officers say when they arrest someone. With that said, some people make the choice, well, it's in my interest to go ahead and talk to the police. So I know I have this right. I understand I have the right to remain silent.

[00:09:04] I'm not obligated to talk. But knowing all of that, I'm going to choose to talk anyway. So they talked to the father and they also talked to the stepmother. And the father says that he likes to discipline the child by making him run and do jumping jacks, lift hand weights, and that he had hit his child with a belt or put bars of soap in his mouth. Abusive behavior.

[00:09:28] And that that but, you know, the child had been tested with all these behavioral problems, but had never been formally diagnosed. Let me just make a comment here. You know, oftentimes in a dysfunctional, abusive family, kids will have behavioral issues because they're dealing with abuse. So I'm just throwing that out there. And then the kid gets sort of symptomified or, you know, they're the problem. But the real problem is the whole family and what they're doing to this child.

[00:09:58] So, you know, he's claiming, well, you know, or the family's claiming, well, you know, the kid started acting up after the stepmother got pregnant. And, you know, the child started behaving badly and hitting himself. And that that night after they ate at McDonald's and the kid went to bed, they found him rubbing his head on the floor. And then he started seizing. His pupils were small. They called 911. And.

[00:10:26] Yeah, so it there's no real explanation to how all of these injuries occurred. They just kind of say, you know, the stepmother also said in extreme cases they would, quote, whoop him and that the day prior her husband had whooped his child or whatever that means. And she even admitted that this kid wouldn't really physically get out of control, but verbally would. So it's not like he's running around hitting other people. He may just be sassing them.

[00:10:57] So detectives pull the phone data. They pull surveillance footage. And what they find is disturbing. In in one instance, they they find the the can't even make this up. They find Franklin Elmore Jr. He's pacing around his yard. His hands are on his head. This is before the 911 call comes in and he can be heard muttering.

[00:11:26] And one of the words he's muttering is the word jail. OK, that doesn't look good. Does not look good at all. No. And the surveillance footage captures the son looking normal, going into the residence, walking normally. He's fine. And then, you know, you keep the surveillance footage and the cell phones place everybody inside the house.

[00:11:52] At one point, you can see the kid, you know, like there's a there's a surveillance camera inside of this kid's room, which is weird in my opinion. But you can see him doing jumping jacks and whatnot. And then it gets worse. So jumping jacks is what he's been made to do as a sort of a punishment. But then at a certain point, Franklin comes in and throws this kid to the ground. So hard that the door is like bouncing on off the wall.

[00:12:20] He's on top of his own child. He's in the child's face. And after that, you see the kid stumbling. He's falling on the ground. His dad grabs him up by the arm, yanks him up. And his body appears to start seizing. And then then after that, this jail thing happens. Then they call 911. So obviously it's a it's a pretty horrific case.

[00:12:46] But now now these folks are facing charges in regards to that. Frank Franklin Elmore Jr. specifically is is facing murder charges. So just a horrific child abuse case. It's terrible. Obviously, all this is alleged because he's not been convicted. So constitutionally, he's innocent of anything.

[00:13:10] But if he's on film hurting his little boy and then the little boy dies, then that's pretty bad. So, you know, just abusive. This this sort of child abuse is just unfortunately rampant in our society. And, you know, we need to we need to, you know, a kid can't defend themselves. A kid can't defend themselves, especially from people who are supposed to be taking care of them. And this kind of physical harm. First of all, it doesn't even discipline kids.

[00:13:40] I mean, like the studies are pretty clear. I'm not one of those people who's like, yeah, let your kids do whatever. I don't think permissive parenting is good. But like beating your kid viciously for making a mistake. What are you teaching them? You know, I mean, being a parent is hard, but I don't think it should be hard to not like physically assault your child. What are you teaching them? You know, in this case, like I mean, truly physically, I don't mean like a smack on the wrist or, you know, an occasional spanking.

[00:14:08] I which I know people also, you know, feel like is bad. And certainly I agree with that. But I understand that that's not really what we're talking about here right now. We're talking about like severe violence that could hurt somebody. So I don't know. Makes me mad. People doing bad stuff to kids makes me really mad. As it should. So, yeah, I guess we can go out of Indiana to one of your states.

[00:14:35] Well, I have two cases in two separate states which are thematically linked. They're not linked in terms of there's different people in them and so on. But they're thematically linked. And the theme is that somebody screwed up. Oh, no.

