Checkmate

larger stones book ending a smaller one in the middle. Billy, Linda, and Billy Jr's names etched across the front, with the date of their deaths the same. In my line of work, this is as sobering and distressing as it gets. Three days after the fire, a private memorial service was held for the Stevenson's friends and family. Billy Stevenson and five year old Billy Junior's caskets were open for viewing. Linda Stevenson's body was so badly burned that the family decided

to have hers closed. Carol Thompson had asked a friend to sew a little satin pillow that she could place in her little brother's casket. As she explained to me, there is no way to escape the bizarre thoughts that

haunt you after losing your family to homicide. I didn't tell a story for a long time when it first happened, you know, when it happened, I didn't tell because I've thought people would think I was kind of crazier just looking a bit now, you know, I'm just so I'm young, you know, and I'm dumb, and I've never been around

de body, and I'm scared, you know. And so I walked to the front where the caskets going down the mont Moms was closed, and I had little Billies on one end, Moms in the middle, and Steves on the other end, so that two opened in one clothes. So I got the little Billy's casket and I go to toss the pillow then and when I did, my hand

brushed the little bill and that hit him. It was like a joel And all of a sudden, I felt weird and I could see white coming through my pores, like yellow like now, I'm not I know, I know it sounds crazy. What I'm like, what you know, I yang back and I'm like what the hell? And I'm like, this is breaking crazy, and I don't want to tell anybody else because I don't they might think I'm totally nuts. So the I'm like, well, what don't happen if I touched Stephile I get the same thing. So I go

over to Steve's casket and I do Stephen. I get the same kind of reaction. So then I'm like, oh, man, I gotta try the mom. So I go to her her casket. It's closed, right, I can't feel it, but I can almost feel it's like right there almost. Oh, I can't quite get it, and damn it, why can I get to Mom? You know? But I knew it was there, get sense of it was the weirdest thing

ever ever previous Sleean paper ghosts. He said, if I'm not home by in the morning, he said, turning TV up, well and behold by here's a man that's a two time convicted bank robber, as anand federal prowl, and they're all scared to death of us man. So I picked up phone. I called Ron and said, hey, Ron, did you hear what happened at Mom's house. He's like, oh my god, Carrol says, sorry, oh my god, Oh my god.

I heard my herd, I said, Ronna, I you know the place, are gonna know what time he left last night? So what time's relief? I left eleven thirty. Immediately I thought, what, wait a minute. What my name is M. William Phelps. I'm an investigative journalist and author of forty four true crime books. This is season two of Paper Ghosts Burned.

Seasoned investigators rely on instincts they've developed over a period of time from their experience on the ground, talking with and studying people, and as we've learned criminals, they will do just about anything to stay out of prison. At this point, Detective Cooper and the Sheriff's Department's investigation was in flux. Much of it focused on that mystery man, Dick Weston, and yet when it came down to it, they still didn't have that one concrete piece of evidence

tying Dick directly to the murders. But Cooper had been here before with other cases. The thing to do whatever it takes on any homicide, if you don't have a smoking gun, for lack of better words, you always go to the funeral coature one. You want to watch people's reactions, and sometimes people don't come up to the casket, and I will say something like, uh, this is what you give to you a little rotten. Uh So, I mean it's it's something you really gotta watch. So you put

a mike on the casket. Oh yeah, I've done that on a couple of them. Put the mic down the casket and sit back here and recorded, because I mean, you know, if it's a crime and passion, you might give him say I'm sorry I did this to you, you know, do it in a low voice nobody else can hear. But but no, we was at we was at corepreneural. We'll see what the reactions were. Cooper and his team never got what they were hoping for a funeral confession. Yet something did stand out to investigators. Where

was family friend Ron Thomas. Up until this point, the Sheriff's department had spoken to Ron once, under the pretense of Dick being their soul killer, something like, Hey, Ron, can you help us out here? Do you know anything about this guy Dick Weston? That tone eventually changed, so with Ron returning for his second interview, now with the FBI involved, the conversation was going to be centered on Dick and Ron conspiring to carry out the Stevenson murders together.

