Thinking Sideways: Joe's New Podcast

Details Shocking Details. Yeah, subscribe of course, give us a rating five stars and all that stuff from thinking Sideways podcast. I'm there. Welcome to another episode of The Shocking Details. I am Joe, joined as always by Vincent Caldoni, and we've got on the story for you this week. Interesting little story that you probably never heard about. And I know it's not Halloween, but really, any time of the year is a good time for a ghost story, right Vince,

especially if it's an Arkansas go story. Yeah, this is in Arkansas gost story. This particular story got a lot of national publicity back when it happened. This is in late nineteen nine, but it's completely dropped into obscurity sense, so I had never heard of this when you sent this to me and I heard it was the Arkansas Ghost. I literally thought it was a different story altogether. Yeah, so don't I know this one, But it was not the story that I that I read wasn't just a

ghost it was a ghost trial. Yeah. I thought, anyway, we should dread the story up and shock you all with the gory details. And so I started the beginning. Oh yeah, right. The Judge Marcus Bone presiding in the child of these defendants of the murder of Mr Conrad C. Franklin is the state's prosecution president. Today is the defense president. Is the victim president. In January ninety nine, a man named Connie Franklin came to the St. James settlement in Arkansas.

That's the town of St. James. If you want to know where this town is, it's about ten miles east of the town of Mountain View, about seventy five miles north northeast of Little Rock, about a hundred ten miles northwest of Memphis, Tennessee. And it's really it's there today, but it's kind of a white spot in the road really,

but it's still there. But Connie Franklin found himself jobs as a farm hand and a timber cutter, and when he wasn't working, he was known for playing his French harp also known as the harmonica or just the harp um. And also if we're hitting on the local women, which you know, what else does there to do right now? And talk to the girls pretty much. She met a local girl named Tiller Ruminer. Tiller was sixteen, by the way,

Connie was about twenty two years old. The two of them hit it off real good, had a whirlwind romance, and according to Tiller, on March nine, Connie proposed marriage and she accepted. So that is whirlwind. That's like two months he's really yeah, it is. But then Connie Franklin disappeared.

A few of the town's folk noticed, although nobody seemed to think it was exceptionally odd, because Connie was, after all, kind of an itinerant farm hand type of guy, and there was a lot of that back This is you know a lot of people drifted around from odd job. Oh definitely, especially in the world like like wheat and stuff. They would it would follow the harvest as it as

it matured. Absolutely did seem a bit. Uh. Apparently Connie had left his knapsack behind and his mail was still being delivered to the local post office, which you wouldn't expect. I mean, if he had taken up residence somewhere else, you would think he would have have has mail forwarded. Perhaps makes sense, yeah, But nonetheless, it was just as soon by most everybody that Connie had just drifted out

of town the same way he drifted in. And he'd only been there a couple of months after all, anyway, right, all right, so he was soon forgotten by most of the folks in the town, except a few of them found his unannounced departure to be kind of suspect, especially if somebody named Bertha Burns we will talk about a little later. She was an armchair detective who got kind of involved in this mystery. Yeah, she was. She was actually sort of harassing the sheriff on and off about

this for months after Connie's disappearance. You gotta do it if you want stuff done. Yeah, But of course, you know, just because Bertha is suspicious about something does not mean that sheriff can go arrest somebody. Right, what what did Tyler think about this? I mean, she must have had an opinion about him running out of town. Well, yeah, but she wasn't really talking interestingly enough until until later that year, in November nine, That is when Tyler finally

came forward and told her story. She went to the local sheriff, Sam Johnson and told him that Connie Franklin had been murdered back in March. She hadn't said anything about it to anybody because the murderers were local guys night riders in other words, vigilantes, and they had told her that she and her family would all be killed if she snitched. But eventually Taylor did decide to snitch,

and here is her story. On March, Connie and Tiller we're on a country road, headed a local Justice of the peace Finnish Ford to get a marriage license south of St. James, not far from the tiny town of Red Stripe, Arkansas. Love that name, that's a great name, Jamaican beer. Yeah. They were ambushed by four men, Joe White, Bill Younger, Herman Greenway, and Hubert Hester Greenway. And Hester raped Tiller and they made her watch while they beat Connie to death with rocks and sticks. It's a hell

of a way to go. Uh. They built a large fire and burned Connie's body. Many of the news articles made reference to mutilation and dismemberment as well, but none of those stories. All right, get down to the details of what what got caught off? Yeah yeah, what exactly they did to him? It sounds pretty horrifying. Yeah yeah. And we should note that there's at least one newspaper that said that Connie was unconscious but still alive when

he was put into the fire. But whatever, by the time he was all done, he was he was dead. Oh yeah, and there wasn't much left around but charred bones. Yeah. Yeah, those ones are hard to get rid of. Uh. Tiller's story was corroborated by Ruben Harrold, a deaf, mute guy who happened to be there. He also happened to be Tiller's second cousin. Not sure why he was there, or maybe he was tagging along as a witness to the wedding.

