The Widemans : Part 1

this is sworn. I'm your host, Philip Holloway. Is this Mason Lindsay, Yes, this is Don't ever call me about this. I don't like your brother, don't like you, and I don't know a god damn thing about the murderit case you asked me about. But I do to know about y'all. What a bunch of swine you are, So don't ever

call me. Okay. After decades of working within the criminal justice system, I've seen that I've experienced firsthand the told the job takes on those who dedicate their lives to public safety, whether you're a sheriff or a local police officer, and a heinous crime takes place in your town. You want that case to be solved. You need it to be closed, and quite frankly, you want the right person behind bars. You've sworn to protect your community. But what

happens when a case starts to slip away? What happens when you still can't find the answers after a year, after two years, three years, ten years, fifteen years? What can the criminal justice system do to keep these cold cases alive? When responsibility for solving a case changes hands time and time again, at the end of the day, who really does bear the burden of Solider kids? On today's episode, we'll explore all this through the framework of

the Wideman Kids still unsolved after fifth teen years. Hello, Mr Wise, ye hi, this is Philip Holloway from the Sworn podcast. How are you doing good? If you have just a minute, do you mind speaking with me about the Wideman case. I have a minute to speak with you about it. It's my understanding you were one of the first people to arrive on the scene. Is that correct, Yes, sir, I was the first one to get there. I was actually a fire powder for the County Powder Corfet turn

the Carty Macnya, so I was a volunteer you. So that morning we had a had a fire. I responded to in my personal vehicle, called inside a fire department, and another guy was picking up the fire truth so I got to the scene before. So you were actually the first person to arrive, Yester, I was the first one to arrive at a m on March twenty second two thou and two, a truck driver passing through Rebecca,

Georgia saw a large fire from the highway. After the driver called the Turner County Volunteer Fire Department responded and James Wise was the first one at the scene. When I got into that place, I always up the driveway. I backed all the way just about out to the highway where they had some double gates, and I parked there. It was a real dark night sometimes you have those freeeding. I walked up to that house and it was dark

and just had a bad feeling that morning. Once I looked around and I've seen all the cars there, I just had a feeling those people was in the house. Because always the home the property belonged to the Wideman family, and the house there was engulfed in flames within minutes of the firefighter's arrival. The roof of the one story home had collapsed. The Whiteman's vehicles were parked around the property, but the Widen family was nowhere to be found. When

I got there, the whole house. You could see the whole front of the house. It wasn't burning. Burning at the end of the house would but it was a very windy morning. It was. It was real windy that morning. It was just crushing the fire. Actually it prushed the fire all the way from one end of the house out the other end. That they had a big field of pine trees there, and it actually called trees on fire out there. I went to the front door, and I didn't not from the front door. The front door

was shooting. And I can steal a memory real good that it's a solid white front door. And so I made it to the door, but I wasn't never able to make the entry into the home. I called on the radio and informed them that on the cards the day, and I felt like that they possibly was in the house. Actually called and told him they was probably home. If I can remember properly, it seemed like we were on the outside of the house and could look in one of the fig rings. When we first distubored one of

the bodies. Fifty one year old Tommy Joe or T. J. Wideman, forty eight year old Devor Wheeler Wideman, and the twenty two year old pregnant daughter Melissa were found dead inside of the decimated home. They were very bad. They was like their legs. It was just like the torsos and Leo if burnt. If they was burnt, pretty bad. We put the victims then body bag. They loaded them up. They took him to have to the crime now I think where they took them. But when they lay them,

it didn't take them long. They called the Stack We were still on the scene to share. He found out when we got back these people been shot. It started as a terrible and inexplicable house fire, but when the fire ended, a more disturbing mystery began. The fire hadn't been the cause of death for any of the Wideman's. All of them had been shot, and the fire that was deemed the result of person It wasn't immediately apparent that they had been shot. It took some further examination