[00:14:56] And in one case, it took it appears like many years for that screw up to be discovered. And in the other case, fortunately, the screw up was discovered much more rapidly. So let's go, first of all, to Minnesota, the great state of Minnesota, the Minnesota Twins. Charles Schultz came from Minnesota, I believe. Oh, you love him.

[00:15:23] My sources for this are the cbsnews.com and mprnews.org. And this involves a 1998 murder conviction that the county attorney, Hennepin County attorney, Mary Moriarty, is asked to be vacated.

[00:15:45] A man named Brian Hooper Sr., a 54-year-old, was sentenced to life in prison with the possibility of parole after 30 years for killing a woman named Ann Prasniak. After his conviction, he fought the case in a number of appeals. And apparently it is said that some of the witnesses against him ended up recanting.

[00:16:14] But his appeals were unsuccessful. And so he remained incarcerated. But there was enough there that the Hennepin County attorney, Mary Moriarty, said her office was investigating it in their conviction integrity unit. And so then while they were already investigating it, they get a letter out of the blue from a woman.

[00:16:39] I'm going to pronounce her name Chalaka Young, who is serving time in Georgia for another offense, a four-year sentence. And Miss Young was a witness at Mr. Hooper's trial. Miss Young's fingerprints were at the scene of the murder. And she indicated in her testimony that basically she was forced to stand guard while Mr. Hooper committed this terrible crime.

[00:17:08] But now, again, of her own accord, she's saying, I found religion and it's time for me to tell the truth. And it was actually I who committed the murder. And she says this knowing full well that it will result in her getting charged with the murder and facing some pretty serious consequences.

[00:17:30] So because of that, combined with the previous witnesses recanting and such, Hennepin County attorney Mary Moriarty is asked for the conviction of Mr. Hooper to be a kid. What are your thoughts, if any? I'm reading an Old Star Tribune article about the murder of Miss Prosniak, who is called Miss Anne in the area. And it's horrible.

[00:17:56] She was duct taped, thrown in a garbage bag and put upside down in a cardboard box in a closet in her apartment. And apparently her building was notorious for just being basically an open air drug market for crack addicts in the 90s. So that's the context of some of this. Yeah. And even this article notes in 1998 that somebody else's fingerprints were on the duct tape or were on the packaging tape that was used to bind her.

[00:18:27] So, yeah. You know, he so he confessed to people, it sounds like. But he it was testified that he confessed. Mm hmm. But then but then now that's falling apart. It's really upsetting when you have a situation like this where it does seem like there is very good reason to believe that the wrong person was incarcerated for so many years. Yeah. And Hennepin County attorney Mary Moriarty said he served so many days in prison for this.

[00:18:57] We don't want him to have to serve another. They're convinced that she's innocent and a terrible mistake was made. This is just horrible. I feel terrible for him and his family. And I also feel terrible for Anne Prosniak and her family. This is something where even more people were victimized, perhaps. You know, it sounds like. I mean, you know me. After some of the things we've seen, I'm very skeptical about innocence claims. You know, I think there's just that they're a dime a dozen.

[00:19:25] And, you know, frankly, not everything's a wrongful conviction. A lot of things are not. I would actually say wrongful convictions are probably, in my opinion, rarer than they're made out to be in the media because sometimes you scratch the surface of these things and you're like, that's not a wrongful conviction. Maybe at most there should be a new trial because something, you know, rights were violated. And that's a separate. I mean, that's a that's a wrongful conviction in the sense that it should be redone. But it's not a wrongful conviction in the sense that we're talking about some sort of factually innocent angel who, you know, whatever.

[00:19:53] But in cases like this where this does happen, it sort of shows you that, you know, sometimes they're the cases that are not necessarily getting as much press as some of the more nationally known ones that are, you know, alleged wrongful convictions. Yeah. And the fact that there are so many false wrongful conviction claims make it more difficult to find the real ones. I want to read a quote from Andrew Mark Quart, who leads the Conviction Integrity Unit at Hennepin County.

[00:20:22] And he says, quote, it's a big deal for us to support an exoneration. It is not something we take lightly at all. So if we're going to stand up here and endorse an exoneration, it's only going to be after a very thorough investigation. End quote. Yeah, absolutely. Well, I commend that prosecutor for doing the correct thing here. And again, I feel terrible for Mr. Hooper and his family. So many years lost. Decades lost.

[00:20:48] Now, I'm going to hop down to South Carolina and tell you a story where about 69 days were lost. And it's lost just because of stupidity, because of careless mistakes. So there is a murder.

[00:21:11] And the police get a tip from a credible source indicating this is the person who did it. And they spell the name correctly. And they then, the police then go, the person who was murdered, by the way, was Jasmine Roach.

