Boys On The Tracks: Mena Arkansas 1987

On August 23, 1987, two Arkansas teenagers were found dead on a railroad track outside Bryant.

Authorities quickly ruled it an accident. The official story claimed Kevin Ives and Don Henry had smoked marijuana, laid down on the tracks, and fallen asleep before a freight train came through.

Case closed.

But when a second autopsy was performed, investigators discovered one of the boys had a crushed skull before the train ever reached him.

Suddenly the accident story didn’t hold.

What followed was one of the most controversial investigations Arkansas has ever seen. Allegations of evidence tampering. A medical examiner who would later go to prison. Rumors of drug smuggling flights through the small town of Mena, Arkansas during the late 1980s. Witnesses who died under mysterious circumstances.

Nearly four decades later, the question remains:

How did two teenagers end up dead on a railroad track… and why has the truth never been settled?

In this episode of Things I Want to Know, we break down the timeline, the evidence, the corruption allegations, and the theories surrounding one of Arkansas’ most haunting cold cases.

Because sometimes a train doesn’t just run over bodies.

Sometimes it runs over the truth.

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Transcript

Setting The Case On The Table

Paul G 0:00

So, welcome to Things I Wanna Know. In this episode, we're digging into one of the most infamous cases Arkansas has ever produced. A case most people in the state have heard about at some point. And whether it was around the kitchen table, from someone who swore they knew somebody connected to it, or just as one of those stories that never quite goes away. Two teenage boys, they ended up dead on a railroad track outside Bryan, Arkansas, in 1987. And the official explanation from the state was almost insulting. Authorities said the boys had smoked marijuana wandered under the tracks, laid down, crossed the rails, and fallen asleep until a freight train came through and killed them both. But underneath all of this noise, there are still two Arkansas teenagers who ended up dead on a railroad track in the middle of the night. And nearly 40 years later, no one has ever given a clean answer on how they got there. So in this episode, we're going back to the beginning. August 23rd, 1987, in Saline County, Arkansas. It's usually it always devolves into um drug smuggling in Iran Contra. But then they forget about the boys that died on the tracks, and it kind of gets on askew. So do you what do you know about? What have you heard about this? Probably just from me, right?

Public Image, Policing, And The Eighties

Andrea 2:15

Um, pretty much just from you. I don't even I want to say there was something. I it sounds familiar, like something on like a dateline episode or something like that. That maybe I I don't all I remember is about the pilot, and you know, I'm thinking uh for me, like they did what they we landed drugs in Arkansas, which I guess it was in 87. I mean, I was I was still a young kid. So I mean it wasn't like it was on the news. No, I wasn't a little bitty baby, but you know what I mean. Like I I was in my own world of being a a tween or you know, sixth grader.

Paul G 2:50

Oh, I didn't know anything about it either. I mean in 87 I was in junior high at b no, I was in grade school still.

Andrea 2:57

I think probably uh the the case was the the boys get ignored because it's they're not the biggest part of the piece, but they are.

Paul G 3:06

But there's so much going on in this case. It's extremely complicated. I showed Andrea the research yesterday, and she's you probably thought it was like, how can you even make this straight?

Andrea 3:17

It's a lot it's complicated when you were trying to like go over it with me, and I'm like, what? There's so many moving parts.

Paul G 3:23

And it goes on and on and on and on and on. It's still going.

Andrea 3:27

It doesn't make our state look good at all.

Paul G 3:30

Well, it has nothing to do with the state. I mean, it's just it's a bunch of idiots in South Arkansas. I know, but it makes me look in California, you know, it didn't matter.

Andrea 3:39

I I guess the point for me is like uh we travel to Florida sometimes and we travel through rural areas as we get there, and it kind of listening to doing all these research on these podcasts and like listening to podcasts and doing research and like you know, getting involved in learning, it makes me like not want to trust any law enforcement, which is horrible to say because law enforcement does amazing j work, you know, and they have solved cases and they do great stuff.

Paul G 4:05

But well, it's different now. We we have law enforcement that actually went to school to be law enforcement back in the eighties and before, even some of the nineties, these guys weren't they just were hired on as cops and learned on the job a lot of times, especially in the rural part of the area.

Andrea 4:20

You know, it's but that's just so scary because it's thinking like this is the eighties, like uh it was it just it makes us sound like a stupid hillbilly state, is what I'm trying to get out of.

Paul G 4:32

Well, they did the same stuff in in California, in in Illinois and New York.

Andrea 4:37

I know, but you can kind of be like, Oh, that's California, that's New York, you know, that's Illinois. This is not like they already I mean, I here's where I come from. When I went to college, side piece, when I went to college up in Michigan.

Paul G 4:47

Uh I I don't I I keep from having those.

Andrea 4:50

And so stop. So I'm going to class and I'm in nursing school, right? And everyone's coming over and they're like, we want to hear you talk. Oh yeah. And I'm like, what? So I would talk and they and then I had one person, I'll never forget this because I thought they were joking and they weren't. They asked me if I was happy about indoor plumbing. Oh my God. And that was my first realization that people must think that Arkansas is just this backwoods, yeah, messed up, no indoor plumbing. We're all married to our cousins.

Paul G 5:19

And you know, this I wouldn't want to be married to my cousin.

Andrea 5:21

But this can be all the corruption just kind of adds to that freaking stereotype.

Paul G 5:27

Well, I had the same thing happen to me when I went to California. Um, the guy's asking me all these questions kind of like you were, you know, but he was a little smarter than that, so he figured we had indoor plumbing. And I said, no, no, no, no. Back in 1992, we passed a law. Everyone has to wear shoes.

Andrea 5:42

And he probably believed here. That's the part that when you hear cases like we're about to present, it's like, no wonder people think that we're like back parts and morons.

Paul G 5:51

Well, it makes sense, though, really, to be honest, to be honest, because Beverly Hillbillies didn't help because they were based out of Arkansas.

Andrea 5:58

Were they really based out of Arkansas? I always thought it was like Tennessee. Now, Tennessee, that's another state that gets kind of a bad risk.

Paul G 6:04

I don't know. So parts of Tennessee are pretty bad. It's like parts of Mississippi.

Andrea 6:07

You went to Mississippi and saw that that was It's very farmland, very um, very rural, kind of not a whole lot of economy there.

Paul G 6:20

But it was I never but a double idea.

The Night On The Tracks

Andrea 6:22

I know, and and for anybody listening from Mississippi, I'm sorry, but I had the hardest time understanding, and I felt so bad. I'm like, they're probably thinking here's this white chick that can't understand anything. But it was it was eye-opening, and I think it was kind of a good thing to see.

Paul G 6:37

Yeah. So it basically here's the here's what's going on. It's 1987, late summer in Bryan, Arkansas.

Andrea 6:44

Okay.

Paul G 6:44

Right? And you've got this guy, and Tom Cruise played him in a movie. So i in in in this movie, Tom Cruise is the guy played the guy that flew the drugs in. Okay.

Andrea 6:57

Okay.

Paul G 6:58

And it's a good movie. It's convoluted a little bit and a little bit of conflict and a little bit of conflation, but and it's also Tom Cruise, so whatever. Um, has Tom Cruise tropes. But that's the guy that was involved. He the a direct correlation because that's where he was landing his drugs, was in Mina, Arkansas.

Andrea 7:18

Mina, really?

Paul G 7:19

Yeah, because there's nobody there.

Andrea 7:20

In the 80s, yeah.

Paul G 7:21

It was probably just probably bigger now, but and it comes to find out that they had a corrupt uh um uh prosecutor in the cars. Which you know he was getting. We'll get into that. So it's Brian, Arkansas, uh, late summer of 87. It's a small town, rural woods, railroad tracks. Now you haven't seen this part of the state. Arkansas has like four different ecosystems going on. Yeah, three. Three different ecosystems going on. You've seen the north part. Yeah, no, where we live, northwest Arkansas, which is Mountain Home part, which is more rugged than here.

