Hither. It's Steve Fishman with Orbit Media. We're back with another episode of Death and Deceit in Alliance. I hope you're enjoying the show. Just a quick message 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.
Found in a pool of her own blood, she said she was murdered.
And I I mean, you could have just knocked me over right now.
They tell me these pretty body seene in there so gloves end boys on this one. That's I mean, there's just a massive amount of blood around her face, like 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, even took advantage of me.
This is Death and Deceit and Alliance, a real time investigation into whether David Thorne killed Yvonne Lane. I'm Maggie Freeling. Joe Wilkes. Is the entire case against David Thorn. Police prosecutors and David all agree David was not the actual murderer because he was towns away at a martial arts class. But to police and prosecutors, this didn't mean David was innocent. It simply meant there must have been an accomplice, someone David hired to have Yvonne Lane killed, and that person,
they said was his friend. Joe Wilkes. The man known as Joseph Isaac Wilkes grew up in a small Ohio town called Dover, about eighty five miles south of Cleveland. He was born Joseph Isaac Brown June fifth, nineteen eighty to Dorothy and Isaac Brown. It was a terrible upbringing, as Joe explained in his trial testimony. Joe had two siblings,
Jennifer and Jason. Joe said that he only lived with his biological parents for a year and a half because his father threw his little brother down the stairs, breaking both of his wrists, arm and fracturing his skull. All three kids were put into foster homes. In kindergarten, Joe was psychologically evaluated and labeled as quote behaviorally handicapped and emotionally disturbed, and thus he was placed in special education classes.
Around this time, at five years old, Joe was able to go back and live with his biological mother again, but things didn't improve. At nine, Joe was put back into foster care. He said he was taken out of his mother's home because quote, they were abusive physically, emotionally, and sexual. It's unclear who Joe meant by they. He and his biological siblings were eventually adopted when Joe was twelve by Sterling and Brenda Wilkes from Atwater. Atwater is
just fifteen minutes from Alliance. Joe's life seemed better with the Wilkeses, but the damage from his past was severe. In ninth grade, Joe was evaluated again. A report on the evaluation says Joe had an inability to maintain interpersonal relationships, show's inappropriate behavior or feelings under normal circumstances, pervasive feelings of unhappiness or depression, and a tendency to develop physical
symptoms or fear associated with personal or school problems. The reportless behaviors such as nervousness, twitching, lying, cheating, and mood changes. It says Joe was secretive and felt worthless, that he got lonely and could be clingy. It also says he has a reoccurring fear of doing bad and often acted to please other people. Joe had motor skill problems too,
and was reportedly shaky even when he wasn't nervous. Doctors also noted that Joe often had negative feelings towards himself and would say things like I'm stupid and you must have me confused with someone smart. At fourteen, the shaky, twitchy, traumatized teen entered high school and was a target of bullies and the butt of jokes.
Here's kind of a loner, didn't really have a lot of friends. I kind of felt bad for him, kind of like a I don't know, I have a soft spot for people.
You know.
He didn't want to have your best home life.
This is Josh McComb, who you heard last episode, one of the kids the police asked about Yvan's mur.
He was a little smartest kid. He wasn't you know. She Mi Ka was all right, but he just didn't have a lot of friends.
Joe testified that he became involved in drugs like acid and cocaine and eventually wound up homeless. This is when he met David. Joe said they met at a party through a friend and eventually they started hanging out. Josh McComb was friends with David and eventually started hanging around Joe too.
I actually met Joe through my sister. They were he was in the younger grade, so my sister hung out at his house and at some point I don't remember when I ended up.
Hanging out over there too.
She didn't have, you know, good parents.
He didn't.
I don't remember ever seeing his dad around. His adopted dad, and he's fall back.
Joe was younger than David by nearly a decade, so he was like a big brother figure. As David said in the last episode, he also felt bad for Joe and would try to help him in any way he could, from giving him rides to letting him sleep on his couch. David had his own place. David says he even bought Joe his first car in October nineteen ninety eight or seven, a Volkswagen Rabbit for three hundred dollars, So it's not
surprising that Joe was said to idolize David. That was just the kind of person I've been told David was, even by Josh, who was also younger than David.
David was kind of like a big brother to all of us.
By this time, Joe was spending a lot of time around David, and David started teaching Joe martial arts. Joe was picked on his entire life, and it was probably empowering, like now he could fight back. Josh said, Joe was not a natural fighter.