Maybe we're just stocking the stock. Maybe he was secretly in love with his second cousin, and it's just like, yeah, that happens. Yeah. I was hoping we would get to the bottom of what he was up to, but we don't ever really find out, do I guess he could have just been out on the road and it was just a coincidence. If it's a rural area, maybe yeah. But he he gave a written statement to the county

prosecutor backing up Tiller's account. His account, by the way, didn't claim that he had seen the raper the murder, just that he saw the accused caring Connie's body through the woods. Maybe he was out there moonshine and so he saw them carrying out his dead corpse. But this is not part of the story. That which is why did why did these guys spare him? Yeah? Did the spare Reuben? And did he was he hiding from them? Or maybe they thought they had never talked? Maybe they

threatened him the same way they did Tiller. Of course the Reuben actually couldn't talk, but he was still right, what's she, which is how he made his statement. It's it's hard for me to imagine that if there was something like that Reuben wentdn't hit right, that he wouldn't have mentioned that, Like that seems like a detail to me, right that I would want to include, Like if I was witnessed to a murder and I was giving a statement about what I had seen that day, I would

for sure include why didn't the killer try to kill me? Well, he might have. I mean, most of the accounts of this, this is actually kind of a lot was written about this in the national press at the time, but of course the press being what it is, a lot of there were there were a lot of distortions, a lot of valuable little details like that got left out about Lumen. I read a number of accounts that mentioned Reuben and his account. They didn't say exactly why he didn't get

killed by that, by these guys or whatever. They didn't say that, and so I you know, I really can't say why. So they left out some really good, important little details and and also inserted some probably fictional more soelations details to make the story a little juicier, no doubt, I mean, that's how they did it. Back then, a local woman named Bertha Burns, as I mentioned before, took

an interest in the Connie Franklin mystery. Bertha apparently lived not too far from where Connie had been murdered, and she had found a bloody hat in the woods that she believed was Connie's. She showed it to Sheriff Johnson. Sheriff Johnson presented it the hat to a grand jury, which declined to indict anybody because you know, it's not unreasonable. It's it's a bloody hat, after all, I'm not much

else that blood does get on stuff. Yeah, I mean, if you cut your head for some reason, you might just throw your hat off and me like, I'm not wearing that ever again. Yeah, And actually I feel as we'll get to you a little bit later on the story, there was kind of a not unreasonable explanation for that, that that being bloody. Yeah. So, in the summer of Connie's sister, or at least a young woman claiming to be Connie's sister,

came to St. James looking for him. Bertha Burns took this is more evidence that there had been indeed foul play after all. So if Connie had simply migrated, surely he would have let his family know where he had gone to. Bertha dug out the bloody hat to show to the sister, and then led Sheriff Johnson into the woods near her home to a pile of burnt bones, teeth, and ashes. This was all that remained of Connie, or

at least that's what Bertha believed. She also told the sheriff that she'd heard a scream coming from the area on the night that Connie disappeared were more likely some time around that time, since Bertha couldn't have actually precisely known which exact night Connie had disappeared. A little puzzling, isn't it? Yeah it is, yeah, so and so hearing all this till the rumor finally sat down with Sheriff

Johnson and told her tale of murder. Not long after, of course, Tiller's cousin Rubens, admitted his written statement backing her story up. This was finally enough for the grand jury to indict, and they did Esther, Greenway, White, and Younger were all indicted for murder. Another local named Alex Folks was also indicted, even though Tiller had not mentioned

him originally in her story. Apparently he was accused because he was known to be the ringleader of this little gang, so of course he must have been involved, right, There's no way he took the night off, no, of course not. What else was there to do is to go out and with your fellow night riders and have a little fun, right sure? Yeah, But it turns out also that Alex Folks and a few of his friends had beaten Bertha Burns, his husband a few months prior to this for unknown reason.

These guys were essentially kind of self designated Mora land forces in the area. Yeah, I was gonna ask what their what their affiliation? Where were they just highway bandits? Were they in the clan? What was their deal? They were not in the clan as far as I know.

