Okay, Round two. Name something that's not boring.
Laundry, a book club, computer solitaire.
Huh oh, Sorry, we were looking for Chumba Casino.
Chum, that's right.
Chumbucasino dot com as over one hundred casino style games. Join today and play for free for your chance to redeem some serious prizes. Chump chumbacasino dot com, novercessor by lot ete plus ters conditions of the bus website retails.
Hey guys, it is Ryan.
I'm not sure if you know this about me, but I'm a bit of a fun fanatic one.
I can.
I like to work, but I like fun too. It's a thing.
And now the truth is out there, I can tell you about my favorite place to have fun, Chumba Casino. They have hundreds of social casino style games to choose from, with new.
Games released each week.
You can play for free anytime, anywhere, and each day brings a new chance to collect daily bonuses.
So join me and the fun.
Sign up now at chumbacasino dot com.
No verds necessary d wherever by lost terms of eating club host.
You are now listening to True Murder, the most shocking killers in true crime history and the authors that have written about them. Gasey Bundy, Dahmer, The Nightstalker VTK. Every week another fascinating author talking about the most shocking and infamous killers in true crime history. True Murder with your host, journalist and author Dan Zupansky.
Good Evening, This is your host Stan Zupanski for the program True Murder, the most shocking killers in true crime history and the authors that have written about them. To the people of Olney, Texas, thirty nine year old Farian Wardrip was an upright citizen, a happily married man, a
valued employee, and a respected Sunday school teacher. In January nineteen ninety nine, investigators reviewing the files of three unsolved murders dating back fifteen years came across information linking Wardrope to the female victims, Terry Simms, who was bound, raped and stabbed to death, Tony Gibbs, slashed and sexually assaulted and left in a bus shelter, and Ellen Blow, who disappeared after a work shift and her decompos decomposing body
found a month later. Clever police snared a DNA sample from Wardrop which matched the DNA found with Terry Simms. Wardrop then confessed to the three murders and one more. Deborah Taylor Wardrop is also a suspect in ten other murders, but it was sims murder that made him eligible for the death penalty before the BTK killer, another deadly predator Body Hunter. My special guest this evening is journalist and author Patricia Springer. Welcome to the program, and thank you
for agreeing to this interview. Patricia Springer, Thank you, Dan, good to be with you. Thank you. Now, given the gruesome murder murders involved in this case, what made you to decide to write Body Hunter? Your book about these murders and the serial killer Fairy and Wardrobe.
Well, serial killers are always of the interest to readers, and fair and Worldrope story was fascinating because he had confessed to one murder in the nineteen eighties, he spent time in prison, then apprehended and convicted the three additional murders.
Right, Well, what put you in a position to be able to have to do this story? What was unique about your situation? Are you from this area? Are you familiar with this What brought you to this story? I'm curious.
Well, it was in the North Texas area, and I live in the North Texas area.
And serial killers are.
We have had several of this part of the country and the story was just rather fascinating because he had served time before.
I see now the story is primarily set in a place called Wichita Falls, Texas. What is Wichita like? Where is it situation in the state and how far away is it from Fort Worth, Texas.
Wichita Falls is located in the northern part of Texas and Wichitaw County and Wichita County borders on the Oklahoma line. It's a city of approximately one hundred thousand people. It's home to Midwestern State University, Shepherd Air Force Base, and Wichita Falls State Mental Hospital. A lot of oil business is in that area of the country, and it's approximately one hundred and twenty miles from Fort Worth, Okay.
Now the killer subject of body Hunter, as as we mentioned as Ferry and Wardrope, what was his childhood like? Based on your research.
He was the fourth of nine children born to Diana and George waldro of Marion, Indiana. His father was a factory worker and his mother was a homemaker.
They grew up fairly poor.
As a child, he often felt lonely and depressed, and he cried easily. When he complained to his parents about that, they just always said that it was a phase and he would grow out of it.
But he really never.
Grew out of his discontent. He was embarrassed by his hand me down clothes, and he never felt he was on par with his more affluent classmates. Although Pharah had some success in sports he played basketball and he was on the swimming team, he was a failure academically. He spent most of these school years in special education classes.
Then at thirteen he began committing petty crimes like shoplifting, and then at fourteen he began drinking alcohol and smoking pot that eventually led him to harder drugs.
Like what kind of drugs were we talking?
Speed?
Mostly met amphetamine, those types of things, right right.
I found it interesting too, you know, I've read about a lot of killers. But this story, that the information that you were able to gather when he was seventeen, it was I thought a very significant event that you really effectively capture in your book. What happened with his family when he was seventeen.
Well, at seventeen, his father had bought him a used car, just a couple of hundred dollars and he had loaned it to a friend and that friend had blown the engine in it. When his father learned of that, he was furious at Farren, and he continued his irresponsibility in his father's eyes, and he demanded that he move out of the family home. Well, Farren really didn't believe they minted, but he went upstairs and packed his things in a
sack and started to leave. And then when his mother called him back, he thought, oh, great, they're just joking. They're just trying to scare me. But when he returned to the house, his mother asking for the keys, and he knew then that he was pretty much on his own and he was without his family support any longer.
