Hi is Steve Fishman from Orbit Media. Thanks for listening to Death and Deceit in Alliance. Hope you enjoy this new episode. For access to all fourteen episodes ad free and all at once, subscribe with Apple Podcasts on our show page.
Previously on Death and Deceit in Alliance.
The murder of a mother of five in her own home stunt the small town of Alliance, Ohio. Twenty six year old i Ron Lang found in a pool of her own blood.
This case is.
Filled with sex, secrets, and surprises. The attack grabbed headlines as police hunted for a killer.
I was showing a photo of Joseph Wilms. It was not the man I thought leading the residents of.
Nazis last what motivated them to give false statements?
Did the system convict the wrong.
That pretty much dead in the water.
We need new evidence.
This is Death and Deceit in Alliance, a real time investigation into whether David Thorne killed Yvonne Lane. I'm Maggie Freeling. To start this journey, I want to take you back to nineteen seventy two. That's when David was born to Priscilla and David Thorn in Cleveland Ohio. David was raised in a trailer in Ravenna, a town just a half hour away from Alliance. David's dad was in the military
and was often not home. He had done tours in Vietnam, and once he was home, he didn't like civilian life, so he reenlisted. His mother was left to take care of David on her own, but she also had to make a living and was a long haul trucker, so she was often gone for weeks at a time as well. Hi is this Priscilla, Yes it is.
Yeah, I moved my driver over the road.
I went to Canada and that wow.
Yeah, that was my big chance.
You way.
And then when he was five, the course of his life changed. David's dad was dealing with a lot of issues from his time in Vietnam.
You know, he was in the Agent Orange.
He went in after Agent Orange, and he was always telling them he at she had es that and they said nothing was wrong with him, and you know, he had bad headaches.
What did he say.
He talked to me for quite a few hours, James Wareless, just questioning everything like that. Don't hardly have friends with me, you know, he wasn't he wasn't himself.
He was talking monol if.
He talked to me for quite a few hours.
Wow.
And he told me he can I'll be home Saturday. And I go, what it was?
Fy? He goes, I go, you ud go?
How want to tell Fie?
You know? And he don't worry, I'll be home now, way.
Out the car and shouting, oh my gosh.
Yeah.
Took me over twenty some years to be able to say that without crying.
I mean, that is really really difficult. Afterwards, family life started to spiral. David was lucky though. He went to live with his grandparents when he was six and they went on to raise him. In talking about his childhood, David seems to glide by all the tumult. He says he was a happy kid raised by his grandparents.
I guess it would be. I would assume that she had kind of consider it kind of boring. I didn't really do much work. Kicked in with a couple of the friends that I had.
And we had upon how he's a fish. Hunt.
This is David's aunt Vickie.
He could run ATV's out there and hunt or do whatever you want to do.
So I would say David had a good life out there. David was always an animal lover. He was always gifted it humor. Even now when I see him in prison and we do our video visit and we visit that guy, no matter how are you feeling, it's.
Always in good spirit, smiling at telling Joe.
So, David had a lot of pread. At around seventeen, in his junior year of high school, he entered a trade school. He was studying printing, hunting trades.
Yeah, from a hobject printing to the stream printing for gear.
And that's where he met Yvonne Lane. Yvonne was born just two months before David. She had two sisters and grew up an Alliance. Historically, Alliance had been a thriving manufacturing and railroad hub. Then manufacturing left and it became part of the rust belt. In the nineteen sixties, the population peaked, and at the time of Yvonne's murder, Alliance was home to twenty three thousand people, and they were not prosperous. The median income for a household was about
half that of the rest of the state. Unlike David's, Yvonne's childhood is basically a mystery to me. I couldn't reach her family and friends could really only speak about her older years. What I do know is that she grew up in a super religious Jehovah's Witness household, which must have been challenging. As Yvonne got older, she started to rebel and attract a lot of male attamps. She had her first child at sixteen. From what I understand,
the child's father wasn't much in the picture. Yvonne was young, and her parents wound up doing most of the caretaking of her son. Yvonne, now a mother, was looking to do something with her life, so she decided to go to school for cosmetology, and that's where she met David. They went to the sat In Trade School. David says he'd seen Yvonne around for years and he was always struck by her looks. He says, she was gorgeous.
Of course, that's what attracted me to her in the first place. I'd just seen her at the school, so whenever I talked to her, it was just then patting.
In the hall the that dodge.