Unlike the first meeting, in which Ron stated that an unknown white male was still at the Stevenson's house by the time he left, Ron now admitted to being acquainted with Dick Weston, but said they didn't have a close relationship. One thing about that day. We showed him a picture of limb to Stevens of purse and the man liked to swallow his tongue, his body language, and how you reactive with just I was like, how then did you find that? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, this this wasn't supposed

to happen in those FBI reports. Ron became extremely nervous. When Aiden's brought up the handbag in the Whitewater River. He said he didn't have any idea how the bag could have gotten near his house. Quote, it looks like somebody is trying to set me up. The agent asked the obvious question. If someone had been trying to set you up, why would they toss the bag in the river and hide it. Studying this interview, something became clear to me he was putting in place the information he

needed to cover for himself. That traffic stopped by the Amelia cop leaving the Stevenson's before the fire and murders, and not knowing Dick Weston all that well, Detective Cooper and his team dug into Ron's association with Dick. They knew damn well what he had told the FBI was bullshit. He and Dick were close friends and business partners and

had been for years. We find out that Dick worked for Ron at a car lot for a little bit, and that he had been seen in his house several times, and that they had seen each other a little bar up in Brookville. So I mean, it wasn't like they were glued together. They weren't consulate together, but there was an association there. I asked Cooper where Ron Thomas's name was at this point in the investigation. I mean, why wasn't Ron by then wearing handcuffs and being perp walked

in front of the media. Ron seemed to be up to his eyeballs in this and had just skated by with no one seemingly interested in going after the guy. He still would not, so no, I don't have anything to do with it. And he threw Dick underneath the bus without any hard evidence implicating Ron's involvement and Ron now pointing a finger at his shady business associate. Cooper's focal point had to remain on Dick Weston. But Cooper knew Dick Weston was dangerous and he needed to do

something quick to get him off the street. We were to start looking at Dick and come to find out what we found. Discovered a Dick and violated his parole violation. He had a pro violation, and we got ahold of his federal Prouser explained to him what was going on, and he said, well, yeah, well are you going to violate? Well, yeah, I can do that. Such an important maneuver on Cooper's part. Violate Dick's parole, get him off the street behind bars.

Not only might it make Dick more willing to talk, but the people in town, many of whom Cooper knew had valid, helpful information, would breathe a sigh of relief that this volatile, tough dude who took pleasure and threatening people was in jail and could not hurt them. The pro Sir met Dick up in Brookville and Dick. I think Dick had an idea something was gonna happen to him, but they didn't know what. So pro user inter beauty

and his took Weston's coming back into Brookville. He gets the traffic light in middle of Brookville and stops the traffic light and we took him down. I made it between us and the FBI and all everything. Ever, how did that go? Oh? It was one person in Brookville said, I've never seen some many guns out at one time, you know. So we took him out. He's by himself and and middle of town and we just descend on him like it was just unreal. And so we get

him out. We're arresting were on the pro violation. What did he say? Did he say anything? No? And I don't think he was really surprised. He was very common cool. We took him to the Sheriff's office right there in Brookville and Captain Painton I interviewed him. We questioned him about the homicide and uh, he said he didn't have anything to do with it and didn't know anything about it. And he was very very cool, calm and cold. Numerous

homicides I've investigated. I've probably spoken to three cycle paths, and he's one of them. Because you could just look in his eyes and tell I'll kill you if I get a chance. Because he had to remain in lock up under that federal parole violation, there was very little chance Dick Weston was going to be back on the street anytime soon. Dick was the key to the Stevenson murders. That was clear to the Sheriff's department at this point.

So as Detective Cooper in the FEDS began to build a case against Dick on four counts of aggravated murder, they're investigative aim stared toward the two women who alibied him. Dick's girlfriend, Drusilla, remained tight lipped. She maintained that Dick had nothing to do with the murders, and they were both at her friend Tanitha's house all night, where Drusilla had rented a room. After all, Tanatha had allibied them both. The police were looking to get Tanatha to cooperate with them.

Drusilla was living in her house. Tanathan new Drusilla's comings and goings, and Drusilla was now paying visits to Dick Weston in prison quite often. The Sheriff's department decided to bring Tonathan in and put the investigative squeeze on her. She was scared, and I think she realized we took Dick off the streets. I think she realized that if I don't fare away out of this, I'm going to jail too. I'm gonna lose my kids. So she gave us a very detailed statement. At that point in time.

Come to find out, Tanathan Barger was more than just a bystander caught in the middle of a homicide investigation. She found herself in a position where she was in fear, not only for her life that of her children. Because of that, she agreed to become an FBI in Weren't It. From that point on, Tanatha's life seemed to be ripped from the pages of a spy novel. She'd meet with agents for secret rendezvous by a big oak tree off the highway or in the woods, out of sight from

any civilization. So you sit down with them, and how are you feeling when you sit down? Really, I couldn't even tell you how I felt because I've never done nothing like that before in my life. I didn't know him. My life was going to be changed. It was a white out from my shoulders to know that I could get talk to them and let them know what happened. I didn't wan't know about it to know what I was, what I was doing, because if they didn't, I wouldn't

a lay up till next day. Tanatha was fearful of Dick. She did not want to become murder victim number five. Her friend Jusilla helped ease the tension and convinced Dick that he could us Tanitha. Once that groundwork was established, Dick told Tonath the details she would never forget, as you can hear in one of her tape statements to police. Tanatha was a wealth of information when it came to what Dick did the night of and after the murders.