[00:21:30] And the police get a tip that the murderer was a person named, pardon me here, Tyren Dixon. And that is spelled T-Y apostrophe H-E-N-D-I-C-K-S-O-N. And that's a person who weighs about 180 pounds.

[00:21:55] The police end up arresting a person named Tyren Dixon, spelled T-Y apostrophe H-E-N-D-I-X-O-N. And this is a person who's a former football player. He weighs 300 pounds. So there is quite a disparity in the physical appearance of these two people, despite the similarity of the names. And again, the tip that came in was the credible information spelled the name correctly.

[00:22:25] Okay. And it's come out that during this time when Tyren Dixon, the innocent man, was incarcerated, some of the police started to wonder, well, is this the right guy? Should we show pictures of him to witnesses or what have you? And they didn't do it for a while. And so because of this, this man was held in jail again for 69 days. Oh, my gosh. And it's basically for a clerical error. That's horrible.

[00:22:54] So that's, that's also upsetting. 69 days in the long run, that's not a huge deal in a person's life. But can you imagine spending 69 days behind bars, knowing you're facing murder charges and not knowing if you're going to be able to get out of them? And it's for a murder you had nothing to do with. How on earth does something like this even happen? How on earth does something like this even happen in this day and age? That's what I want to know.

[00:23:19] Why were people who were saying we should check this seemingly not either doing it or not being encouraged to do it? Yeah. I think there needs to be an accounting there. Mistakes happen. Law enforcement isn't perfect. But I think people should have the people should be able to expect that you're not going to be held for 69 days for a clerical error. That's ridiculous. My source for this, by the way, is WRDW.com.

[00:23:45] They, yeah, internal emails show investigators were questioning whether they had the right person in custody. Allegations that officers discussed showing a photo of Dixon to a witness already in custody to confirm the identification but never followed through. So Dixon, the innocent man, is filing a lawsuit, justifiably so, in my opinion. Yeah, I think so, too. I think his rights were violated there. I mean, again, like, I'm not saying, you know, if they went and questioned him, oops, we got the wrong guy, then maybe the damage is not as bad.

[00:24:13] If you're going and you're holding a guy for, like, that long, yeah. Name is spelled in a huge disparity in physical appearance between the person you've arrested and the actual suspect. That's just a mess. Yeah, that's a mess. I hope he, you know, I mean, that shouldn't. And also that's concerning because that shouldn't happen to anybody. Like, that's, if that can happen to one guy, it can happen to anybody. So that should be. It's very upsetting. There's a lot of people out there named Kevin Greenlee.

[00:24:43] I know there are. There are. Yeah. You're lucky. I think you're just about the only Anya Kane in the world. I mean, only Anya Kane. So if you ever hear about an Anya Kane doing something bad, unfortunately, it's probably me. I think there may be one other, isn't there? I don't think so. No. There can only be one. Yeah, that's your code. That's your little law. We'll duel it out. No, I mean, but, like, seriously, that's horrible. And, you know, again, I'm somebody where I'm like, you know, you want law enforcement to

[00:25:10] be looking at stuff and, you know, there might be room to make mistakes in instances, but not when it violates someone's rights to this extent and really messes up his life. I mean, like that, like, I would wonder, he may have, like, lost his job or there may have been, like, stuff that he missed. Like, that's stuff that, you know, is just concerning. And again, like, if it would be one thing if they were like, oh, we just thought we had the right guy. But if they're like, I don't know if we have the right guy, then, like, how did it happen that nobody was able to figure that out quicker? I would assume he's going to get a settlement in this. Yeah. No.

[00:25:40] I mean, he should. I hope he does. I mean, this is totally ridiculous. Probably won't reach trial. You just get settled. Yeah, this seems like a big embarrassment and it raises questions. It seems pretty egregious. I totally agree. Shall we get on our passports and take the train down to Mexico? Yeah, we're going to cross the Rio Grande and go into Mexico. To talk about something that doesn't really involve murder, but certainly involves crime. My source for this was the Federal Bureau of Investigation, which recently released a press

[00:26:09] release on this situation. I'm very interested in history. I'm specifically interested in history of the colonization of North America by the British or really the English, as they were known at the time. And they were, you know, it's all about Jamestown. That's my favorite topic in history. But I also am interested in just sort of the general, you know, the differences between the Spanish colonization and the British, the English colonization.