Didn't have guts, you know, he didn't have like I don't think the kid ever been in a fight in his life, and I don't, you know, he got in trouble and stuff, and I know that he just wasn't a violent kid.
He wasn't.
Although around this time Joe's behavior did start to turn to mischief. What I found to be a quiet, victimized, keep to himself kid pleaded guilty to stealing shoes on January twenty first, nineteen ninety nine, when he would have been eighteen. This is the first criminal record I can find for Joe. And of course Joe was poor fending
for himself, and he probably just needed new shoes. Through this time, Joe was still attending public school, but he left in eleventh grade and joined a vocational school, the same one David and Yvonne attended, but the vocational school was short lived. Joe got in a fight with a boy named Chris Campbell, who is a huge, huge part of the story. We'll get to him later. After the fight,
Joe was sent to a behavioral school. Finally, in the spring of nineteen ninety eight, Joe's senior year, he dropped out of vocational school and he was done with school altogether. And I just want to say that all of this breaks my heart. Joe doesn't seem like a particularly bad kid, just troubled. Joe was also a good looking kid, handsome, six foot four, athletic. He seems like he had a lot of potential. After he dropped out of school, Joe wasn't working. In fact, it doesn't seem like he ever
worked much. He said he worked at a restaurant for a month when he was sixteen, and then after that he'd done random construction jobs with his grandpa. At the time he was arrested, he said he was supporting himself through his girlfriends and the kindness of people like David and Josh. After a bad breakup Joe, Joe moved in with his friend Summer Enoch and her parents, Karen and Brent.
Karen testified they were okay helping Joe get on his feet, but if he was going to stay with them, he needed to get a job and follow their rules, like letting them know he'd be home for dinner if he was working, stuff like that. But he didn't follow any of the rules or get a job, and Joe wound up on the street again. Yvonne's body was discovered on April first, nineteen ninety nine. Joe was kicked out of Karen's house in May. In July, Joe was arrested for
criminal mischief. He was convicted in order to pay a three thousand dollars fine and released just a week later. Joe says he was out partying, drinking, doing coke, and dropping acid. He was having a typical Joe night and it would be the last one he'd ever have. Meanwhile, the police had received a tip which led to a young woman named Rose Moore.
I de kepted William Lucklow interviewing Rose More also president in Sorry protecting Buck Sampson. If you just go ahead and tell me what you what transpired several months ago along with your boyfriend Chris Campbell.
Okay.
Twenty three year old Rose told officers that she and her boyfriend Chris Campbell were in the food court at the Carnation Mall on April thirty.
First went in the Cathay court waiting on my dad and you got something to eat? I think its be French fried or something.
Rose says they bumped into Joe Wilkes. She didn't remember the time, but it was dark out and likely after work. Rose and Chris worked at a telemarketing center in the Carnation Mall. Chris Campbell knew Joe from school and the three of them started talking. Remember Chris was the kid Joe got into a fight with just a few months earlier, the fight that got Joe kicked out a vocational school. Since Joe was from Atwater, Chris asked him what he was doing in Alliance.
Joe said that he had a job to do that some guys telling him to stay at the Tyeford in for the weekend, and he said, you know, well, he really got off the subject because Chrits kept trying to get it out of him what he was there for. And I think he went to say and Chris, you know, kept saying, well, I'm your friend, you know you can trust me, And then he got off the subject started talking about like the next Joe did, and then Chris started up again and next and you know, well, what
what okay job are you here to do? And they said, well, some guy paid me to kills some girl an Alliance. And he didn't say anything. You're making a prince and around.
I'm not glad to Joe responded that some guy paid him to kill a girl in Alliance and was paid three hundred dollars up front. He said the guy who was paying him also paid for his room at the Comfort in that night to stay in Alliance. The Comfort Inn was inside the mall. Rose told police that then Joe pulled out a knife from a sheath and showed it to.
Them, and he showed it the knife that he had on it. I think he was the next clocket and it was it looked like a honey knife.
To me.
It wasn't an clock at night. It was bigger than that. And he showed it and he said it that that he was basically killer d it was. It was better than a clock at knife. It looked like honey knife to me.
A letter sheet, but it.
Might have been. I'm not really like tig, but it could have been. I think it was because when he told it outthing went like that, how long do you think it?