He said that he had went over back to the Stavenson's house, and in the meanwhile when he went in, he had time Miss Davidson that Carol Thompson maintained that her mother Linda was tied up on the night she was murdered, though Detective Cooper remains adamant that no such

thing ever occurred. Said Alan was going to do was take the money and like jewelry or whatever that was invadable, and said when he'd done that that these other two guys come in and started shooting by other two guys Dick meant, Billy Stevenson and his brother in law, Eddie dow What's interesting here to point out is that Dick's retelling of the events put him in a position where he claimed he had no other option but to retaliate.

I don't know for sure how everything happened, but in the way he talked, he was standing one saturn and they come in and started flowing. Eddie and he started pouring back at him, and he killed her and them too, and said that a bullet had went through the wall and hit the little boy. Dick Weston was essentially minimizing the cold blooded murder of a five year old child by shifting the blame onto Eddie and Billy for starting

the shootout. As you heard at the end of the last episode, Tonnathan said she saw Dick return to her house the morning after the murders wearing a shirt covered in blood. Did he explained having the boat on his shirt, He just said the one guy I guess it was Mrs Staviston I had when he shot him. It didn't phase him. He just kept coming towards him, and then then after he kept coming towards en. What did he

say happened and he fell into him? God, Mr Stevenson, Belly and Richard Laverne Western Keep in mind that in these tapes, she'll sometimes hear the investigator referred to Dick by his legal name, Richard Laverne Weston. When Dick was telling a story about the shootout, and he said who

was with him? Or elaborating on note from the way he was talking, he was the only one that done in and the shooting the son's other two guys said, he and I went into in one hand in the thirty eight and at the two and the thirty eight, both calibers used in the quadruple homicides. Quick note, as you hear how the officer asks his next question, Tanathan had already given police this information during their secret meetings.

They just now needed her to say it on tape. Okay. Subsequently, after Richard Laverne Weston making a statement about how how the robbery and the killings went down, did he know also make some kind of a statement that he had rearranged the bodies to make it looflected than two people involved in the shooting. Would you can lighten me on that. He didn't say right out how he done it, but he says, uh, they was put in a place to where they think that they are two or three and

the shootings instead of this one. That question by the investigator produced an interesting response because if Tanatha's story was true, that would mean Dick used two different caliber weapons himself, but more importantly, it would absolve Ron Thomas of any direct involvement. Okay, did you observe anything, Elpso on the sixth there was a gun um along severalone and he had two grants in his hand. He pulled out his

pocket and showed to us at bark. Cooper believed that forty four caliber weapon was possibly the gun Billy Stevenson was holding at the time of his death, a gun from Billy's collection that was incidentally missing from the crime scene. You recall a kind of jewelry. He was showing you rings and so is a big cluster and then there was one small one. Can you describe the ring it

was you're referring to as a cluster for me? Okay, it was something like a dinner ring on it was larger, about fifteen sixteen diamonds in the top, and there was a si. Among the jewels Dick allegedly had in his possession was a diamond ring worth approximately four to six thousand dollars, which would be worth nearly triple that amount today. Carol Thompson had told Cooper and later showed me photos of a unique, expensive diamond ring that her mother, Linda

always wore. If they were the same, that would mean Dick or somebody he knew, took that ring off Linda's hand, either dead or alive. Tonathan said Drusilla was instructed by Dick to hold onto it in case she ever needed the money. Okay. Then later on on July eight, the following day, did you observe Richard Laverne Weston with a brown paper bag for him when he'd come out to the car, And he had a brown paper bag out

of the car. But when we come back from picking up the girls, he had money at laying on the bar to paper the truck, and which was five thousand top on the dollar. Okay. When you returned to the house, you saw that he had laid out five thousand five in the dollars and cashman, it was that cash payment Dick made on his truck just days after the Stevenson murders that initially caught Cooper's attention. Where in the hell had a guy like Dick Weston gotten fifty five dollars

in cash? What's more, Dick wasn't the only person to suddenly come into extra money. Tanathan also revealed that following Dick's arrest, she accompanied Drusilla to Ron Thomas's house on several occasions. The first it was to pick up one thousand dollars and take it to a lawyer in Indianapolis. During the second visit, Tanathan said she witnessed Ron's wife

and Drusilla a brown envelope containing three thousand dollars in cash. Ron, overseeing the transaction, allegedly asked, how long will it take you to get that money to a lawyer? According to Tanatha, Drusilla went on to launder the money, going to the bank, purchasing a cashier's checking her name, and writing it out to a lawyer in Missouri. Except she only sent two thousand,