Andrea 7:59

Yeah, we drove through that to get to Yeah, it's rough.

Paul G 8:02

But it's Buffalo River country over there.

Andrea 8:05

It's beautiful. I mean, it's gorgeous country.

Paul G 8:07

And then you've got the Delta, which you drove through, which looks like Mississippi. All Arkansas going into Mississippi, the only reason you know you go into Mississippi is because you cross the Mississippi River.

Andrea 8:18

Yeah, it's very flat, a lot of rice land and soybeans.

Paul G 8:22

We cut it all down, the plant stuff.

Andrea 8:24

Well, I mean how about that?

Paul G 8:26

But Hot Springs is a complete it's it's a lot like here, but it's kind of like if you took the mix between because Mina's down in that area, uh, and this is gonna be the northeast or the southeast part of the state. It's it's kind of like it's it's not quite as mountainous as mountain home area, but it's still got a lot of heavy roads, heavy turns and big chasms.

Andrea 8:56

Yeah, the roads here are very um straight.

Paul G 9:00

But it's not not as deep. It's not as tall and it's not as deep.

Andrea 9:04

Yeah, it's not like the Boston Mountains.

Paul G 9:06

Right, right, right, right. And it's interesting. It's we it's a whole different whole different look, even though you know it's the same place. There's lots of pine trees everywhere. You would think pine trees north. No, pine trees down there. Like crazy. No.

Andrea 9:21

I've been to Hot Springs once, and that was like spending the night and then coming back, and I don't remember really anything about it other than that it was nothing going on, which it was during the winter, and there's a lot of bathhouses, and Capone loved it. That's all I really know.

Paul G 9:35

Well, he loved it every now and again. So it's there's not anything going on down there. There's not a big population, but it's more population than um Delta.

Andrea 9:48

Yeah, that would make sense.

Paul G 9:50

Okay. So that's where this Kevin Ives and Don Henry, both 16 and 17 years old, they live there. They're friends, you know, hanging out, high school seniors, and they were doing high school senior things in the 80s, and my brother was bad about this, and everybody back then was smoking a lot of weed. The kids, not the adults, as much.

Andrea 10:14

Yeah, that's probably true. I'm sure there was a lot of people. Your brother was in the eighties, no, we were still he's a like.

Paul G 10:19

I know, but he was, you know, basically was your brother, and that was what everybody was doing.

Andrea 10:22

Yeah, he's a high school, typical high school kid.

Paul G 10:27

Don't show the house. Anyway.

Andrea 10:29

Yeah, exactly. There's a whole other story.

Autopsy One: “Accident” Declared

Paul G 10:32

Um, and they people out there would go hunting with spotlights and things like that. They'd go out and spotlight a deer. So you try to bright light the deer and it just stands there and you can shoot it.

Andrea 10:41

Which that's illegal, isn't it?

Paul G 10:42

It's illegal. It's a bit was illegal then, but they did it. Right?

Andrea 10:46

Which that's what hunters are gonna do illegal things to get a deer. Every I'm sure everybody that's hunt does that.

Paul G 10:53

According to the research, they were going spotlight hunting uh in the area behind uh the boy Donna Henry's house. Uh because it's where it's kind of like where they always went. And it's basically normal, they do it all the time, you know, normal stuff. Uh between midnight and early morning though, re the uh sightings of the two teenage boys near a grocery store in the area they think. Okay. And the they were out there just horsing around. They weren't really hunting, they were out there drinking beer and smoking weed. But here's the thing at about 4 a.m., a Union Pacific Railroad train coming through the area. Uh just fully loaded down, right? He sees the two boys laying in the tracks and he's trying to kill the train, but he trains don't stop, man.

Andrea 11:51

They take several miles to stop, don't they?

Paul G 11:53

Sometimes. Depends on the weight. If they're a coal train, it'd probably take 15 miles to stop that coal track.

Andrea 11:59

How are you gonna see someone track 15 miles away to stop?

Paul G 12:01

You can't. That's why I stay off the tracks. I see the photographers, I see them all the time. They take pictures of people on railroad tracks. Stop doing that. Don't do that.

Andrea 12:09

Well, it used to be I remember a sidebar growing up now. You would think it's a law now, isn't it, where all railroad crossings have to have those like those bars that come down.

Paul G 12:18

No. Only if there's heavy traffic.

Andrea 12:21

Really? Because I growing up there were several places where it had railroad tracks that people didn't stop at. You're supposed to, there's a stop sign, but nobody would. They just drive over.

Paul G 12:29

Yeah.

Andrea 12:30

But I was thinking that they passed a law where you had to have those guardrails that came down.

Paul G 12:34

No. So the train just completely obliterated these boys. Well, yeah, it's like a cut 'em in half and all sorts of good stuff. It's pretty gross. And there's some podcasts and things that will go into it that's pretty, pretty terrible about what happened to them.

Andrea 12:49

Just uh annihilated them, essentially.

Paul G 12:51

Yeah, and the the people on the scene, the first responders first responders and whatnot, we're like, oh my god. And there's quotes that you can go look up and I can read them here, but it's just graphic, and I'm like, what's the point?

Andrea 13:05

They don't need to be able to do it.

Paul G 13:06

We don't need to know just how bad it was.

Andrea 13:08

They need a coroner.

Paul G 13:10

Right. And as we know about last episode, coroners aren't really coroners. They're generally the funeral home owners. Right?

Andrea 13:21

Yeah, and if you I this is gonna sound awful, but if you come in as a the fun you know, funeral director slash coroner and you see a body come in in pieces, train, you're probably just gonna put two and two together and that's the end of it.

Paul G 13:36

Yeah, well, he d he didn't pronounce it. This is our guy Malik from last week.

Andrea 13:41

Oh, did he actually like try to do something?

Paul G 13:43

Well, he he he initially did when he brought the kids in, uh Fammy R Malik, the Egyptian. Uh, not saying that Egyptians are bad, but he wasn't trained in the United States. Okay. So he didn't he had an Egyptian training, remember?

Andrea 14:02

Yeah, I remember, but didn't he have some sort of accolade that made him kind of close?

Paul G 14:06

No, no, he had a doctor, he was a doctor from there, and he got uh Chicago, I think, is where he came up in, remember? Um, he rules the deaths accidental because he says they smoked too much marijuana and fell asleep on the tracks.

Andrea 14:23

Okay, number one, how do you know they had marijuana in their system? Did you actually test something?

Paul G 14:29

That's what he said.

Andrea 14:31

I mean, is there I mean, I don't know how marijuana testing is in body parts.

Paul G 14:36

Yeah.

Andrea 14:36

So um I would I just know by blood test and that kind of thing.

Paul G 14:41

Yeah, who knows if there's any blood left, depending on how bad because these kids weren't in two pieces or four pieces, they're in many pieces because they rolled up under the train.

Andrea 14:51

Oh, that's awful.

Paul G 14:52

Yeah.

Andrea 14:54

That poor, poor person in charge of the train that's that's a director. I that had to have been.

Paul G 15:01

They interviewed him, and he was like, This is the most awful thing I've ever seen in my life, and I I don't know. Yeah, he's probably if he's still alive, he's probably still dreaming about it.

Andrea 15:10

Yeah. And uh PTSD for sure.

Paul G 15:12

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. So because he ruled it as an accident, they dropped all the investigation. State police, everybody. Done.

Andrea 15:20

Yeah, we already found out with Mr. Corner Man how everything gets dropped when he has his fingers in it.

Paul G 15:25

Yeah, yeah. So the family, though, they were not happy about this.

Andrea 15:30

Well, yeah.