Yeah, it's a pretty traumatic experience for anybody. It's a pretty interesting piece of information as well. Now, what did a Farian do in reaction to this huge change in his life?
Well, he dropped out of high school and spent most of the time scoring drugs, just going from odd job to odd job. He never really landed in any big substantial.
Not too long after, at least, when he's a young man, he joins the army. What was that experience like that? How much of a help was the army and that type of discipline for him.
Well, really none. He was seeking direction in his life and so he thought that if he joined the Indiana National Guard that that would help give him some substance. But what happened is he went off to boot camp and he decided he didn't like the discipline and the structure. He didn't like the regiment of the army. So when he was out of boot camp, he decided was going to take any more orders, and so he just never showed up for any of the monthly.
Duties that he had.
Instead, he would just smoke marijuana and do drugs, and finally the Guard dismissed him with a less than honorable discharge.
Right now, he continues again somewhat normal life. He gets married. He gets married to a woman named Johnna Johnna Jackson and tell us a little bout this marriage. Was it a good and healthy marriage? Did they have children?
He wasn't a very healthy marriage. What had happened is that his father had moved the family to Wichitaal Falls from Indiana, and Farron just followed along. Even though he really wasn't a part of the family, he still wanted to stay in contact with them. He met john and Jackson in the bar, and he found her to be fun, loving and spirited. They were married very shortly after they met,
but it was really rocky from the start. He complained that she wanted she didn't want to do anything but sit on the sofa and watch TV.
She didn't want to.
Work, that she just wanted to stay home and be a wife and mother. They fought over his inability to keep a job and his failure to provide for them, and during her first pregnancy, Farren had ten different jobs, so he was not very good at holding and maintaining a job. His childhood feelings of inadequacy returned and he continued to abuse drugs and alcohol. After three years of marriage and the birth of two children, Johna finally filed for divorce.
And how did he accept that decision of Jona's as well? How did he react to that as well?
Oh, curious decided that he hated Jona. He was very angry and just went further into his alcohol and drugs as a way to cope with the situation that he couldn't do anything right.
And what year was the divorce? And finally or finalized.
Oh, I'm not really sure. It was in the nineteen eighties.
So mid eighties was it?
Yes? Mid eighties?
Okay? In Wichita on December twenty one, nineteen eighty four, near the end of nineteen eighty four, and the first woman found dead in what Chita for all this, twenty two year old Terry Simms. Her friend Lisa Boond found her good friend Terry. What had happened? How did she die? Well?
Terry was a student at Midwestern State University and she.
Worked at a local hospital. She went to her.
House to study, and Lisa was going to come over lady later to help her study, and so she had dropped her off gone back to finish her shift at the hospital. Then all of a sudden, there was a knock at the door, and Terry opened the door and there was a man standing there.
Drenched by the rain.
Before she could do anything, he burst through the door and began beating her.
Even though Terry.
Fought back, he was too strong for he pulled her pink smock over her head, tossed it on the coffee table, and then dragged her to the bedroom.
He pulled a knife on Terry.
And began poking her with the tip of it. She even grabbed for the blade of the knife trying to defend herself and was severely cut. In fact, one finger was severed. He grabbed an extension cord that was laying between the wall and the bed, tied her up, and then he sexually molested her or he raped her. He drug her to the bathroom and he slumped her body over the side of the bathtub, and there he repeatedly stabbed her until she died.
Okay, now we're talking. You didn't describe fairy and wardrobe. He's a huge man, and we're talking these victims about one hundred pounds and five foot twos.
He's about right six, he's about six six, thin, but still very overpowering to these women that were all of them were less than five to six. Most of them were five to two to five four Right now?
Uh. A month later, twenty three year old nurse at Wichita Falls, Tony Gibbs disappears. What were the circumstances surrounding her disappearance.
Well, when Tony finished her shift, she was leaving the Wichita Foss General Hospital when she saw Farren Waldrip, who was an orderly a new orderly at the hospital. Walking down the street, she stopped and she asked him if he'd like a ride. As soon as he got in the car, he demanded that she drive to a construction site outside of town on a desolate road. He began yelling at her, telling her he hated her, and he really didn't know Tony, he was just angry again, drug
induced and so forth. He said later that his anger was not directed at her, but directed at his personal situation with his wife. Tony liked Terry Simms was a fighter.
She grabbed for.
The door, handled just to get away, and she felt a sharp pain side, and that's when he had stabbed her. Then she ran from the car and he caught her, dragged her through the underbrush to an abandoned, burned out school bus that was there out in the country. Inside the busshell, he raped her and then flipped her over and sidomized her. He took his knife and he stabbed her three times in the back and three times in
the chest. He stepped her bloody clothes under the floorboard of the bus, and then he took off in Tony's white Camaro. While he was fleeing the scene, Tony was not dead, and she was crawling trying to get out to a road, and she died about one hundred yards from where the bus was.