And for the record, David was also handsome and had friends. He was kind and caring. With the looks and personality, I'd say he was also a couch. To this date, over a year of research, I have yet to come across one person who had anything bad to say about David. After graduating, David worked making decals for restored cars. He was doing pretty well for himself, making good money, and everything was on the right track. One day in nineteen ninety five, David says he was at an auto parts store.
And that's where I had seen her again.
By her, he means Yvonne.
As soon as she.
Come walking in, he just kind of cast me on the shoulder and points. I was at the register in line, getting ready to buy something, and I turned back and I looked and I recognized her that I couldn't place her name because I knew that it was not a common name, but I couldn't remember it being that it was I would say, five, five years old, six years later almost so by the time we go out, she comes walking out, and then it just dawned on me
what her name was. So I said, you're gone, and she looked over and she goes, I didn't think you recognized me, And I told her I said, I couldn't place the name that at first it took me a second, and then she just kind of laughed and we started talking.
From there, David says he fixed her car and that's how the relationship started. David's aunt remember seeing them at family gatherings.
Alice thought she was very nice, very pretty.
I can see why he fell loved.
Her, and she seems like she made him happy.
I think she did, I really do.
I asked David to describe you, Vonne.
I don't know.
I guess I would have to describe it almost just a social butterfly, because she could pretty much talk to anybody. If you were in the garage working on something, she could talk to you, be knowledgeable about it. And her only big topics that she didn't want to talk about were politics and religion.
You know.
But she could put on the next clothes, we could go anywhere.
We could put on blood clothes and joke on the four wheeler and build luodbogging. I went into the car, so you know, we went from swap meets to drag races to different track advents, and I mean she was sheer knowledgeable about it.
I mean she was into it.
It wasn't like I was just forcing her hand and dragging her along on everything.
At the bloodler wanted to do or anything.
By the time she and David started dating, Yvonne had three kids. Her first was in the custody of Yvon's parents.
I honestly thought that he was her.
Brother, that maybe her parents had a kid, and you know later in life that they didn't actually intend on having because whenever we had gone over there, it's he'd call her sissy. So I just I just cook it with the face that year that that was its hisster, you know.
What I mean.
Yvonne's second child is Preston, born three years after her first. This is Preston. He was six when his mother died.
She loved playing flowers, did that lot? We went for walks a lot. We played video gos. She was a terrible cook. She loves calling jokes.
What would she make that was so bad?
Well, the world's best bounce on eggs. They're like lover and can you go to the eggs of the super Boss.
Do you remember ever meeting David.
Yeah, I've met him quite a few times, a couple of times at the house, but mainly at his house.
Oh, she would bring you guys over to his house.
Yeah, this is a really cool guy. It's always really nice to me. Sometimes it would only hang out with just me.
About maybe some Christmas stuff before or maybe it was a birthday.
Pregnant, Yvonne's third and youngest at the time was born with a rare genetic condition called fragile X, causing developmental delays, learning disabilities, and social and behavior problems. Yvonne was actually in the middle of a lawsuit against the Alliance City Hospital, claiming they cut off her son's air supply during birth and caused birth injuries. Yvonne wasn't working when she died.
She was receiving public assistance, including Social Security, for her son's disabilities, so a lawsuit could have yielded much needed money. The father of Yvonne's second and third children is Eric Cameron. Yvonn and Eric's lives would be intertwined four years, through
good times and bad. Eric was constantly in and out of prison, and Yvonne must have been overwhelmed taking care of the kids by herself, though fortunately Eric's mother took in Vinnie, Yvonne's disabled child, and her parents had custody of her first so to see her kids, Yvonne shuttled back and forth between Eric's mother's house and her parents' house. When David entered the picture, Eric was in jail. I'm not exactly sure for what. Around this time. He had
many charges, including domestic assault. Yvonne and David dated for about a year, including after Eric got home from jail. David says Eric was continually interfering in his relationship with Yvonne, getting angry when Yvonne would take the kids out with him. David says that one time Eric took his anger out on David and destroyed one of his customer's cars. David
says that was one of the last straws. David was convinced that a relationship with Yvonne was not sustainable with Eric around, so eventually they broke up.
You know, her and I didn't grow up hard or anything like that. We got along great.
I still had I still had a lot of love for her, you know, so you had feelings even if you break up. I think that's why people are so mean to each other when they break up, is because they truly love them, and that's what makes the hurt that much more because you love them. And so when something happened that you guys break up, you kind of try to turn that switch off, and that's the only way to make everything bearable is to.
Be angry with that person.
