The Clearing is a show about crime and the trauma that can result from crime. It may not be suitable for all audiences. The Elevation or the Territory of the Future of Society will be determined by the manners and morals of the youth growing up around us. Do you really know what the responsibilities of a parent are and the responsibilities of a child? I receive thousands of letters every year. Some from parents saying, I just can't stand my children. They won't do anything I ask them to do.
And some from children saying, I can't stand my parents. They won't let me do anything. What is lacking in those homes? Love and discipline. Let's take a look at both sides. This is The Clearing. I'm Josh Dean. Episode 8. Tie A Knot In It And this is the motivational speech that Edward's gave back in the 1970s when April is a kid and he was touring a story of redemption around the country.
At least, I'm pretty sure that's what it is. It was in the box of tapes we got from that sheriff's office in Jagga County, Ohio, early on in the reporting of the story. Occasionally you can hear kids' voices in the background. It's clear he's practicing the speech.
It takes up the first 14 minutes or so of this one cassette. On the tape, Edward talks about the importance of a work ethic, about the best ways to prevent yourself from being a victim of crime, about how Americans need to have more respect for law and order. Do you believe we need in this country men such as policemen, the FBI and others to help make this a better country? Or do you feel that all policemen are pigs? And then he waxes on for a while about the nature of love.
What are some of the definitions for love? I mean, let's look at a few of them which I have written down here. Love is being called wife and mother. Love is defined as a wonderful adopted children. Love is having friends but more important. It's being one. Love is still waiting for him to come home from work as if it were your first date. Love is letting your little brother play football with you even when you know he's going to run the wrong way on the football field.
Love is being the tooth fairy and taking the money out of your own allowance because your mother and father isn't home. Love is your husband running up the hospital stairs every night for a week to be the first visitor because the elevator is too slow. I'm sure that I have not told anyone here tonight anything they did not know. Remember when you reached the end of your rope, try not to hang on. The best hang on.
He definitely always wanted to have a family of his own. That was something that he always talked about. He always said that all you have to do is show kids love because he always felt like he wasn't shown love growing up. He just felt that if you showed or told a child that you love them that just cured everything would make up for all the bad things that might have occurred.
His awful was my dad was. He, and this is kind of hard to explain, even though he chose the wrong path, he did try to ingrain in us right from wrong and to do right. There was consequences, sometimes very severe consequences, when we made the wrong decisions. So, he did try. There's really only one time during the reporting of the show when I wished we were making a film documentary. It was on a trip to Wisconsin in the fall of 2018.
We'd gone to the Jefferson County Sheriff's Office to interview Chad Garcia, the detective April first contacted back in 2009, and then Chad took us on a drive to see Dave Hack. Dave is the father of Tim Hack, who Ed Edwards murdered in August of 1980, along with Tim's girlfriend, Kelly Drew. That's the case that started our show, the crime that April turned her father in for.
April and Chad and Jonathan and I drove for a while through these beautiful rolling green hills. It was like a postcard to the Midwest. And then, eventually, accrested one of the hills and came upon a large dairy farm. Dave Hack owned and operated the farm for years, just as his father owned and operated it before him. Now the farm belongs to someone else, and Dave lives in a smaller house across the road.
We turned into his driveway, which is marked by this large hand painted sign that says, Hack Park, Free Beer, and then in smaller writing, second Wednesday every week. We parked and were walking up the way toward Dave's house when Chad stopped, pointed out a cemetery on a hill, maybe 300 yards away. Under his breath, he said something about Tim and Kelly. So, what? There's Tim and Kelly. Our buried in that cemetery we passed right up there where those pine trees are. We can see it.
So we went by it on a way and you'll go by it again on a way out. If you can see this cemetery where Tim and Kelly are buried, from just about any spot on Dave's property, like here in the driveway, we got closer to the house and Dave stepped out to greet us. You're walking through the house of me! Josh and Jonathan? You know that exactly. Yes, we know the chair. Should we take our shoes off for it? No! Are you sure?