Like? Well, I got that bag.
About eight inches is remember that because Joe later said he had a pocket knife. Then Rose said, after a few more minutes of conversation with Joe, he wrote his name and page your number on a card for Chris to have for the future. Rose told police that's when her dad showed up to pick them up and they left. Rose also described what Joe was wearing well.
At the moment after from he had the Nike y app been on it as it was like a light try white, black and blue. I'm not clogging on the colors that I know. It was white for sure. It was like a white jacket and he had like a white paint top underneath that I think, and she had white pants and white pants things like Nike. You can't why you haven't come forward because I've been scared for my life because Chris Campbell told me if I said anything, and he didn't come after me. And that's why I've
been scared, because I don't want to die. Sure, I'm children to raise.
They ended the conversation shortly after that. Two days later, police were looking for Joe and found him hungover at a friend's house after the night of partying and brought him in for questioning. Joe said the police drove him to the station and read him his miranda rights, although he was not under arrest at the time. The detectives in the room with Joe were Bud Samson, William Mucklow,
and John Leech. In a deposition, Joe was asked whether he remembered being interviewed by the police, and Joe responded, quote, they never interviewed me. They interrogated me the whole time they were interrogating me before they pushed the play button. Joe's statement was recorded over two days.
Today date of July fourteenth, nineteen ninety nine, Wednesday. It's thirteen or nine hours. My namely Detective Bug Sampson where they were bent a police department interview room. I want me to Detective William Mucklow and Detective John Leah of the Alliance Police Department.
Also in the room is Joseph Isaac Books.
In the recording, police read Joe his Miranda writes on record and then got right to the point, can.
You tell us your part in this.
Damn Roddie all did about four years now he's been training me in shoot fighting, and he's always been talking to me like how long she was since that one of the ones out of his life and then he can have his little boy.
And then.
For years I told him to cheat me out then want nothing to do with it, and then what wng was that Juba way okay? And then one day about the twils everything and I didn't care about life.
No more, didn't just do about it to any of me and we hadn't smart time.
Faddy fourball brother, oh fair?
What did David.
Thing was like, well be you and you wants to be better to be? If I can make it that way, I'll tell you to do something for me.
Joe said that David asked him to kill y Vaughan, and Joe, with nothing to lose, agreed, what did he approach you to do that?
To always say about a month before it hated.
And he told me if they didn't make sure I was okay and then a fine stay out of it.
And so did he take me up? What morning to me to Alian.
Swall at the culture did and Alpy day for a room without a dollar below and then he sent me to get a knife and so baseball gloves.
Jo said. David gave him money for a knife and baseball gloves and paid for the hotel room for him at the Alliance Carnation Mall.
How much money did David tell you?
I told me what's gonna get me out of it? He got to give our life.
Better, josephs. The day of the murder, they drove around and discussed the plan.
Thanks all me, how to do any told every by waiting the story little all about nine nine thirty insurance study by ten o'clock.
Because it's done to me and he'll be leaving.
They'll have jobs for them in the in the chest, okay, God and.
Joe says that since David would be at his class with Josh and the Lion Cub that night, he'd have an alibi, so to make sure the murder happened in that timeframe by ten pm. Then, he says, David dropped him at the mall a comfort in receipt shows Joe rented a room at one forty six and paid cash with one hundred dollars bill. Then he went to Kmart to get the gloves, and he went back to David's car. David drove him around and eventually he wound up back
at the Enox. The Enox are the people who'd taken Joe in for a while, but he wasn't following their rules. Joe was back on good terms with them and doing a job with Brent Enoch that evening. The Enox testified that David stopped by with the cub for about a half an hour and then he left around five pm for class. The Enox and Joe then ate dinner and after Brent took Joe to a carpentry job. On the way to the job, Joe asked Brent if he'd drop
him at the Carnation Mall. After Brent testified that Joe told him he was meeting David there and then spending the night at David's to clean David's garage. Instead, Joe says he stayed at the mall, where he allegedly bumped into Rose and Chris and allegedly told them he was in town to kill a girl.
And how did you get to the house from the mall? I went from the mall to the house, and.
I was walking down and I walked to her house and the door was unwalked up.
And did remember Yvonne Son Preston said he never locked the door when his mom asked him to.
I was screamed your name, and I was walking up the first slightly stand when she was coming down to the bedroom, did she and she met me one okay, what did you make him?