Paul G 15:32

Um, they refused to accept the accidental death ruling. And anybody I now that marijuana is more prevalent. Andrea and I don't use it.

Families Push Back And Reversal

Andrea 15:41

No. I'm finally allergic to it, and she would go, she would lose all of her credentialing and yeah, I'd lose all my nursing license and stuff, and all that stuff would just be poof gone. So no touching. Yeah.

Paul G 15:54

Sounds like my sounds like one of my first girlfriends. Oh god, no touching. No touching. Come on, what's the fun in that? Anyhow. Anyhow, um Linda Ives said that and they and the persistence of the families in seeking further investigation pushed this and they got an outside uh forensic path, a forensic person to do another autopsy. Now I don't know if they just went over what the notes were from Malik or if they exhumed the bodies.

Andrea 16:32

I would like to think that if you're an independent person coming in, that you would start without any biases or knowing anything and just do it as if you were handing it being handed to you the first time. Right. I would think that you would be very much biased in your thoughts and opinions if you read the other person's notes.

Paul G 16:51

Aaron Powell So they got this finally in front of the um the state board of coroners.

Andrea 16:59

Well, this guy's been in front of state board coroners a lot.

Paul G 17:01

Well, this is the big one.

Andrea 17:02

Okay.

Paul G 17:03

Uh they reversed his decision uh decision and said no, this was hom pro potentially a homicide because they can't tell because they're in pieces.

Andrea 17:11

Well, you can't tell if they fell asleep or they were pushed.

Paul G 17:14

Or if they were killed before.

Andrea 17:16

And then put on the track.

Paul G 17:17

Right. Because time of death is going to be impossible to t to discern because the heat. So normally if you want to do time of death, you've seen it on the on the on the forensic shows, they take a liver temp.

Andrea 17:29

And they do a couple of things, but liver temp, I think is pretty common.

Paul G 17:32

That's the the the main one. Yeah. That's why it's always it's why screenwriters use it all the time, because it's the predominantly used way to do it. There's other ways, yes. Decomposition, things like that. But this is within hours of them dying. Yeah. And they're split in half. So the liver is not insulated with the rest of the body, it's open to the elements. So you can't tell time of death. It's cooled down significantly more than what the literature where they've tested people who have died and their liver temp. That's where they had to figure this out. Somebody dies in the hospital, take a liver temp, and then they come back and two hours later take a liver temp, an hour later, take a liver temp, you know, and they say, by this time, if we've had 200 of these bodies that we've tested this on, and this is how we know liver temp will be this range and it drops this much.

Andrea 18:26

Yeah.

Paul G 18:26

It's not they don't just sit there and do the math on it, they actually tested it. Right? So because of that, the liver not being insulated inside the body, all that forensics that they know about is out the window. Because it's exposed to cooler air. Correct. And but I doubt there was any time for any inflammation because the brain was disconnected at that point.

Andrea 18:59

Yeah.

Paul G 19:00

Because both boys were decapitated. Yeah. And it was bad. It was extremely disgusting and terrible. So the family they hired investigators, blah, blah, blah, blah. You know, they they went overboard, spent a lot of money because they were pissed about this being called an accident. Smoke too much marijuana, blacked out. As someone who blacks out for marijuana, the one time I tried it, I blacked out. It's not that simple.

Andrea 19:32

I wouldn't I mean I don't I don't smoke it.

Paul G 19:34

It'll just pass out.

Andrea 19:36

I don't know enough about I mean I'm going to with now that I'm back in school, but um I I would have to think you would have to take a lot of marijuana.

Paul G 19:44

I don't know. I was allergic to it and it just hit me immediately. Didn't take much.

Andrea 19:50

But if this is gonna sound awful, and for the family out there, I'm not saying that your child was a user, but if he was uh they were someone that used it often, you're going to have a tolerance, so it's gonna take more to get the same effect. But I I don't know, man. I don't know if I'd say passed out from marijuana. That's a lot, I would think.

Paul G 20:09

That's it, it was just him being stupid. Now, do we know if he did it because he was being lazy? Was he paid, or is he an ignorant fool? We don't know. Why did he do that?

Andrea 20:22

Because our last episode, he's just an ignorant fool.

Grand Jury And A Rare Reopening

Paul G 20:25

Yeah, that's what it seemed to be. I mean, we that's our it's our opinion. Our opinion, yeah, that's not a fact. Um so the deputy prosecutor, Richard Garrett, became involved in this for because now it's a crime again. Right? Yeah. And it's in his district, so he's gotta do it. And the court ordered an exag uh exhumation of the bodies, and they sent it off for another autopsy.

Andrea 20:51

This is a third.

Paul G 20:51

Yeah, the second autopsy done by Joseph Burton, second official autopsy.

Andrea 20:56

Okay.

Paul G 20:57

Um the grand jury then gets it. They uh convene to examine the case with the new forensic evidence from the bodies, crime scene photos, and the grand jury. Now, Arkansas doesn't do grand juries at all. We don't do grand juries.

Andrea 21:12

We stopped doing that. I don't know, I don't know why.

Paul G 21:14

We never really did it. We're we have a lot of French influence, so it's because Louisiana, a lot of people come up from Louisiana too. Especially down there. We have one county that's a parish in Arkansas. So we and we have a lot of we still have the French influence going on.

Andrea 21:34

Okay.

Paul G 21:35

Um so um the grand jury, which is unheard of to do a grand jury, it's very rare. They're like, yeah, no, these boys were killed. Probably homicide. Because they can't definitively say because there's not any evidence because no one investigated the damn thing when it happened. Right?

Andrea 21:55

Yeah.

Paul G 21:56

Um so because of that, the role Of the sheriff, James Steed, he now has has a role in it, he's got to investigate it. And then the main and between all these guys, if Malik and James Steed and this new guy, um Richard Garrett, are all pushing. So they appointed a special prosecutor, Dan Harmon. Now Dan Harmon is where things start to get a little funky.

Andrea 22:28

He's a special prosecutor, right? Yeah. So what special prosecutors come in whenever they have to have a someone that's like? I think that they're like have to come in when they're like maybe they need somebody unbiased. They have to they come in when there's like a conflict of interest, if I remember correctly.

Paul G 22:47

Yes. And that or it makes me wonder now. A special prosecutor, I can see why it might be needed because it took so long, it took like years to get this far to get it reopened. Okay. So I can s I can see that that they needed a new prosecutor. But w what we know from doing this is that time destroys the ability to get to the evidence. Especially if it hasn't been investigated as a crime to begin with.

Andrea 23:25

Because you're pretty much shot yourself in the foot to be able to even investigate it because it's been so long.

Paul G 23:30

Yeah, and it just goes away at that point. And then by adding in all these different layers of bureaucracy, the sheriff, the prosecutor, the deputy prosecutor, the the coroner, the coroner's inquest done by the board of coroners, and now a grand jury. All this stuff, as we know, and anybody who follows true crime or crime at all, the more layers you put in on it, the harder it becomes to discern what's real.

Andrea 24:01

Yeah, wouldn't you think? A lot of people got their hands in it. So Yeah.

Paul G 24:04

And the more hands are in it, the less it's the less it becomes something you can deal with.

Andrea 24:10

I think the more hands in it, the more political it gets.

Enter Dan Harmon And Corruption

Paul G 24:13

This is true. And I think it makes me wonder, and it's just a thought. The special prosecutor, I'd like to know the thinking of the person who decided they needed a special prosecutor. Was it under threat from politics? A bribe? Or what? Because this is this is as far as most podcasts get with this case. And then they start going off into left field. And there's a reason why. Because you start getting into the Saline County Sheriff. You know, he's local gatekeeper, handling the case early. He's significant because his duties are over the scene interpretation and evidence hand evidence handling and you know how he runs the office and what he presents to the prosecutor. Because the sheriff's department has to present it to the prosecutor, and the prosecutor has to decide on the charges.

