The Unlovely Truth

Season 1, Episode 51: There Should’ve Been a Book: The Murder of Latricia Gail White

With Christmas right around the corner, we are all very busy, so this week is a mini episode that won’t keep you away from your wrapping, baking, shopping, and all of the other things that make this time of the year so special. I absolutely LOVE the Christmas season. I love seeing everyone’s lights, putting up the decorations, giving presents, and watching people act just a bit kinder at this time of year. But it’s not a happy time for everyone. Long simmering family tensions can quickly escalate, often with tragic results. Christmas of 1993 was that second type of Christmas for the family of Latricia Gail White.

Season 1, Episode 50: The Murder Room

In 1990, three friends worked together to create a crack crime fighting team – a group of professionals who brought expertise from all facets of crime fighting. There were detectives, scientists, psychologists, and even a forensic artist. They named their group after Eugene Francois Vidocq, a French criminal turned crimefighter from the 18th century. The Vidocq Society meets once a month for lunch and cold case discussions. Members come from over a dozen states and multiple foreign countries. The founders were inspired to act on this simple premise: someone had to do something to alleviate the suffering that the bad guys (and girls) were causing. Why not them?
https://www.vidocq.org/
https://www.theunlovelytruth.com/

Season 1, Episode 49: Without a Prayer

The residents of tiny Chadwicks, New York, were enjoying a few pleasantly warm days just before Halloween in 2015. Lots of decorations were on display around the small town, but not at the red brick building that housed the Word of Life Christian Church. But that wasn't unusual since Halloween isn't really a Christian holiday. What was unusual was how unfriendly the church could be. It didn't welcome outsiders at all. Some neighbors whispered that it was a cult, citing the locked gates, the guard dogs, and the strange chanting they often heard as proof of their suspicions. They didn't really know what went on inside. If they had, maybe Lucas Leonard would still be alive.
For information on separating from a harmful belief system, visit daretodoubt.org
You can visit my website, theunlovelytruth.com to sign up for my email list to get news on an upcoming product launch which will help support the podcast and help us reach more people!

Season 1, Episode 48: There Should’ve Been a Book: The Murder of Georgia Lee Moses

Most us of have heard the tragic story of Polly Klaas, the 12-year-old girl from Petaluma, California, who was abducted from her home on October 1st, 1993, and killed by Richard Allen Davis. For over 2 months, thousands of people volunteered to search for her. Popular TV shows like 20/20 and America’s Most Wanted featured details about her case. The World Wide Web was truly becoming worldwide by 1993, and two Petaluma residents came to the police telling them that Polly’s missing child poster could be made digital, an innovation in the handling of missing person’s cases that Time magazine would write a story about, titled, “A High-Tech Dragnet”. The idea would come to save many missing children, but not Polly. In late November, items connected to Polly were discovered by loggers, and a massive search was launched that included personnel from 24 different agencies. It seemed that Polly’s story was being told all over the world. But if you are like me, you probably haven’t heard the equally tragic story of Georgia Lee Moses. She was also 12, also from Petaluma, and was abducted and murdered in 1997. It’s hard to find much information about Georgia at all. Let’s look at the similarities and the differences between the two cases to see if we can find out why.
https://medium.com/yawp/the-sad-story-of-tom-waits-georgia-lee-fe7b695de6d
https://www.petaluma360.com/article/entertainment/remembering-the-victim-of-petalumas-sad-unsolved-murder/?sba=AAS
https://www.sfgate.com/news/article/Body-Found-Could-Be-Missing-Girl-2806971.php
https://www.gofundme.com/f/JusticeForGeorgiaLeeMoses
https://www.websleuths.com/forums/threads/ca-georgia-moses-12-petaluma-13-aug-1997.142604/
https://www.stitcher.com/show/black-girl-missing/episode/murdered-georgia-lee-moses-68707355
http://pollyklaas.org/
"Georgia Lee" by Tom Waits

Season 1, Episode 47: The Silent Sisters

Leo Tolstoy’s famous novel Anna Karenina opens with this sentence: “Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.” The family from this week’s book, Silent Sisters by Joanne Lee, has to be one of the unhappiest I’ve ever encountered. Bernadette Quirk didn’t seem to enjoy being a mother at all. It seemed as though she would rather drink and read true crime magazines than provide even basic care or affection for Joanne. Bernadette had another child, Cath, when Joanne was 10, and she left nearly all of Cath’s care to Joanne, and again later when she had her son Chris. When Joanne was in her twenties and her siblings in their teens, they all felt sure that their mother was pregnant again. But time passed, and Bernadette didn’t give birth - that anyone knew of. Years later, when Joanne and Cath were helping their mother move, Cath found the corpse of a baby in a closet. Bernadette had suddenly gone from reading true crime stories to potentially starring in one.