This wasn't the first time April had met Dave Hack. About a year earlier, he contacted her out of the blue. Chad had given him her number and Dave called to say that he and his wife, Judy, were coming through Ohio on their way to Florida. He wondered if they might stop in for a visit. Dave didn't know much about April. Just that her dad had murdered his son and that April had been the one who turned him in.
And for some reason, nine years after Edward's was arrested, Dave decided he wanted to meet April and talk with her. They spent part of an afternoon together in April's house in Ohio. We'd begun working on the show by then, but April didn't want to record that conversation. She didn't know what to expect and she wanted Dave to feel comfortable talking with her. But when Dave and Judy left, they said that if April ever wanted to talk more, she was welcome to come see them in Wisconsin.
So now here we were, standing in Dave's house, looking at a collection of arrowheads found on his property that he'd framed and hung on a wall. I asked him about that beer sign. Your sign says free beer on Wednesday. The second Wednesday of the week. I thought I was ready for a beer. Yeah, I know. I missed the second part. Yeah, they probably were kind of small on the bottom. We brought lunch, sandwiches and because April insisted, the box of desserts.
And after the small talk, we sat down around the kitchen table to eat. Dave's wife, Judy, poured him a big old glass of milk. Okay, one of us, this food, glasses of salt and these I guess, which we are about to receive from night bounties through Christ our Lord, Amen. Father, son, and his spirit. Dave told us that he and Tim's mom, his first wife, who died in 2002, were supposed to go to the wedding at the Concert House.
The same one Tim and Kelly attended on the night Edwards murdered them. But Mrs. Hack wasn't feeling well, so they never made it. The next morning, when Dave noticed that Tim hadn't come home, he called over to Kelly's. Her parents were also worried. She hadn't come home either. And eventually we found Tim's car and it was very obvious that there was no one in it. I mean that the bodies weren't in the trunk or anything like that.
But his wallet was in there and everything was done just the way I would have assumed he would have done it when he left the car. So nothing narrowled me to believe that he was forced out of the car or anything like that. So even during the period when they were missing, you didn't feel like they'd run away. You thought something had happened to him.
If they would have ran away, either one of them would have called us or her parents and explained, hey guess where we just went and guess where we are. That would have been it. And I remember yet the sheriff at that time came to me. He says, don't worry Dave, they'll come back. Well, to me, that kind of set the tone for the whole Sheriff's Department that we ain't going to look too hard because he's coming back.
Dave didn't feel that way. Tim's absence became his second job. The sheriff's office welcomed us help. So he basically set up shop there. He'd go in, work the phones and light some fires, hoping like Kelly could help the cops solve the mystery. I know my brother and I went in and we made calls to other states of people that had been there. Where did they park? So we had on recipe cards. We tried to draw out basically a parking lot to see who parked where.
Dave hoped that if they could map out who was there, where they parked, when they left, maybe even who they left with. Someone could help them solve this. One of Dave's neighbors told him that she'd been at the wedding with her boyfriend, but the party got wild so they decided to take off. On their way out, they spotted a van that seemed suspicious, leaving the scene. And they could draw a picture of the van that was escaping and it was somebody inside moving or something.
And headlights on inside. That stays wife, Judy, which I'm dead. They got married in 2004. Anyhow, these neighbors just saw the van. They were going to draw the van for us. All of this stuff that sounded so real and that they really, really knew something. And there was nothing to any of it. And I guess it was probably after the first week that I thought, well at least they won't be suffering because my feeling was that somebody had tied them up someplace.
Didn't know of course, so then when the bodies were finally found, whether it was no doubt, you know, what had happened. Two months after the teenagers went missing, Tim and Kelly were found eight miles from the Concert House. Just off Highway 16, along the fringe of some woods. The local police didn't have any good leads. Some people in town thought the murders might have been bad blood overracing. Tim Hack was an avid tractor pull racer. Apparently beasts between competitors were not uncommon.