Andrea 25:08

Yeah, yay or nay to even proceed.

Paul G 25:10

Right. So Richard Garrett, he moved the case back towards homicide. Uh and it doesn't seem like he was corrupt at all. It doesn't seem like the Saline County Sheriff was corrupt. There's nobody that ever bothered to investigate. These guys, they stopped at Dean or Dan Harmon. Okay. Now Dan Harmon was later elected the prosecutor in Saline County.

Andrea 25:44

Okay.

Paul G 25:45

It's an elected position.

Andrea 25:46

So he got to move up.

Paul G 25:48

Yeah. But then he was then convicted in federal co court of racketeering, extortion-related conspiracies, and marijuana conspiracies. He was involved directly with the importation of marijuana at the Mina Airport.

Andrea 26:08

So if that's the case, then why doesn't I like to think that you'd be like, if you're corrupt and you're you've you've gotten you got busted for marijuana, essentially.

Paul G 26:17

Now wouldn't you want to go back to No, he got busted for kilos of marijuana.

Andrea 26:23

I would like to think that they would go back and see if he's like been bribed or if any of his cases have been like, you know, um he helped scratch, you know, I I scratch your hand, I scratch your ass, you scratch my kind of thing. You know what I'm saying? Like maybe some of his cases he let people off because of what he was doing.

Paul G 26:43

Yeah. And so the problem that we've got now with this stupid thing is now it's got all this level of bureaucracy, and come to find out that part of that bureaucracy should have been a suspect.

Andrea 26:57

Who was that?

Paul G 26:59

Dan Harmon. Because he was involved in bringing the drugs into Arkansas.

Andrea 27:06

My thing is, is how are the boys linked to the marijuana?

Paul G 27:09

Well, the predominant theory is that they saw or did saw something they shouldn't have because it's not too far from the airport.

Andrea 27:18

Okay.

Paul G 27:18

And what they would do according to the guy who flew the plane, they'd offload the plane, put it on a train, and the train would take it across country.

Andrea 27:28

Okay.

Paul G 27:29

So train is already accessible, it's already part of the narrative for the marijuana.

Andrea 27:34

Okay.

Paul G 27:34

Right? Now, did the boys use marijuana on a regular basis? We don't know. The family says not so much, but as we all know, teenagers, especially 16, 17-year-olds, go and do stuff parents know nothing about.

Andrea 27:49

Yes, I can definitely attest to that.

Paul G 27:51

We can all vouch for that. We've all done it. Or we've been friends with someone who did it.

Andrea 27:56

Yeah. Right. Yeah.

Paul G 27:57

Or we've been a parent who's experienced it.

Andrea 28:01

I've been the parent.

Paul G 28:05

So the that's kind of where it stops with these boys.

Andrea 28:11

So basically, they think that the what Dan Harman guy had something to do with it?

Paul G 28:16

More than likely. My what I think more than likely happened is somebody killed him, put them on the tracks to destroy the evidence.

Andrea 28:26

So what are they okay, they're out there looking for wildlife through what's what's it called?

Paul G 28:30

Spot Spotlighting, deer. Spotlighting. And rabbits. Maybe deer or rabbits. I don't know. They had a 22.

Andrea 28:36

So they're out there doing that and what they wandered upon the railroad tracks and and see all this stuff going down.

Paul G 28:41

Yeah, they might have caught them, loading it up, and said, Hey, what are you boys doing out here loading us up at four in the morning? Oops. You're not supposed to be here.

Andrea 28:52

Right? Shoot them. Or whatever.

Paul G 28:55

Especially if the cartel's involved. In 87, the cartel was what's his name? We swatched a documentary on the other day. Um the Mexican cartel guy.

Andrea 29:06

Oh, um.

Paul G 29:07

They just shot everybody. They didn't care.

Andrea 29:08

I keep thinking El Chapo, but I think it's not.

Paul G 29:10

No, it was El Chapo.

Andrea 29:11

Is it El Chapo?

Paul G 29:12

Yeah, he was around at I think he was around at this time.

Andrea 29:15

I just remember thinking that I'm like I get him confused with the other.

Paul G 29:19

You didn't you had to deal with Mexican cartels to get the drugs in the United States because they ran cocaine. So they ran all the corridors. So if you had marijuana, you made made it in Ecuador, you wanted to get it in the US, of course they grow weed and you know greenhouses in Mexico. Well, at least they did. They don't anymore. Well, they do now still, but not like they used to. But Mexico is the distributor of the drugs. The makers of the drugs are c are Colombia when it comes to cocaine.

Andrea 29:50

So cocaine for Colombia to Mexico, they fly Mina. They fly this plane into Mina.

Drug Routes, Mena, And Cartel Theories

Paul G 29:56

Yeah, they get it to Mexico and then they the smugglers out of Mexico run it.

Andrea 30:01

They fly it in or whatever.

Paul G 30:02

Yeah. Put it on fastboats, as we see Trump's lately been blowing up fastboats.

Andrea 30:07

Land it in Mina, offload it. They're gonna put the plane on the train.

Paul G 30:11

Yeah.

Andrea 30:11

And then they're gonna put the plane somewhere else in the US to fly it.

Paul G 30:14

No, the plane, he just turns around and goes.

Andrea 30:16

He just turns around and goes. Okay.

Paul G 30:18

And and he's also a charter plane, too. He's also taking people one day he's running drugs, and next day he's gonna have a party of six going to Cozumel. Oh, well, it's kind of a good ruse if you think about it. Exactly. I mean, it's not out of his that's not out of his root. That's why he got away with it for so long. Plus, he was also involved with CIA. So it gets even more convoluted the deeper you go.

Andrea 30:45

So these it could have been in theory these boys were killed just because they were at the wrong place at the wrong time.

Paul G 30:51

And I think that's true. That makes that's the the shortest pass is usually the one that's right.

Andrea 30:57

But is there not any way that they can we can prove the connection between No There's no or that not that anyone's willing to confess or admit.

Paul G 31:05

So when they'd unload the plane, as soon as they unload the plane, he got the hell out.

Andrea 31:08

Yeah, so he didn't the plant.

Paul G 31:10

He probably wasn't even there.

Andrea 31:11

The pilot didn't see anything.

Paul G 31:12

And there were other pilots running drugs too, not just him.

Andrea 31:15

Yeah.

Paul G 31:16

So it might not have even been his load that he that day.

Andrea 31:20

So the pro the what's the guy that got prosecuted again, uh what's he was?

Paul G 31:24

Dan Harmon.

Andrea 31:25

Harmon. So this Harmon guy, pretty much, it would be easier for him to be be convicted of basically like running his drug ring, essentially, than it would be for murder, because that would be get him on the death penalty. So of course he's gonna keep his mouth shut.

Paul G 31:38

On top of that, he might not have even had anything to do with it. It may have been the cartel guys that were in town to oversee the load being transferred.

Andrea 31:46

Oh, that would make sense. And when the the cartel people want to make sure that their stuff's coming in is going to get on the train.

Paul G 31:51

There was always a cartel guy with them.

Andrea 31:53

So they would watch. Yeah. That would make sense. I mean, if you're the one that's, you know, wanting to distribute all this.

Paul G 31:58

And then local bad actors would help load the train and they get paid big bugs. I mean, you get paid big bugs for this. This guy was getting like a hundred grand for every load he took. The airplane guy.

Andrea 32:08

Oh, I mean.

Paul G 32:09

So there's big money involved in this. And when there's big money and it's illegal, that then you've got guns.

Andrea 32:16

It's just really sad that if this is the case, there's no way that we'll ever find out what happened to those boys because it would have to take somebody confessing.