But she was like, hey, what are you doing.
To hear the shields? I ain't seen you a whole time. I was like, yo, Dad just wanted me to stop and see how things were. And yeah, and then where instead the talking.
For about three or five minutes and then okay, I know this is to be hard, but we got to go through and you tell me what happened. Yet, where were you sitting? Were you're sitting upstairs, you're downstairs.
We're on the second, the third one, okay, and we're still the job starting then Stormer.
What Joe said is that they were sitting on the couch and he reached his arm around her body, pulled her hair back, and slit her throat and then she got up, tried to run, went to the sliding glass door, turned around and asked him why. Joe answered, because David wanted me to. Then Yvonne collapsed. Joe says he went to the hotel and sat up all night thinking about it. An employee for the phone company Ameriatech testified at trial that the next morning, April first, someone called David at
eight twenty eight am from a mall payphone. Prosecutors pointed to that as proof that David left work to pick up Joe. The morning after the murder was committed. Now, at nine am, David did take a break from work. His coworker testified that David left for about an hour and a half and returned with McDonald's. The sandwiches were hot, the prosecution said. During this time, David picked up Joe at the hotel and took him back to the Enoch residence.
Why do you pick you upout offs on the way?
Joe says he put his clothes in a bag and gave the bag to David, but forgot about his pants, so he threw them in the woods and he doesn't remember where his shoes went.
What did you do with your shoes?
Oh, I don't remote yourself, Okay, Why did you throw the phoenix thing on the pfio and show really.
The gloves were the gloves off? Don't worried as you want.
Dump street. Mcdoud's up by your house.
The house, and you ran back in a month. Now that you run down State Street?
Is State Street is the main road in Alliance. It's really more like a highway. Joe said he ran down State Street nearly four miles back to the hotel, presumably covered in blood on the way. He says he ditched the knife on a side street.
So why did David want to star David when you want to have to pay so much money from Charles?
Yes, he told you this, he says, So David didn't have to pay so much in child support.
Are you sorry for what you did?
Because I can't believe I did it?
Hey?
Well, and are you willing to.
Stand up for yourself?
No antutifying art against the Dave thorny.
Hey anything else?
Yeah?
Okay, that's going to conclude this interview. It's one day, July fourteenth, nineteen ninety nine. Time now is thirteen twenty six hours.
What did you go?
After Joe finished his statement, he was charged with aggravated murder. Twenty six year old David Thorn was also arrested and charged with complicity to murder for hiring Joe to kill Yvonne Lane. David went to trials six months later on January eighteenth, two thousand, Joe took a plea to take the death penalty off the table and was given thirty years to life for his testimony against David. Prosecutors forcefully argued that David hired Joe to kill Vaughan and that
Joe was the perfect person to do it. He was broke and idolized David. Witness testimony, person after person described Joe's conversations about David and his seeming obsception with David. The friendless teen would do anything for him, witnesses said, and the motive David was upset that he had to pay child support. Remember, in the months leading up to the trial, David was court ordered to pay three hundred and fifty one dollars per month starting January nineteen ninety nine.
But at trial, the coroner was unable to pin down an exact time of death. He testified that Ivonne's time of death was within a seventeen hour window sometime after seven pm, so from seven pm to when she was found around noon the next day am. He did not remember if he did a sexual assault kit, and he
did not take body temperature. He testified that despite a four x eight inch slice to her throat, which cut her trachea, an internal and external left side carotid arteries, and left her nearly decapitated, he said, Yvonne was likely capable of some movement, and it's possible she could have said one to two words. That fits with Joe's story that Yvonne got up, walked to the sliding glass doors, turned around, asked him why, and collapsed. David's team did
not present an expert to refute any of this. You know that the gaping wound that had severed her vocal cords may not have left her able to speak or move, and that it seems unlikely that such a small knife, remember Joe said it was his pocket knife, a three point one inch blade, to have made this injury, or the fact that such a bloody wound would likely leave evidence in the crevices of the folding knife and Joe's clothes.
No blood or other evidence was found on the clothes the police recovered, or the knife Joe led the cops to, and no one questioned why the coroner couldn't be more precise in his time of death estimate, and if he can't establish a precise time of death, then the list of possible suspects is even longer. David said he felt like his counsel was inadequate. Over All, the prosecution called eighteen witnesses and the defense only called three. David also said that his lawyer often smelled of alcohol.