They were just kind of vigilantes and moral enforcers. And so somebody had strayed, somebody had committed the after, you know, some transgression, they would go administer a little, a little frontier justice apparently, well that's short, of course, a lynching, except you know, I mean, Connie as far as I know, is the only person that they ever killed. Okay, yeah, yeah, but yeah, apparently somebody had transgressed, especially if they transgressed

against them personally. I'm gonna have more questions about that later on. Yeah, sure, keep going. Yeah, but but this this leads to a question about Birtha Burns and her role in all this. Was she was she just an armchair detective or was she sort of spirit heading out a way to get back at these people for attacking her husband and beating him and what the very least, she's got a conflict of interest a little bit, I would say, there's a reason to wonder exactly about her

objective objectivity in this whole thing. So it's also worth mentioning that the day after Connie's murder or disappearance, our four vigilantes rated the cabin that Tiller Ruminer and her family lived in. They accused Charlie Ruminer Tiller's father, a theft. Though I can't tell you what she's what he stole,

I don't know what didn't. They administered beatings for the entire family from that nice guys, right, can you imagine being a kid, like like you're like eating your your cheerios and someone comes to be like your dad stole from me? Like, kid, what did I do? I mean? These are it should be pointed out to mean, this is it's hard to sort out truths from rumor from you know, yeah, this whole story, yeah's a strange story.

So they beat the whole family, and after that they took Tiller's brother Hoy with them to work on one of their farms as reparations for Charlie's crime whatever that was. So it must have been a crime against them, like we know that much. Yeah, he stole something from one of them, apparently, you know. So. Tiller would later say that they took Hoit as a hostage to keep her silent about the murder. I guess that's sort of halfway makes sense. I mean, you know, it was just your

day after that whole thing. Maybe they thought, you know, that threats were not quite enough. Let's go, Yeah, just as kind of an insurance, Paul, And that makes sense. This kind of makes sense. Now, Remember all of this happened before there are any serious accusations of murder. Yeah, this happened that this would have happened in mid March. Yeah, so let's let's lash forward to the trial of Greenway, Hester, White,

Younger and folks. It was all set for December nineteen twenty nine, and local anger towards the accused was running high, so they were being kept in jail cells outside the county for their own production. Evidence for the prosecution was this too. Witnesses that would be Tiller and her cousin.

The ear witness testimony of Bertha Burns regarding the scream, a bloody hat and what was left of the body, which was some charred bones and teeth, and of course the fact that Connie Franklin was gone, which seemed to kind of point towards some sort of foul play. Right. The five defendants, however, had been saying since their arrest that no murder had taken place. Connie was not dead. They said, well, in that case, then where was he was the obvious question? Nobody knew this, but the case

by this time and received statewide publicty. So Connie was alive. You would think he would have heard about this and come forward, right, So you know, the prosecution did appear to have some sort of a case, then, I mean, well it would would it be beyond in your opinion, would it be on the pale that Connie could have left the state, it went someplace else to work or do whatever. Sure not, it's not beyond the relic possibility. So that the prosecution seems to think they had some

sort of circumstantial case. An attacked body probably would have helped, right, But still that's was growing in some quarters as to whether there really had even been a murder. Yeah, the trout, but well, the trial was hold on. So actually I wanted to ask you this when you when you sent me the research material. Yeah, unless Bertha was lying, someone got murdered, someone got burned on her property, right, Uh yeah, or in the woods near her home that was her

property or not. It appeared it appeared from the ashes, the bonus of teeth and everything, that somebody had been murdered. Right. This is not for forensick, yeah, you know, like we have today. They didn't probably even have blood typing, especially if a body has been thoroughly burned. But I would think that them, being a farming community, could tell when you're looking at human teeth versus a deer or something, right like, well, you know, and they sent that, you know,

they wanted to be all official about it. They actually gathered all the evidence up and sent it to the state crime lab to be examined. So somebody is dead. We just don't know if it's it appeared that somebody was dead, but it did appear to be that then, and of course, uh, the some more evidence about this comes out a little bit later about the body. But this is now beginning of December, early December, the trial is about to begin. Uh, And that is when the

ghost of Connie Franklin appeared. I know who said it was a ghost story. I know, hey, but I know Attenion atension mounts. But before we go any further, time for a quick word from our sponsor. This week's episode is brought to you by the motion picture in tech Te directed by Vincent Caldoni's reacted by Vincent Caldoni. Yes. Yeah, So the movie Contact is a story about aliens in humans interacting. It is a psychological thriller where you will never be quite sure what is real until the very end,

that at all. You can check it out at ww dot contact movie dot com, watch the trailer stills, and uh, find out about it all right. I haven't seen the entire movie yet, I've seen some some parts of it. Yeah, it's got a cameo from Joe's it does. Yeah, I have a little bit part in it, and you'll be happy to know I have my clothes on. Yeah. Yeah,