Well. Now, about a month later, Tony Gibbs's body is discovered. How was she discovered and was there any useful evidence left at the crime scene.
She was discovered by a Texas Electric serviceman who had gone out to inspect a transformer that was there in that area. He believed he saw something in the grass and when when he first looked at it, he thought it was a mannequin, and then he realized that it was a body and it was Babby decomposing. She was
laying face up. He called the police. When the police came out, they noticed that there were paw marks on her body, a portion of her left up, her arm, and her left calf had been eaten away by animals. They found her clothing in the bus. They also found droplets of blood in the bus, and they made impressions of tire marks outside of the bus, and all these were things that they used in evidence later on. Of course, the biggest thing was that because she had been raped, there was DNA left there.
Oh good. Now at this point did police have any.
Judy was boring.
Hello.
Then Judy discovered Chumpacasino dot com.
It's my little escape.
Now Judy is the life of the party. Oh baby mama is bringing home the bacon.
WHOA.
Take it easy, Judy. The Chumba life is for everybody. So go to chumpacasino dot com and play over one hundred casino style games. Join today and play for free for your chance to redeem some serious prices. Jump chump A Casino dot Com. No, pa't necessary, We're promitted by mind team plus turns and condition to place what every details?
Reason to link the two murders whatsoever?
No, they really didn't, And in fact, in order to ease the fears of the community at which Tall falls, they insisted that there was no connection between the Sims murder and the Gibbs murders.
Now, in this interesting case, there's a gentleman that comes into view. Here is a gentleman named Danny Laughlin. And how did he become involved in this case?
Well, Danny Laughlin was a local boy. He worked in a bar. He drove a motorcycle and he was noticed driving up and down the site where Tony Gibbs's body had been eventually found. He also drew suspicion to himself because he had a pet wolf and he was walking the wolf out in that same area again where her
body had been located. They accused him of robbing a Southwestern Bell telephone office, but he told them that he could not have done it because he was in a field near US Highway to eighty one at the time that happened to be where the murder was located. So suddenly Danny Laughlan himself had put him at the top of their suspect list. He was arrested and eventually tried for Gibbs murder. There was a mistrial with a vote of eleven to one for acquittal.
Well, to be fair, he was also a prime se respect because he had information or he imparted information to people that had previously been only known to the killer. According to the police, maybe tell us a little bit how he did eventually explain that, but you know, that would be pretty good reason for police to suspect him.
Oh. Yes, he was bragging, particularly when he was in jail, and he would brag that he knew about this and knew about that he had just inserted himself into the investigation. Also, he had been brought in for questioning for the robbery, and while he was there he learned some things from police talking and from papers that were laying around that
gave him inside information on the case. And then because Danny Laughlin liked a tension and wanted to think that he had the inside track on things, he started telling people these incidents, in these particulars of the case that only a killer would know other than the police.
So he's definitely his own worst enemy in.
This case, for sure, definitely so.
And the police basically thought they really had their men in the where they were focused on him, and that's it.
That's right, that's exactly right. In the Gibbs case, they were convinced that Danny Lawflin was the murderer and continued to think that for a long time.
Now. Shortly afterwards after this incident, Ferian moves from Wichita. Where does he go and why?
Well, he moved to Fort Worth and he went on the pretense of looking for employment. I think it was just getting a little hot and Wichita falls and he decided that he'd better take off for a while. But he said that he had gone to look for employment.
Now a little while later, on March twenty fourth, Debor and Ken Taylor, who lived in Fort Worth, Texas, are having a guest together with friends and family at the home and Deborah disappears. Now tell us about this party, what was reported to police, and what was their reaction, and did police believe that they had a good suspect, and if so, who was their prime suspect.
They did believe they had a suspect, and they thought they had a very good suspect. Deborah and Kim were having a party in their backyard with friends and family, and Debra decided that she wanted to go to the local club and Ken said, no, no, We're just going to stay here, and so Debor decided that she was going to go up to bed. Well, she goes up and slips out the front door and goes out with
the club alone. When Kim went to bed, he didn't know where Debor had gone, and he didn't realize until the next morning that she had never come home that night. So by that evening, which was a Monday evening by that time, he decided that he'd better call police because he had all family and friends that had been at the party and asked if they knew where she was, and no one did. They thought that she had just gone to bed.
It was very unusual for her to be.
Out that late at night. She hadn't even taken her purse. But after her body was found, Ken had made a statement to the press that it was an animal loose somewhere in Fort Worth and that he had to be found and stopped because he didn't want this to happen to anyone else. Well, the police didn't believe Ken. They thought that they were not looking for a stranger, that Ken's story did not add up, and they thoroughly believed that Ken Taylor had murdered his wife.
Now, how long after her disappearance was the body found, and where was she found or how was she found? And when.