Season 1, Episode 46: The Cadaver King and the Country Dentist

If you’ve been around true crime for very long, you’ve probably heard the legal term “habeas corpus”. Although it sounds like it may have something to do with the body of a victim, it really refers to the procedure by which prisoners can appear before a judge to see if they are being legally detained. After the Oklahoma City bombing in 1995, many states made changes to their habeas corpus laws that made it harder for prisoners to overturn wrongful convictions. This was not good news for Kennedy Brewer and Levon Brooks of Noxubee County, Mississippi. Authors Radley Balko and Tucker Carrington argue in this week’s book, The Cadaver King and The Country Dentist, that Mississippi’s early death investigation system developed as a mechanism to hide the areas numerous lynchings. It makes you wonder what these changes in the law might allow the system to hide today.
https://theintercept.com/2018/04/22/junk-forensics-mississippi-cadaver-king-country-dentist-interview/
https://www.menshealth.com/entertainment/a32225164/the-innocence-files-dr-michael-west/
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-watch/wp/2016/08/24/expert-witness-goes-nuts-during-questioning-for-mississippi-death-penalty-case/
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-watch/wp/2014/02/28/the-fifth-circuit-turns-its-back-on-a-huge-forensics-scandal-in-mississippi/
Southern Fried true Crime Episode 27
Coroner Talk
https://www.iheart.com/content/2019-08-13-janie-wards-botched-autopsy-leads-to-serious-questions-on--and-gone/
LA Times 8/14/88
ID Files

Season 1, Episode 45: The Suspect

The eyes of the world were on Atlanta, Georgia, during the summer of 1996. After years of careful and detailed planning, the Games of the 26th Olympiad had begun dramatically with an ailing Muhammed Ali lifting the torch to light the cauldron. Richard Jewell was thrilled to be a part of it with his job as a security guard. He’d lost his last two jobs in law enforcement and he was glad to be back in the mix, and loved the party feel of the events. But he was serious about his job. So serious that 8 days after the games had begun so gloriously, Richard flagged down the head of security to point out a stray backpack he’d noticed under a bench. He thought it looked suspicious. From that moment on, his life would never be the same.
Victimology Podcast

Season 1, Episode 44: There Should’ve Been a Book: The Murder of Reginald Coleman

Reginald Royce Coleman was 17 years old in 2019 when he became the 4th homicide victim of that year in Beaumont Texas. It was only early April when police found his body around 10:30 PM near the Sterling Pruitt pool building in the 2800 block of Gulf Avenue. Police found both money and drugs on Reginald, which made robbery seem unlikely. Police knew who Reginald was because they had considered him a person of interest in a string of local aggravated robberies. They said that as they attempted to interview witnesses, those people laughed and refused to cooperate. But someone out there knows something.
https://www.12newsnow.com/article/news/local/beaumont-police-say-witnesses-laughed-refused-to-cooperate-after-17-year-old-gunned-down/502-5b0a9ffc-27c2-4e8d-a895-22a8ef880313
https://www.12newsnow.com/article/news/crime/beaumont-police-release-surveillance-footage-ask-for-help-identifying-two-in-area-of-monday-night-homicide/502-4447518a-d04c-4868-a488-6dad5e016a3d
https://beaumonttexas.gov/beaumont-police-are-investigating-a-late-night-homicide-2800-block-of-gulf-street/
https://www.beaumontenterprise.com/news/article/BPD-investigating-north-end-homicide-13752710.php
https://kfdm.com/news/local/beaumont-homicide-investigation
https://kfdm.com/news/local/grieving-parents-plead-with-public-for-answers-to-sons-homicide
https://www.cbs19.tv/article/news/crime/beaumont-police-release-surveillance-footage-ask-for-help-identifying-two-in-area-of-monday-night-homicide/502-4447518a-d04c-4868-a488-6dad5e016a3d
If you have any information about this homicide, please contact Southeast Texas Crime Stoppers at 409-833-TIPS or download the P3 TIPS app and use your smartphone to submit your tip. ALL tips are anonymous and you could be eligible for a cash reward.
You can also call the call the Beaumont Police Department at (409)980-8311.

Season 1, Episode 43: In the Still of the Night

It’s been said that mothers hold their child’s hands for a short while, but their hearts forever. I think that’s especially true when you’re a mom fighting for justice for a child you believe was murdered, but your local authorities insist on calling their death a suicide or an accident. Today we are going to talk about two cases like that, and two moms who never gave up their fight. I’ve learned in my work that there are far too many moms like them out there. I’ve also learned that they desperately need our help.
http://justicefordanielrayunderwood.com/

Season 1, Episode 42: The Stalking of Kristin

We all have exes, but most of us never had an ex with a secret criminal record that included violent offenses - people that are dangerous to stay with. It can be even more dangerous to try to get away from them.
For more information on stalking, please check out the following resources.
http://www.unresolvedhomicides.org/about-us/ and info@fohvamp.org
https://victimconnect.org/learn/types-of-crime/stalking/