Others thought the killings might be related to another missing person's case, six years earlier, long before the Edwards family moved to town. A 17 year old named Kathy Sober got in a fight with her boyfriend while at a prom after party, which was also at the Concert House. She stormed out and was never seen again. The two terrible events were linked to the same place in a county with very little crime struck locals as a bizarre coincidence.
Rumors sprung up about a mysterious conquered man who might be living among them, praying on teens. For Dave Hack, this is the beginning of three decades of torment, seeing suspects everywhere around him. The heads of the specials of who it might be, I think my whole family did. We just assumed it was somebody that we all knew. We thought of oftentimes my wife and I used to talk about it. You know, we may never know who did it. For a while Dave thought the killer might be one of his neighbors.
Every time I would see him, their farm was like we were. And they would be going by with equipment or stuff. And you'd always have, I would associate with them if they ever talked to me. But it would always have it in the back of my mind that's probably who was involved. I think everybody around here would think the same thing. It's somebody we all know. And I don't know of anyone around here that knew of Mr. Edwards. No. We didn't know him at all.
At one point Dave even suspected Kelly Drew's stepdad. Because he had a van, he knew where they were going and everything. I thought, could it be possible that he was? And he wasn't real friendly? I mean he didn't talk that much to us or anything. I thought I wonder. And I think one time Timothy did say that he had a fight with him. It's long ago. But I know there wasn't a good feeling with close family and him. That's all I knew. And he started thinking but they got it wasn't.
And do you remember the, I assume it was some detectives showed up and took that? Was it 2009 or 2010? Whatever month that was just showing up. Do you remember them coming and what happened? Oh yeah. Yes, I remember a lot of that. I just got home from knee surgery that afternoon. Knee replacement. I always said no. These people are in the driveway from the television stations. So it was a pretty big surprise when they showed up and told you that they knew who to have done it.
Yeah, it was definitely a surprise. Well, I mean what is the feeling of finding out after it's 30 years? I would say that it, I guess the biggest thing I got out of it is knowing that it was not someone that I knew. Finding out that it was this handyman, Edward Wayne Edwards, that at least brought some relief for the hacks. They didn't have to go through their days wondering anymore.
But there were other questions, especially the why. Why would someone do this to their son and Kelly? Why these kids? When Edwards appeared for his sentencing in June 2010, Dave and most of the hack and drew families showed up in court. Members from both sides chose to speak. And some of the harshest words came from Tim's brother, Patrick. May God show no mercy on your soul and may you rot in hell, he said.
Dave chose not to speak, he just listened, hoping Edwards might say something, that there would be some finality to help him make sense of things. I guess I wanted to hear words actually spoken. And in the courtroom, Mr. Edwards, it was either kind of a grunt or, you know, but he never said much. Did it help going? Like did you feel like it helped you close the chapter? I wouldn't say that it helped. We already knew who the person was and what he had done.
So as far as helping for a closure, no, it was more informational for. Why? Why did you do something that horrible? I'll never know. I don't think it would have been good to meet my dad. I don't think that would have been beneficial for you at all. No, because obviously he wasn't sorry. So it wouldn't have made Dave feel any better. There was a night though, Dave told us, right after the murders, when someone in this family did meet that Edwards.
Or this guy who, in retrospect, seems like it was Edwards. It was Dave's dad who ran into him. And him and the neighbor, they stopped into the tavern. In the country by conquered. I mean, it wasn't even in a town. It was a bar right near where the murder happened. And my dad said, I think the felsen in that tavern is responsible for it. Because he said he had a bloody nose. And apparently he explained that he had been deer hunting.
Well, it wasn't even deer hunting time. And he said that the gun got quite a kick out of the gun and it flew back or whatever. So that kind of ended that. It wasn't Edwards shooting pigeons in the barn, but it sure sounds like the same excuse. In any case, the sky with the bloody nose, that image stuck with Dave, gave him comfort. He pictured him defending himself, punching this guy. It sounded just like something that Tim Hood had done. He had put up a fight.