Paul G 32:24

The problem that you have is could they have been killed by some dude that just didn't want them on their land? And he's like, oh crap, they're just out here. What have I done? I've killed these guys because I was mad. How am I gonna get rid of them? Put them on the railroad track.

Andrea 32:39

I mean, there's that theory. I would like to think that if you shot them on accident, that you would, like, you know, try to do something about it versus putting them on the railroad track.

Paul G 32:48

You would think.

Andrea 32:48

You would think, but we've seen people do accidents all the time and get scared to do dumb stuff.

Paul G 32:53

So there was also an undercover detective with the Pulaski County Sheriff's Narcotics Division that was involved in this somehow. And it's he didn't have a direct role. But again, you can see where you get off the rail real quick. You run down, you think, oh well, cartel. But let's think about it for a second. What else could have happened? It could have been a suicide pact. I doubt that.

Andrea 33:22

Yeah, I'm uh but then again, parents, I mean, when your kids are having struggling, or sometimes you don't always know what's going on because they hide it from you really well. So, you know, that's why when if someone commits suicide, you don't want to turn the parents and be like, Why didn't you know? Sometimes you don't know because you don't see it because it's not screaming it.

Paul G 33:44

Yeah. And the reason I say this, Kirk Lane guy is an undercover detective. Uh it was witness-driven and later publication implication, so it got in the paper. Uh and then he sued him for defamation.

Andrea 33:59

Ouch. So did they win?

Paul G 34:01

Yeah, he won. So more than likely it wasn't him. He didn't have anything to do with it. He's just trying to figure out where these drugs are coming from, and he just happened to be tertiary to the to the event.

Andrea 34:12

Yeah.

Paul G 34:14

And it was still, we can't link the murders to anybody involved in this. It just seems like the highest possibility is that they walked him onto something they shouldn't have seen.

Andrea 34:24

I just find it hard to believe that we can't link it. This day and age, we have the ability to do pretty much if you're a criminal, you have to be a moron. You will be caught.

Paul G 34:32

Yeah, but this is 87.

Andrea 34:33

So they think it's an accident. So they probably don't think it wasn't. Yeah.

Paul G 34:37

That's exactly what happened, yes.

Andrea 34:38

They think it's an accident. They don't do any they don't there was a DNA, not no DNA back then, so never mind.

Paul G 34:43

Well, there wasn't any DNA to collect. I mean, there were gunshots that they could tell.

Andrea 34:47

So gunshots they could tell.

Paul G 34:48

That they were killed killed before the train track.

Andrea 34:51

Then why the hell are they real in an accident?

Paul G 34:53

I don't know.

Andrea 34:54

That's what I'm getting.

Paul G 34:55

This is this Malik guy again that we did a whole episode on because he's such an idiot.

Andrea 34:59

So right there, you know it's homicide. Because no one's gonna shoot themselves and then walk on the railroad track. Let's be realistic here. Unless you really do a poor shot, then that's the only thing.

Paul G 35:10

Well, and it's still inconclusive whether they were shot because their bodies were mangled so bad.

Andrea 35:16

Unless you could see like in their skulls or something, obviously in the bone, you're probably not gonna know.

Paul G 35:21

That's the problem, is that you can be shot in the liver, and once you dec decompose, no one will ever know how you died.

Andrea 35:27

True, but they they we weren't at decomp yet.

Paul G 35:30

I know, but I'm I'm just saying it's Yeah. And but these bodies are so dis so disgustingly torn up that it wasn't even funny. It was it was it wasn't even ironic, it was just horrific. It was a horror movie. Are these people The guy on the train is like, no, this is something that I have never seen in my life, even in horror films.

Andrea 35:49

So And I'm paraphrasing is the uh people that they think may have been involved, are they still alive?

Paul G 35:56

You have to ask me questions I don't have answers to.

Alternate Explanations And Dead Ends

Andrea 35:59

Here's my thought process. If you're still alive, the only way this is ever gonna get like corrected or fixed.

Paul G 36:04

The cartel guy, if it's if it's a cartel guy, cartel thing. The cartel guy, he's probably dead or in he's probably dead. Because we killed all those guys off.

Andrea 36:12

If it's cartel, then we'll never know. But if it's someone like the prosecutor or whatever that knew about this or heard about this or is aware of it, it'll have to take them dying or you know, a deathbed confession, or I'm gonna expunge my soul before I meet God at the end for this to get solved.

Paul G 36:30

And and they did it to another guy, a lieutenant with the Plastic County Sheriff's Department, Jay Campbell. They came out in another witness description overlap with later publications. Somebody wrote a book.

Andrea 36:41

Oh no.

Paul G 36:42

And he sued them for defamation in one. Can't do that. We don't know. So there's a lot. See how much crap there is in this case? It's completely and utterly destroyed. We there's nothing you can do with this case.

Andrea 36:55

So people have been making speculations and writing books.

Paul G 36:57

Yeah. And newspaper prints and all sorts of good stuff.

Andrea 37:01

Oh man, you gotta be really careful when you do that.

Paul G 37:04

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, we're just going over the facts when in our podcast. We're we don't uh give judgment. We just say our best educated guess is that this should be the next thing that should be done.

Andrea 37:14

Or our opinions, and they're just our opinions.

Paul G 37:16

Yeah. Dale Allen, uh he was a law enforcement name appearing and later implicated. Uh and he was included because he services uh in the allegation ecosystem around the case. But again, you know, it belongs in a pen in an appendix uh because there's nothing direct. It's all hearsay and crap, right? The Keith McCaskill was another guy that they were talking about. Uh he's an i he would be an intermediary because he was a Harmon informant. He was an informant working for Harmon. He's also an enforcer, some would say, working for Harmon.

Andrea 38:03

Okay.

Paul G 38:03

Because if it's a conspiracy stuff, right? Okay. Uh he's more useful as public knowledge holder, somebody who knows something.

Andrea 38:13

Okay.

Paul G 38:14

Um and he he just he he might be the place if he's even still alive, I didn't look. He might be the place where you go and find a little bit more evidence to chase down to prove. Right? And he'd say, Well, I think he did this, and this is what we did that night, and you go prove that. Right?

Andrea 38:35

I would like to think that if you knew that kind of stuff, you'd talk.

Paul G 38:39

So Billy Jack Haynes came by, came out years later in 2018. Uh he claimed knowledge of the murders in connection with a drug drop scenario. This is where all this comes from, is this Billy Jack Haynes.

Andrea 38:54

Why does that name sound familiar to me?

Paul G 38:56

Oh, you probably heard it. It's explosive if it's true, but he waited until 2018 to say anything.

Andrea 39:03

Of course.

Paul G 39:03

Is he like a So it's uncorroborated, you can't prove any of what he says, right? And he's the one that came up with this whole thing that's driven all these true crime podcasts. And this is why we're doing this today, because we're talking about this case, even though it's a big one, because this is just a prime example of how if you listen to these cold cases or these true crime things, they that will convince you that this happened. But when you know that the guy who came up with the whole story waited until 2018 and they can't even prove he was there, it all remains still, we don't know what happened to these boys. And we don't know because they claimed it was an accident. Why did they claim it was an accident? It seems like it's not that big a reach that the prosecuting the prosecuting attorney knew this Harman guy, and the Harman guy said, Look, this let it go, and he called Malik and he said, Hey man, I know you're stupid, so can you just say it's an accident?

Andrea 40:06

Well, he has a track record.

Paul G 40:07

Yeah, he's a track record, track record of being stupid. In my opinion, of course. Um so when you listen to these stories, and that's that's why I was interested in this, because it's it they always go down this conspiracy lane. But the fact is we don't know anything about why these boys were killed.

Andrea 40:28

And we were never, probably won't ever find out.