thank god. Right, it's not that kind of movie, Joe. Yeah, okay, So the five men were about to be tried for the murder of Connie Francis, but then said Connie Francis, Connie Franklin, I might leave that in. Yeah, Connie Francis

a singer, Yeah, good singer. Okay, So the five men were about to be tried for the murder of Connie Franklin, but then one Elmer Wingo from the nearby town of Moralton, says Connie Franklin passed through there looking for work a week or so after the alleged murder was supposed to have allegedly taken place. Elmer Wingdo was a farmer and Connie Franklin had worked on his farm a few years before,

so he would know what Connie looked like, right, exactly. Yeah, And Arkansas newspapers ran the story along with Connie's photo, and the families of the accused also offer rewards for anyone who could find him, and amazingly, Connie Franklin was found. It was a little money to motivate people. Uh, buttrick still works, Yeah, it does. He was working on a farm in the town of Humphrey, apparently unaware that he had been murdered. He was brought back to the county

seat and delivered to the defense attorneys. They were happy, of course, as were the accused and their families, and of course the media when word got out, I mean, the media had already been drawn to town because of the depravity of the story. It's the kind of thing that excites people, you know, and that it had already made the national news even before the return of Connie Franklin. And I mean it's a good story, right, I mean

it was a heinous crime. I mean, people say, are on their way to get their marriage license and overtaken by batties, beatings, rapes, burnings, and it's a good story, it said. Yeah, so it was. And so the media was already kind of all over this. But then when Connie returned to town, Oh my god, then that's when things really got crazy. And apparently the town of Mountain View, which is where the county courthouse was, which is where the trial was supposed to take place, became the town

became a circus. It was over with reporters and just curiosity seekers and stuff like that, you know, you know that was back in the those stays. Yeah, everybody came from far and wide because there wasn't much in the way of entertainment. There was no internet, no TV, you know, and so yeah, the national press descended like a murder of crows. And uh, it's it did shock the nation. Um, and it's really been said too that's the stereotype of the Ozark Mountain people as to pray. The leader at

Morons kind of began with this story. Some people have said this, and I think there's something to that. Since Connie Franklin had, after all, risen from the dead, he was Nick's nicknamed the Arkansas Ghost in the media. Great name. Yeah, the Arkansas Ghost story went viral, or at least, you know, whatever passed for virality in those days. Yeah. Story, Yeah, I mean it's it's a pretty fascinating story. It would be pretty amazing if that happened today. I mean, the

world's different. But yeah, just a guy turned up at his own trial, yea, his murder trial, murder trail. Yeah. So some people weren't convinced that this new Connie was the real Connie, or maybe it was his ghost. Some people thought it might have been a ghost. That would

be a twist. Maybe someone had hired a ringer. Maybe the sheriff was wondering that too, So he set up a test, recruited several girls who resembled Tiller Ruminer, and he put them in a room along with Tiller herself, and then he asked Connie air quotes there to pick her out, which he did without hesitation. Okay, so maybe he'd seen a photo of hurt them may have been photos in the paper for all we know, right until her, for her part, said that this guy was not the

Connie that she'd known. But Connie knew all sorts of personal things about Tiller and their relationship, and she did have an incentive to lie, because making a false police report like that is a crime. Yeah, maybe she thought if it was false, she just thought Connie was gone, he wasn't coming back, and she'd get away with it. So Connie, Connie says, do you remember these songs are

saying to you? And we say outside the Creek and tell her says to him and says, okay, well, if you're kie, let's hear you sing the Lonesome Pine, which Connie did, and Connie does, and as she does a pretty creditable rendition of it. Then Tiller's dad, Charlie Ruminer, says, well, okay, let's hear you play Turkey and this raw the French harp. Connie does that too, along with some other tunes, you know, just as well as the original Connie did. So, yeah,

according to the according to the papers, they seemed. They seemed a bit unsure at this point in time, although later on eventually they decided to new Connie was definitely, most definitely not the old Connie. What made them decide this, I don't know, just his looks or whatever. I mean, I guess it's um, you know. I Well, we'll get into why it was so hard. It was so hard to figure out if this was a real Connie or not. Publican public opinion in town was pretty divided on the issue.