[00:26:36] And just kind of there's really kind of a fluke of history that we're not speaking Spanish right now because Spain was actually up there and was interested in that area. And it didn't really work out for a number of reasons that I'm not going to bore you with. But there was even kind of a bit of a cold war between, you know, King James and, you know, the King of Spain, Philip. And, you know, they were kind of uneasy about the English being in Jamestown.

[00:27:07] They're kind of like, what's that about? Are you going to like set up a place to attack Spanish ships? And they're like, no, we're just looking at minerals. Jeez. And it was a whole thing. But anyways, you know, it would have been very easy for them to take out. And in fact, there's indications that there were Spanish spies at Jamestown who were kind of keeping an eye on the whole thing and writing up, you know, maps of the fort and sending them to Ambassador Zuniga in London. And just sort of, you know, there was some concern. So.

[00:27:34] Spain got a huge leg up in the Spanish in the colonization of the Americas, thanks to conquistadors who were in South and Central America, including Hernan Cortez, who was instrumental in the sort of brutal fall of the Aztec Empire in Mexico. So why am I bringing this up? And a lot of people died as a result of that.

[00:27:59] And there's even some indications that, you know, he and his kind of guys may have actually like done some murders in order to kind of make that happen. Right. But, you know, I was Montezuma being the kind of person that they might have killed. But let's go into what happened with the FBI recently. So FBI agents just recently returned a manuscript from Hernan Cortez to the government of Mexico.

[00:28:29] This thing dates back to 1527. And the statement cites Special Agent Jessica Dittmer of the Bureau's art crime team, who is with the FBI NYPD Joint Major's Death Task Force. And what the document actually is talking about is like spice lands and sort of like, you know, gold and sort of running the land and whatever, you know, just kind of business stuff.

[00:28:57] But still very interesting from a historical perspective. And the reason this ended up in the United States was no one knows quite when, but sometime between the 80s or the 90s, specifically between 1985 and October 1993, this thing was stolen from Mexico and ended up in the United States.

[00:29:21] And specifically, El Archivo General de la Nacion, the National Archives in Mexico, they were, they, you know, have since placed it back in with the rest of their hand-signed Cortez documents. They noticed it missing back in 1993. They were doing microfilming at the time and doing like an inventory thing. And they realized like 15 pages are missing. What's going on here? So now it's back in Mexico.

[00:29:51] They found it. It sounds like they've not determined, like no one is going to prison for this. They have not caught the thief necessarily. They're not going to charge people. They have realized that over the years, this thing has just changed hands so many times. It's just like, I imagine in a situation like that, it can be very hard to bring charges. Because someone might have it and they didn't do anything wrong. They just have it. You know, they didn't steal it. They didn't know it was stolen.

[00:30:20] They just, you know, it's just not a situation. And, you know, but this is actually not the first time this has happened. In 2023, the FBI also sent another letter from Cortez about rose sugar back to the Mexican government. So they've been finding some of these things. It's important that they go back to the rightful owners, which is with the cultural institutions of Mexico.

[00:30:44] I mean, this is a very important figure in Mexican history, certainly a very controversial and, you know, like did a lot of stuff that is pretty violent and crazy. But part of the Mexican history. And so the fact that it's floating around the United States is not fair. So it's good to see the FBI kind of tracking some of those things down and certainly not as morbid or, you know, kind of disturbing as some of the murder cases.

[00:31:13] But it's certainly, you know, something important to do. As someone who cares about history, I think it's interesting. It's fascinating. Yeah. And then again, I sent Montezuma earlier. It was actually Montezuma the second. He's often known as Montezuma. But he was the one. He died mysteriously as the conquistadors were sort of taking over the Aztec Empire. What they said happened was that he was killed by his own people.

[00:31:40] Some historians think perhaps he was murdered by the conquistadors because they realized he was not really a useful pawn to them. He was sort of being held hostage. So very violent time period of conquest and whatnot. And certainly a very interesting one. I'm not as familiar as that, again, as I am with the English. One in Jamestown, which was also extremely violent and crazy. But, yeah, so that's what the FBI is doing around the art world.

[00:32:07] Or I guess art artifact perhaps is a better way to say it. So now before we get into your promotional remarks. No. I don't want you to do the promotional remarks. I did the last two. Okay. Okay. You're going to have to remind me of certain information. But I just worry that people say, oh, the promotional remarks are coming. We're going to tune out. So one of us. One of us. What is this? Like Paul Revere? The promotion's coming. One of us at the end of the promotion will share an anecdote. No. No.