Paul G 40:31

Was it and it's just as probable, and the family would be all up in my arms and yelling and screaming at me for saying this, but it's true, it's just as probable they murder suicide or suicide pact as them being killed by the cartel, only for the fact that we don't have any evidence to anything.

Andrea 40:53

Yeah, we don't have a side to lean on.

Paul G 40:55

Right. There's nowhere to go because they didn't investigate it as a crime. They were too busy cleaning up the bodies and being shocked by the bodies. Which is exactly what I would do. And I'd have to remind myself this is a crime. We need to treat this like a crime, not a giant mess that's gonna leave me having nightmares for the rest of my life.

Andrea 41:19

It makes me wonder, though, if maybe like every case that you think is an accident and you're pretty confident that it's an accident, and you're like, you know, would jump up and down and then you know, uh scream to the mountaintops this is an accident. Maybe you should keep evidence in case it's not.

Lawsuits, Defamation, And Media Myths

Paul G 41:36

Right. So the first claim is CIA was involved, contra overlap. It's supported because the case becomes culturally tiled to broader Arkansas 1980s covert operations lore, which we have enough fact now to know that most of it probably is true, even if we can't prove it. What weakens it is the direct linkage to Kevin and Don remains thin because there's nobody has any idea how they walked in on it, right? The state level pro now, the other conspiracy claim is the state-level politician protection, right? Don, Mr. Don, who went to jail for conspiracy, corruption, and you know, yeah he's basically a local mobster, is what he was, because he was in power. Uh the late scale of later speculation, 2018, right? Reflects public distrust of Arkansas power structures. Obviously, it's the law, nobody you know, people distrust the law. But what weakens it is public distrust is not direct proof. Correlation does not mean causation, right?

Andrea 42:41

Yeah.

Paul G 42:42

First thing to teach you, you had to teach me that. Even though I knew it, I didn't think it was a concept, and you brought it up in in and medicine that correlation does not mean causation.

Andrea 42:54

No, you have to, I mean, it could be, but you have to think of other possibilities.

Paul G 42:57

Right. Uh the other claim is that the witness death chain proves a single integrated conspiracy.

Andrea 43:04

Everybody loves conspiracy. Of course, that's gonna be on this case.

Paul G 43:07

But what supports it is that there's later multiple deaths and disappearances in the orbit of this dawn guy.

Andrea 43:15

Okay. I mean, yeah. Of course, he's dealing in drugs, there's gonna be some of that there.

Paul G 43:20

Yeah, and he's prostitution in the whole nine yards. He had prostitutes. He was basically a pimp, too. The prosecutor was running the prostitutes.

Andrea 43:29

Okay. That's not I mean, that's that's funny, but it's not funny.

Paul G 43:33

I know, it's amazing.

Andrea 43:34

Only in Arkansas.

Paul G 43:35

I mean No, it happens everywhere. But there was no courtroom resolution that never got taken to court, none of this stuff, other than that that that uh connects to these boys dying. Right?

Andrea 43:48

And you wonder why I don't like politics.

Paul G 43:50

And then there's another claim that it was a cartel hit or a narco execution. In a traffic in vi trafficking environment, brutal motive logic. You know, you saw me do this, I'm gonna kill you.

Andrea 44:02

But if you think about it though, if you're like bringing in drugs, marijuana or whatever from wherever, it's quite a bit of money. You're gonna protect that thing like it's gonna be guns. Car precious baby cargo. So anybody that gets involved that you think's gonna snitch, you're gonna take them out.

Paul G 44:18

I mean, so what I've done is I've done my usual thing because there's no evidence or answers in this, there's never gonna be that I know of, unless you have somebody who's a proven witness.

Andrea 44:30

Which is sad for the families.

Paul G 44:31

Yes, it is bad. More than likely they're the wrong place at wrong time, but it was was it some dude out protecting his his moonshine still? Or were they on his property and he didn't like it and he told him to get off several times and he the boys never told anybody about it and he finally just had fed up with it and killed him?

Andrea 44:49

I hope that's not the case. That's a pretty crappy reason to shoot.

Paul G 44:53

Was it a suicide pact? I again I don't believe it was.

Andrea 44:56

I don't quite fall into that one.

Paul G 44:58

No, I don't believe it was, but it's a possibility because we don't know. Right?

Andrea 45:02

I'd say it's highly unlikely.

Paul G 45:03

Highly unlikely. I agree with that. But you see what I'm saying? It's all these things need to be answered. We need to narrow this down.

Andrea 45:10

I would like to think that with some of the suicide stuff, you could probably get a better perception of that by talking to friends, family, and things like that. The friends would know before the family.

Paul G 45:19

Yes. I don't I don't I don't think it's a thing. I don't think it is, but it's a possibility, still nonetheless, right? Even though it's probably it's probably the least the least reasonable thing.

Andrea 45:31

There's lots of possibilities. I could write out of here on a big giant pink unicorn, but it's not a good thing. That's true.

Paul G 45:36

And that's basically what this case is. This case is a pink unicorn.

Andrea 45:43

Right? And of course, people are gonna grab on to it because everybody loves conspiracy theory. We're still talking about Kennedy and how long has this man been gone?

Paul G 45:50

Yeah, we went and visited the the school book depository, or as I call it, the sp what do I call it?

Andrea 45:57

Suppository.

Paul G 45:58

Supposor yeah, the school book suppository, and anybody can make that shot, just so you know.

Andrea 46:02

I know we went there. I lived in D north of Dallas for a good while, and I I never went down there because I was kids were little, you know, uh just dealing with like school and kids. I couldn't. So when my son was graduating high school, we went back down there and I wanted to see it. So we go there and we park, and it it's you know, tons of conspiracy people around there passing out their little pamphlets, wanting to talk to you. And then you make the tour, and then you go to the spot where they think that he was. And I when you Where he shot made the shot when they made the shot, and I remember looking at Paul and I'm like, anybody can make this shot.

Paul G 46:34

Yeah.

Andrea 46:34

Because it's really not that far away.

Paul G 46:36

It's not, it's not even a football field.

Andrea 46:38

And I'm like, Paul, you can make this shot, not me. I'd probably shoot my foot, but you know, I mean, you are highly a good marksman, you can make that shot.

Paul G 46:45

And and he would and and and so anyway, so what I did, and you're right. I mean, it's it's this this whole thing about conspiracy theories is just stupid most of the time.

Andrea 46:54

Some of them are funny. I'll watch it just for funnies.

Paul G 46:57

Sometimes. Sometimes it just makes you want to scream. So I did what I normally do and I threw it into my AI.

Andrea 47:04

Oh, Cade Mercer.

Paul G 47:07

He takes all the information, all the knowledge from these guys that came up with this stuff, meaning it's got access to it all, so I I put it all in there and asked Cade Mercer what he thinks.

Andrea 47:20

We need to get Cade Mercer, like a draw of Cade Mercer, and put like a little mascot hat or something on him.

Profiling The Offender Logic

Paul G 47:26

Yes, yes. Um, so Kevin and he says, Kevin, and by the way, Chat GPT is where Cade lives. And uh Cade Mercer is a name that chat came up with. I didn't give it the name. I didn't I the person anything that's in personality-wise, Chat chose this stuff, which is eerie and weird and fun at the same time. Just so you know. So he said that can Kevin Ives and Don Henry, Arkansas 1987, two teenage boys found on the tracks near Crooked Creek Trestle after a freight train trolled or rolled over the bodies, and later for forensic conflict suggested they may have already been compromised before the impact. All right.

Andrea 48:10

Okay.

Paul G 48:11

If he says if the boys were assaulted before being placed on the tracks, the offender behavior leans away from chaotic impulse towards control. A railroad line is not just is not a disposal site, it's a weapon. Um it offers noise, destruction, and built-in excuse if local authorities are willing to accept one, which is what happened. The original accident narrative mattered because it awarded whoever put them there with anonymity. And then if an offender chose the tracks, he was either betting on physical destruction to obscure prior injury or betting on institutional laziness, fear, or loyalty to finish the job for him.