to figure that out. That's why I actually they was just kind of treating it like it wasn't like they hadn't been shot. Ory, it's not like that. After they called back, everything has changed. Right after the g P I got there and started talking. They weren't to interview. He asked me. He said, what made you feel like stare is wrong here today? I feel well, I said. The first thing. Every who called, they wasn't here at the house when I got here, and they said a

struck driver rocket, So it raised my speak. It's just phrase without the ordinary. I said. So I just down here and I've seen all the cars here, and I felt like the people get home. I did not know that being shot or anything like that, but things just wouldn't. Time I got I said, well, something's wrong. There ain't nobody here, because nine times out of ten, if a person calls, they wait till we get there. If they're sitting there. There was no one there when I pulled up.

It's about twelve thirteen miles Master. Like people responding to the fire, most of them had to come all the way from Master. I knew the sheriff got there pretty quick, and I'm gonna be honest, I kind of luke the round and watched stains, and I know that, uh, I can't remember him going to Mr Charles Henry's, which was the guy that was deceased in the house's brother, because we had him had the fire full extinguished, and I remember him pulling up out front. He got out and

looked and you know, and he left. He didn't say you along. But after it got daylight, there were several of my officers here, and like I said, they called a g b I mean they came to see because he interviewed me after seeing it was the same day. So then it seems that the sheriff brought the g b I in pretty much right away. Yes, sir, who was the sheriff at that time, Randy Kendrick. Was it your impression that the g b I took over the case from the very beginning yesterday? They took over the case.

Did anybody at the g b I or anyone in law enforcement ever talk to you about any potential suspects that they might have or they may have been looking at that They never talked to me after that day. After the gp I talked to me, I know what everything contact. What was the coroner's role in this, you know, him being the corner, he just wanted, you know, pronounced them to be and he comes out and get them. Anyone that made the call back after he took the body.

Do you remember who the coroner was at the time, I'm pretty do you know what Edgar Perry's normal job was his brother, So he's not a medical trained person. He's not a physician. He's a funeral home owner or a funeral director who also was the elected coroner. Is that right? That's right, that's right, So he would have had to have some medical professional help him determine that

they had been shot. For clarification, the coroner, Edgar Perry, is an elected official, not a physician, but a funeral homeowner in Turner County. He wouldn't be the sole voice in determining the cause of death for the wideman's but he would be the one to certify their death within his area of jurisdiction. The incident took place in the small town of Rebecca, Georgia, which is part of Turner County,

roughly two and a half hours south of Atlanta. Rebecca is a quiet place without a lot of devious crime, least of all a triple homicide. Firstly, Rebecca is really really small, only about point eight square miles, not exactly the kind of place you'd think of as a hotbed for crime. According to the latest census records, there's a population of under two hundred people. The next biggest town, about twelve miles away, is Ashburn, with population under four thousand.

Farmings still probably the main income, but there's no factories or anything done in Rebecca except some little communience stores. That's Patti Jones, whose mother and her whole family were from Rebecca growing up. Patty spent a lot of time there and new t J. Wideman personally because his family on the local hardware store. We were all shocked because t J was loving, kind person. He would never hurt anybody. He was always helpful. He had a great sense of humor.

He was disabled. I don't know if it was by birth, but he had a hard time getting around and walk were the kane, so he could ever really hurting one. It was just a great guy to be around, always cheerful,

even though he was in a bad disposition. When I saw t J at the Mark, we started talking because we were trying to catch up, and he told me that he was the tax commissioner of the county, and you know that that job a lot of people don't like you because of that, and so we laughed about it, and uh, he talked about his daughter, Melissa was pregnant.

You know, I was like, wow, that's great. And he didn't tell me that she wasn't married, but I really didn't know how old she was or anything like that. But they were all excited about her gonna have the baby. So, you know, speculation. Everybody was like, Okay, well, it could have been somebody that didn't like him because he was a tax commissioner, or because maybe Melissa something's about the baby.