And her and I never really had that because we weren't breaking up for what either one of us were doing. We were breaking up because of Eric, you know. And he was always going to be present because he was the father of her other kids.
So, by all accounts, Yvonne's relationship with Eric was up and down.
Eric and Yvonne had they were good, but they had some bad qualities when they're together.
This is Tracy Loa, Eric's sister. Now I want to pause for a second. At this point, Yvonne is around twenty four, has three kids with two different dads, and no one, especially me, is shaming her at all. I don't care how many people someone sleeps with, or how many kids they have at what age. God knows. I was doing all sorts of things. But it is important to talk about because all of this will play a
crucial role in her murder investigation. So you guys had heard back then that she was sleeping with a lot of people. I mean, did Eric confront her about this?
Yes, it's been confronted, so and that was a lot of the issues that she actually cheated on them a couple of times.
That's why we were questioned questioning, and.
By questioning, she means the paternity of her second and third kids, whether or not they were actually Eric's. They were, but they thought about it. And these fights sounded violent.
And I'm not saying she wasn't, but at the same time, it was both.
Because she was hit She hit Eric too quite.
A few times.
Preston, who again was just six at the time, remembers the fights between his dad, Eric and his mother.
I loved her. She's crazy, but I loved her. She's definitely crazy. She had a seco of.
It, kind of like a jack go and hide thing, you know, the times everything she would type, personality, a.
Hunch you on the faces from baker cake.
Afterwards, David says he never saw any of that. David said, they got along great and she was wonderful.
It would never round anybody, and only round pretty much.
Just do I ever seen her streak out towards anybody other than my dad but me, And a few times where she duc take me to my bed in port soda on me.
You just left me there.
That sounds kind of abusive.
It definitely it.
I tried to kind of kind of twisted, but at the same time, then she went through things like it's like she would snap out of it and then she'd be like the nice tours of the world. I don't know, it's kind of like she would just it's kind of use your patience with me or something. So like one time she was talking on the phone and I kept trying to get her attention. Of course, you know a kid to being a kid that kept pulling out of
her shirt to get her attention. She told me to stop and I didn't, so she touched me square on my nose and duc take me.
She was over to the duct taping, so so she was done with her phone call.
Shocking allegations that I can't confirm. But I don't know why Presston would lie about mom, who he says he loved. And I don't know if her mood swings play into Yvonne's murder or not. But I had only ever heard from David that Yvonne was a great mom and a lovely person, and Preston, her son, says she wasn't violent with David. But now I'm seeing a different side of Yvonne, and I'm wondering did she piss someone off like Eric. Maybe, as I'm hearing all this, I can't help but wonder
if Eric isn't a more likely suspect than David. Their relationship featured jealousy, cheating, and physical violence. Sure makes it seem to me that in an emotional fit, someone in Eric's position might lose control, grab a kitchen knife. Say remember that murder scene. It looked like it was personal. The level of violence was so enormous. Things were complicated in Yvonne's life. There were kids to take care of, and fathers to juggle, and parents of those fathers taking
care of her kids. She seems to have struggled to make money, and her temper too, maybe added to the chaos, which may be understandable given how much she had to manage in her life and for Yvonne, things were about to get even more complicated. In nineteen ninety six, a few months after David and Yvonne broke up, Yvonne was back with Eric, but David got a surprise phone call from her. She was pregnant again and she thought David was the dad.
She asked me if I wanted her to have an abortion, I told her, I said, I don't know if the child is mine, but if the child is mine, I'm not paying.
For an abortion. That was pretty much the end of her or even talking for a minute.
David gets another call from Yvonne. A few months later.
Yvonne called back saying that she needed to go to the hospital. She felt that she was having a miscarriage.
But she wasn't. She was still pregnant. And a few months go by and then David hears from Yvonne again. The baby is born November ninth, nineteen ninety six, shortly after Yvonne calls David for a paternity test.
I went over, I met her, I met him, and to be honest, upon saying him, there was almost there was no reason to even have the DNA.
From the moment David saw his son, he says, he knew he was his.
I mean he was mini me. If he's seen him, yeah, if she's seen him at that time, that was that was me at the same age.
David did take a paternity test just to be sure, and as expected, Brandon was his. Yvonne wanted David to pay child support. It was fixed at three hundred and fifty one dollars every month, which he says he had no problem paying. He says he wanted to support his son and be a good dad, and at this point, David was twenty four and ready for the responsibility. He had the job, the stability, and was looking forward to
raising Brandon. David and Yvon worked out an agreeable visitation schedule, and he and Brandon started to get to know each other. Can you tell me about that bond you guys had.