I knew from the beginning when Tim and Kelly's bodies were both found that it either took more than one person or a person with a weapon. Or he never could have handled it. I mean, because Timothy was a strong young man. And he could have handled. And I'm sure that they probably had like a fist fight before he finished him off or something. Was he protecting Kelly or trying to? I felt that he was protecting her.
And I guess he did have some, what are some wounds to his hands or something from the knife? He is ripped. He was stabbed in the chest or stomach. Did Dave find a knife? Chad Garcia shook his head. No, he said. The cops never found the knife. And then the room fell silent for a really long time. We were all staring at the floor, trying not to make eye contact. This healing the April and Dave are trying to do together. It's admirable.
But the reality is, April's dad murdered Dave's son. Sometimes it's hard to escape that. Eventually, I fumbled around trying to break the silence. Thanks. I mean, I appreciate you letting us come and talk about these things. We've spent a lot of time with April, but I mean, yeah, I feel like it was hearing her talk about meeting you guys was a big moment. And a big, I'm sure in some ways has made a lot of things feel better. Brought closure to some things. Maybe.
We'll have more with the hacks after the break. Before the break, we were visiting with Dave Hack and his wife, Judy. Back in 2009, April turned her dad in for the murder of Dave's son, Tim, and his girlfriend, Kelly. When you got the news that was, was her dad, did you know the story behind it that she had been the one who made the call? No, we didn't know. We didn't know. April, we knew that a daughter had taught to Chad. And she had a successful life. And that we were doing okay.
I actually remember the first contact. It wasn't to me. It was to my mom. You guys wrote a letter to my mom. And I remember my mom sharing it with me because I was in Kentucky when she got the letter. And I asked my mom, I said, are you going to respond? She goes, no, I'm like, okay. And I remember I had wanted to respond, but it wasn't written to me. What did you say in the letter? I just said that I really felt with her and I felt really bad that such a thing had happened.
I'm sure I said that we would say prayers for her. And then the next thing I know is I got a call from Chad about a year ago maybe. Asking if he could give my contact information to Dave and Judy. Because Dave really wanted to connect with you with April because he wanted to tell her how he felt. Dave, what was it that you felt like you wanted or needed to say? It probably would have been that more or less that it was a terrible thing. And I'm sorry I lost my son.
But this man made some poor choices in his life. That's all. So we quietly arranged to go to Ohio on our way to Florida, which you know that doesn't make sense. You didn't say you didn't tell any of the other kids who were going. No, not till after we visited with April because we had no idea how it was going to go. And after we got to Florida, after visiting with April, then we told them what we did. And we said it was a good feeling when we left there.
When Dave showed up at April's house, he brought her a gift. A small wooden box that he made himself in his basement wood shop. Inside was a little note typed on a piece of paper and then cut out. He'd even use those craft scissors that leave a little zigzag edge when you cut just to give the notes some flare. It said, thank you, in all caps. And then we were grateful for your courage and honesty. You're a wonderful person. We will not forget your kindness, Dave and Judy.
She was so open about talking about the family and how they all handled it and stuff. And it was very obvious that her and her husband were in a good working relationship. And it wasn't that she was a slut off the street or anything like that. I mean, really, it was... I'm glad you approved. I don't think we'll put that in the package. You were worried that maybe someone who came from that family might not turn out well, I guess.
Well, probably, although in talking to Chad, April was a nice person and doing quite well for the family. She was the family she came from. So I definitely had a feeling that everything's okay. But that was one man's opinion. I didn't know I wanted to form my own opinion. And I did. I wouldn't be feeling really clean and really hopeful for April and her quest to take care of that man once and for all. That was my feeling. The position of closure, Dave said, it's a myth.