And then there was always speculation that maybe because his brother, this was a rumor that his brother was not in the wheel or something like that, so people speculated that maybe his brother had had something to do with it. I know he and his brother weren't real close. Of course, everybody has their own theories, so I hate to jump to one because I don't really know Charles either. That

was just hearsay. Everybody was just floored because everybody loved t J. And he was very verbal and great guy, you know, had a happy attitude and just devastated. Everyone's floored that something so terrible could happen to such a good guy and in his family. He was in the center of the town, so everybody that needed anything at the hardware store New T j. And the fact that they weren't in their own house that night, they were staying at his mother's house. And how would someone know

that that right there? Makes you wonder. You'd have to make an effort to get to it. You'd have to look for it. That night, the white mens were staying in Tommy Joe's mother's use. This is something they did whenever Tommy Joe's mother went down to her second home in Florida. Reportedly, they stay there on and off for extended periods of time. Her house and Rebecca is secluded, not someplace you'd easily stumble upon down there. You don't have a police there's no police station, there's you have

to rely on Ashburn. They don't have the facilities like a big city. I mean, I'm sure the g b I came in, but never heard anything about what they found. It's a small town gets passed over. It's becomes uh, you know, just part of being in the small town atmosphere.

People probably just keep wandering and I know that nothing's ever gonna be done about it, and hopefully the podcast will bring out some more information, get things started, I hope, but people Rebecca will come out and start talking about it again. This is something I've heard before. Smalltown crime does get passed over, sometimes simply because it affects a smaller number of people in a place like Rebecca. We're

talking about minimal government services. We're talking about volunteer fire departments. We're talking about law enforcement with longer response times. We're talking about sheriff's departments that are spread very thin, and perhaps a state trooper who passes by every now and then, but for the most part, it's in the middle of nowhere.

Local law enforcement, particularly the Sheriff's office, responded first along with the corner but ultimately it was the Georgia Bureau of Investigation that was called in and was handed control

and responsibility for investigating the widen emerged. I know a thing or two myself about cold cases and what it takes to investigate them, but I don't want you to have to take my word for it, So I reached back out to my friend John Dawes, who is a subject matter expert in the field the cold case investigation. He currently works for the Cobb County District Attorney's Office in Marietta, Georgia. Before that, John was a very good homicide detective who I've faced in court many times, and

so I know that he knows his stuff. What experience if any of you had with a murder or a homicide or a killing where the perpetrator used a fire to destroy evidence of how someone was killed. I've been involved in some cases like that. It's a person's attempt to tamper with evidence to cover their trail. Does it work? Seldom? When you bring in fire into a scene, yes, it burns evidence in many aspects. But if you're not schooled in how to start a fire and allow it to raise,

then sometimes it works against you. If you're using that to cover your crime. Arson investigators come in, they can determine the origin, They can determine whether or not an accelerant was used, and then if you have a suspect quickly enough, you can test them for the accelerant their clothing. You and I stopped to get fuel in our car on the way to the house. We're gonna have some gas on us somewhere when we get home. Sometimes it

works against the bad guy. If fire started and doesn't fully in golf a structure, then you can still get fingerprints because the oily substance left by the ridge impressions. If it's a fully engulfed fire, then yes, it's very challenging to get any evidence out of that scene. This is a small town. Rebecca probably has two or three hundred people living there, some related, some are as close

as relatives. Everybody knows everybody, and in all likelihood many members of the law enforcement community are are well aware of all the residents as well. I think that people who are intimately close to a major crime like this, the longer it goes unsolved, the more they just accept that it won't ever be solved, and eventually, unfortunately, they just stopped talking about it and just deal with it

as best they can. But rumors always abound in cases like this that can be beneficial to the case, and it can also throw the case off track. You really have to spend a lot of time dusting off the case, focusing yourself back into the facts of the case. You don't want to get to a point where you don't remember whether something is a fact of the case or