Andrea 48:54

Well, that fits it.

Paul G 48:56

Two victims together changes the behavioral demand, one body can be moved by a single determined adult, two boys create more friction, more risk, and more chance of noise. That points to either more than one offender or one offender with health, or one offender with enough authority and confidence to operate without much fear of interruption. So the indicators control over victims, likely moderate to high if bodies replaced rather than collapse naturally, offender confidence elevated. The scene choice implies belief that the story would hold or could be made to hold. And we've seen that before, and people are stupid, so it doesn't necessarily mean anything. Risk tolerance, victim offender relationship. K believes that the victim offender relationship, the person who killed them, they didn't know him.

Andrea 49:46

Okay.

Paul G 49:47

He doesn't believe that they knew him. Hypothesis A from Mercer's the boys saw something they weren't supposed to see. The homicide was functional, not emotional, the tracks were chosen to erase the and reframe the murders.

Andrea 49:59

Which pretty much that's what everybody thinks. Yeah, that's everyone thinks, yeah.

Paul G 50:03

Hypothesis B, the boys crossed the path of dirty local actors, possibly connected to narcotics activity or local per protection of it, and the homicide was followed by confidence that the officials would be silent.

Andrea 50:16

Well, there you go. I think it's maybe a combination of both of those.

Paul G 50:19

Yeah. Hypothesis C the boys encountered violence that began as a confrontation and ended as staging. In this branch, the murder is less pre-planned than the cover narrative that followed. And that hypothesis C falls into they were on the guy's land, he got mad, he told him three or four times, so he killed him. So that's so you can see. But it also goes into they stepped in and saw somebody dealing drugs. Right?

Andrea 50:46

Or it could have been like they were in high school, maybe two they were get not getting along with two boys from high school, or they met up on the railroad tracks and just they had a shootout. Hurt each hurt each other, and they it could be any number of things.

Paul G 50:58

That's right. So Cade says the case got famous because people smelled conspiracy and stayed alive because the bodies would not cooperate, cooperate with the first lie of being an accident. The two boys did not become for folklore on their own, they became folklore because the official explanation felt too convenient, too thin, and too eager to be believed. Which is absolutely true. Whether the motive was local corruption, trafficking exposure, or a narrower confrontation that spun into homicide, the tracks look less like the place where the truth began and where more like the place where someone tried to bury it. So even Cade stumped. He doesn't have a forensic profile, he doesn't have anything he can go by because there isn't any clear definable evidence other than the train mangled him.

Andrea 51:55

It makes me wonder at whoever did this. They had if I would my this is my opinion or my thought, they probably knew this is where it was gonna go because of trains involved. They knew it was gonna be difficult to prove anything.

Paul G 52:08

Those trains run pretty down in the south, my grandparents lived behind a train. And that train, you knew exactly on when it was gonna run on what day. Just because you were proximity to it. Because they're very loud.

Andrea 52:25

Yeah.

Paul G 52:26

So it could have been anybody in that community that was had any kind of relationship with that train track to know when that train was coming through. Yeah, I mean So it doesn't close the suspect pool at all.

Andrea 52:37

No.

Paul G 52:38

Because I don't know where you were going, you're thinking, well, the the drug guys knew it was a train because they were loading it on the train to take it across country. Everybody knew that train was there.

Andrea 52:47

Yeah, but I'm thinking like uh what I'm trying to get at is they knew that this case would not be solvable because if they get the train involved, it's the one that causes their to be shredded. Yeah. Evidence is pretty much gonna be slim to nothing.

Cade Mercer’s Hypotheses

Paul G 53:00

So we got well, I got a lot of this from Encyclopedia of Arkansas. I was uh Kevin and Don Henry. Not all of that stuff is and some of that stuff is contradictory because they say in the Arkansas uh the uh Encyclopedia of Arkansas that there was a blue tarp involved, but yet when you go to the police reports, there is no blue tarp. So even this stuff is convoluted and messed up. The the facts on it, it contri contradicts each other all the time. Um Jay Campbell, Kirk Lane versus Citizens for an honest government that was a witness-driven allegation involving Kirk Lan and Jay Campbell and for preserving what the later litigation actually does and does not prove. So they went to court to get some of this stuff straightened out.

Andrea 53:49

Wow.

Paul G 53:50

So using that, and then United States versus Daniel Harmon Jr. Right? That's where went and looked at his stuff, and then Associated Press, of course, FBI has some stuff, and then Barry Seal is the pilot. He's well documented because he just came out and told everybody. Uh, you know, or unsolved mer uh mysteries also did it too.

Andrea 54:12

So I maybe that's where I've heard it from.

Paul G 54:15

Oh, yeah, this has been everywhere. Absolutely. So again, it's this is one of those cases that will never be solved because of local corruption. I believe, in my opinion, there was some corruption. Maybe these boys were killed by some dude that told them to get lost and they didn't do what he said. And the prosecutor guy, Harmon, thought, Oh crap, my drug dealer guy killed him and started to cover it up, and when the yet they both don't have anything to do with each other. We don't know.

Andrea 54:44

No, we won't know.

Paul G 54:45

And Dan Harmon doesn't know anything about it. Obviously. But he never really confessed anything. He was caught on tape. I mean, they the FBI came in and busted his ass. It's a whole other case. We should probably cover Dan Harmon. But even if the crap he was doing.

Andrea 55:05

But even if he did do it, why would he confess he'd get the death penalty versus?

Paul G 55:12

Um So the reason I wanted to go over this case is because it's so much there's so much out there that people speculation, and we spent an hour on it and still have nothing at all whatsoever.

Andrea 55:24

Yeah, that's true.

Paul G 55:25

And there's no there's nothing to be found on this case that will lead you to what happened to these boys.

Andrea 55:33

For the family, I mean for them. They lost their sons.

Paul G 55:35

Yeah, and there's when you take the speculation out of it, it really boils down a lot of this stuff because all the speculation is based on I think this, I think that. And what we can only speculate what we can only do is what is actually true. When in this case, the only thing we have is the contested autopsy.

Andrea 55:58

Yeah, that's it.

Paul G 56:00

And the train driver saying they were not moving when I hit them. And even that is speculative whether it's true or not, because the blue tarp. They were wrapped in a blue tarp, and then but the police reports didn't say anything about a blue tarp.

Andrea 56:18

That could be someone saw something that looked like a blue tarp, maybe or it could be the the police department didn't note that because they thought it was an accident, it didn't matter.

Paul G 56:29

I would say all that's true.

Andrea 56:31

Yeah.

Paul G 56:31

More than likely, because blue tarps, that's all you could buy. You could buy a blue tarp at Walmart, and out there in the middle of the sticks in Mina, you had a little Walmart that wasn't even a super center at the time.

Andrea 56:41

Yeah.

Paul G 56:42

If they had that at all, it was probably just a grocery store and a hardware store, like an ice true value or something like that.

Andrea 56:48

Yeah.

Paul G 56:48

And all they sold was blue tarps. Now we have all the different kinds of color tarps because we're, you know, we demand more. But back then, no.

Andrea 56:57

We wanted to be sparkly.

Paul G 56:58

Yeah. Back then people are like, I need a tarp. I don't Do you want a purple tarp or a green tarp? Just give me a tarp.

Andrea 57:04

I I don't understand why it would matter what color is, just give me a tarp. I'm gonna cover something with a tarp.

Paul G 57:09

Yeah, and that's the thought, that's the thinking of of the 1980s. It's just give me a damn tarp and shut shut the hell up. I don't care.

Andrea 57:15

I don't need a tarp.