It's a word we throw around that doesn't really explain a thing that people feel. In only 40 years after Tim's death, the hacks are still healing. They always will be. I don't think you ever have complete closure. It's not like, okay, it's over with now. And it is, but you're still there. You oftentimes think about something. Many mornings you say when I talk to Tim or when I thought about him, I mean, that's still there. Oh, yeah. And it probably always will be.
I remember a lot of different things about Tim. You know, I played with Tim a lot. The biggest thing I remember about him was his laugh. We'd sit in a tub together and I'd pinch a bar of soap and make it fly up near. And oh, he thought that was so funny. Dave and Judy were sitting in their favorite chairs as he said this. His and her recliners really spend long stretches of the days.
Often Dave says they watch the sun rise and set from these chairs, which have a view through a huge picture window. It looks out on the yard, the old family farm. And if you crane a little, the cemetery. As Tim grew up, he was so responsible, Dave said. He helped on the farm, of course. But he'd also saved up money to buy his own combine and he used that to start a business working the fields for farmers who needed help.
He was a very particular person. In fact, he would take his shoes off before he got in the cave of the combine. He didn't want any dirt in that combine at all. Very clean, very clean man. And his car still on the family. I mean, Patrick's got it now. Patrick, remember is one of Dave's other sons. He loved Tim, looked up to him. After April's call to Garcia, when the Edwards News broke, Patrick stepped up to be the family spokesperson. He was already the keeper of Tim's car.
It's a 78-old's mobile. Still drives it. Oh, yeah. Not on a daily basis, but any big occasion. Like if it's a high school reunion or a wedding or something. Tim of these weddings? Yeah, he'll get it out and drive it. Is that because it's Tim's? Oh, yeah. Oh, I'm sure it is. The family keeps Tim alive in other ways too. Like, they all still celebrate his birthday every March 13th. You mentioned Tim of these weddings, so do you have a grandchild named Tim?
My grandson is Patrick's son. And I remember, yep, when he was born, they came to us and asked if it was okay to call him Tim. And fine with us. There's almost an honor to have him called Tim. From the first time I met April back in 2016, I sensed a restlessness in her. This feeling that when it came to her dad, her work wasn't finished. She had to do more. During the past three years, I've said to her several times that she doesn't need to carry this burden.
She's done enough. I mean, we don't choose our parents. Their mistakes are not ours to fix. But she's also changed in the time I've known her, in dramatic ways. At first, talking about her dad would inevitably result in a migraine. And April'd have to take a break and lie down. Now she's driven to know more and to confront more and to sit with anyone who her father harmed and try and give them some relief. It was remarkable to see how far she'd come. I admire it. But I worry about her too.
That nothing will ever be enough to give her peace. At some point, after years of thinking about this stuff together, we sat in a hotel room and talked about what it all meant for her. What are we going to... I feel like we can have this conversation in three months and six months in a year. And like, what if we don't ever get any further than this, will you feel like you did something? I'm hoping that I'll walk away with the satisfaction of knowing that I did everything that I could.
I've come to terms with how ugly my dad was. So he can't do anything to me. He can't do anything. And I already suspect him. I've even more than maybe he did do or he didn't do. I guess it's more of... I would love to... have the same results that we had with the hacks for other people. Because I see what good that did. When we were visiting with the hacks, Dave mentioned his basement workshop in April perked up. She does a lot of things in her free time. She crafts, she paints, she gardens.
But she especially loves woodworking and refinishing furniture. Being comfortable with tools, that's something she picked up from her dad. In the barn behind your house, she has a huge shop filled with tools. Most of them with pink handles. She uses them to fix up old and broken things, chairs and tables, bicycles. Every time we visited a house while making this show, without fail, they probably would stop and comment on the person's furniture. On some piece of wood that she admired.