whether it's someone's opinion or theory about the case. So our biggest author unknown phrases, keep it simple, stupid, and go back to the facts of the case, the circumstances of the case, and the physical evidence of the case. In order to get someplace a small agency like this sheriff's office, which I don't know. Turner County is probably

eight or ten thousand people. Small shaff's office, and it's probably a widespread area, so their numbers would be probably challenge men powerwise, but they may not see that much violent crime like in other areas of Georgia. Regardless of that, Sheriff's office desire to do the best that they can do. Regardless of their ability to do the best that they can do, they're gonna face challenges because of the closeness

of the community. You bring in uh the g B I, I would suspect they came in from Perry, and those gb agents are not known by the local people. They're not seen in the area all the time. They don't go to school with them, they don't go to church with them. They don't know him as well, and they may not be as free within their mind to talk

to a GBI agent where they might have Shaff's office. Yes, you get more resources when you bring in the state agency, and that's obviously good when it comes to getting the postmortem examinations done and getting evidence processed, but it may make the case more difficult to work for the GBI because they don't know those people like the sheriff's office stuff. Is it possible for a local era of to keep jurisdiction, if you will, for being the lead on the case,

but still utilize bits and pieces of state resources. My understanding is that you want to and you're kind of permitted to work alongside them. Like the sheriff's office likely had an investigator assigned to the g b I to keep things rolling and keep things between the two agencies. I've been involved in some cases where the g b I came in to assist and they took leads on

certain part of the cases. I kept leads on certain part of the cases, and it was just kind of communicated between us to keep everything on the same page, make sure that we knew where each other was going. But the state agency comes in as a request from that sheriff to come in and head up the investigation.

So I'm sure that there was some working together on the case after fifteen years, what would you expect that an investigator, whether it's the sheriff's officer or the gb I, what would you expect them to be doing other than

waiting around for hopefully for some phone call. There are a number of answers that I would want to gain for myself through this investigation if I were assigned the case today, And I would think that any investigator who picks this case up and begins a thorough, methodical review of the case would come across some of the same thoughts.

There are any number of things that that may have been done back in the day with say cell phone records, home phone records, the difference back then and I don't know whether they got any cell tower information. Today we can get cell sites and it's a very very minimized area and attracts every tower that you hit. There are a lot more towers now. In two thousand two, you were looking at a very very different potential with cell phones. They were gonna exist, but you only hit market areas

of towers. There were probably three in the state of Georgia, so North Georgia, Brown Dalton and Atlanta and down near Tifton or Videlli, and there may have been three market areas for cell phones, So I don't know how much research was done on those phones and the numbers that were calling them talking to them, but that's something I would want to know. I would want to know who the biological father of this unborn infant was, and I would want to talk to him and find out where

he was at that night. I would want to talk to her family, the surviving family, and see what she had been talking about about her relationship with the biological father of this unborn baby. That would be my first thought that comes to mind in my first area that I wouldn't want to focus on. Back in uh the early days, when I first started working murder cases, back in the early nineties, there were a lot more domestic murders,

and then crime trends have changed. Drugs have changed, gangs are more and so there is more stranger on stranger crime. But when you're looking at a situation where you have three people a man, a wife, and a child in a house who were all murdered and then there was an attempt to cover the evidence, then you you want to focus on somebody that's known to those people, absolutely absolutely, because if this is a stranger on stranger crime, why

would they try to burn the evidence. That makes no sense. They're going to commit the crime and leave. I want to know if there is any attempt to ransack the place, if there's anything of value missing. Sometimes that's hard to see in a fire scene, but my understanding from a couple of articles I read that their vehicles was there and there was nothing obvious that had been taken from the house. So I've got to look at at a domestic situation. You've got three people that are all at home.