Tanathan said, Drusilla pocketed the rest for herself. Why would Ron Thomas, a good friend of the Stevenson's, foot the bill for Dick Weston's lawyer, what state did Ron have in this? As for the rest of that money stolen from the Stevenson home, depending on which person you speak to, there was upwards of two hundred thousand or as little as forty thousand still missing. And based on what Tanath the Barger told the officer, they had a good idea

what happened to all that money? Just as uh the yon show us his now he said, what do you know any nights here? Question that that can get a show? You can get one off upon us? It's no lot don't And he says, well, he says Alius after bottle one, and he asked if there was a store open it with sale hard were early in mploying, and I told it the author was one open at seven o'clock. Tannathan said. Dick left early the next morning and returned hours later

with a shovel in hand. He gave it to her and said she could use it for um gardening work. Tanathan then recalled the day when she and Drusilla went out for a drive not too far from where Lynda Stevenson's purse was found in the White Water River. She took me out through their later own and was pouring it out that that was the road. And she got out of the car out there and went up into the wooded area on the route of the road, and she turned real white to pay all and she looked

back over her shoulder back into the wooded area. And I used her on the way out and later on about it, and she said that was where the mono was buried. This area where Tanatha is talking about, it's about a seventy minute drive from the crime scene. Don't forget. And those days before cell phones and sell towers which could easily pinpoint your exact location. Not mentioned DNA analysis connecting a suspect directly to a crime scene. This might

as well have been in another country. The Sheriff's department was working under the theory that Dick Weston committed the murder sometime after Carol Thompson made that PM call to her mother. What was still unclear, though, was Ron Thomas's involvement. Did Dick act alone where his actions premeditated? Could he have seized on an opportunity he saw while at the Stevenson's that night and returned later on with an accomplice.

Detective Cooper was not leaning one way or the other. Still, the crime scene had the feel of two or more shooters, as there were two different caliber weapons used and two different heights measured as far as bullet location on the bodies. With reliable information coming in at a fairly good clip, it was becoming more and more obvious how fear Dick Weston was in that Brookville community. Time is the levant and in the end of time, President myself got taken.

Sorry Cooper. Going back to those cassette tapes, I found an interview police conducted with a juvenile source who spent time inside Tanatha's house in the days following the murders, And what is hard to ignore is the inherent fear you can hear in the child's voice while describing what she witnessed in the conversations she had, She okay, was that well Dick was still there? Did you see Dick?

Question with the gun in your house? The focus of the interview then shifted to interactions the child had with Drew se La once Dick was in prison. When you and Drew were riding around in her truck, did you and her have occasionally talk about anything? Just wrote around? Yeah, about to telephone. We're about to tell phone, She said, if she can't get on because everybody's don't. The young girl was hugging the phone talking to her friends, as kids often do, and so with only one land line

in the house, no one else could use it. Drusilla was pissed about this. She says, she can't talk that because the boys on. But you wan't think she ever hard at you do well? She said, if I tell her that Mary wasn't to film, it's difficult to hear, but it's worth repeating that. The child said, if I told anyone where the money was, Drusilla was going to kill me. She said that if you told where the money was, how would you know where the money? Background road?

According to the child, Drusilla told her that the money was somewhere on the background road. Drew told you that she had the money. Very no, no, she didn't say there she had an on the background road? And what did the child mean by background road? It was becoming clear that there was a large sum of money, likely stolen from the Stevenson home, that Dick and Drusilla hid somewhere so law enforcement could never find it. Oh, she said she she was saying about being buried. She just

said she had the money. What money was she talking about? I don't know. She told you could say anything about it. She Drusilla Merritta wasn't playing. She was doing Dick's bidding for him, which, as she told the kid, could include murder if the situation called for. We knew Dressille was involved the point she seen the stolen property. She was involved in burying the stolen property and taking possession of it. We didn't know whether she was involved directly in a

homicide or not. Dick became more incense while in jail as the days passed and the noose tightened. On the phone with Drusilla, he warned or rather threatened her specifically about going anywhere near that money. Turns out that background road the juvenile source mentioned went by another name. We knew that they took the money out and buried it, and from what I could tell us from what Drew that told her and Dick, they buried it on what was called tunnel road. And we couldn't find a tunnel