But you know, it should be said that Connie wasn't around that long, not that many people had known him that well, right, many people saw the guy was Connie, maybe said he was, so many said he wasn't. But the problem for the sheriff and the county prosecutor is that they really couldn't find anybody who had known Connie who didn't have an interest in the case. On one side of that makes sense, Yeah, So it was a

tough one for these small towns. Are Yeah, So, rather than pull the plug on the case, the prosecutors decided the best way to resolve the issue is to let the jury decide. I would to hold on that for a moment. The victim may not actually even be deceased, and they're going ahead with the murder trial. I mean that's pretty spectacular. That's insane. Do you imagine that happening today? Yeah, well yeah, I mean a defense attorney would definitely have

a have a good time with this whole saying. But wow. Yeah. So I just wanted to highlight that. That's that was really for me when I was reading the material you sent at first, I was like, that is crazy, Yeah, that's crazy case. Right. So the trial gets underway beginning on December sevente and sitting at the prosecutor's table was Hugh Williams in the County d A. The attorney for the defense was Ben Williamson. He was brother. As you

can imagine, the national press one nuts over that. Yeah, one more reason to make fun of these silly os ark people, man, yeah, yeah, along with the general strainess of a murder trial where the victim is like walking around right now. The first day at the trial, Tiller gave some pretty dramatic testimony. She recounted how white younger

Greenway and Hester ambushed them and beat Connie unconscious. They then mutilated his body, and no details for that are available, they built a large fire around him and put him on the fire, even though he was still alive. She said, the body rolled off the fire, so the murderers had to rebuild it and put the body back on, and when it was done, the unburned parts of Connie were put in a bag and tossed into the river where Connie.

Prosecution placed the charred bones and teeth into evidence, but their case took a bit of a hit when the state health officer testified in a cross examination that the bone fragments were too incomplete to be able to determine whether the bones were even human, much less Connie Franklin's.

The record is not totally clear on this, but apparently there had been Originally in the romains there was a chart of what appeared to be human skull, and that piece of evidence had particularly apparently gone missing by the time of the trial. So without that shard of skull, essentially there was no proof that these bones were even human. Yeah, but what about the teeth. Human teeth are pretty easy to identify. Competitive Yeah, Well, a dentist testify it also.

He had examined the teeth and said they were actually from a dog or perhaps a sheep, wait, wait, or a sheep a dog, or maybe a sheep a dog or a sheep. Yeah. Then on day two Connie Franklin took this tent as a defense witness. This was, as far as I know, the only time in US history that somebody has testified at the trial for his own murder.

That's that's pretty groundbreaking legally speaking. But according to Connie's testimony, and his murderers got drunk on the night that he was allegedly murdered and headed a mountain view to obtain a marriage license, and Connie fell off his mule at some point because of course he was drunk and was injured badly enough that he probably blooded his hat for one thing, and also didn't get back to St. James Settlement that night, And that was his story. I mean,

who knows. They were all drunk. Maybe they decided to go out and have a little bachelor party and uh did some improper things. You don't really know. But apparently he was expected back in town that night by Tiller. So the next day, when he did get back, Tiller told him she was postponing the wedding until the fall. He threw down an ultimatum, which was marry me now today or I'm leaving town. She said, so he left town and that was that. The prosecution argued that Connie

was an impostor. This is a new car. He also asked the jury, why would Tiller have made up a story like this, that's my question, good point, which would send several innocent men to the gallops. Why would she even do that? What did she have against that? What would be the motive? Yeah? Right, So the other three witnesses said the new Connie was an impostor. Tiller, her dad, Charlie, and one Coleman Foster, who had known Connie. Coleman was also Um Taylor's cousin. They were there's a lot of

cousin problem. It's a small community, and let's give the people at least that much credit. Of the people who swore that Connie was not the real Connie, none really seemed to be unrelated to the accuser. So was Connie really Connie? Well know, his real name, it turns out, was Marion Franklin Rogers, and he was about ten years older than what he had told me. He lied, he said he was a younger man. Uh, he had a wife, and kids. Right, it turned out, yeah, that was the case,

and he had abandoned them. Oh, and he had done some time in a mental hospital. He had been committed in ninety six and escaped three months later. Uh, he'd been drifting around the state ever since. So this new Connie Franklin wasn't real then, right? Oh? No, Actually he was ideated as Marion Rogers two fingerprints and dental records, he was indeed Marion Rogers, but he said he had been traveling around since his escape from the mental institution

under an alias of Connie Franklin. What's kind of I guess makes sense. So he said that even though even though I lied about my name, I really truly am the Connie Franklin you guys knew previously. I was just lying to you back then about my past and about my real name. All right, And what's notable is that this is short of ground ground shaking for the case of the prosecution's case. At this time, Tiller changed her story.