It was found a while later, I don't know exactly how long, but it was decomposed and.
She was just randomly found.
And he went down to identify the body, but he couldn't it was so badly decomposed. She did have on the necklace that he had given her, so he was certain that that was Deborah, but they really didn't identify her except through demo records.
So the police continued in the next months and beyond to suspect Ken Taylor and focus their investigation on him and go eventually even try to file charges against Kent Taylor. Is that what happens?
Yes?
Absolutely, for years they suspected Ken Taylor. In fact, they always did until the events that happened later in wichitall Falls.
But they were.
Convinced that it was Ken, and even some of his family members began to suspect that, well, maybe it was him. The police were so adamant.
He was pretty.
Pretty well run through it with the police department and constant questioning and so forth.
Just another casualty out of this. Yeah, now there's another woman, another victim, Ellen Blaugh, who goes missing. Who is she? Three weeks later she has found Did police have any evidence linking these murders at this time?
No, they still didn't. Of course, richital Falls didn't know about Debor Taylor and fort Worth. They had no idea that farreen Waldrup knew all of these women. Ellen Blaw was also a student at Midwestern State University. She often visited friends in the same apartment building that faren Waldrup lived in. She also worked at a shop that was just down the Street from where Farren Waldrup worked, so
that was a yet another law enforcement agency. So we had three law enforcement agencies, all working individual cases, no one sharing information with each other.
So they really.
Weren't working together and had no idea that they were connected in any way.
And also evidence of that as well as our next My next question is a gentleman named Larry Granger is important person in this story as well. Who is Larry Granger and how is he involved with this case?
Larry Granger was really a very important player in this He was a friend of Waldrop's.
He phoned the.
Wichital Fall police and told them that Waldrop had a connection to the four women in wichital Falls who had been killed. He also informed them that Walter that Waldrop had a devil edged knife that they always carried with him. And Granger's statements were put in a central file, but they were never made part of any solved murder. So his information really just kind of slipped through the cracks and he only told one agency versus the three agencies that were working these cases.
Now, Farian and his wife, I'm going a little bit backwards here in time, and you can you can qualify this whole thing here what happens with Farian and his wife and her family, and then tell us about the move to Galveston, Texas.
Okay. Johanna and Faryn were always having problems, and particularly money problems, because he couldn't keep a job and she didn't work. Her parents had even loaned them five thousand dollars at one time because they were broke. Johna's father became very angry when he found out that Faryn had spent all of the money on dough. So he decided at that point that he was going to meet Johnna and the two children in with he and Johna's mother, but he refused to let Farren move in with them.
When John Jackson and his wife were helping Johna move Farron arrived, he became very angry that they were taking his family, and he grabbed the baby and in a fit, he threw the baby up in the air, and Johna's mother caught the child before she was able to fall to the ground and clung to her to protect her. Faryn became even more enraged and he ran upstairs and to get a knife. Well first, before he did that.
He told.
His father in law that he had always wanted to get a piece of him, and he went to strike John Jackson that he hit Faren squarely in the face. Before that could happened, Faryn then ran upstairs. He returned with a butcher knife in his hand just as the Jackson's and his family were pulling away in the car. Farren showed up a short time later at the Jackson's home, but he was met at the front door with John Jackson holding a three point fifty eight in his hand and sirens blaring in the background.
They had called the police because he was there.
He fled the scene. A short time later is when he met Tina Kimbrew, who was one of his victims as well.
Farren was depressed. He was guilt ridden.
After he had taken the life of Tina Kimbrew, and he drove four hundred miles south to Galveston, Texas.
It's on the Gulf.
He decided, sitting in his motel room, that he needed to call nine one one. He told the operator he was going to kill himself. When the police arrived in response to that, he told them that he had killed a Tina Kimbrew in Wichita Falls, Okay.
Now he had confessed to Tina Kimbrew's murder, and then he pled guilty in court. Well, I don't want to rush the turn of events here. Tell us a little bit about that Tina. He confesses to the murder. What does he specifically confess to other than saying that he has killed her? Does he give any details? Does he give any motive for why he's done this? Tell us a little bit about that.
No, he really doesn't. He said that Tina was his friend, He didn't mean to do it.
Yeah, he was using drugs and alcohol.
He had all of his excuses. The interesting part of the story is that as he was confessing to Tina's murder, he never mentioned any other women that he had assaulted or killed. So he only stuck to the tena story, and he's stuck to his contingion that it was an accident and that he was under the influence of drugs and alcohol at the time.
Excuse me now, Farion Wardriff receives a thirty five year sentence for the murder. How does he then proceed with his new life in prison? What is his demeanor? What does he does? He does he start working towards getting out? What is he has an attitudal change what happens in prison.
In prison, he was pretty much a model prisoner. He began studying the Bible, as so many of them do. He began writing for the newspaper at the prison there, and he was pretty well keeping his nose clean and just going along and doing what he was supposed to do. Four years after receiving the sentence, he was up for parole yet a second time, which Robert Kimbrew, which was Tina's dad, just couldn't believe it. He was furious because this man had been for parole.