[00:32:36] I was going to tell you we're not making that a thing. Well, just until the promotional thing in the next couple of weeks. Oh, God. Maybe it'll be me. Maybe it'll be amusing. Maybe it won't be amusing. Maybe it'll make you shed a tear. Maybe it'll make you uncomfortable and not want to listen to the show anymore. But people need to have a reason to keep on listening. People need. Okay. What? So I don't have. So one of us will share an anecdote. Do the promotions. So I don't have my promotional notes in front of me.

[00:33:06] So you're going to have to. I'm doing this from memory. I'm doing this without a net. I'm like blindfolded, just sailing through the air. As usual. As I understand it, we have a book coming out that's going to be released on August 26th. Feel free to pre-order it. If you like it, feel free to leave a positive review. And if you pre-order it and let us know, you get a free signed book plate. Signed by the two of us. Yes, that's true.

[00:33:35] We're going to be making some appearances in connection with the publication of said volume. The first appearance will be on August 26th in Westville. Westville. Westville. Field. Okay. What just happened? Let's just unpack that for a minute. So first you have us going to the notorious Indiana prison to do our book signing. Then you make up some sort of weird sounding food. West Veal. It's West Field. It's in Hamilton County, Indiana.

[00:34:03] And the information about where exactly in West Field, I assume there's going to be a link in our show notes. And certainly on our Facebook page. Certainly. That goes without saying. And like if you email us and you're like, what's going on? We'll send you the link. I don't know. A couple of days later, we'll probably be after the West Field appearance, we'll probably be hungry. So a couple of days later, we'll be going to Delphi to get some biscuits. Will we not eat between then? Well, I'm getting a little bit chunky. Fascinating.

[00:34:30] So then we, from I believe like 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. on August 30th, we'll be at the biscuit place in Delphi. You look perfect. You said you were chunky. I love the way you look. So just I want to throw that in there. Don't be talking down to yourself. Go into CrimeCon. We're going to CrimeCon. We are going to CrimeCon. Come see us at CrimeCon. Would love to shake your hand at CrimeCon and sign a book or whatever.

[00:34:57] Maybe have a conversation about the best places to eat fish in Denver. We're going to be in Franklin, Franklin, Indiana in October. Are there any other? We're going back to Kindleville. Going back to Kindleville. Kindleville, the return. Going back to Columbus. Yeah. Going back to Columbus. Going there. I was out on that here. What am I forgetting? Well, I'll just throw out some of the dates of those. I think you did a pretty good job.

[00:35:28] But yeah, we're going to be doing a lot. And if any of you are book club runners, presidents, people who want us to speak in an event or a festival or whatever, email us at murdersheet at gmail.com. We're very interested. So let me ask you a question. Well, let me do the dates. Okay. You talk about book clubs. Somebody online had an interesting question. I love that guy. Which I'm going to paraphrase. Is there like a minimum number of people in the book club in order to get an appearance?

[00:35:56] Because one guy said, what if I just say I'm a one person book club? Are you going to come and talk to me? I don't know if we'll like come to your house because that might be kind of weird. But I mean, I guess I'm like I respect the hustle. And so we're probably not going to realize it. Well, it's too late. I don't have a problem with it. I don't know. What do you think? Well, maybe maybe we'll do since this guy came up with the one person book club idea, maybe him, but nobody else.

[00:36:26] Just him. Yeah. Or if this guy wants to get creative and maybe if a bunch of other people have the same idea, maybe you all can get together and actually form like a one time book club. And we'll talk to all of you. Kind of the independent book club people who don't want to be in a book club. An anti book club. No, that sounds like you're going to be not reading. But this would be like a we can work something out where we can. It would be over Zoom.

[00:36:52] Also to this individual and to others, I believe there's a cool book club that we're going to be doing online. It's like a Facebook group that does like cool. I think we signed up for that. There's a remote event. This is going to be Wednesday, October 9th from 6 p.m. onward on Zoom. And it's a Facebook true crime book club that we were invited to. So you can join that. That's free to join and you can just go to that one.

[00:37:21] So, you know, and ask questions and stuff. So that would that would maybe be a good solution. But you can join Patreon. We talk to people twice a month. Yeah, we have to pay for that, which some people don't want to do, which I understand. And I appreciate everyone who supports us on their patrons. A good option. But also this Facebook thing on October 9th. That's going to be something that then you don't have to make it. I just imagine this guy suddenly like printing out a bunch of like fake cardboard people to sit behind him. Like, yeah, of course, Steve. Thanks for that question.