What was your shop? Was your shop down here? Sure. You go first. Okay. Oh, that's okay. We followed Dave and Judy out of the living room and down the stairs to their basement. You never did see my shop. My shop can't walk into it. On the way to the workshop, Dave showed April something he was working on. These cutting boards in the shape of Wisconsin. This is gorgeous already. Let's not finish up. Look at the different... Let's see if there's oak in here, cherry on here, walnut in here.
A good portion of the basement is finished. It's an extra living space. Dave's workshop is walled off in a corner through a small door. April wandered in and immediately spotted something. Oh, these are adorable! It was a little wooden reindeer that Dave was making for Christmas. One for each of his 32 grandkids and 12 great-grandkids. Look at the reindeer. These are so cute. Did you have a pattern? Did you make this up? We had a pattern from a friend. How did you do this?
It's all I did was I use a spindle sander. I got it spindle sander, yep, yep. And now the new way that I found was much better. I have a question. Was this a regular drill? Yep, okay. But I do now. Otherwise it was too hard with a bandsaw. Right. You have to go slow and boy it was rough trying to get around. Then I come in from the other side, you know, I rough cut it with a bandsaw. And then I just sand it. It was pretty good. April made her way to Dave's bandsaw.
Picked up a block of wood that had the reindeer pattern on it already. Outlined in black sharpie. So are you using this one? I don't think so. Can I try it on your machine? Where can I? You got safety glasses? No, because you probably wear glasses. We're going to pretend like I've saved you glasses on. So this is a good blade on there. Yep. All right. All right, it's probably going to get loud. Oh, it cuts so nice. How does it do on the curb? I'm going to back it up. I usually do.
Go ahead, you tell me. I slice that off and then it's much easier to work with. I'm going to say now I'm kind of stuck. Yep. This wasn't a scene I'd imagined. Ape on Dave Hack making something together. I looked around the room while they worked. There were dozens of old folder containers filled with nails and screws and washers. In a football from Dave and Judy's first date, he took her to a game. And then on one wall, there was a wooden cross that Dave made.
It's inscribed with Tim and Kelly's names, the Burke dates, and the date of their deaths. At the bottom of the cross, a little wooden ledge holds a green glass candle holder. I looked back at April and Dave. He was standing behind her, leaning in and talking her through it. That should shape the wood. It was a good heavy duty one. It would probably wouldn't have to work hard at all, but that's just a cheapy I got from Menard. But it does what I like to do.
Getting a little bit more into my cut and then I want it in my line that I wanted to. We think it's a thick line. Yeah, this doesn't turn as nice as the scroll saw. But it still says good. I'm trying to treat it like a scroll saw. It doesn't want to go. What I do a lot of times is cut this off and then I go in that way or that way or whatever. You would have been the right thing to do, you're right. That's fine. You think it's okay to tell? Take it over. This has been The Clearing.
The Clearing is a production of Pineapple Street Media in association with Gimlet. It's produced by Jonathan Menevar and me. I'm Josh Deane. Our associate producers are Josh Gwynn, Dean Ecliner and Elliot Adler, editing by Joel Lovell. Our fact checker has been failing. Our theme song is Medaphineal Blues by Matthew Deer, music clearance by Anthony Roman. We put together a Spotify playlist of all the songs we used on the show. We'll post a link to that playlist on Twitter.
Find us there at Pineapple Media. The episode was mixed by Hannah Brown and Jonathan Menevar. Special thanks to Christina DeJosa, Ariana Martinez, Sophie Bridges, Natalie Brennan, and everyone at Pineapple Street Media. Also, Tony Magyar, Jen Han and all the people at Gimlet for the incredible artwork and help getting the clearing out into the world. Extra extra special thanks to our spouses, Jillian, and Hillary for putting up with us while we were making this show.
We couldn't have done it without your support. General Weiss Berman and Max Linsky are the executive producers of Pineapple Street. Thanks for listening. The second best boy, unlike the rest boy, has�ta And it's coming undone, so I run and I run but there's no way left work Ready to Let's open this and build, what do we get? It's a regret which feels like you're the only one