Not once, but twice.
So he gathered more than two thousand letters protesting the release of the convicted killer. He thought really hard to keep Waldrop in prison, and his efforts paid off. He stayed in prison for eleven years.
Now, in prison, Robert Kimbrew had the opportunity to face the killer and ask him some questions that were nagging on his mind, and Wardrop had agreed that he wanted to say some things to the victim's father. What transpired at that meeting.
That was set up by the Victim Services with the Texas Department of Criminal Justice the prison system here, they agreed to meet. They met for four and a half hours, and there's always a mediator that is there to make sure that things go well. Walter bled to Kimbre, which is not surprising. He said that he was a straight A student and very popular in school, which we knew was a lie. Robert Kimber didn't know at the time. Then he got into trouble with drugs and alcohol and
he admitted that to mister Kimbrew. He also lied about his father. He said that he was extremely ill and that he wanted to get out of prison to be able to see him to spend time with him. He also said that Tino, it is.
Ryan here and I have a question for you. What do you do when you win?
Like?
Are you a fist pumper, a wooer, a handclapp or a high fiver?
I kind of like the high five.
But if you want to hone in on those winning moves, check out Chumba Casino At chumbacasino dot com, choose from hundreds of social casino style games for your chance to redeem serious cash prizes. There are new game releases weekly plus free daily bonuses, so don't wait having the most fun ever at Shumba Casino dot com.
We're just necessary ETI, where everybody lost the terms and conditions eating plus was.
The only person he ever heard that he had never hurt anyone else in his life. Waldrop said that he was truly sorry for Tina's death, and evidently it's somewhat touched Kimbrew. He hoped that He told Waldrop that he hoped that he saw Tina's face every day of his life, not as a punishment, but as a reminder to stay clean and stay sober, and that this would never happen
again to anyone else. He also told Waldrop that if he ever felt out of control again, that to call him or to call someone else and reach out for help. And at the end of the visit, Robert Kimbrew extended his hand to far and Waldrop and they shook hands.
That's that's fascinating, incredible, the psychopathic killer in the mind. Why did he did he give an explanation why he killed his daughter?
Though not really, I mean, other than it was an accident, that's all he ever said. He never really gave a reason.
He blamed it primarily on the drugs itself.
On the drugs, and that he was angry at his wife whenever he saw a victim's face, he was seeing Jona's faith, and that he was carrying out these acts to punish Jahna, not the women.
Now you haven't mentioned it, because I know that religion, or the at least the pretense of Wardrope finding religion in prison at this time when he meets Robert Kimbrew, is he again born again Christian? Or is he a very devout religious person in prison? And do you think that might have affected Robert Kimbrew in his act of forgiveness of him?
Could have been some way. Farren does contend that he found Christ in prison, that he studied the Bible there, and that he was a changed person because of that. In the five and a half hours that they spoke, I'm sure that there were times when he told Robert Kibrew those things. He also said that God had forgiven him and that he accepted what had happened as far as his sentence and so forth as punishment.
Very interesting, Now, after eleven years Wardrobe is released. How did he conduct himself once he was released from prison? What did he do well?
He went to Alney, Texas, which is only a few miles from Wichital Falls about thirty forty five miles and that's where his parents lived. His father went to their church that they belonged to and he told the congregation that his son was getting out of prison and that he asked for their forgiveness for him. That he asked they love him and accept him into the church and to support him. Parrin was wearing an electronic leg monitor as part of his parole requirements and that restricted his movement,
so he really never went outside of Onny. He was afraid that the people wouldn't accept him, and he had to make up some reason why he had this leg monitor on other than he had maliciously killed Tina Kimbrew. So he told them that he had committed vehicular manslaughter. He thought that was a lesser charge and that that would suffice since he told them that he had had
an alcohol problem and he was overcoming that. He became very involved in that church and he asked to be a part of the Wednesday night services and he even was asked to get his testimony to the youth of
the church. Then friends introduced him to Glenda Kelly. She was five years older than Barren, and they dated a while, but not very long, and they were married, and even though Farah's brother Bryce encouraged him to tell Glenna the truth of what had happened to Tina Kimbrew, he said no, that he couldn't do that, that he couldn't tell her the truth, and he wouldn't tell her.
He never did tell her. Prior to his second arrest.
He went to work at the Allney door and screen company. He was very well liked employee and he was a hard worker. I spoke to his boss there and they thought very highly of him.
Right, so he marries Glenna Kelly. What's their life like other than he's now preaching in the doing Sunday school instruction and preaching in the church. He's turned his life around. He has a secret from the entire community, really his father's support. How many more years of what's happened in the next few years and then suddenly the bottom falls out of Fairy and Wardrobe's life.