[00:37:52] He's doing different. He's doing like. Oh, what's it when you throw your voice? The trunk was. Yeah. It's all an elaborate ruse. I love it. That was such a good question, though. It made me laugh. But thank you for your question, sir. To everyone else, you know, if you have that idea, Facebook. It's in the Facebook group somewhere. I'm sure we'll announce it soon. But. That's a good option.

[00:38:22] And let's do some dates. So Buttermilk Biscuits is on August 30th at 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. It's non-ticketed. Westfield is ticketed. That's on the 26th. You mentioned that. We're doing something at the library in Greenwood on the 12th of September of Columbus is the 15th of September. There's going to be some Noblesville book signing in September 20th. Kendallville is Friday, September 26th. And October 3rd is an event in Franklin.

[00:38:53] And there's probably going to be more than that. And a couple hours before the event in Kendallville, I at least will be appearing at the Gropp's Fish Shack in nearby Milford, Indiana, and getting really an embarrassing amount of fish. Yeah. Probably too much fish. There's no such thing. I don't know about that. But yeah. So those are some things that are going on.

[00:39:17] And as usual, if you want to buy a t-shirt to support us and to show off your Murder Sheet merch, we have a new website, themurdersheet.dashry.com. Lots of inclusive sizes, lots of different colors, lots of different types of merch, totes, different designs. We're going to be adding more designs. It's going to be super fun. And then if you want to go the kind of original route, you can do murdersheetshop.com and then we'll ship you out a shirt. Not as many options on that one, but still a good t-shirt.

[00:39:47] And were there other things we're supposed to do? Shop, ship shirt. That's a little tongue twister you had. Yeah. Shop and ship you a shirt. Yeah. Oh, and yeah, we are getting, I'm sure at this point, we recorded this on August 14th. This is coming out on what? The 29th? So the book's out at this point. So you've already missed the Westfield event. So why are we promoting it? Because this is in the future.

[00:40:16] Well, sorry, unless you have a, if you have a time machine. But you still have time. You still have time to go to the Biscuit event, which I recommend because the biscuits are exquisite. I will say this. At this point, we're probably getting review bombed by the haters in the Delphi Murders book situation. So if you want, if you enjoy the book, don't lie. I'm not asking anyone to lie for me.

[00:40:40] But if you did enjoy the book, we probably would appreciate a positive review wherever you leave your book reviews, whether it's Goodreads or Amazon, because I have a feeling a lot of angry people are going to be saying that we're the devil's spawn in those comments. And if you can let people know, hey, they're flawed people, they're not perfect, but, you know, they're all right. They're not evil. Then, you know, that would be good. If you like the book. If you like the book. So, uh, Anya had this idea that we'd close with a story. I think it's my turn now.

[00:41:10] Yes. Okay. So a couple of weeks ago, I mentioned that I spent the summer after my first year of law school hanging out with a judge and I got credit for it. And really, that's all I did. I hung out with a judge. And so people have questions like, what does that mean? And so I'll tell you this, this little anecdote, like my first or second day there.

[00:41:33] He said, Kevin, I want you to get an idea of the, of the wide variety of cases that come before a judge here in the great town of Columbus, Indiana. And so he says, go to this room. And this room was full of boxes with these thick folders are related to one particular case. And I read them all.

[00:41:57] And I'm going to be vague because I don't want to make it possible for the case to be identifiable. Yes. But it was a case involving a local man who I never heard of who believed he had been done wrong by a major local employer. Let's call the local employer Johnny. Okay. The Johnny Corporation. That's a weird corporation. Well, there's no corporation named Johnny that I'm aware of.

[00:42:27] He thinks he has a really big grudge against the Johnny Corporation and he's filed some suits against them. And this one, he's representing himself, which always means basically I couldn't find a lawyer who thinks this is a good case. I'm just doing it myself. Because if you have a good case, a lawyer would take it on and thinking, well. Make some money. Make some money. So there was nothing.

[00:42:54] If there was something he could say in one sentence, he'd spend 10 pages on it. But I read this and I went to the judge and he said, what do you think? And I said, I'm not impressed. And he said, well, the main reason is there's a hearing in this case coming up next week. And the Johnny Corporation, as you know, Kevin, major local employer, they have top flight legal counsel coming down from Indianapolis. Top flight. Top flight.

[00:43:24] Top of the line. They've got their top men on it. The ship of the line. One of the big firms here is Ice Miller. Maybe it was Ice Miller. Maybe it wasn't. But it was the moral equivalent of Ice Miller. It was a name. When he told me the name of the firm, I said, oh, this will be good. And he says, you're going to be in the courtroom and you will be able to hear these people make an argument. And this will let you know how it's done. You'll be really, really impressed.