She said that she had witnessed a beating, but now admitted that she hadn't actually seen a murder or seeing Connie's body being burned. So that's kind of tough for the prosecution to one. Yeah, the accuse said that Tiller accused them of rape and murder as payback for the raid on her family. Makes sense. Yeah, Actually, it could be argued that the entire story of Connie Connie's murder was the fruit of a conspiracy, and that conspiracy was

just another chapter in a long running feud. Yeah, maybe orchestrated by perhaps birth of Burns, or at least she seemed to have had some role in this. Maybe the Yeah, maybe the rum and her family and Bertha got together decided they could pull this off. It's hard to say. It's been said the story had roots in a local moonshine war between the s clan on one side and the Youngers and Greenaways on the other side. Can feels that way, I mean not. Yeah, really, there's a big,

old back story here that we never heard about. Right. It does feel like we're witness like this whole trial is the tip of a big iceberg, and that there's probably going to be more in here we don't even know about. Yeah, So, presented with these weird and conflicting stories, probably the same thoughts that we're having right now, the

jury they couldn't decide they were. The judge, the Honorable Marcus Bone, great name as a great name for a judge, informed them that the county had already spent it on godly amount of money on this case, and they God will, God willed damned come to a verdict one way or the other. So they voted for acquittal. Yeah, probably not a bad choice, it does. That's probably what i'd vote.

Although Hester and Greenaway were held over for trial on charges of rape, but those charges were dropping her later. I wonder why. It doesn't sound like it was a very incredible no, no, incredible. Unfortunately, the mystory lives on, though. I hear that the story of the Arkansas Ghost is still the big topic of debate in Stone County, Arkansas. Everybody involved is long dead, of course, so we'll never

know for sure what actually happened. Was there actually a murder, It's hard to say, but I suspect that there was not. That's the prosecution said. Of course, it's hard to believe that Tiller Ruiner would make up such a heinous story. But on the other hand, people do make false accusations from time to time, and certainly the fact that she changed her story mid trial is sufficient reason to question all of it. Yeah, and I also have to say that depravity of the crime is she describes, it makes

it a little hard to believe. I mean, the guys that these guys were, they were vigilantes, they were jerks, they were violent to a certain extent, But it doesn't sound to me like they ever committed anything more heinous than basically a kind of a beating. You know, that's actually the The exact thought that I had was that if you're gonna kill a man, rape his fiancee, and burn him to death still alive, it's probably not like your first rodeo. Yeah, probably not. That's not where you're

starting now, that's where you build up to over time. Yeah. Well, so it was Marion Rogers, the original Connie Franklin. Again, this is hard to say. I mean, Franklin was not in St. James long enough for very many people who get to know him. As I mentioned before, everybody involved had some bias. Lots of people said he wasn't the same guy. A lot said he uh said that. Uh, you know, he was a lot of people that said he wasn't the same man really seemed to dislike the

accused men and so yeah, confusion reigns. My conclusion is that Marion Rodgers was probably the original Connie Franklin who showed up in the early nine but I wouldn't bet my life on it. I think it probably was, But I think so it might actually be the case that Franklin was brutally actually brutally murdered in March nineteen twenty nine.

Marion Rogers was an impostor. Uh. And maybe Tiller changed her story mid trial because friends of the accused somehow got to her put the fear of God into her, or maybe not, I don't know. I think part of what this hangs on is that the bone pile. Yeah, I mean if those really were dog or sheep bone, I guess because those are easy to confuse, then um, you know that I would be inclined to go your way if those bones had turned out to be human, which an expert even then could have told you, even

though I mean this is Arkansas, the twenties, the experts. Yeah, if if they had that, or even if you know they're around somewhere today, which are probably not, then um I I would and they turned out to be human, I would be inclined to say, somebody got killed that night, and that person was likely whoever Connie Franklin was, whether that was his real name with that was an assumed name. That again, yeah, then again, and again, you gotta like

looking at the whole thing. I mean, um, Bertha Burns had a grudge against these accuseman who would beat in her husband the room and her family had a grudge. And she's you know, she was the one who led law enforcement to this pile of bones and ashes and teeth and stuff. And so maybe she just thought, you know, hey, I mean, I mean, forensic science isn't what's going to

be in fifty sixty years, ha ha. Because but and so I'll just I'll just throw a bunch of sheep and dog bones into a pile of Burnham, crunch him up so that they're just unrecognizable, and and and lie to the police. Maybe she maybe that's what she did. That's I find that as easy to believe, if not easier to believe. The only problem I have with that is that conspiracies are hard to maintain. That I mean, we've seen that in the research we've done. You can

listen to other podcasts, read books about it. This requires a lot of co conspirators. Right, so you've got birth and her husband, you got the room and her family. Yeah, but what if it was entirely orchestrated by Bertha. She just manipulated the other people around her. And once she once she talked Tiller into into basically telling this story. She kind of had her on the hook because Tyler couldn't go back on it. She that's that's kind of