Well, while he was living in Alney, the prosecutors for both Wichita County and Clay County had their investigators looking over the unsolved murders, and so they were going through all of the files checking to see if there was anything that connected them. At all or anything that they could find. They found that the DNA connected them, that both women had been sexually assaulted, and they had DNA
frozen DNA samples from those cases. Then they found a note in one of the files, and that note was in regard to Thomas Granger's report to the police that twice he had called them and said that he suspected Barren Waldrop of the murders. In fact, the second time, Granger had even worked with the private investigator to link Waldrop to the women, but no one had ever acted on that.
So Investigator.
Little and Paul Smith they found this information to be very interesting and they decided that they wanted to look at Waldrop just a little bit more.
Okay, now, before we get into what happens next, what meanwhile, back back in the halls of justice, what's happened with Ken Taylor, and what's happened with the the biker just can't remember his name right.
There, Danny Laughlin.
Danny Laughlin.
They never retried a second time. He moved to Colorado because he felt very persecuted in Wichitalk County, which I'm sure he was. People looked at him as the murderer and while he was in Colorado, he was killed in an accident, and so he his name was never exonerated until after he was gone, after it was too late.
Ken Taylor lost everything, He lost his family, he lost his business, he lost everything because of what he considered the persecution of law enforcement and for worth because they continued for fifteen years to every once in a while come back to him and ask him questions and interrogate him about the death of his wife.
That's incredible. And the thing was with Daddy Laughlin. He was very for not to be convicted at that first trial.
He really was, and I think that primarily the reason that he wasn't was because the district attorney brought in three jail house snitches as they called them, and they testified against him, and they weren't credible at all, and the jury just didn't by their stories.
Right, Yeah, incredible, Okay, So I just wanted to make sure people knew because that's an incredibly interesting and unique aspect of a story of all that devastation with the police. So, I mean, it's always hindsight is much better than in retrospect, but still, the police really did drop the ball in that case. Now, now Farian is in linked. They say, you have a DNA link between the two Sims and Gifts and Gibbs, and so now what happens next.
As a result, well, Faryn was on their radar and they decided that they needed a sample from him to determine if it matched the samples from Sims and Gibbs. Well John Little, the DA's investigator from Wichitaal County, drove up to Olney and to the Alney Door and Screen Company. He sat in his car and he watched Waldrop. And Waldrup was in a car with his wife visiting on his break. He was drinking a cup of coffee from a paper cup and he was drinking eating some cheese crackers.
When he exited that car, he threw them into a trash barrel, threw the cup into the trash barrel. John Little went across the street from where he had been watching Waldrop and he picked up the cup out of the trash. In fact, Waldrop asked him what he wanted if he could help him, and he said, well, I need a dip cup. In Texas, at least a lot of people chewed tobacco. Men chewed tobacco and they spit into a cup, and so Farren said, sure, take what
you need. Well, John Little noticed the cup with crackers cheese crackers on the rim and he knew that was the one that Farren had just disposed of, so he took it. Farren told him he could have it. Therefore it became evidence, and he took it back. They sent it to the lab to be tested to see if the DNA matched.
And what was the result it did?
Uh.
The company Jean Screen called the DA's office and gave them the results and they were just ecstatic. They said, we've got him, you know, after all these years, we have the connection. And so he was arrested. He in fact, he was interesting enough. He was arrested at his his parole officer's office the day that he was to have
the electronic monitor removed from his leg. Once that had been removed, he would have been able to travel anywhere he wanted to a greater distance away from all need, back into Wichita Falls, back into Fort Worth, wherever he had wanted to.
Now Farian did not tell authorities the truth. One questioned, and then he asked to speak to them. He wanted to talk. I guess he had gone back to his son. Then he decided he wanted to talk. What did he finally tell police in February nineteen ninety nine about other murders? And why do you think he confessed? What compelled him to do that?
Well, he says he had talked with his wife that morning after his arrest, and that they had prayed about it and talked about it, and that he decided he needed to tell everything. So he sent word to John Little that he wanted to share some more information with them. When they took him into the interview room, John Little turned on a tape recorder and Parren began to tell them, indeed, the murders of Sims, Gibbs, and blah and where he had done it, how he had done it, and so forth.
Just as Little was going to turn the recorder off, Farren said, oh wait, my consciences has to keep me going. There's one more, but it's not in wichital Falls. And that's when he told them about Deborah Taylor. Faar and Waldert would never have been connected with the Deborah Taylor case had he not told the wichital Falls authorities, because there was no DNA evidence in that case.
Now did he give what was his reason for the murders? What did he say was the reason for those? I know you said that he was mad at his his wife. Did he stick with that story?
Is that what he said? Exactly? What he stuck with?
Yes, that every woman when he looked in their face, he was looking into Johna's face. He blamed it on drug and alcohol abuse. Of course, he blamed it on everything that his inability to control his actions. He confessed, I believe because there was no way out. They knew, he knew they had him. Why he confessed to Deborah Taylor? I don't know unless at that point he just thought,
well four, what's five? He did profess to believe in God, said he believed in God's forgiveness, and that he may have thought in his own mind that if he said told everybody everything, that he might get leniency. Who really knows what goes through these guys' minds.