[00:43:52] And so I'm like rubbing my hands and childlikely, like a child anticipating Christmas morning. I'm going to hear these lawyers make their argument. So the fateful day comes and I go into the courtroom. The plaintiff, who obviously I'm not going to name. He's sitting at his table and he basically, he looks like how I would look on a Saturday morning. You know, kind of a.

[00:44:22] Trying to eat some waffles? Kind of a middle-aged man. Kind of has a dazed look on his face, like maybe a little bit tired. He's wearing a kind of an oversized T-shirt and just looks really, really drowsy. He's representing himself. So he's going to be making his remarks. And then on the other side, these big shot lawyers come in. And one of them is like this Ice Miller-esque guy coming in. And he has this really nice suit.

[00:44:52] Perfectly tailored. Just perfectly tailored. And a haircut you could cut glass with. It's just perfectly manicured. And with him is another little lawyer who's like a few years younger. That's like the subservient lawyer. You're like, oh, yes, sir. Yes, sir. And he's like running after him. And they go and they sit down. They have their little briefcases. And they put their briefcases on the table and open them. And they take out their folders.

[00:45:19] And they start opening up their folders and looking at them and nodding meaningfully. And they take out their pens, start making notes. And then, oh, yeah, that's a good point. And they have their notebooks. And they start writing things in the notebooks. And they say, oh, this is going to be great. This is going to. Look, already I'm getting a show. These guys, they know what they're doing. They do. They have their notebooks.

[00:45:43] And then the judge says, okay, let's let the plaintiff speak first prior to the good attorneys. And the plaintiff stands up. And his face, I said it was kind of a drowsy face. But like in the blink of an eye, he's red-faced and he's ranting. Oh, no. And his remarks take maybe five minutes, maybe ten minutes. Not that long.

[00:46:12] But in the course of his prepared legal remarks, he compares the Johnny Corporation to Nazis. What? And he also says they're also just like the people who nailed Jesus to the cross. Oh, my God. And then he says, okay, that's all I have to say about these people. All right. Lord.

[00:46:36] And he sits down and then this really fancy pants lawyer, he just is sitting there just kind of shocked. And he looks over at the defendant and then he looks at the judge and says, I don't think I need to say anything. Oh, damn. And he didn't because then the judge ruled in his favor because the guy's argument was so bizarre. So I never got to hear it. Wow. So you missed the whole show because this guy did such a bad job with his opening statement.

[00:47:06] You don't compare. They're Nazis and they nailed Jesus to the cross. By dent, is he comparing himself to Jesus there? I think he was. Yikes. Good Lord. So that's my anecdote. Well, I appreciate that. That's a good one. I'm sorry you didn't get to see the fancy lawyers. So next week, it'll be on. I don't have it. Why do I have to? I don't like I was literally. I need to tell Kevin we need to not make the anecdote saying a thing in the show. Just for a few weeks.

[00:47:35] And then I forgot to say, I don't want to. I don't have any good anecdotes. Because we have all these appearances we're talking about. People will be tuning out. But they'll say, oh, Anya is going to tell us a story about being on a boat with girls with bikinis. I don't know. What? That was my story. That's a. I don't have a story. And I don't like why are you making it. But people say, oh, who knows what story Anya will tell next. So who knows? I don't know what story you're coming up. I'm sure it'll be great. Well, I don't know. I feel like my funny anecdotes always make people depressed. Like, oh, that's kind of sad.

[00:48:06] Didn't I tell like a sad dating story recently about how I got mad at a guy about Abraham Lincoln? Do people want to hear that? Like, I don't know. I don't know. It's juicy stuff. It's juicy. Yeah. We really. We've lived interesting lives. But that's your. Then my story is about girls in bikinis. I don't have a girl. And also. What is this? What do you think? And also Nazis and people nailing Jesus to the cross. What are you like? You're like a. You're doing like a pulp thing or something over there. Like. Oh, man.

[00:48:36] Well, I'm going to. Yeah, I'll think about it. But I just don't get your hopes up, I guess, would be my advice to the audience. And they're like, Anya, we're listening to the cheat sheet. We kind of get that. Close to the button. Thanks so much for listening to the murder sheet. If you have a tip concerning one of the cases we cover, please email us at murdersheet at gmail.com.

[00:49:01] If you have actionable information about an unsolved crime, please report it to the appropriate authorities. If you're interested in joining our Patreon, that's available at www.patreon.com slash murdersheet. If you want to tip us a bit of money for records requests, you can do so at www.buymeacoffee.com slash murdersheet.