It had to have occurred late at night because the fire was seen at what three thirty in the morning, So you're probably looking at a midnight crime time when all the parties were known to be at home by someone who knows them well and intends to take their lives. So I'm looking at somebody close. I'm looking at somebody if if these people were awake at the time they were shot and looked in the eyes of the killer,

they knew exactly who it was. How helpful is it for an investigator, though, to be aware of a motive for a crime when it comes to helping solve that crime. It directs you. Identifying a motive directs your investigation. You're right, it doesn't have to be proven by prosecution in the court. That's not a requirement under the law. But when there is a motive, you separate out who probably did a

crime compared to who probably didn't. Greed is an underlying cause nearly every time, whether it's a drug murder, an armed robbery murder, a domestic murder because somebody. There was a case in Gwinette not long ago where a man was charged five years after his wife was discovered dead just down the road. Some people choose to kill their spouse rather than getting divorced because they're saving money. In their mind, it's agreed thing. So money is involved in

nearly every murder case that you could mention. People get greedy enough to cause death. The first thing that I would want to do is open this case up and do a complete methodical review of the file as it exists, to see what was known. Then then I want to interview those first people that went to the scene, the first rescue people, the first shar's office people who arrived on the scene. I want to get their feelings about

what they saw and what they thought. I want to talk to the g b I agents who headed up the initial case. I want to get their ideas on it and where their mindset was headed in it, because that's not always relayed on the paperwork, that's not always in report form. When I look at the interviews, I don't want to look at a type summary of an interview. I want to listen to the recording. I want to know every word that was said and what the context of those words were. And then I want to look

at evidence that was collected in the case. Was their sexual assault evidence collected during the post morning examinations? Was there any latent print evidence lifted? What did they find, what did they collect, and what do they still have. Anything that's been tested in two thousand two by the g b I certainly needs to be considered for a resubmission. Because the DNA protocols have changed. There's a difference in how latent princes can be run. It's all very different now.

Technologies come a long way. But as to motive, the thing that concerns me is that Mr Wieman was the county tax guy. Two thousand two was a boom year. Maybe somebody was upset about their property appraisal not being more or or something that he had to do with business, although that's not likely. I think it's something that means louis that. But what screams out to me is that their twenty year old daughter is eight months pregnant and

she's at home with them, not with biological father. So I don't know what that situation was, and I need to find that out. It was likely someone close to the wideman's who committed the murders, perhaps even a relative. Another takeaway was that we really need to know who the father was of the baby. And finally, most of the time, the motive in murder cases is either greed or money or both. During last d railroad stream, that's it. A little bit further, for everything we've read and heard,

this house was not a place you'd happened upon. We looked up the address on the GPS website and headed down there to see for ourselves. This street next is see this way turned nor railroad streets over there, this is it. When we pulled up to the property the side of the tragedy, we weren't sure we were even in the right place. We crossed reference to the address with what we had on the GPI website. We were there. Yeah, that's locked. There once was a house here. It looks

like might be just someone's farm. Now that's Mason, a producer on sworn. You could tell that's really dark out here at night time. Oh yeah, there's no lights, no lights. It all started to make sense the story we've been unraveling. The road was not a busy thoroughfare during our visit. It was the middle of the day and still only one car past us as we walked outside. Mostly it was very, very quiet, except for the sound of cicadas.

The land looked like it was being actively used as a pecan orchard, and there was no longer any foundation left standing where the Wideman home used to be. We made not to ask when it was cleared and who currently owned the property. Then we left Pleasant Hill Baptist Church. On our way back from the property, Mason spotted a graveyard from afar. We stopped by the church to see if maybe there was a Wideman family plot, and there was.

Marge Turny second two. During our visit to Rebecca, we knew we had to stop at the local newspaper, The Wiregrass Farmer. We wanted to get the perspective of the local media outlet, one that had covered the case multiple times, right in the thick a pit. Next time on Sworn, there are some people that swear they know who did it. Yeah, ask him. They'll tell you an individual's name. Well, how do you know this? He's just that kind of a person.

In the next episode of Sworn, we're going to take a deeper look into the unsolved triple murders of the Wideman family. We're going to talk to some locals. We're gonna dig deeper, we're gonna sift through old leads, So be sure to stick around for part two of the Wideman Merkety