Yeah, it was actually pretty instantaneous, because I mean as soon as I saw him, I mean, I recognize myself, but well, you know, he was a little shy at first, but I'm a fairly outgoing person, so I didn't really let him just look at me.
I just picked him up and kind of went from there.
About two years later, by the time David was twenty six, he was taking Brandon on all kinds of adventures to fish in his pond and hiking to show him all sorts of wild animals. Brandon loved animals like deer and foxes. David said. Brandon also loved coming to his house because David raised exotic animals, including a cougar cub named Harley.
I personally only ever owned Harley. But I've had dozens of lion cubs and tiger cubs and other cougars, and I had a multitude of snakes though myself that I had big body snake for bowers and pythons, but Harley was the only big cat. And I mean, it's kind of odd to have seen, you know, one hundred and thirty five pound cougar that the Little Box trained.
There's a photo of Brandon and David with Harley. From all accounts, David and Yvonne had a good relationship, even if they were broken up and seeing other people. In fact, David says they were talking about getting back together.
You know, I had killings for her. She's the mother of my child, and I never not liked her. I mean when I was I was young, and like I said, so it's pretty I started talking and everything, and yeah, we've started kind of a relationship behind the scenes because I was stilled dating somebody.
And Yvonne was technically still with Eric, although he was back in prison on a drug charge.
And so you know, her and I became active again with each other. Her and I had to kind of stipball the idea about moving away to one app back of moving out west and or going to the Florida and potentially Atlanta.
And this is where David, being the nice guy that he was comes into play. From an outsider's view and what family members have told me, it seems like Eric was the bad boy Yvonne couldn't quit. Whenever things got bad with Eric, Yvonne would look for stability with David, the sweet man with the good job and reliable income. David told me they were even talking about maybe getting back together and leaving Ohio and stuff like that. Yeah, this is David's aunt again. I had heard that too.
You did hear that?
Okay, I did hear that. Do you remember?
Because I thought they were getting back together what I was hearing.
It's the spring of nineteen ninety nine, and yvon now has five boys, ten, six, four, two and a baby. She says her newest is again Eric Cameron's the biological father of two of her other children. In the evening of March thirty first, nineteen ninety nine, David went to his martial arts class. He had gotten into shoot fighting, a combination of a bunch of martial arts techniques.
Shoot stay like how a reclo would shoot him through a shoot Yeah, good night down.
Yvonne's body was discovered on April Fool's Day, nineteen ninety nine, and was presumably murdered the night of March thirty first, and David says he can account for all his time. That night, he brought his cougar cub to martial arts class to show it off. Then after class, he says, he went to his girlfriend's house for a little dropped off the cub, and went to sleep. At about one a m. The next morning, he clocked into work at
six ten am. At ten fifteen, he took his lunch break, and pretty much as soon as he got back to work.
All of a sudden, my bough son come running into my room and he said that I need to get on the phone, but it was important and my grandfather was calling.
And so then I told him to, you know, tell me what happened.
And he said that she was murdered, but her mom had found her, that she was stays down in a pool of blood. I'm hearing the word that he was saying, but they're just not making sense. And then the realization of it coming in that this had actually.
Happened, twenty six year old Yvonne Lane was dead.
So, I mean I just pulled my boss to son right there. I was like, you know, I gotta go, and I'm half explaining of what's going is I'm walking out the door and he's following out to the car.
What were you thinking when all of this went down? Like what was going through your head? I mean, I can't even imagine. And your son was in the house in the pop bench.
Well whenever I initially got the call, and then I go over and I pick him up.
I mean, just like shock and awe.
It's like as if it's not even real, like something has to be wrong, you know what I mean, It can't be true.
But it was. Yvonne Lane, the mother of David's child, was dead and David was about to be the chief suspect coming up on death and deceit in Alliance.
Found in a pool of her own blood because she was murdered.
And I I mean, you could have just knocked.
Me over right now.
They tell me it's pretty body scene in there, so gloves envoys on this one, but that, I mean, there's just a massive amount of blood around her face.
Shock and awe.
It's like as if it's not even real, like something has to be wrong.
And then one.
Day I just lost everything and I didn't care about life no more, and David knew about it, need took advantage of me death and deceit. In Alliance is produced and reported by me Maggie Freeling, with editorial consulting from Amber Hunt. Aaron Case is our legal researcher. Our executive producer is Steve Fishman. Our engineer and production coordinator is Austin Smith. Eric Axelrod is our assistant producer.