road nowhere. Well, come to find out, the locals up there they call it tunnel road because the trees are grown over so much. That's always dark when you drive down through there. So yeah, we we knew it was buried out their own tunnel road somewhere. They didn't know exactly where. However, in response, Cooper in the Sheriff's department devised an extraordinary plan. Well, we started twenty four hour surveillance of Drusilla, and that was interesting. At that point

in time. We had the FBI and went cooperation with the in the state police. We had an airplane setting through airport, and we had a pilot setting their two seven. On top of that, Cooper's boss had a connection with a local car dealership, so he and Cooper would literally change vehicles every day and follow Drusilla wherever she went with minimal risk of being noticed. Remember Tnatha had begun working for them. She was also watching Drusilla's every move.

When Drew left the house, Nathan called Cooper and relaid that information. She would get the phone and call us and say she's leaving seven in the morning, where she's leaving in the next fifteen minutes, and the minute that would happen, we would get the plane in the air day and night, and we would start a surveillance. They needed Drusilla to lead them to the money. But Drusilla was very street smart. She knew they were following her.

She had no clue, however, that every time she left the house a plane was in the air with eyes on her. Well, and behold, she went out of Tongue Road. She got out, walked into the woods, and and the I don't remember the agents or the state troopers watched her go over by this tree, and she has sort of walked around and look and got back on our car and left. Well, we then we knew, okay, we know it's in this area, so we kept waiting for her, hopefully she'd go out and dig it up. Well, she

never didn't do that. She just went by it a couple of times. After figuring out the general location of whatever Drusilla kept visiting in the woods, law enforcement went out and started digging. So we got a metal detector and went out by the the tree and went around with the metal detector. Well, it didn't pick nothing up an FBI agent. I don't know where they got it at or where it came from, but they come back

with a military mind sweeper. Yeah, a big one, you know what I'm talking about, Like he using World War two or the sweep roads from mines and we went over there and they hit that and boy, that thing just went wild, you know. So we knew something metal was down there, so dug it up. And when we dug it up, there was a I garhead Dick Wesson's name on it had an ID number and side was like twenty eight thousand dollars in cash. A forty four melt them Wesson a bunch of jewelry it was. It

was a treasure troue crime scene evidence. Oh yeah, oh yeah. It put the question right there all down. The Feds in the Sheriff's department went back to Dick. They didn't give away specifics, They simply told them they had evidence. Did he want to say anything? At this point, Dick willingly spoke without his lawyer present, but minimized his role, pushing the blame once again on the victim. He said that Stevenson tried to shoot him, and when Stevenson fell four,

he couldn't shoot him because gun wouldn't fire. Well, this is a revolver. Revolvers don't malfunction, so that was a little hard for us to believe. So we took the forty four all thos we sent to the FBI lab and come to find out the forty four did have a malfunction that when you're laying on the ground and

you're trying to shoot up, it wouldn't fire. So that kind of corroborated what Dick had said and the position we found Billy's hand in with the pistol, because Billy probably come out there was forty four, wanted to defended this family and he was met by whoever you know right there and shot in four holes and then on the money on one of the rappers on the money and found Dick Weston's thumb print, And so do you take this now to Dick and say hey, oh yeah,

and said hey, you know, we know you're involved. You're gonna be charged. Well, I'd say he do it all Ron Thomas in Well, if you can get me out of jail, I'm sure I can prove that Ron Thomas did this, and he had the money somewhere around violin And you know, I can really help you guys if I can get out of prison. So then he started really throwing wrong or at the bus. This minds you coming from a guy who claimed the events of that

night were a burglary gone wrong. And remember in his first interview with the FBI, Dick said he was the only one involved, so why would he changes to now Cooper's checkmate move paid off, and it would now be safe to say from that point on any loyalty between Dick Weston and Ron Thomas was officially over. In the next episode of Paper Ghosts, we went to the filling station to get guys and just all at once were surrounded by ever beyond cop that was don't basically tell

me what you told down. He said that people have a lot of money. This karate guy that you know this got a black failed karate showed him creep pase for money and that he's sad he was involved in a hell of a shoot out. There. I stood and looked at that man that night, I stood and looked

at this mass murder. Talk to him. Paper Ghosts is written and executive produced by me and William Phelps and I Heart executive producer Christina Everett, with script consultant Matthew Riddle, audio editing and mixing by a Booze Afar thanks to Will Pearson at I Heart Radio. The series theme number four four two is written and performed by Thomas Phelps

and Tom Mooney. For more podcasts from my Heart Radio, visit the I heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.