Right now, you have a death penalty in Texas, and so obviously it becomes a death penalty case if I'm not correct. The other thing is, yeah, The other thing is is that what is his psychological state and does that ever become a defense issue or is there any talk of that, how does that working? Any psychologists see him and examine him.
They did, but there was nothing.
There that they could use for a defense. In Texas, insanity defense is next to impossible to prove and to get not guilted by reason of insanity because it becomes a legal definition, not a medical definition, and he was not legally insane. He he has some quirk uh, he is ocd obsessive, compulsive about the way he dresses, the way everything has to be on a table in front of him. He's quirky, but he's not insane, and that could not be used in a defense for him.
Now, was because the death penalty was there? Was there some sort of plea bargain? Was there a full formal trial? What happened?
Well, actually I was at the trial and it was a very It was a big surprise to everyone in attendance because when they started the trial, the prosecutor said he was ready, and the defense said they were ready, and then the defense said, your honor, we would like to be guilty. Well, very Maca, the district attorney was ready to go with a full fledged guilt innocence phase of the trial. Well, at that point, because he had
pled guilty. They went straight to the penalty phase and Maka presented all of his evidence that he had for the guilt innocence phase into the punishment phase, which means that he could bring in.
All of the other victims. Maca had a.
Large poster board with all the women's pictures on it that he kept facing the jury the entire trial, and so those juries, that jury could picture those women and they became human to them. They became real.
People, not just photos.
They became alive to them, and that was pretty impressive. But they went straight to the punishment fad.
Now were the victims any of the victims' families president at the trial?
Yes, all of the victims' families, even Kim Taylor was president at the trial. The Kim Brews were probably well. They displayed the most anger of any the Sims family, which is the one that he was actually convicted of. He took in plea bargain's life sentences for the others, but he was found guilty and given the death penalty for Terry Sims Burter. The Sims were just relieved, but it was over that he had been found guilty and
it was behind them. But the Kimbrews really held more hostility than any of the others because I don't know why, because he had served at least eleven years for the murder of their daughter. But I guess because he had lied to Robert kimbrew so much during that mediation time that he was very angry.
It definitely used him. You say Ken Taylor was also.
Present, Yes, he was there.
What was it like for him and what was his reaction?
It was very difficult. He cried.
His daughter was there with them, which they had been estranged for years. It was a relief to him for the world to know for certain that he had not committed murder of his wife, and it was important for his daughters to know that. But it was very, very difficult because, as he said to me, it doesn't change how bad his life had been for the last years, because this man would not take responsibility.
Well, and just his wife being murdered just incredible. How you You know, most people will never recover from that alone, let alone being accused and that family destroyed. Now what was the end result? You say he did receive the death penalty.
He did receive the.
Death penalty for the death of Terry Simms. And he received life sentences for Tony Gibbs, Ellen Blas, and Debora Taylor. So he has been on death row since nineteen ninety nine in Texas and Livingston, Texas.
Has there any been any other developments in the case at all or been taken care?
Actually? Yes.
In fact, last month in April of this year, a federal judge said that he had to be granted a new punishment trial or agreed to or the district attorney had to agree to give him a life sentence. They said that he had ineffective counsel and effective defense, that during the trial his public defender had not brought out the fact that while he was incarcerated before that he had been a model prisoner, that he had written for the newspaper and done all these fine things in prison.
Because one of the things that they asked them during a punishment phase, they asked the jury, do you believe he would be a threat to society, even to prison society if he were allowed to live, And that was not brought out, and so they had given him the death penalty.
So he is entitled to another punishment trial or has that already occurred?
No, Actually, I don't believe the district attorney has made the decision. Yet my feeling is that they'll retry it because my feeling is that they want him to die on the gurney rather than have the life sentences.
In Texas, a life sentence today is.
Forty years minimum. It's not a life sentence, But in nineteen eighty five it was like fifteen years, So I mean, he could get out virtually. Now. I don't think the pardon in Parole's board would allow that, but you never know, with overcrowding its prisons and so forth. So my guess is that, and the same district attorney is still there in Richital County, my guess is that they'll retry it.
Well, wouldn't they have consecutive sentences? You say he had three other life sentences, and if even if he had four life sentences, wouldn't that just amount to, you know, one hundred and twenty years.
So well, I don't know.
I don't know how they did them, whether they stack them or their consecutive or they're concurrent, I don't know. In the information that I have available, I really.
Don't know that.
Normally a lot of times when they do that, they stack them versus making them consecutive.
Right, I see making them concurrent.
Then concurrent, I mean, yes.
Yes, oh that's problematic for sure. Yeah.
Yeah.
Also that's a very interesting, very interesting Now, so basically, what was your experience like having gone through all of this, How much of an ordeal was it for you, or what tell us about your overall experience about researching and writing this book.
Well, actually it was easier than some in that.