like she'd be in there. Well, it's not pretty. It's report false reporting of a crime or yeah, harsh penalty. It should really, I mean something something like this. You waste not only time and money. Judge bones that it cost him a lot of money. It did. Apparently it broke they broke the county's budget that year. Yeah, so you know, throw one more theory at it, you though, Yeah, that's why we're talking. What if those were human bones

in there, but they weren't. Whoever Connie Franklin, yeah, slash Marion Rogers was would have Bertha killed somebody and this was her plan to cover it up. That's a good possibility to you know, there's there's a lot of kinds of reasons to burn a body. I mean, some people not everybody buries their bodies. Maybe somebody thought, you know, I will burn them, like burn him like our ancient ancestors did. Maybe this person died of something, something infectious,

and they just thought, okay, let's burn the botty. Now it's true, and then also you get you know, I just this is just popping in my head. But you know this is during prohibition. Yeah, if moonshiners were out there moonshine and one of them died for one reason or the other, yea, the last thing you want to do is all the corner. Yeah that's possibility. Yeah. So there's uh, yeah, there's not. This is back, not even in Arkansas, but in all kinds of places around America.

Thinks that there wasn't so much paperwork when somebody died as there is today. Nope. So there's a rumor that Judge Marcus Bone again, because of all this negative publicity, ordered all of the records from the trial destroyed. Yea, I know, I love it, except for the ones that he was legally obligated to keep. That's why there are a lot of questions about the Arkansas ghost is it.

You can't just pull up these you can't just go look off these things because yeah, and also you know, even if he didn't do that, things have a way of disappearing. Um, you know, I was there was another case I was researching where there was some stuff that had just been swiped out of the out of the county records. Well there's that, and there's you know, like there's a podcast that I follow and they're trying to get old court records from you know, just from the nineties.

But they're they've been stored in properly, they're covered in mildew and you know this is only from the you know, from nineteen right, So if you've stored them in properly in a place where water is leaking, where there's mold and mildew, and you play that out over eighty ninety years,

well then they're gone. They're dissolved altogether. And it actually really is a problem in our country how we have all of these civil and legal records that are just not properly being stored and are decaying, making it harder

to know about the older cases and filings. The plus side though, is that you know, if you if you were convicted of a crime yourself, then hey, maybe the record is sort of just naturally being Yeah, I would love to hear like a ninety year old convicts feelings on that, but I don't know any Well, back to our story, or speaking speaking of Marion Rogers, what happened to him? Yeah, well, after the trial he left town

again resumed his itinerant lifestyle. In nineteen thirty two, though he was found the line by the side of a road, half dead, and he died two days later of appendicitis and exposure. Till a Ruminer went on to get married, had some kids, and beyond that she just sort of dropped back into obscurity and I know no more of what happened to her. So Also the tiny hamlet of

Red Stripe, Oh yeah, awesome name. That's a great name. Yeah, that's where the murder supposedly took place, or nearby anyway, Yeah, on the road to it or outside. It's still there, but after the trial they changed her name to Pleasant Grove because of all the negative publicity. Nice, I like again, and you can find it's still there just typing pleasant Grove, Yeah, and it pops right up. Oh yeah, actually I did that and I found it actually super far from more.

A friend of mine grow really she's from that area. Governor of Arkansas publicly now suppressed for their behavior and said that they had made the citizens of North Arkansas had to be hayses and idiots. As I said earlier, the story really does appear to have had a cultural impact and cementing the image of rural America's backward and ignorant in the minds of city as well as with a special place reserved for the Hillbills of the Ozark who really were described in the national papers as depraved,

your literate morons. Uh, there is a There was a guy named Brooks Blevin's he u is or was at least a professor at University of Missouri or no, excuse me, Missouri State University. He wrote a book about this case called Ghosts of the Ozarks, and I read an article that he wrote about this as well. I wanted to quote when this real quick like um talks about the writing of one Kansas city journalists who went in went in town and basically sent out reports that were picked

up by papers all across the nation. November is a quote now from Brooks Blevins On November nine, the Journal Post banner headlines set the tone for the weeks to follow. Quote Ozark murder reveals system of p NH barons said

to be back of brutal crime unquote. Secret went on to spin a tale of feudal oppression and privilege and is in an Ozark land of illiteracy and violence places inhabitants quote knowledge of Christmas is almost as limited as their idea of what Thanksgiving is intended to convey unquote. Vote and in isolated hamlet called Saint James, the caball of baronial families ruled with quote the hickory stick and the squirrel rifle unquote. That's just that's just a pretty