[00:49:30] We very much appreciate any support. Special thanks to Kevin Tyler Greenlee, who composed the music for the murder sheet, and who you can find on the web at kevintg.com. If you're looking to talk with other listeners about a case we've covered, you can join the Murder Sheet Discussion Group on Facebook. We mostly focus our time on research and reporting, so we're not on social media much.

[00:49:57] We do try to check our email account, but we ask for patience, as we often receive a lot of messages. Thanks again for listening. You know, Anya, we are in this true crime space. It's such a difficult place to be in sometimes, and one of the reasons is because you're talking about cases that people have a real emotional involvement in. And so if you reach a conclusion that some people don't like online, they're going to, like, start attacking you and even threatening you.

[00:50:26] And I know when that first started happening to us, it was really, really unsettling and difficult. And I know one thing that really helped us feel better and safer to continue on with the show was SimpliSafe. SimpliSafe has been a company we've trusted for years. We've used them for years to protect our home. And one of the reasons is they just give us that peace of mind. As Kevin said, we're no strangers to controversy.

[00:50:51] And sometimes that can mean getting threats or getting basically veiled threats where people say they're going to come hurt you because they disagree with what you're saying about a case. And so with SimpliSafe, we're able to kind of keep the murder sheet train shugging along and not worry about that too much because we know that they are so proactive about how they keep homes secure. This is a company, I mean, their new active guard outdoor protection, that's there to stop break-ins before they happen.

[00:51:19] They're not just letting you know about, oh, this bad thing happened. They're trying to prevent it from even happening so you don't have to go through that trauma. They have live monitoring agents on hand 24-7 to possibly detect suspicious activity around the property. They have cameras. And also one thing I like about them is they're flexible. They know that different people have different needs. They know that if you're a renter, you can't necessarily set up the same amount of equipment and it can't be on the walls permanently as you could do if you're a homeowner.

[00:51:47] So they're great for renters, they're great for homeowners, no contracts, no hidden fees. Visit SimpliSafe.com slash msheet to claim 50% off a new system with a professional monitoring plan and get your first month free. That's SimpliSafe.com slash msheet. There's no safe like SimpliSafe. We're obsessed with our Quince pieces. Is that fair to say? That's fair to say. What is Quince? Quince is a company that lets you get really high quality clothing for very affordable prices.

[00:52:16] They do that because they basically cut out the middleman. You're just getting it. Just cut him right out. Yeah, they're getting it from the artisans. They're giving it to you. It's wonderful. It's going to be 50% to 80% less than those of their competitors. And you're just going to get some wonderful things. We recently went shopping to get some summer styles. We'd previously gotten some winter styles, but we wanted to update. So we went on Quince and we both got something. Let's talk about what we got. I got this wonderful 100% European linen dress.

[00:52:43] It's a button front dress and it's in blue chambrie stripe. I love this dress. I'm picky about dresses because like I feel like I have a weird shaped body and sometimes they cut me off in a weird way. This one just fits like a dream. I love the way it fits. It is very much a classic sort of style. So I'm not worried about it going out of style in like two minutes and then I'm looking foolish. It just looks like something I can wear for years and years. I know I'm going to be wearing this dress a lot this summer. I got a great shirt.

[00:53:12] I can't paint word pictures like you do, but I'm very happy with the shirt. I've gotten compliments on the shirt. It's a comfortable shirt. For anyone who is interested in learning more about the products that we purchased, he got 100% European linen utility shirt in Martini Olive. So I think it looks really cute. I think that you look very cute in it. So I love it.

[00:53:34] And keep watching our Facebook page because we will probably, if I convince her, take a picture of Anya wearing her dress and her beret. Oh, I got a beret too because Kevin insists on me buying new hats. So I got a little blue beret. And yeah, I just really, Quince is one of those brands. I just love working with them because it's just stuff that I love to kind of come back to and keep buying because I love what they're doing. I love how ethical they are. And I know that they're going to get me quality pieces fast.

[00:54:03] And with their wonderful return policy, you can try on different things, make sure the sizing's right for you. And it's just a great deal for Murder Sheet listeners. So give your summer closet an upgrade with Quince. Go to quince.com slash msheet for free shipping on your order and 365-day returns. That's Q-U-I-N-C-E dot com slash msheet to get free shipping and 365-day returns. Quince.com slash msheet. Because person does not have a feeling. Follow. думagici.com slash msheet. We're going to be back on April twice when you take out a p § msheet.