They had been grant the defensive that granted a change of venue actually to the county that I lived in, which Tall Fall in Wichitall County is a couple of counties over from me. So versus going up and having to stay in a hotel and go to trial every day, I got to go home every night, and so that was very nice. Also, it's always nice for a writer to be able to attend a trial because you get to speak with everyone, you get to interact with them
at recesses and so forth. So it was an experience that was a little bit more.
It was a little easier as.
Far as the research goes, but then there were so many to research that made it a little difficult as well.
So it was kind of a catch twenty two.
What was Fairy and Wardrobe's demeanor at the trial? What was he like?
He was fairly arrogant.
He was very upset with his defense attorney and showed it. He would lean over and ask him to ask certain questions and his attorney would shake his head and he would become angry. I spoke with the investigator for the Public Defender's office, and he drove her crazy because he had to have a certain pair of socks and a certain belt for court each day because he has this OCD thing going. But he, I mean, he was quiet.
But also it's very interesting because the second chair of the Public Defender's office was a female and she was the one that sent next to him, and occasionally she would put her arm around him. And I asked Stry about that, and she said, well, I was trying to the jury that you know, I'm a weamin and.
I'm not afraid of him.
And uh So there are always those little ploys and those little tricks they used, just like Dorry told me that before she left the motel room, uh for the first day of trial, she grabbed the motel Bible out of the drawer and had him carry it with him each day.
Just as a prop Well.
You kill all those those little colorful displace that you don't catch if you're not in trial.
Well, I mean at that point they are right fighting for his life. Did you really think, oh absolutely, did you think though he had Did you think he had ineffective council, especially in fact in the in the pardon me sorry, given the fact that they didn't offer much of a defense when they were at trial, Do you think there was any grounds to the charge that he had ineffective council?
Yes, personally I do. John Curry, which was first chair for Public Defender, he never asked questions. I'm not sure he ever asked a question. If he did, he didn't ask over two questions. Of all the witnesses that were presented by the state in his posing arguments, they get like forty five minutes. He took five minutes and cried in front of the jury, and all he could say is this man has changed, He's found God, and he deserves to live.
And he had tears.
And to me, that is an effective defense.
That's I think maybe you should get that from the client or from the defendant itself. Shed some tears and show some remorse. That might have worked. This is an incredible book. It's called Body Hunter. If people have been listening for the last hour, Patricia Springer, Now, pat what's been going on. Tell us a little bit more about some of your other work, and tell us especially about the latest project that you have. We've got about three.
Minutes now, Okay, the latest project, in fact, it's just released this week. The name of this book is Lisa Charmer. It's a story out of Fort Worth, Texas. Stephen Barbie was recently married. He had been married for two months, and he had a pregnant girlfriend that his wife didn't know about, and he killed her so that she wouldn't tell his wife about the baby. While he was killing Lisa Underwood, her seven year old son came into the room could identify him, so he.
Also killed the child.
Lisa was eight months pregnant. So in three people god that day and in Texas, just killing a pregnant woman in her fetus would be capital murder, but they didn't take that direction. It is capital murder because if people but they didn't go to the to the defense of I mean to the prosecution of the baby being killed. Stephen Barbie dumped her body in an adjacent county, and
then he confessed, then he recanted. But the really tragic part of all of this is that I've become very close with Lisa Underwood's mother, and that was her entire family. She had one child and one grandchild and one grandchild on the way, and so she was left with nothing. Jackie Barbie Stephen's mother had lost two children already. Her daughter would became ill and died, her other son was killed in one car car accident, and now her only
child is on death row. So these are two mothers that have lost virtually everything.
Sure, yea. There no happy endings in true crime.
Usually no, there's not, no, not very much.
Even if it brought to justice, that's a little little comfort. Then there really is no closure. So you are also an author of a few more books. Tell us about the titles of some of the other books.
And okay, and Never See Her Again is the story of a kidnapping of a six year old child, the massive man hunt for her, and the prosecution of her kidnapper. Because he was a registered sex offender, it was an automatic life sentence when he was convicted. It took two trials. The first trial was a hury and but the prosecutor persisted and got a conviction on the second trial, and five years after she was kidnapped, her body was found. And then I have a book called Murder So Cold
that takes place in Kalamazoo, Michigan. And that was a man who murdered his wife, stuck her in a barrel and put the barrel in Lake Erie. They have never located. Chris Russell's body blood Stains is another Texas murder. Most of my books occur in Texas. The stories are from Texas, although.
There is one in Tennessee. It's of Krista Pike.
I love to die for and for many many years, she was the youngest woman on death row in the United States. She killed at eighteen.
Incredible, credible. Well, I want to thank you very much, Patricia Springer for a very very informative program and in a great book, and thank you for discussing body Hunter on my program True Murder. Here. It's been a pleasure.
Thank you, Dan.
I want to thank you and have a great evening.
You two night, good night, good night.
You even listened to the program True Murder with your host Stanzepanski. I'll see you next time, good Night,