I don't know. I guess it was like a high out like it almost like if you walk into a cheap bar where you just had that key cigarettes. Now that's that's the only way I can really describe it. And was disheveled again the same suit and drink all the diff He's weapon it and acap afkan my grandparents
for gum and candy. I mean, even the judge picked up on it to a certain extent, because the judge told him to swow it down and to speak clearly, and then other times even told him to speak up, and even just my mind along.
I'm going to note here that the years after David's case, Hoppt died outside of his home from hypothermia due to or as a consequence of acute alcohol intoxication. Now, in fairness, it doesn't seem the defense was all bad. For example, on cross examination of the coroner, the defense was able to get him to say it's unlikely the pocket knife, the alleged murder weapon, made Yvonne's injury, and Joe, who supposedly killed Ivan David. His story was all over the place.
He told multiple versions of who drove him, where and when, who picked him up, what happened to his clothes, the knife, the gloves. The defense pointed out his differing statements, and to me it was clear that Joe was less than a reliable witness. But in the end it took the jury only three hours to decide that they believed the prosecution's evidence and Joe's confession was the truth that David hired Joe to Killy Vaughan. On January twenty fifth, two thousand,
the jury found David guilty in complicity to murder. At the sentencing, the jury was deadlocked at the appropriate sentence. They didn't know whether to sentence David to death or not. At the time, he would have been executed by Old Sparky, a macabre nickname for Ohio's electric chair. David made an impassioned plea for his life to the jury, and he read it to me.
I respect you the jury, I respect the job that you have done. I also respect that it was a hard job. I did not do this, and although you thought that the evidence proved it, I know in my heart and soul I did not do this. I need to tell you Yvonne's family, I'm sorry that Yvonne had died. She was your daughter and the mother of my son Brandon.
Go my love very much. I'm here asking you that you commit me to write my son from prison and be his father, because I know what it meant to lose mind at such a young age, and I wouldn't wish this on anyone. I just want to thank my family and friends, especially my grandparents, for all of the support they had given me throughout this whole case, and I wouldn't trade any one of you for the world.
After almost two days of deliberation, the jury still couldn't agree on a sentence, so the judge eventually sentenced David to life in prison without the possibility of parole, where David still sits today, dead in the water. But for a period hope was renewed and a woman named Sue came into his life. She was a family friend, though not a close one. She was a humble post office worker who'd follow the case like just about everyone in the county. A lot of people were satisfied with the verdict,
but Sue felt like something wasn't right. She'd known David from the post office and he was always the sweetest guy. She told me something was wrong. She felt it in her gut.
The guy I knew that came into the post office, that threw up his fan away and granned all the time, and he's just the nicest guy ever.
I thought, no, this can't be.
Sue had no background in investigations, no law enforcement experience, but she was driven and had time since she was retired, and she started to dig and talk to David about his case. She was a couple decades older than David, but over the years they became friends. She became his ally, his connection to the outside, his shot at freedom, and later in a ceremony at the prison, his wife. At first, though she was just a woman poking around.
I just went around knocking on doors because I was green at this I didn't know what I was doing.
I was just wanted to talk to everybody and get some information.
Sue was convinced David didn't hire Joe to kill Yvaughan. She wrote to Joe too, I said, this is this is who I am. I know these people.
I'd like to know your story.
And he ignored me.
He'd been screwed over.
By so many people by that time. He wasn't about to play the game again. And then I got the documents at that point, and I read him and I wrote him again and I said, I don't think you did this because your statement isn't lining up.
And that's when Joe agreed to talk to her, coming up on death and deceit in alliance.
To me, from what I understand of the case, stuff just didn't make sense.
The guy I knew that.
Came into the post office that threw up his hand away and grinned all the time, and he's just the nicest guy ever. I thought, no, this can't be Where he said that, they put him in a room and they changed him to the wall by his arm and spit on him, and they told him that they wanted him to confess.
Bred Turvey, a nationally non criminal forensics expert, pipped apart what he calls a botched cake.
Simpthing's missing, can't I can't understand.
There's got to be more.
He could have paid off his entire eighteen years of child support with a check.
Why didn't the prosecution turn this over on?
What is going on here? So it makes you feel like there's more to the story.
Death and deceit In Allancience 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.