um um hate. His charges against the entire community, the entire county, of the entire state. I mean, you know, and this was picked up again and reprinted in papers all around America. I mean, that's one way to frame it. But I think you know, you're, you're you're laying bear a pretty a pretty terrible bias. These are hard working farmers who are people, aren't that. Yeah, they're poor, and they don't have the best education, and they probably are

doing some moonshining, but they're trying to get by. Yeah, and yeah, you know, you could easily just flip that D and eight degrees talking about the same people doing the same things. Now all of a sudden, they're salt of the earth, hard working agricultural Americans. Yeah, yeah, it really is. I mean, this is like, I don't know, if you know. I mean, in a sense, this kind of comes down to like basic human nature, which is that we all want to have somebody that we can

look down our names act exactly. It's totally true, right, Yeah, we've all got up and so you're living in the city, and maybe you don't have the best job, you're not that rich yourself, you live in a crappy neighborhood. But there's somebody. There's somebody, you know. It was just worse than you are somebody up in the mountains playing a French harbor. Uh. Yeah, So here's a question for you. Would Deliverance have been written and what the movie Deliverance

had been made? Yea, if this incident had not taken place, you know. Yeah, well okay, So, like like I was saying earlier, you know, what did I yeah, other than Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton, what did I know about Arkansas Georgia? Actually? Yeah, so yeah, that's built. And actually Hillary, Hillary is not even a product of Arkansas from Chicago or OK, I think it was Illinois. Yeah, I know, she's not an Arkansas person. She didn't like Arkansas very much,

apparently not. And so yeah, so so prior to Bill Clinton, what is a young man? What the heck did I even know about what went on in Arkansas? I knew one thing, deliverance. Yeah, Deliverance was the one that's out of the impression of and and and so, you know, people like you and me, that's what we know about these people as deliverance. While people backing on it in the one thing they knew about these people was the Arkansas ghosts and all these to pray morons and the

murder morons. It kind of has, you know, the story of like a you know, you can picture that sort of the archetype of like a country kangaroo court. Yeah, you know, you're on trial for the murder of Connie Franklin, who said right there. It really doesn't paint them in a good light. It's it is uh yeah, it is a yeah, it's just strange all the way around. I

can't blame these people for being embarrassed a little bit. Yeah. No, it's nest to be embarrassed about that, because when you think about it, I mean, there's so many dumbass stories out there in human history, all over this, all over the world that you know they're they're not that special,

you know. You know the thought I had, Joe, uh we're reading about this thing about your deliverance and Arkansas and stuff, is you know how many people are in the exact reverse thing, right, So, like you're from somewhere in Oregon, from some farming community in eastern Oregon, from Boardman, let's say, and you meet somebody from out of state, and what do they know? They know Portlandia, so they assume you're like a hipster with a handled bar mustache

and a top hat. And you're like, no, like I work on a watermelon farm, or I'm you know, I work at the port or I'm I'm down there doing wheat or something, wheat and potatoes. Yeah, I know, people, well, people like you know that, you know, I'm from Portland. I live in Portland, and people assume that I'm on board with all the general you know, Portland need nous

and I ride a bike and I'm a hipster. You know and all this stuff now not actually, actually I'm not not exactly the stereotypical, and neither are most people, which I mean, yeah, so one stereotypes are generally like totally inaccurate, right. But then also, a story, whether it's a true story or whether it's a you know, it's a narrative of some kind, can can paint people with a with a brush that's not always fair to them.

That's not always that the story. It's not fair. And these people had and they have had since they've had very little in the way of a voice to counteract this whole thing. And there's been there's been just no end of people, you know, writing stories about them and making fun of them. And if one of these people wanted to write a book making fun of New Yorker as well, who would publish it and who would read it?

So you know, it's been a one sided fight. Yeah, yeah, yeah, No, it's kind of too bad, which I think is it's too bad because there could be a city with a cool name like Red Stripe. Red Stripe had to go away, and that's sad. But back in Stone County, Arkansas, the legend of the Arkansas Ghost lives on even if none of the rest of us have heard about it. Well, you've heard about it now and that's another story another week, so we will see you next time. Please stay tuned.

We've got a few important facts to tell you and otherwise we'll see you next week. All right, Thanks a lot. This has been Shocking Details. I'm shocked. I'm shocked. If you'd like to get ahold of us, so, you can send us an email at the Shocking Details Podcast at gmail dot com. You can also check out our website that's dub dub dub the Shocking Details dot com. We're on Twitter that would be at Shocking Details and of

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