Paul G 57:16

Now we needed to have all these different things and waterproof, not waterproof, when terror-proof, not terrorproof. So yeah. And and again, it it it just any of all these cons the these shows that cover this, they always go down these conspiracy roads. But if there was a conspiracy to be had, the AI would have picked up on it. It it says none of these have enough evidence to be able to use them. It it it thinks it. Kate Mercer thinks that more than likely it's top one, if you remember, yeah. Was uh boys saw something they were not supposed to and they were killed because of it. Even Cade thinks that's probably what it is, what it's going on, and that's just logic algorithm running on itself.

Andrea 58:00

Yeah, I mean it makes sense.

Paul G 58:02

Yeah. It's just the shortest avenue is usually the truth.

Andrea 58:06

Yeah, we'll they'll know we'll never know.

Paul G 58:08

No, because there's no evidence. It was so botched from the beginning that there's absolutely no evidence. Didn't that suck?

Andrea 58:15

That does suck. Those poor boys.

Paul G 58:17

Anyhow, so would you so I I really by the way like the theme song this week.

Andrea 58:26

I know you're very excited about it.

Paul G 58:27

It's a good song.

Why The Truth Stays Buried

Andrea 58:28

Yeah, it's pretty good. It fits it. It's really good. It fits it.

Paul G 58:30

Yeah. I think that's what we're gonna do for now on. I'm just gonna make a song about our cases and try to make it cool.

Andrea 58:37

Okay.

Paul G 58:40

My my band, the house band, by the way.

Andrea 58:42

Oh god.

Paul G 58:43

What? Here we go. The house band. They can't be a better band. We picked them out of a lineup of bazillion bands. There's a bazillion of them. They all came to the house and and and and auditioned for me one day.

Andrea 58:56

This is the Kool-Aid band. Isn't that what it's called? You're supposed to go along with the joke, not tear my joke apart. I can't remember the name of it. That's what I'm saying. It's the Jim Jones Kool-Aid Band. Okay. I couldn't remember if it if I was it was I thought it was Jim Jones, but I'm thinking, is my right to say Kool-Aid Band?

Paul G 59:14

Yeah, Kool-Aid Band's spelled with a C, so there's no copyright problems. Because Kool-Aid's spelled with K.

Andrea 59:20

Technically it was Flavorade.

Paul G 59:22

Yes, it was Flavorade. The Jim Jones Kool-Aid Band. That's our that's our house band.

Andrea 59:29

It sounds better than Flavor Aid, but Yeah.

Paul G 59:32

I I don't know. I I came up with that. I'm sitting there going, what should I call it? And I go, Oh yeah, the Jim Jones Kool-Aid band. That's what I'm gonna use. Pat myself on the back for a couple of days. It was so good.

Andrea 59:42

I liked it.

Paul G 59:43

It's funny.

Andrea 59:44

He's been making music, all sorts of music.

Paul G 59:46

Yeah. Well, why not? It's fun and I don't have to do any actual work. I come up with I come up with the lyrics.

Andrea 59:55

You do, yeah. Sometimes I'm like, the lyrics make no sense.

Paul G 59:57

Well, that's because chat made it. Yeah. And then I'll I'll take what chat makes and go in through it and and fix it, or I'll give it lyrics and it'll build on it. It's it's a it's a it's a collaboration between Chat GPT and I. Okay. Well, it's a large language model. If I'm gonna pick anybody to help me write lyrics, it'd be a large language model.

Andrea 1:00:18

So are you Jim Jones or the Kool-Aid part of the band?

Paul G 1:00:20

I'm just the band.

Andrea 1:00:21

Oh god.

Paul G 1:00:23

I I I'm the producer. I'm the producer of Jim Jones Kool-Aid Band.

Andrea 1:00:28

So is Kate Mercer? Yeah.

Paul G 1:00:30

Kate Mercer, he is the uh sound guy.

Andrea 1:00:32

He's a sound guy. Okay. Oh god.

Paul G 1:00:37

But you know, I mean utilize tools that you got. I couldn't I I don't have the training to be able to do what Kate Mercer does. He's damn good too. I mean, he really is, because they've got all the stuff on tables out there on the white papers. Yeah, and then the you know, on the basics. So the algorithm loves it because it's just facts, facts, facts. And it chews them up, spits them out.

Andrea 1:01:00

Well, it does help me when it comes to writing my papers, get the um how to cite stuff correctly, thank God.

Paul G 1:01:07

It teaches you how to write.

Andrea 1:01:08

Well, how to cite stuff correctly. APA format cite each other. Oh, yeah, the APA format.

Paul G 1:01:13

Well, AP format is what it we use for journalism in AP format. I I hate AP format because it's it's right and wrong all the time.

Andrea 1:01:23

Yeah, that's confusing.

Paul G 1:01:24

Anyhow, so what else we got going on? Anything?

Andrea 1:01:30

I can't think of anything.

Paul G 1:01:31

You're gonna become a nurse practitioner.

Andrea 1:01:33

Yeah, in two years.

Paul G 1:01:34

In two years.

Andrea 1:01:36

Yes.

Paul G 1:01:36

She can write me scripts to make me go to sleep. Even if I don't want to.

Andrea 1:01:41

That's a nice thought, but I can't do that.

Paul G 1:01:44

You wouldn't be able to do it.

Andrea 1:01:45

It's called go to jail.

Paul G 1:01:47

I don't know. I won't tell anybody. I'm asleep.

Andrea 1:01:50

No. I'm not risk. This is too it's gonna be two years of continuous running around and getting stuff done.

Paul G 1:01:56

So yeah, yeah, yeah. It's a lot of work, a lot of work, a lot of work. Anyhow, so if you enjoyed today's episode, please go to Paulgnewton.com. That's PaulGnewton.com, you cheap guys. Go and buy my stuff. That's where you could buy swag and pay for the show because this doesn't get done for free, right?

Andrea 1:02:15

No, it doesn't.

Paul G 1:02:16

It just keeps costing more, doesn't it?

Andrea 1:02:18

Uh, it's not too bad. I mean, it's I don't understand the technology.

Paul G 1:02:23

You basically come to me and explain it why it's important and stuff, and we just newspapers.com and then the other th places we do our research, and then you've got the AI Music's ten bucks a month.

Andrea 1:02:38

Yeah.

Sources, Contradictions, And Blue Tarp Claims

Paul G 1:02:38

I had to go to AI Music because it is copyright free. We kept getting copyright structure. Like I know, but if you know everything. If you know Nate Rose, have him call me and let's sign a deal so I can use it on my shows, and it's you know, only 30 of you are listening to it anyway. It's not like he's losing any money. I just think it's funny. But yeah, so I just that's why that's why all this AI stuff is in here because it's just me. I'm doing all the physical work on the back end unless Andrea's taking an episode for the research.

Andrea 1:03:11

Which once I get kind of settled into school groove, I'd like to try another one again.

Paul G 1:03:15

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And so Buzz Sprout's where we host it. So if you like a Buzz Sprout, go to our Buzz Sprout site and refer yourself from there, and it's gives us 20 bucks. Yeah. You could do that and start your own podcast.

Andrea 1:03:31

Yeah, go for it.

Paul G 1:03:32

Or do it for free on Google, which doesn't charge you anything. But you don't get all the tools. Uh and that's it's it's much easier for me to deal with it on Buzz Sprout. Makes sense. I get Yeah, it's just call it's because it's it's running us a bunch of money, so go buy something, damn it. Right?

Andrea 1:03:49

Yeah, buy a t-shirt.

Paul G 1:03:51

All right. I need to come up with some new ones. I need to make a mask with Cade Mercer. Cade Mercer mask. No? Should that it?

Andrea 1:04:02

I think that's it.

Paul G 1:04:03

All right, bye.

Andrea 1:04:04

Bye.